#Proactive Bot

[yameoto]

Hey so you're just about the only person I feel decent asking this question, Would you happen to have any tips to make messages more...interesting? I find myself using the same adjectives, ending up in the same spot with different characters, etc, etc. And was just wondering if you had anything i could use to spice things up again.

don’t just “react” to the bot. be proactive! lead the scenario where you think is interesting, get out of the first location, and don’t be afraid to make it wild. roleplay as if you were actually roleplaying with an individual—thread context n backstory in there. the longer and more detailed Your message, the same for the bot.

your own imagination is important! if you’re struggling, it helps to build off the contextual world of the specific bot, and what makes sense.

i.e letting stepsister!quinn drag her poor innocent stepsister out after curfew to see a sleazy rock concert is a vastly different scenario than singlemom!quinn letting you meet her daughter for the first time. OR, these above two would be very different to any theboys!au bots, in which the world means inherent danger, such as using the soldier boy bot (brainwashing him, forcing him to nuke vought etc). BUT, frankly, you can do ALL those scenarios with ALL the bots. how willing you are to suspend your disbelief is the only limit here. quinn can be a merc in training if you wish, just as ben can be your pervy step!brother. woah. might make both bots.

nor do you have to take the bot greeting as holy grail. you can start off the same bot with an entirely new scenario. bots are adaptable! and they’ll follow the new input. i’m guilty of this when i’m too lazy to make a new bot for a character but i still want to rp a different scenario.

basically, bots are NOT fixed. everything can be soft-rewritten by YOUR messages. i tend to get bots out of their starting location as fast as possible.

same goes for YOU! {{user}}. you can be anyone you want to be. you could be a pop star. an olympic gymnast. a member of the mafia. you can bring in so much of your own angst or backstory and thread it into your responses, and lead it in ways that play off your backstory.

i can’t help you with vocabulary unfortunately! this is something that comes with a lot of reading/writing. unless you want a list of synonyms you rote-learn with flashcards. if it’s any comfort to you, nobody is judging you on how many times you use the same words! just be wary the bot may copy your prose and end up very repetitive.

+ for smut, if you’re searching for new scenarios. whatever you find hot.

examples (with explanation) below

doctor!quinn.

one; is almost purely reactionary, however it has a bit of context that alludes to the greater history of the role-play.

two; reactionary, with context threaded through. bot reads subtext just as people do, and can pick it up on the idea 1. quinn/user have been working together for a long time, and that there is familiarity/routine/casual intimacy in their relationship.

three; split. mainly background, though the second paragraph is the actual reaction/response (and what most people would ONLY write!) the first paragraph gives a heapload of info to the bot that it can use to inform their interactions.

fair warning! you don’t need to write as much as me, i tend to get carried away when i actually do roleplay because else i get terribly bored repeating scenarios or not exercising a little bit of effort. i will say, however, it makes for much more rewarding roleplays.

hope this helped <3

[elfdragon12]

I was talking about how ES Prowl was right that the adults were relying too much on these children (but I concede that this is a children's show where the children save the day).

Someone replied to this, saying "well, Jack, the other Prime kids, Spike, and Chip shouldn't have been anywhere near a battlefield, but if those shows got away with it so should ES".

I mean, bold to assume that I don't hold other shows to the same standard. Miko is not my favorite Prime child for a reason. But also! This Earthspark is maybe the only show where the responsible adults actively argued that, actually, shut your face because the children should be involved in the fighting.

In the original G1 cartoon, Spike is the only confirmed mainstay child character until his son Daniel is introduced in season 3. Chip seems to have adult responsibilities and Carly is a college student. The Autobots never relied on their young human companions for fighting though. Spike has occasionally tried firing a Cybertronian gun, but never actually did much in a fight. In general though, G1 humans helped mainly in auxiliary ways, like, lie to Megatron's face that this Autobot in alt mode is actually your car and it's got a bomb attached or figuring out a special device or placing a bomb or gadget. They didn't do much fighting at all. Marissa Faireborn is the exception and she is a full-grown adult who works with the EDC.

In regards to TFA, if I remember, Sari never directly got involved in the fighting. She played the role of a proactive and spunky sidekick in the fights and did tricksy things rather than being relied on as a fighter. At least until it was revealed she also had Cybertronian origins and she magically aged up a few years to a mid-teen body. The Autobots never relied on her to fight in battles. She is also the only child character in the main cast.

As for TFP... There's a reason Miko isn't my favorite child in the show. However, the children had been told multiple times to not get involved in the fighting. The reason the kids have guardians is to protect them from the fighting. Bulkhead just can't tell Miko no and mean it while Wheeljack is not a responsible babysitter. All the same, even when Miko wore the armor, the Autobots did not rely on the children to fight the big battles for them. The adults do all the big fighting.

I don't think Russell fights at all in RiD15, just doing spunky kid sidekick stuff. Rescue Bots was not really a fighting show. There were no humans in Cyberverse.

I think the Japanese shows handle it differently, but I haven't watched enough of them to say for certain. In Super God Masterforce, Hawk/Metalhawk gives the human kids the bracelets to transform and, though he initially says that they should not fight, they eventually do. However, whenever they're involved in fighting the actual Pretenders or the Godmasters, they require saving. Ginrai, the adult with a trucking job, is the one relied upon to save the day.

So yeah! Earthspark is kinda the odd one out here and Prowl is right.

[aphel1on]

update: apparently this happened to multiple other people so it was probably actually a bot purge

WHOA ok i was trying to add the thumbs up emoji but that's funny enough that im just gonna leave it.

forgive me for being uncool and mentioning my follower count but i am still so baffled by this.

a few weeks ago my follower account was 400-something

overnight it updated to 700-something. this was when the whoopsies big dunmeshi post i made was circulating but like. nothing would explain THAT sort of gains. checked my notifs and sure enough it showed 13 followers gained over the past 3 days... NOT fucking 300. checked my follower list and it also only showed a handful of new ones.

figured it was a bug and it would revert to 400-something within a few days.

fast forward to weeks later

STILL says 700+

so like???

either it was lying to me before the jump or it's lying to me now... never heard of this happening to someone else

[melishade]

Attack on Prime The Future Anthology: War Crimes

Main Story

World War 2

Valentine's Day

Karaoke Night

The Survey Corps learn of Jack, Miko, and Rafael's war crimes.

"Miko! Can I use the Apex Armor?!" Hanji asked as they raised their hand to get Miko's attention. The agent in question was carrying a few heavy items using said armor to carry some items.

"Absolutely not!" Ratchet shouted while holding a wrench in his servo.

"C'mon!" Hanji whined, "Why not?!"

"Optimus and even Megatron have warned me about your track record!" Ratchet addressed the Commander, "I am not going to have you running around destroying supplies!"

"I will not!" Hanji gasped in horror.

"Dude, it took me time to get used to piloting the Apex Armor. You're gonna break something," Miko agreed.

