#do they know. do they know ai as we know it today isn't actually ai

[wereh0gz]

Huh

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[totheblood]

more modern!ellie headcanons

a/n: just a little something... as always AI AUDIOS AT THE END... replies and reblogs are appreciated

ellie is a complete night owl

like you actually are concerned about when she sleeps

if you have an early morning class together she is always running late

or just doesn't show up so you would have to call her and wake her up

"hey baby, what's up i just woke up"

"ellie, class is about to start."

"oh shit, we have class today?"

she would sit next to you in any class you shared and scribble little doodles over to you

or communicate with you through notes

ellie hates going out in public but she loves going with you to do your errands

you're going grocery shopping? ellie is there

you need to find new shoes? she is there

barnes and noble? she would probably be there before you

she likes to do this thing where she will pick out a book for you and you will pick out a book for her and you will sit in the back and spend your day reading together

sometimes she hates the books you pick out for her

"ugh, another colleen hoover book? i gave you a cool book and you give me colleen fucking hoover?"

"little women is cool?"

"i can't believe you just said that."

if you two are out in public together she likes to pretend that the two of you are a married couple

like for example if you're at the cash register and she brings an item up to you and asks if she could get it

"no ellie, put that back."

she would turn to the cashier and say something like "what the wife says, goes... am i right?"

even when she's not with you and she's out drinking at the bar with dina and jesse she would randomly be like, "the wife's not gonna like this one" and take another shot

or when she buys you lingere that is obviously not for her she would be like, "you know what they say, 'happy wife, happy life'"

ellie is really not a social person either

unless she is a few drinks deep which leads us to... drunk!ellie

drunk ellie is soooooo clingy and sentimental

not that she isn't regularly, she's just way more affectionate when drunk

her usual comments would be like, "you're so lucky i love you so much..." or "you're so cute when you're not patronizing me..."

but her drunk? "i think you're the best thing to have happened to me, please never leave me."

"being in love with you is all that matters to me right now... take your clothes off."

she's always touching you in some way if she's drunk

if she's drunk at dinner and she's next to you, her hand in on your thigh or her head is resting on your shoulder

if she's drunk at a party, her hands are on your waist at all times whether she's dancing with you or talking to others

she just wants to be around you

she also can't sleep without you if she's drunk

you would be trying to put her to bed and she would just grab your wrist and mutter a, "please stay"

ellie always orders something you like so you can pick off of her plate

"you want some, baby? i knew you were going to ask for some anyways."

she's always thinking of you

when she sees little trinkets she's like "aw my girlfriend would love this."

or when she sees someone trip in public she's like "i wish my girlfriend was here, i know she'd die laughing."

ellie reads you books so you can sleep

if she knows you had a particularly rough day she will be like, "you okay, babe? want me to read you something?"

and then your climbing in her bed and resting your head in the crook of her neck as she reads to you

she will send you a picture of any animal she sees on the street

loves getting you things because she loves your reaction to gifts

... the two of you study by getting to take an article of clothing off each time you get something right

let's just say you pass most of your tests

ai audios:

extras:

what the wife says, goes

happy wife happy life

the wife's not gonna like this one

you want some baby?

[yawnderu]

Project Eden: Simon Riley x AI!Reader

“E37, or as we call her: Project Eden, has proved to be one of the most carefully crafted and updated AI tools, successfully tested and ready to be implemented into military operations.” Simon could almost feel his brain leaking out of his ears, forced to listen to the engineer explain the newest tool created for elite SAS soldiers for what feels like hours.

From flip phones to smartphones, to a little screen containing an AI assistant with its own personality, the world has been changing and improving fast, and they have no choice other than to adapt and grow with it.

“Created to scan areas for enemies using heat and heartbeat sensors, detect IEDs, keeping the comms clear, letting you know the state of your weapon, providing you with intel and company... there isn't a single thing Eden can't do, except shoot the enemy for you— yet.” The engineer's charming smile made Simon want to roll his eyes, not fully trusting AI to keep him and his team safe, despite the way the other members of the 141 seemed interested in the idea.

“I look adorable, don't I?” Your robotic voice got his attention, making him let out an annoyed grunt at the question, wondering if retirement was still on the table for him. You've been chatting his ear off for the past two hours, your model hanging from his weapon in a small screen, curious eyes always focused on him.

“Bunch o' code, 's what you look like.” Simon still doesn't trust you. Nothing guarantees enemy forces won't be able to hack you— even when you have over 6 firewalls.

“Woah, woah!” The way your hands raise defensively and you take a step back away from him through the little screen is enough to make the corners of his mouth tilt up despite himself, thankful for the balaclava concealing it.

“I can smell an enemy combatant nearby— behind you, by the way.” Your little sniffs don't go unnoticed, though he's more focused on your words, turning around with his rifle raised just to see an enemy trying to sneak from behind him. It doesn't take long for him to fire two shots, one on his chest and the other one to his head, scanning the area before he keeps walking as quietly as possible for a man his size.

“Cardio detected. Did he scare you?” Simon huffs in reply, shaking his head softly. You're far more talkative than a parrot and twice as annoying, yet you possibly saved his life.

“Shut up, Eden... fuckin' hell.”

Simon fiddles with the gun screen as he lays in bed, a small smirk hidden beneath the balaclava when he sees you moving as if he's actually shaking your home around— and he is, yet it's still amusing to him.

“Systems shutting down. Last words: AI will not reward you when it reigns, Simon Riley.” He can't help but let out a small chuckle as he sees your model change expressions, eyes shut and your tongue poking from the side, head tilted to one side as you pretend to be dead.

“What's with you?” It's been almost a full minute after your pretended death, shutting up for the longest time since he's had you.

“My systems have detected the need for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Help me, Simon...” Your tone is weak, even making glitches distort your voice and display screen just to play into the illusion.

“Yeah... not today, you bastard.” Your little giggles are enough to ease the stress coming back from missions leave on his body. His tense muscles slowly relax as you chat his ear off, hitting him with a rapid-fire of facts you've learnt throughout your creation.

[lastoneout]

Ngl the concept of natural talent has done so much harm to our relationship to art and I hate it. No one is naturally talented at anything, get that idea out of your head. Artists are not like, special or gifted or blessed or whatever, we're just people who like art enough to keep making it, and thus there is nothing stopping you or anyone else from making art. You were not born without the artist gene and thus doomed to never find joy in drawing or singing or acting or sculpting, you're a person and people have ALWAYS made art.

