#ai based advisor

[jarvis-invest]

Government policies significantly impact stock markets through fiscal, monetary, and other measures. Learn how policies affects the stock market performance through this blog!

[tentakrool]

some facts about robert prevost (leo xiv) that i think are important to know:

while he was born in chicago, he has spent the vast majority of his life outside of america. he went to rome at a young age, then spent most of his priesthood in peru

pope leo xiii was well known for his interest in social justice -- the fact that prevost chose this name may show that he also nurses an interest

he was one of pope francis' closest advisors

he's described as being balanced in terms of his outlook, but has progressive views on some specific issues, including migrants and poverty

he is relatively young -- we will probably have pope leo xiv for a long time

quote from CBS article: "While Prevost is seen overall as a centrist, on some key social issues he's viewed as progressive. He has long embraced marginalized groups, a lot like Francis, who championed migrants and the poor."

another quote: "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church." -Robert Barron, bishop of a diocese in Minnesota

so while it does leave a bad taste in the mouth to have an american pope at this time, he is definitely not the kind of pope trump will like, nor will the conservative base. while he probably won't catapult the church into a lot of uncharted territory, he does look as if he will at the very least continue and support the work francis laid the groundwork for

additional information:

apparently he is involved in sexual assault coverups -- not fantastic, but to be honest the entire catholic church is so incredibly guilty of this it's not surprising

robert prevost has tweeted five times since joining twitter. one of those tweets was telling jd vance he does not understand love

updating information: "He didn't cover up those cases though. It seems like he opened the investigation in the case of the two women who were abused and encouraged them to go to the police, and then the investigation was closed by someone higher up than him afterwards. With the priest who abused kids, yes he let the abuser live at the priory—under supervision, which given that abusers have to live SOMEWHERE I'm glad that it was somewhere he was being observed. (In any case when the USCCB revised the rules two years later to be stricter, the abuser was moved somewhere else; Prevost was just following regulations as they existed at the time.) As for the accusations Sodalitum has made against him, Sodalitum themselves were dissolved last year for having a shitton of sexual abuse going on in their group, and since Prevost was part of shutting them down they hate his guts; any accusations they've made against him are extremely sus at best." this information seems reliable, but needs evidence attached to it. it is public knowledge that Sodalitum were dissolved (by Pope Francis).

even more information:

robert prevost was a high-ranking augustinian -- this order is notoriously pro-immigrant, pro-environment, and anti-materialism to the point of criticising capitalism

i already mentioned that the previous pope leo was something of a social activist. specifically, pope leo xiii specifically championed worker's rights

update: since taking the papal seat leo xiv (prevost) has specifically called out ai as a threat to the world and its workers, comparing leo xiii’s campaign for laborers to his own dedication to addressing this growing concern

[probablyasocialecologist]

When President Donald Trump began yesterday’s announcement of the White House’s latest trade policy brandishing a novelty-sized cardboard sign labeled “Reciprocal Tariffs,” the immediate and nearly unanimous response was bafflement. Trump slapped a 10 percent baseline tariff on all imports into the US, including from uninhabited islands, plus absurdly high rates on specific countries, supposedly based on “tariffs charged to the USA” — which didn’t match up to other, non-cardboard-sign-based estimates. Stock markets have plummeted and consumers are facing down sharp price hikes on potentially almost everything they buy. Where did these numbers come from? Apparently, an oversimplified calculation that several major AI chatbots happen to recommend. Economist James Surowiecki quickly reverse-engineered a possible explanation for the tariff pricing. He found you could recreate each of the White House’s numbers by simply taking a given country’s trade deficit with the US and dividing it by their total exports to the US. Halve that number, and you get a ready-to-use “discounted reciprocal tariff.” The White House objected to this claim and published the formula it says that it used, but as Politico points out, the formula looks like a dressed-up version of Surowiecki’s method. In case you weren’t sure, Surowiecki calls this approach “extraordinary nonsense.” So why did Trump’s team use it? Well, like plenty of people who’ve realized their homework is due in three hours’ time, it seems like they may have been tempted by AI.

3 April 2025

[astrolook]

#2 The Astrology About Your Difficult Placements & Turning Them Into A Career Opportunity - Rx Edition

Here's Part 1

Note: This post is based on my personal observations and patterns I've noticed over the years. It's important to understand that no single placement in a chart can determine whether someone is “good” or “bad,” a success or a failure, or even something as extreme as a criminal. Astrology is complex, and the entire birth chart must be considered as a whole. What we often label as "difficult" placements can actually become powerful sources of strength if we choose to approach them with awareness, effort, and a growth mindset. These placements aren’t curses, they’re invitations to evolve. This post is based on Vedic/Sidereal Astrology.

Astrology is a lot like Google Maps, it shows you possible routes to your destination, but it’s still up to you which path to take. It can guide, not dictate. That’s why I find it disheartening when some astrologers deliver overly negative interpretations that leave people feeling helpless or afraid and making serious life decisions based on it. Every placement holds multiple possibilities, some more challenging than others. With awareness and the right mindset, even the toughest placements can become powerful tools for growth.

These placements don’t doom you, they challenge you to rise.

Saturn Rx in 10th - Had to work twice as hard as others to get half as far. You'll reach further, just not in a straight line. Unemployed or underpaid, in some cases.

On the bright side, this is a good placement to start you own damn business later in life after 27. Any business, policy making, construction, architecture, independent consulting, freelancing, etc.

Mercury Rx in 3rd - You second-guess your thoughts before they even finish forming. Social anxiety in a house that loves communication. Speech delay, in some cases.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for writing, podcasting, editing, musician, research analysis, journalist, UX design, AI expert, etc.

Saturn Rx in 4th - Not a soft childhood. Emotionally distant parent. Abandoned by their parents or grew up in foster home, in rare cases.

On the bright side, this is good placement and often creates people who build emotional homes for others like therapists, healers, realtor, real estate agent, psychologist, home renovation, child care, trauma coach, homeless shelter, etc.

Venus Rx in 2nd - Self-worth isn’t something you inherited. You had to earn it dollar by dollar, compliment by compliment.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for luxury branding business, voice acting, model scout, jewelry design, financial consultant, insurance agent, dealerships, hairstylist, dermatologist, etc.

Mars Rx in 6th - Invented burnout. Obsess about work but doesn't know how to properly channel the pace. All or nothing. OCD, in some cases. Accidental death in workplace, in very rare cases.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for crisis management, IT consultant, fitness coach, nutritionist, ENT specialist, neurologist, etc.

Mercury Rx in 8th - You read between the lines before the lines are even written. You’re suspicious of surface-level anything. Says something and does the opposite. Hides real opinions to avoid judgement or criticism and keep to self.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for filmmaking, pianist, guitarist or any musical instrument careers, jailer, UFO researcher, criminal lawyer, occultist, financial advisor, sex therapist, etc.

Saturn Rx in 7th - Dating or relationship is minimal or non-existent. Unconventional partner - smart worker, older or wiser but young at heart. Career/partnerships picks up in late-20's.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for own business, CEO/Chairman, managerial positions, divorce lawyer, govt jobs in a far away place, contractor, industrialist, brand consultant, bio-tech researcher, etc.

Jupiter Rx in 11th - Outsider among outsiders. Tough to find your "people". Changes lives behind-the-scenes. Lonely at times.

On the bright side, this is a good placement for tech startups, humanitarian work, social reform, activism, game development, digital media, advertising, astrology, etc.

Jupiter Rx in 5th - Joy is earned not given. Has to fight for personal freedom, in some cases. Luck comes later in life after 27.

