#also the book cover is ai which makes this worst

[sarafangirlart]

Omg there’s a Danaë retelling let me check out the synopsis- oh…

[gremlin-girly]

Jurassic Dork

This is a submission for the 20's Challenge

Jake Jensen + "What time do you call this?" + Meetcute/5 + 1 Things

Pairing: Jake Jensen x f!reader

Tags/warnings: FLUFF, meet cute of sorts, 5 + 1 things also kinda (5 times you meet at the movies and the one time you go together), both reader and Jake are dorks xoxo

Not beta'd and I don't give permission for my work to be reposted, translated, copied or put through AI!

Summary: You meet a cute guy at the re-releases of the Jurassic Park movies, in anticipation for the latest release.

Word count: n/a on mobile x

A/N: This is my own self-indulgent submission. I've had the idea in the works for a while but couldn't quite get it right... then I re-watched Jurassic World this morning at 6am 💀 I'm a huge lover of all things dinosaur (especially Jurassic Park - the OG because Jeff Goldblum 😩) and I just thought this would be so sweet. Can you tell I'm excited for the new movie? 💕

Navigation | 20's Challenge Masterlist | Jake Jensen Collection

Dividers by: @/thecutestgrotto

Your excitement for Jurassic World: Rebirth was nothing short of bordering on insufferable.

In the lead up to the release, not only had you re-read both novels, you had also planned to go to every re-release of every Jurassic Park-Jurassic World movie.

Between the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Movies, only a handful of people went to see the other two movies. Which was only fair; they weren't amazing by any means, but as a super dork with a love of dinosaurs they had a special place in your heart.

Just before the second movie (Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World) you noticed someone you'd spotted at the re-release of the first movie. A tall guy, well-built, with spiked blonde hair, round glasses, and a graphic tee sporting the OG Jurassic Park logo.

He was cute. Real cute.

Maybe it was the glasses, or the goatee, that made you 100% sure that he was just as much of a dork about the famed dinosaur franchise as you were and not some dude-bro bored on a Wednesday afternoon but you were certain you had found yourself a Jurassic Dork.

When his eyes met yours as you collected the tickets from the cashier, you gave him the brightest smile you could before heading off to find your seat. Not two minutes later, the cutie followed suit taking his seat only one row in front of you.

You try to focus on settling into your seat and prepping your snacks but you can feel the sensation of being watched crawl over your skin. You peek down and see your Jurassic Dork looking up at you.

He raises his hand in a small wave and you mimic it with another smile. He grins and settles into his seat.

You try not to let your heart flutter and not to let your eyes stray during arguably the worst film of the original trilogy. However your eyes still drift down to him on occasion, trying to map out the width of his shoulders in the dark theatre.

There is a mortifying moment when your eyes meet; you accidentally drop an M&M, which alerts your beau in front of you just as Jeff Goldblum says something incredibly underwhelming on screen in all his ripped-shirt-glistening-abs glory, making you both splutter a laugh.

You miss him coming out of the theatre at the end of the movie. While you don't want to seem weird waiting around for a complete stranger, you do feel a twinge of regret as you make your way to your car, wondering if you'll see him for the next movie.

Lo and behold, two days later, you see him again.

This time, for the screening of Jurassic Park 3, your seats are reversed; with you one row in front and one seat across and him one row back and one across. Like you'd both pre-emptively booked seats next to each other (albeit in the wrong row).

You cover your mouth to stifle an ungodly snort as you peek at him in the dark of the theatre to take your seat. When he spots you he's almost jumping up to greet you, only to realise you're sitting in front of him, and slumps in his seat.

With him behind you, it's even more difficult to focus on the film. You can feel his gaze on you every time you move and it makes your skin prickle with warmth.

This time you're determined to nab him somehow as you exit. Surely, he's feeling that same restless urge you are? The one that makes your stomach flip when you catch him looking over at you.

However, as you wait, and attendant flags you down about your recent ticket order and you don't see your mystery man walk by. Sighing once your tickets are all in order, you head back out to your car. You'll get him next time.

For the Jurassic World showing, there was almost a full theatre. You knew there would be, which was why you'd bought your tickets in advance.

Spotting your Jurassic Cutie was a lot more difficult in a theatre of almost 50 people and kids and you resigned yourself to slumping in your seat dismally. You don't know why you were so grumpy about not seeing him but maybe he couldn't make this showing.

The opening credits begin to roll and you see two figures darting in for seats near the front. One was a young girl, clearly excited about the movie, and if it weren't for the glint of his glasses you may have not recognised your theatre buddy. You grin to yourself, happy he'd made it but now you were questioning about whether you should approach him at all.

Was that his daughter? If so, was he married or seeing someone? Single dad maybe? Maybe he was an older brother with a large age gap?

Third time was supposedly meant to be the charm but you also didn't want to approach him if he was with his daughter. That would be more mortifying than getting caught eyeing him up.

You settled back and watched Chris Pratt do his hand thing with the raptors, slightly miffed that no limbs were eaten in the process like in the original three movies. If the rumours were true, you couldn't wait to see the horror that would be inflicted by some wild dinosaurs in the newest movie; secretly hoping that following the books would lead to some good sci-fi horror.

You followed the crowd out of the theatre, splitting off by the doors to get some fresh, non-stale-popcorn flavoured air when you heard a conversation of a young girl and her guardian from behind you.

"That was a good movie Uncle Jake." She sighs. "Lotsa action and plenty of dinosaurs."

"They're not as good as the originals." A male voice argues back.

"Eh," the little girl shrugs. "The originals aren't that good."

There's a gasp, a tut and another gasp. "Jurassic Park is a masterpiece. Everything in this movie was directly linked to that first movie!"

"So why'd they remake it if it's so good?"

The guardian clearly struggles to find an answer, so you decide to answer for him.

"The original cast were too old and the franchise needed a new face or two." You turn to face the girl only to be surprised by seeing the face of your beau of the big screen. "And with the improvements to CGI... why not have better, cooler looking dinosaurs?"

The girl nods in understanding and shrugs, her guardian - who you now know is Jake - is standing sheepishly next to her looking at you.

"But your unlce is right; the originals are so much better." You add with a grin before crossing the parking lot to your car and give the both of them a short wave. "Have a good night!"

"Uncle Jake," the girl tugs her uncle's hand. "Let's go to the arcade."

"Uh - yeah. Sure."

You actively contemplate if seeing Fallen Kingdom is worth your hard-earned money when the opening theme begins. Jurassic World was a cheese-fest; plenty of easter eggs to keep original fans (like yourself) happy and content with plenty of action-packed scenes and familiar faces to keep younger kids engaged.

Picking at your M&Ms as the opening scene plays, movement at the end of your row catches your eye. With a giant popcorn in her lap, you recognise the young girl from the Jurassic World screening which meant-

"'Scuse me."

You jump to your feet and mumble an apology before realising you're face to face with Jake. You both stand for a few seconds unsure of what to do before a well-timed cough from another theatre-goer snaps you both from your thoughts.

"I'm with -" Jake points helplessly at his niece, who's making come on gestures at him. "Sorry."

You hold up your hands as he passes by. "It's alright. Maybe next time."

You weren't looking forward to Jurassic World: Dominion but for the sake of continuity, completetionist and the possibility of bumping into Jake again you were willing to sacrifice 146-minutes of your day to the final movie in the second trilogy.

You were late to the showing, you'd missed the first ten minutes, not that you were particularly upset by that fact. But you were startled by a voice as you tugged your drink from your bag.

"Thought you wouldn't make it."

You look to your right and see a pair of glasses reflecting the flickering of the movie. You try to suppress a grin but fail miserably.

The only issue is that Jake's niece is in the seat between you.

"And miss this?" You whisper sarcastically, catching his grin. "Never in 65 million years."

Jake snorts and his niece smacks his arm, shushing him as he tries not to giggle at your terrible joke. The movie is made ten times better with stolen glances and smiles, especially when Jake's niece gets really into a fight between the dinosaurs and cheers them on quietly from her seat.

The end of the movie has all three of you walking out around the same time, Jake's niece excitedly replaying her favourite parts of the movie to you both, as if you were always a part of their duo.

Whilst she babbles, adding explosion and dinosaur noises to her explanations, Jake leans a little closer to you.

"Are you going to see Rebirth next week?"

"Of course," You chuckle. "Bought my tickets a while ago."

Jake deflates with a short groan. "Damn. I'm so jealous. Heard it was gonna be good."

"You're not going?" You can't keep the disappointment out of your voice. You'd both managed to see every Jurassic movie together so far (even it was accidental) so it seemed a shame to break that cycle.

"Nah. Tickets sold out pretty quick." He shrugs. "I shoulda known."

You can feel the blush race along your skin as you piece together what you've been wanting to ask him two movies ago.

"Well," you begin, exiting the theatre into the humid afternoon air. "I have a spare ticket."

Jake stops in his tracks, almost walking into the door.

"You do?"

You nod. You didn't want to admit you'd bought two tickets when the pre-order went live, in the hope you'd secure a date by the time the movie release rolled around, but as a Jurassic Dork like you, you knew he'd appreciate it more than just any date.

"It's the 8p.m. showing." You shrug nonchalantly. "I could... meet you here? At like, 7:45 so we don't miss trailers? If you want?"

You give him a sheepish smile but Jake looks ecstatic.

"I want." He blurts and clears his throat before correcting himself. "I, yeah, would like to do that."

"Alright." You grin at him as his niece summons him to his car. "It's a date."

7:45p.m. rolls around and Jake is nowhere to be seen. You know the movie won't start until at least 8:30 but you worry that you may have been stood up.

Stepping inside at 8pm to avoid the chill of the night air, you make your way to the kiosk, mulling over whether you want sweet or salted popcorn when you hear the call of your name.

"What time do you call this?" You tease as he approaches.

Jake is tripping over his feet to get to you, apologising about being late (his niece would not let up about him seeing the movie without her despite her being too young).

"It's alright, we still have time." You chuckle. "Sweet or salted?"

"Both?" Jake suggests and when you look at him with a questioning smirk he holds up his hands defensively. "Hey now, best of both worlds."

"I don't disagree." You say airily as the attendant behind the kiosk fills a popcorn bucket to the brim.

"I'll get the drinks." Jake insists. "You got everything else. ICEE okay?"

You find your seats, the perfect centre seats, quite easily with your slushes in hand. Coincidentally, you'd gotten the same flavours as well as getting a brain freeze the same time from drinking too quick because of your nerves. Settling into your seats, this time beside eachother, was nerve-wracking and exciting all at once.

You both hum and haw at the trailers, eating your way through the top layer of popcorn until your hands touch between the warm kernels and you both share sheepish smiles and continue to eat.

The movie begins at a slog, setting up for the dino-packed plot. About twenty minutes in, you're already frowning at some plot holes and move closer to Jake to point them out. At the same time Jake moves to tell you a movie factoid, and you both gently bump heads, immediately trying to contain embarassed giggles.

At the hour mark, you're enraptured by the scene currently on the big screen and, in typical Hollywood fashion, a jumpscare happens complete with loud dinosaur noises. It startles you completely and your hand flies to Jake's forearm. You huff out through your nose as your heart gradually settles but before you can move your hand, Jake's other hand encompasses it with a reassuring squeeze.

"Don't worry - I'll protect you from those scary dinos." He whispers, smiling at you so sweetly you think you might melt into your seat.

You slip your hand down his forearm and lace your fingers over his when he removes his other hand and you don't let go until well-after the movie is finished; both of you weighing up pros, cons, timeline and plot inaccuracies and just general blathering about the franchise.

When you reach his car and begrudgingly released his hand, you put your number in his phone and ask when he's free.

"Whenever," Jake replied eagerly, raking a hand through his hair. "Although, I think we've run out of movies to watch."

You chuckle and hum thoughtfully. "I'm sure we could find something else to watch. It doesn't have to be dinosaurs."

Jake blushes and laughs nervously. "Yeah. Or, we could, I don't know read books or something?"

A laugh bubbles out of your mouth before you can stop it. He was such a dork and it made your heart patter with excitement.

"I mean, the Jurassic Park novels are great too."

"They were books?" Jake asks in surprise.

You blink at him. "Yeah. Focused more on the horror and sci-fi aspect of it. There's only two novels but if you want to borrow them-"

"Could I read them with you?" Jake asks before you can finish. "Like a book date?"

"A book date?" You grin.

"Yeah," Jake says with a smile, gaining confidence. "You bring the books, I bring the coffee and we... you know, have a date."

You shake your head softly with a smile as bright as the stars. "It's a date."

End

A/N: Jake would get married to the Jurassic Park theme js. Also Tom Cardy's Jurassic Park 12 is very accurate.

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[falloutnewnobody]

reviewing brothers' karamazov covers because ive collected too many of these and im doing well mentally

yep. those are the brothers right there. all of 'em. a lovely classic that does my boys justice 10/10

doesnt really have anything to do with the book imo but i like this one it fucks and the style is great. makes you interested to read 6/10

WATER. MONASTARY. PAINTING. fucks hard but i miss my boys 8/10

a bit too mordern imo but it still fucks. they forgot about pavel though (everone does but i love him) 7.5/10

the reason i made this list there is so much wrong with it. -800/10

1. ew generative ai

2. i cant tell which is mitya and which is vanya. either way it is very very funny that whoever it is was made a booktok sexyman for an incomprehensable reason. also why is his shirt open sir put those tits away.