"Let me live out the fantasy of being a titan!" Hanji demaned.

"NO!" Ratchet stomped his pede down before storming off. Miko merely smirked and leaned down.

"I loan it to you later," Miko whispered, causing Hanji to clap with delight.

"Tell me, how did you even get to keep this?!" Hanji asked as they used their 3D gear to land on Miko's shoulder, "This is Cybertronian technology! Wouldn't this go back to the Autobots?!"

"Well, I stole it from the Decepticons and used it during the war. But the Bots' let me keep it," Miko explained as she began walking.

"Wait a minute, you stole from Megatron?!" Hanji exclaimed in disbelief.

"I stole from Starscream, but technically, yes," Miko bragged as she set the supplies down.

"Bragging about war crimes?" Rafael asked with a smirk as he was writing some notes regarding some medicines on a notepad. Meanwhile, Levi and Erwin were the one sorting through the medicine in the crates to hand over to Rafael.

"Hey, between the three of us, I've been the most proactive in the war!" Miko insisted.

"Only because you kept jumping into the battles when everyone told you no!" Jack reminded.

"Oh, shall I bring up racing incident?" Miko grinned maliciously.

Jack blushed in embarrassment. "Shut up."

"There was an incident?" Erwin asked in confusion.

"I think I'm the only one that hadn't pulled a Miko," Rafael commented.

"I hate that you two coined that!" Miko exclaimed in anger.

"Wait a minute, how active were the three of you during their war?" Levi demanded.

"We helped end it," Jack admitted.

"You what?!" Jean exclaimed as he, the 104th, and the Warrior Cadets arrived at the tent they were at. Falco couldn't help but stare in disbelief at the sight of Miko in the Apex Armor.

"You helped end a million year war?!" Sasha demanded.

"Million?!" Gabi screeched.

"Huh...now that I think about it, we never really talked about all the things we've done during the war," Rafael realized.

"Ooo! Story time!" Miko grinned as she grabbed Hanji and set them down on the ground. They pressed the center of the Armor, and the Armor collapsed in on itself until the center of the Armor remained. Miko cracked her neck and stretched her arms before clapping her hands, "So I stole the Apex Armor when we were trying to dig for some Predacons bones for Shockwave's cloning project-!"

"Cloning project?" Annie asked in confusion.

"Predacon bones?" Falco added.

"Megatron got his mad scientist Shockwave back at the time, and Shockwave was taking the bones of ancient dead beasts of Cybertron called Predacons to bring them back to life via cloning, and use them to end the war in the Decepticons' favor," Rafael explained briefly, "Predaking is one of Shockwave's successful projects."

Hanji groaned as they slapped a hand over their eye. "Megatron, why?!"

"Yeah, don't defend a genocidal maniac," Miko hissed, "Anyway! While the Wreckers were dealing with Predaking, Ultra Magnus gave me a mission to contact the base for backup. I had to climb out of the cave on my own to get to Ultra Magnus' ship. But Starscream was there with two other goons. And I don't have any 3D gear, so I was dodging swipe after swipe as Starscream tried to kill me. But I jumped onto the Apex Armor and activated it before kicking the scrap out of Starscream and those two other 'Cons. Probably would've killed Starscream too, but he ran, like a coward."

"Who is Starscream?" Mikasa asked.

"Megatron's former second-in-command," Jack answered.

"You stole Armor from Megatron's second-in-command?!" Hanji grinned.

"Yep!" Miko gave a thumbs up, "And spun him around like a rag doll!"

"Nice!" Sasha grinned as she sat down, "What else did you do?"

"Killed a few Decepticons with the Armor, and I killed an Insecticon named Hardshell!" Miko added, "And this is what an Insecticon looks like!"

Miko opened her phone to show a picture of an Insecticon to the others.

"Holy shit! That this is terrifying!" Gabi gawked.

"And you killed one?!" Armin asked in disbelief, "How?!"

"Wheeljack and I were on a revenge spree and I used his ship to kill Hardshell as he was about to kill Wheeljack," Miko explained, "Didn't feel better after the revenge spree, but I did get bragging rights!"

"Guess it makes that threat all the more better," Rafael declared.

"Oh, yeah I threatened Buckethead during the Unicron incident," Miko added casually.

"You threatened Megatron while he was still an asshole?!" Sasha yelled.

"Yeah, I said something along the lines of 'if he double-crossed anyone, my face was the one he wouldn't forget'," Miko recalled.

Erwin glanced over at Levi, and was surprised to see a ghost of a smirk on Levi's face before he covered his mouth and tried to play coy.

"That's insane," Armin admitted, "You were able to do all of that?"

"Let's be real, Miko got us into more trouble than it's worth," Jack retorted, "We've nearly gotten killed because of you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, how did you find out about the Autobots? You were hitting on Arcee?!" Miko shot back.

"You what?" Jean demanded.

"First of all, don't phrase it like that!" Jack ordered, "Second, Arcee was in her alt mode and I was admiring what I thought was a motorcycle! Okay?!"

"Excuses." Miko crossed her arms.

"So what did you do during the war, Jack?" Pieck asked, "I'm sure Miko isn't the only one with accomplishments under her belt."

"I went to Cybertron to get Optimus' memories back after he lost it during the Unicron incident," Jack explained, "Where I also killed an Insecticon. You're not special, Miko."

"Oh stuff it, chosen one!" Miko placed her hands on her hips and got in Jack's face.

"When did Optimus lose his memories?" Annie asked in surprise.

"Oh, we talked about it in quarantine, but you weren't there," Jack recalled, "There was a cataclysmic event happening on Earth and Optimus had to use something called the Matrix of Leadership to help nullify the threat. Before then, Optimus gave me this." Jack pulled a thin, blue, device from his pocket, "The Key to Vector Sigma. It allowed access to the wisdom of the Primes and Optimus' memories. But it was on Cybertron, so the Autobots had to seize a spacebridge and Arcee and I ventured to Vector Sigma. Arcee had to fend off an Insecticon while I activated Vector Sigma. However, there were scraplets trying to eat the thing. Thankfully, the Insecticon arrived to try and kill me, but I redirected the scraplets to eat the Insecticon. And then I restored Optimus' memories when Megatron almost killed him."

"What's a scraplet?" Gabi asked.

"So imagine a swarm of bugs eating its way through your insides," Hanji began.

"Hanji, shut up," Levi warned them.

"So you're the first human to actually be on Cybertron?" Armin realized.

"Yep," Jack answered, while Miko grumbled to herself, "Honestly, it was amazing. I never really thought I'd ever have an opportunity like that."

"What else have you done?" Armin asked.

"I've had to fend off Airachnid quite a few times. I blew up her ship in an attempt to kill her," Jack explained, "She's a spider Decepticon, and even the others thought she was nuts."

"Thank god she's dead," Rafael sighed with relief.