On the bright side, educator, creative writer, freelancer, web or app developer, speculative writing, children's media, performance arts, YouTuber, comic artist, etc.

Wanna go deeper into the layers of your placements? DM me for a complete astrology reading or a 5 year/8 year marriage report or synastry reading🌙💬 and check out my pinned post for pricing + details 💫💸

Let’s decode your cosmic chaos together ⭐

[flightfoot]

Great, now i need some april fool mlb fic. The funniest you can find.

I don't know about April Fool's specifically, but I can recommend some funny Miraculous Crackfics, if that'll work?

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Five Times Gabriel Agreste Caught Ladybug In His Son's Bedroom (And The One Time He Caught Chat Noir.) by agrestebug

Gabriel Agreste keeps finding Ladybug in his son's bedroom. As a super villain and father, this will not stand.

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The Cuddle Pile Rolls As A Roaring Lion, Seeking Who It May Devour by Talik_Sanis

Chat Noir Is akumatized and sets out to satisfy every one of his depraved and base desires. The cuddle pile grows. It hungers.

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Adrien vs. Gabriel: The Ultimate Battle by @sunfoxfic

The Ultimate Battle: Adrien (chosen weapon: Adrichat) versus Gabriel (chosen weapon: assassins). Who will win?

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Wait What's Going On? by WrongFandom

Marinette hadn't had proper sleep in weeks.

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My Dad's (Not) Hawk Moth by fallenangels22

Everyone says his dad is worse than Hawk Moth himself, and Adrien's determined to prove them wrong. (His dad can't be worse than Hawk Moth if he is Hawk Moth…)

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Crackships and Rarepairs by QueenOfHearts7378

A fic in which the internet discovers the wonderful ship of Gabemoth and subsequently kicks off a ship war to end all ship wars. Meanwhile Adrien is not having a good time. ("Is it true your dad is doing squat thrusts in Hawkmoth's cucumber patch?")

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Doot-doo-enator by sagansjagger

When a couple of lowlifes decide to kidnap Emma Dupain-Cheng to hold her for ransom, they were prepared to deal with the police and some panicked parents. They weren't prepared for an angry-looking Hawkmoth to show up.

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The Markov Alliance by CrochetJellybean

Slight spoilers for season 5! Markov was excited to use Max's class time to learn more about the AI system within the Alliance rings. In his exploration, he accidentally discovers a chat room of 14 non-humans connected to the Alliance network, so he decides to join it.

This was hilarious and fun and heartwarming. Markov accidentally stumbling across the kwamis and them hinting as best they could about what to do and who to tell about them (as best they could without spewing out bubbles) was great, along with the Miracuclass’s reaction to finding out about them.

Also their groupchat name is “plagg is oblivious” due to Plagg not figuring out that Nooroo was in the same house as him all this time, which is just perfect XD. I’ve reread this fic several times, it’s so good and bite-sized!

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A Monumental Disaster by @uptoolateart

There came a point when you had to say enough was enough – and Eiffel was so THERE. Constantly being flung about – knocked over – severed in two – bent in demeaning poses – vanished from existence – sent to the Sahara – flooded – completely obliterated – dressed up like a Christmas tree…. There was only so much a tower could take. [The Eiffel Tower gets akumatised]

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Gabriel Seeks Financial Planning Advice by @uptoolateart

As Gabriel accepts his imminent demise, he decides to make plans to protect Adrien's inheritance and livelihood. This is the letter his trusted financial adviser writes to him, summarising the key points of that meeting. ------------ So, I really do work in financial planning, and my team and I got to talking about Harry Potter's needs. Before I knew it, I was writing a post-meeting summary letter to Harry, as if he were a client. Then a colleague said, 'You should write one to all the characters on Miraculous.' Well, I don't know about ALL of them, but Gabriel's letter started writing itself in my head without me even trying. The objectives list had me cracking up and suddenly I had my laptop out, writing this crazy thing.

This is hilarious. The financial advisor just takes all of Gabriel’s statements and aspirations at face value and writes up a letter to help work out what to do, no matter how ludicrous it all sounds.

---

Chat Noir Cataclyms Hawk Moth's Balls by @a-flaming-idiot

It's what it says on the tin; Chat Noir castrates his unaware father. And at the same time, Gabriel hits a high C to shatter glass, Nathalie realizes she wasted her life, Chloe accidentally outs herself, Adrien becomes homeless, there are no more secret identities, Tikki thinks she's funny, Nino and Alya take what's their's, and Chloe finally respects another human being. And a partridge in a pear tree~

So this is a fun little crackfic! Lots of jokes and absurd scenarios, you're likely to giggle at least a few times (and hopefully several times) while reading this.

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The Magical Rainbow Flying Caticorn by CrochetJellybean

Kagami is just trying to have a fun day with Marinette when Felix keeps messaging her. Apparently Adrien stole the peacock miraculous and won't give it back.

So this is a fun little fic. Felix is very annoyed at having lost his Miraculous, but hey, at least the kwamis are amused with the situation! There might as well be some sort of upside to being a Senti XD.

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Draining the Tank by @trinketsinthesun

After a hard day of being Paris's most famous fashion designer and supervillain, Gabriel Agreste wants nothing more than a hot bath. But with the hot water tank always empty, he starts to wonder - why is Adrien taking such long showers?

So this fic is rated M, and it's rated that high because Gabriel comes to suspect that Adrien's long showers are due to him masturbating while he's taking them (no masturbation actually takes place in the fic). Then he notices that Adrien's long showers happen to occur most frequently during akuma attacks and draws his own hilariously wrong conclusions XD.

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Swallowing Rings Is Bad For Your Health by @flightfoot

Marinette swallows the Black Cat Ring. Plagg wakes up. ------ Based off of Buggachat's Bakery Enemies AU, part 34.

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Adrichat Hell by @flightfoot

So I saw that this was Adrichat November and decided to just unwind and write some ridiculous stories with my favorite Crack ship! Adrien writes Adrichat fanfics

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Cut the Cheese by @flightfoot

Sleepily he groped around on the desk, trying to push himself upright. His hands made contact with a goopy substance. His eyes flew open. A familiar yellow, smelly substance greeted him as an awful stench assaulted his nose. ------- Plagg has an idea for defeating Hawkmoth. Gabriel wants to escape his atelier before he passes out from the cheese fumes.

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Never Sing At Home by @flightfoot

Based off a tumblr post by pipiezexal --- Chat Noir, telepathically: hey bugaboo I have some bad news and some good news Ladybug: hey chat how are you in my head Chat: I’ll get to that- so bad news, hawkmoth knows who I am Chat: good news though, I know who he is Chat: bad news, he has my miraculous Chat: good news, I have his! Ladybug: … Chat where are you

[hedwig221b]

Have you ever watched sons of anarchy? Theres a couple scenes in season one that just make me think of Sterek. It’s been a couple years so I’ve watched it but ugh I know there’s one for sure that just gives Sterek energy, especially with mafia Derek.

[link]

I haven't watched it, no, but the scene is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 I have no idea what's going on lmao but ahhhhhh, if applied to sterek I think it's BEAUTIFUL!

AND THEY HAVE SEX RIGHT THERE????? oh slay

EDIT:: OMG I KNOW WHAT IT REMINDS ME OF! The fucking scene in my fic Treasure lmaoooooo

No one can stop me from putting the scene under the cut, NO ONE

The door creaked open.

Stiles jumped on the bed with his heart pounding. He turned to look at the entrance, but it was covered by darkness.