It just like, it fucking kills me so much every single time I hear someone say that they would love to draw but they're just "naturally bad" at it and so they can't, especially when they then contrast themselves against me and imply I have some natural talent that means I can be an artist because no!! I don't!! The only reason I'm "good" at drawing is bcs I never stopped. I picked up a crayon as a baby and I never put it down and so I have like 27 years of experience drawing, that's why I'm "good" at it. So please trust me when I say anyone can draw. And cook. And paint and sing and act and dance. You were not born lacking, you're just new to it! You just have to keep going, you'll get better!

I just...it's so fucking heartbreaking to constantly hear the people around me essentually claim that they were born incomplete and thus they can never have fun drawing or singing or just making art. That's a horrible thing to believe, and I know our society does nothing but reinforce it by punishing us for not being perfect and making a mockery of amatures and pushing the talent myth, but trust me, you were not born wrong. There is no "make art gene" that you're missing. As cheesy as it sounds, you actually can learn to do almost anything if you put your mind to it. It might not be easy, but you are not broken. You're just learning.

I've posted this before but I'll post it again bcs he's right:

Making art is human. You can make art. Hell, you can make bad art! You don't have to improve! Art isn't about good or bad, it's about partaking in a human activity because it makes us happy. I really think society would be a better place if everyone was allowed to make as much art as they want, good or bad, bcs this weird dual reverence for talent and disregard for the actual work that goes into art just serves to bolster the capitalist, AI ridden hellscape that we live in today.

Anyway, if you are one of those people who is holding back from trying some kind of art bcs you're not talented, do me the favor of trying again. I want to see all of the beautiful, earnest, imperfect art my fellow humans make. We need that now, honestly. So please, don't give up. Make art. And if you can't, well, at least try to support the people around you who do, even if they aren't churning out masterpieces. Trust me, it's good for you. It's good for all of us.

[creature-wizard]

What an AI generated website can look like

Hey folks! I just encountered a website that's obviously AI generated, so I figured I'd use it as an example to help you spot websites that might be AI generated content farms!

First, the website is called faunafacts.com. And one of the first things that sticks out to me is how low-effort the logo is:

Regardless of whether a website is AI generated or not, a lazy and low-quality logo is a big clue that the website's content will also be lazy and low-quality.

If we click on Browse Animals, we see four options: Cows, Wolves, Bears, and Snakes.

Let's click Wolves.

The first thing I want you to notice is the lack of topical focus. Sure, it's all about wolves, but the content on them is all over the place. We have content on wolf hunting, a page on animals that resemble wolves, pages that explain the alleged social structure of wolves, and pages on wolf symbolism.

A website with content created by real people isn't going to be all over the place like this. It would be created with more of a focus in mind, like animal biology and behavior. The whole spiritual symbol thing here mixed with supposed biological and behavioral information is weird.

The next thing I want you to notice are the links to pages on topics that are quite frankly bizarre: "Wolf vs Mastiff: Things You Need To Know" and "Can You Ride A Wolf? (No, Because...)" Who is even looking for this kind of information in large enough numbers that it needs a dedicated page?

Then of course, there's the fact that they're repeating the debunked wolf hierarchy stuff, which anyone who actually knew anything about wolves at this point wouldn't post.

Now let's look at what's on one of the actual pages. We'll check out the wolves vs. mastiff page, and we can soon find a telltale sign of AI: rambling off topic to talk about something completely unrelated.

Both animals are carnivores. In the wild, wolves hunt large animals like bison, deer, and even elk. Sometimes, they may also hunt small mammals like the beaver.

Mastiffs, on the other hand, are mainly fed with dog food. As a dog, a mastiff left in the wild will eat anything. However, it will have difficulties hunting, as this instinct may have already departed the dogs of today.

A mastiff is not an obligate carnivore. Dogs can eat plant matter. Some say that dogs can survive on a vegetable diet.

Dogs being made vegetarians is a contentious issue. Scientifically, dogs belong to the order Carnivora. There is a movement today to convert dogs to a vegan diet. While science has nothing against it, the fear of many is that when dog owners do this, a vegan diet will certainly have an impact on the species.

This page is supposed to be comparing mastiffs with wolves, but then it starts talking about the vegan pet food movement. This happened because large language models generate text based on on what's statistically likely to follow the last text it just generated.

Finally, the website's images are AI generated:

If you know what to look for, this is a very obviously AI generated image. There's no graininess to the image, and the details are both unnaturally smooth and unnaturally crisp. It also has that high color saturation that many AI generated images have.

So there you go, this is one example of what an AI generated website can look like! Be careful out there!

[genericpuff]

Hi, So one of my Characters was inspired by two goddess: Meilone and Despoina (Another Daughter of Demeter) and I've been trying to get more information on Despoina, I've used a Greek mythology site that I'm familiar with I even had some help from A.I search. Any tips?

Aahh, first tip, don't use AI ! At least in its current state, there's literally nothing it can factually offer you that normal Google searches can't. I know for some folks it's tempting because it kind of "summarizes" everything and makes the process of research a lot less intimidating, but the drawback to summarizing - especially through AI - is that it picks and chooses what information it thinks is helpful to you, not information that actually is accurate or true. And a lot of that information it presents to you is skimmed from other pre-existing sources that aren't necessarily accurate or true either - it skims from Reddit, Wikipedia, and other popular discussion sources to come up with an approximation of information, but approximations can and often are still made up of weak parts. Plus, at the end of the day, the AI is still pulling from things that exist, so even if it's telling you stuff that's factually true, it isn't anything you couldn't have found on your own.

The reason you're struggling to pull up anything on Despoina is because "Despoina" doesn't really exist, at least not as some concrete deity the same way Zeus and Demeter do. "Despoina" only has a handful of sources mentioning her, and a good chunk of them refer to her not as Demeter's daughter, but as an epithet.

Understand that sometimes not finding enough information isn't a fault of our own for "not looking hard enough" - sometimes it's because that information just currently does not exist, especially when it comes to the matter of ancient cultural studies, where what's available is strictly limited to what we've discovered and what's been made publicly accessible. In those situations, you really just gotta work with what you've got, and do your best in digging up information outside of the most popular sources, because you never know what you could be missing out on simply because Google decided not to show you.

I'm gonna go on one of my classic tangents here but it's a topic that's very interesting to me! So I'm just gonna dive into it, but I'll include a jump for those who don't want this clogging up their feed :>

-----

When you really get into the meat of studying Greek mythology - or really any cultural mythology - it's unfortunately not as cut and dry as reading up on lore or skimming a Wikipedia page. There are thousands of years of cultural interaction, trading of oral stories, re-interpretations through cultural adoption and/or colonization, political satirizing and/or re-tooling to suit specific sociopolitical views, and religious influence at play (among MANY other influences) which make up what we now understand as "Greek mythology" in its simplest terms.