3. pavel looks so fucking miserable but in the wrong way. also where is his fancy pomaded hair he would not be caught dead like that.

4. theyre all supposed to be blonde. and theyre all supposed to be russian. none of them look either

5. alyosha looks like a shounen protag in the worst possible way. also why does he have rosacea on his face. anime boy dead bug eyes.

6. none of them look anything like each other.

7. pavel and alyosha are like, a foot shorter than the other two.

8. only thing they got right was that they actually included pavel.

9. why are they in the clouds most of those boys are not entering heaven

10. why are they all wearing the same outfit????

a postmodern classic. genuinly one of my favorite images i have sobbed laughing over this one. i like how only two of the four brothers are there. which two? who knows! who cares! its not like any of them get along this well. or smile really.

[yuurei20]

Idia Facts Part 3: Family (pt3)

Idia says that the rule on the island is to return the living back to where they came from, alive, but this might only apply to those they kidnap rather than those who attack them: When Rook, Epel and the prefect appear, he tells them that, if anyone but himself had been in charge at the time, they’d be gone.

In addition to Tartarus and Cerberus, STYX also has the River Lethe: a system that can erase STYX from anyone’s memories, and from any data.

“There’s no point even thinking about making friends with people on the outside. After all…sooner or later, they wouldn’t remember it happened.”

At the end of Book 6 Ortho deletes the River Lethe’s configuration program, which Idia decides to leave to his parents to sort out, while he gets left with a group of classmates that remember everything that happened to them.

“And that’s…normal.”

In Book 7 Idia explains that due to a “tiny fraction” of what STYX does leaking to the public, the press has gone into a feeding frenzy to try and unearth their secrets.

We meet his parents in Book 7, with Idia’s father worrying that the worst may have happened to everyone on the island (“—including our boys…?”), but Idia’s mother says that she guarantees they are alive, based on “a mother’s hunch.”

His mother deduces that Idia has been using STYX communication satellites via access logs (“I’m sure he thought he covered his tracks, but he can’t fool his mom!”), saying, that she knows Idia would absolutely think he needed the internet to survive no matter what.

There is a vague reference to trouble that Aidne Shroud, Idia’s grandmother, had in the past with Briar Valley.

Idia’s mother seems to have great faith in Idia’s abilities: when debating how they will approach the Malleus-controlled Sage’s island with the insufficient AI in STYX power armor she says, “if only (Idia) were here!” (Idia’s mother refers to him as Onii-chan/Ide-kun on JP and “Idy” on EN.” Shroud Family dynamics explained here.)

Ortho asks their mother to craft him a set of gear that can survive Malleus’ spell, which she does by using a copy of Ortho’s schematics on one of Idia’s computers.

Ortho exclaims, “You actually got through Idia’s super-ultra-ironclad security program!?” and she assures him that she didn’t look into any of his password-protected folders.

[pedrocomicreviews]

Absolute Superman #9

“Krypton is dead, destroyed by its own hubris and gluttony. Long live Krypton.“

Probably the most depressing issue yet, and that’s saying something. Comics made for me. Spoilers.

Superman has been shot and the Omega Men must save his life!, a cover tagline would say in days past. Our first experience with Kryptonite is nothing short of traumatic for Kal, and he deals with the full implications of the attack for the entirety of the issue.

It’s a meaty one, though; there’s a lot going on. Superman and Sol’s relationship continues to flourish as they run into a Father Box, Apokolips technology the readers are probably familiar with but no character in the story is. We discover the Omega Men are basically a cult to Darkseid’s technology, but not necessarily to Darkseid– it seems that only the Legion we see in some other books is aware Darkseid is real, at least on Earth. 

While they may not be aligned with Darkseid’s agenda of existential domination, the Omega Men’s methods run front and center against Superman’s, who feels like he owes them for saving his life. Disturbed by the visions of a future Crisis, he greatly suffers at demands and pressure from the Omega Men’s leader, Prime, to use lethal force in their battle against the Lazarus corporation. Parallel to that, the Sol AI keeps telling Kal to be afraid of the Father Box, and Lois is blackmailed by Ra’s al Ghul to fight against the Omega Men, lest he kills her father.

I’d rather focus on Superman’s conflict more than on the rest of the lore revelations and relationships. Be online or just around people talking about Superman enough and you’ll eventually enter a conversation that discusses why, exactly, Superman doesn’t kill most of his villains, and whether or not he should. It’s not as egregious and irritating as the Batman version of the conversation, but it’s just as present. After all, the man’s usually a symbol of hope, but by not employing lethal force, villains will keep coming back. 

The subject usually rears its head particularly tall when we’re retelling Superman’s origins, and he’s just starting out. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel had the pretty infamous (although, honestly, effective) idea of making Superman kill his villain at the end of his first big fight, which traumatizes him such that he’ll never do it again. Or at least that was the idea, lol, lmao, etc. So, how does the Absolute Universe handle it? It handles it by making Kal explicitly traumatized by violence.

He hates being on Earth, pretty much. Every moment he’s been on the planet has been a prelude to having things he cares about taken away from him. He’s an oppressed, immigrant minority of 1 that just wants to breathe once without feeling like he needs to help someone, like he needs to do something he would rather not do for the greater good. Superman is a fundamentally good man, yes, but he’s also tired; he’s tired from day one and he doesn’t know if there will ever be a tomorrow where he’s not exhausted.

Kal is vulnerable, fragile, and losing his patience. He has refused to kill anyone thus far, but his mental faculties are starting to crack. Sol’s helpful voice is now silent after they had a disagreement, he has no friends, he has no family, and he has no home he can just be himself at. More than every other Absolute version, this one is explicitly isolated from every single safety net other versions of him have historically had.

And it’s really hard to read, honestly, because Kal is extremely likeable. He’s not exactly a golden retriever, but he’s genial, he’s heartful, and he really, really deserves better. While Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane are probably going to be his future friends, right now they’re neutral at best, and part of the problem at worst. He can’t trust anyone and it’s eating him alive to interact with these people.

I think it’s a really fascinating idea to show how far Superman is willing to go for his morals, especially in this first year of stories with this version of the character. We haven’t exactly advanced much beyond the introductory arc, but it’s already as rough as it gets for him. We are pretty familiar with his baseline at this point, so I’m looking forward to seeing how much he stretches before something snaps. 

I don’t think we’ll have a happily murdering Superman running around in the Absolute Universe, and I feel like giving him an immortal enemy like Ra’s al Ghul is going to play into this idea. But hey, this is a very cool take on a newbie Superman that I haven’t seen in years, and it hasn’t gone into full-on 4edgy5me territory like… well, Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman.

I understand comparing the defunct DCMU to this project may make it sound like I’m insulting the comic, but, genuinely, I feel like the ideas are being handled in similar ways, except one of them has an actual point to make in the near future.

[wat3rm370n]

People need to crowd out the pro-industry political consultants.

Dem politicians are listening to political consultants when they should be listening to their constituents, and we need to tip that math in the other direction.

This David Shor is a Democratic party political consultant. This means your representatives are listening to people like this if you're not up in their business on a regular basis making your constituent preferences known. They will assume that the artists with skilled work and your skyrocketing water bill is just "quibbles" and that the techno-rapture "singularity" preached by right-wing tech tycoons and their gurus is a real thing.

David Shor @davidshor · May 30 It’s crazy that the spectre of fully automated luxury gay space communism is upon us and the most anyone on the left has to say about it is some quibbles over artist IP and water consumption frances meek @MeekFrances · May 30 the water consumption seems important David David Shor @davidshor · May 30 The water consumption thing is fake seangoedecke.com Talking to ChatGPT costs 5ml of water, not 500ml Summarizing a whole lot of internet argument about the water usage impact of language models frances meek @MeekFrances No, it isn’t. Can’t wait until an AI can tell Democrats nothing matters for a living though. 6:49 PM · May 30, 2025

If the water consumption issue is “fake” why are data center owners going to court to try to keep the water consumption a secret?

And it's not just the computers themselves, it's that these data centers have to be power plants, to power the computers. (Or they're situated next to power plants, though even with that they still come with ill effects.) And the power plants may use water as well. Nuclear power plants sure use water, that’s why they’re built on rivers or coasts.

There was a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on restarting Three Mile Island recently. That's the nuclear power plant near Harrisburg Pennsylvania that melted down in 1979 in the worst nuclear disaster in US history, and which is slated to be restarted for the sole purpose of powering a data center (not providing alternative energy to the community). At this meeting there was an opponent to the plans who said that just for two nuclear power plants on the Susquehanna River, the water demand is the equivalent of half the rivers daily flow. I'm not surprised Peter Hall at Penn Capital-Star didn't dig into this to fact check at all, he's dropped the ball in science news before, but he's all we got covering this unfortunately.

I recounted this in a livestream of The Letterhack Presents, stipulating that I hadn't found corroboration on that yet. I also had misspoke when I said it was half the river’s flow for 3 nuclear power plants on the Susquehanna River, the guy opposing the Three Mile Island restart had actually said that just the 2 were already using half the river’s flow. So then I tried to fact check this myself, but I'm not really up to the task of this amount of conversions & math, but it is possible to figure this out. The Union of Concerned Scientists said that: "the typical 1,000 Mwe nuclear power reactor with a 30ºF ∆T needs approximately 476,500 gallons per minute." And the USGS Susquehanna River at Harrisburg monitoring has an option to see the flow of the river, but it's expressed as a daily median of cubic feet per second, and that varies.

But the nuclear plants are actually beside the point anyway because Karen Hao did extensive research on the water issue for the book Empire of AI, and she found, just like other reports on data centers have found, the water needed to cool the computers in the data center is substantial. And again, if it wasn't any big deal – why did Google make a municipal water utility sign an NDA to keep the water consumption of the data center a secret, and why did the municipality spend so much money in court to protect that secret?

And does David Shor work for the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians really? Or does he simply feed certain information to Democrats? Because I don't know why you'd want to misrepresent this issue in such an obvious way.

So even though I can't figure out the river flow math, I can figure out that David Shor's assertions just don't add up.

[sublimeobservationarcade]

Joe Biden’s Original Sin

Original Sin is a provocative title for Jake Tapper’s and Alex Thompson’s new book about former President Joe Biden. It alleges that a cover up of sorts took place to largely hide the mental incapacity of Biden for great chunks of his time at the top. Now, the Trump Republican opposition and Fox News continually pointed the finger at Biden’s age as a problem during his time in office – so it was not some big secret. However, it was denied by the Democrats and the White House in particular. Joe Biden’s original sin. The zombie like performance in the June 2024 presidential debate against Donald Trump confirmed the worst fears of some in the Democrat camp that Joe Biden was too old and mentally unfit to go again. Public pressure was brought to bear and Biden pulled out.

Biden & The Sin Of Being Human With All Its Failings

Unfortunately, for those of us who excoriate Trump it proved to be too little too late and Kamala Harris lost the election. Original Sin postulates that the close circle around Biden, named the politburo, hid his mental deficiencies and protected him from scrutiny as much as possible. He hardly ever did presidential stuff after 6pm. Biden rarely met with his Cabinet, especially from 2023 onwards. He avoided any in-depth interviews with senior journalists during his time in office. The upshot of this is the inference that he did not sufficiently project the kind of presidential leadership normally required by the role. Was this the sin of omission? Or the sin of pride, that he and only he could beat Donald Trump? Or the sin of that deeply human attachment to power? “What is original sin? Original sin is an Augustine Christian doctrine that says that everyone is born sinful. This means that they are born with a built-in urge to do bad things and to disobey God. It is an important doctrine within the Roman Catholic Church. The concept of Original Sin was explained in depth by St Augustine and formalised as part of Roman Catholic doctrine by the Councils of Trent in the 16th Century. Original sin is not just this inherited spiritual disease or defect in human nature; it's also the 'condemnation' that goes with that fault.” - (https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_1.shtml)

Maruxa Lomoljo Koren at Pexels Democratic Sinning Joe Biden Style Sinning, as the story goes, is in us all and is what we are made of. I think that Joe Biden is viewed by many of us as a pretty good guy in a dirty business. He, also, appears far better in contrast to Trump, which is an important thing to remember in all of this. Thus, he was forgiven for being far too old by many in the circumstances. Anything was better than Trump for lots of Democrats. Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case with the greater American public or did it? Joe Biden did not, in the end, contest the 2024 presidential election. Interestingly, Donald Trump has won twice, both times against a female candidate. Are there Garden of Eden and Eve implications here? The Christian religiosity of the United States cannot be underestimated in all of this. Joe Biden’s original sin was in the end the human frailty of old age with all its inherent consequences. The Sin Of Omission I remember thinking, at one time, why don’t they give him an AI makeover. That could have been very Orwellian, with a digitally reinvigorated President Biden making screened announcements to the nation. Instead the podium was left empty all too often. There was an absence, a lacking of manifest leadership, that I think the American people picked up on and this was a sin of omission. Lying by omission is when you don’t tell the truth by saying nothing. The intimate circle around Biden knew that he was diminished by old age and that it was getting worse.