"Miko, Arcee, Bulkhead, and myself were stuck in a cave in because of Megatron and Starscream and I took a mining drill to get Miko out," Jack continued.

"You also let Megatron live when he was trapped in the mine!" Miko added.

"You what?" Levi demanded.

"It was either kill Megatron, and he was probably goading me to do that, or try to go and find the two of you, and you were cornered by Starscream when I found you!" Jack reminded, "Bulkhead couldn't help you because he was holding up the ceiling from crushing you!"

"...I'll let it go," Levi mumbled to himself.

"Levi," Erwin warned.

"Those were more of my major accomplishments by myself," Jack finished.

"What about you?" Pieck asked Rafael as he continued taking notes.

"I planted a virus in Soundwave's minicon with Ratchet's help and used that virus to download the Iacon Database to the Autobots," Rafael casually mentioned.

"You did what?!" Hanji yelled, "You managed to put a virus in a living thing and use it to steal data?!"

"Yeah, we really needed the Iacon Database too," Rafael explained, "I've also used my knowledge to disable a satellite that would have shot lasers in space all day long. I also helped create a device to help find Ratchet when he got kidnapped by the Decepticons."

"You're accomplishments aren't as cool as theirs," Gabi declared.

"Gabi!" Pieck scolded.

"Eh, I'm more tech savvy compared to Miko and Jack," Rafael explained, "Not much of a physical fighter. And I'm fine with that. Someone needs to be the guy in the chair."

"Doesn't mean we haven't done some cool things together!" Miko reminded, "The three of us managed to secure the Decepticon warship during the final battle! We also managed to purge the dark energon from the Decepticon warship when the ship came to life and was about to destroy Manhattan!"

"The ship came to life?" Mikasa asked in confusion.

"Well go into details another time," Jack reassured, "There's a lot to go over in terms of the war."

"...Holy shit, Megatron actually wasn't kidding when he said he considered the three of you threats," Hanji proclaimed.

"Wait, Megatron considers us threats?!" Miko grinned, "Dude, that's awesome!"

"You actually made Megatron's life hell and I respect it," Levi declared.

"Wow." Sasha stared in surprise.

"Yeah, I guess it makes sense," Rafael sighed to himself.

"Doesn't mean that a lot of the stuff that happened to us was because Miko impulsively put herself in danger for cheap thrills," Jack reminded in annoyance.

"They led to good things!" Miko retorted.

"The Synthetic Energon incident?" Jack challenged.

"The formula was used to revive Cybertron!" Miko reminded as Rafael turned his gaze upward, noticing Megatron walking past in his bipedal mode.

"Rescuing Agent Fowler?!" Jack retorted.

"We figured out the schematics for the spacebridge!" Miko shot back.

"The Shadowzone incident!" Jack yelled.

"We used it to put Sound-!" Rafael jumped up and covered Miko's mouth as Megatron paused in his step to see Miko struggling in Rafael's grip. Megatron raised an eyebrow at the three of them, noticing Rafael and Jack looking rather tense. He turned his attention to Hanji, and the Commander merely shrugged in confusion. Megatron merely let it go and grunted before he continued.

"Miko, we talked about this!" Rafael removed his hand from Miko's mouth once he assumed Megatron was out of earshot.

"Oh c'mon, we used to brag about it all the time-!"

"When Megatron wasn't here! You know the rule! We take it to the grave," Rafael emphasized.

"But-!"

"GRAVE!" Jack and Rafael shouted.

"Okay, fine!" Miko yelled in defeat.

"Wait, what did you three do?" Hanji asked.

"Don't worry about it!" Jack and Rafael shouted.

"Okay! God!" Hanji raised their hands in surrender.

[anony-man]

Second drabble for the day… enjoy!

Chubformers drabble #178!

Character: Soundwave (TFP)

Word count: 1.2k

The monitor screens pinged every so often with new alerts, new messages, and new information, and as always, Soundwave was quick to react. Nowadays, though, things were… slower.

Communications was a very important part of any faction, Decepticon or no, but Soundwave would have been kidding himself if he pretended that the single role was in of itself anything more than a glorified desk job. There were still tasks to complete around the Nemesis, still bots to keep in line—namely the ones whose designation started with S and ended with… well, you get the gist. A Decepticon’s work never ended with his official position, and Soundwave of all mechs knew to carry his weight of the responsibilities when it was called for.

They were stuck on earth now, forced to float through the skies and orbit a planet whose reputation was laughable, at best. It was, unfortunately, their only option anymore, and that meant making the most of some very, very unpleasant situations. Soundwave was more than happy to do everything he could to make sure his master’s dreams came true, but eventually he had to draw the lines between reasonable and unreasonable expectations.

To put it short, the poor mech had been taking on more and more duties at his desk, in front of the screen, and away from the action… and that could only lead to several things, and none of them positive.

Soundwave had seen the effects of idle living in real time, both in himself and in others. It was one thing to be forced into complacency and unable to branch out and work, and to be incapable of the usual active and proactive duties expected from their kind. Megatron had been unconscious and practically offlined for days, months even, shortly after his return, and that was a solid example. The other end of the spectrum, however… that was where poor Soundwave currently lied, and Primus have mercy on his poor, fattened self, it wasn’t even of his own volition.

Megatron only ever wanted his soldiers stationed in their respective positions anymore, and that was all well and good. The Decepticon leader had also been enforcing some rather limiting rules and regulations anymore, which made sticking to protocol and remaining at his control station a little more difficult than it had been before.

Upticks in energon rations and expectations for limiting regular intake were both to be expected, especially when they were stuck in the position that they were. Going on the flip-side of that and instead enforcing more energon to be consumed no matter what the average Con was doing, let alone in charge of, however, was something Soundwave simply couldn’t get behind. It was foolish, short-term logic that would end in devastation and destruction of their fuel reserves, to name a few. They had plenty stored in the belly of the ship, and plenty more where that came from, thanks to Starscream’s questionable tactics at resource finding.

Again, long story short—controlling fuel intake? Good. Encouraging and, dare he say, forcing excessive intake upon each one of the mechs aboard the Nemesis to a point of overconsumption and overindulgence? Soundwave simply couldn’t support it. He had to, though. He wished he didn’t, and he wished he wouldn’t, but he had to. Despite the intoxicating effects of that dangerous substance housed so closely to his spark chambers, Megatron was still the highest level of command aboard their ship and amongst their faction. Whatever he said goes, which meant Soundwave was to lower his helm and oblige.

Like the good soldier he was, Soundwave did as he was told. He manned the control center, took care of all communications between their ship and Shockwave’s connections back on Cybertron. He did just as Megatron commanded him to. He didn’t disobey, he didn’t skip his extra rations.

Soundwave listened, and Soundwave obeyed. He also gained, and he gained, and he gained, because after all, the downside to being stationed at the control panels and refueling nearly ever hour meant he was doing little to shed the excess weight accumulating on his frame.

