#Handling Customer Query

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AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers

HEY SEATTLE! I'm appearing at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival NEXT SATURDAY (May 31) with the folks from NPR's On The Media!

On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/405-ai-is-the-demon-god-of-capital-ft-hagen-blix

One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

Blix admits that's not where therapy is at…yet, but he references Laura Preston's 2023 N Plus One essay, "HUMAN_FALLBACK," which describes her as a backstop to a real-estate "virtual assistant," that masqueraded as a human handling the queries that confused it, in a bid to keep the customers from figuring out that they were engaging with a chatbot:

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-44/essays/human_fallback/

This is what makes investors and bosses slobber so hard for AI – a "productivity" boost that arises from taking away the bargaining power of workers so that they can be made to labor under worse conditions for less money. The efficiency gains of automation aren't just about using fewer workers to achieve the same output – it's about the fact that the workers you fire in this process can be used as a threat against the remaining workers: "Do your job and shut up or I'll fire you and give your job to one of your former colleagues who's now on the breadline."

This has been at the heart of labor fights over automation since the Industrial Revolution, when skilled textile workers took up the Luddite cause because their bosses wanted to fire them and replace them with child workers snatched from Napoleonic War orphanages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

Textile automation wasn't just about producing more cloth – it was about producing cheaper, worse cloth. The new machines were so easy a child could use them, because that's who was using them – kidnapped war orphans. The adult textile workers the machines displaced weren't afraid of technology. Far from it! Weavers used the most advanced machinery of the day, and apprenticed for seven years to learn how to operate it. Luddites had the equivalent of a Masters in Engineering from MIT.

Weavers' guilds presented two problems for their bosses: first, they had enormous power, thanks to the extensive training required to operate their looms; and second, they used that power to regulate the quality of the goods they made. Even before the Industrial Revolution, weavers could have produced more cloth at lower prices by skimping on quality, but they refused, out of principle, because their work mattered to them.

Now, of course weavers also appreciated the value of their products, and understood that innovations that would allow them to increase their productivity and make more fabric at lower prices would be good for the world. They weren't snobs who thought that only the wealthy should go clothed. Weavers had continuously adopted numerous innovations, each of which increased the productivity and the quality of their wares.

Long before the Luddite uprising, weavers had petitioned factory owners and Parliament under the laws that guaranteed the guilds the right to oversee textile automation to ensure that it didn't come at the price of worker power or the quality of the textiles the machines produced. But the factory owners and their investors had captured Parliament, which ignored its own laws and did nothing as the "dark, Satanic mills" proliferated. Luddites only turned to property destruction after the system failed them.

Now, it's true that eventually, the machines improved and the fabric they turned out matched and exceeded the quality of the fabric that preceded the Industrial Revolution. But there's nothing about the way the Industrial Revolution unfolded – increasing the power of capital to pay workers less and treat them worse while flooding the market with inferior products – that was necessary or beneficial to that progress. Every other innovation in textile production up until that time had been undertaken with the cooperation of the guilds, who'd ensured that "progress" meant better lives for workers, better products for consumers, and lower prices. If the Luddites' demands for co-determination in the Industrial Revolution had been met, we might have gotten to the same world of superior products at lower costs, but without the immiseration of generations of workers, mass killings to suppress worker uprisings, and decades of defective products being foisted on the public.

So there are two stories about automation and labor: in the dominant narrative, workers are afraid of the automation that delivers benefits to all of us, stand in the way of progress, and get steamrollered for their own good, as well as ours. In the other narrative, workers are glad to have boring and dangerous parts of their work automated away and happy to produce more high-quality goods and services, and stand ready to assess and plan the rollout of new tools, and when workers object to automation, it's because they see automation being used to crush them and worsen the outputs they care about, at the expense of the customers they care for.

In modern automation/labor theory, this debate is framed in terms of "centaurs" (humans who are assisted by technology) and "reverse-centaurs" (humans who are conscripted to assist technology):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

There are plenty of workers who are excited at the thought of using AI tools to relieve them of some drudgework. To the extent that these workers have power over their bosses and their working conditions, that excitement might well be justified. I hear a lot from programmers who work on their own projects about how nice it is to have a kind of hypertrophied macro system that can generate and tweak little automated tools on the fly so the humans can focus on the real, chewy challenges. Those workers are the centaurs, and it's no wonder that they're excited about improved tooling.

But the reverse-centaur version is a lot darker. The reverse-centaur coder is an assistant to the AI, charged with being a "human in the loop" who reviews the material that the AI produces. This is a pretty terrible job to have.

For starters, the kinds of mistakes that AI coders make are the hardest mistakes for human reviewers to catch. That's because LLMs are statistical prediction machines, spicy autocomplete that works by ingesting and analyzing a vast corpus of written materials and then producing outputs that represent a series of plausible guesses about which words should follow one another. To the extent that the reality the AI is participating in is statistically smooth and predictable, AI can often make eerily good guesses at words that turn into sentences or code that slot well into that reality.

But where reality is lumpy and irregular, AI stumbles. AI is intrinsically conservative. As a statistically informed guessing program, it wants the future to be like the past:

https://reallifemag.com/the-apophenic-machine/

This means that AI coders stumble wherever the world contains rough patches and snags. Take "slopsquatting." For the most part, software libraries follow regular naming conventions. For example, there might be a series of text-handling libraries with names like "text.parsing.docx," "text.parsing.xml," and "text.parsing.markdown." But for some reason – maybe two different projects were merged, or maybe someone was just inattentive – there's also a library called "text.txt.parsing" (instead of "text.parsing.txt").

AI coders are doing inference based on statistical analysis, and anyone inferring what the .txt parsing library is called would guess, based on the other libraries, that it was "text.parsing.txt." And that's what the AI guesses, and so it tries to import that library to its software projects.

This creates a new security vulnerability, "slopsquatting," in which a malicious actor creates a library with the expected name, which replicates the functionality of the real library, but also contains malicious code:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/12/ai_code_suggestions_sabotage_supply_chain/

Note that slopsquatting errors are extremely hard to spot. As is typical with AI coding errors, these are errors that are based on continuing a historical pattern, which is the sort of thing our own brains do all the time (think of trying to go up a step that isn't there after climbing to the top of a staircase). Notably, these are very different from the errors that a beginning programmer whose work is being reviewed by a more senior coder might make. These are the very hardest errors for humans to spot, and these are the errors that AIs make the most, and they do so at machine speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

To be a human in the loop for an AI coder, a programmer must engage in sustained, careful, line-by-line and command-by-command scrutiny of the code. This is the hardest kind of code to review, and maintaining robotic vigilance over long periods at high speeds is something humans are very bad at. Indeed, it's the kind of task we try very hard to automate, since machines are much better at being machineline than humans are. This is the essence of reverse-centaurism: when a human is expected to act like a machine in order to help the machine do something it can't do.

Humans routinely fail at spotting these errors, unsurprisingly. If the purpose of automation is to make superior goods at lower prices, then this would be a real concern, since a reverse-centaur coding arrangement is bound to produce code with lurking, pernicious, especially hard-to-spot bugs that present serious risks to users. But if the purpose of automation is to discipline labor – to force coders to accept worse conditions and pay – irrespective of the impact on quality, then AI is the perfect tool for the job. The point of the human isn't to catch the AI's errors so much as it is to catch the blame for the AI's errors – to be what Madeleine Clare Elish calls a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As has been the case since the Industrial Revolution, the project of automation isn't just about increasing productivity, it's about weakening labor power as a prelude to lowering quality. Take what's happened to the news industry, where mass layoffs are being offset by AI tools. At Hearst's King Features Syndicates, a single writer was charged with producing over 30 summer guides, the entire package:

https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/

That is an impossible task, which is why the writer turned to AI to do his homework, and then, infamously, published a "summer reading guide" that was full of nonexistent books that were hallucinated by a chatbot:

https://www.404media.co/chicago-sun-times-prints-ai-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist/

Most people reacted to this story as a consumer issue: they were outraged that the world was having a defective product foisted upon it. But the consumer issue here is downstream from the labor issue: when the writers at King Features Syndicate are turned into reverse-centaurs, they will inevitably produce defective outputs. The point of the worker – the "human in the loop" – isn't to supervise the AI, it's to take the blame for the AI. That's just what happened, as this poor schmuck absorbed an internet-sized rasher of shit flung his way by outraged social media users. After all, it was his byline on the story, not the chatbot's. He's the moral crumple-zone.

The implication of this is that consumers and workers are class allies in the automation wars. The point of using automation to weaken labor isn't just cheaper products – it's cheaper, defective products, inflicted on the unsuspecting and defenseless public who are no longer protected by workers' professionalism and pride in their jobs.

That's what's going on at Duolingo, where CEO Luis von Ahn created a firestorm by announcing mass firings of human language instructors, who would be replaced by AI. The "AI first" announcement pissed off Duolingo's workers, of course, but what caught von Ahn off-guard was how much this pissed off Duolingo's users:

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/0347239/duolingo-faces-massive-social-media-backlash-after-ai-first-comments

But of course, this makes perfect sense. After all, language-learners are literally incapable of spotting errors in the AI instruction they receive. If you spoke the language well enough to spot the AI's mistakes, you wouldn't need Duolingo! I don't doubt that there are countless ways in which AIs could benefit both language learners and the Duolingo workers who develop instructional materials, but for that to happen, workers' and learners' needs will have to be the focus of AI integration. Centaurs could produce great language learning materials with AI – but reverse-centaurs can only produce slop.