America’s Cult Of Personality Americans over value the cult of personality, celebrity, and individualism at the expense of the party or the community. Too much power is granted to leaders and not enough to those around them. I kept thinking, during the Biden presidency, that they needed to have more focus on members of the cabinet who were more vigorous. It was this doddering presidency despite the many great legislative initiatives being undertaken. They undersold their achievements because of this warped overemphasis on the figure of the president himself. It is a weird set up and the Democrats paid the price. “ “President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” Thompson said. “We, myself included, missed a lot of this story. And some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.” Original Sin begins with a bang. Its first chapter is titled “He Fucked Us”, from an on-record quote by David Plouffe, senior adviser to the Harris campaign, before that manager of Barack Obama’s 2008 winning effort. “We got so screwed by Biden as a party,” Plouffe says. Harris was a “great soldier”, but the race was “a fucking nightmare. …��� - (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/25/original-sin-joe-biden-book-review) Deception and politics go together like deception and government do. Bitter recriminations often follow defeats in the political sphere. US politics is a strange beast and the cult of the leader dominates all else to the detriment of the American people. It is a systemic problem much more than it is one man’s sin, in my view. There is such a plethora of disinformation coming out of the political realm and its media. The right wing echo chamber is far worse and has poisoned the well for all of us.

#UNGA President Donald J. Trump by National Archives and Records Administration is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 “We are living in an age, where truth and facts are distorted and disparaged by political leaders hell bent on power. The rise of social media has put gossip and lies in a seemingly credible format. The digital revolution has seen style eclipse substance. Thus, making utter rubbish look believably cogent. Images and video are manipulated to tell the kind of story so desired. Fake news is the joker in the pack, along with AI rendered identity fraud. Yuval Harari, a historian, has been warning all and sundry about the dangers we are facing from counterfeit human beings. Bots and scammers are undermining the faith we once had in our institutions and each other.” - (https://www.midasword.com.au/historians-have-to-be-interested-in-truth/) Janus Joe Biden “CNN's Jake Tapper calls his new book a tragedy. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which Tapper co-authored with Axios' Alex Thompson, describes two Joe Bidens. "The first one is the one that everybody got to know during his vice presidency," Tapper says. "And the second one was kind of a non-functioning Joe Biden. ... And that non-functioning Biden would rear his head increasingly starting in, like, 2019, 2020. And then, as his term went on, more and more behind the scenes." The book describes a president who failed to recognize longtime political allies, lost his train of thought in important conversations and forgot important dates, including the death of his son, Beau: "We in the public would see some of it in front of the cameras ... but we had no idea how bad it was," Tapper says.” - (https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5398050/joe-bidens-decline-jake-tapper-original-sin) The really rotten place we find ourselves in is Trump 2.0 and that makes many of us sick with rage. The outcome poisons things far more than usual post-defeat. Joe Biden’s original sin has to be how it led to this first and foremost, I think. Meditate on that folks. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord

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[dowdonacloud]

The Depression Manual

I am guessing I’m like many of you in that I have too much faith in the internet. Faith and lack of motivation that is. I google something, scan the AI explanation and browse the first 5 articles that the search engines deems worthy.  

I google depression a lot. I do this to verify that yes, the last 30 years are correct and my symptoms match. I also look to see if my diagnosis might be more severe and have been afraid that I have any number of personality disorders which I guess makes me neurotic since hypochondria is a type of neuroticism. I am not interested in this new coded way of calling women crazy- ahem neurotic. But here, I digress.

I rest assured that I am like many others and seek more information and in my case always looking for more accurate language to wrap around my experience as someone with recurrent depressive episodes. What I’ve determined is that the info on depression- the detailed info, from the point of view of people who have lived it- is hard to come by.  Instead, we get the health briefs from mayo clinic and NIH about the symptoms of depression and of course the hotline. The symptoms including feelings of sadness and hopelessness, loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed, fatigue/ low energy, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions, physical symptoms like headaches and chronic pain and thoughts of suicide.  A list. Not an article on anything beyond the list besides the mention at the end of the gold star standard treatment of SSRIs and cognitive behavior therapy. On my most recent search I saw an article that contained the regurgitated list and then emphasized self-care for the support person. We beg of you, take cover- I mean, take care of yourself when you are around the depressed person. Let them rot. They are rotting anyway.  These articles aren’t helpful to people who are experiencing the difficulty of not knowing what to do when their person is depressed.

My mom was very good about knowing how to interact with me, handle me during my depressive episodes. She wasn’t always good at it. When the episdoes first showed up in my mid-teens I didn’t know what to do about my personality slipping through my fingers, which is what it always feels like. She didn’t know what to do either and there was a lot of conflict. I wanted out from under the microscope and she wanted me to be OK. Worst. Episode. Ever.

I lost my mom two years ago to uterine cancer treatment complications. She was 73 and had lived a very healthy life. Never smoked cigarettes, drank only the occasional wine or beer, ate food prepared at home. She not only took good care of her body, she also took good care of her mind. She was extremely well read and had a wide array of references across subject matters. Sometimes I would find books in her nightstand stack about mental health. This was a semi-snoop on my part, trying to find out what she was finding out about me. Some of the books were hidden under clothes in her closet. This was a full-on total snoop. These books should be differentiated  from the books she would strategically place in my environment, knowing that I would be more likely to listen to the wisdom of a stranger than my mother. My favorite strategically placed book was titled “Caffeine: the Gateway Drug”.  That was strategically placed around the house after I got in trouble for taking a bunch of Nodoz at an overnight retreat freshman year. In my defense, these retreats were in the context of catholic school so they were dripping with prayer and reflections involving God’s plan.  I think I would have been manic at these retreats anyway.

I only started appreciating her approach when I was older and noticed changes in how she would communicate with me. 

I always feel the void of her absence. I especially feel it when I am struggling and wading through a depressive episode. I get lightning storms in my head when my partner or friends don’t demonstrate the same understanding of how to deal with a depressed person- which I know, is completely unfair. I have been wondering if it’d be worth it to write some sort of depression manual.

I am scared of being overly self-indulgent but in the interest of getting more articles out there from the point of view of someone who lives through depressive episodes, I’d like to contribute. I personally would like to read more articles from people who live with this pesky, devastating, debilitating disorder. 

My Depression Manual

1-AVOID THE MICROSCOPE

 Try not to throw a celebration when I say something little I did in a day that demonstrates “opposite action”, like running on the treadmill or leaving the house. It seems like this would be a nice thing to do but it actually feels condescending and reinforces the invalid state I’ve descended into. I would rather you wait a week or two and then you could say something like “I think it’s really impressive how much you’ve been running on the treadmill.” That would make me feel less like I’m under a microscope or like my loved ones are trying hard to find something positive to say. When I’m doing something that a normal, healthy person would do, like if I fell asleep easily or slept 8 hours, I’d like to have others react as if I’m a normal, healthy person, instead of drawing attention to the fact that the normal, healthy thing is abnormal for me. The pointing out reminds me that I’m different/struggling/ etc

2- THE VULNERABILITY LADDER.

I will share.  I share things.  I am vomiting my feelings and disorganized thoughts all the time.  I get embarrassed at the level of sharing especially when I feel like it’s one sided. So, you need to share too. If you share, then you don’t need to ask as many questions (ugh, too many questions are so irritating) because your sharing invites me to share.  Creating space for me involves a mutual level of vulnerability and trust. Often I share more when the other person puts some vulnerability on the table or if you want to keep it about how my reactions/ emotional states are affecting you, say something about how you have tried X but it doesn’t seem to be working. I often feel stagnant emotional states stir when I feel like someone else needs help or needs me to show up for them.

3- STOP EXPECTING MY BRAIN TO WORK IN THE SAME WAY

Depression interferes with my processing time, verbal speed and executive function. I get exhausted by socializing more easily, this includes phone time. I am working on using phrases that are kind and reflective instead of reactionary to end conversations. For now it might sound something like, “I need to get off the phone” or “I have to go”.  It’s hard not to take it personally but it’s not personal, it’s my capacity reaching overwhelm.  Often I try to hang in there and harangue myself when I don’t feel like I can hang in for long.  When I press myself to stay longer than I’m able it results in clipped, terse responses and acting in a way I don’t want to be, followed by guilt after the interaction due to the way I came across.

4- STOP EXPECTING ME TO BE BRIGHT AND SHINY

I’m sure you’ve heard of masking. We all mask to some extent and mask more during certain periods than others. And yes, of course I’m a little over the trendy mental health term of the past few years: authenticity, but it’s true. Having the ability to show up more authentically allows me to show up at all. If I can be lackluster, smile less, be less talkative, that’s the depression. I feel enormous pressure to somehow put it away and be the person that people know and like- and this leads me to not want to show up at all which leads me to my next point.

5-ISOLATION IS CAUSED BY OVERWHELM

One of my friends ( who has experienced major depression too) said to me that he is happy to come over and not talk, to sit and watch TV or just be in proximity, with no expectations from me. That was some magic my mom would provide- companionship that was gentle and different from the companionship that is possible when I’m not stuck. The isolation thing is something I see listed frequently- posed as advice to the depressed person as something not to do. Don’t isolate, get out, be around people. That is fine advice but it doesn’t deconstruct the why of isolation. Depressed people isolate because socializing is overwhelming, environments outside the home can be overstimulating, overstimulating environments combined with the pressure of socializing is too much. Despite that technically I may not be doing much, I still desire the slowness of being in my home environment.  When I take the instagram psychobabble advice of not isolating and just getting out there I am incredibly self conscious about point #3- that my brain, my words just don’t work in the same way.

6-CONVERSATIONS CAN BE DIFFICULT, SMALL TALK IS TORTURE- I know what you are thinking, small talk is always torture. But I mean really, beyond my brain processing slower with jumbled, disorganized, dark thoughts it’s so hard to work around the typical small talk questions. If we were to play this out with our favorite word to love and hate, authenticity this is what the small talk conversation might look like

Scene featuring: Non-depressed person aka the lucky bastard (LB)

Depressed person (DP)

LB calls DP on the phone because they are kind and supportive and this is a nice thing to do. 

DP stares at phone, feels panic, wants to ignore the call because they are not sure if they have enough energy in their body to speak but doesn’t want to be avoidant, doesn’t want to harm the relationship more than they fear they already have. DP picks up phone

LB: hi! What’s up?

DP: Not much, how are you? 

LB: Oh I’m just heading home from work, it was a really busy day but Carol brought in Schlotsky’s for lunch so that was nice I overslept because I was having the best dream so I think I got over 9 hours of sleep.  How are you?

DP: totally empty inside

LB: aw man, I’m sorry. That sucks. What did you do today?

DP: I woke up after a total of 4 hours of interrupted sleep throughout the night. I laid in bed for an hour contemplating the reason for my existence. My dog needed to be fed so I got up to feed him. I chain smoked 4 cigarettes and had coffee hoping that dosing myself with anxiety would be a sort of energy I could work with. I cried for 30 minutes. I stared at a picture of my mom for a while. I went to the bathroom and tried to convince myself to get in the shower but getting wet has been hurting my skin and making me panic lately so I didn’t. I went to do my TMS treatment and worried that I smelled bad. I came home and sat on the couch and literally stared at the wall for 40 minutes. I tried not to get back in bed but I was so tired that I got back in bed. I rewatched a show that I’ve seen a million times. I looked on instagram and thought about how different I was from people who actually do things. I cried again for a while. I remembered that I had clothes in the washing machine from yesterday morning that smelled musty so I rewashed them. 

LB:Well….that’s a lot of stuff at least. Are you feeling any better than yesterday?

DP: No. I feel the same as I’ve felt for a week which is worse than how bad I was feeling last week which is worse than how I was feeling the week prior to that. 

LB: Can I help in some way?

DP: I don’t really have the neural resources to figure out ways to help you feel like you are helping me. You could come over and sit with me and not touch me and just be in my environment.

LB: Oh I wish I could but I have to pick up the kids and head to their softball game. Another time though. I love you.

DP: Ok. Thank you. I need to get off the phone now. I feel exhausted from this conversation. I hope you don’t hate me because I am a terrible downer. 

LB: I don’t hate you. You’ll feel better soon. Hang in there.

DP: Ok. I will hang in there. Hopefully not literally. I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say.

I don’t have anything to share about my day- on the bad days.  I can listen to your day but I’d appreciate acceptance when I say I don’t have much to share. Also would appreciate being able to answer the phone and not feel pressured to “turn it on” and make animated small talk. I’m not going to be as talkative, it’s not personal, it’s just part of it.  I don’t want it called out or told that I’m “not being nice” because I’m not being talkative. Being nice and being talkative are not mutually exclusive, like, at all. Think about that for a second. 