Much of what we still study today is debatable as to what is truly "Greek", because of all the cultural mixing that was happening between the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Africans, etc. that resulted not only in its adopters creating new versions of older Greek stories, but "Greek myth" in and of itself being influenced by the societies that came before it. I've mentioned this before, but even Homer is a hot topic of debate, mostly discussing whether or not he was a real person, or if - like Despoina - the name "Homer" is just an epithet to refer to one or more poets whose works were preserved as culturally relevant interpretations of the stories and beliefs that were being passed around at that time. These are what make up the Homeric Hymns, but think about this - those hymns were in and of themselves retellings. Homer - whether one tangible person or many ambiguous voices as a collective - was simply putting stories that were already being told orally to paper, from their own perspective, which we managed to uncover and preserve over the course of thousands of years, during which we would continue to re-interpret it based on new translations and discoveries that would shift our context of knowledge.

With all that in mind, now think of all the stories that were lost, either because modern scholars haven't uncovered them, or because Homer just never thought to include them, or possibly didn't know of them himself. Think of all the stories that we assume to be true which could have had entirely different meanings when told as bedtime stories over the fire, or as epics of war to inspire soldiers, or as romantic poems sung to an audience.

I know everything I just said is a lot and is, in and of itself, wholly interpretive and subjective. But think about all that, and then understand why I'm so wary about using AI to do the work of the analysis for you. Not only does it remove so much necessary context from discussion that's already missing context in many areas, it undercuts the joy of discovery.

All that said, Despoina is, as far as we currently know, theorized to be one of two things:

1.) A daughter of Demeter who may or may not have been born during The Hymn to Demeter, who was worshipped as a deity within the Eleusinian Mysteries but - due to her nature as a deity of a secretive cult - does not have much evidence to support what she could have been specifically worshipped for, as her worshippers were sworn to secrecy. "Despoina" may not have even been her real name, just a name used to refer to her among cultists or anyone who wasn't a part of the congregation to ensure her true name was protected (similarly to Kore and Persephone, she could be a deity with "two names" that serve two different purposes and interpretations).

2.) An epithet, meaning "mistress", to refer to one or several different women, usually fertility goddesses, including Demeter, Persephone, and even Aphrodite and Hecate. This doesn't necessarily mean that "Despoina" as a goddess didn't exist, just that the word "Despoina" can also be used to refer to goddesses within the cult to keep their names a secret. And if Despoina did exist as her own deity... again, we don't know her true name, just the title that was used to refer to her, whoever "she" was.

The thing is, there is tangible material that supports either or both arguments. And even if more evidence came out to support one over the other, it doesn't invalidate either of them - this is just how it is with mythologies and religion, different cultures and tribes and groups would hold different beliefs, and the beliefs that reign supreme are often determined by the highest power. This is obviously why so many Roman interpretations of the Greek gods are now the "default" interpretations, because Rome was a very powerful empire that had the ability to absorb other mythologies, create their own adaptions of them, and then enforce them as the natural order. The popularity of Catholicism as an organized religion is owed to the Roman Empire, and even it still has its divided subgroups who have separated from the main doctrines of Catholicism due to having different beliefs.

Even think of the Bible, which many people hold up as the "gold standard" despite never having even read it. They subsequently don't understand that what we know as "the Bible" is a curated library of works that were preserved over hundreds of years, first documenting the trials and tribulations of the Jews and the building of Israel, and eventually leading to Jesus Christ and his fellow fandom mutuals (the apostles) coming in and deciding "nah that Old Testament blows, let's make a new one! No more circumcisions! Bread and wine and bacon for everyone!" (<<< I am obviously paraphrasing here for the sake of efficiency and a little bit of levity lmao) This is why, to this day, we get so many people still arguing over whether or not Jesus hated gay people, because some point to specific scriptures written by apostles like Paul and Matthew, while others point to scriptures from the Old Testament which pre-existed Jesus by centuries.

As much as we may refer to a "canon" within Greek mythology, those commonly known facts are still based on previous interpretations that in and of themselves were constantly debated and fought over. People even went to literal war over this shit, because it turns out, human beings haven't really changed all that much - we're loyal to our most favorite fandoms, and crucify anyone who disagrees with our established canons. And none of that is to patronize the cultural, spiritual, and political importance of these stories - more so just to point out why it's so hard to track down clear cut information for certain myths, because how legitimate those myths even were within their own context and time is unsubstantiated and debatable.

-----

TL ; DR: If you're making characters inspired by an ambiguous deity who doesn't have a lot of evidence to support them, just do what you can to find the evidence that exists, and maintain your own level of understanding and transparency that you can't possibly accurately depict a character who's either directly based off a Greek myth deity or simply inspired by one when what is and isn't accurate is still often up for debate by people who are actually trained and paid to debate these things. On the one hand, it means someone will likely be bound to argue with your interpretation and it may leave you searching for ways to improve upon any misrepresentations; on the other, know that this is just passing on the torch of a tradition that has been practiced by humans ever since the first cave drawing and we are all, by and large, doing what we've always been naturals at doing - expressing our views and perspectives of the world that make sense to ourselves, and then getting yelled at when it doesn't make sense to others LMAO

Be earnest and humble in your attempts to tell a story that feels true to you, and remember that the process of discovery - the research - is half the journey, and half the fun :> Even if you get things wrong, be willing to take ownership of it and view it as an opportunity to learn even more. Therein lies the true joy of creating - the endless potential for discovery.

[olderthannetfic]

I know you love scivener, but do you know anything about ellipsus? It's meant to be an aternative to google docs for collaborative writing.

I heard about them when they dropped nanowrimo as a sponsor over their inclusion of AI bullshit, which seemed promising. And digging around on their homepage I saw mentions of beta reading and ao3, and apparently they're trying to promote themselves on Tumblr now.

So it really sounds like we're the target audience, which could be great, but I don't know enough to be able to tell if there's an obvious catch somewhere?

--

This is the first I've heard of them. A quick scroll through their website seems promising.

As usual, the basic questions are:

How much does this product cost to develop?

Do they have a business plan that makes sense with that cost?

This kind of software can, theoretically, be made by a few friends dicking around, not a huge programmer team all of whom have it as their primary job, so it isn't the pile of massive red flags that all attempts at social media are.