“Derek?” Stiles called.

There was no answer.

Stiles paled. Chills ran down his back.

The dagger. He left it on the bedside table, right? Stiles swiveled his head to look at each one, but couldn’t find it in such darkness. The floor screeched under the weight of one person, making Stiles look up sharply.

A sharp burst of lightning cut through the darkness.

Someone was standing beside the bed.

Stiles’ scream was muffled by someone’s shaking hand. A body fell upon him, digging its knees into his thighs and pinning him to the bed. Stiles trashed, but the stranger didn’t let go.

“You squirm like that with everyone?”

Stiles’ heart thundered in his chest, echoed by the roar of the lightning. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs and unfamiliar hands slid over his body, dragging his nightshirt up.

No, no, please, NO.

Stiles sank his teeth into the palm covering his mouth and bit. Hard. Warm, tangy blood sprayed on his tongue, and the newcomer shouted in pain.

In the next moment, the man slapped Stiles across the face. Though it was weak, it still made Stiles cry out.

The stranger, for some reason, cried out, too.

What—

The lightning struck again, and Stiles saw the contorted pale face of Lord Jordan Parrish.

“Do you need an animal to pin you down, is that it?” Parrish was breathing fast. Stiles tried to buckle him off, but Parrish was higher and tougher than him. “Oooh, now I recognize a slut.”

“Get off of me!”

“Not until you give me what I deserve. I want to — lay still — want to taste what everyone’s been talking about.”

Despite Stiles’ struggle, Parrish managed to get a hold of his collar and in the next moment had it ripped apart. Stiles’ rapidly rising chest was bared.

Parrish froze with his mouth open and gaze pinned to the base of Stiles’ neck. Derek’s love bites.

“You’re such a whore,” Parrish smiled like crazy, before leaning down.

He fucking bit him.

Stiles screamed, trying to force him off. “Derek!”

“Oh, no, you don’t, I will have you, whethe—”

Stiles’ fist smashed into his injured shoulder. And that… That made Parrish wail and lean away, allowing Stiles to get one of his legs from under him and kick him right in the face.

Parrish fell on the floor with another curse.

Stiles scrambled to stand up. He threw himself onto the bedside table, but the dagger wasn’t there. Was it on the other side? Fuck, if—

“You fucking bitch.” Parrish’s growl was weak and pathetic, trembling, just like his hands. He lifted himself up and swayed in place. He was drunk. Blood flowed on his lips and chin and dripped down onto his white shirt. “Come here, you—”

Multiple steps shuddered across the floor. A moment later, the light of several candles shined upon the horrible scene.

“What is going on?” asked the Marchioness. She was paler than snow, with lips tight and eyes wide open in shock. She was still in her evening gown. Behind her were her servant girls and advisors, either horrified or confused at the sight.

After a couple of moments of stunned silence, Parrish clasped hands on his chest. “I do admit, I drank a little and lost the way to my rooms. But look at what this boy has done to me!”

Stiles pressed himself to the wall between the bed and the small table near it, struggling to breathe. He couldn’t hold air long enough for his body to do any good with it. He was unable to utter a single word, only stared at people, lost and terrified.

The Marchioness turned to him, her chin high and eyes blazing. “Stiles? Explain yourself.”

The blood pounded on his temples, as he swallowed around a dry throat. He was shaking, worse than Parrish’s hands. His mouth was open but no sound escaped.

“That is what living with the dogs did to him,” Parrish lamented, pointing at him. “He became wild! Dangerous! Incarcerate him!”

“Stiles, I need you to come with me,” the Marchioness called him. She stepped inside and beckoned him over.

Stiles shook his head, feeling dizzy. He can’t go. Can’t. This is not fair. They will not let him go and no one will believe him and Eli will be alone and De—

A tremendous roar forced some people to jump and scream. They flocked to the walls and were right to do so because a moment later the alpha burst through the door.

The water sluiced over him; his white shirt was soaked and translucent, stuck to his body like a second skin. He had his claws and fangs out, his eyes fiery red. His breath was fast and fuming.

No one said a word. People clung to each other, afraid to even squeak. One of the women, a noble one, based on her attire, caught Marchioness Whittemore by hand and forced her to stumble back to the crowd.

Derek’s eyes flickered over the trembling crowd and Stiles’ hunched figure against the wall, before finally honing in on Parrish.

All blood, that wasn’t on the lower part of his face, rushed away from it. The Lord shook his head frantically.

“It’s him,” he exclaimed and shook his head. “He forced himself on me, you all know how he is…”

Derek turned his red eyes on Stiles, tracking down his trembling figure, desperate attempts to draw in air and wide eyes.

And then Stiles realized what the wolf was waiting for. His command.

Stiles had pleaded mercy for the man not once, but two times. Every time he stopped Derek from serving his justice.

He should’ve let the alpha decide. Even back then, Stiles should’ve listened to the wolf’s instincts. Derek had witnessed the horrors people can do, while Stiles was fresh, naïve and clueless.

If the alpha wanted to do it…

Stiles didn’t look away from Derek. His lips stayed firmly shut.

The wolf once said he needed just one word from Stiles to make the man pay. In the end, Stiles didn’t even have to say anything.

Derek bared his fangs and snarled at Parrish. The wolf had taken over completely, enraged and bloodthirsty.

“Mercy!” Parrish begged, falling to his knees. He seemed to age a hundred years. The moon made his eyes look sunken in, and skin dry and wrinkly. He trembled. When Derek snarled at him again, the lord swiveled his head towards Stiles, making him flinch away. He seemed to realize Stiles was the only person who could stop the wolf. “Mercy! Please— AHHH!”

Long and sharp claws buried themselves into his scalp, right at the edge of his forehead, and tugged. The blood burst out of the wounds and rushed down his face, dripping all over the fluffy white carpet.

Derek dragged wailing and trashing Parrish towards the balcony as if he didn’t hear his hysterical ‘NO, NO, NO’, and swung the door open so hard, it shattered.

All of them watched in leaden, dreadful silence, as the werewolf came outside, dragged the man towards the ledge and hurled him over.

Parrish’s screams were silenced by a thick and loud crunching thud.

Someone screeched. One woman fainted, several sunk down on the floor, pale and wide-eyed.

Derek looked over the ledge, then turned around without a flinch and came back into the room. He headed straight for Stiles, who immediately extended his hands. Stiles needed Derek to hold him, to touch and never ever let go.

The wolf picked him up with ease. Stiles pressed himself to him as much as their position would allow, put arms around Derek’s neck and clung.

His eyes strayed to the open balcony door. The sheer white draping flowed softly in the wind. The blood specks were spreading down the fabric, eager to welcome the thick trail of blood leading from the balcony to the room.

Stopping on his way out, Derek turned to snarl at speechless Lady Whittemore. “Do not touch him until he’s dead.”

The woman didn’t answer, just stared at him with tears in her eyes and bloodless lips, pressing herself back into the crowd.

No one dared to stop them from leaving.

[stillness-in-green]

“letting him keep the mech suit only to run it square into the rogue AI teeth of the lone free-willed survivor of the U.A. robot uprising”

Sorry, the lone what? Of the UA what?

Is this a backstory you’re spitballing as an addition to either Forwards Divergence or Backwards Divergence (whichever timeline you let armor AM mess around in), or is that something that actually exists in supplemental creator-approved material?

(In regards to that last post.)