7-RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO GET CLINICAL- I have a team of mental health professionals. I don’t need another one. I don’t need you to suggest various diagnoses, medications, therapy methods or adding magnesium supplements to treat my depression. I have dealt with this for decades, have explored so many paths, there isn’t much you can suggest to me that I haven’t tried. I get offended when people start suggesting things to add into my treatment plan. I need loved ones, not more doctors and therapists.

8- UNDERSTAND THAT EVERYTHING IS EFFORTFUL

And this is just the way it is. Until the clouds start to part and I can have my personality back.

9- I KNOW I WAS A SNOT EARLIER ABOUT SELF-CARE BUT IT IS IMPORTANT, YOU SHOULD DO IT

Take breaks. Do what you need to do to refuel. I feel a ton of guilt about subjecting people to me when I am under water.

[carica-ficus]

I've watched the infamous hbomberguy video about plagiarism the other day and cannot stop thinking about "content mills" (and consumerism) and its integration in the book community.

I have a bookstagram account because the community there is much more active (and most of my reading/writing friends use it as their primary social site), but it is filled to the brim with so much stupid and uninteresting content. Moreover, I'd say that the Croatian bookstagram community is even worse than the bookstagram community as a whole.

I'm lucky to have really cool mutuals on there that don't follow trends or don't feel the need to play influencers, but so many people do. I unfollowed at least 15 profiles yesterday because I couldn't take it anymore. None of their posts showed any love for reading and so much of their content is sponsored.

Worst of all is they're not even advertising for the author or their work, it's just for the publisher, which makes no fucking sense, in my humble opinion. Since when are books about congratulating a specific publisher on deciding to publish a book, and not for the author or their painstaking and beautiful work?

Not to mention, I rarely see Croatian publishers actually publishing Croatian authors! The biggest publishers only ever translate internationally popular works. And yes, I do realize why that's the case (there's barely any money in this industry and most of our publishers would perish if it weren't for the profit coming from translations), but for fucks sake, if you're advertising for yourself, at least throw in a few of our own authors. At least make our bookstagramers support their own community, the community without which they wouldn't even exist!

And you know what's the worst of the worst? The constant fake amazement in all those countless sponsored reviews, for books barely any of them even read! They call themselves creative, but most of their content wouldn't even exist without the creative work of others. All those giveaways, AI generated pictures, thousands upon thousands of advertisements for publishers only looking for profit, posting content just to post something, promotions for books which barely even hit the shelves, and the never-ending drama of who copies whom in a community where no one is original.

Yes, I know ads also provide a profit for editors, translators, authors, illustrators and everyone else involved in the publishing industry, but I ask you another thing: Why are these people never mentioned in the posts then? Why are they not given any credit? Because it's hard or because, to them - the publishers and to influencers - it doesn't matter? Why do our publishers print translated works with AI covers? Why do we translate and print new editions of old, popular, international works, instead of giving our own writers a chance? Why do some publishers chose to use an AI generated cover instead of hiring a local artist? How much profit do writers, artists, editors and translators really achieve compared to the publishers?

"Oh, but you don't understand. The industry would collapse if we did it differently."

Yeah, because money is the most important thing when it comes to publishing books. It isn't about the author. It isn't about supporting creative endeavors. It isn't about supporting the local community. It isn't about the story and its idea. Yeah, you're right. None of that matters. Because reading is about consumption and about making money.

Spare me.

Let it collapse then. Maybe we don't deserve all the people brave enough to share their work with millions of people who don't even care about them.

In hindsight, maybe I'm bitter because I spend a lot of time surrounded by the truly creative community - writers, illustrators, photographers and all other forms of artists, so I'm angry they're looked over in the community that should praise them. Or maybe I'm just fed up with all the dishonesty and advertisement these co-called influencers push for a few free books. You decide. I'm just saying that I'm tired of it.

[capesandshapes]

I'm literally so pissed about this because I have to write an apology letter to my newsletter subscribers and readers for encouraging them to engage with an author who ended up running a publishing pyramid scheme, and pushing her books along to them despite the fact that I disliked them to the point I refused to review them (because it was going to be two to three stars) and kept tossing them in with other far more readable books

Solely because she was nice and I assumed she was dumb

Like surprise she's not dumb she's running a literal pyramid scheme and having people pay her for ads only to pocket like 95% of the money to shill for her own books

AND THEYRE SO BAD?????

HER BOOKS ARE LIKE THE WORST BOOKS OH MY GOD

Not even like content wise just like

SO POORLY WRITTEN

(also her company's editing service is her going through with prowritingaid and when she feels too lazy to go through your book with prowritingaid, which is supposedly a service worth so much (paired with ai covers generated from a 100 dollar a month subscription that lets her make unlimited covers) that her company pockets 70% of the 70% royalties that Amazon gives you, she hires people off of fiver at rock bottom rates to comb through with prowritingaid for her instead ☠️)

Actually full on can someone sedate me because I really want to give tea on the publishing scene, the new digital led 'traditional' publisher trend and the amount of people on Twitter claiming to be literary agents who string along authors for the attention and furthering of the agent's own potential publishing career while having no idea of how an agent works.

And of course fucking author coaches like Elise Kova who has always approached publishing with a business mindset and is widely believed to have, like Frost Kay, commissioned ghost written and generative work to pad her catalogue.

Like if I have a nickel for every time a romantasy author publishing openly marketed avatar the last Airbender fanfiction engaged in bad faith business practices and banked on the trust and goodwill on others, I'd have two nickles

[3liza]

thank you for speaking rational thought AS AN ARTIST into the ai debate. i get so tired of people over simplifying, generalizing, and parroting how they’ve been told ai works lmao. you’re an icon

some of the worst AI art alarmists are professional artists as well but theyre in very specific fields with very specific work cultures and it would take a long and boring post to explain all the nuance there but i went to the same extremely tiny, hypefocused classic atelier school in San Francisco as Karla Ortiz and am actually acquainted with her irl so i have a different perspective on this particular issue and the people involved than the average fan artist on tumblr. the latter person is also perfectly valid and so is their work, all im saying is that we have different life experiences and my particular one has accidentally placed me in a weird and relevant position to observe what the AI art panic is actually about.

first thing i did when the pearl-clutching about AI art started is go on the Midjourney discord, which is completely public and free, and spent a few burner accounts using free credits to play with the toolset. everyone who has any kind of opinion about AI art should do the same because otherwise you just wont know what youre talking about. my BIGGEST takeaway is that it is currently and likely always will be (because of factors that are sort of hard to explain) extremely difficult to make an AI like Midjourney spit out precisely wht you want UNLESS what you want is the exact kind of hyperreal, hyperpretty Artstation Front Page 4k HDR etc etc style pictures that, coincidentally, artists like Karla Ortiz have devoted their careers to. Midjourney could not, when asked, make a decent Problem Glyph. or even anything approaching one. and probably never will, because there isn't any profit incentive for it to do so and probably not enough images to train a dataset anyway.

the labor issues with AI are real, but they are the result of the managerial class using AI's existence as an excuse to reduce compensation for labor. this happens at every single technological sea change and is unstoppable, and the technology itself is always blamed because that is beneficial to the capitalists who are actually causing the labor crisis each time. if you talk to the artists who are ACTUALLY already being affected, they will tell you what's happening is managers are telling them to insert AI into workflows in ways that make no sense, and that management have fully started an industry-wide to "pivot" to AI production in ways that aren't going to work but WILL result in mass loss of jobs and productivty and introduce a lot of problems which people will then be hired to try to fix, but at greatly-reduced salaries. every script written and every picture generated by an AI, without human intervention/editing/cleanup, is mostly unusable for anything except a few very specific use cases that are very tolerant of generality. i'm seeing it being used for shovelware banner ads, for example, as well as for game assets like "i need some spooky paintings for the wall of a house environment" or "i need some nonspecific movie posters for a character's room" that indie game devs are making really good use of, people who can neither afford to hire an artist to make those assets and cant do them themselves, and if the ai art assets weren't available then that person would just not have those assets in the game at all. i've seen AI art in that context that works great for that purpose and isn't committing any labor crimes.

it is also being used for book covers by large publishing houses already, and it looks bad and resulted directly in the loss of a human job. it is both things. you can also pay your contractor for half as many man hours because he has a nailgun instead of just hammers. you can pay a huge pile of money to someone for an oil portrait or you can take a selfie with your phone. there arent that many oil painters around anymore.

but this is being ignored by people like the guy who just replied and yelled at me for the post they imagined that i wrote defending the impending robot war, who is just feeling very hysterical about existential threat and isn't going to read any posts or actually do any research about it. which is understandable but supremely unhelpful, primarily to themselves but also to me and every other fellow artist who has to pay rent.

one aspect of this that is both unequivocally True AND very mean to point out is that the madder an artist is about AI art, the more their work will resemble the pretty, heavily commercialized stuff the AIs are focused on imitating. the aforementioned Artstation frontpage. this is self-feeding loop of popular work is replicated by human artists because it sells and gets clicks, audience is sensitized to those precise aesthetics by constant exposure and demands more, AI trains on those pictures more than any others because there are more of those pictures and more URLs pointing back to those pictures and the AI learns to expect those shapes and colors and forms more often, mathematically, in its prediction models. i feel bad for these people having their style ganked by robots and they will not be the only victims but it is also true, and has always been true, that the ONLY way to avoid increasing competition in a creative field is to make yourself so difficult to imitate that no one can actually do it. you make a deal with the devil when you focus exclusively on market pleasing skills instead of taking the massive pay cut that comes with being more of a weirdo. theres no right answer to this, nor is either kind of artist better, more ideologically pure, or more talented. my parents wanted me to make safe, marketable, hotel lobby art and never go hungry, but im an idiot. no one could have predicted that my distaste for "hyperreal 4k f cup orc warrior waifu concept art depth of field bokeh national geographic award winning hd beautiful colorful" pictures would suddenly put me in a less precarious position than people who actually work for AAA studios filling beautiful concept art books with the same. i just went to a concept art school full of those people and interned at a AAA studio and spent years in AAA game journalism and decided i would rather rip ass so hard i exploded than try to compete in such an industry.

which brings me to what art AIs are actually "doing"--i'm going to be simple in a way that makes computer experts annoyed here, but to be descriptive about it, they are not "remixing" existing art or "copying" it or carrying around databases of your work and collaging it--they are using mathematical formulae to determine what is most likely to show up in pictures described by certain prompts and then manifesting that visually, based on what they have already seen. they work with the exact same very basic actions as a human observing a bunch of drawings and then trying out their own. this is why they have so much trouble with fingers, it's for the same reason children's drawings also often have more than 5 fingers: because once you start drawing fingers its hard to stop. this is because all fingers are mathematically likely to have another finger next to them. in fact most fingers have another finger on each side. Pinkies Georg, who lives on the end of your limb and only has one neighbor, is an outlier and Midjourney thinks he should not have been counted.

in fact a lot of the current failings by AI models in both visual art and writing are comparable to the behavior of human children in ways i find amusing. human children will also make up stories when asked questions, just to please the adult who asked. a robot is not a child and it does not have actual intentions, feelings or "thoughts" and im not saying they do. its just funny that an AI will make up a story to "Get out of trouble" the same way a 4 year old tends to. its funny that their anatomical errors are the same as the ones in a kindergarten classroom gallery wall. they are not people and should not be personified or thought of as sapient or having agency or intent, they do not.

anyway. TLDR when photography was invented it became MUCH cheaper and MUCH faster to get someone to take your portrait, and this resulted in various things happening that would appear foolish to be mad about in this year of our lord 2023 AD. and yet here we are. if it were me and it was about 1830 and i had spent 30 years learning to paint, i would probably start figuring out how to make wet plate process daguerreotypes too. because i live on earth in a technological capitalist society and there's nothing i can do about it and i like eating food indoors and if i im smart enough to learn how to oil paint i can certainly point a camera at someone for 5 minutes and then bathe the resulting exposure in mercury vapor. i know how to do multiple things at once. but thats me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Machine learning sucks at covid

The worst part of machine learning snake-oil isn’t that it’s useless or harmful — it’s that ML-based statistical conclusions have the veneer of mathematics, the empirical facewash that makes otherwise suspect conclusions seem neutral, factual and scientific.

Think of “predictive policing,” in which police arrest data is fed to a statistical model that tells the police where crime is to be found. Put in those terms, it’s obvious that predictive policing doesn’t predict what criminals will do; it predicts what police will do.

Cops only find crime where they look for it. If the local law only performs stop-and-frisks and pretextual traffic stops on Black drivers, they will only find drugs, weapons and outstanding warrants among Black people, in Black neighborhoods.

That’s not because Black people have more contraband or outstanding warrants, but because the cops are only checking for their presence among Black people. Again, put that way, it’s obvious that policing has a systemic racial bias.

But when that policing data is fed to an algorithm, the algorithm dutifully treats it as the ground truth, and predicts accordingly. And then a mix of naive people and bad-faith “experts” declare the predictions to be mathematical and hence empirical and hence neutral.

Which is why AOC got her face gnawed off by rabid dingbats when she stated, correctly, that algorithms can be racist. The dingbat rebuttal goes, “Racism is an opinion. Math can’t have opinions. Therefore math can’t be racist.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/yes-algorithms-can-be-biased-heres-why/

You don’t have to be an ML specialist to understand why bad data makes bad predictions. “Garbage In, Garbage Out” (GIGO) may have been coined in 1957, but it’s been a conceptual iron law of computing since “computers” were human beings who tabulated data by hand.