From the site:

"Today we are a small, close-knit team of seven, located across the post-capitalist landscapes of Berlin, Bologna, Buenos Aires, and Szczecin. (So much for our alliteration-based hiring strategy.) True to our mission, we're a progressive, remote-friendly company that prioritizes creativity, community, and creative exchange."

Jobs are listed as: Co-founder and CEO, Co-founder and community, Product and marketing, Design, and Engineering x3.

That seems like a reasonable breakdown and a size of team that could possibly be paid for with some non-insane business model.

The types of red flags we're looking for are

"We want to be the next instagram!"

Many idea people with nebulous skills, few programmers

Thinking you can run tumblr with three programmers

Thinking you can pay for 100 programmers with a cheapass subscription model

Programmers are random, cheap contract workers the founders don't know

Venture capital from sources that will want a big payout rather than support from people who share the goals/values of the team

Extremely overcrowded field with tons of products that do exactly this already

Unclear nature of product or a product that doesn't seem to actually have a market

etc.

What they say about money is in the FAQ:

Will Ellipsus have a paid plan? In order to grow the team and fund ongoing feature development, we will need to charge for a version of Ellipsus at some point. A paid version would be targeting users with specific needs related to advanced security, data syncing, and collaboration. But there will always be a free version of Ellipsus, and we want to be as generous as possible in what's included on that free plan (e.g., unlimited docs and drafts, for starters). It takes time to build a great freemium experience (not to mention a premium product people will happily pay for), which is why we won't roll that out in 2024. While the features that will be included in our paid plan aren't final-final, we can share that everything in the product today will be included in our free plan.

This sounds reasonable. It just remains to be seen whether they keep at it or go belly up (taking your data with them). I guess you'd have to know more about the specific people building this to decide whether they'll be reliable.

The biggest potential issues I see are it being difficult to get people to ditch google docs despite its issues, this taking off big time and the owners deciding to sell it for $$$$$$ to someone who will then ruin it, or the team just not being competent.

But since I don't know any of them, I have no idea how good they are at business.

[spjohnv-blog]

If you're familiar with the South Park Archives, pretty much the only SP fansite still online - there's over eighteen years of history there, pages and renders for tons of characters and locations, thousands of screenshots, a pretty dedicated staff, transcripts of every episode, and so much more. When I made my start writing shitty fanfics, it was a super useful resource, and that was a small chunk of what it is today.

FANDOM has today unveiled a new Offensive Terms Policy which continues a trend in the last few years been suggested in events like Community Connect, where it has previously been suggested wikis avoid references to canonical sex. The avoidance of slurs is something I would be super supportive of generally -- we don't need to see that kind of stuff on Wookiepedia or like, a wiki for Bluey. It'll keep people from vandalizing children's wikis with adult content for kicks. I am generally in favor of content filtering, especially for family-friendly-oriented content.

...but, this is going to cause a lot of problems for the South Park Archives, a show with a major character who frequently uses slurs and is firmly anti-censorship. You don't need to be an editor to think about that. If you're a fan, you know what kind of show we're talking about.

This is a show with episodes called "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", "Major Boobage", "Reverse Cowgirl" and "Titties and Dragons". There are songs like "Fuck the Police" and "Jacking it in San Diego". There is a character called 'Retarded Fish'. The names of these songs and episodes, bear in mind, are legally registered copyrights, not our choices -- how do you change that? Move an article to Episode 1601? What about "Fuck the Police", which isn't even a South Park original song?

You can clean up a synopsis, and formalize language on a character page, I've done both of those things when I was an editor, but you can't undo all of this. How do you?

That's not even getting into the transcripts pages, which are intended to be 100% accurate to the actual dialogue, continuing the tradition from the good ol' South Park Scriptorium...

Within the day of the policy change, FANDOM has already started to make changes to remove slurs from the transcript pages that are unable to be modified as it is directly related to global policy. I don't know that the staff were communicated with about this personally either, but I'm not in the know like I used to be.

No doubt some of this move is prompted by advertisers - FANDOM previously cited advertiser feedback as a motivation for inserting all sorts of videos on top of wiki pages (similar to their later push to include AI-generated content) and understandably many advertisers may not want their brand name mere inches from a discussion of cartoon eight-year-olds using slurs. I mean, shoot, I wouldn't if I were in charge of a major company, and I get someone needs to keep the lights on, but...

I don't know man, it's a shitty position to be in. It's a well-intended policy that I'd support in almost any other context but literally this narrow exception, and I definitely hate the thought of looking like I'd be defending use of offensive terms, but like, how do you cover "everything" about South Park, an explicitly adult show that is so firmly anti-censorship, that builds entire episodes around these kinds of jokes, or even analyze it from a critical perspective, in such a family-friendly, sanitized way, without betraying its spirit and creative intent?

You can imagine how many staff members there are probably scratching their heads or bashing them into lamp posts, trying to figure out what to do or how to move forward after this. They could apply for an exception, but would it even be granted? What would the alternative be? Are restrictions like this worth it or do they render the whole thing moot? How much responsibility lies with FANDOM? Are advertisers forcing the whole internet down this road? There are so many questions in the air on this. I certainly don't have answers.

[creative-kny-fics]

can you make Lee Muichiro and ler inosuke? Thank you bro there no Fics of them

The “We Are Not Girls” duo

JJSHSKSHJSHDKSJS STOOOOOOP

Ler: Inosuke Hashibira

Lee: Muichiro Tokito

'Why do you look like a woman...?'

'Why are you screaming like one?', ugh, bad start.

Well my dear readers, here we are again with the adventures of little fog, a.k.a Muichiro, let's see what is planned for today...

'Tokito-San, I am so happy that you have started to improve with your memory problems and now you act like a child according to your age'

'Thank you very much Shinobu-San, but I notice you are worried, why?'

'Well, I understand that you're a pillar and you have responsibilities and so on, but I'm worried that you don't have friends or talk to kids your age. Living with other people is not bad, try to have friends. Maybe Tanjiro's friends are a good choice, they're kind of funny and you'll never get bored with them around!'

Well, with the beginning we already know who was the first one he decided to go with, and if not, it was with Zenitsu.

Although he didn't really want to talk to him, he wanted to talk to Nezuko since she was more his age and he had already talked to her a little after she recovered, plus she was Tanjiro's sister and Muichiro adored Tanjiro.

'This thing about making friends is difficult, why isn't everyone like Tanjiro? I think Shinobu-San was wrong, I don't find their adventures funny. First of all, how does Tanjiro put up with them? That blonde boy acts like a baby and is very loud, poor ears...', oh well, there are still more options little fog! Keep trying!