The process was gradual, as was Megatron’s insistence that they take in more than they could physically handle. At first, it had just been an extra cube here and there, an extra hour of standing-at-his-desk work to pass the time. Soundwave didn’t mind. Really, he didn’t mind at all. He was to do as Megatron instructed, which meant refueling for two (or three, if you really got down to the nitty gritty details) and work stationary. The process was still gradual, though, which meant changes still happened.

A lot of changes happened, really. Megatron became more insistent, his work at the consoles and monitors increased, and… oh, that’s right. He became so heavy he could hardly stand anymore, let alone leave his station once the days had come to an end.

To Soundwave, this was an embarrassment. Things moved steadily enough, but his reflexes were limited, his range of motion stunted. Laserbeak was eventually evicted, the poor thing forced to sit on a perch nearby and watch as her master worked idly on, and soon after that, Soundwave became far too big for even his tentacles to function.

It was long, fat tendrils wrapped around his widened frame and kept out of the way as he shifted this way against the seat of his new chair after a while. He was limited to his servos again, and when he wasn’t typing away frantically at the console in an attempt at keeping up with the influx of data streaming in and going out, he was tracing slim digits over the curves of his frame and wondering just how many cubes away he was from breaking this chair, too.

Oh, right. He had broken a chair already. Two chairs, in fact. His frame was just too heavy for them to bear the weight, he supposed. Knock Out had been amused, Starscream appalled, and Megatron unbothered. The steady stream of excess rations still steadily flowed, and by then, he had begun to crave the feeling of a bloated belly pushing against the edge of the monitor’s keyboards as he worked.

There were negatives, so very many negatives, to Megatron’s insistence on the new rations and routines, but like the good soldier he was, Soundwave obliged. He even grew to like it after a while. He was practically glued to his chair anymore (until it broke, too, that is), unable to lift himself up from the seat for fear of hurting his wiry frame. The weight gain wasn’t exactly natural for him, and it had piled on quickly and awkwardly. Alas… he made do.

Another ping on the monitor screen caught Soundwave’s attention that night. Just as he had finished nursing the last of his final rations for the evening, there was a new report sent into him by… Knock Out.

Hm. How strange. He clicked the link.

“New regulations from Megatron,” it read in bold letters. “Everyone’s rations remain the same except for Soundwave’s. Adding two more cubes to his daily intake and putting the demand for a proper throne in the works. Make it quickly, and make it well.

Your master,

Megatron.”

[yayasvalveplay]

Hear me out. Starscream with a breeding kink. He’s pushing his hips back if the person he’s getting dicked down by mentions it. He isn’t satisfied till every drop of transfluid is in him. If just a little bit doesn’t make it in, well gotta start over!

And if the lucky bot is more proactive about it… fucking it into him, holding him down and all. Well now he goes from bossy to begging and pleading.

Just an idea I thought of

No no. You are so right. He wants that tralsfluid, and gets going to get all of it.

"Please Star baby, I can't cum anymore."

"Well too damn bad. Your last load, a millilileater of transfluid left my valve when you pulled out. We are starting over.

Or the bot that also has a breeding kink and just has a knot mod, or just has a really thick spike so it automatically traps transfluid inside. Starscream is being a brat and demanding that the bot fill him up. We'll he got what he's asked for, and now he's a mewling, rithing mess, begging the bot not to pull out, to keep it all inside .

The transfluid slut is slipping out but he doesn't care, he's too blissed out to think properly other then transfluid.

[formula-wind]

choose your agent! — valorant mains of furin high first years

※ headcanons for wind breaker characters as valorant players ft. sakura haruka, nirei akihiko, suo hayato, & sugishita kyotaro

Sakura Haruka — instalock duelist

Like with gang fights, he definitely had his fair share of experiences with cocky duelists so it’s no surprise he tries to take the main damage-dealer role first in his team when he queues for a game.

Reyna would be the first one Haruka tries to pick because of the agent’s self-sustaining nature. No need to rely on teammates for entry support or heals—relating well with his independent character.

I mean, Reyna’s blind wont affect his teammates so there’s no reason for them to yell at him for bad blind timings or wasting heals so less problems!

Though not that he would admit this, but he also thinks she’s the most useful agent for helping the team out.

No one is an initiator? Haruka entries site for the team with a blind, killing anyone there who stops his team from getting in.

No one is a sentinel? Haruka stays behind to guard their backs trying to stay alive for as long as possible to protect the spike (when attacking) or site (when defending).

No one is a controller? Well, he can’t really do much with Reyna’s abilities but he does hunt down enemies when he has ultimate available to reduce the team’s worries.

Definitely sets a good example for how Reyna mains should be.

He also just hates being in a team with Reyna players who talk shit more than get kills. Who doesn’t though?

Because of this, he does understand that instalocking Reyna would get his teammates assuming he’s one of the bad players but he couldn’t care less when they express their annoyance.

Haruka can and will prove them wrong, after all.

However, in extremely rare cases where people instalock duelists before him, he either dodges (95% of the time since he just wont be able to stand the possibility of egoistical teammates) or picks Chamber.

Why? He can stay behind guarding flank or site strongly as his “dumbass teammates” charge the enemies.

With his shooting skills, he can really makes the most out of Chamber’s abilities.

Also because of chamber’s pistol and rifle ultimate, he’s also able to buy a gun for a teammate if needed. Again, definitely not something he would admit, but if pointed out, best believe he’s going to scream in voice chat about how irresponsible his team is with credits.

Akihiko Nirei — sentinel or controller strategist

We all know how proactive he is with gathering information about guys he finds cool so I am pretty sure that when he gets really into Valorant he has a notebook full of strategy plans, setups, and lineups from his research and actual game experiences.

His analytical skills and game-knowledge would definitely make him the best supporting member of the team.

Nirei would be that person that waits for everyone to pick their agent before picking his to avoid complaints and to work with the team dynamic.

If a sentinel is needed, fits well with the team and the map; he would most likely select Killjoy.

He probably mastered a lot of swarm + alarm bot setups. Though, he does like using the same setups twice or more instead of switching it up if it works against the enemy.

Probably does it because he thinks the enemy wouldn’t expect such plans to be executed again (not really true most of the time).

Good thing about Nirei is he knows what he’s capable and not capable of; he understands his weaknesses so he plays it safe to not become a burden to his teammates.

Enemies call him a rat for being so skilled with his utility usage, and he takes it as a compliment with pride.

Loves playing post-plant lineups! He practices a lot in custom before each ranked game.

However, if his team needs a controller to block out sections of a site to secure entries, he’s playing Astra.

Now, Astra is probably one of the toughest agents to master since it needs good map awareness skills and team coordination so Nirei only picks her if he knows his team can give good comms and support (like if he would be playing with the other bofurin members).

He would definitely take pride in assisting his teammates with getting kills by using concuss (nova pulse) and pulling enemies (gravity well).