Unsurprisingly, many of the most successful AI products are "bossware" tools that let employers monitor and discipline workers who've been reverse-centaurized. Both blue-collar and white-collar workplaces have filled up with "electronic whips" that monitor and evaluate performance:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/#virtual-whips

AI can give bosses "dashboards" that tell them which Amazon delivery drivers operate their vehicles with their mouths open (Amazon doesn't let its drivers sing on the job). Meanwhile, a German company called Celonis will sell your boss a kind of AI phrenology tool that assesses your "emotional quality" by spying on you while you work:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/processmining-algomanage

Tech firms were among the first and most aggressive adopters of AI-based electronic whips. But these whips weren't used on coders – they were reserved for tech's vast blue-collar and contractor workforce: clickworkers, gig workers, warehouse workers, AI data-labelers and delivery drivers.

Tech bosses tormented these workers but pampered their coders. That wasn't out of any sentimental attachment to tech workers. Rather, tech bosses were afraid of tech workers, because tech workers possess a rare set of skills that can be harnessed by tech firms to produce gigantic returns. Tech workers have historically been princes of labor, able to command high salaries and deferential treatment from their bosses (think of the amazing tech "campus" perks), because their scarcity gave them power.

It's easy to predict how tech bosses would treat tech workers if they could get away with it – just look how they treat workers they aren't afraid of. Just like the textile mill owners of the Industrial Revolution, the thing that excites tech bosses about AI is the possibility of cutting off a group of powerful workers at the knees. After all, it took more than a century for strong labor unions to match the power that the pre-Industrial Revolution guilds had. If AI can crush the power of tech workers, it might buy tech bosses a century of free rein to shift value from their workforce to their investors, while also doing away with pesky Tron-pilled workers who believe they have a moral obligation to "fight for the user."

William Gibson famously wrote, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." The workers that tech bosses don't fear are living in the future of the workers that tech bosses can't easily replace.

This week, the New York Times's veteran Amazon labor report Noam Scheiber published a deeply reported piece about the experience of coders at Amazon in the age of AI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is palpably horny for AI coders, evidenced by investor memos boasting of AI's returns in "productivity and cost avoidance" and pronouncements about AI saving "the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years":

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andy-jassy-8b1615_one-of-the-most-tedious-but-critical-tasks-activity-7232374162185461760-AdSz/

Amazon is among the most notorious abusers of blue-collar labor, the workplace where everyone who doesn't have a bullshit laptop job is expected to piss in a bottle and spend an unpaid hour before and after work going through a bag- and body-search. Amazon's blue-collar workers are under continuous, totalizing, judging AI scrutiny that scores them based on whether their eyeballs are correctly oriented, whether they take too long to pick up an object, whether they pee too often. Amazon warehouse workers are injured at three times national average. Amazon AIs scan social media for disgruntled workers talking about unions, and Amazon has another AI tool that predicts which shops and departments are most likely to want to unionize.

Scheiber's piece describes what it's like to be an Amazon tech worker who's getting the reverse-centaur treatment that has heretofore been reserved for warehouse workers and drivers. They describe "speedups" in which they are moved from writing code to reviewing AI code, their jobs transformed from solving chewy intellectual puzzles to racing to spot hard-to-find AI coding errors as a clock ticks down. Amazon bosses haven't ordered their tech workers to use AI, just raised their quotas to a level that can't be attained without getting an AI to do most of the work – just like the Chicago Sun-Times writer who was expected to write all 30 articles in the summer guide package on his own. No one made him use AI, but he wasn't going to produce 30 articles on deadline without a chatbot.

Amazon insists that it is treating AI as an assistant for its coders, but the actual working conditions make it clear that this is a reverse-centaur transformation. Scheiber discusses a dissident internal group at Amazon called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, who link the company's use of AI to its carbon footprint. Beyond those climate concerns, these workers are treating AI as a labor issue.

Amazon's coders have been making tentative gestures of solidarity towards its blue-collar workforce since the pandemic broke out, walking out in support of striking warehouse workers (and getting fired for doing so):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley/#hang-together-hang-separately

But those firings haven't deterred Amazon's tech workers from making common cause with their comrades on the shop floor:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

When techies describe their experience of AI, it sometimes sounds like they're describing two completely different realities – and that's because they are. For workers with power and control, automation turns them into centaurs, who get to use AI tools to improve their work-lives. For workers whose power is waning, AI is a tool for reverse-centaurism, an electronic whip that pushes them to work at superhuman speeds. And when they fail, these workers become "moral crumple zones," absorbing the blame for the defective products their bosses pushed out in order to goose profits.

As ever, what a technology does pales in comparison to who it does it for and who it does it to.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war

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

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

[carriesthewind]

Hmm, is that the sound of chickens, beginning to come home to roost?

After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline's bereavement travel policy. ... Air Canada was seemingly so invested in experimenting with AI that Crocker told the Globe and Mail that "Air Canada’s initial investment in customer service AI technology was much higher than the cost of continuing to pay workers to handle simple queries." It was worth it, Crocker said, because "the airline believes investing in automation and machine learning technology will lower its expenses" and '"fundamentally" create "a better customer experience."

I also highly recommend reading the decision itself:

Highlights:

"In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission."

"While Air Canada argues Mr. Moffatt could find the correct information on another part of its website, it does not explain why the webpage titled “Bereavement travel” was inherently more trustworthy than its chatbot. It also does not explain why customers should have to double-check information found in one part of its website on another part of its website."

And not "AI" related, but delicious snark:

"Air Canada is a sophisticated litigant that should know it is not enough in a legal process to assert that a contract says something without actually providing the contract."

[if-seal]

Dear IF Seal,

I am writing an if for the first time and yet to release a demo. I have an idea on character customization that I haven't really seen in the many ifs I've played. I'm looking forward to writing it but also nervous on how it would be received, which is why I'm asking for your opinion. A bit of background, my if only has five deities as love interests (none of them are gendered, gender-locked, or gender flippable, but there are some gendered secondary character deities). Because of their supernatural nature, the love interests can choose how their human form manifests. Question: What do you think, as a player, about customizing the (human) looks of a love interest?

This one love interest is cheerful, energetic, always up for a new experience! But they have no real desires of their own, even though they are the deity of ambition. They don't care for a human form so I'm thinking their default could be mist or if needed, some animal form that can grab like an octopus (yes, this is also for the wanton ones who do-not-care-about-looks and who do-love-these-kinds-of-looks). If the MC chooses not to help them customize, but in the future they get into a serious romantic relationship, the LI would observe the preferences of the MC and make a human form based on that so that they could "properly" kiss. (If it matters, the LIs are really young for deities, so no age gaps with the human player, lol.)

I've been toying around with this idea and sometimes I think it's great and other times I feel like it's a terrible one. Flipping a coin is no help. I feel like I would be exposing some sort of hidden desire of my own in asking my if player friends so I'm too shy to mention it to them yet (⸝⸝⸝╸﹏╺⸝⸝⸝). If for some miracle, someone figured out the game's name, no need to mention it or me, but feel free to share your reactions on this, bc that is what I'm asking about.

No worries if you don't reply soon, take your time!

Thank you ❤︎

Dear Customising Romance Friend,

Thank you for your patience! I hadn't reached your first message by the time your second one came in, so I am delighted to hear that you feel more confident in allowing flexibility in the romantic interests you are writing. I do hope that you have been having fun writing your new project and best of luck with it!

I do have a couple of additional thoughts about customisation to add, if I may share!

I believe your idea about shapeshifting gods sounds like it could be plenty of fun, especially for those folks who enjoy monster--ah, kissing. I prefer to eat octopi rather than kiss them but I know others will feel differently about such things.

I was interested in what you said about feeling shy about potentially revealing a hidden desire - perhaps it does to some degree, but we always reveal aspects of ourselves in some ways when we write. The romantic side of things may feel more revealing than other aspects of writing, but it would be wrong to assume that for example an author is Secretly Into every romantic trope they write, or would want anything like that in real life, or that they necessarily prefer one character over another based on what's in the game.

So I am sending you hope that you grow in confidence in sharing ideas with your IF playing pals.

Jumping off your query about customising looks, there is a fairly established practice of including gender-selectable characters in IF, with varying levels of variation between them; looks-selectable is less common. I think if you are dealing with shapeshifting creatures or gods, it seems fairly organic to handle in-game. The creature says "would you enjoy me having four arms right now so I can give you an even bigger hug" and the PC can say "yes, delightful" or "no, two arms is enough".

If everyone involved is human, and you're choosing "I want Aaron to have red hair" or "I'd prefer Aaron to have black hair" this feels like it makes less sense to me... perhaps because we are usually dealing with words rather than the mobile games where you can pick which sprite you find most attractive? Perhaps it's simply that I'm more used to the entirety of gender-selection rather than going for a more granular appearance-selection.

Something else I would add - again this isn't something you're doing, but I've seen it around the place so I believe it's worth considering: if you have one shapeshifting creature who's genderfluid among the rest of the cast being cis men or women (human or otherwise), please do consider including a nonbinary or genderfluid romantic interest who is not a shapeshifter as well. Shapeshifters engaging with gender is delightful, but it can be rather tiring when there are no non-shapeshifters also doing it.

Thank you for your questions! I ended up using them to go off on a few meandering tangents, but sometimes a swim in the sea goes that way.

Best wishes for your writing!