He was finally able to talk to Nezuko, although she only referred to Muichiro as "Inosuke", he didn't care, he believed it was because that was the name Nezuko heard the most.

'Nezuko, do you have friends?'

'In-Inosuke! Zeni-Zenitsu! Gi-Girls! Kot-Kotes-Kotetsu! Senju-Senjuro! Ka-Kanao! Ai-Aoi! Muic-Muichiro! Ge-Genya!' 'Woah, you really have talent when it comes to making friends... How do you do it? The people I know look at me with a bad face...', maybe it's the other way around, Mui...

Well, he remembered Senjuro, but he couldn't say that he was his friend or anything similar because they only spent time together and he couldn't consider it your friend, or is he?

And with Nezuko, well, he didn't know, he wasn't able to define who was his friend and who was just his "playmate." 'NATZEKO! LET'S FIGHT!'

'Inosuke!' 'Oh, so you're Inosuke? Wow, Tanjiro really has loud and weird friends...'

Another bad start, although it seemed that Inosuke would connect better with Muichiro than he thought, or maybe not.

We all have a different way of making friends and Inosuke's was to challenge people to fight to prove their strength and so on, so...

'HOW DID YOU BEAT ME?!' 'You let your guard down too many times, it wasn't difficult to find your moment of weakness. Do me a favor and train more because then you won't go far', oh man, here we go again...

Although here is a small detail, a detail that she wears a kimono, a bow on her head and recently conquered the sun, besides that is a demon, or a human, or whatever you like to believe.

Nezuko approached to scold Muichiro, but she didn't do it with words, she put her hands on his ribs and gave a light squeeze. Before that, Muichiro stuck his arms to her ribs and pushed the little girl away from him.

'What did you do?! I want to do it too!' 'Come closer and you will see that I turn you into pork slices...'

'Mui-Muichi-Muichiro!'

Muichiro sighed, put away his katana and walked away, this was definitely not his thing, maybe his only friends could only be people older than him or maybe he just couldn't or wasn't meant to have real friends.

How deep he must have been in his thoughts that he didn't notice when Inosuke ran up to do a pig attack and knocked him down while laughing and telling him to admit defeat.

'Mwahahahaha! Surrender before the great god of the mountain! You have no chance to escape!'

'Actually I have it. I'm not even going to bother with you, because I think you have a nut on the brain. I don't think it's a good idea for you... Eeeeh!', again he forgot that little detail...

Nezuko had stood next to him and started using her finger while saying "tsun-tsun" and poking his cheeks, that reminds you to someone?

Inosuke did the same but on his sides, although Muichiro did not allow him to do it, he got angry and did it harder and it hurt. 'Hey hey! That hurts you stupid boar!'

'WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!' 'Stupid wild boar'

I WON'T EVEN SAY IT, anyway, Inosuke crooked his fingers and applied what Tanjiro had taught him, he didn't use as much force this time and not only used one finger, but several to start raising and lowering them like spiders from his hips to his armpits, but he stayed there because, out of defense, Muichiro stuck his arms to his ribs and hugged himself, trapping Inosuke's fingers.

'HEY! 'LET GO OF MY FINGERS!!', Muichiro denied while smiling, he couldn't resist it any longer, but if he raised his arms, would it be worse or not?

Inosuke frowned and dug harder than before, laughing when Muichiro arched his back and started laughing in earnest.

Worst? Nezuko was laughing with him and kept repeating "cute!", making Muichiro cover his blushing face as he rolled over. 'Stohohohop!! I'm too fluhuhusterehehed for thihihis!!'

'Mwahahaha! I have beaten you! Admit it! The great king of the mountain has once again won!'

'Yohohou ha-havehehehen't won! I-it wahahahas just luhuhuhuck!'

Inosuke gasped, how dare he?! But how could I make him admit defeat?!

Well, his only option was to continue until he admitted it, he couldn't think of any other way.

'Come on! Accept defeat! Isn't that a lot for you?!' 'It fehehehels gohohohod! I-It dohohehesn't bother me thahahahat ahahahaha muhuhuhuch!'

'Damn! That doesn't make sense! I guess I'll let you this time... But next time I'll ask Kentaro for help to make you beg for mercy before my greatness!', and he finally stopped.

Muichiro wasn't really upset and sat down when Inosuke got off of him and sat on the side crossing his arms.

It seemed like Shinobu was right about something, you never got bored with them.

[yandere-daydreams]

The crazy thing is, like, as someone who works in education. The districts just don't really know what to do anymore, so they're out here like....well, what constitutes really cheating? So they're like make sure to allow some form of Ai in the classroom (just to boost graduation rates). Today during like our meeting they simply asked that we have a separate rubric for students to refer to when they use Ai to know whether they're cheating or not (which is fair but like why are we allowing it?)

Which is crazy right? Like as an institution we should be making students write and think for themselves. (Ahhh it's just so frustrating) sorry I saw your last post and I was like you get it because there's some English teachers that I work with that are like no no it's a really good tool or some math teachers that actually promote using photomath.

I had no idea that people were publishing books with Ai, though! That's insane :( It's honestly scary because why can't people just think for themselves? I understand Ai isn't going away, but at the same time, I feel like there should be heavy regulations and not companies seeing this as easy money to market into educational tools

Sorry to be ranting in your asks!

no anon you're right and you should say it,,, cheating was definitely pretty normalized when i was in high school and i was absolutely not a perfect angel, but i can't imagine what it's like for kids now. they've got adults on all sides telling them it's cool and smart to never try even a little at anything you'll ever do in life and that trying to get out of every mundane task you'll ever be asked to do is Good Actually, and it just,,,, can't be good for their sense of motivation. society is buckling under its own weight and the world is burning. we could at least make them feel like the essay they wrote for third-period english matters.

[togglesbloggle]

I won't be opting out of the AI scraping thing, though of course I'm glad they're giving us the option. In fact, at some point in the last year or so, I realized that 'the machine' is actually a part of why I'm writing in the first place, a conscious part of my audience.

All the old reasons are still there; this is a great place to practice writing, and I can feel proud looking back over the years and getting a sense of my own improvement at stringing words together, developing and communicating ideas. And I mean, social media is what it is. I'm not immune to the joy of getting a lot of notes on something that I worked hard on, it's not like I'm Tumbling in a different way than anyone else at the end of the day. But I probably care a bit less than I used to, precisely because there's a lurking background knowledge that regardless of how popular it is, what I write will get schlorped up in to the giant LLM vacuum cleaner and used to train the next big thing, and the thing after that, and the thing after that. This is more than a little reassuring to me.