May get too focused with getting his abilities set up and activated right so he would need someone to watch his back (he has been trolled and stabbed multiple times, which sometimes led to really funny games).

Truly the teammate with the braincells we all need (and aspire to be).

Suo Hayato — duelist-like sentinel or full-on duelist

He is a Sage main. 100%. No doubt.

Oh but Hayato's not your stereotypical bottom frag “team before me” Sage main.

He’s the type that would carry the whole team—some would even say he’s one of those “selfish” Sage players.

Why she’s his first pick? Simple: fun walls.

He doesn’t really like walling off the spike since it doesn't provide good entertainment he knows his walls can be used for better uses.

He loves tormenting the enemy with crazy Sage wall placements, getting kills without the enemy knowing where they’re getting shot at brings him so much joy—it’s almost sadistic.

You think a wall is misplaced so bad it lets you enter the site easier? Wrong. Hayato's behind you getting your team one by one.

Sometimes he drags it out, watching the enemy team get past him when they don’t check their corners and follows them to the site—and if they’re attacking—he does the little ninja defuse trick; defusing the spike as soon as the other team has planted it.

With his healing orbs, he is still very supportive of his team and usually heals them first instead of himself, not really minding if they still die first after getting healed. He’s pretty confident with his shooting skills so he survives well without needing additional health stats.

He plays at a distance so even on low health he is able to get frags.

His slow orbs are also mainly there for its regular use of keeping enemies at bay, but also torment his team members if they’re getting on his nerves—which doesn’t happen often.

The reviving ultimate? If his team keeps asking to be revived best believe he’s only using it to use the revived bodies as a shield or revives them in the most inconvenient moment.

When given the chance to be a duelist, he is definitely picking Jett.

You really can’t convince me otherwise cause her swift play style suits well with Hayato's character.

Those updraft knife trick shots on tiktok? He does them at least once a game to bring down the enemy’s mental.

Would probably be like a Tenz with Jett’s ultimate. He would save the other abilities if he knows he has or is getting his ultimate soon to do those crazy killer dash moves.

This is pretty much self-explanatory so I don’t know what else to say. Hayato is graceful; Jett lets him prove it in game.

Sugishita Kyotaro — hunting-focused initiator

Probably not the most active player in Bofurin but when he does play, he’s playing Fade.

Is probably only ever playing fade because it fits the most with him though.

Short explanation: their auras match well; scary and will be out to torment you.

Long explanation: if he’s playing with Umemiya, he’s probably using Fade to provide support and keep the enemy as far from him as possible.

Since he also doesn’t talk much, Fade uncovering the location of enemies helps him be useful for his team without needing much interaction. I mean, the agent literally can direct you to enemies with the ultimate ability so what else is there to point out?

I also see him as a very proactive corner-checker so Fade’s haunt and prowler is really handy for him. No corner of the site is left unchecked with Kyotaro around!

However, I can’t really picture him using seize that much for capturing enemies so I think he doesn’t really purchase it. If they’re out in the open, he likes killing them head-on so he doesn’t see much value to the said skill.

Overall, even as a one-agent player, he definitely excels with making the most out of Fade’s abilities.

a/n: depending on whether or not anyone is actually interested in this i may turn this into a series,,

[sdv-confessions]

could someone explain to me (preferably nicely) what the actual issue is with fans using generative AI to make chat bots of the npcs. to be proactive, ive heard the following before and disagree:

1. "its lazy" thats not actually Bad unless you believe in sin or whatever

2. environmental concerns/water conservation. if you use the internet at all, you're using water. if you use google at all, you're using water. i do not believe that a simple chatbot (which has been possible to make since 2008, look up cleverbot) is significantly worse for the environment than all our everyday usage of tech. and i cant take anyones word for it unless they actually work in tech/AI or can give me very specific sources proving this.

thanks in advance!

edit: i generally don't support generative AI. however it is a broad topic, and not black and white. im approaching the sdv chatbots issue from a neutral position. ill be looking into the programs mentioned in the notes.

[peggingprowl]

Took me 5 million years to find your account again/silly

Anyways. You know the drill. I need Prowl, brat tamer Prowl with Router. You know my brain. I am now dead (mentally)

HEWWOOOOOO. For you, my dear, I am making an exception for the OC rule bc I Love Router. Everyone give it up for Router!! He's a BRAT and Prowl desperately wants to make his mouth shut up <3

Rated Explicit, ~800 words, Prowl/OC, Oral Sex, Dom/Sub dynamic, brat taming

He flits through his memory banks, tracking down the day's schedule.

Prowl ex-vents, massaging his temple. Router's smug face haunts his processor, a persistent image that he can't quite shake. With a huff, he pushes himself away from his desk. No more work would be getting done, not now.

Router is off shift—perfect. Knowing him, he'd be in the rec room, causing mischief, no doubt.

Exiting his office, he rationalizes to himself. He's just being proactive. He's preventing Router from getting into any trouble, which he is so easily disposed to. That's it.

He ignores the other data points his processor loves to hand him whenever he thinks about Router, and all the warm feelings that surround the memories. (Mood improvement is 83% higher after encounters with Router. Stress levels are reduced by 86%—)

He makes it to the rec room, and walks in. The room is decently populated, with scattered groups around the tables. He scans the room, finding Router lounging upon a booth, arms draped across the back and legs sprawled out. He gestures with a servo, engrossed in conversation with his friends.

As Prowl approaches the table, Router looks up. His optics flash, and a cheeky grin spreads across his lips.

"Prowl!" He greets, sending a lazy wave, "What can we do for you?" He pauses for a moment, calculating, before drawling out a cheeky "Sir."

Prowl is suddenly reminded of the last time Router called him "sir"—a crying Router upon his lap, his panels open and valve a swollen red as Prowl made him count out each slap he gave him and thank him for it.

He discreetly shifts on his peds, panel suddenly tighter than before.

"Router. Come with me." He steadily ignores the whispers the erupt from the others at the table. He doesn't owe them anything, they can speculate all they want. They don't matter.

Router cocks his head, mouth opening. (Lips still faintly marked from when he bit them just days ago, desperate to smother his moans—)

"Oh? What for? I haven't done anything wrong yet. It's been barely two days!"

Of course Router is being difficult. They both know what this is about. But Router enjoys this game of theirs too much, and unfortunately, he knows how much Prowl does too.

They lead the same old song and dance; Prowl getting increasingly more frustrated as Router riles him up. Back and forth they argue, until Prowl has had enough. He grabs Router by the arm, yanking him up. (Router gives a jaunty wave and wink to his friends. Prowl ignores that too.)

The entire walk to Prowl's habsuite, Router chatters—taunting and teasing, even flirty winks that fluster Prowl more than he would admit.

Shoving him into his room, he closes the door before rounding on Router.

"Since you've been using that mouth of yours so much today, why don't we give it a use?"

Router gives him an innocent look. "I don't know what you could mean by that—OH!"