[blu3ypetall]

Scaramouche x Reader, Chapter 4

Chapter 3 | Chapter 5

Taglist; @featuredtofu

Summary ; With a new opportunity arising, you quickly grab it as fast as it appears. Waiting for said opportunity to fully flourish, you encounter a strange jewel, and can't seem to resist its pull.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

▶︎ Family Jewels | MARINA

𝐂𝐖; none

Note; italics will be Snezhnayan,

English will be regular font.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Again, guests had gathered in the dining area, awaiting their food to be served to them by the one and only newcomer who'd taken up the role of customer service. Begrudgingly.

On today's menu, a rather strange looking meal was lined up to be served— and personally, it made you gag, but everyone else seemed to enjoy the bowl that looked similar to porridge.

"Kasha", is what Rusalina had called it, the ground up buckwheat oats apparently being both cheap and useful when it came to breakfast. Not only was it easy to obtain, but that meant most people ate it— and they didn't have a problem eating it here either.

This morning had been like any other in past two weeks, work around, do some cleaning and serve the guests until they all flooded out back to their lives away from the inn.

While the actions may have been the same, a routine, the thoughts were not. You couldn't stop thinking about yesterday, the sudden intrusion of those men and the demanding of what you assumed was money.

If Rusalina was in debt to such people— you wanted to do something to help. This feeling of guilt plagued you, and the only way you could think of ridding it was by working with the old lady to help her earn some extra money— but just working at the inn wasn't enough.

This little job you'd found yourself working at was nowhere near enough to help her. You knew that, because the inn was barely populated with more than a few people, and they all seemed to be total grumps.

"Can you pass the pot, dear?" Rusalina grabbed your attention forcefully, gesturing to the pot holding bubbling water, the item sat over the crackling fire and upheld by hooks. You paused for a moment, grappling your surroundings before nodding.

"Yeah."

Your hands grabbed a tea towel first, using the cloth as a protection mechanism against the heat, before grabbing the metallic pots handles and removing it from its perch over the fire, the bottom of the metal burnt.

Your body turned to face Rusalina, and she graciously took the pot from you with ease, transporting it to another counter in the kitchen, her back turning to you again.

You stared at her, silently stood behind and locked in your own world as she worked.

She seemed so cheery even though the dreaded truth lurked right behind her, and you couldn't grasp how she pushed off yesterday's events so easily. How did she continue without even a hint of solemnness in her movements?

How long had she had to endure the pressure of unpaid debts that she'd never be able to rid herself of? How long had she had to hand over money to that organisation— those.. 'Fatui' people?

You couldn't wrap your mind around it, a tumult of thoughts whirling like an untamed tornado within the confines of your head, threatening to spew out. Should you speak up? Should you stay quiet and not say a thing? But if you did that— you don't know how you'd manage with such thoughts.

You couldn't stand here awkwardly forever.

"Hey— Rusalina?" Finally, you spoke, grabbing the old woman's attention effectively, her head turning back to you.

"Mmh?"

"Those— men, yesterday. What did they want?" Ripping the bandage right from the gaping wound, you didn't waste any time with beating around the bush, pushing past the barrier of worry and just spitting your question right at her.

She had frozen upon your inquiry. Whether out of confusion for your sudden vernacular, or being forced into a stupor at your query, you didn't know, nor did you truly care, you just wanted an answer.

"..."

"Nothing much, just some payment" she shrugged, turning back to the stove before her.

"To who?" You might be being nosey, being too pushy and invading places that really weren't your business, but as they say— 'curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back'.

Rusalina didn't turn back, she didn't even acknowledge what you'd asked— just leaving you on heard.

"Who do you—"

"(Name). It isn't your place to know," she snapped, sending a wary wayward glance over her shoulder, her eyes softening into a strange glint that you were unable to decipher.

Her words were true— not a singular lie touching her lips. You had no business invading whatever debts she had, you barely even knew her. Sure, you'd been living under her roof for just about two weeks, but what about that gave you the right to her private life?

It didn't.

You had no place asking these questions, and against your brains biggest wishes, you went by Rusalina's wishes, and backed off.

A silence stewed between the two of you, an uncomfortable one at that. The weight of guilt hung over you, and it was a mix of multiple things causing such feelings.

For one, you were unable to repay the woman who had practically saved your life— and showed you a generosity that you assumed you'd never experience anywhere else.

Secondly, you'd obviously stirred up some kind of feelings inside the woman, and you hadn't intended to. A voice told you that you should've stayed quiet, and you partially agreed with the voice— but you didn't let it fully drag you down into a pit of guilty conscience.

"You're right— sorry," you apologised to the woman, shaking your head to clear your mind. Again, she didn't say anything at your words, shuffling around the kitchen as she continued to cook.

Your gaze followed after her, brows pinching in a subtle shock, but you could semi-understand her unwillingness to talk. She's probably just uncomfortable, you told yourself, but you'd never really know if it was truly true or not.

Deciding to resume your regular routine to distract yourself from the freshly occurring events, you easily slunk back into the fashion of working your way around the kitchen, making sure to check on the boiling pot whenever Rusalina wasn't attending to it.

You wanted to speak up, say something to break the silence, something to remove the clenching in your heart— but you held your tongue. It was for the better. Sometimes people just need time to think, plus, it was just a small accident.

You hadn't known you were overstepping a line, you were simply indulging your curiosity, and now you knew not to push on such a subject, since it seemed touchy. That's what you kept repeating in your mind.

"We're out of potatoes— дерьмо. (Name), can you quickly fetch some?" Rusalina finally spoke to you, but it wasn't to engage in an actual conversation again, she was merely putting you to a task.

Normally— whenever any item ran low, stocks running dry, Rusalina would handle it, ordering you to man the kitchen and tend to the awaiting guests while she fetched the re-supply. This was a change. Was she trying to get rid of you for a while?

Oh.

"Oh— yeah, okay," you nodded.

She was trying to be rid of you. Not in the sense that she wanted you gone for good— no. In the sense that you reap what you sow, and being in your presence seemed to be one of the last things she wanted to do right now, so she was sending you off on a journey.

The guilt clawed harder at your heart, but you ignored it, awaiting the money she'd usually hand you when sending you out to grab things (which was only one or two times).

She'd fetched the bag quickly, always having a sack on her person during the morning, it had been handed off to you like a sacred torch. Except it wasn't a torch, nor was it sacred, it was money being used to buy new potatoes. How thrilling.

Turning away, the guests moved by your peripheral in a blur, the warmly lit insides of the inn soon becoming the freezing outsides of the streets that lurked behind the front door.

The cold that was always ready to smack you right in the face was there once again— and you didn't think you'd ever grow used to the immediate shiver that struck you as a wave of frosty wind caressed any skin out in the open.

The streets were filled with the same rounds of people everyday, or, mostly the same people. There may be the one off travelling merchant or group of tourists that stopped by, but the locals never strayed too far from their homes.

It was strange in a way. The same sights as you peered out the ice washed windows grew boring rather quickly, and finally stepping outside to witness the monotone image only achieved a small sense of surprise— but not from the people, from the sudden fresh air that was fed into your lungs.

The only thing that seemed to have been swapped out from the usual was the lack of ice fluttering from the clouds, the tufts of white no longer shedding frozen tears, but still keeping their coverage over the sky, leaving it overcast once more.

Beginning your trek through the uncanny streets, you moved with a curious purpose, eyes reading over every sodden wood sign that you could identify, looking for a specific word choice that would signal you've arrived at your destination.

Since you hadn't exactly walked these streets many times aside from the twice a week occasional travel, you were unfamiliar with the locations of the shops. Where even was the grocery store? Was there even a grocery store here?

That was another thing you'd quickly picked up on. This town was very old fashioned. No technology, buildings that seemed ready to groan and collapse, and clothes that were far too detailed to possibly wear every single day, yet somehow the inhabitants managed.

So, the point being— you didn't think there was a grocery store in such a low progressed town.

You'd heard Rusalina talk about visiting stalls to purchase items, so maybe you could look out for those.

The stalls you had in mind were the ones made of wood, with perhaps a banner strung up with bright colours to advertise their goods. Where you adapted such an image, you'd not a clue.

You'd grown used to the lack of memories, but sometimes it became frustrating to not know where your habits originated or why you struggled to accomplish some tasks.

Sometimes, just talking to specific individuals grew hard, with your throat randomly closing in without warning. Other times, you'd start crying in envy as you saw a parent play endearingly with their child.

You'd not an idea why. You know you couldn't remember anything personal from your past, not even where you used to reside on earth, but the lack of memories about your family was something that bothered you.

You wanted to know, wanted to have those memories in reach of your hands, but that wasn't possible. Unless there was someone out there who had the ability to look through the world's history and physically give you the memories, you'd just have to accept that you'd never know. That didn't make it any less frustrating though.

"Hey— come on— our contract still goes on for another six months!"

What was that?

Some kind of argument.

Normally, the bickering that may occur in the streets didn't draw your attention whatsoever, maybe a slight side-eye, but nothing more than that. Though, this particular shouting did, namely because it was different from the usual arguments.

"I don't care. You've done nothing you promised, I'm terminating our contract."

There was a second voice, this one... a deeper woman's, her accent sounding much more like that of a locally grown one.

Terminate a contract? Could you even do that?

You might have stopped at eaves dropping, but something in your stomach tugged at you to stop and swing by, joining the slowly growing crowd that had formed to watch the two individuals argue.

As expected, one was a woman, the other a man.

She was elegant, refined, and looked as if the clothes she wore were especially tailored for her. She looked ethereal to say the least, with her clothes fashioned in an eye catching red, shining with sparkles that glittered off of the light pouring from between the clouds.

A rich woman— and...

