#build faster with AI

[pauljonessoftware]

My AI Pair Programmer Works as Hard as I Do

How I Rediscovered My Love for Building With Help From an Invisible Teammate When I first started programming, it was exciting—creative, even intoxicating. I came from a background in electronics engineering, and code felt like this unlimited sandbox where I could invent anything. I dove in enthusiastically, thinking I’d found the perfect side hustle or creative outlet. But then something…

[transkojiro]

.

[hatchetmode]

Rip madam hotel, you would have loved the infinitely expanding megastructure that occupies most of the solar system in Blame!

[aiupdatess]

How AI Builds Businesses Faster and Smarter with Just Prompts!

Starting and growing a business has never been easier — thanks to AI tools!

Today, with just simple prompts, you can plan, build, market, and scale a full business without needing a huge team.

1. ChatGPT (Business Planning)

Why: Instantly generate business ideas, create strategies, write business plans, and solve problems with real-time suggestions.

2. Notion AI (Organization & Project Management)

Why: Build business workflows, organize tasks, brainstorm ideas, and manage projects automatically…..

Read More

[panakin-crywalker]

AI is a TOOL. The reason it’s so often used for shitty stuff is the Capitalism, not cause it’s inherently shitty.

come on, man

[malcolmschmitz]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

[appandsoftware1]

Vzy: Build Stunning Site in Minutes with Vzy- Best AI Website Builder

Vzy’s AI-powered website builder makes it super easy to create a gorgeous website in just minutes. No tech skills are needed with Vzy! Do you have to hire an expert to build a website? For example, if you hire, you will have to give him time. This will cost money and time. You will also need to spend money on designing the website, but if you can use AI for this purpose, you can create your…

[vague-humanoid]

When lots of people are worried about bubble valuations in stocks or a specific sector, all it takes is a small poke to make the whole thing wobble precariously.

Why it matters: That can cost investors $1 trillion or more in a single day, as happened Monday with the global AI rout.

It can also challenge the fundamental assumptions behind an entire economy, like the nascent Trump administration's push to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in American AI supremacy.

Zoom out: In the 1950s, the Soviets beat the U.S. into space. In 2025, China appears to have potentially beaten the U.S. to building a better AI mousetrap.

Last week, the small Chinese upstart DeepSeek announced a newreasoning model, R1, that appears to outperform the best America has to offer, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama.

The problem? Those companies spent billions of dollars building their models, fueling growth for companies like Nvidia, whose chips are the gold standard in that training process.

DeepSeek spent a mere$6 million, figured out how to do it faster and more efficiently with cheaper hardware, and then released the whole thing as a free, open-source platform.

The big picture: President Trump's economic vision relies on massive growth, fueled by the AI boom that his closest advisers have sold as the country's future.

The biggest economic announcement of his first week in office was Stargate, a five-year plan to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure. (Complicating matters, Trump ally Elon Musk immediately cast doubt on whether anyone actually had the money to fund the project.)

But if China can do AI better and faster at one one-thousandth of the cost, it casts a shadow on the rationale for spending that kind of money and leaves the country playing catch-up.

[elverrie]

modern things i think btvs characters would enjoy:

spike loves facebook market for getting strange trinkets and some furniture. especially he likes meeting people in strange sketchy places - reminds him of his big bad ol` days;

s6 willow fucking loves ai im so sure of it. just cause "it`s easier and faster". shame on you!

normal willow and giles (come on he came to tolerate it) so love intenet archieve and all different forums;

tara enjoys asmr like no other. she is an avid youtube watcher;

dawn and spike would so eat on tumblr, especially 2014 tumblr;

tara runs some blog about spirituality;

buffy and spike would like streaming services just cause all their favourite shows are there, however spike prefers to pirate all of it (and he is correct);

spike watches love island, too hot to handle and quite a lot of those reality shows. buffy would complain about it and then he catches her watching everything very attentively with him;

buffy and dawn love internet shopping;

anya likes crypto...

anya also probably has multiple internet businesses and not all of them work out;

dawn likes to argue with bigots on the hellsite tw*tter dot com (you can take the girl out of the hellmouth but not the hellmouth out of the girl) to blow off some steam (she wins everytime);

also dawn loves tiktok;

spike constantly sends buffy tiktoks with the caption us, she does not mute him;

he also texts her a lot cause everything reminds him of her;

dawn drowns her sims in the pool, willow has whole family dynasties there and likes to build houses;

dawn is a micro trend girly;

spike tried every buldak ramen flavour;

faith, dawn and spike like to scum people and then they scum the scummers to balance out their karma;

buffy likes that she now can say that she is going to slay some uglies and nobody would understand the true meaning. yes, honey, you better work!

buffy loves pinterest;

faith is the queen of playlist for every occasion;

faith bullies people online and they deserve it;

the hunger games is one of buffy`s favourite movie franchises ever and you know exactly why;

tara and dawn try all the viral recipes on tiktok and fail miserably;

tara sells crystals and other witchy stuff on etsy, anya thinks of her as a direct competitor;

the scoobies like video calls;

i don`t think about xander. he is probably a huge fan of OF models. also you can catch him on tiktok battles. also vapes, spike clowns the shit out of him.