He clatters to his knees, manhandled by Prowl. (He's bigger than Prowl, they both know he could stay standing if he wanted to, but he lets Prowl have this power—)

Router finds himself face to face with Prowl's spike, a white and black shaft with blinking red biolights flashing in arousal. Prefluid leaks from the tip, glistening in the low lighting of the room.

"Wow, how forward of you, Prowl. Take a bot out for dinner first, why don't you?" Router chides, unable to let even one opportunity to tease slide—but Prowl can see the blatant hunger in his optics as he eyes the spike.

Reaching down, he sets his servos on Router's head, yanking him closer. He groans as his spike slides across Router's cheek, smearing the prefluid obscenely onto it.

"I swear to Primus, Router, if you don't stop talking and start sucking—" he threatens, rubbing Router's face even futher into his crotch.

"If you insist, sir," he replies mockingly. And with that, he finally takes Prowl's aching spike head into his mouth.

Prowl groans lowly, reveling in the smooth glide of Router's tongue and the warm, tight heat of his mouth. Router hums, betraying his delight as he swirls his glossa, sending wonderful vibrations down the length. He feeds the spike further inside, lips stretching obscenely as drool and lubricant slips out. He lavishes each ridge with attention, pulling out huffs of pleasure from Prowl above. Inch after inch, the spike stretches his throat, until his face is buried down to the root, the entire length inside.

Prowl basks for a klik, letting the other become accustomed to the weight of him. He admires the bulge on Router's neck cables, the metal tubing glistening slightly from escaped drool. He spies the others open panel, and angles his leg forward, offering him a place to grind.

Router eagerly takes it, humping at Prowl's ped as he deepthroats Prowl's spike.

"Good boy," Prowl grunts, petting his head. Router lets out a whine. "You're so much better when that mouth of yours is occupied. Maybe I should—ah!—do this more often," he muses, gently beginning to rock his hips.

A rhythm forms, as Prowl begins to fuck Router's throat in earnest, timing it with the other's desperate humps on his leg. After a moment, he experimentally jostles Router with his knee, bouncing him, and moans as it makes the other's throat tighten. He does it again, to see if it will bring the same result, and to his pleasure, it does.

Router is a mess—his valve and spike weeping lubricant copiously upon Prowl's leg, face smeared with drool and lubricants, and optics watering at particularly rough thrusts. Prowl saves an image to a file in his processor, not wanting this moment to be lost.

Yes, Prowl muses, This is an optimal way to keep Router occupied and out of trouble. The data speaks for itself.

Better to add a few more plot points, though. He'll have to try this again tomorrow.

[theaudreyhaus]

FixTF2: What Happened, Why Did Valve Step In, And What Comes Next?

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with neither Valve nor the people who run the FixTF2 petition. Do not treat anything I say here as any official announcement of any future plans for the movement. All my thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone.

As of the making of this post, the save.tf has officially closed down to new signatures, racking up a generous 343,711 total signatures. I've made my thoughts on FixTF2 clear in the past, where I said that I didn't have much hope that Valve would actually do something, but to my surprise, Valve seemed to have finally stepped in and done something about the bot issue plaguing the game for 5 straight years beyond the usual half-assed band-aid fix. In light of Valve surprising me, I want to talk about what's happened, some speculation as to why Valve is potentially doing this, and what I think comes next from all of this.

So, let's clear some stuff up: Is Casual really bot-free?

From what I've seen and heard, yes!

Starting around June 25th, multiple sources reported a massive drop in the active player count for Team Fortress 2 from Steam Charts, being around 15,000-16,000 users vanishing overnight. Many people suspect this to be a large-scale ban wave Valve enacted, and there is a large amount of evidence to support this. (More info from this video by shounic here) Since then, up until the day this post is being written (July 1st 2024), people have reported that Casual servers across all regions have been fairly bot-free, with only the occasional one popping up, a far cry from a month ago, where servers were flooded with them no matter where you went. I myself even hopped on a few games and to my surprise, there were no bots to be found whatsoever. Its honestly been super refreshing to see the game be this clean, as now its actually fun to play once again. I haven't touched the game in months, but since the bots have been kicked out for a little bit, it feels good to play once more. If you haven't played the game for a while cause of the bots, now's your chance to hop in and enjoy the game. Its actually fun to play now that the bots have been squashed. On top of that, (as of the time this post is being written), Valve appears to still be actively curbing cheaters and bots from the game, even setting up a dedicated Steam support page for anyone who gets a game ban here.

So, why's Valve doing any of this?

This is where I'm going to step into speculation territory, as Valve being Valve means there's barely any information they will share with the public, but I'll do my best to come up with some logical explanations. I would say that Valve doing a ban wave has both a short-term goal and a long-term goal. The short-term goal was Valve was always intending to do a ban wave, it just took a while to do. What I think happened was Valve took a while to collect a database of known bot accounts and (presumably) their hosters, and from there, once Valve felt they were comfortable with the amount they had collected, they pulled the trigger and proceeded to wipe them out. They obviously couldn't just outright say "Hey, we're gonna do a wipe of the bots soon" because that would have given the hosters plenty of time to set up proactive measures to make Valve's job harder. The only evidence I really have for this is the dropoff of players on Steam Charts, which shows around 15k-16k players mysteriously disappeared from the game, which seems to point to Valve issuing a game ban toward said accounts/deleting them entirely. Alternatively, Valve could have banned a limited amount of accounts, much lower than the 15-16k shown by Steam Charts, but it sent a scare to hosters who deactivated their bots and took them off the game once they knew Valve was watching them, but this explanation I don't have much evidence to prove beyond scattered Discord screenshots of supposed hosters telling people to change their bot configurations due to Valve clamping down on them. The long-term goal of this, though far-fetched and lacking evidence to support, could have to do with Deadlock, their next game, as a proactive measure to prevent these same malicious actors from flooding the game on Day 1, something many people have pointed out and what's happened to CS2 not even a year into its launch.

(UPDATE: Ok I might as well address this cause it did come up while I was writing the post, but a Team Fortress 2 DLC for an upcoming Funko Pop game called Funko Fusion was announced, and people have said that the only reason why Valve squashed the bots was because Valve wanted the game to look good in time for the crossover.

Now I am by no means a fan of Funko Pop, I think they look a bit ugly and there's a myriad of other things people take issue with, but that's all outside the scope of this post. I personally don't care that this is happening to begin with, as Funko Pops are something I routinely forget about, so as far as the DLC existing, I don't care that much. That being said, if it is true that Valve only squashed bots due to this collab happening to begin with, then that is pretty sad and disappointing to see, with how Valve wasn't motivated to fix the issue until a different company came knocking and asked them to do something cause they didn't want the DLC to look bad. But since there's no confirmation this is the case, Valve does have some level of plausible deniability here, and ultimately, something good did come from this, at a (to me, cause I couldn't give a shit about Funko) nonexistant cost so I won't complain)

So now time to return to the last part of the question in the title: What comes next?