"Just give me some time! I promise that I can uphold my end!" He begged and pleaded, ignoring the crowd pitifully watching his antics.

His clothes were different, slightly more familiar to you in a way, a way that sent Deja vu sparking, but still so very intriguing to your gaze. They looked as if they came from some western part of Europe, maybe France or somewhere neighbouring.

Green was the colour he wore, the dark olive fitted into suit that was buttoned with gold. Was it pure or not? Only heaven knows.

He seemed desperate, his form shrinking in on itself, and those around watched like vultures, ready to pick up the pieces of drama that slipped from their conversation.

"No! No more time! I'm done! You are a scammer!"

What a strong title to give someone. Just what did this man scam her of that had made her so mad?

Whispers immediately begun, passing from ear to ear of each person as mouths moved on instinct, reciting the words like a broken radio. A collective field of them.

"Please madam Dzehlika!"

This 'Madam Dzehlika' did not turn back to look at the pleading man, pushing the crowd blocking her path aside forcefully, and leaving the man to grovel in the snow, his expression dropping to one of pure devastation.

As the drama had finally ended, the commotion dried up just as quick. The watering hole of tea those had gathered around for was now sucked dry, and so those drinking in the drama left to find a new source of entertainment.

You would have followed, would have turned away and continued on your so far failed shopping trip if it hadn't been that pang of guilt flaring from earlier. Why did it always beg you to help those you saw in trouble?

It was strange, you saw someone needing help and it was as if you just had to guide them on the path they needed to be on.

Your brows had furrowed down unconsciously, and you only relaxed your features when you took a step forward, the snow crunching beneath your boots as you approached the fatigued-looking man.

"Are you alright?"

His eyes lurched from the disappearing red dress to you, looking up at your figure with a multitude of emotions.

People always went through so many emotions within a matter of seconds, so fast, yet so noticeable. It usually went from fear— to curiosity, and then either gratitude or frustration. It was an easily recognisable pattern.

"Ahem— apologies. Yes. I'm alright," he awkwardly coughed into a gloved fist, pushing himself to stand and dusting the snow from the tips of his knees where it clung to his pants fabric.

Now that you'd moved closer, you could immediately see the bigger difference in even just his facial features compared to the locals.

The locals usually had sharply defined faces, either gaunt or gorgeous, never in between. Hooked noses were common, along with sharp eyes, except for in children.

This man though— his face was much softer, rounded at the cheek bones and his skin was tanner than those who lived in this town. He seemed aristocratic in a sense, if that made any sense at all.

He reminded you of those olden days politicians from the renaissance or revolution, just— without the strange white wig, and he wasn't speaking in a tongue so fancy that you had a stroke hearing it.

"What was that about?" Despite learning the language of Snezhnaya rather easily, as if you'd known it once before, the bluntness of curiosity had never quite disappeared. The man was obviously caught off guard at the straight forwardness, but he quickly recovered, his face slightly wrinkled.

He gulped.

"Ah— that was just Uhm... one of my clients. I promised her a few things but was never able to deliver."

Makes sense, that must be where he got the 'scammer' title from, since as he explained— it did seem like he had somehow scammed her.

"What do you work as? I have— never seen your clothes," you pointed at his outfit, and despite his previous solemn air, he seemed to bounce right back up, a boastful tune soon playing from his lips.

"Oh! I am an agent from the Plaisir talent agency! I help upcoming stars find the best roles for them!" He excitedly chirped, a wide grin stretched across the expanse of his face.

A talent agency? You vaguely recalled what those were. Were they not those things that helped singers get jobs?

...Rusalina had complimented your singing, so what's the worst that could happen? (You could be completely humiliated and shunned and embarrass yourself in front of an entire crowd.)

The Plaisir talent agency. Definitely sounds French, to you at least. What if... you just got an idea.

"Do you need a client?"

...

"Eh? You're interested?"

"Yes— I would... like to try and organise a deal."

So, that leads you to here, the inn's back rooms with nobody but you and this man in sight.

The potatoes had been delivered to a still quiet Rusalina, and you'd decided not to pay attention to her dreary attitude for now, pushing past your minds call and instead moving to work with this man who'd accepted your offer.

What was this offer?

Well— money was not something you had, not in a good amount at least, so you needed another way to help the man.

He agreed to listen to your voice, estimate your talent level, and do everything he could to score you some kind of job or gig somewhere. The benefit for him was that he'd be getting 50% of the payment you got, and you'd also promote him if anyone asked.

It was a win-win really. You got to put yourself out there (and hopefully get past your stage fright), while he got way more pay than expected, and a higher chance of future clients!

You felt as though he'd probably need the promotion, especially seeing as this morning wasn't really a good painting on his image, and instead had tainted whatever reputation he may have had before.

So now, presenting your talent before this 'scammer', you hoped that Rusalina hadn't lied to you and that you truly could sing— well, good enough to the fact he could score you some kind of job that would earn a decent amount of money.

"So— is it... good enough?" You winced at your own sheepish tone, standing awkwardly before the man before you with his jaw dropped wide open, hung in what you could only hope was shock and presume was disgust.

He blinked.

Once, then twice, the fog sheerly covering his eyes slowly dissipating as he cleared his throat, unclogging the airways of his oesophagus and standing straighter than before.

"Madame, your voice is truly a serenade for the divine."

His words were a shock to your heart, an electric jolt of flattery that caused a forceful smile to slowly spread across the fabric of your face. The smile wasn't unwanted, but you couldn't help the fact that you smiled either. His words had merely been that poetic.

"Is... that a yes?"

"Of course! I am honoured to work with you madame— ahem," he extended his hand, cutting himself off right before saying your name, that of which he didn't actually know yet.

As he stopped, you did remember you hadn't even introduced yourself to him. How embarrassing.

"(Name)."

"Well, madame (Name). I, Adam would be happy to find you a client. Give me about a week, and I will come back to you with news you will certainly like," Adam smiled.

Your hand extended and clasped his tightly, fingers interlocking in a firm shake, and with that final movement, the deal was then sealed— bound by promises and a hope for the future.

"Thank you, Adam."

.

The week was tormenting you, insanely so. Every second felt like it was being stretched on forever and the lack of a clock or calendar to check was making you think you'd lost track of the days you'd stayed here.

It's been a total of four weeks by your count— which means... you'd been here for a whole month. A whole month, and barely any progress on finding out where you came from.

You were beginning to doubt yourself and your motivations.

Did you really want to find a family that you couldn't remember? What if they'd purposefully left you in that field and had no want for you any longer? What if they were involved in some accident and you were the only one who'd made it?

You didn't even think you were trying to find a way home anymore. At least, not very prominently anyway.

You were rather content in this small inn, working with Rusalina— who by now had returned to her normal self over the days.

You were starting to build some kind of life, and frankly, why would you want to search for something that you had no connection to in the first place? Sure, you wanted to find your family, if they even existed anymore, but, it wasn't really a priority.

Over this past week and a bit you'd been so focused on waiting for Adam to return, hoping he wasn't some kind of scammer like that lady had accused him of being.

You were trying to make a bigger start for yourself here. Whether with the intent of being able to travel to find your family, or with the intent you still held to help Rusalina, either way, you were beginning to feel like this place was all you knew.

Though, it technically was.

You didn't know anything else, sure, you knew topics and what things were, but you didn't know about the experiences that came with those things.

Even your phone, an item that you now treasured despite its broken and dead state was kept locked in the back room, waiting for you to find some kind of shop that would maybe work on phones.

Perhaps that's why you wanted to work your way up the ladder with this new profound talent you'd found yourself having. If you made it to a big city, perhaps the main city of Snezhnaya, then you'd find a phone repair shop, and even a map shop— which you haven't managed to find just yet.

Such tools were important to you. Your phone could perhaps contain items from your past, photos of your family and hobbies of what you did. It was evidence that you did have a past, you just haven't quite got around to unlocking it just yet.

That realisation was painful, and it made you feel hollow sometimes, like a lost child.

Your past self was nothing more than a husk of a memory, a figment of an idea that for now, seemed unreachable.

Even if you did find out about your past, what would that make of you now? Would you want to return to it?

Again, you felt as if you were stuck in the bottom of a pit, and only had your ragged fingernails to claw yourself out.

You were torn. Torn between what was starting to become something more, and what you longed for deep in your heart.

Rusalina, despite her behaviour and secrets, had become something more to you, in your eyes at least. Maybe she didn't think of you as something like a daughter, but you'd clung to her the moment she'd allowed you to work here.

It was naive, gripping onto someone you barely knew just because they'd shown you generosity, but who else did you have right now?

You hadn't managed to attain any friends, because for some reason young women your age were just non-existent in this town.

Men were out of the question, that's to say the least— and really, the only people you found yourself thinking about was Rusalina, Adam and him.

Him.

You hadn't seen him again during your time here, but that doesn't mean you'd stop thinking about him.

He was the man who'd probably saved your life, and to you, you felt in debt to him, despite not even knowing his name.

Sometimes you thought your first days here were all a dream, that you'd wake up or that it was all a false reality, seeing as you'd never seen him in this town again.

It's like he was never even real, and he was just a story your mind made up to feel better about what may have happened.

Perhaps that may be true, that you were still stuck in the after life— but, those theories were all mindless second thoughts, and you knew the reality of your situation, even if it was still quite dreary.

It wasn't the most perfect existence, stuck in the toils of labour not evening knowing who you truly were deep down, but you'd make do. Maybe by a slim chance, if you spent a long enough time here then you'd discover yourself again, or reinvent yourself into something new.