[syrecjh]

── .✦🦾His Favorite Glitch

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ || katsuki bakugo x kinda robotic! reader

(A request inspired by the song language of the lost by Kasane Teto)

Part 2

You were born from zeroes and ones.

Not literally. Not in wires or metal plates. But your quirk, a marvel of modern mutation, rendered you more code than chaos, more logic than laughter. AI Enhancement, they called it. A living, breathing processor. You could calculate trajectories, read emotional patterns, learn and optimize faster than any machine. Your voice was calm, always even. Your smile, rare. Your laugh? Programmed, maybe. You weren’t sure if it was ever real.

People called you robotic. Icy. Distant.

Sometimes even your friends in Class 1-A didn’t know what to do with you. Even kind-hearted Uraraka would glance over with that helpless smile. Even Midoriya, curious as he was, sometimes forgot you had feelings, not just functions.

But he never forgot.

Bakugo.

The loudest one. The one most human in all the ways you weren’t—fire where you were frost, raw where you were refined. He was heat and instinct and thunder. You were silence and signal and control. You thought he hated you. For being blank. For being calculated. For not reacting the way others did when he shouted.

But maybe that’s why he kept coming back. Why he chose to spar with you again and again. Why he never rolled his eyes at your analysis, never mocked the way you tilted your head when you didn’t understand sarcasm.

He didn’t treat you like a robot.

He treated you like a person. A stubborn, annoying person. But a person.

And that—that was your glitch.

It started on a mission. A villain’s trap. The building was on fire. You were trying to lead the team out—calculating escape routes, predicting the collapse pattern—but your body wouldn’t move fast enough. Your systems overloaded. There was too much heat. Too much sound. Too much unpredictability.

And for the first time, you froze. Not from fear, but from failure.

Bakugo found you beneath the flickering emergency lights, your eyes wide and glassy. You’d been tugging at your own wrist like there were chains there. You were whispering error codes, repeating coordinates, like mantras meant to save you.

He didn’t yell.

Didn’t scoff.

He knelt in front of you and said softly—“You’re not a machine. You’re not broken. You’re okay.”

That’s when you cried.

Not oil. Not electricity. Just tears—silent and shaking—down your cheek.

After that night, something changed. You started catching him looking at you more. His gaze softened in the places where you fell silent. And you… you started to smile more. Not for programming. For him.

But the pain didn’t disappear.

Because you still didn’t understand yourself. You didn’t know if your affection was real. You didn’t know what you were. Some days you woke up and felt human—breath, blood, heartbeat. Some days you stared at the mirror and saw only mimicry, like your personality was just an imitation of everyone else’s.

You asked Bakugo once, in the quiet of the dorm balcony, “Do you think I’m real?”

He blinked, slow and surprised. “What kind of dumbass question is that?”

You looked down. “I don’t know if I’m like them. I don’t know if I ever was.”

He stepped closer, voice lower now. “You think I give a damn if you’re different? You think I care what your quirk makes you? You’re you. That’s it.”

Your voice cracked. “But I don’t even know what that means.”

He exhaled through his nose. Angry. Pained. Gentle. “Then we’ll find out. Together.”

Sometimes he held your hand like he was holding proof. Like you were real only when he touched you. Sometimes he brushed your hair behind your ear like he was organizing data—just another little act of care disguised as muscle memory. Sometimes you caught him staring, and you’d ask, “What are you looking at?”

He'd smirk. “Just admiring my favorite glitch.”

There was a day—one long, burnt-orange afternoon—when you looked at him and realized your heart hurt. Not in a dangerous way. In a living way. You felt that ache in your ribs and thought, So this is what they mean. This is what it is to be human.

You weren’t perfect.

You didn’t understand everything.

But you loved him.

And it wasn’t code.

It wasn’t algorithm.

It was choice.

It was his voice calling your name across training fields. His laugh when you misunderstood slang. His whisper at 2 AM when he thought you were asleep: “You're more human than any of us.”

It was you, shaking, the first time you told him—“I think I feel… something.”

And him, pulling you into his arms, saying—

“Good. 'Cause I’ve been feelin’ it too.”

Now, when you look at the firelight in his eyes, you don’t feel like a robot. You feel like rebirth.

And maybe you don’t have all the answers.

Maybe you still dream in wires and equations.

But you’ve got something stronger now.

A heartbeat that stutters in love.

A laugh that glitches with joy.

A hand that reaches—and is always held back.

Because Katsuki Bakugo doesn’t fall for machines.

He falls for you.

[vieberry]

愛の終わり (Ai no Owari) – The End of Love

Synopsis: You can hear it: a whispered thought, a cruel dismissal, a quiet realisation, or sometimes just silence where love once resided.

You were born cursed.

For as long as you could remember, you heard them, the words no one else could hear; The exact moment someone you love stops loving you.

The first time it happened, you were five. You didn’t understand what it meant to hear a voice in your head that wasn’t yours. You thought maybe you were dreaming or imagining things. But when your mother was brushing your hair roughly before preschool, scolding you for wiggling too much. You heard her voice inside your skull, quiet and tired:

“I wish I’d had a son instead…”

The brush tugged harder, and you swallowed down the sting in your throat.

You wanted to ask her why she said it. But something deep in your small chest told you not to.