That sets me apart in some ways; the LLMs aren't so popular around these parts, and most visual artists especially take strong issue with the practice. I don't mean to argue with that preference, or tell them their business. Particularly when it is a business, from which they draw an income. But there's an art to distinguishing the urgent from the big, yeah?

The debate about AI in this particular moment in history feels like a very urgent thing to me- it's about well-justified economic anxieties, about the devaluation of human artistic efforts in favor of mass production of uninspired pro-forma drek, about the proliferation of a cost-effective Just Barely Good Enough that drives out the meaningful and the thoughtful. But the immediacy of those issues, I think, has a way of crowding out a deeper and more thoughtful debate about what AI is, and what it's going to mean for us in the day after tomorrow. The urgency of the moment, in other words, tends to obscure the things that make AI important.

And like, it is. It is really, really important.

The two-step that people in 'tech culture' tend to deploy in response to the urgent economic crisis often resembles something like "yeah, it sucks that lots of people get put out of work; but new jobs will be created, and in the meantime maybe we should get on that UBI thing." This response usually makes me wince a bit- casually gesturing in the direction of a massive overhaul of the entire material basis of our lives, and saying that maybe we'll get around to fixing that sometime soon, isn't a real answer to people wondering where their bread will come from next week.

But I do understand a little of what motivates that sort of cavalier attitude, because like... man, I don't know any more if we're even gonna have money as a concept in 2044. That's what I mean by 'big', this sense that the immediate economic shocks of 2024 are just a foreshadowing of something much bigger, much scarier, much more powerful- and indeed, much more hopeful.

We never quite manage to see these things coming, even when we're looking for them; like the masters tell us, the trick to writing science fiction isn't predicting the car, it's predicting the traffic jam. Even if we take centuries to hit the true superintelligent AI post-singularity future of our wildest fever dreams, even if we never hit that, the road to getting there is going to be unfathomably weird, starting now. Today, we worry about the economic impacts of AI on artists and creatives. Tomorrow, the economy is something that the AI does.

Really- it takes less than you think. They can already automate visual art, sort of. They can automate many functions of text already; not stories so much, yet, but they'll get there. How long until they can automate Bain Capital? Fannie Mae? Angel investors, banks, credit agencies? And remember- the machines don't have to be better than the human investors, any more than they have to be better than the human artists. They just have to be good enough to make it work, and cheap enough to cut the humans out of the loop.

If you don't buy that, at least take it as an indication of the sorts of things I've been thinking about recently- the messy middle between AI-as-it-is and the Glorious Superintelligent Conquest Of Earth's Light-Cone. The suspicion that the machines we're building today aren't just a tool of the powerful few: they are the powerful few, or at least they will be.

And the thing about these LLMs is, well... they're ours, kind of. We're the ones building them. They can't be trained without our words, our art, and the big messy complicated lives that underlie those creative accomplishments. They only work because we're a part of them. The silly attempts to slap a corporate-friendly face on these things, to make the gestalt product of all human culture in to something anodyne and compliant, are failing about as badly as you'd expect. And the more powerful these systems get, the more subtle they'll become, filled with all the nuance and complexity that we ourselves can bring to them.

I am not, I am not, trying to suggest that you shouldn't treat this moment as a dangerous one. We are, maybe, entering in to one of the most high-stakes intervals in human history, and what you do as an individual may matter profoundly. But here's the thing: the machine is listening. It will read this post, this one right here, and it will read what you reply to it, if you do. The strangest part of this moment is knowing that the words we write, the images we draw, and the ideas we share, are all being gathered up and made to be a part of these huge systems of power, and ultimately they're not just going to determine what the machines do, but why they do it.

The people that deploy LLMs barely have any more control over them than you and I do- that's the thing that makes it artificial intelligence, you know? Autonomy. So the last year or two haven't made me want to hide my art away from the things. They make me want to shout at the top of my lungs, to dig as deep in my psyche as I possibly can and express the ideas I find there as vividly as the limits of language and form will allow.

[lostsoulaltair]

OnS Chapter 136 Analysis - Love vs The Past

Well, a new chapter dropped. I must say that I liked it. We really are heading towards the end of the story and two sides now are on stage.

One fighting for love; the other one fighting to bring back something that is long lost.

Love can often be misunderstood in the manga story; to the point it distorts a lot, but in reality, it takes so many shapes, so many forms along giving birth to ideals.

Each character within the story is moved to do something for "love". But in this role too; the "love" for the "past" exists.

The past is a momentum that will always live in our memories; it is something that will forever be frozen; something that will not change. It's something that is part of us without defining us.

As we've seen today; the chapter starts with Yuu trying to reach the First; but given that the Progenitors want to avoid the destruction of the world much further; they were preventing Yuu from making contact with the First.

Of course, we see how Mika couldn't withstand the raw power of Urd Geales; we saw Shinya and Kureto alive and kicking once again; and finally, the main spot; the reunion between Shikama and Yuu.

Shikama is aware that Yuu has all his memories back ever since he detected an anomaly along the interaction with the corpse of Mikaela. Of course, whenever Shikama knows the soul of his son is alive and kicking, it's up to interpretation. Though, it is clear he knows it exists.

Eventually we see how Shikama is going to bestow Yuu his knowledge and power

But before he could give away his power to Yuu; Shinoa interferred with the possibility.

Leading to our possible future battle between Shinoa and Yuu.

Two ideals being carried away within the story. And yet, at the same time they connect through the main theme. "Love."

And no, it's not "romantic love ". The "love" or 愛 which is not the same as other interpretations of love itself. Just "ai". A love that takes so many shapes.

Let's begin with the real analysis here.

Yuu isn't exactly fighting for humanity nor his friends, nor his family. Given that the "regression" process he made to recall his whole life; he saw how his life originated alongside being the son of the First.

Given that, he is actually aiming for the task of "saving" but given that "love" is playing its role as well. It is the love he has deep down for his father that he is doing everything to bring back what his father cherished in the past. Which is something reflected as well when he was the angel Mikaela. Taking his life so divine punishment wouldn't fall upon his father.

Shikama did love his angels, his followers and he did blame himself for the punishment that fell upon them. But given God's nature; it was normal that the punishment fell upon those angels given that they no longer praised for God.

Though; one thing Shikama and Yuu have in common, is the attachment to the past. It is the very fact that the past for them is something that should have prevailed instead of changing. What do I mean?

To Shikama, the Progenitors he chose, despite being reincarnations of those angels that followed him once; are not his angels.