Maybe over the extent of time, you'd pick up the pieces of your past self, one by one, and slowly rebuild who you were, crafting filaments for the hollow holes in your soul.

Or maybe you'd become someone completely new from your past self, like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, once so young and naive, blooming into something more. Something greater.

...

That's all you truly wanted, wasn't it? Something more than what you currently had, something better.

More information about your family.

More information about this world.

More information about everything.

More.

More.

More, more, more.

You felt greedy. So hungry for knowledge about your own life that it hurt, it stung. Something deep down within you stung, and it hurt so bad that you didn't know how to make it stop.

Like a knife gutting you clean open, tearing away at the flesh of your outer shell to reveal your empty insides. You were empty, just a shell of your former self— but... were you?

You felt like a person. You had your ambitions, dreams, ideas and aspirations that drove you forward. Though, even the future couldn't fill the hole of the past.

The future wasn't able to fix what was broken, it wasn't able to fill that gaping hole within yourself, but that didn't mean you couldn't make it do so.

You'd search so hard that your brain would have no choice but to open itself back up to you. It'd have no choice but to hand you the key to your memories, it'd have no choice but to let your recollect your past. To let you become you again.

You would make the future fix you.

You'd find the knowledge about your past self, and delve so deep into a rabbit hole it would be impossible to pull you out.

You'd do so— perhaps, not right now, but soon. Some time soon, when you weren't sitting in the dim back room of the inn, late at night, all by yourself.

Your fists were clenched tight, nails digging into the supple skin of your palms, and your chin resting on the perch of your knees.

You felt too tired to stay awake, but your mind was far too active to sleep.

Your eyelids were already tugging themselves down, begging you to let them fully close and allow yourself to drift off into the dark, but you had far too much thinking to do.

Staring into the black that surrounded you, you felt like it matched you all too much.

The area was onyx, nothing visible, but yet the faintest buzzing of colours could be seen from your eyes. A void so vast and empty, yet filled with sprawling beautiful splattered colours at the same time.

How would that even be possible?

How—

How, how, how.

You only wanted to know more about everything. You only craved to know more about yourself and this world. You only desired a feast of information that would be enough to feed you for years to come.

You only desired more knowledge.

That desire was eating you whole.

It was like a virus, so pungent and repulsive that you loved it. You loved it, and the idea of being able to learn everything you could about your situation, of being able to learn everything.

You were stuck in your own thoughts, trapped in the labyrinth of your mind, dwelling on answers that you couldn't seem to decipher just yet.

You sighed, a soft heave of breath that came from the expanses of your lungs, buried deep within your chest.

"Why does this world hate me so much...?"

Your emotions were so tumultuous, bursting at the seams and threatening to erupt now that you were in the bounds of your own solitude. But even now— you were far too exhausted to shed a single tear, far too exhausted to make any movement past shifting in your seat.

The planked floor was hard against your body, uncomfortable and suppressing the nerves under your skin, but you didn't have anything else to sit on really.

You didn't have much in this room, after all, it was only a storage room— shifted around to be able to house you, which was only temporary.

That thought was saddening. The thought that once your time lurking back here was up, that you'd have nowhere else to go, not unless Adam managed to find something.. but he hadn't been back for over a week, and you were beginning to believe he was a scammer.

You were kind of hoping he wasn't, that he'd stick true to his word and gather you some kind of job or gig that you could have, but that didn't seem to be the car.

So, for now, you were stuck here. Stuck in the dusty back room of this rickety inn, with nowhere to go but within these four walls.

Your eyes flickered around the dark.

Now that you thought about it, you hadn't actually searched this room much. Then again, it wasn't much.

It was just a storage room filled with cleaning supplies and old things. Old things... that you could possibly snoop through.

Okay look— it was a little impolite, searching through the few crates stored in the back without Rusalina's permission, but your curiosity got the best of you!

You couldn't sleep, were bored out of your mind, and needed a distraction from your melancholic existence, so what better to do than search through somebody else's things? Exactly!

You swiftly stood, hand pressed against the wall near you for support, and your finger tips brushed against the planks as a guide.

They felt weathered and old, but you'd gotten used to that feeling. The feeling of rotting wood, un-replaced for years, ready to collapse the moment too much pressure was put on it. It was an ugly feeling, but it was normal now.

Those planks making up the wall were your guide as you slowly traversed the dark room, feeling along the edges carefully, and making sure to keep quiet as you walked to where you could faintly see the edge of the crates.

They were a box of mysteries, ones that could either lead you back into your pit of boredom, or open up a pit of intrigue for you to clamber through.

As you kneeled before the boxes, your hands coming into contact with the lid, you second guessed your decision for a moment.

Was it right? Should you be shovelling through the boxes? They clearly didn't contain items you'd need— but then again, Rusalina hadn't told you not to go through them.

Plus, what's the big deal? If you find anything too personal or accidentally worm your way into her personal items, you'll close the box right back up! (If you can even see inside).

A hum of energy thrummed beneath your fingers, filling your veins with a strong hint of adrenaline that seemed to pulse you forward for some unknown reason.

It felt like the crate was calling out to you— and you second guessed your choices again, wondering if you were beginning to grow delirious from the lack of sleep.

But against your better judgement and all else, you tugged on the lid, and when it didn't open, you felt along the sides until you grasped a hold of a simple lock, fiddling around with the latch until it flicked up and relinquished its hold on the lid.

The box gurgled as you lifted it open, and the noise pried a wince from you as the sound bounced off of the walls and the thinning cold air in the room, the haunting cry being far too loud for your liking.

"Shush—" even if it was an inanimate object, you still shushed the crate, acting as if it could hear you.

The creak of the unused hinges felt so much louder than it should be, and it almost distracted you from what you found inside.

Most of it was basic cleaning supplies; cloths, sprays of some kind and different textured rags along with some other materials you didn't recognise— but why truly stood out to you was a trinket laying on the very top of the collection.

Encased in weirdly carved silver around the rims, a glowing green orb with a strangely designed heart humming in the middle instantly grabbed your eyes.

It emitted a faint green glow, pulsating and throbbing as if it were alive. The soft sound of a hum breached your ear drums, and the item was strangely entrancing, grabbing your attention immediately.

You were curious as to what it was; and why it seemed to thrive with such a strange energy, that of which beckoned you to grab it in your own hands.

You reached for it, but your hand halted with way, a string of guilt threading through your stomach in an uncomfortable manner, clawing at the inner side of the organ.

It was probably Rusalina's, well— obviously so because it was in a box that was in her inn.

You shouldn't take it, that would be wrong— that would be very wrong actually. It looked expensive, and she'd been so kind to you. But... it was so pretty at the very same time.

It's like it wanted you to take it, to retrieve it from the chest and steal it for your own.

You were stuck in place, one hand upholding the lid of the crate, and the other halfway outstretched for the strange orb.

You shouldn't... you really shouldn't— but... no!

You slammed the lid closed, drawing in a sharp breath of frostbitten air as you willed up your strength and forced the lid close, your hands fumbling by the sides of the box again as you secured the latch back into its place.

That sharp snap of energy that allowed you to close the box was hard to will up, and you scurried in the opposite direction of the box the moment it was fully locked.

Something about the box kept beckoning you over— but you knew better, your guilty conscience knew better.

You couldn't just snag something that seemed so precious, it could be some kind of family heirloom! Rusalina would probably kick you out as well, and you really, really couldn't afford such a punishment over such a small item.

Even so, your eyes kept being drawn back to that subtle glow across the room.

You felt greedy, like some kind of petty thief.

Curling up into a ball and forcing your head against your knees, roughly pressing the forefront of your head against the balls of your kneecaps, you threw away the urge to crawl back to the box.

You discarded it like filthy trash, hoping that by forcing away the urge to steal the item that you'd get rid of this vile feeling of being some kind of criminal.

...

'Just go to sleep' you told yourself, and against the screaming in your mind telling you to once more reach for the chest, you shut your eyes tight, breathing deeply and rhythmically until you finally fell asleep for the night.

It took ages, and even in the realms of your subconscious, dreams of that strange item didn't seem to leave you alone.

They kept following you, trailing after you and sticking to you like a mould that you couldn't seem to exterminate.

Dreams of holding that thing in your hands, feeling the warmth it brought and letting it bloom flowers from your veins. Beautiful blossoms, born from the blood of your body and mind. Purple petals, frolicking and thriving off of your own life flow, sprouting from beneath your skin like a fungal virus— yet not harming you like one would.

They were soft, and provided the comfort hugging a freshly warmed blanket would bring, or perhaps it was more similar to baking beneath the rays of the sun on a cold day.

In your dreams, you let them bloom, let the flowers slowly coat your upper arms, covering the aching tips of your fingers, all the way up to your elbows that wished to fall off. You let these flowers soothe your soul and heart, you let these flowers slowly replace your veins with their roots, and embed themselves inside of you.

You let those indigo posies slowly replace your insides with their own, and you didn't even stop it— you watched without a second thought.

.

The bags under your eyes could be comparable to black bruises swollen from a hefty punch, but they weren't that. They were merely the physical manifestation of your stress, lack of sleep and internal itch that had your fingers twitching.

The stress of waiting for news from Adam, of biding your time and praying that he'd come back, all the while maintaining the job that had you wanting to bang your head into a wall.

It wasn't the cleaning side of it that was stressful, no, it was the serving people. Complaints could not stop coming, and you were truthfully sick of it, well and truly.

"You look sickly— do you really serve customers like this?"

"What a grumpy woman, such horrible customer service."

"You should smile once in a while dear!"