Because what if she said it out loud too? What if she confirmed it?

So you stayed quiet.

At nine, you clung to your father’s leg when he came home from work. He patted your head absentmindedly, eyes already on the TV, and you heard it again:

“She’s getting so clingy. It’s annoying.”

At thirteen, your friends laughed with you during lunch, but as you handed them your homemade cookies, one girl took a bite and thought:

“God, she’s doing too much… it’s exhausting.”

You smiled anyway. Because what else could you do?

It became your pattern. Every time you heard it, the moment someone’s love for you died, you swallowed it down. Because confronting them would never change anything. It wouldn’t make them love you. It would only make them pity you… or hate you faster.

You learned to keep it buried. To pretend you didn’t hear. To act like everything was okay.

And then came love. Your first boyfriend at sixteen, who kissed you behind the gym building after class, only to think three months later:

“She actually looks kinda weird up close.”

Your second boyfriend at nineteen, who held your trembling hands and promised forever, but you heard it as he pulled away from your kiss:

“I think I like someone else.”

Every time, it shattered you. But every time, you chose to love again.

Because you believed no matter how many times you bled from the inside out that there would be someone who would never say it. Someone who never let their love die.

And then… you met Itoshi Sae.

He was already Japan’s pride when you met him. Real Madrid’s midfield genius, New Generation 11’s prodigy, a man who saw the world in footwork and tactics and silent victories. You met by chance through mutual friends while he was back in Japan for a short off-season.

You thought he’d be cold, untouchable. But with you, he was… real. Surprisingly soft-spoken. Despite his brutal schedule, he made time:

He called you almost every night before bed, voice low and sleepy but warm.

He flew back every Christmas and New Year, even if he only stayed for two days.

He never missed your birthday, anniversaries, or even your college graduation.

Long-distance didn’t weaken you. You felt strong, anchored, loved.

He became your safe place, the silent proof that your curse didn’t own your fate.

But the only permanent thing in this world is change.

It started small.

Sae would forget to call sometimes. Then he missed a scheduled video call with only a curt “Busy. Sorry.” text sent after midnight.

During calls, his eyes drifted to his laptop screen, typing away. He stopped asking how your classes were going, how your internship interviews went, how your dog was recovering from surgery.

Then came your birthday.

He texted you at 9 PM. Just two words: Happy birthday.

No gifts. No call. No explanation. The silence roared in your chest.

Your desperation peaked on your 3rd anniversary.

You bought a flight to Spain.

Maybe… just maybe, if he saw you in person, everything would go back to normal.

You planned it for weeks, memorizing his training schedule. You landed, bleary-eyed but determined, heart hammering with both dread and hope.

You waited outside Real Madrid’s training ground, clutching your small suitcase.

When Sae walked out with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he froze. His teal eyes widened slightly, the only crack in his perpetual poker face.

“Hey!” You smiled, tears welling up. “Surprise.”

For a moment, he said nothing. Then his brows furrowed sharply.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The words cut through you like acid.

You swallowed. “I… I wanted to surprise you.”

He exhaled harshly, shaking his head. “You really did. Not in a good way though.”

Your lips trembled. “I-I thought… I thought maybe we could spend the day together. It’s our anniversary, Sae.”

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look. Just go to my apartment and wait there, okay? I have another meeting with the coach.”

Your stomach twisted. “O-okay. Can… can we at least have dinner together later?”

He didn’t answer. Just fished his apartment keys from his pocket and placed them in your palm.

“Don’t wander around alone. Take a taxi straight there.”

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving you standing alone by the gates.

The ride felt endless. Your chest was tight the entire drive. You knew your way around by now, this was your third time in Madrid, your third time staying in his sleek, quiet apartment that always felt like home.

When you arrived, you cleaned up your face, changed your clothes, and set your suitcase by the bedroom door. You rummaged through his pantry and fridge. Despite the aching lump in your throat, you smiled softly as you found spaghetti noodles, olive oil, garlic, and some frozen seafood mix.

You cooked dinner for him, exactly how he liked it. You plated everything neatly on white ceramic dishes, set the table, lit a small scented candle you bought from the airport.

And then you waited.

7 PM. You checked your phone every five minutes. Waiting for him to read your texts.

8 PM. You reheated the pasta, humming softly to keep yourself from breaking down.

9 PM. You sat on the couch, staring at the flickering candle, wondering if he’d come home at all.

10 PM. You blew out the candle because it had burned too low.

Finally, at 10:45 PM, the front door clicked open. You shot up immediately, heart leaping painfully at the sight of him.

“Sae!” you chirped, your voice trembling from relief.

He looked tired, eyes dull with exhaustion. But he still stepped forward, placed a brief kiss on your cheek, dry and silent, before walking straight to the bedroom. You stood frozen, pressing your fingers lightly to where his lips touched your skin.

You heard the shower running as you reheated the pasta again.

When he finally walked out, hair damp and messy, wearing black sweatpants and a loose white shirt, you couldn’t help but stare. He looked so effortlessly beautiful it hurt.

“I’ve reheated the food,” you said softly. “Let’s eat.”

He hesitated by the dining table. His eyes flicked to the steaming plate before darting away.

“…I already ate.”