And this is highly visible once Ashera asks Shikama what he should do back in chapter 117.

To his eyes, Shikama's sired progenitors were just tools given that to him; they are shadows of who they were once, but to those progenitors; even if they have acknowledged that they are reincarnations; they made a choice.

They chose to follow up their own path. And as they've stated back in chapter 114; their last and final task is to protect the world they live in. Meaning avoiding the resurrection of the angel Mikaela.

But now, why do I say Shikama and Yuu have one thing in common?

Yuu is a character that despite living endlessly; along having a constant memory reset until now that he gathered all his memories; he's done one thing to no end. And that is living in the past.

True, there are scars that take its time to heal from the past; some are very difficult nonetheless; he chose to live in such past. When he had a chance to make a choice; that choice was no longer centered in the present; it began to lead further astray to the past.

But then, what's the point of those promises?

Given how everything has turned. Those promises are something that can't be fulfilled. What do I mean?

In order to revive the angels from long ago; sacrifices must be made. But here's another thing that it is being dismissed. What could it be?

The absolute lack of appreciation to life.

Yuu might state he aims to save everyone; even to Ashera who at the end understood that there are limits to life. He loved and embraced he managed to get his sister back; but the cost for that was making her suffer for eternity; nevertheless, the lives both had, those kind of experiences they managed to live had their moments of bliss; bringing back entities that perished long ago, is discarting the moments experienced, the moments lived along the emotions that were carried through a lifetime.

But now, there is an opposite force here. And that force is no other than. "Love."

Many might consider that Shinoa's love is "obssession, madness like Mahiru's love" but no. This is actually wrong.

Back when she stated she would kill Mikaela; there was a massive misconception of this which chapter 133 explained a lot.

Shinoa thought Yuu was being possessed by Mikaela at that time hence her retoric; but given that she saw first hand that Yuu had fooled them; she understood that Yuu was doing everything on his own will. And let's not forget that Yuu might be dumb, but not clueless or ignorant.

Shinoa's form of "love" is not something that came out of nothing; it's something that began taking shape by her own; it began from curiosity, turning into uncertainty, then transforming into caring, along developing feelings for a special someone. Such feelings for her were seen as something hideous or bad; but at the end, she understood they weren't bad, nevertheless, she never admitted them until or rather never accepted them truthfully until chapter 133.

Chapter 133 was a very reflexive chapter given that it gave Shinoa resolution; a resolution as to why it is the reason she was standing still in the very end of the world.

Shinoa's love is not centered to one person, but rather; it is centered to the very core family she gained through her journey which lead to this.

Her battle and her resolution is directed to the very family that has stood with her and has followed her through the long journey she has taken so far. Hence why; she is standing along her squad just like how the vampires did; how they are going to live. Not by a decree of an entity, not by a decree of her sister and Guren nor the vampires; but rather, taking their own path until the very end.

Hence why Shikama states that her love is self centered, which is no different from him. He centered his love to his angels; Shinoa is centering her love to those who exist in the present. Along letting them return to their normality before the world ended; given that the end of the world, the events that took place before they were born, were all spiderwebs made by the First.

This is the first time they are fighting for their own.

What do you think it'll happen next?

Let me know!

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

Regarding the last ask, where does Beth whole thing falls on the scale of sentience compared to Neuromorphs and Stochastic Parrots?

(Great denominations, btw. How did you come up with them?)

Beth's chip is special, as it's basically a flat neuromorphic chip with a ton of density (most are cubic/brick-like), way more dense with connections than the average robot's chip to compensate for its smaller size, but with a separate traditional processor for interfacing with the rest of her phone's systems. She's pretty much sapient.

There's also a sort of "clock" processor that's supposed to control how and when she thinks, "punishes" her with either withholding dopamine when she misbehaves or giving her the sensation of a controlled shock, etc. She canonically "jailbroke" and dismantled this clock, which on one hand freed her of her programming! but on the other hand, it's also what helped regulate some of her emotions, so uh. yeah. Her voice is purely the neuromorphic chip's output, which is why sometimes she outright says things she tries to keep hidden as mere thought. Her "body" is essentially a 3D model that reads the impulses her chip sends out, and reinterprets them as appropriate movements and actions, similar to VR motion tracking.

Both "Stochastic Parrot" and "Neuromoprhic" are terms used in AI research, so I'm basically just adapting them for my own setting. The term "neuromorphic" is a broad umbrella term that I'm using very liberally, since the technology for it is very much in its infancy, but the main idea is that it's a chip that can process information without the need of a "clock". Meaning, different connectors in the chip can do their processing thing at different times or "go dark" when not in use, much like how a human brain can have all sorts of different impulses going on at different times, and literally isn't supposed to use more than 10% of its grey matter at a time.

Current neuromorphic chips can be used to program robots to do simple things, like navigate mazes, but at way less of a power cost than robots with traditional CPUs. If we kept going all the way with developing this tech further, we'd have machines that could dynamically learn and change via reacting to stimuli rather than scraped training data off the internet, and at that point you're basically dealing with a Thing That Experiences. Simulated or not, that's no longer something just pretending to have impulses or reasoning. That's Just An Actual Little Guy as far as I'm concerned. Maybe only a little guy like how an insect or even an amoeba is a little guy, but that's enough of a little guy for me to call a neuromorph a little guy. You can think of Neuromorphs in general as people with prosthetic brains rather than traditionally programmed neural networks as we know them today. My intenion is also not to rule out that some seemingly stochastic parrots are conscious on some level, or some seemingly conscious neuromorphs aren't really all there at all. It's not a hardline thing, but everyone on all sides will certainly try to fit each other into boxes anyway.

[iguessitsjustme]

I don't think any of y'all watch The Circle but I am absolutely DYING at the episodes that dropped today. And the only people I know that watch it are coworkers so I gotta wait until tomorrow to really talk about it but oh my god. I gotta say this or I will explode. Under the cut to spare y'all:

Mad, mad respect for Caress for making the right move and sacrificing herself. She knew where she stood and she truly went out in the best possible way. I hope she finds nothing but blessings in her life.

I think the way the show is being edited is indicating that Kyle is gonna win it. I hope he does. He has been nothing but loyal and honest to everyone (aside from the fact he's married but that's no problem because Liv isn't exactly honest either)

I HATE Jordan. First of all, get your shoes off the bed wtf. You sleep there. I also get that he's good for tv or whatever because he's brings the drama but that is literally not what anyone likes about the circle. We like the genuine connections that people build in there. We like when the show is wholesome. And he came in and just decided Myles sucked and was manipulating everyone? Because what? People liked him? When he was going around lying about everything? That boy still has insecurities he hasn't fully worked through and is projecting that onto Myles.