But good data is hard to find, and “when all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is an iron law of human scientific malpractice that’s even older than GIGO. When “data scientists” can’t find data, they sometimes just wing it.

This can be lethal. I published a Snowden leak that detailed the statistical modeling the NSA used to figure out whom to kill with drones. In subsequent analysis, Patrick Ball demonstrated that NSA statisticians’ methods were “completely bullshit.”

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2702948/Problem-Book-Redacted.pdf

Their gravest statistical sin was recycling their training data to validate their model. Whenever you create a statistical model, you hold back some of the “training data” (data the algorithm analyzes to find commonalities) for later testing.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/

So you might show an algorithm 10,000 faces, but hold back another 1,000, and then ask the algorithm to express its confidence that items in this withheld data-set were also faces.

However, if you are short on data (or just sloppy, or both), you might try a shortcut: training and testing on the same data.

There is a fundamental difference from evaluating a classifier by showing it new data and by showing it data it’s already ingested and modeled.

It’s the difference between asking “Is this like something you’ve already seen?” and “Is this something you’ve already seen?” The former tests whether the system can recall its training data; the latter tests whether the system can generalize based on that data.

ML models are pretty good recall engines! The NSA was training it terrorism detector with data from the tiny number of known terrorists it held. That data was so sparse that it was then evaluating the model’s accuracy by feeding it back some of its training data.

When the model recognized its own training data (“I have 100% confidence this data is from a terrorist”) they concluded that it was accurate. But the NSA was only demonstrating the model’s ability to recognize known terrorists — not accurately identify unknown terrorists.

And then they killed people with drones based on the algorithm’s conclusions.

Bad data kills.

Which brings me to the covid models raced into production during the height of the pandemic, hundreds of which have since been analyzed.

There’s a pair of new, damning reports on these ML covid models. The first, “Data science and AI in the age of COVID-19” comes from the UK’s Alan Turing Institute:

https://www.turing.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-06/data-science-and-ai-in-the-age-of-covid_full-report_2.pdf

The second, “Common pitfalls and recommendations for using machine learning to detect and prognosticate for COVID-19 using chest radiographs and CT scans,” comes from a team at Cambridge.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-021-00307-0

Both are summarized in an excellent MIT Tech Review article by Will Douglas Heaven, who discusses the role GIGO played in the universal failure of any of these models to produce useful results.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/30/1030329/machine-learning-ai-failed-covid-hospital-diagnosis-pandemic/

Fundamentally, the early days of covid were chaotic and produced bad and fragmentary data. The ML teams “solved” that problem by committing a series of grave statistical sins so they could produce models, and the models, trained on garbage, produced garbage. GIGO.

The datasets used for the models were “Frankenstein data,” stitched together from multiple sources. The specifics of how that went wrong are a kind of grim tour through ML’s greatest methodological misses.

Some Frankenstein sets had duplicate data, leading to models being tested on the same data they were trained on

A data-set of health children’s chest X-rays was used to train a model to spot healthy chests — instead it learned to spot children’s chests

One set mixed X-rays of supine and erect patients, without noting that only the sickest patients were X-rayed while lying down. The model learned to predict that people were sick if they were on their backs

A hospital in a hot-spot used a different font from other hospitals to label X-rays. The model learned to predict that people whose X-rays used that font were sick

Hospitals that didn’t have access to PCR tests or couldn’t integrate them with radiology data labeled X-rays based on a radiologist’s conclusions, not test data, incorporating radiologist’s idiosyncratic judgements into a “ground truth” about what covid looked like

All of this was compounded by secrecy: the data and methods were often covered by nondisclosure agreements with medical “AI” companies. This foreclosed on the kind of independent scrutiny that might have caught these errors.

It also pitted research teams against one another, rather than setting them up for collaboration, a phenomenon exacerbated by scientific career advancement, which structurally preferences independent work.

Making mistakes is human. The scientific method doesn’t deny this — it compensates for it, with disclosure, peer-review and replication as a check against the fallibility of all of us.

The combination of bad incentives, bad practices, and bad data made bad models.

The researchers involved likely had the purest intentions, but without the discipline of good science, they produced flawed outcomes — outcomes that were pressed into service in the field, to no benefit, and possibly to patients’ detriment.

There are statistical techniques for compensating for fragmentary and heterogeneous data — they are difficult and labor-intensive, and work best through collaboration and disclosure, not secrecy and competition.

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

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

[boldlyvoid]

Freezer Burns | Chapter 7

Chapter Seven | Masterlist 18+ Chapter

Summary: Mean girl Steve makes a comeback

Warnings: implied/referenced rape (past), Angst with a happy ending, Eddie moves in with Grandma Beth, Steve has a panic attack, First Fights, Toxic reactions, suicidal ideation,

Word Count: 3.8k

He tells Grandma Beth everything through heaving breaths and teary eyes, still hardly able to believe it all himself. She rubs his back and wipes his tears, whispering that she’s sorry and she’s there for him as long as he needs her because she loves him. 

“But what do I do?” He whispers. “I can’t tell Steve but I also can’t keep it a secret, and I sure as hell can’t tell Dustin 'cause the little twerp will try and talk to Dick who doesn’t want anything to do with him and that’ll fuck him up even more,” he panics as he thinks about all the possible outcomes.

And none of them seemed good. 

“They should know. They both have the right to know and they’ll probably figure it out at some point and if you don’t tell them it’s going to eat you alive,” she reads him like a book. “If I suggest that you have them come here for dinner and tell them together at the same time, are you going to be able to talk to Steve until then?” 

“No,” he sighs. “I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to look at him tonight after work… god, of all the days for this to happen it really had to be right after we f— I’m sorry.” 

“No, no,” she bites back a smile, “it’s fine, you’re adults. But that’s life isn’t it… the worst things always happen when you’re least expecting it.” 

“We were so happy this morning,” he tears up again, leaning back in his chair and covering his face in his hands. “I can’t believe he ruined this for me.” 

“Nothing is ruined, love,” she assures him. “We just need a plan… I can move some things around downstairs and you can have Gareth’s dad’s old room and I’ll take you to get the rest of your things after Wayne leaves for work. You can tell Steve when you’re ready, I’ll call Claudia and see if we can talk and get a bigger picture because at the end of the day, this was a secret for Dustin's sake and we need to consider what unravelling this can do to him.” 

“God, you’re right,” he groans. “Their dad is so terrible.”

“But Steve ended up wonderful and Dustin is a sweetheart, they will have each other still, which I think they’ll value more than having a dad,” she explains. “Look at Robin and Gareth, I raised their parents and they’re the meanest, cruellest, coldhearted bastards there are. They don’t need a good mom and dad, they have each other, and they have me, Dustin and Steve will be the same.” 

He fully believes her, she’s never wrong, her optimism is so powerful it swings the balance of things and works in her favour. 

“And me,” he whispers, “you’ve got me too… right?” 

“Always,” she wraps him up in another hug, kissing his head gently. 

—

Steve and Robin come home to an empty kitchen, grandma beth was busy all day so there are leftovers in the fridge. Eddie isn’t in the garage, the guys haven’t seen him all day, he never came into Scoops for a treat or a kiss or anything, he’s just disappeared since Steve saw him this morning. The weirdest part, however, his van is parked outside. 

Steve asks Gareth if he’s seen him, but he hasn’t. Robins had been with him all day so she wouldn’t know where Eddie is. Grandma Beth is in bed after her long day, so he can’t go bother her and see if she knows. 

He uses the kitchen phone to call Eddie’s trailer, but there’s no answer. He calls mike, Mr. Wheeler says she hasn’t seen Eddie at all either. It bothers him deeply that he doesn’t know where Eddie is, to the point where he gets his shoes on and heads outside to peek into the windows of his van for clues. 

He’s not in there either. 

He doesn’t even say goodbye to Robin, he just gets in his car and drives to the trailer to see if maybe he got a flat at Gareth’s and walked home for the night… which would be even fucking weirder than him just disappearing into thin air like this. 

All the lights at his trailer are off, so he could be asleep? Steve knocks on the door, “Eddie? Eddie are you in there?” 

There isn’t a single answer. The trailer park is quiet, the sky’s a bright purple from the sun had barely set, the crickets are loud in the bush, and it’s silent in the worst way possible. 

He walks back to his car and opens the glove box to retrieve a flashlight, returning to the side of the trailer where Eddie’s room is. He stands on his tip-toes, shining the light into the room to see it’s completely different from what it was like yesterday morning. The walls are bare, his things are gone, the bed is made… it’s not his anymore. 

He backs away in fear, staring at the trailer like he pulled up to the wrong one but he didn’t. He knew this was Eddie’s trailer the last time he was here so why is it suddenly empty now? Did he dream up the last few weeks? Was this all happening in his mind cause he’s been in a coma this whole time? He spins in circles, unable to catch his breath, panicking about where the love of his life is. 

He gets back in his car quickly and drives back to his own house, the front door was locked, the back gate is still latched, and no one was there… He really hoped Eddie was just waiting at his parent's house for him so they could pick up where they left off but he isn’t. 

He drives downtown, and none of the people walking the streets are Eddie. He parks out front of the police station and it takes him a good 10 minutes to have the nerve to even just go in and look around just for the slight chance that he was arrested or something… but they haven’t seen him. They call the hospital too, he hasn’t been admitted and there are no John Doe’s matching his description either. And no one died today, no bodies were found. It was a quiet night in Hawkins...

He grips the steering wheel like his life depends on it the whole way home, breathing deep in and out of his nose to stay calm or else he’d start screaming. This wasn’t like him, he was always around and now he was fo where to be found. 

He bangs on the garage door until Gareth opens up in just his boxers, scars on display and hair messy, “what the fuck, man?” 

“Eddie’s room is empty,” the words rush out. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him, but I can’t find him.” 

“What?” He rubs his eyes and shakes his head, “what do you mean his room is empty?” 

“It’s completely clean and not a single poster is on the walls anymore, it’s like he moved out?” Steve explains further. “But his van is here,” he points out at the driveway. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him?” 

He shakes his head, “not since the party… me and Jeff were at work from 10 til 6, the van was here when we got home but my grandma never said he was over?” 

“I’m going to have a heart attack,” he grips his chest dramatically, finding his balance as he leans against the wall. “Oh my god?” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Gareth reaches out for him, rubbing his arms to soothe him and pull him inside. “We’ll go ask my grandma, she said we can wake her up for any issue. This is an issue.” 

“Okay,” Steve agrees, following him inside the garage to see Jeff sitting up in bed, one eye open as Gareth flicks the lights on. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Eddie’s missing,” Steve announces waking him right up. 

“Seriously?” He gets out of bed and quickly throws his clothes on, Gareth does the same. “Are you sure he’s not just here somewhere?” 

“Where? There are 2 bedrooms and they’re taken and the kitchen and living room are empty, and he’s not in here?” Steve points around. 

“Well, my dad used to have a room in the basement,” Gareth remembers, “it’s full of Christmas decorations though…” 

“Where is it?” 

“It’s the door opposite that one,” he points at the garage door that leads to the house, not the one that leads outside. 

Steve rushes through the door and then rips open the other one, he flicks on the light and runs down the old wooden steps, “Eddie?!” 

“Huh?” He sits up on the bed, hair a mess, face pussy and swollen, “Steve?” 

“What the fuck?” Steve loses it then.

“Hm?” He’s still out of it, the room smells like weed and his eyes are still bloodshot, he hasn’t been asleep for long. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you? What the fuck is going on?” He talks with his hands, big and expressive and emotional. “I thought maybe you ran away or hurt yourself or got arrested? I was checking everywhere, the police station, the hospital, the morgue, what the fuck?” 

“I’m sorry,” he cowers at the sound of Steve’s voice. He’s so mad, even if it’s coming from a place of concern, he doesn’t like it. 

Steve notices that and drops his tone back down. “Did sleeping together freak you out or something?” Steve tries not to yell but he’s been building this up for hours. 

Eddie just shakes his head, unable to speak. 

“You said you wouldn’t do this to me? What did I—”

“It’s not you,” Eddie tries to keep his own voice down too as he cuts him off. “I got in a big fight with Wayne about you today and he kicked me out, I didn’t want to go to the kitchen, I don’t want this to be real, I just wanted to sleep,” he cries. “I’m so tired… I’m sorry, Steve.” 

“Oh, baby,” Steve gets into the bed with him and holds him tight. 

Just then, Jeff and Gareth run down the stairs and look around at all eddies things set up. “What the fuck? Did you move in?” 

He nods against Steve, unable to pull his head away from the crook of his neck. “Yeah,” he cries harder. 

Steve turns to them, all 3 with the same matching sympathetic look. They’ve never seen him break down like this before and it’s weird. He was always the strong one for them, they didn’t know he could even break down like this, his voice almost gone from how hard he cried. 