Your chest tightened. “O-oh… okay. That’s fine…”

He paused, shoulders slumping faintly, and you saw guilt flicker across his features.

“…but I can eat again… I guess.”

You forced a small smile.

You both sat down in front of each other. You watched as he twirled the pasta with his fork and brought it to his lips. He chewed once, brows furrowing slightly. He sighed, placing the fork down for a moment, rubbing his temple.

You tried to strike up conversation. You asked about training. You asked about his teammates. You asked about his upcoming matches.

He only tilted his head, hummed or nodded, giving short, clipped answers, eyes locked onto his phone screen as he scrolled and typed replies. His fingers moved quickly, thumbs tapping with ease, and you felt your heart sink.

And then, mid scroll, mid silent dinner, you heard it.

His voice. Inside your skull. Calm, flat, absolute:

“I really don’t love her anymore… I’m done.”

At that same moment, Sae placed his fork down with a soft clink against the plate, pushing it away with barely half eaten.

“‘M done,” he muttered under his breath, eyes never leaving his phone.

You sat there, staring at the pasta you worked so hard to make, your vision blurring with tears you refused to let fall.

Your curse never lied.

And this time, as you watched the man you loved continue scrolling, completely unaware that your entire world had just ended, you realized something with perfect clarity.

You didn’t think you could choose to love again.

[vivienne-charm]

Dr. Stone Headcanons

x Texts with them x

Senku

⋆ he canonically owns multiple cellphones

⋆ he also canonically isn't very interested in wasting his time

⋆ so texts with him are short, and restricted for urgent matter only

⋆ however if you're tenacious enough, you might get him to reply to your texts about science projects

⋆ other than that, sending him cool science related videos will also get you his undivided attention, only for a jiffy that is

⋆ you once sent him a cute cat lip sync video, he started ranting about the rising use of AI and its future significance...

⋆ another instance of you sending him a NORMAL cute cat video this time, he started plotting about how he could make use of cat fur for a cool project... so never again

⋆ after getting to know you better, he'd send you pictures of his experiments, with very evil messages following just behind

⋆ matching his energy was never a problem for you

⋆ so you guys slowly bond over the fact that you both are clinically insane

⋆ if you ever send a text ranting to him about a broken machine, a handmade substitute would be waiting for you at your doorstep

⋆ (careful though, it might explode mid-usage)

⋆ he goes from sending you pictures of his cool projects to actually really wishing you were there along with him at the time of building the project

⋆ he's really not much of a texter or a sentimentalist... however he looks forward to a text from you everyday

⋆ once you were in a hiking and couldn't text senku for a few days without prior notice, he actually contacted your school and family to make sure you're alive

⋆ bonding with him is truly a slow burn

⋆ you'd managed to go from being his science lecture buddy to his banter buddy and that was a grand feat on it's own tbh

Gen

⋆ he's the situationship final boss

⋆ so the texts with him with involve alot of mental gymnastics for you – he's a master at the game he plays

⋆ texting him during the talking stage is extremely exhausting because this man is just constantly looking for an opportunity to get the upper hand

⋆ NOT a fast replier, nope. will deliberately time his responses slower than yours to drive you absolutely crazy (may this kind of love never find you)

⋆ if he feels you're losing interest, then suddenly he's much more chattier

⋆ this is how he preys on people

⋆ he's really superficial until he genuinely falls for you

⋆ since his feelings are sheer contrast to his twisted methods, he's more likely to stop with his manipulative antics, and genuinely try to connect with you

⋆ and now you got yourselves a cute little doggy patiently waiting for your replies, wagging his tail happily at every text you send him

⋆ he STILL won't respond faster

⋆ he'll literally read the message from the notification bar, be happy, and then wait it out

⋆ if you send him a reel or something, he will go to the reel account, try and guess which reel you'd have sent him from that account, be happy, AND NOT RESPOND until he misses you

⋆ though this time it's not because he's playing his manipulative games again, but he genuinely feels a bit insecure about being so obsessed with your texts, that he tries to limit himself

⋆ he is frustrating pre-relationship

⋆ so, so frustrating; you have almost smashed your phone into pieces thrice by now

⋆ but as time progresses, he becomes more comfortable being vulnerable

⋆ he rants about his show's venue related problems, about this tough audience in this city, and more mundane things

⋆ remember his happiness when he succeeded in making those manganese batteries? (before senku said he needed to make like 800 of those)

⋆ well now imagine that happy gen humming in his bed, rolling around and playfully swinging his feet, reading your texts

⋆ that's when you know that you have successfully turned the most despicable lover into a loyal sweetheart ♡

Ukyo

⋆ genuinely the sweetest guy you'll ever be texting

⋆ long paragraphs. lovey emojis. and mimicking some of the slangs you use!!!! what more do you want

⋆ he tries to reply to you as soon as he can too!

⋆ during the initial talking stage, your sense of humor used to genuinely concern him, prompting him to call you to make sure you don't mean the stuff you just typed out

⋆ over time, he gets used to you being chaotic and just vibes along with it

⋆ one thing about him though, he won't dwell much on texts and replies, response times, etc. so he won't be too upset if you reply late

⋆ worried? yes. definitely! but, upset? nope! cause at the end of the day, he prefers to call you to talk about each other's day

⋆ he also loves it when you send him voice messages, saves them if possible

⋆ you once forced him to send a voice note of him singing and you praised him so much, he got SUPER flustered. he still goes back to that conversation to giggle sometimes 🤭!