Sometimes it wasn't your own head you wanted to bash in, but rather their own, hoping that maybe that would be enough to shut their useless mouths, but alas, even in your anger, that would not be enough to fuel you to do such a thing.

You wouldn't enact violence on others, even if you truly did want to.

Aside from that, the lack of sleep from last night was nipping away at your patience little by little, and it was damn well working too. The broken sleep and constant awakening to green had chipped away at you, and by now, your urge to throttle something at the wall was growing rapidly.

An itch— an itch to do something.

An itch to just shut them up. An itch to just yell at the customers once in a while. An itch to go back to the crate and grab that— no.

God... not these thoughts again.

It was the one thing that had truly plagued you the most, testing the limits of your generosity and understanding in its own rights. You just wanted to waltz back into that room and snag the item, but again, you knew better.

You wouldn't grab such a thing— no. You wouldn't become a petty thief and fall victim to the voices in your head. But you did find it slightly strange. It was strange how suddenly you felt the urge the nab an item, but you'd never felt such pulls before.

This was truly the first and most prominent time, when your fingers twitched and ached, burdened with the idea of just grabbing that beautiful looking jewel. You wanted to take it, to stare deep into the swirling glitter of its encased magnificence, but you didn't. You couldn't.

You stayed put in the fading ashes of the dining hall, a room where you spent most of your time by now— sweeping and cleaning up the messes of those around you.

The clamber of meal time was over, and boy were you grateful. Finally, peace had graced you, and the lost bustle of conversations fluttered a feeling of relief through your heart, allowing you to sweep with the quiet of your mind.

Dust brushed from the floor and was swept into the air, swirling particles almost looking like glitter in the rays that poke through the windows, drawn from the clouds outside.

Dust— something that made people splutter and cough, a build up of forgone debris that while it may seem beautiful floating in the air, was just a collection of dirt.

It was deceptive, a trickery that fooled the sense into thinking it was something it wasn't— but by now, you'd grown to understand that despite its beauty, dust still had to go.

Your eyes traced the particles that had been stirred by your own actions, and your irises watched after them as they floated through the air like tiny little fairies, shimmering in the spectacle of warming light that graced them.

They were pretty, but they still had to go— and as they fell back to the ground, you swept them up with the others, forcing them to join the pile and collection of other rubbish.

Something pretty cast away to a pile of rubbish. How poetic.

You snorted at your own thoughts, leaning against the broom you held and letting a small smile trickle onto your face.

Clink.

The sound of metal clanking against wood grabbed your attention, and you craned your neck back to glance back at the cause of the sound. Initially, you didn't see anything, but when you did— you froze.

Green.

A glowing green, so bright that it instantly drew your gaze, and the soft hum of energy that buzzed in your ears sent a chilling shock of raising hairs up your back. It was that thing.

That same 'jewel' that had been trapped in that crate, sitting in the middle of the floor between tables just a few paces away from you.

How on earth did it get there?

You stood still, and so did the air around you. It mimicked your movements, following after your steps, and your feet carefully stepped against the creaking floor boards.

You approached, like a lion stalking its prey, sharp eyes locked onto the gem. It was the same one, for sure, so why on earth was it here? Why was it in the middle of the floor, and how did it even get out of the crate?

You leant the broom against a table to your left, and with both hands now free of the burden of carrying an item, you slowly crouched before the gem, head cocking in curiosity like a dog.

That same energy that pulsed from it called out to you, and this time, you couldn't resist the urge to grab it.

Your fingers shuddered, and glass pressed against your fingertips. It was cold, like the snow outside, but so warm at the very same time. Your breath hitched as your fingers made contact with the glass encasing the green, and within the next few seconds, you snapped up the jewel, holding it tightly within the palm of your hand.

You rose to stand, eyes still trained on the item, and within a bated breath, you moved to hold it within both hands, holding it as if it were the most precious item in the world.

The energy grew stronger, and the whispers telling you to grab the item dispersed, a sense of relief washing over you once you finally held it within your hold. It was so intriguing, and so... very pretty.

The metal casing felt cold beneath your hands, and as you twisted it in your grip, a burst of energy fluttered from the glass in green waves, and you physically felt the warmth burst through you.

From where you held the jewel in your hands, tiny roots of green slowly extended, wrapping around your fingers, and even quicker than they'd appeared, purple flowers bloomed from the roots.

It was magic in person, a mystical spectacle that wowed you so much so you couldn't even be bothered by the feeling of flowers blossoming from the skin of your hands and digging into your veins.

It felt right to have this in your hands, it felt right to have this jewel in your palms, as if it were made especially for you.

You were so entranced with it that when the inn's door creaked open, you didn't turn back. You stood still, staring at it even as footsteps stomped snow off of their boots. You stood still even as a voice called out, only reacting the second you heard your name.

"Madam (Name)! I have returned!"

Adam.

𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐈𝐈𝐈

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Proof read ; no

Word count ; 7641

Notes ; The flowers mentioned in this chapter are the Dame's Rocket, which in the language of flowers represent deception.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

[quillusquillus]

How 2 Phone

I often see my fellow neurodivergent and/or younger friends absolutely crippled by the inability to make even simple phone calls, and it was perplexing to look at myself and find that for the most part- despite all traits indicating I SHOULD struggle with this too (as I struggle deeply with in-person convos)- I do not. Then I realised that this is because at a very young age my mum sat me down and TAUGHT me how to do it, step by step, so I'm going to relay what she taught me and hope it will help somebody the way it helped me.

DISCLAIMER: this was learned originally in the context of the UK and it's something I still use effectively for german calls in Switzerland. I don't know what americans do maybe they have secret phone codes I don't know, adapt as needed I guess

---

First thing to remember is that, if you are calling some kind of office or support or business or organisation of any kind: they are doing this ALL DAY, even if you fuck up as spectacularly as it's possible to fuck up and stumble over every single word, you are still just a blip in their workday of many many many calls. they will not care.

Second thing to remember is that because they're doing these calls all day, all they actually want from you is the information to complete the task you give them. You don't have to be a ~conversationalist~ or even particularly friendly. Generally speaking you can just apply the following template to every call, and just be a very basic level of not-rude and say your thankyous and that's all you need

Third thing: Though not necessary, it's useful to develop a "phone voice" where you sit up straight and speak extra clearly and brightly, like you're in a theatre play. This makes you easy for the other person to understand (especially on bad lines), and reminds you that it's all a repetitive sequence of lines like a script and this is NOT a social situation.

THE TEMPLATE:

(a possible step 0 is getting through the auto line, which is just pushing buttons so I'm gonna assume we've got through that already as well as the deep fried hold music and a real person has now answered the phone)

"Hello, my name is [firstname lastname] and I'm calling because [reason]." --- Reason for this step: they need your name because they need to know how to address you on the call, and telling them the context for the call will help them know what to do next. They too have "templates" and have usually done them many many times, they just need to know which one they need to select for this call. I say this exact phrase the same way every time I make a call like this: a strong opener can help your confidence and you can practice it off call if you like. Don't treat it like a conversation, just say the whole thing and move to step 2

Stop and wait for instructions and/or questions --- Reason for this step: Now it's the other person's turn to figure things out, and you are in the passive role. This is when you get asked things like customer number, date of birth, doctor's name etc., all the things that they need to look up on their computer. This will go on until they have all the details they need and then they will move to the next step.

They will ask you again about your reason for calling, answer in exactly the same way as before or go into greater detail as needed. --- Reason for this step: The first time you did this was like the movie trailer that let them vaguely know what to expect, this one is where you have their full attention and they will begin to handle your task. You didn't mess up the first time they just needed to get all their questions out of the way first and are now clear for your queries.

More details, figuring out stuff, getting transferred --- This is the most chaotic and unpredictable step because it will be different for every call and varies depending on what you're trying to do. Good luck, and repeat steps 2 and 3 as needed (or start again from 1 if you get transferred)

When done, they will ask you "is there anything else I can help you with?" --- Reason for this step: Sometimes people will call with several things they want to do at once (open a credit card account AND check their balance, for example) and so this is part of their call template. Feel free to give this a few seconds of consideration: I like to pretend to think even when I know I have nothing, because sometimes I DO randomly think of a question I'd like to ask, or it's just a nice cooldown moment to gather my thoughts. A common question I find myself asking is "do I need to bring anything?" for when I make appointments. 99.9% of the time I don't need to bring anything, but having the confirmation of "no, you don't" gives me some extra peace of mind.

"Okay, thank you very much, have a nice day!" --- Reason for this step: This lets them know that you're going to end the call, and they'll respond in kind and (usually) hang up first. Sometimes they may jump in with a "you may receive a rating form/call/whatever to rate the service you received on this call", just let them get this out of the way (they are required to say it), say "okay, thank you, I will!" and repeat your goodbye a second time. This closing farewell is another thing you can say exactly the same way every time, and you can practice off call if you like.

That's it! In my experience very very few official phonecalls will deviate from this format, and even if the person on the other end is being unusual you can generally just barge ahead and impose it on them and they will fall in line lol

[voraciousvore]

Giganterra (Chapter 55)

Prologue/TOC | Previous (54) | Next (56)

Content Warning: Pregnancy/ abortion

Word Count: 2.1k

------ Chapter 55: Disaster ------

Bianca was trying to do better. She really was. Change was difficult, but she didn’t see any other way forward that wouldn’t reduce her to a constant sobbing mess. She needed to take drastic measures. 