“I’ve got it,” Steve tells them carefully, letting them know it’s okay to head back up the stairs and to bed. So they leave quietly while Eddie keeps crying against him. 

“You can tell me what happened when you want to?” Steve whispers into his hair before kissing the top of his head. 

“No… I don’t know how.” 

“But it was about me?” He worries, thinking their relationship made him homeless. “He hates me doesn’t he?” 

He nods, “your dad fucked his girlfriend… he can’t handle the thought of you actually being a good person.” 

“I fucking hate him,” Steve announces, “my dad that is. I’ve always hated him but this is the icing on the cake. I’ll change my last fucking name if I have to, seriously, I am not like him at all and if I have to go yell at Wayne myself to prove it I fucking will.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Eddie shakes it off. 

“Is it?” Steve doesn’t believe him, “cause the way you were just crying has me fucking terrified, Eds.”

“I want to tell you everything,” he whispers, pulling away slowly and wiping his eyes. “But I don’t want to ruin your life either.”

“You won’t,” he places his hand under eddies chin and directs his eyes up at him. “You can’t ruin my life. As long as you’re in it, it’s perfect.” 

Eddie looks so panicked, truly scared by what he knows. “It’s going to ruin your life, Steve. But knowing the truth is killing me.” 

“So tell me.” Steve doesn’t blink, he moves in closer, staring Eddie down. “Do it. Tell me.” 

“You have a half-brother,” he whispers. 

“I know—

“But I know who he is,” Eddie cuts him off, wagging his finger back and forth between them. “We know who he is.”  

“What?” Steve backs up a little then, brain running a mile a minute to try and comprehend everything. 

“Your dad fucked Wayne's girlfriend and got her knocked up and that’s why he hates him. He paid her off, he didn’t want anything to do with the kid and Wayne’s been jealous ever since,” he explains. “I think 'cause he wanted to have kids with Claudia…”

Steve can’t place the name but he’s heard it before, he knows someone named Claudia, he’s sure of it. 

“He moved here in grade 4,” Eddie continues to drop hints. “He’s in mikes grade now…”

Steve laughs as it all hits him like a freight train, “no. you’re kidding. Your uncle is yanking my chain, he’s just trying to start shit between us because of my dad. He’s doing this on purpose, we don’t know who it is. He’s lying.” 

“No,” Eddie shakes his head, completely sincere. “I’m completely serious… Wayne wanted to be a dad and your dad stole that from him.” 

“With who?” 

“Claudia Henderson.” 

He laughs again, truly shocked and scared at the same time, “no… no you’re literally joking. This is a prank. You’re high or something,” he gets up off the bed, standing at the foot and shaking his head and both hands, “no. I don’t fucking believe you.” 

“Dustin doesn’t know his dad,” Eddie reminds him. “Claudia has a lot of money and doesn’t work anymore and your dad started hating you more when you brought Dustin home the first time, didn’t he?” 

Eddie knew more than anyone about just how fucking evil Steve’s dad was to him growing up, even more so in the last 2 years. 

“You're an asshole, you can’t use that against me in this. That’s not why he hates me, you’re so fucking gullible if you think that Wayne was being honest,” Steve shakes his head with regret and confusion, getting meaner as he gets more upset. “Don’t ever fucking talk to me again. It’s over.” 

“Steve,” Eddie reaches out for him but he’s gone too soon. Turning away and running up the stairs, he slams the basement door before Eddie even starts to get off the bed. 

Eddie runs upstairs, catching the door before Steve can slam it too and chases him into the yard, barefoot. “Steve! Are you being fucking serious right now? Do you really think I’d lie about this?” 

“I don’t know what you’d do, I barely know you!” He fights back. 

“No! I got kicked out of my fucking house for you, you can’t do this to me! You literally asked to know!” He yells back, crying. 

Steve grabs his keys from his pocket and starts to unlock his door, he reefs the door open only for Eddie to slam it shut and hold it closed. “Look at me, Steve. Fuckin' look at me!” 

He turns to him with his jaw clenched and his nostrils flaring. 

“Steve, don’t do this to me. I can’t lose you too, I can’t do this anymore,” he keeps crying. “I can’t keep losing everyone I love, I will kill myself.” 

“No you won’t,” Steve snaps out of it then. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

“Dramatic isn’t it?” He snaps back. “Now you know how I feel. You can’t just break up with me instead of talking to me.” 

He lets out a huff of air, “fine. Yeah, it was dramatic. But how the fuck else am I supposed to react to that?” 

“I got kicked out, how do you think I reacted?” He raises his brows, knowing he’s right. “He told me to never let you near Dustin and I told him that controlling me made him just as bad as Dick fucking Harrington.” 

“Ouch,” Steve agrees. “That’s my worst fear.” 

“Which I tried to tell him,” Eddie adds. “Believe me, I tried, I really wanted him to like you but this whole thing has him all fucked up… I just can’t believe he did that.” 

Steve carefully reaches out for him and Eddie see’s it on his face, he wants a hug. They lunge for each other, hugging so tight they can barely breathe, “I’m sorry,” they whisper at the same time and then laugh at how stupid they feel for blowing up like that. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Eddie adds, “the killing myself part, I just wanted to be as dramatic, I really wouldn’t leave you like that or blame it on you if I did…” 

“I don’t want to break up,” Steve accepts it by apologizing himself. “I love you too much.” 

“I love you, too,” Eddie whispers. 

He settles then, still overwhelmed and emotional. He was so scared for him and then he was horrified and hurt and anxious all at the same time. It was more than he felt fighting literal monsters last year.

“Come back inside?” Eddie asks, pulling away slightly. 

Thats when Steve sees that he’s barefoot. 

“Oh my god, yes, you’re going to freeze out here,” he worries, rushing them inside and all but pushing Eddie through the front door. 

They settle back down in the basement, he looks around Eddie’s new room with a smile, “this is nice, how come I didn’t know there was a basement?” 

He shrugs, “it was a mess before me and Beth tackled it today… she drove with me to the trailer after Wayne left for work and she helped me pack my things and set it all up.” 

“She’s the best,” Steve smiles. “Does she know?” 

He nods, “she’s going to see Claudia tomorrow and ask her for the full picture… we all need to think about Dustin and how it was a secret to protect him.” 

He nods with a deep sigh, “if we do tell him, I need to warn him that our dad isn’t a good guy… he’s been dreaming about having a dad and siblings and a real family his whole life, my dad isn’t that. He’s a monster.” 

“He already sees you like a father,” Eddie says it likes it nothing, folding the sheets on his bed back and getting back under the covers. He leaves space for Steve, patting the bed for him to come over. 

“You think?” He asks, toeing off his shoes and removing his pants next. He gets in with just his boxers and t-shirt on, cuddling into Eddie right away.

“I know,” he smiles, holding him close. “When he finds out it’s going to be the coolest thing in the world for him.” 

“It’s weird that I can actually picture Wayne and Claudia together,” Steve explains. “She’s so much like Dustin and Wayne’s so much like you, they’d get along so well…” 

“He didn’t go into details but I don’t think she was fully there when she got pregnant,” he admits. “It was a work trip, she was his secretary and Wayne said she was drunk…” 

“God,” he presses his head against Eddie’s chest. “Fuck, he would, too. Of fucking course he’s worse than I imagined.” 

Eddie rubs his back gently, “you’re nothing like him. You could never even dream of being like him… you were just placed here by something more powerful who knew you’d be able to change the world.” 

“Funny,” he shrugs it off, still not able to take compliments. “I don’t feel like a hero.” 

“From what I’ve heard, you kept all those little brats alive during the end of the world, that makes you a hero,” Eddie brags. “And you’re my hero…”

“I would’ve killed someone trying to find you,” he admits. “I’m so sorry I almost ruined this… I’m just so used to yelling and running away.” 

“I get it,” he keeps rubbing Steve’s back. “I uh… I’m sorry for saying what I did, too, I mean, really… I’ve had such a hard fucking day and all I can think is it would hurt less if I died too…”

“Eddie, baby,” he sounds so broken when he says it. Sitting up and pulling him up too, he cups eddies face and looks at him. “It hurts right now, I’ll hurt a little next week, and then it won’t hurt… and we’ll get back to good days like we had yesterday and we’ll live out the lives we deserve together. Live for the hope of it all, for me?” 

“My mom would’ve loved you,” he breaks down again, eyes welling with tears as his lips wobbled. He clenches his jaw, breathing out of his nose so he stays calm. “She said something like that before she died.” 

“She was a smart lady,” Steve smiles, tearing up just as much. “and she made a wonderful, beautiful man because of it. She’d be really proud of you.” 

“And you,” he can’t help but think about how perfect life would be if she was around. “She knew all about my crush on you in middle school, she’s the first person I came out to…”

“Wait, what?” He can't believe it. “Middle school? You’ve liked me that long and never talked to me?” 

“Yep,” he manages to smile. “Do you even remember me in middle school?” 

He nods, thinking back as hard as he can, “you had a buzzcut and you and Jeff played your guitars in the talent show.” 

He can’t believe he remembers that “yeah, that was a year before Gareth moved here.” 

“I need to apologize to him in the morning too,” Steve reflects. “I woke him up and scared the shit out of him too.” 

“I thought if I wasn’t in the kitchen you’d just go back to bed with Robin,” he admits that he wasn’t in there on purpose. 

“I needed you so I went to the trailer,” he admits. “You said I knew where to find you when I needed you and then none of your things were there. I think I genuinely had a mental breakdown at that moment cause I started to believe I made you up and you never lived there and thats why your things were gone.” 

“I’m very real,” he places his hand over Steve’s and guides it down to his heart. “And all yours.” 

“Forever,” Steve whispers, damn sure of himself. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” he whispers back. 

Leaning in for a kiss, the love radiates from their chests in this beautiful ultraviolet light, reminding them how their love was worth the fight. Basking in the afterglow, everything was fine, and it always would be.

General Taglist 

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @wroteclassicaly @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 

Steddie

@nosaladallowed-ao3 @maya-custodios-dionach @wifeyreid @girl-with-an-orange-cat

[soulsxng]

Rules, tag 10 followers  you want to get to know better!

Tagged by: @sansloii​​ Tagging: steal it from me!

Name: Aya, Riah, Rai-rai. I noticed there's a lot of people that pronounce Aya like...(the letter) A-yah, but it's actually Ai-yah. Riah is Rai-ah.

Star Sign: Sagittarius sun, Libra moon, Cancer rising!

Height: 5'9" (I shrank a little, weh.)

Middle name: It's a secret c: I'll just say that it's a super common one.

Put your itunes/spotify/youtube on shuffle. What are the first 6 songs that popped up? (*puts the bigass master youtube playlist on shuffle and shrugs tbh*)

Mon.ster H.unter: World - V.aal Ha.zak theme (FalKKonE metal arrange)

La La Latch (Pentatonix)

The Reverberation Ensemble (StudioEIM)

Requiem (Chogakusei cover)

Kisaragi Station (nqrse)

Put Your Records On (Corinne Bailey Rae)

Ever had a poem or song written about you: I have, a few times! When we were still in elementary school, my little bro wrote a poem about me for class. And then I had a group of friends write a song about me when I was in high school (I had been dealing with The Big C at the time and was in the hospital, and they wrote it to cheer me up. It made me cry orz)

When was the last time you played air guitar: I'm more of a random dancing/wiggling randomly when music is playing type. Oh! Actually, it was a few weeks ago, because I was messing with my little sister while I was visiting her at work. That was an air banjo though, from an inside joke I have with my siblings.

Who is your celebrity crush?: I don't think I have one? That feels like a cop out though, so I'll say that I'm a big fan of Ol.an Ro.gers? He's hilarious. Me, my wife, and a few of our friends got to meet him last year actually, and it was a lot of fun!

What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?: FUCKIN-- okay so there's a lot of bad sounds out there, but one that has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time? People chewing with their mouth open, or sucking on their teeth a lot. OH, ALSO SUPER HIGH PITCHED NOISES. Like when movies and stuff play that like...tinnitus noise sometimes?

As for a sound I like, uh...it's sort of hard to explain, but sometimes when you hear people singing a harmony, if the voices line up perfectly, you can naturally hear what's called an overtone. I might have to look for a video or something, but essentially, you can hear a pitch the next octave up from one of the harmonized notes even though nobody is singing it. It's super cool, and gives me goosebumps every time. It occurs in instrumental harmonies too, iirc?

Do you believe in ghosts?: Kinda? I guess it depends on the circumstance.

How about aliens: I mean, yeah. I think it's scarier to believe that we're the only planet out there with intelligent life and whatnot on it, than to believe that there's others out there that we just haven't encountered, yet. Also, the odds of that are just astronomically low anyway.

Do you drive?: I do! Where I live, it'd be kind of impossible to not have either me or Kei able to do so. Plus I just enjoy it overall, most of the time.

if so have you ever crashed: Nope! I've been driving for like 13 years now (started a little before I turned 15, shhh), and haven't had any accidents.

What was the last book you read?: Uhhh I think it was MDZS book...5? Whichever one just released earlier this month. Otherwise, it was The Starless Crown.