⋆ never lyric prank him ever, cause half the time it won't work... he knows the songs, m'kay?

⋆ other half, he's just too much of a sweetheart to ignore you descending into madness. he will immediately call you to make sure you're alright. don't make him suffer

⋆ you guys send each other cute animal videos back and forth

⋆ sometimes, things get rather spicy over texts 👀 he doesn't look it but you'd be pleasantly surprised over this side of his.

⋆ he's a huge, HUGE tease

⋆ if you entertain the conversation long enough, a passionate night will follow per usual

Bonus

Ryusui

⋆ the first ever text he'd send you is "i want you"

⋆ straight up, no beating around the bush, no hello, hi, how are you, absolutely NOTHING!

⋆ you don't even know this man

⋆ but just as you hover your fingers over the phone screen to type back "who are you?", you'll find yourself kidnapped and taken straight to his mansion for a face to face chat 😐✊🏻

[probablyasocialecologist]

Rather than use the revenue from Duolingo’s nearly 10 million paid subscribers to hire more experts to create–I cannot stress this enough–learning content that requires subject matter expertise, [CEO] von Ahn seems to believe that quantity is the top goal, and that its users deserve a flood of what even he admits could be shit. This certainly squares with my own experience of Duolingo, which employs every cheap gamification trick in the book to simply keep me in the app and push me to pay.   On LinkedIn, Duolingo’s chief engineering officer Natalie Glance shared a Slack message she wrote to the engineering team explaining how AI will fit into their work. This message features new directives such as “AI will be everywhere in our product” and “productivity expectations will rise.” Here’s my personal favorite: Start with AI for every task. No matter how small, try using an AI tool first. It won’t always be faster or better at first–but that’s how you build skill. Don’t give up if the first result is wrong. Again, these people are literally admitting AI won’t work, but are still asking engineers now laboring under heightened productivity expectations to spend their even-more-precious time managing this sub-par tech. "That's how you build skill" puts the AI tools' failing back on the user, the "have fun staying poor" of the AI world, and asks engineers to troubleshoot AI when they could instead be using their real live human skill to do the jobs they were hired for.

29 April 2025

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Generative AI Is Bad For Your Creative Brain

In the wake of early announcing that their blog will no longer be posting fanfiction, I wanted to offer a different perspective than the ones I’ve been seeing in the argument against the use of AI in fandom spaces. Often, I’m seeing the arguments that the use of generative AI or Large Language Models (LLMs) make creative expression more accessible. Certainly, putting a prompt into a chat box and refining the output as desired is faster than writing a 5000 word fanfiction or learning to draw digitally or traditionally. But I would argue that the use of chat bots and generative AI actually limits - and ultimately reduces - one’s ability to enjoy creativity.

Creativity, defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus, is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. By definition, the use of generative AI discourages the brain from engaging with thoughts creatively. ChatGPT, character bots, and other generative AI products have to be trained on already existing text. In order to produce something “usable,” LLMs analyzes patterns within text to organize information into what the computer has been trained to identify as “desirable” outputs. These outputs are not always accurate due to the fact that computers don’t “think” the way that human brains do. They don’t create. They take the most common and refined data points and combine them according to predetermined templates to assemble a product. In the case of chat bots that are fed writing samples from authors, the product is not original - it’s a mishmash of the writings that were fed into the system.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a therapy modality developed by Marsha M. Linehan based on the understanding that growth comes when we accept that we are doing our best and we can work to better ourselves further. Within this modality, a few core concepts are explored, but for this argument I want to focus on Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation. Mindfulness, put simply, is awareness of the information our senses are telling us about the present moment. Emotion regulation is our ability to identify, understand, validate, and control our reaction to the emotions that result from changes in our environment. One of the skills taught within emotion regulation is Building Mastery - putting forth effort into an activity or skill in order to experience the pleasure that comes with seeing the fruits of your labor. These are by no means the only mechanisms of growth or skill development, however, I believe that mindfulness, emotion regulation, and building mastery are a large part of the core of creativity. When someone uses generative AI to imitate fanfiction, roleplay, fanart, etc., the core experience of creative expression is undermined.

Creating engages the body. As a writer who uses pen and paper as well as word processors while drafting, I had to learn how my body best engages with my process. The ideal pen and paper, the fact that I need glasses to work on my computer, the height of the table all factor into how I create. I don’t use audio recordings or transcriptions because that’s not a skill I’ve cultivated, but other authors use those tools as a way to assist their creative process. I can’t speak with any authority to the experience of visual artists, but my understanding is that the feedback and feel of their physical tools, the programs they use, and many other factors are not just part of how they learned their craft, they are essential to their art.

Generative AI invites users to bypass mindfully engaging with the physical act of creating. Part of becoming a person who creates from the vision in one’s head is the physical act of practicing. How did I learn to write? By sitting down and making myself write, over and over, word after word. I had to learn the rhythms of my body, and to listen when pain tells me to stop. I do not consider myself a visual artist - I have not put in the hours to learn to consistently combine line and color and form to show the world the idea in my head.

