#optimistic future

[celepom]

The Infinity Particle

By Wendy Xu

In this gorgeous graphic novel by Wendy Xu, co-creator of the award-winning Mooncakes, a young inventor falls for a lifelike AI and confronts questions of freedom and autonomy. Clementine Chang moves from Earth to Mars for a new start and is lucky enough to land her dream job with Dr. Marcella Lin, an Artificial Intelligence pioneer. On her first day of work, Clem meets Dr. Lin’s assistant, a humanoid AI named Kye. Clem is no stranger to robots—she built herself a cute moth-shaped companion named SENA.

Still, there’s something about Kye that feels almost too human. When Clem and Kye begin to collaborate, their chemistry sets off sparks. The only downside? Dr. Lin is enraged by Kye’s growing independence and won’t allow him more freedom. Plus, their relationship throws into question everything Clem thought she knew about AI. After all, if Kye is sentient enough to have feelings, shouldn’t he be able to control his own actions? Where is the line between AI and human? As her past and Kye’s future weigh down on her, Clem becomes determined to help him break free—even if it means risking everything she came to Mars for.

---

This book meant a lot to me. It's been a long, hard year, in a series of extremely difficult years. So it was nice to read some science fiction where All This ends, not in doom, but in a better future. Reading "The end of late stage capitalism & the age of billionaires" as part of the history/world building of the story felt like a breath of fresh air. As well as seeing actual A.I. instead of the thieving aggregates we're currently subjected to.

I also related to both Clem & Kye with their respective abusive parents, and taking the step to run towards your own future and sense of self. SENA is also adorable, and I'd love to have a little friend like them.

This is my favourite of Wendy Xu's books thus far, and one I'll probably return to whenever I need a pick-me-up.

[greengramps]

Hi I'm Terry

I'm an Alaskan ecologist who wants a positive future for the world, especially for young people like my granddaughter (@themostpurpletree), who suggested that I blog about this.

I will be posting about things we can do to make the world a better place for people and nature. It's not that hard!

[selkiemoonssss]

Undertales' neutral routes are so interesting to me- and SO underrated. EXILED QUEEN ENDING- Is SO tragic. Papyrus is dead, and sans is stuck grieving for him. He literally goes into exile alongside a woman he's never even seen face to face before all of this happened- she's been grieving for so long, and Sans is knew too it, but he doesn't want to tell her about it because... he doesn't want to break her heart by telling her that her promise inadvertently led to his brothers passing??? She's be suspicious though because.. well yk?! He's most likely talked about his brother alot and so she'd have a feeling SOMETHING must have happened- and she'd know that some monsters have died so?!?! yk?!?! Theres so much potential and i'm currently working on a fanfiction about them And then theres the queen alphys ending??? the whole new side we get to see of her (also the rare sans and alphys friendship content..) Sans hates you SO MUCH that he legitimately doesn't even call you?? he just gives the phone too alphys?? you've killed so many people that- ughjsfknsnshbjshdb Then theres the leaderless endings.. like. I actually believe this ending is worse than the genocide one, hands down. Like, in the genocide ending, the world is at least erased, right?? But in this ending, monsters are left completely hopeless, without any hope for the future going on. Toriel is dead, Papyrus is dead, Alphys is (most likely) dead, Undyne is dead, Asgore is dead; and the souls are gone. Theres the ominous lack of music????? its just wind??? its dreadful. Augh don't even get me started on how dreadful the king papyrus ending is, or how dystopian the MTT king ending is.. The neutrals endings are SO heartbreaking and there should absolutely be more focus on them because the angst potential is unsane

[vickysomething]

The Acolyte cancelation reminded me how the Star Wars fandom is the most toxic I have ever seen.

I'm talking about these self-proclaimed real fans who will deliberately destroy any new SW project they don't like.

And the worst part is not all the hate they're spewing over the internet.

The worst part is that, at the end of the day, Disney always gives them what they want : they were butthurt after TLJ, Disney gave them TROS. They were butthurt because The Acolyte exists, Disney canceled it. 

You'd think the SW galaxy would be vast enough to welcome any kind of fan, but the truth is, it will never be !

[stiffyck]

Okay what if the winners got to meet previous versions of themselves through the life games.

Like grian meets no one. He didn't have any previous "versions".

Scott meets 3rd life Scott.

Pearl meets 3rd life and last life pearl.

Martyn meets 3rd life, last life and double life Martyn.

Scar meets 3rd life, last life, double life and lim life him-

This whole thing was an idea that I got just because I was thinking about ll and sl scar because they were both so lonely like wtf and I just though about a scene that would be so. Grips chair.

Ll: "We won?"

Sl: "Yeah"

Ll: "Did we have allies? Friends?"

Ll scar probably thinks sl scar won only because he had allies to support him. He knows what its like being lonely and he hopes no one has to go through that loneliness. And he wants to be optimistic for once that sl scar, future him, gets allies, gets friends.

He tries to hope and then he sees the look on sl scars face. Or maybe sl scar tries to lie- maybe he tries to say they had allies.