Do you like the smell of gasoline: Diesal, nah. It makes me gag. Regular gas...eh. I'm indifferent to it. Unless it's rancid gasoline, in which case, it also makes me gag.

What was the last movie you saw?: ...I think it was the D&D movie? I'm gonna be honest, I watch very little tv, and very few movies.

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?: I guess it would be from when I was in like 9th grade? I was sledding with some friends, and we were at this massive hill, having fun and being stupid. It was fine, but there was part of the hill that the snow plows liked to push snow from the parking lot into. So there was a big snow pile off to the side, and because I'm in a state known for the bitter cold, these piles might as well have been-- as I referred to them when I was a teenager-- small glaciers lmao.

Anyway, random fun fact, but the average sled speed on a decently sized hill is like 20mph. (can't remember where I learned that though so don't quote me on it) This hill was especially steep, so I want to say that I was going even faster than that, I got bumped into by one of my friends about 3/4ths of the way down, and slammed into the of one of these frozen slowplow piles full force before I could stop myself or roll off the sled. I hit the entire right side of my body, but mostly my thigh.

The resulting bruise was so severe (It was a bone-deep bruise over most of it. The doctor that saw me afterwards thought I had been in a car crash!), that if you were to touch my right thigh even now, you can still feel the muscular scarring it left. Yeah though, it's from like...just a little above my knee, to just below my hip.

Do you have any obsessions right now?: Probably Eld.en R.ing. I've been on and off of obsession with that since it came out, and obviously rn is one of those "on" periods! Singing is always an obsession of mine, same with dog stuff (specifically training/behavior/health related stuff), aaaand...worldbuilding stuff. Like the deep, almost scientific worldbuilding stuff that I probably won't have any reason to share with anyone else, but will randomly babble at Kei about while she's captive in my car and my mind has clung to one idea in particular.

[127-mile]

Bots and books.

Pairing: Artificial intelligence Ten x female reader.

Genre: AI, bookstore | Fluff, angst.

Warnings: Ten thinks robots are superior to humans.

Plot: When your boss asked you to train the new employee, you didn’t think you would end up with a robot freshly out of the factory.

Word count: +5.3k.

A/N: This is part of the AI project #14320 collab hosted by @pastelsicheng​​​.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

When you hear Taeil's voice behind you, you drop the book you were holding, and when it crashes on your foot, you pursed your lips so as not to be vulgar when so many customers are in the store. "Oh boy, I'm sorry, I should have warned you that I was here." Taeil whispers, and when you look over your shoulder, you notice that he doesn't look embarrassed by the situation, or ashamed, on the contrary, he looks amused.

"I feel like you are trying to hurt me, am I wrong?" you ask, squinting, and he shrugs. At least he bends down to pick up the book and put it where it was supposed to go. "Maybe I'm just trying to get you to go home because you're spending too much time here, maybe I didn't do it on purpose, who knows." If he wasn't your boss, you would have insulted him, but you care about your job, and you like being able to pay your rent every month without having to ask your parents for help.

“I don't spend too much time here, I even think that I don't spend enough time here. But getting back to what caused you to come bother me, yes we can talk. What do you want?" you turn completely towards him, and you tilt your head to the side. "We're going to have a new employee tomorrow, and I was wondering if you could take care of him, show him how the bookstore works, show him how to use the cash register, you know, everything that I taught you when I hired you."

"Aren't you supposed to take care of it, as the boss?" you ask, and he takes his hands out of the pockets of his pants when a client approaches, he smiles at her, and when she disappears, he regains his slumped position. "Are you listening when I'm talking to you?" you know it's a rhetorical question and yet you shake your head, you're not going to lie, you tend to stop listening when he talks for too long. Can he blame you? He has a soft voice that lulls you to sleep.

"I vividly remember telling you last week that I had to go away for a few days. I have an appointment in another city for my next book." oh yes, you remember hearing him mention a new book, an appointment with his publisher, and other people who might help him, but you don't remember hearing him mention the date, or how long he would be gone. "Am I going to have to spend weeks putting books away with your head on the cover? I better get a raise for that!"

"Why would you get a raise, you should be happy to see my face on books!" you could tell him that yes, it's an honor to work with a famous writer, but you don't want to give him that pleasure. "So if I have to take care of the new employee, does that mean that I will also be the boss until you come back from your vacation?"

"It's not a vacation," he mumbles, and you smirk, it's so easy to annoy Taeil, and that's why you like him so much. "but yes, you will be in charge of the store until I return. So are you okay with that?" you know you don't have a choice, that you are the only person working here that he trusts enough to entrust his shop, his baby. "Of course I agree! I won't miss an opportunity to turn a new employee against you."

"Maybe I'll take this opportunity away from the store to find a new employee, to replace you. I've had enough of you!" you're very happy that customers are around, otherwise he certainly would have shouted to sound more dramatic. "You can't fire me, because I'll ruin your business, and you love me way too much, you'll be bored without me. Do I also need to remind you that you wouldn't have a manuscript for your editor to read if I hadn't been there to force you to write?"

Rather than respond, Taeil walks away muttering something between clenched teeth, and if a client wasn't calling for your help to find a book, you most likely would have laughed at his behavior.

Night has fallen for an hour or so when you finally lock the bookstore door behind you, and when the cold wind caresses your cheeks, you sigh deeply. You like this place, it's a bit of a second home for you, but good god, you want to be at home, even if you have to deal with your roommates' antics until you fall asleep.

"Excuse me?"

Your blood freeze in your body, you should have checked that no one was around the store when you went out, because Taeil is already gone, and he won't be there to help you if a drunken idiot, or a little too pushy keeps you from coming home. You take a deep breath, but it hitches in your throat when you turn on your heels. "Can I help you?" you ask in a voice that you hope is not too shaky.

The young man stays silent for a while, and you frown when he tilts his head a little too slowly not to look like a killer straight out of the horror movies you love so much. You clear your throat, and he seems to take notice of the question put to him, so he nods, extending a hand to you. "You dropped that." in his hand, you see the notebook that you always keep in your bag, bag that you have thrown over your shoulder without even taking the time to close it.

The lump that had formed in your throat is disappearing as quickly as it came, and you refrain from sighing in relief. "Oh, thank you very much!" you take the notebook that you put in your bag before closing the zip. "Thank you?" the young man answers, but before you can open your mouth he walks away from the shop.

You happen to meet strange people, but this is the first time you've met someone like him, someone who seems surprised to have been thanked for something as mundane as returning a notebook. Taeil would say that this is a person's first life on earth. Him and his writer mind.

Even though the stranger didn't look dangerous, you make sure he got far enough away to walk in the direction of the stairs leading to the underground metro. If you're not a fan of this place, you like being there at this late hour, because it's not so crowded, and it's easy for you to find a seat in the metro. You push your headphones into your ears, and you look up at the screen near the sliding door.

You roll your eyes when you see the ads for LSM going on. If you were to earn $10 every time you saw it on TV, or heard it on the radio, you would have enough to pay your rent for at least six months without needing to work. This really isn't an exaggeration, the company really wants everyone to know about what they are offering, new updates on their bots, and how excited they are to have sent the most of their new robots in the world for work, for study, or for entertainment.

You have nothing against robots, you just think it's a shame to take jobs from people who genuinely need to work, but apparently: "robots aren't here to replace you, they're here to make it easier for you. Do not be scared, technology is good, we need it." You're not sure if you're okay with that, and you'll let it know when the robots take over the world.

Lost in your thoughts, you almost forget to get up to get out of the metro, these damn robots will end up making you miss your stop. Yes, sometimes it's much easier to blame the robots than it is to accept your responsibilities.

"Johnny, if you don't get out of the bathroom in a minute, I swear to god I'll make you swallow your camera!"

you growl, and you open your eyes. Why do you always have to wake up regretting all the decisions that brought you here, living with two roommates who are ready to tear their heads off at the first opportunity offered to them. "And I'll make you eat your books back if you do that!" you hear Johnny respond, and you wonder why the neighbors haven't filed a noise complaint yet. You would have done it since day one.

"Doyoung, you don't work Saturdays, why are you already up?" you ask in a voice loud enough to be heard, and what you didn't want to happen happens. The door opens, and your gaze meets Doyoung's, he has furrowed brows and dark circles, since when has he not slept? "For your information, young lady, I would be sleeping if Johnny hadn't knocked on my door at six in the morning to ask me for the time!"

"Not that I want to stand up for him, but you looked for it by setting his alarm clock to go off at five the other day." you answer, and he rolls his eyes as he walks into your room to drop into the bed, and you groan when his back blocks your legs. "Doyoung, I have to go to work, so if you could move that would be very nice." he doesn't move, and you wiggle your legs until you can free one. "As soon as I convince Taeil to give me a raise, I'll find myself another apartment and I won't have to deal with you anymore." you mumble, and Doyoung chuckles.

"Even if he agreed to give you a raise, which he won't do until he has published two more books, you won't leave. You don't like silence, and you will miss us too much after the first day." he's not wrong, but you could always find a new roommate. "It's okay, I'll find someone else. Someone who doesn't make me want to throw myself out the window every morning."

"If you need help finding a new roommate, ask us, we'll be happy to help." you sigh when you hear Johnny, and when you turn your head, you roll your eyes. Johnny is in the doorframe, a towel hanging low around his hips, and drops of water falling from his hair. "We'll find you someone good. Or someone worse than us, Doyoung and I will have to talk about it before we decide."

Before Doyoung can react, you free your second leg, grab your clothes for the day, and head to the bathroom, not without pushing Johnny out of the way. "Y/n, I'll make you eat your fucking books!" Doyoung growls as he straightens up, and you laugh. You know he can do it, but before that, he'll take the time to find the worst book in your book shelves to do it, so you'll have plenty of time to run away, change your identity and be forgotten.

You need less time than Johnny to shower, and to be ready to go. When you come out of the bathroom, you notice that the two boys are still in your room, and they are chatting as if they hadn't threatened each other less than twenty minutes ago. "Are you going to stay in my bed? Don't you have bedrooms, or a couch where you can talk?" Doyoung looks up, and he smirks. "Your bed is much more comfortable. We're talking about what to do with this room when you're gone." little shit.

"Well, since I'm apparently the only one working here, I'm going to go. See you tonight, or never." you get your bag that you throw on your shoulder and you stick your tongue out at Johnny who waves to you without moving from your bed, the sheets are going to be damp because of him, and you want to hit him for that, but that might make you late for work.

You leave the apartment, and like the day before, you quickly find the stairs leading to the underground metro, and unlike yesterday, it's more difficult to find your way through the students, workers and partygoers who have just returned from a party the night before. You concentrate on your breathing to avoid letting yourself be overwhelmed by the different smells of perfume, sweat, and alcohol.

When the doors slide open, you quickly get out of the train, and you find the outside. You never thought you would miss the clean air as much as since you started taking the subway to work. Since Taeil is away, the shop is still closed, and it takes you at least five minutes to find the keys in your bag, and for a second, you wonder if you haven't left them at home, but you sigh with relief when your fingers come in contact with the cold surface of a key.

You unlock the door, and walk into the store smiling at the familiar scent of old books piling up in part of the store. When you started working here, you asked Taeil what the old books were for, that they would never be sold, but now you see the charm of the old book with the damaged binding, the sound of the pages, and you wouldn't do without them. You put your bag on the counter, and you turn on the lights.

Taeil must have gone to the store before leaving, because you can find the boxes already behind the counter. You could have taken care of the delivery, but Taeil likes to check that everything is there, even if he might be late for an appointment that could really change his writing life, even if in your opinion, he is already quite popular and doesn't need more help.

You sit up when you hear the door open, and you open your mouth. "We're not open yet, sorry." you say, and if you expected the door to close, it stays open, and when you look at the person, your eyes open wide. This is the man who gave you your notebook back last night, and once again, he tilts his head far too slowly not to be awkward to watch.

“I'm LC27296,” he begins, but he shakes his head with a certain vigor that you would never have at this time of the morning. "I'm Ten, I'm going to work here." your mouth opens, but no sound comes out. For a minute, you forgot that you were supposed to take care of the new employee. "Taeil told me to come before the opening to make it easier." oh he did that?

"Before I introduce myself, I have a question for you. What were you doing here last night?" you ask and he suddenly seems nervous. "I- I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted to make sure of how long it would take me to get here, so that I wouldn't be late for my first day." you hum, not sure you believe it, but it's not like you can accuse him of something without having any proof whatsoever. "Alright. I'm Y/n, I'll take care of teaching you how the store works until Taeil comes back in a few days. You can shut the door."

Ten does, and he approaches the counter, he doesn't seem in his element, but if Taeil hired him it's because he saw something in him. "Why did you give me numbers when I asked you for your name?" you suddenly ask, curious.

"Oh! It's my serial number, but I was told I had to introduce myself with my name, it makes it easier to fit in." a serial number, what the hell? You frown as you take your phone from the pocket of your jacket, and you open up the conversation with Taeil.

To Taeil: A serial number, what's wrong with the guy you hired?

Taeil must still be in the car, or on the train, since the answer is not long in coming. You shouldn't ignore Ten, but you need an answer before you decide whether you want to be locked up with a stranger all day, or not.