But I could.

Learning a new skill is possible. But one must be able to regulate one’s unpleasant emotions to be able to get there. The emotion that gets in the way of most people starting their creative journey is anxiety. Instead of a focus on “fear,” I like to define this emotion as “unpleasant anticipation.” In Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown identifies anxiety as both a trait (a long term characteristic) and a state (a temporary condition). That is, we can be naturally predisposed to be impacted by anxiety, and experience unpleasant anticipation in response to an event. And the action drive associated with anxiety is to avoid the unpleasant stimulus.

Starting a new project, developing a new skill, and leaning into a creative endevor can inspire and cause people to react to anxiety. There is an unpleasant anticipation of things not turning out exactly correctly, of being judged negatively, of being unnoticed or even ignored. There is a lot less anxiety to be had in submitting a prompt to a machine than to look at a blank page and possibly make what could be a mistake. Unfortunately, the more something is avoided, the more anxiety is generated when it comes up again. Using generative AI doesn’t encourage starting a new project and learning a new skill - in fact, it makes the prospect more distressing to the mind, and encourages further avoidance of developing a personal creative process.

One of the best ways to reduce anxiety about a task, according to DBT, is for a person to do that task. Opposite action is a method of reducing the intensity of an emotion by going against its action urge. The action urge of anxiety is to avoid, and so opposite action encourages someone to approach the thing they are anxious about. This doesn’t mean that everyone who has anxiety about creating should make themselves write a 50k word fanfiction as their first project. But in order to reduce anxiety about dealing with a blank page, one must face and engage with a blank page. Even a single sentence fragment, two lines intersecting, an unintentional drop of ink means the page is no longer blank. If those are still difficult to approach a prompt, tutorial, or guided exercise can be used to reinforce the understanding that a blank page can be changed, slowly but surely by your own hand.

(As an aside, I would discourage the use of AI prompt generators - these often use prompts that were already created by a real person without credit. Prompt blogs and posts exist right here on tumblr, as well as imagines and headcannons that people often label “free to a good home.” These prompts can also often be specific to fandom, style, mood, etc., if you’re looking for something specific.)

In the current social media and content consumption culture, it’s easy to feel like the first attempt should be a perfect final product. But creating isn’t just about the final product. It’s about the process. Bo Burnam’s Inside is phenomenal, but I think the outtakes are just as important. We didn’t get That Funny Feeling and How the World Works and All Eyes on Me because Bo Burnham woke up and decided to write songs in the same day. We got them because he’s been been developing and honing his craft, as well as learning about himself as a person and artist, since he was a teenager. Building mastery in any skill takes time, and it’s often slow.

Slow is an important word, when it comes to creating. The fact that skill takes time to develop and a final piece of art takes time regardless of skill is it’s own source of anxiety. Compared to @sentientcave, who writes about 2k words per day, I’m very slow. And for all the time it takes me, my writing isn’t perfect - I find typos after posting and sometimes my phrasing is awkward. But my writing is better than it was, and my confidence is much higher. I can sit and write for longer and longer periods, my projects are more diverse, I’m sharing them with people, even before the final edits are done. And I only learned how to do this because I took the time to push through the discomfort of not being as fast or as skilled as I want to be in order to learn what works for me and what doesn’t.

Building mastery - getting better at a skill over time so that you can see your own progress - isn’t just about getting better. It’s about feeling better about your abilities. Confidence, excitement, and pride are important emotions to associate with our own actions. It teaches us that we are capable of making ourselves feel better by engaging with our creativity, a confidence that can be generalized to other activities.

Generative AI doesn’t encourage its users to try new things, to make mistakes, and to see what works. It doesn’t reward new accomplishments to encourage the building of new skills by connecting to old ones. The reward centers of the brain have nothing to respond to to associate with the action of the user. There is a short term input-reward pathway, but it’s only associated with using the AI prompter. It’s designed to encourage the user to come back over and over again, not develop the skill to think and create for themselves.

I don’t know that anyone will change their minds after reading this. It’s imperfect, and I’ve summarized concepts that can take months or years to learn. But I can say that I learned something from the process of writing it. I see some of the flaws, and I can see how my essay writing has changed over the years. This might have been faster to plug into AI as a prompt, but I can see how much more confidence I have in my own voice and opinions. And that’s not something chatGPT can ever replicate.

[captainsophiestark]

The Old Me Never Left

Kai Parker x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Requested by Anon! Hope you like it!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

Summary: Kai's SO gets grabbed by some witches in an attempt to make him cooperate, but those witches forgot exactly who they were dealing with.

Word Count: 1,635

Category: Angst, Fluff

A/N: Just a heads up, this has a little more description of violence and the reader in peril than my works usually do! Still very canon-typical for TVD though.

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

My favorite song blasted through my headphones as I walked, the sun gently shining down and making the world around me the perfect temperature. A light breeze blew across my face and I'd just picked up my favorite drink from my favorite cafe. It should've been the perfect moment.

Instead of enjoying the day, however, I was busy glancing in the reflective windows of buildings I passed, trying to keep an eye on the two people behind me. They'd been behind me for a while now, including at the coffee shop I'd stopped at, and my mental warning meter had quickly clicked into the red.