She treated her personal maid and the other giant servants with more respect, going so far as to even learn their names. She tried to be nicer to her brother, even if he remained grumpy and rude in return. She gave her tiny men some distance, no longer handling them or wearing them on her necklace without permission. She even provided them with custom-made clothes from the royal tailor, to cover their nakedness. Gio and Graham wanted nothing to do with her, understandably, but Cesar was willing to give her a chance. She was thoroughly grateful for his agreeable, cheerful attitude. He seemed to be the only person, human or giant, that didn’t utterly despise her, despite her deplorable behavior. 

She was fully aware that forgiveness would not come easily, and the path ahead would bring its own challenges. However, she could not escape the consequences of her actions. She tried to brush off the strange sensations she felt in her body. She denied the warning signs. She strained to convince herself, in a futile effort, that she was only imagining things. 

The symptoms were unmistakable, when taken as a collective. The sensitivity and swelling in her breasts. Her mysterious need to pee more. Her unusual fatigue. Her unexplained nausea. She connected the dots with increasing alarm, and the absence of her monthly cycle was the decisive nail in the coffin. She couldn’t deny it any longer. 

She was pregnant. 

She was horrified at the revelation. She didn’t know how it was even possible. She hadn’t engaged in sex with any giants recently, only with her human men. She was terrified. If King Richard found out, there would be catastrophic consequences for everyone involved. 

She couldn’t trust anyone with her secret—not even her brother. She was in a panic, lost and alone, unsure how to proceed. She needed to eliminate the pregnancy, before it became visibly apparent, before her father found out. Her only hope was Hunter, the royal sorcerer, as much as she disliked him. She figured he must have some concoction or spell that could help her. As soon as she got the opportunity, she snuck down into the gloomy basement.  

The stone walls felt cramped and foreboding in the eerie torchlight, as if they were closing in on her, but she pressed on. She barged into Hunter’s office without knocking. He was inside, mixing a glowing substance in a glass beaker. Startled by the intrusion, he dropped the container, shattering it and spilling the contents all over the floor. The liquid frothed and bubbled like acid, collecting in the cracks between the bricks. Hunter spun around with fury. 

“Not again! Dang it!” He halted, biting his tongue when he beheld the royal. “Princess Bianca! How may I be of service?” He bowed, careful not to touch his bare skin on the wet stone. 

“Um…” Bianca found herself at a loss for words. Hunter kept his head lowered, clenching his jaw. The princess irritated him to no end. He wanted her to leave so he could get back to experimenting. 

Bianca swallowed the lump in her throat. “Do you have anything to get rid of…” She dropped her hand to her abdomen. “A pregnancy?” 

Hunter cocked a brow. “Oh?” He stood up. “As a matter of fact, I do.” He rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a smooth black stone with eldritch symbols carved into the surface. The rock emanated a dark, sinister energy that seemed to suck the light out of the already dim cavern. 

“What is that?” the princess queried nervously. 

“A soulstone,” Hunter announced proudly, holding up the bizarre magical object. “It devours life and seals it away. You came at an opportune moment, because I just used my last charged soulstone to reanimate Ajax’s lifeless body.” 

Bianca took a step back. “Wait… I’m not so sure about this…” A sense of dread gripped her heart with cold, slimy tendrils. She didn’t want to be anywhere near that stone. There was something terrible and unnatural about it that squeezed her insides into knots. 

“What do you mean? This is an optimal solution. The budding life within you won’t be extinguished. It will be contained, recycled, and eventually bound to a new vessel, whether of flesh, clay, wood, or some other medium. It shall live on—perhaps in a twisted and unrecognizable form, merged with other souls, but nevertheless a fascinating marvel of medical science!” 

“Can’t you just give me a potion to drink or something, to induce a miscarriage?” Bianca requested, taking another step back. “That’s not what I want for my baby.” 

My baby. The words slipped out before she could stop them. A mental image flashed through her head of her holding an infant, but one that was human-sized, barely the length of a grain of rice. If the father was human, would the baby be small like him? Unlike a normal baby, such a tiny creature might be easy to hide, small enough to stash away and muffle its coos and cries. Small enough to keep alive without her father’s knowledge. 

Could she keep the pregnancy, without the king finding out? This novel idea bloomed in her brain with fresh hope. If the baby was abnormally small, which seemed more and more likely as she pondered the concept, she might not show. She could pretend nothing was amiss. Once the child was born, she could have her maid help take care of it in secret. Her offspring wouldn’t be subjected to the atrocious fate that Hunter suggested to her with his “solution.” She felt it may be worth the risk, as she imagined with tender feeling being a mother to a tiny child.  

A cute little baby, tying her indelibly to Cesar, the only person who seemed to show any genuine affection for her at all. He was almost certainly the father. Her heart warmed as she imagined raising a child with Cesar in domestic bliss. He’d be an excellent father, teaching the tiny child to walk and play and talk as it grew up. Perhaps the other two human men would warm up to the child too, and could play the role of loving uncles. For once, Bianca could bring something good into the world, something wholesome. She could experience a real family, one that wasn’t hideously warped and broken under the suffocating weight of her father’s authoritarian repression. Maybe, just maybe, she could be loved. She could be happy. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Hunter pressing the cold stone against her midsection. Abruptly, she sensed a tangle of poisoned tentacles invading the intimate regions of her body, a sickening rot spreading through her uterus. She froze up under the chilling influence; she could barely even breathe. The stone began to throb with a deep purple glow. 

“That’s odd,” Hunter remarked with a frown. “The stone isn’t supposed to do that when the soul is from a giant.” Understanding dawned over his face and he stared at Bianca in shock. “The father isn’t a giant…” 

Bianca, however, wasn’t listening. She could only focus on the horrific black scourge tearing through her, sucking out the life in her womb. She couldn’t allow this to happen. She couldn’t let Hunter imprison the soul of her innocent child. With a feral shriek, she clawed the stone away and jumped back. 

“Stop! I-I changed my mind!” she yelled. Hunter scowled, disappointed. If she wasn’t the princess, he would’ve overpowered her, pinned her down, and finished the process. Bianca scrambled to open the door and rushed out. She sprinted up the stairs, out of the dreary underworld and back to the domain of the living. 

She retreated to her bedroom, dismissing her maid and closing the door behind her. She flopped on her bed, brought her knees to her chin, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She didn’t know what to do. Cesar was most likely to be the father, but she didn’t know how he would react to the news—probably disgust. She was painfully aware of the presence of the three tiny men in the human house on her nightstand. She avoided looking in their direction. They probably didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary, considering her moodiness was habitual by this point. 

Bianca sat that way for a while, gnawing on her worries in her head like a dog with a bone. Unfortunately, the universe was determined to chew her up and spit her back out like a chunk of gristle. Her door sprang open and slammed into the wall, startling her to attention. The king prowled in, dripping with dark malevolence. As always, his huge guard shadowed him; Bianca sensed the same abyssal energy that flowed from the stone earlier, wafting from his menacing figure lurking in the doorway. 

“Daddy!” Bianca squeaked, spine stiff as a board. “Why are you here?” 

“Bianca.” His tone was cold and hard, clinical in its severity, without a shred of compassion. “I just finished speaking to Hunter.” 

A shiver ran through her every nerve in her body. “Oh.” 

“Who’s the father?” 

She cringed and bit her lip. “Um...” 

“I thought I made myself quite clear when I executed the last one. You were not to touch any of the male servants, Bianca! I’ll slaughter every last one of them! If I have to behead every single man in this castle who isn’t of royal blood to get my message across, so help me, I will!" 

“No, please! Don’t!” she pleaded in a panic. He wasn’t bluffing. The heartless king saw his inferiors as nothing more than bugs crawling around in the dirt that he could crush under his heel.  

“You fucking slut! You couldn’t keep your legs shut for a single moment! I won’t allow you to have an illegitimate child out of wedlock, Bianca! You’ll spoil all my plans with King Ivan’s kingdom! I won’t forgive you if you sabotage this critical alliance with your stupidity!” 

“Prince Ray is the father!” the giantess blurted out. 

Hardon cocked a brow. “I’m no fool. It’s pretty obvious he can’t stand you. Plus, the timing doesn’t work out.” He pulled his lips into a snarl. “Don’t lie to me, darling, you’re terrible at it.” Bianca blanched. 

“I haven’t had sexual relations with any of the servants! They’re too frightened to touch me!” she shouted. It wasn’t a lie, technically. The humans were pets, not servants. 

The king glared with pale irises that seemed to stab right through her mushy center. Bianca gulped. She couldn’t bear his gaze and turned away. Her hazel eyes flickered as she pointedly avoided looking at the human men. She stared down at the floor instead, but couldn’t avoid her father’s eyes boring into her with an excruciating intensity, his wrath burning her flesh like a white-hot poker.  

“You can’t keep the child, you know.” 

Bianca didn’t answer, but a single tear rolled down her cheek. She sniffled. 

“Ajax. Take her to the basement.” He flicked his wrist angrily and the big man shuffled past him into the room. He laid his enormous rough hands around Bianca’s arms, without physical force but with a resolute firmness that did not allow for any disagreement. Bianca, shaking, stood up with the knowledge that resistance would be fruitless. She sensed the unholy magic of the stone through his dead skin, the enslaved souls animating and preserving a vessel foreign to their origins. She felt a spastic shudder in her womb as Ajax guided her out of the room. 

Hardon remained, simmering with rage. He didn’t want to believe what Hunter had told him. He’d hoped that the sorcerer was mistaken, and the princess was simply fooling around with another giant in the castle. Her body language had been all too clear, however. She was lying, trying to conceal the truth to protect her tiny men. She had become too attached to them, enough to disobey her father for their sake—not at all what he had intended. 