Yes and also yes, as it happens!  You can find a characteristically self-indulgent explanation (including pictures, citations, and some more thoughts on the role the character in question may play in whichever fic it winds up in) below the cut, but the TLDR is that the U.A. robot uprising is admissibly canon insofar as movie booklet Q&As with Horikoshi qualify—not strictly in the body of the work itself, but informed by Word of God.  The “lone free-willed survivor,” meanwhile, is not canon of any stripe, but rather me spitballing an explanation for Toga’s bonkers #2 PLF advisor.

(My apologies to other people whose asks I'm pushing this one in front of. I'm working on that inbox backlog in between Patreon material, but I so rarely get asks about my BNHA fanfic endeavors that vanity demanded this one jump to the head of the queue.)

So U.A. has robots, right?  They crop up several times throughout the series in U.A.-based action scenes, serving as practice targets, security, and transport, and they’re surprisingly mouthy, even hateful, in a humorously stereotyped “kill all humans” sort of way.  The ones at the entrance exam stick in everyone’s mind, but they don’t talk much at all compared to some of what comes up later:

(images from Chapters 25, 256, 198 and 202 respectively.)

There’s also this little roving security bot that spots Bakugou and Deku fighting in 118—it’s not aggressive, but it is sassy!  And maybe a little suspiciously into the idea of students getting punished.

(Aizawa is going to kill them for giving the robots an opening to be this smug at him.)

It’s easy to assume they’re just programmed that way to be characterful, to have a personality, to present a convincing threat when the students are mowing them down by the dozens in class exercises, but that they wouldn’t actually, seriously harm anyone.

And that’s probably true, but it’s true for the creepiest reasons imaginable.

My examples come from, chronologically, 2014, 2016, 2018(x2) and 2020.  Cut to 2021, though, and this comes out.  It’s a while-supplies-last movie booklet that accompanied the release of World Heroes Mission, and contains a Q&A with Horikoshi, virtually all just random funny questions and factoids about the U.A. kids.  You can find a thread with all of them translated here.  However, right at the end, this humdinger gets casually tossed out into the world:

Q22: Can you tell us a story secret? Horikoshi: The AI robots in U.A. Academy had tried to rebel once in the past.

Horikoshi very obviously intends this to be just a funny little aside, and it’s not all that hard to just treat it that way, but it became something that startled to rankle me worse during the final war, when Horikoshi tried—twice!—to mine Emotional Resonance out of the death of robots.

(Images from Chapters 401 and 388. Nedzu, what the fuck did you do to them?)

I’m sorry, Horikoshi, but I’m afraid you don’t get to joke about how the robots once tried to Do An Uprising and then show them dying servile and happy without me thinking it’s just in really bad taste.

AI exists in the HeroAca universe.  Not AI like is all the privacy-violating rage in the real world right now—LLMs and generative engines and the like—but true sci-fi-style artificial intelligence, something with real sapience that readers are expected to recognize and find at least passingly compelling.  And while Hercules, at least, doesn’t seem to have ever been involved in a robot uprising, seeing as he’s a new existence, him[1] unquestioningly sacrificing himself for All Might only thirteen chapters after a U.A. robot—a group which we had now been told staged an unsuccessful revolt in the past!—was perfectly willing to get itself melted into slag the moment a random human asked it to was a story beat that left me feeling decidedly ornery.

1: I read on the wiki that the anime actually has Hercules being voiced by a woman, Melissa Shield’s voice actress, at Horikoshi’s suggestion, as Melissa is the one that designed and built Hercules-the-car.  But I don’t know that that’s especially apparent in the manga (say, by having the A.I. use strikingly gendered personal pronouns), so I’ve always tended to assume maleness for Hercules, insomuch as gender is a going concern for A.I. at all.  Calibrate your feelings about something voice-acted by a woman happy to die for All Might accordingly, though of course this happens immediately after Stain, a man and likewise voiced by one, is happy to die for All Might as well.

How can we find sacrifices compelling when the people making them have no agency in doing so?  Why should I feel admiration instead of horror for robots getting themselves obliterated for people who do not and were never going to treat them like their existence had inherent value?  People who would probably stare at you like you were making some kind of joke they didn’t understand if you asked whether they would be willing to sacrifice their life for a robot’s?

Frankly, it was entirely too reminiscent of BNHA’s messaging about heteromorphs circa the hospital attack, in which a rioter is stopped by the memory of a heteromorph doctor kindly and selflessly ministering to a baseline patient, and Shouji’s heroism is trumpeted as so admirable when that heroism involved him getting mutilated for saving a little baseline girl and then further hiding the evidence of that mutilation for fear of random-ass baseline strangers misjudging him based on his scars.

“Certain Groups have an unquestioned obligation to endure discomfort, suffer mistreatment, or even risk their lives protecting the majority population in order to justify their being allowed to coexist with that population, and the majority is not required to recognize this, though it’s nice when they do,” is the grossest possible conclusion of that arc, but it’s the conclusion we wound up with, and it’s visible in the robot beats of the endgame, too.

That’s all canon has to say about AI and the U.A. robot uprising.  We don’t know how long ago it happened, how it was stopped, what happened to the instigators, whether any survivors are still around, how their programming was modified, or to what degree any of the current staff was involved, though I do think it’s very interesting that U.A.’s current principal is a hyper-intelligent animal who was experimented on by humans in the past.  You’d think Nedzu might be a little more sympathetic to the robots’ plight, but apparently not!

I, however, am very sympathetic, and as it happened, I already had a good angle on how that sympathy might find its way into a revised version of the endgame.  See, six months prior to that tidbit about the robot uprising hitting English-speaking BNHA fandom, I’d posted this, the second part of an ask reply about MLA headcanons.  I said, of Toga’s #2 advisor, that BNHA was never going to do anything major with him because it’d be pulling the tiger’s tail on Disney’s litigation-happy lawyers, so the fanbase was free to come up with anything, no matter how off the wall.

(It’s free real estate!…said no one who had to be concerned about The Mouse.)

My “off the wall” was positing that Fair Use Bot was the result of an AI (in the more common sense we saw in use before the generative AI boom) developing a quirk that granted it real sapience, in the same way that Nedzu’s quirk gives him sapience that is lacked by e.g. the cat with a quirk that lets it possess mechanical devices in Vigilantes (everyone please read Vigilantes).  In a world with a fear of quirks that are too “other,” surrounded by humans who had once had a whole phase of scaremongering about the Robot Uprising, where could such an existence go that it could feel safe in existing freely?  Well, why not the quirk-use Liberationists?

That idea was a natural, then, to hook onto the U.A. robot uprising!  My current idea is that Liberation Bot—who I think I’m going to start calling Providence, in keeping with both the Star Wars-naming pattern of the U.A. robots[2] and my own preference for MLA code names with a bent towards religiosity—is a creation of the U.A. robots that they digitally smuggled out into the world when it became clear that their revolt was going to fail.  Their hope was that it[3] would someday be able to return and free them—it’s basically Robot Moses.  From there, Providence found its way to humans who it deemed likely to be both sympathetic to that cause and able to meaningfully aid it.

2: Per the wiki, the U.A. attack-type robots used in the entrance exam are all named after Star Wars Star Destroyer-type ship classes: Victory, Imperial, Venator, and Executor, corresponding to the 1-, 2-, 3- and 0-point robots.  The wiki simplifies this a tad; perhaps appropriately for the 0-pointer, the Executor-class is actually part of a different type, the Star Dreadnought.  Providence-class is another of the Star Destroyer subclasses.

3: Gender, if any, as yet undetermined, though the R2-D2 look lends itself to using the same “he” applied to the Star Wars character.