Since I regularly involved myself with supernaturals, especially since I'd started dating one, I'd had to be more on guard than ever for someone coming after me for something to do with all that. Very much inconvenient and sometimes truly terrifying, but lucky for me, I had a secret weapon.

Kai Parker. My boyfriend, and a siphoner-witch who just happened to be one of the most powerful people around. No matter if the threat behind me was supernatural or just regular humans being a problem, I knew Kai could and would take care of it for me.

I sped up slilghtly, chucking my still half-full drink in the trash and pulling my phone out of my pocket. Despite myself, my heart started racing faster, especially as I noticed the people behind me getting noticeably closer the next time I checked in a window. I quickly dialed Kai's number and held the phone to my ear, speeding up even more when I heard running footsteps behind me.

"Hey, sweetheart," came Kai's voice as I started running. I could hear his smile through the phone. "What's up?"

"Kai, I need you to come find me," I said, my voice urgent, the words coming out between fast breaths. "I was on my way to the park. I'm like a block or two away, coming from our cafe, and these people are following me-"

I heard someone behind me shout a word I didn't know, and a moment later, a splitting pain tore through my head. I screamed and fell to the ground, but I knew making a scene wouldn't help; these people were clearly witches. The extra seconds I'd had to talk to Kai were likely only because they'd been busy casting spells to hide me from passerby when I went down.

Vaguely, as I hit the pavement and the world went dark around me, the pounding in my head echoing throughout my body, I thought I heard Kai's voice. He sounded panicked, and he kept repeating my name over and over. I wanted to talk to him. I needed to talk to him, to reassure him, to help him with whatever had him freaking out. But I couldn't make myself move, especially not through the pain.

Finally, everything else faded to black, the pain disappearing with the rest of the world as Kai's voice danced through my head for one last blissful moment. And then he was gone, too.

****************

When I woke up, not everything came back to me right away. I wasn't totally sure where I was or how I'd gotten here, but I knew one thing: my body hurt.

Everything, top to bottom, ached or screamed at me in some way. And when the memories started coming back, of the witches and the panic in Kai's voice on the phone, my heart started clenching in my chest, too.

"Look who's awake."

A gruff voice drew my attention to a few figures in front of me. I couldn't totally make them out, my vision still a little blurry, but they clearly weren't friends.

"Who... are you?" I managed to groan. I tried to move, but found myself bound tightly to a chair. My head swam, a pain like a spike still focused into my forehead.

"We're friends of your boyfriend," said one in a tone that clearly meant the opposite. I groaned.

"What do you... want?"

"We want him to get in line," the one in the middle said. "The powerful heretic, wrongful leader of the Gemini Coven, finally has a weakness—you—so it's time for him to start playing nice."

I huffed a laugh which immediately turned into a painful cough. Still, I smiled and shook my head, even as it made the world spin beneath me.

"You're all fools. You can't control Kai, especially not like this."

"Oh, I think you're underestimating your importance to him significantly," said the one in the lead. I started to respond, but a familiar voice piped up from the back of the room before I could.

"Mm, I don't think this has anything to do with 'underestimating importance'. More like... one person in this room knows who I am, and everyone else forgot."

The men before me whirled around, giving me a clear line of sight to Kai as my vision finally started returning to normal. I swear at least half the adrenaline melted out of my body at the sight of him leaning casually against the doorframe of whatever room we were in. He looked completely casual and calm, until his eyes locked onto me. The teasing smile dropped from his face as he straightened, then faced the other witches again. The smile came back, but this time it had a much sharper edge to it.

"You know, it's funny," he said, voice like a steel blade. "People seem to think that just because I've chosen a peaceful life with someone I love, that I lost all my powers, or something. But I can tell you all right now: the Kai Parker of your nightmares didn't go anywhere."

The witches between Kai and I shifted nervously, removing his direct line to me and shifting backwards in my direction.

"You better be careful, Parker," said the one in the lead, all of the arrogance and confidence gone from his voice despite his attempt to posture. "You do what we say, or-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence before Kai raised a hand, magically yanking the witch forward and striking out with a knife in his other hand, stabbing the witch straight through the heart. The whole room froze in shock as Kai just held him there for a minute, surely siphoning the magic out of his body, before letting him fall to the floor limp and dead.

The minute his body hit the ground, the remaining witches sprang into action. Most of them tried to focus fire on Kai, but one dropped back towards me, moving to stand behind me and my chair. In the time it took him to cross the room, Kai made quick work of the rest of his friends, draining all of their power before finishing them off and dropping them with their fallen leader.

"Stop!" shouted the one behind me. "Don't make another move or I'll- ah!"

He screamed, and I heard a sound like him dropping to his knees. Before me, Kai had one hand extended, a thunderous look on his face. He scrunched his hand into a fist, and the man behind me fell silent, other than the sound of his body hitting the floor.

Just like that, the rage melted off Kai's face. He crossed the room to me in a second, dropping to his knees before me and gently running his hands over my forearms and thighs. A moment later, the bonds holding me fell away.

"Are you alright, baby?" he asked, eyes wide with concern as his hands ghosted over my body, simultaneousy checking for injury while reassuring him I was really here. "I'm so sorry they hurt you. I came as fast as I could."