Bristling with fury, he stomped over to the human enclosure and tore off the roof. He ripped out the furniture, crushing the miniature beds and tables and chairs in his hands before hurling them across the room with enough viciousness to dash them all to splinters. The three men, now with nowhere to hide, cowered in abject terror as the giant towered above them with blazing hatred.  

“So. Which one of you is responsible for this mess?” 

Chapter 56

Tag List: @maybeiamdownbad @tinycoded360 @yummynomms

[cklock1]

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[carlhofelina]

Artificial Intelligence is more than just a buzzword—it's a powerful force shaping the way we work, live, and connect. As businesses and professionals navigate the rapidly changing digital landscape, AI integration has become not only an advantage but a necessity. From automating repetitive tasks to streamlining communication, AI is transforming the workplace—and now is the time to plug in.

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[scbhagat]

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[stuarttechnologybob]

How does data capture services benefit a business?

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[skykashi]

Interest check because I'm trying to figure out a way for me and my cat to not starve to death.

Rant under the cut

Basically I work as an international advisor in a British company which only handles British customers, they specifically hire people from my country because it's a 3rd world country and would be cheap labor and because they know that we won't find any other or better job because of our county's current economic crisis. My entire part-time salary is from $100 to $135 a month which is like, nothing compared to what the British employees who work in the same company doing much less work than me get. My department which only ppl from my country are assigned to, handles 89 queries while all the other departments that only British and Indian employees are assigned to handle from 10 to 20 queries, when we get any system outages which happens quite often, British and Indian employees don't take calls because they can't work without a system, while they force us to take calls just to tell the customers "sorry, we currently have a system outage" and we would be just like punching bags for the frustrated customers that would be upset when we tell them sorry I can't do anything to help you because I have no system at the moment and then to top it off, they don't remove any negative impact such calls during system outages leaves on our performance so we wouldn't get our target bonus and they would end up paying us even less. Not to mention the sneaky ways they force us to work unpaid overtime without really saying it, as we are required to submit a note after every call stating everything happened on the calls without leaving any small details while not having enough time between the calls to type them as sometimes we would just have 2 minutes between every call and sometimes the calls would be back to back without a single second, and we're not allowed to take any time without calls outside of our scheduled breaks either which forces us to type these notes during our breaks and after our shifts. And all of this is just the short version of things, there are so many more messed up things that I left off to avoid having even a longer post.

Anyway, I used to work a full-time shift in that company but I couldn't take 9 hours a day of such stress especially that our department handles (accounts management + complaints + billing) hence why we handle such a huge amount of queries in comparison to other departments so most of the calls I get would be angry customers just yelling which resulted in a huge decline in my mental health, especially that I already suffer from depression, anxiety and a bunch of other stuff so I decided to switch to part time before I completely lose my mind especially after I used to spend the entire day just crying, having panic attacks in the morning the closer my shift start time approaches sometimes and having nightmares so many nights + the rate of my PTSD flashbacks of some traumatic events of things happened to me in the past increased dramatically so I ended up switching to part time and things were kinda manageable, my part-time salary was barley enough for basic living expenses but it was better than having to live that nightmare 9 hours a day plus the extra time I would have to spend after shifts typing notes. But today, I went to work and I was surprised that they switched me back to a full time shift starting tomorrow, they have been threatening me with it for quite sometime now, basically saying that as a graduate it's unreasonable for me to have a part time shift and that only students are allowed to take part time shifts because they need it for studying and I would always reply by telling them that having a part-time shift is the only thing that keeps me going and that I won't be able to continue working if they switched me back to full time. So allegedly!!.. because last month I didn't achieve the target which was basically due to the company having 3 major system outages that only our department (aka Egyptians) had to take calls during it, I don't deserve to have the exception of having a part time now, even tho almost everyone in our department didn't achieve the target for the same reason so yeah, it's now either I go back to working a full time shift of that nightmare which I'm absolutely sure that I won't be able to survive or I resign because they aren't even giving me any time to think or try to find something eles.

So I'm just trying to figure out how to survive basically if I resigned and this is why I'm posting this interest check, so please only choose "yes" if you think you might be interested in commissioning me if I made a post with more details and prices.

[sonadukane]

How to Become a Data Scientist in 2025 (Roadmap for Absolute Beginners)

Want to become a data scientist in 2025 but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone. With job roles, tech stacks, and buzzwords changing rapidly, it’s easy to feel lost.

But here’s the good news: you don’t need a PhD or years of coding experience to get started. You just need the right roadmap.

Let’s break down the beginner-friendly path to becoming a data scientist in 2025.

✈️ Step 1: Get Comfortable with Python

Python is the most beginner-friendly programming language in data science.

What to learn:

Variables, loops, functions

Libraries like NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib

Why: It’s the backbone of everything you’ll do in data analysis and machine learning.

🔢 Step 2: Learn Basic Math & Stats

You don’t need to be a math genius. But you do need to understand:

Descriptive statistics

Probability

Linear algebra basics

Hypothesis testing

These concepts help you interpret data and build reliable models.

📊 Step 3: Master Data Handling

You’ll spend 70% of your time cleaning and preparing data.

Skills to focus on:

Working with CSV/Excel files

Cleaning missing data

Data transformation with Pandas

Visualizing data with Seaborn/Matplotlib

This is the “real work” most data scientists do daily.

🧬 Step 4: Learn Machine Learning (ML)

Once you’re solid with data handling, dive into ML.

Start with:

Supervised learning (Linear Regression, Decision Trees, KNN)

Unsupervised learning (Clustering)

Model evaluation metrics (accuracy, recall, precision)

Toolkits: Scikit-learn, XGBoost

🚀 Step 5: Work on Real Projects

Projects are what make your resume pop.

Try solving:

Customer churn

Sales forecasting

Sentiment analysis

Fraud detection

Pro tip: Document everything on GitHub and write blogs about your process.

✏️ Step 6: Learn SQL and Databases

Data lives in databases. Knowing how to query it with SQL is a must-have skill.

Focus on:

SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY

Creating and updating tables

Writing nested queries

🌍 Step 7: Understand the Business Side

Data science isn’t just tech. You need to translate insights into decisions.

Learn to:

Tell stories with data (data storytelling)

Build dashboards with tools like Power BI or Tableau

Align your analysis with business goals

🎥 Want a Structured Way to Learn All This?

Instead of guessing what to learn next, check out Intellipaat’s full Data Science course on YouTube. It covers Python, ML, real projects, and everything you need to build job-ready skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxNDw68XcE4

🔄 Final Thoughts

Becoming a data scientist in 2025 is 100% possible — even for beginners. All you need is consistency, a good learning path, and a little curiosity.

Start simple. Build as you go. And let your projects speak louder than your resume.

Drop a comment if you’re starting your journey. And don’t forget to check out the free Intellipaat course to speed up your progress!

[aktechworld]

How AI and Machine Learning Are Transforming CRM Personalization in 2025

Introduction: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are making waves in the CRM space by enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences at scale. These technologies are helping companies stay ahead of the curve by predicting customer needs and automating personalized interactions.

1. Automating Personalization: AI-powered CRM systems can analyze vast amounts of customer data to automatically tailor marketing messages, offers, and product recommendations. This level of personalization creates more meaningful customer interactions.

2. Predictive Analytics: Machine learning algorithms predict customer behaviors by analyzing patterns in past interactions. This predictive capability helps businesses stay one step ahead by anticipating what customers need and providing solutions before they even ask.

3. Optimizing Customer Journeys: AI-powered CRM systems help businesses understand the various stages of a customer’s journey, from initial contact to post-purchase engagement. These insights help optimize touchpoints and ensure the customer experience is smooth and effective.

4. AI-Powered Support: AI chatbots and virtual assistants are transforming customer support by providing immediate responses to common queries. By handling routine tasks, they free up human agents to focus on more complex issues, leading to faster and more efficient service.

AI and ML are empowering businesses to provide a higher level of personalization, improving engagement and customer satisfaction. To learn more about CRM development and its integration with AI, explore the details at CRM Development.

[nextgenaireviews]

Revolutionize Your Business Operations with Omodore: The Ultimate AI Assistant for Efficiency

Tired of inefficient processes dragging your business down? Omodore, the advanced AI Assistant, is here to transform your operations. This powerful tool leverages cutting-edge AI technology to optimize your customer interactions, streamline sales processes, and enhance overall efficiency.

Omodore is not just another AI tool; it’s a game-changer for businesses aiming to stay ahead in a competitive landscape. Its innovative features allow for seamless automation of routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for your team to focus on strategic goals. With Omodore, you can expect more streamlined customer service, enhanced data management, and an overall boost in productivity.

One of the standout aspects of Omodore is its intuitive setup. In just a few steps, you can create an AI agent tailored to your business needs. This agent is capable of handling live calls, managing complex queries, and accessing a comprehensive knowledge base to deliver accurate responses. The result? A more responsive and efficient customer service operation.

Beyond customer service, Omodore excels in sales automation and data analysis. By automating repetitive sales tasks and providing actionable insights, it helps businesses refine their strategies and drive growth. This means you can expect not only operational efficiency but also increased revenue opportunities.

What sets Omodore apart is its ability to adapt to various business environments. Whether you’re in retail, finance, or any other industry, Omodore integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, providing customized support that meets your specific needs.

Don’t let outdated processes hold your business back. Embrace the future with Omodore and experience a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Discover how this cutting-edge AI Assistant can revolutionize your operations by visiting Omodore today.