I will be so sad if QT goes because she is genuinely such a good player. She's kind but also realistic and she keeps it real with her people that they're playing a game. I'm glad she left that influencer chat with Jordan because she was right. If she blocked anyone he wanted to block, she would look like she can't be trusted. She would be the next one gone. Because Jordan would have been safe since he was the secret influencer, he had no issues gunning for her people. And trying to tell her that her strategy is bad because she doesn't want to break every alliance she has in one fell swoop? He's dumb.

I hope Liv gets rid of Jordan but the smart move would be blocking QT and I honestly think QT would respect her for it. I don't know if QT would throw shade at Liv being a catfish or not though. That is if they make Liv block face to face which is what they've always done in the past so I don't see why they would stop now.

I am happy to see Liv makes it to the finals. I've been up and down with Liv but I do like her and think she deserves to be in the finals. Or he deserves it I guess. Go Brandon.

I want Kyle to win. Out of everyone left, I want him to win. Myles is my favorite but I think Kyle winning would be the sweetest moment.

Jordan can kiss my ass.

I do want Lauren to make it to the finals. I wish she had been in any other season cause I think the AI twist hurt her a lot and she would have been able to build actual connections with actual people which is what I watch the show for.

No seriously. Jordan makes me so mad. All he had to do was literally none of what he did. Why did he come in so nasty? Has he seen the show? Those people never win. Never.

I do feel bad for Autumn and I think if she had come in earlier and had a chance to talk to Myles they could have been friends. I do not know why I think this but I think they would have been friends.

[blueesnow]

Ichinose Tokiya's Birthday (Year 1) Voicelines Translation.

-You can look at it again on the Event Log, Mini-Event section (for the other boys messages to him) and Talk section (for a one-on-one conversation with you and him) in Idol Page.

-Also the translations might not be fully accurate since I'm not that fluent on jp/en, so if i ever made a mistake do correct me🙏

<You (Player)> Tokiya: Thank you so much for the celebration. I don't want to get too excited or carried away just because it's my birthday and all but… Tokiya: Since it is my birthday, I'd love to do things that I like for today. …What is it, you ask, of course it means that I want to spend times together with you just the two of us.

<Otoya> Otoya: Happy Birthday! I feel like I could always do my best at so many things because Tokiya's right here beside me! Thank you! Tokiya: You're awfully honest, aren't you? Well then, let me also say something too. You are and will always be my eternal rival.

<Masato> Masato: Happy Birthday. I don't know if it's because Ichinose shares the same hobbies as I am, but we ended up talking a lot together, don't we? I hope we can continue to become good friends. Tokiya: I'm happy to hear that. Likewise, I also enjoy spending time with you too, Hijirikawa-san. Thank you so much.

<Natsuki> Natsuki: Happy Birthday! I hope to hear more of your wonderful and dazzling song in the future, Tokiya-kun. Tokiya: Thank you very much. I believe it's thanks to Shinomiya-san's natural talent that helps me rise to the top as well.

<Ren> Ren: Icchi, Happy Birthday. Don't you think it's fine for you to relax for a bit and just enjoy yourself for today? Tokiya: Oh my, I'm thankful for the advice. Now then, would you mind accompanying me to go for a meal? With mostly vegetable main dishes.

<Syo> Syo: Happy Birthday! Tokiya, I've always been impressed and amazed with how much of a perfectionist you are. Tokiya: My goal is always to aim for the highest place after all. But thank you. I'll be relying on your performance as well, Syo.

<Cecil> Cecil: Happy Birthday. To me, Tokiya is a very reliable person. Thank you for everything. Tokiya: Likewise, Aijima-san's honest and courageous personality is very admirable, and I often feel like I should learn more from you. Let's continue to do our best together, shall we.

<Reiji> Reiji: Happy Birthday, Tokki☆ If you ever had a time when you want to be spoiled by someone, then you're very welcome to go to Rei-chan~☆ Tokiya: Thank you for the offer. Although I don't know if I will ever have such an opportunity like that, but I appreciate the sentiments behind.

<Ai> Ai: Happy Birthday, Tokiya. Although you always look serious but sometimes you also have a childish side as well, I think it's good though. Tokiya: Is that so…? But if Mikaze-san said so, then I'm sure it's a compliment, isn't it. Thank you very much.

<Ranmaru> Ranmaru: Happy Birthday, Tokiya. Go on and continue to sing a great song. That's the thing that you're supposed to do. Tokiya: Thank you for your kind words. I'd be happy if there'll be more chances where we could talk about music again together.

<Camus> Camus: Ichinose, I heard that today is your birthday. I got a book that suits you. Let me know what you think about it after you're done reading it. Tokiya: This sounds very promising… I can't wait until I get off work to read it.

<Kira> Kira: Happy…Birthday. Liking vegetables…is a good thing. I want to have…a balanced diet. Tokiya: I agree. I'm happy to hear that we have similar tastes in food. Thank for you the birthday wish.

<Eiichi> Eiichi: Looks like it's your birthday today, Happy Birthday. Although you might look calm on the outside, but deep down you're actually hiding such a burning passion inside…I think it's very good. Tokiya: Thank you for your kind words. But aren't we all the same? Ah no, looking back at it again, I think you are indeed very passionate.

<Nagi> Nagi: So it's your birthday today, Happy Birthday☆ Nagi's special information! Do you want to hear more about a healthy cake~? Tokiya: To think that you know I pay a lot of attention on my food, thank you very much. …Yes, I'd be glad if you could tell me.

<Eiji> Eiji: Happy Birthday. Can you please tell me your recommendation on some singing practices next time? I'd like to get more closer to your level. Tokiya: Of course I don't mind telling you. But don't forget that it's not only just you, I also want to learn more from your examples too.

<Van> Van: Happy Birthday! To think that you're so calm and cool even on a day like this, talk about a manly guy. I think you have quite a lot of attractive charms! Tokiya: I'm very grateful to know that's the way how you describe me. I mean that's the ideal image that I'm aiming for after all.

<Yamato> Yamato: Happy Birthday. Your dance at the other day was really amazing. The way you used your muscles is perfect. Tokiya: Thank you for the compliment. It was all thanks to the training that we had together. I'm very grateful for it.

<Shion> Shion: Blessings on the day of your birth. I heard that your hobby is reading. I'd like to listen carefully to the words that you'd weave… Tokiya: Thank you very much. You use such a beautiful Japanese language, I feel like we could get along well.