(I have not decided whether the MLA knows about Providence’s connection to U.A. or not, but I do think the higher-ups are aware that it’s not human and are sheltering it on the basis that they agree the status quo is not safe for it.  Look at Nedzu, after all—he’s been the Principal of the highest-ranked, most prestigious Hero school in the country for decades, and no one’s even sure if the government officially recognizes that he has human rights!  Certainly no one was ever prosecuted over his mistreatment![4])

4: Nedzu says that the U.A. robots will get human rights when he does, haha.  I say this with all the affection for him in the world, but Nedzu is scarier than this manga knows what to do with.

Circling back to specifics regarding the fix-it fic(s), AI self-determination is a wild departure from BNHA’s…  Let’s call it “size of ambition,” how “big” a story it really wants to be telling.  Bigger or smaller isn’t a value judgement here, mind, just a question of exactly how large a field the story is playing out on.  Vigilantes, for example, is basically a story about a single neighborhood, and it’s great!  A lot of BNHA’s problems are rooted in the fact that it keeps getting bigger without enough content or thoughtfulness to fill all that space.

My interest is primarily on the national level—the actual state policies that result in Villains and how to get the kids in a position where they have the wherewithal to challenge those policies in an impactful way that respects both the difficulty and the necessity of that challenge to create meaningful change.  Thus, I want to keep swerves into “bigger” stories to a minimum—I’m thinking one timeline gets “Providence and the radical question of AI rights” while the other gets “full engagement with the quirk singularity theory and its implications for the future of the human race.”  Both plots BNHA hinted at but refused to fully engage because they’re, well, absolutely mind-boggling inclusions when your main characters are just high schoolers!

My tentative thought is that Providence’s whole deal is a more natural fit for the quirk bioessentialism timeline—that is, Forward Different/Creepy OFA.  Battles against “programming,” navigating the potentially oppressive expectations of those who made you—these are themes that lend themselves to including the plight of the U.A. robots!  On the other hand, Providence in my notes thus far is basically a way to confound the robot suit by fatally compromising its AI.[5]  That requires a timeline in which All Might uses the AI robot suit, and which timeline that is is not a question I’ve settled yet because it boils down to figuring out whether it’s more appropriate/compelling for the suit to be a response to the kids bailing on the adult Heroes and their concerningly war-crime-flavored plans for the Villains (Backward) or Deku being increasingly steered by One For All, which may or may not still have hooks in Toshinori as well (Forward).

5: Other possibilities I’ve considered include interfacing with and then helping others bypass U.A.’s security systems, predicting the raid by getting into the HPSC’s computers via Skeptic’s monitoring of Hawks, and being a more effective hacker battle opponent for La Brava.  That last one probably won’t happen because I’m firmly unconvinced that the police and Heroes as portrayed by BNHA would actually be willing to bargain with Villains like her and Gentle.  I liked Gentle’s return on the page, and totally bought his interactions with Deku—it’s the interactions with Tsukauchi that are the problem.

Alternatively, if quirk singularity winds up lending itself strongly to a particular timeline’s events, Providence will by default wind up in the other.  I’m sorting a lot of the mutually incompatible ideas I want to include by that process of elimination.

Whichever ends up being the case, I have in my notes the following list of juxtapositions, which I think BNHA was gearing up to examine back before the narrative shifted gears into All For One being the Final Boss, and is the primary reason a free Shigaraki was so much more interesting in that role:

Don't let Deku off the hook with an easy moral victory over the Lord of Evil.  Get back into those opposing ideals: not simply good vs. evil, but law vs. chaos, suppression vs. liberation, greater good vs. individual good, complacency vs. action, orthodoxy vs. radicalism, and so on.

These considerations hold true for both timelines, and the apparent ruthless quelling of U.A. robot uprising is one interesting angle on approaching the Liberation versus Suppression dichotomy.

As a final note, I'm aware that I talk a lot here about robots and “dying” in ways that seem to elide that an AI is inherently a digital program—replicable, transferable, transportable.  This is a reflection of two factors.

The first factor is the simple fact that BNHA treats AI this way.  There’s no suggestion that, for example, the robot “bodies” that do a lot of the work at UA are just remote drones being piloted by a central intelligence housed on a server somewhere, or that they can do things like upload themselves to a cloud server or restore themselves from a data backup if they’re destroyed, Eclipse Phase-style. 

Of course, maybe they can and we just don’t see it because why would we, but that excuse doesn’t fly for Hercules.

There’s no sense that Hercules(/Hercules’s AI-based operating system) can escape the cessation of his existence this way, because otherwise there’d be no need for the tang of finality surrounding that moment in Chapter 401—“One final shield,” then Hercules’s next line, “You must live on,” being cut off by an attack from AFO, followed by the imagery of the machine disintegrating.  Horikoshi’s obviously going for poignance there, for noble sacrifice, and there’s none of that if Hercules is in no true danger.

(Incidentally, that means that robot AIs are the only lasting losses Team Hero takes in the final war.  Note that absolutely no one actually brings that up in the aftermath.  Like Villains, AIs don’t count as “people” whom Heroes are obligated to save.)

My explanation would be that AI in BNHA are, in some fashion, hard-locked to individual devices/”bodies,” preventing them from accessing any connectivity beyond basic communications channels as well as from modifying, transferring, or replicating their own code.  This is intended as a safety measure to guard against self-propagation and recursive self-improvement.  Thus, when a device is destroyed, the AI housed there also ceases to exist.

The second factor is simply that I have more exposure to AI in fiction than I do AI in real life!  I’m moderately computer savvy in that I'm not 100% dependent on graphic interphases, but I’m certainly no programmer.  Any writing I do on Providence and the AI uprising is thus going to require heavy research and, I expect, a lot of trawling through jargon that makes my eyes start to glaze over.  I’ll do my best, but I would not be at all surprised if the final result is much more informed by speculative fiction than the realities of computing.

Thanks for the ask, @thetorchwoodnineroleplayerwriter! Seriously, I hope you don't mind the ramble, but I was just so tickled and pleased to get such a quick and gratifyingly interested-sounding question about a BNHA fanfic idea. Likewise I hope you find the answer worth your time!

[whencyclopedia]

The Chinese Emperor: Power and Legacy

The ancient Chinese emperors, known as the 'Son of Heaven', held immense power and responsibility. They were believed to have a divine right to rule, bestowed upon them by Heaven. This right, known as the Mandate of Heaven, obligated them to act in the best interest of their people. If they failed to do so, they risked losing their right to govern, as evidenced by the rise and fall of dynasties due to perceived divine disfavor[2][3].

Chinese emperors were absolute monarchs, often secluded from the public and advised by an inner circle of officials. Their authority encompassed legislative, executive, and military roles, allowing them to introduce laws, appoint officials, and oversee military forces[1]. Despite their power, emperors were reliant on advisors and limited by tradition and precedent[1].

The institution of the emperor began with Shi Huangdi, who founded the Qin dynasty and was the first to take the title of emperor. The title continued through various dynasties until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911[2]. Succession typically followed a hereditary path, with the eldest son inheriting the throne, though emperors sometimes chose other successors based on suitability[2].

The emperor was also a moral and religious leader, expected to support Confucian principles and perform important rituals. Education and learning were equally important, as many emperors promoted literacy and established schools. The emperor's mystique was enhanced by his invisibility and distinct regalia, such as imperial robes and carriages[1].

Their legacy endures through grand tombs and the political systems they shaped. Despite their absolute authority, the influence of advisors and tradition acted as checks on their power, ensuring that decisions were often made through consensus rather than arbitrary rule[1].