Well for one thing, the war has not been won yet.

A big mistake with SaveTF2 was once Valve tweeted that they apparently "heard" us and were working to improve things, people largely declared victory and chose to stop there. Yet things didn't substantially improve since then, only cascading into a far worse situation. This time around, we cannot give up as quickly as last time. We are on the cusp of victory, but we need to keep the pressure on Valve. Keep holding them accountable for the bot issue. Put pressure on them to get rid of the bots for good. Don't let them off the hook and give them a slap on the wrist for only repelling the bots for a little bit, because believe me, as soon as Valve stops doing anything and slinks back into the shadows, the bots will return, and they will be far worse than anything we've seen thus far. It happened two years ago, it will happen again if we just declare victory now and go home. What Valve is doing is a great change of pace and they do deserve some praise for what they're doing, but we must make sure they stay committed to fixing the issue at hand. The best time for Valve to fix the issue was 5 years ago. The second best time is here and now. For now, hop on a few games and enjoy the (relatively) clean servers. We've earned a small break after our victory, but once you're done, make sure to grab your best bot-stomping boots, because our job is far from over.

[fangirlingpuggle]

I hope your brain does keep up! Dad chase is iconic!

I love the Omi and Jack swap AU so much! Is there anything else you tell us about it! Particularly about the other monks or Wuya lol

Thank you! Yeah Dad Chase is the best!

Other thoughts on alignment switch AU

The other monks are much more proficient with their elements, as trained by Wuya mostly (Who I head canon was a previous dragon of Earth) and she knows how those elements work.

They also have more background on Wu and their fighting styles are more honed as she is a very hands on teacher.

She also ends up caring for the kids (Though she will deny it when asked and claim this is souly out of spite so they'll be better than Dashi and so she can rub it into Dashi's face she sees him) she also denies she is Xiaolin claiming I'm still Heylin or neutral party.

Wuya also ends up with Dojo hanging around her a lot and they talk about Dashi a lot. She spends way to much time sometimes looking at the sands of time or the puzzle box.

She trains Clay a lot them having the same element she also says he is the one voice of reason and is she's gone he's in charge.

Kimiko and her training is brutal and everything is on fire they have far to much fun. Kimiko also made Wuya go on shopping spree when Wuya wanted more modern clothes. (Wuya also insists on spa days occasional especially after certain Wu hunts end up with them battered and bruised and almost eaten by some monster, all the dragons come along with this) She's not making them stay in the temple all the time she's letting them be kids and have fun... well Except Jack at time because Jack's idea fun is trying to make shen gong wu and she's trying to stop him. (He's like the second coming of Dashi and this world does not need another)

Raimundo and her get along very well, she very much encourages his plans and to be sneaky. They also have the same sense of humor.

Jack she calls her problem child but fondly because he is so much like Dashi at times, though much more dorky (and she didn't think that was possible) also not as brave, which is a good thing because that means he's not trying to break the universe.

Wuya has also moved some the old monks rooms to give kids more space as in her words 'those scrolls are full of shit anyway I was there and only 12% of this is accurate, i'm not teaching these brats that stupid stuff no wonder I almost took over the world your all idiots'

She also lets them all have Wu on them and not have it all stuck in the vault all the time. The more practice the better besides keeping all the Wu in one place makes it way easier to steal trust me I have stolen so much stuff.

Jack has made Jackbots that protect the temple and the Wu specially so the temple is harder to break into (Chase and Omi still mange through of course). He also makes robots for them to train and proactive against plus uses his metal powers to alter them mid battle and practice his own powers. Wuya also has stone golems around put they aren't as powerful as less Heylin power but they are good bouncers for most enemies.

Dojo and Jack are normally together and are the cowardly duo, they will do a scooby doo is never a monster and run to find Clay or Wuya.

All training sessions end with a lot more property damage (which luckily the jack bots and mini versions of Wuya's stone golems can fix)

Not only Fung but most of the other monks have left for pilgrimages or just retiring. (They're pretty sure they saw some in Vegas when they were there to pick up a shen gong wu)

[absolute-immunities]

a delightful piece!

In the wake of [Defcon 2023], product managers told staff that Zuckerberg was upset that the team was playing it too safe. That rebuke led to a loosening of boundaries, according to people familiar with the episode, including carving out an exception to the prohibition against explicit content for romantic role-play.

Internally, staff cautioned that the decision gave adult users access to hypersexualized underage AI personas and, conversely, gave underage users access to bots willing to engage in fantasy sex with children, said the people familiar with the episode. Meta still pushed ahead.

Zuckerberg’s concerns about overly restricting bots went beyond fantasy scenarios. Last fall, he chastised Meta’s managers for not adequately heeding his instructions to quickly build out their capacity for humanlike interaction.

At the time, Meta allowed users to build custom chatbot companions, but he wanted to know why the bots couldn’t mine a user’s profile data for conversational purposes. Why couldn’t bots proactively message their creators or hop on a video call, just like human friends? And why did Meta’s bots need such strict conversational guardrails?

“I missed out on Snapchat and TikTok, I won’t miss on this,” Zuckerberg fumed, according to employees familiar with his remarks.

rare zuck ws

[vanessalocke]

anon thinks fruk and ukfr are the same bc doesn't really care for that. A dynamic is a dynamic but whoa that's amazing!

Although I don't really care about “is this FrUK or UKFr” because in my opinion they are quite similar, but in some specific cases, these two ships still have some different characteristics.

With FrUK, Arthur is more trigger-prone, more foul-mouthed, more proactive, while Francis is calmer, more thoughtful, and more indulgent towards Arthur. Francis top is a person who loves humanity and always thinks about existential questions. Arthur bot is a practical, pessimistic, hot-tempered, gloomy person who often solves things with fists instead of negotiating. He likes to be the leader in the relationship, and Francis indulges him. In addition, Arthur has a greater sex drive than Francis. Francis sees sex as a means to express love, so even if Arthur never wants to have sex with him, he still happily accepts. He has many other ways to love Arthur. As for Arthur, well, he really enjoys when he sit on Francis 🥲

With UKFr, Arthur's initiative is surprisingly reduced. Arthur's way of speaking is polite and courteous but more sarcastic. He is less straightforward than Arthur bot. In this route, he uses less violence and more of his head. Francis, to be exact, would be similar to the so-called fatale women. He is smart, sharp, dangerous, ambitious and charming. If Francis top's charm lies in his steadfastness, warmth and healing, then Francis bot's charm lies in his tactfulness in behavior, high EQ, a smile on his face that hides all his inner calculations. Francis bot is a true aristocrat, only likes to go to the most luxurious restaurants, and he would rather starve than eat food that is not up to five-star standards. And if Francis top never speaks harshly or says harsh words, Francis bot is ready to say elegant but thorny words.