From Taeil: Ten is a robot. LSM sent me a letter a few weeks ago asking if I wanted to take any of them, and I said yes.

To Taeil: And you didn't find it useful to tell me that I was going to have to train a robot? And besides, aren't they already programmed to know how to do everything, why should I waste my time training him? Is this your way of telling me that I'm fired and that you will only hire bots from now on?

You don't get a response, which shouldn't surprise you, so you put your phone on the counter, and you meet Ten's gaze, who hasn't moved an inch. Did he himself on pause while you were busy? "So you are a robot?" you ask in a small voice, and he nods. "Yeah, you didn't know?" honestly no, even though LSM has some amazing quality robots you would expect to see them with bolts and metal.

"It's my first day away from the factory, and I'm very happy to be here!" he adds, and you roll your eyes, if he's happy that's the main thing, but you're not sure you are. "You can think of me as a human being like any other, no need to make a difference because I am superior to you." you gasp at him, but  you can't help but smile, stunned. "Just because you're made of metal doesn't mean you're superior to us. I'm sure if I throw water at you you'll rust and stop working, so in a way, I'm superior."

"You can try, but it won't work! That would be stupid to think we fear water, or fire, or anything for that matter, right?" oh, it might get hectic if he continues. "How about I show you how the store works? Because if we talk any longer, I might look for other ways to turn you off, and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" he shakes his head, a worried look on his face. Perfect.

You're going to have a serious conversation with Taeil, you think, showing him where the books go, how the cash register works, and where the storeroom is, storeroom that is also used as a rest room.

"For starters, you're going to go to the storeroom, and you're going to sort all the books alphabetically while sorting them by genre, can you do that, oh you superior robot?" you ask, tilting your head, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Of course I can do it!" Taeil never asked that the books in the storeroom to be sorted, since most are unsold books that will be donated to associations or the city library, but you don't want to have him in your legs when the first customers arrive.

You take your phone, and you send one last message to Taeil before turning on the light in the storefront indicating that the store is open.

To Taeil: This robot is an idiot, and if he pisses me off too much, I'm going to fire him whether you like it or not.

To make sure you don't receive an answer, you turn off your phone before throwing it in your bag before starting to put away the new books. And surprisingly, the morning goes off without a hitch. Ten comes out once or twice to ask you for advice on an unfamiliar book, the few customers who come in don't need your help, so that's nice.

When the time comes to close the shop for the next two hours, you enter the storeroom. Ten is sitting on the ground, and he's surrounded by books that should have been put away for a long time now, but the robot seems way too deep in reading to do the job you asked him to do. You frown. "Do you know that reading is not part of your contract?"

Ten doesn't react, he just turns the page and laughs at something he just read. "Taeil buys LSM magazines, I'll go check if I can't find an article on how to deactivate a robot if it becomes threatening." you say, and immediately Ten lifts his head to look at you. "But I'm not threatening!" he exclaims, like a petulant child would.

He may be a robot, but he has typically human reactions, which is strange in itself. At least for you. "They won't have to know when I throw your body in front of the factory you came from." you answer in a slow voice, and Ten finds himself on his feet, not without slipping a bookmark in his book so as not to lose his progress. "Sorry, I found this book, and it's so interesting I couldn't help myself."

You look at the title, and you smirk. You hide in the storeroom when you don't feel like coming home, and it's one of the books you've read. "If you don't want me to tell you who the killer is, you're going to finish putting those books away, and then I'll give you time to read until the store closes tonight, do we have a deal?"

He mumbles something between his teeth, but ends up nodding. You walk away from the room before remembering that you had a question for him, so you go back. "Do robots eat?" you wouldn't want to deprive him of his lunch break and end up with some sort of robots protection squad on your back for mistreatment. "Yes, we eat. I told you, we are like you."

"It's break time so you'll finish tidying up later." Ten passes over a pyramid of books, and he leaves the room, not without taking his book with him. "So, what are we going to eat?" he suddenly asks, and you want to take his book and hit yourself with it. "What do you mean, we?"

"Taeil told me you would take me out to eat with you so I wouldn't be alone in the store." Taeil should remember to tell you when he decides something, because you can't continue to be surprised every time he opens his mouth. "Did he say that?" a nod. "Great. I'm going home to eat, so I think you're going to meet the two most annoying people on this planet after you."

He squeals with delight and you roll your eyes as you pick up your bag. You exit the store by locking the door behind Ten, and you head for the subway train. "I love meeting new humans, you are all so fascinating!" you wonder what can be fascinating about humans, but for a robot, everything has to be. "What fascinates you so much about us?" you ask going down the stairs, being careful that Ten keeps following you, you don't feel like looking for a lost robot in the streets.

"We can feel emotions, but they're programmed for us, so it's not as real as when you feel them." human emotions are difficult to understand, humans are confusing. "I think it's pretty nice to be programmed to feel certain things, it's probably easier, less confusing."

"You're wrong," Ten starts to say, following you in the subway, he sits next to you not without looking at a little dog with stars in his eyes, as if he had never seen a dog in real life, so much so that you wonder if there are robot dogs, you'll have to ask him one of these days. "We're forced to feel the emotions, so we don't understand them. Being programmed doesn't mean we understand what's going on."

It's pretty sad, you think.

"Do you have a program that allows you to kill us if we becomes threatening for you?" you ask in a low voice so as not to attract the attention of the students around you. Ten's eyes widen and he chuckles. "No, we can't do that. We're not here to hurt you, just to help you." it's a shame, you would have needed it with Johnny and Doyoung.

"This is where we come down." Ten follows you to the door of your apartment. You can smell Doyoung's food already. He might be annoying, but when he's not working he always makes a snack for you for when you come home from work during the break, and that's very nice. "I live with two people, Johnny and Doyoung, they can be weird, and they might ask you tons of questions, so be prepared."

When you put your hand on the doorknob, Ten puts his hand on your wrist to stop you. "Wait, wait. Are they going to hurt me? Some humans can be mean when in the company of a robot." oh, he didn't sound so nervous earlier, but in a way you can understand that. "They're not mean, and they're quite fascinated by LSM's robots, so you have nothing to worry about, they won't do anything to you."

You open the door when he seems to be relaxing, and you sigh when you hear the loud voices that most likely come from the kitchen. "Johnny, how many times have I told you not to set foot in my kitchen? You're a walking hazard, you'll manage to set some water on fire if you wanted to! Get out!"

"Guys, I'm here. And I'm not alone, so if you could behave like normal people that would be really nice." you say and immediately Johnny's head pops out of the kitchen door jamb and you roll your eyes. "Oh hello mister stranger, who are you, are you our beloved Y/n's secret boyfriend?"

"I-" Ten seems unable to speak, and Johnny throws his head back when he notices the blush on Ten's cheeks as he lowers his head. "Oh, he's blushing! Adorable! He's in love but he hasn't had the courage to tell her yet. Doyoung, come see!" you should have known that they were going to mess with him. You should have warned them before you got home, threatened them, or promised to pay for the next pizza night.

"Shut up, big idiot! He's the new bookstore employee, we met this morning." you respond by swinging your bag in a corner of the apartment after removing your shoes. Ten does the same, and he follows you into the living room. You're pointing your index finger at the boys. "Johnny, Doyoung, this is Ten. He works with me."

"Oh, I didn't know Taeil was okay with hiring bots." Doyoung says, stunned. "How do you know it's a robot?" were you the only one who didn't have a clue? The only one that can't tell the difference between a robot and a human?

"It shows! And he's got LSM's name tattooed behind his ear." You'll have to go see the ophthalmologist to get glasses, because you didn't notice the black ink behind his ear. "Taeil didn't really hire me, it's just a contract for a couple of months to see how quickly I adapt to a new environment. Next time I'll be in a new place." oh, that's a detail you didn't know either, you thought Ten was here for good, at least until you got fired, or left.

"And can't you ask to stay at the bookstore for good?" you ask, sitting down in a chair, and Ten shrugs. "Why, have you already become attached to me? You refuse to see me go?" you could get up and hit him, but you don't want to break your fist if he is made of metal inside. "I said that because I wouldn't say no to less hours of work, dont think I appreciate you."

"She never introduced anyone to us, even casual employees, so you must be special." Johnny says winking at Ten, and you refrain from leaning over the table to hit him. "Taeil asked me to take care of him, what was I supposed to do, lock him in the storeroom with a piece of bread and a glass of water?"

"That's what you would have done with us, so yeah." he's not wrong, that's what you would have done if you had had Johnny and/or Doyoung as a colleague. "Anyway, we don't have all day, so if you could just leave Ten alone so we can eat." you mumble, but Ten shakes his head, apparently he doesn't mind being the center of attention. At least he knows that emotion, and he understands it, that's a good thing.

When it's time to go back to work, you almost have to pull Ten out of the apartment. "But why? I was having fun with your roommates!" of course he was having fun. "You can come back and see them if you want." you answer by going down the stairs. You have a little over thirty minutes left before you have to open the store, so rather than locking yourself in a subway train, you decide to walk.

"Really, you would let me come back?" you shrug your shoulders. "Why wouldn't I want to?" Ten plays with the hem of his hoodie, and you frown, he doesn't look like the type to be surprised or even slightly nervous over something as futil. "Because I wasn't very nice to you when I arrived this morning. But like I told you, some humans don't want us to fit in and want to harm us, and I heard so many stories that I defended myself if you ever decided to be like them."

"I don't understand robots, I don't understand LSM's motivation, but that doesn't mean I would hurt any of you. You should have waited, and you would have known it."

"I'm sorry Y/n, and I promise I'll do my job well until the end of my contract!" he exclaims, his smile back on his face. His beautiful face, moreover, you did not miss this detail. "I hope so, otherwise I won't give you time to read before closing." he gasps, but he laughs, and you have no choice but to laugh with him.

[aiweirdness]

AI + Vintage American cooking: a combination that cannot be unseen

A week ago, in a sudden fit of terrible judgement, I decided to find out what would happen if I:

Asked people to help me collect examples of the worst, the weirdest, the most gelatinous recipes that vintage American cooking has to offer, then

Trained a neural net to imitate them

People submitted over 800 recipes in all, including such recipes as:

“Beef Fudge” (contains marshmallow, chocolate chips, and ground beef),

“Circus Peanut Jello Salad” (also contains crushed pineapple and kool-whip), and

“Tropical Fruit Soup” (contains banana, grapes, and a can of cream of chicken soup)

“Lemon Lime Salad” (also contains cottage cheese, mayonnaise, and horseradish)

As I watched this dataset coalesce, much as one might watch a speeding dumpster begin to spin out of control, I began to approach the state I dreaded: all the recipes began to seem normal.

Shrimp + grapefruit + lemon jello? Citrus seafood is a thing.

Chili sauce + lemon jello + cottage cheese + mayo? Well it's not SWEETENED jello, so

I began to wonder if I would actually be able to tell the difference between the neural net recipes and the real thing. Jello was supposed to be easy-to-prepare, after all - maybe through repetition an advanced neural net like GPT-2 would learn how to make basic jello, and then anything it would decide to chuck in there would be technically reasonable. Maybe it would even coalesce on an ideal form, one that distilled human invention down to its essentials.

No, as it turns out. Here’s a neural net recipe.

It does cocktails, too.

The training data contained a lot of things. It contained eel only once. For some reason the AI has decided to use eel a LOT.

It also invents ingredients.

Some of the neural net recipes bear at least some resemblance to the human versions, but manage to mess them up profoundly. Without a sense that the recipe directions are describing ingredients and things that happen to them, the neural net never gets the hang of jello - that you need hot water to make it gel, that it doesn’t go in the oven. It also forgets to add all of its ingredients, or introduces some that were never mentioned before. This is partly because its memory is terrible, and partly because it doesn’t know what’s important.

I couldn’t find a setting at which the neural net recipes could consistently pass for human. Set the chaos levels too low and the neural net would repeat the same few recipes, forgetting a different key step or ingredient each time. Set the chaos levels too high and the neural net would get ever more inventive, producing recipes that promised creamy lime and called for golf balls or elk hide, or directed the chef to remove the lamb’s giblets.

Some of its recipes were beyond bizarre.

Remember that today's AI is much closer in brainpower to an earthworm than to a human. It can pattern-match but doesn't understand what it's doing. Commercial AI is not significantly smarter than this recipe AI. Humans have just hopefully done a better job of preventing it from making oblivious mistakes.

It got to the point where I would see a recipe like this and be excited and proud of the neural net. Then I would realize just how very low my standards had fallen.

One thing the neural net has learned from humans is that it's good to include a story with your recipe.

It is bad at this.

The neural net puts lots of words in its recipes that were never in the jello-centric training data. It’s drawing from its initial general training on internet text. It read a LOT of fanfic on the internet during its initial general training, and still remembers it now. Except now all its stories center around food.

It’s trying. It’s startlingly bad. It wants us to remove the internal rinds twice. AI’s not ready to take over the world - it can’t even figure out the kitchen.

Subscribers get bonus content: More jello-centric neural net recipes, including some that were too long to post here. Be especially afraid of the ones that aren’t exactly “recipes”.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s