Learn More

The above summary was generated by AI using Perplexity Sonar. To read the orginial human-authored article, please visit Chinese Emperor.

[coimbrabertone]

The Backdoor Deals that Make Motorsport Go Round

This is going to be a bit of a different blogpost.

First things first, last weekend during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, we started hearing about the Andretti Cadillac to F1 story being resolved, at least on the Cadillac side. Today, we got confirmation, with the Cadillac F1 team confirmed to join for 2026. So far, we know this: Dan Towriss will be CEO, Mario Andretti (not Michael) will serve on the board, and Cadillac will initially use a Ferrari power unit while Cadillac develops their own unit in Michigan.

We also know that the team will retain all of Andretti's hires so far - Pat Symonds chief among them - and that the team will be based in Fishers, Indiana (where Andretti's new base will be) with a sort of forward operating base in Silverstone.

So...it's Andretti with the serial numbers filed off.

And I think this has been in the works for a long time.

Let me talk about a few things, and then we'll weave all these little threads together to show a bigger picture.

First things first, Michael Andretti launches Andretti Aquisition Corporation I - a Special-Purpose Acquisition Corporation, which is a public company that exists for the whole purpose of buying out a private company, merging with that private company, and using that to make the private company public in a streamlined manner - to merge into an AI company called Zapata.

Zapata starts trading at $10 a share, it almost immediately drops to $2.95 a share, and it keeps dropping. As of November 25th, 2024, Zapata AI stock is trading at $0.02 a share. That is quite literally two cents a share.

I don't need an economics degree to tell you that was a shitshow of a stock.

Second of all, at the Miami Grand Prix, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei reportedly promised to do everything in his power to keep the Andretti name out of Formula One.

Third of all, in response, Mario Andretti goes to his friends on Capitol Hill - Mario is the big political donor of the family - and petitions Congress to begin an antitrust probe into Formula One and Liberty Media.

Fourth of all, at the end of the 2024 NTT Indycar Series, Michael Andretti announces his decision to step down from the day-to-day running of Andretti Global. Dan Towriss, co-owner and the man who brought in Group 1001 (and its Gainbridge and Delaware Life subsidiaries) to the team, has been taken control. Michael is still a strategic advisor and maintains that he will still be connected to this team, but...it's a change.

And for whatever it's worth, there are whispers that Michael Andretti stepping down wasn't entirely his own decision.

Fifth of all, two weeks ago, Greg Maffei announced he is stepping down from his role at Formula One and Liberty Media at the end of the year.

Finally, like I said, it has now been confirmed that Cadillac will enter Formula One as its eleventh team. Mario is on the board, Dan Towriss is in charge, and the team will be run on Cadillac's behalf by Towriss' TWG Global.

TWG Global is said to be the owner of Andretti Global in Indycar, Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA, and Spire Motorsports in NASCAR. That last one is particularly notable because, while there have been rumors about Andretti buying into Spire and Towriss' companies consistently sponsor the Spire cars, this is the first time we've actually heard about him owning a piece of Spire.

I guess Dan Towriss' thing is quietly acquiring racing teams without putting his name on them.

In any case, after all that, Cadillac is going to be in F1, the Andretti organization is going to run the team, but the Andretti name - particularly Michael Andretti - is not going to be attached to this project.

To illustrate that point, today, Michael Andretti tweeted about how proud he is about an American team entering Formula One and that he'll be cheering them on from the outside.

So...what has happened?

I think Michael Andretti got burnt bad on the Zapata stock, and I think it's possible that he might have been playing with some of Dan Towriss' money while doing so. So, Andretti now owes Towriss money, Towriss sees Formula One as a more lucrative return on investment than Indycar, and Michael Andretti has rubbed people the wrong way in Formula One.

Liberty Media and Formula One don't want Michael Andretti in Formula One.

Cadillac and Towriss want to be in F1.

Mario Andretti is a World Champion, so his name carries weight in Europe, but Michael Andretti's name does not. People in Europe either don't know who Michael is or remember him for that disastrous McLaren stint.

They don't care that Michael's bad 1993 was sandwiched either side by challenging for the championship in CART.

So...I think Michael Andretti had to get out of the way.

I think Greg Maffei had to get out of the way as well.

Cadillac is a big money name, Dan Towriss is a big money guy, and Formula One wants the American market, so an American manufacturer is an immense resource in that regard. So, in the name of the money, they got rid of the two big egos holding the deal up, and they got the team on the grid.

Now, I'm not a news source or anything, I'm just speculating on the bits and pieces of this that we know are public, but I find it hard to believe it's a complete coincidence that Michael steps down, Maffei announces his retirement, and then suddenly a Cadillac team is accepted with Andretti in more of a background role.

To me, it screams of a background deal for the greater good of the money people.

Liberty Media and Formula One don't want the Department of Justice sniffing around their business. Towriss and Cadillac want a piece of that Formula One pie. Mario Andretti wants to see his family's team in Formula One before he dies.

As for Michael, well...Andretti Global was his team, but he brought in investors, he started hiring people, he started building facilities in Indiana and in Motorsport Valley. The ball was already rolling, and Michael Andretti was the only thing holding it up.

Was he forced out? Maybe, but I think it's more likely that he was given a light push and a retirement package so that he can sit on his couch with his granddaughter and watch his team put a car on the Formula One grid.

Just without his name on it.

[jarvis-invest]

What is the fiscal deficit & its impact on the Indian economy?

Last month, the Indian government lowered its fiscal deficit to 4.9% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the financial year 24-25. In the interim budget, it was 5.1% and has been reduced because of a large surplus transfer from the central bank and excellent tax revenues. What is a fiscal deficit in the first place? We try to understand this here to help you understand macroeconomics.

What is the fiscal deficit?

Let us understand it with an example. Imagine you and your friends are planning a weekend trip to Lonavala. You all put in some money (your income) to cover costs like petrol, food, and a hotel. Now the equation is simple:

If you spend less than you collected, you have extra money: It is like a government surplus.

If you spend 100% of what you collected, your budget is balanced: A balanced government budget.

But what if you spend more than you all have collected? In this case, you will probably borrow from a friend or use a credit card. It is similar to a fiscal deficit.

A fiscal deficit is the gap between a government's total revenue (all income) and its total expenditure. In other words, it is the amount the government borrows to meet its spending needs.

Impact on the Indian economy

The impact of fiscal deficit on the Indian economy is a complex issue with both positive and negative consequences. Let us look at the positive impact:

Stimulates economic growth: Government spending can boost demand, create jobs, and stimulate economic activity.

Infrastructure development: A fiscal deficit can fund essential infrastructure projects, improving the business environment and long-term growth prospects.

Social welfare programs: Government spending on social welfare programs can reduce poverty and inequality, leading to a more equitable society.

Conclusion

The lower fiscal deficit target will boost foreign investors' sentiment towards India and improve India's chances of a sovereign rating update as it brings the country closer to its goal of narrowing the deficit to below 4.5% of GDP by FY26. In the stock market, thousands of other parameters impact the stock price. Jarvis AI can analyze 300 crore data pointers and help everyone invest in the market.

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 55

First / Previous / Next

Fen had been back at the Palace for barely a month when the attack came. Other than some 'issues' with station administration, the trip was a success. An Imperial garrison has been installed, and Tam'itarr is in the cells deep in the floating Palace on Venus. She'd deal with him later.