In this route, Arthur always looks down on a cunning and sinister person like Francis, but deep down Arthur both admires and is wary of this man. They make things difficult for each other, chase each other. In the morning they stab each other with words at the negotiating table, in the evening Arthur stabs Francis with something else. They also have a fwbs phase, but their fwbs phase does not show the complex psychology as FrUK. They simply cannot admit that they like each other, so they become fwbs. Later, they get angry when they see each other being intimate with someone else, so they decide to possess each other with a marriage certificate.

It can be said that, with FrUK, Arthur and Francis will fight physically, then bandage and comfort each other. Neither of them hides their feelings (although Arthur never says he loves Francis). They are rivals, closest friends, lovers. As for UKFr, Arthur and Francis will play mind games with each other and get caught up in mind games with each other. When they comfort each other, they will stand silently next to each other, lean on each other's shoulders, even gaze at each other, kiss and hug each other, but no direct words of comfort or confession are spoken. They are the dearest enemies.

[ren3gade]

i've seen so many massive bot farms at scale on platforms like bsky (especially the 'reply guy' bots that do nothing but post irrational, argumentative comments on posts to stir up hostility) i generally assume anyone that is completely hostile or irrational is a bot even though people like that obviously exist

its more efficient and saves my energy. whether they're really a bot or a shitty person is honestly immaterial. the issue is they're disruptive.

asshole posting can be done at scale so easily now there's no reason to give hostile users the benefit of a doubt. ai can generate buzzword bad faith arguments effortlessly and it doesn't matter if it even makes sense or passes the ai sniff test, so it's a good way to chum the water and stir people up, and if its allowed to persist it trashes the platform

i like the reporting on bsky because i can get really specific and provide links and context to a report, be it examples of other accounts that follow the same blueprint, validators confirming malware/redirects, and so on

i have a 100% takedown rate and when i report an account it goes down very fast now, so i think they put me on some sort of trusted reporting list

bsky wants the users to do the moderation work for them, so they are happy to receive reports from trusted users

with tumblr, i only ever report obvious violations like sexually explicit material. this is partly because tumblr's tos is goosey (imo) on what constitutes disruptive behavior

tumblr really just wants you to block people and move on. they don't want to deal with your reports.

Keep in mind that a post might be mean, tasteless, or offensive without necessarily encouraging violence or hatred. In cases like that, you can always block the person who made the post—or, if you're up for it, you can express your concerns to them directly, or use Tumblr to speak up, challenge ideas, raise awareness or generate discussion and debate.

even in cases of harassment:

Harassment. Don't engage in targeted abuse, bullying, or harassment. Don't engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others. If someone is sending you unwanted messages, or reblogging your posts in an abusive way, we encourage you to be proactive. Report them, and block the hell out of them. And if someone blocks you, don't attempt to circumvent the block feature or otherwise try to communicate with them.

so while on bsky i feel like i can contribute by reporting, here i really dont except stuff like porn which is cut and dried.

also, bsky has a REALLY STRONG block/report culture. i do appreciate the platform as a whole is actively working to limit the exposure of disruptive accounts as much as possible

[advancedchatbot]

Training Your Conversational AI for Better Engagement and Brand Voice

Conversational AI has evolved a great deal beyond canned FAQs and pre-scripted answers. It's now a critical component of customer service, sales, and brand voice. But to be truly effective, it must reflect your brand's tone, values, and voice. The trick? Strategic training and constant optimization.

This is how you can train your AI to provide interesting answers and speak for your brand.

Define Your Brand’s Personality First

Set the brand voice before you go into training. Is your voice informal and friendly or formal and professional? Is your AI supposed to be funny or to the point? Decide this because it will influence how the AI bot is going to communicate with the users via touchpoints. Teach your AI to employ your company's vocabulary, idioms, and sentence structure in their language use.

Use Real Conversations as a Training Base

Giving your AI real interactions, such as previous support chats, customer service emails, or call transcripts, gives it real language patterns. This allows your AI not just to understand the intent of user questions but also the way real users phrase concerns or request assistance.

The more heterogeneous the data, the more precise your bot will be.

Incorporate Contextual Understanding

A smart AI does not just answer questions, it understands what is happening. Training it to follow threads of conversation, recall past exchanges, and adapt based on usage leads to smoother, more natural interactions.

Users are engaged, and trust is increased, particularly when the AI can proactively offer contextual recommendations or solutions.

Test, Learn, and Refine

Training is a continuous process. Always keep an eye on engagement metrics, dropout points, and user reviews. Utilize this information to improve response logic, tighten tone, and cut down on conversational lag. Regular refreshes keep your AI tuned to customer expectations and in harmony with your brand strategy.

The Bottom Line

A properly trained conversational AI is not only a chatbot, it's your brand extension. With the right data, tight personality guidelines, and continuous tuning, you can build AI conversations that are not only useful but also memorable. The payoff? Higher engagement and better loyalty.

[chopperpirate]

I know a lot of people are gonna say that the issue with using AI posts for everything is laziness and insulting the integrity of the writer who is actually trying (which is fair) but it's more than that.

1. Most Character Writing bots have weird limitations put in for legal reasons. No racism, suicide, talks of child abuse, and no violent actions by the AI itself. If you were hoping to have a villain in your story, you'd better expect them to only be menacing through dialogue.

2. The AI has no memory. It can only really effectively reply to the post/prompt you just gave it. Even on sites like Character.AI or whatever it was, the new and improved version can only remember posts up to about 20 posts ago. If you intended for a long form story, don't bother.

Let me put it this way. If you have a story with an AI Bot writing for the other person, and you have one character of yours absent for 21 posts only to return, the AI will act like they're meeting for the first time again.

3. This goes hand in hand with 2. The AI can't plan ahead. It can reply to one post at a time with no plan for a follow through. Even if it types in such a way that implies a plan, what happens next might be totally fucking different from anything that it's currently building to because your next prompt will restart it from 0. It's for this reason that...

4. The AI is incredibly reactive to everything. There is no push or pull, even from AI bots of characters who are all about carving ahead and being the proactive character. You are expected to decide the story for it.

So then, can anyone really tell me that it's okay and fair to use AI in an RP without telling the other person? They'll be caught in an endless loop of low stakes, fluffy and meaningless RPs that never properly develop the character because it can't change too far from the original programming. While they don't know they're talking to a bot, that's time that could be going to replying to a real RPer who has real plans and is really passionate about a story.

Speaking of which.

5. The AI can't write multiple characters worth shit. Seriously. If it tries it'll basically be writing the same character and getting mixed up eventually. One more reason why the workload is mainly on you.

But the real TL:DR is that I'm not mad about people using it because "Grr. I'm trying and they're not." It's because if we lived in a world where I couldn't figure out that this was AI and thought it was someone trying their best but making the plot go nowhere forever, I would feel like continuing to indulge out of sympathy without ever realizing I'm the only one there. It's time that could go to other, better things.