Ll scar sees right through him. He's him after all. Maybe he's always gonna he lonely anyway

[sonicheroesnvillains]

@crossed-worlds || (X)

[devilsskettle]

i’m kind of bored that the be-all end-all of horror sfx is realism. i would much rather see less realistic sfx that focus on visual interest/design and i really admire creative problem solving to achieve a particular effect, and i think the focus on realism makes it harder for low budget filmmaking to have a shot at being made and/or respected. i don’t think this is an uncommon opinion either but i think there’s just this prevailing assumption that films should represent reality and that that’s what audiences want and even when you’re making a movie that’s already based on an unrealistic premise as is often the case in genre fiction, if your movie doesn’t seem realistic, audiences won’t be able to suspend their disbelief and/or they won’t take the movie seriously. and sometimes this does seem to be the case! but also i wish we could all give each other the benefit of the doubt that audiences are able to recognize and engage with unreality in fiction. because it’s fiction. and that unreality in fiction can be intentional on the part of the filmmaker and can be done well and in fact be the correct choice for the movie overall. not that i want no realism ever but i don’t think it should be the only acceptable mode of filmmaking

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[butchvashwood]

#vashwoodweek late day 2: names → monikers and choices

[oltammefru]

Something Very Neat Arknights does is giving several women in story masculine titles in a way that's very hot (for example, Theresa being called "King," Kal'tsit being referred to as Lord Kal'tsit, Ch'en being addressed as Ch'en Sir etc.). Anyway, if Lin Yuhsia ever inherits her father's position, I really hope everyone refers to her as the "Rat King."

[popfizzles]

im sorry to hear the plushie didnt get funded :( i was really hoping and looking forward to it!!!

Don't be sad or apologize!! It's absolutely amazing that we got as far as we did!

Compared to twitch streamers and youtubers with millions of views, little ol' me who does business exclusively on Tumblr got my name AND art on the Makeship site! And 47 people all said they would pay close to 40 dollars to have a plush of MY character! That's incredible!!!!

Normally, Makeship campaigns run 3-4 weeks! We had a single week to promote it, and we reached 24% of the goal!

I'm not sad or disappointed at all, I'm totally over the moon about this!

Besides, who knows what could happen in the future? Makeship assured me that if the petition didn't hit its goal the first time, they'd be more than happy to revisit it later in the future as well!!

This was a win!

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Star Trek book: we have to take steps now to ensure that our future will be healthy! Save the whales, be an environmental activist!

Looks at publication date: 1986

[teenagenutant]

wanted to draw my interpretation of future leo's Whole Deal and ended up with this

[roscoehamiltons]

something about this post that merc made bothered me initially and i have figured it out after some thought. when i first saw it on my feed, i legitimately thought it was damage control and i'm not sure if it was their intention (i'm inclined to think that it is after lewis posted on his stories this morning), but whatever their intentions, to me it reads as insincere and trite. it sounds nice in theory like oh we will make the best of what little time we have together, but at the end of the day it's an empty statement. like when i see the sentence 'our journey together started 12 years we couldn't have imagined where it would take us' i would think that were would be some kind of follow up about some of those accomplishments that happened in the past 12 years. instead all we got was 'we are going to give it everything in the next 6 races 💪' like ok?? lol. i would think that they would and should be giving it everything they have whether or not someone has been on their team for 1 year or 12 years.

i am not asking for merc to post an essay about lewis' accomplishments (yet 😉) but i am asking for some effort to be put in what they are posting about lewis. there has been a lack of effort put into what the team has been posting about lewis specifically in the past 3 years, and i would not be surprised if the next post that they post about his teammate has more thought and effort put into it than the post i'm talking about. it is this discrepancy that we are seeing that is bleeding into the perceptions of the team, and how they have handled things that have happened on track and off. i will say that merc have improved in the past couple months, but it should not have taken 3 years to finally take some initiative. they shouldn't need people to remind and harass them into posting about lewis' accomplishments and milestones. i should not be writing a rant about how i want more than a couple sentences written about lewis' last 6 races at mercedes. they should and need to do better. i would hope that no one would call me unfair or crazy by saying this or criticizing them. but at the end of the day, it is their job and they have failed at their job, and we are seeing the consequences of it now with how badly the relationship between the fans and the team has gotten.

[fiery-emblems]

For my warmup tonight here's a bit of a random idea related to what I was posting about yesterday:

My attempt at a Fire Emblem protagonist??

The idea here is that if I were to design a game about the desert branded colony, and this game would take place significantly in the future, it would be fun for the protagonist to be the child/grandchild of Stefan!

Reasons why it would be great:

Stefan is cool and his family would be cool!

Since he's the leader of the colony I think any Stefan child would qualify as a lord.

Stefan uses a sword. His kid would be a sword lord.

Green hair is cute

This design is a little old fashioned but I would love to have a slightly old fashioned looking protagonist again. I figure the player could be a customizable avatar sidekick like Robin. I think that setup works the best since you get both a protagonist with a stronger set personality while also letting the player self-insert if they're into that.