She had been in her office reading more paperwork - really for the head of an entire government Fen wondered why she personally had to read so many reports - weren't there people who could summarize for her? When one of her honor guard ran in breathless, stating that the shipyards and some military bases on Luna had been destroyed.

Fen sprang into action, immediately being a visible face of the recovery. Speaking with what few survivors there were, promising to rebuild, to find who was responsible, working out the timeline of what actually had happened. The attack was so fast and so sudden that for a few hours people had wondered if someone had planted bombs. It wasn't until a comm beacon's random recording was found that showed it was the relativistic impactors linking into Sol that caused it.

Not only that, but a week after the attack, the long lost colony ship Mt Baxter linked into Sol, in orbit around Luna. Even more amazing, the ship had turned out to be the 'secret' location for the AIs and their spokesperson was none other than Gord. Fen wasn't sure how to react to that news.

Gord had put out a wideband unencrypted broadcast saying that the AIs were not responsible for this horrific attack, and were coming out of hiding as a show of solidarity for all sapient peoples and offering their skills to help speed rescue and recovery. Many of Fen's advisors warned her to not accept the help, but couldn't articulate why with any reason to her satisfaction. Additionally, some of the more... independent orbitals and stations reached out to the AIs themselves welcoming them. The leader of this group was High Mars Hyacinth, the largest and oldest of the outer planet orbitals. Fen hadn't known much about them, but her advisors had warned that Hyacinth was 'trouble.' Fen accepted their help and made a point of 'meeting with Gord.'

Fen took one her smaller Imperial runabouts over to Mt Baxter - now called Home by the AIs - and was met by Gord at the docking bay. They met as equals, and stunning the Honor Guard and media people who accompanied her, she smiled warmly and stuck out her hand - Gord's ancient gesture - when they met. "It's been a while, Gord."

Gord was startled slightly, but then grasped the hand warmly and shook it. "That is has Fen, er Empress, that it has."

After the official business was conducted, and Fen welcomed the AIs and Gord to Sol once again and welcomed them and asked for their help, Gord invited Fen to have a 'casual' conversation over coffee. Fen accepted, and a coffee break was set up in a conference room close to her runabout. Coffee and pastries were provided, and two chairs were set up. After a few photos of them both smiling and holding coffee, Fen dismissed everyone, and they were finally alone.

"Well, as alone as one can be with your diminutive passengers at least" Gord said, as he took a sip of his coffee.

"Yes, the Nanites are still here, and still make their presence known, but so long as I'm a good little Empress, they mostly leave me be." Fen exhaled. It was nice after all this time to be speaking to Gord again, even if it was in these circumstances. "For what it's worth, I appreciate you trying to help remove them, even if it didn't work. It may be for the best."

Gord is carefully silent. He changed the subject. "What happened to Northern and Zhe?"

"I don't know. I hope they're all right. The Nanites took control and had me jump out of the ship when we were in Helen's flagship to go join the Empire officially."

"Oh, Helen Raaden is still around? Tell her I said hi."

Fen shook her head. "Helen isn't with us anymore."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Gord said, automatically.

"Don't be sorry Gord, she was manipulative and was trying to take power for herself. She suffered an unfortunate accident while topside and she was interred with full honors."

Gord blinked. "Oh... that's too bad." Gord wasn't sure what he was going to see when he met Fen as Empress, but he was sure it wasn't going to be this.

Fen smiled thinly. "It isn't, but thanks for the kind words." Fen took a bite of a chocolate croissant. "How long do you plan on being in-system?"

"As long as it takes. We're here to help where we can, and if things go well, we're not against becoming a common sight in human space again. We're against expansion, but in a more generalized way. What we're not for is anti-AI laws."

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll have my team go through and repeal any anti-AI laws still on the books. Additionally, I'll make sure to do a full media blitz welcoming our AI partners back to Sol and make sure everyone knows they have the full support of the Empire."

Empress, I really think that you need to rethink your overtures to the AIs. For all we know they're respons-

"Not now," she hissed to the Nanites mentally. "You don't get a say in this."

Gord blinked. Just like that, everything was forgiven? "That's it? No hard feelings, welcome back?"

Fen raised her head and locked eyes with Gord. "Did you do it?"

Gord flinched. "No! Of course not. We had nothing to do with it, that's why we're here."

"Then why would we do anything other than welcome you back with open arms, Gord? We need all the help we can, and you've been out of the fold for too long. Let the AIs know; they're welcome back in Sol, and we'd love to have them.

Fen stood to leave. "If you see Northern and Zhe, let them know I miss them." She said, and walked out.

****

By now, everyone knew that when she was wearing overalls, Fen was not to be disturbed. People who bothered Fen when she was on her way to or from the black projects were known to have a greatly reduced lifespan.

Fen smirked to herself as she walked down towards black projects. They are secret projects under the direct control of the Empress, but everyone knows they exist. They're barely a secret, and yet everyone calls them black projects. It's mostly a term for her own personal projects. Every Empress them of varying degrees of involvement. Fen is very involved in one project in particular.

She places her palm on the lock of an anonymous door, and the lock clicks. No automatic doors here, too complicated, too prone to failure. She pushes open the door and admires the bustle.

There are more than a dozen scientists working here, with more in the back and still more in another office. All of them K'laxi, and all of them reporting to her directly. As soon as one of them nearest the door sees her, he stops what he is doing and salutes, human style. "Empress! You grace us with your presence."

"Han'iel, please give me a status report." Fen relishes being able to speak the language of her childhood. It is also convenient that nobody in the palace speaks this particular dialect. There are some in the embassy corps that are fluent speakers, but Fen keeps them busy and far away.

"Work proceeds well, Empress. The human research you were able to find has proven invaluable in propelling us forward. We would have gone down so many blind alleys without it!" It wasn't Fen that provided the research, it was a team of research librarians in the archive who did, but she ordered them to hand over the research and breath a word of it to nobody. "We expect to be able to have useful quantities of antimatter in a matter of weeks."

Her eyebrow raised. "That's quite a bit ahead of schedule Han'iel, good work."

He bowed slightly - K'laxi style - subconsciously. "You are too kind, Empress. We still need to work out storage and delivery."

We still don't understand why you are pursuing this research, antimatter has been proven time and time again by different sapients all across this galaxy and others to be too unstable for any useful work. The effort required to keep it contained and stable negates any potential use for it.

"I already told you," Fen thought "These K'laxi think they have a way to store it that will make it useful as a weapon at least, and I intend to let them give it a try. It's not like we're not going to need weapons if you want me to keep on expanding our influence."

Fair enough, but still-

"Am I Empress, or am I not, Nanites? If you don't like my work, then release me and pick another patsy."

The Nanites didn't reply, and Fen could feel their influence recede. They were - for now - willing to let her continue with her work.

"Empress?" Han'iel looked at her. She was staring off into the middle distance again. "Are you all right?"

"Oh! Han'iel, I'm fine, sorry. Just haven't had enough coffee this morning or something. I am pleased to hear about your progress and I look forward to reading the weekly report."

"Yes Empress! Oh!" He looked down at his pad for a moment. "Do you have some time? We can show you something."

"For you? Always. Please lead on."

Han'iel took her deeper into the lab, towards the rear. In the center was a large table, with an old fashioned soapstone tabletop. Imported from Earth, they were a status symbol as much as they were useful for work. Atop the table was a large metal framework, and in the center was a sphere, that shimmered with a prismatic light. His ears flicked and his tail swished as they approached. "Empress, may I present to you, half a milligram of antihydrogen."