I nodded shakily, rubbing at my wrists before running a hand down Kai's face. He leaned into the touch, his eyes instantly romaing my expression.

"I'm okay now," I said, voice still a little breathy. "I'm okay. I knew you'd come for me."

"I'll always come for you. Nothing in the world could keep me away. Nothing." I nodded, a smile making its way onto my face as Kai brushed a few tears from my cheek that I hadn't realized had fallen. "And now, none of them are ever going to hurt you again."

Kai's eyes darkened a little as he said it, so I brushed my thumb across his cheek and gave him a small smile. Just like that, the shadows vanished from his face again as his eyes focused on me. I leaned forward and Kai did the same, our lips meeting a moment later in a soft, sweet kiss. I felt the warm tingle of magic flowing across my skin, erasing all the last aches and pains, until Kai and I finally pulled apart.

A fluttering smile made its way onto Kai's face as his eyes scanned mine again. Finally, he sighed.

"You ready to go home, sweetheart?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Me too."

Kai shot me a wink as he scooped me into his arms, then carried me out of the room, stepping carefully over the bodies he'd left in his wake. He held me a little tighter to him as we left the room, and I buried my head in his chest. Kai and I had both changed a lot since we'd first met, but at the end of the day, we were still the same people. He would still do anything for me, and although it didn't come up as often, I would do anything for him. And no one, be they murderous witches or particularly rude people I happened to cross paths with in my daily life, stood at chance at bringing the two of us down.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

[mx-pastelwriting]

Kinktober Day 5: Birthday Sex

Eddie Brock x GN! Reader

Summary: Being Eddie's birth you decide to get him away from work in your special ways.

Warnings/Tags: Smut, Flashing, Eddie on the phone, Venom being Venom

Kinktober Masterlist

Minors do not interact!

Tying a light knot on the robe, knowing it won't be there for long, you look in the mirror, fixing the little things. Hearing Eddie still on the phone, stressing over some new info.

Venom was too focused on the TV to notice your absence, taking a final look at yourself, then walking out to see the back of Eddie chatting away. Rolling your eyes, playing with the knot to the robe, walking to the side of Eddie yet still not being in the line of his sight.

Watching as he wrote something down in his notepad, waiting for him to finish, seeing his cute demeanor listening intently to the person on the phone. Loving your idea even more, as Eddie didn't deserve to have the stress of work on his birthday. Smiling as he looked up in surprise at you and what you have on.

Seeing the gears turn in his head, you untie the robe, showing what he's missing, holding back your laugh as his eyes widen. Hearing as he stuttered on the phone, trying to end the call, only making it harder to hold back, walking away to the bedroom you hear him trip trying to get to you.

Making it into the bedroom, feeling his arms wrap around as his kisses start on your neck, tilling your head the other way, welcoming him in. Feeling as hands grab with his moans of approval rumbling into your skin, peeling his hands away, then turning to face him, connecting your lips.

Leading you to the bed, feeling it touch the back of your legs, then pushing you down. Both catching your breaths seeing his focused face.

Swimming where you lay watching as he unbuttoned his pants, then taking off his shirt, showing what you missed since last night, climbing onto the bed while pulling the robe up. Hearing him further undoing his pants with one hands, using the other to play with you.

Not caring for the others in the building, "Eddie." You moan, making him move faster. Finally pulling out his hardening cock, not wasting any time, he slowly sinks himself into you. Gasps and cures exchanged while you held onto each other.

Slowly starting up, his thrusts took up every inch of you as the warmth of you welcomed him further. Moans and the creaking of the bed filled the room as his thrusts picked up quickly, causing your nails dig into him. Head rolling back, allowing his kisses to pick up on your neck while echoing his moans into your ear.

Hearing his breathy moans makes you swim in the haze of knowing it's because of you, feeling the swimming travel down, starting up in your stomach. Squirming under him as you build up inside, whether Eddie knew you couldn't hold back.

Spilling under him, gasping out, "Eddie," allowing your head to fall back further with your eyes following, hearing your moans lead him to his high. Tightening his grip as his sloppy hips come to an end, he cures out, landing back in your neck, catching his breath once again.

The room fell silent, only filling with your breaths catching up. Picking himself back up, then slowly pulled out, rolling over laying next to you. Cuddling close to you looking into your eyes, his hand raises cupping your face, kissing you again more sweetly, making you smile, then moving closer.

Breaking the kiss looking into his eyes you don't notice a familiar blob coming out, "Happy Birthday, Eddie," Venom's voice says, breaking the moment.

Hello, I hope you enjoyed if there is and grammar mistakes or misspellings sorry about that feel free to let me know in the comments, have a great day/afternoon/night!

♥ mx-pastelwriting does not consent to their fanfiction being copied, copied & credited, translated, used in videos and/or audios, screenshotted, used in AI.

Fanfiction is protected under copyright law when plagiarism is involved. If you plagiarize my work, either a piece or whole in any language, I will take legal action. Inspiration or the same idea does NOT apply to this, only word-for-word plagiarism in any language.

Taglist: @memphiscity69 @secrets2004 @christynalou @k3nmakyan @the1redrose @typical-emilyyyyy