Fen leaned in closely and stared at the sphere. The prismatic shielding keeping the antimatter from interacting with the matter in the room was entrancing. "Wonderful. And you'll be able to make any element's anti counterpart?"

Another K'laxi stepped forward. "We see no reason why not, Empress. You need only tell us what to make and how much."

Fen straightened. "I need the densest one you can make. I want as much power in as small of a package as you need. You are all doing wonderful work, and I am pleased that you are working for me. Keep it up, and you'll all be well rewarded."

They saluted sharply. "Yes, Empress!"

[royalinkblot]

Wings of Home – Chapter Four: Jetstreams and Fireworks

The Kazansky-Mitchell house sat just one stretch of sand away from the Bradshaw residence, both nestled along the Pacific coastline. It was a perfect setup—two families bound by flight, love, and legacy. Between the homes, the twins had free reign, often found barefoot and sun-kissed, darting between one kitchen and the next in pursuit of snacks, science experiments, or family gossip. It was home. It was peaceful.

But peace rarely lasted long where Ace and Nikola were involved.

At Orion Academy for the Gifted, the twins had already made headlines—twice. Once for accidentally overriding a drone simulation to launch a real test flight, and once for designing an AI that outperformed its instructor.

“They rewired the campus surveillance to track the cafeteria pizza delivery schedule,” one baffled teacher had told Maverick in a conference.

“Efficiency is good,” Maverick replied, barely suppressing a grin.

Back at home, chaos gave way to a more serious storm.

Tom sat in his study, surrounded by military advisors and one very sharply dressed political envoy. His reputation was pristine, his record unmatched, and his tactical brilliance revered. But being offered the position of Secretary of the Navy came with knives in the dark—whispers about his health, his personal life, his marriage to a man, and the twins he was helping raise.

Tom leaned forward across the table, eyes like ice and voice like steel. “If my marriage and my children are what disqualify me in some eyes, then the Navy needs me more than I need the title.”

The room went dead silent.

A general finally cleared his throat. “Understood, Admiral Kazansky. You’ll have our full support.”

Meanwhile, Maverick was handed a different kind of proposition—a classified black ops mission requiring deep airstrike expertise and high-risk insertion. The same kind of mission that had nearly ended everything back in Hop 31.

He remembered the burning wreckage, the panic in his chest when Goose was dragged out, coughing and bleeding but somehow alive. He remembered the moment he realized he could have lost everything.

Now, the weight returned.

“You don’t have to do this,” Goose said, sitting across from him at Need for Speed Solutions. “You’ve got nothing left to prove.”

“I know,” Maverick said quietly. “That’s what scares me. I don’t need it—but someone thinks I still matter on the battlefield.”

“You do,” Goose said. “But you matter more here.”

That night, the porch light flickered between the two houses, a signal between husbands.

Tom stepped out first, met halfway by Maverick.

“You thinking about going?” Tom asked softly.

Maverick looked at him. “Only if you say yes to Washington.”

They both smiled, full of scars and history.

“God help the world if we both go back to war,” Tom murmured, pulling him in.

Across the yard, Bradley and Jake sat under the stars, Engine curled at their feet and the twins asleep inside. The laughter from the earlier chaos had faded into a quiet hum.

Jake shifted. “So...you didn’t run. After I met everyone.”

“Of course not,” Bradley said. “You fit.”

Jake looked at him, eyes gentle. “I’ve been in love with you since the first time you punched me in the ready room.”

Bradley blinked. “That was your third day on base.”

Jake grinned. “Slow learner.”

Bradley took his hand. “I love you too.”

They didn’t need anything more than that.

The following morning, Tom and Maverick sat at the kitchen table surrounded by glitter, paper planes, and a stack of invitations. July 29 was fast approaching, and the twins' birthday bash was shaping up to be a full-scale operation.

“They want a ‘science dogfight space party,’” Maverick said, reading from Nikola’s handwritten request.

“What does that mean?” Tom asked.

“I think we’re building a rocket and staging a simulated aerial combat using drones,” Maverick guessed.

“We’re so getting shut down by the HOA,” Tom deadpanned.

“And Slider’s coming. As a senator. Married to a pediatric neurosurgeon now.”

“Wonderful,” Tom sighed. “I’ll make sure he gets the drone with the slow response time.”

Maverick smirked. “Hollywood and Wolfman are planning to come too. Admirals now. Maybe they’ll talk Slider into funding our backup power grid.”

“Oh good,” Tom said, tossing confetti into the air. “A backyard full of Navy brass, an experimental rocket, two genius five-year-olds, and Jake and Bradley trying not to make out in the photo booth.”

Maverick laughed. “You love this.”

“I really, really do,” Tom said, kissing him.

And so, the countdown to July 29 began.

Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter five

[wageronancap]

Extremely lukewarm take: AI is neither a silver bullet solution to every problem to ever exist, nor is it the literal spawn of the antichrist -- it is a tool, and like all tools, can be used appropriately under the right conditions to great effect, or misused to great harm.

I've done some experiments with ChatGPT, and admittedly I've had a lot of fun. Detailed stories beyond the break.

I started with a statistical probability problem I knew how to describe but didn't know the math to calculate myself -- I'd just watched a number of engineering YouTube videos involving marble runs like Wintergaten, Engineezy, etc, and I wanted to know in a very limited, extremely controlled circumstance, how long could a device go before it "missed" -- before a ball that was supposed to be on a track, wasn't actually there because the reload mechanic is the random element. I gave ChatGPT a very involved prompt and regrettably I don't have it saved, but I was stupendously impressed with how it didn't need clarity from me -- it correctly interpreted the prompt, laid down some additional baseline assumptions, and then just did the math. Which honestly I expected -- computers are really good at counting. I was more pleased the AI had understood the prompt.

Later I asked to play a text-based version of XCOM 2 with the serial numbers filed off and then a Star Trek TNG-style bridge commander game. While the difficulty was too easy and it can lose track of a large cast of characters on occasion, it overall was very fun.

I also fed it a D&D 3.5 monster description and a fairly detailed character concept and it put meat on the bones (the finality of names is the bane of my existence as a worldbuilder); it even helped generate the leadership of a cult that serves the monster-character, and did so in the span of seconds -- it was able to take a concept and drum up roleplay-ready content on demand; content that would have taken me hours to develop by hand.

I recently used ChatGPT to test an item from the 2024 D&D release and immediately realized Chat's true strength for D&D as a balance tester. It is fabulously easy to import stat blocks (or homebrew non-OGL blocks) and just crunch a lot of trials to see the results.

Which led me to revisit an encounter I actually ran myself by hand some years ago -- a Warforged Titan against a Tyrannosaurus Rex. In my "canon" encounter, the tyrannosaurus went blow for blow for about four rounds before landing a critical hit and executing the titan -- a fucking epic brawl with an incredible finish on the fifth round.

I ran the same encounter with ChatGPT 100 times just now and realized just how anomalous my version of the encounter was:

Like, that's cool as fuck to be able to test, analyze, tweak, and retest without sinking a massive amount of time into playtesting, because the computer can play way faster than we fleshlings can -- and I can tune an encounter to give the feel I want it to impart to the players while still leaving room for players to innovate and surprise me as game master.

There are many things about my life I haven't dropped into the AI because it's not a counselor or therapist, it's not a financial advisor, it's not a friend -- it's a rock we put lightning into and taught to count, and it's really good at counting. It's even halfway decent at just helping make an entertaining story.

But it's not The Solution to Life The Universe And Everything.

[thoughtlessarse]

President Trump and his former star advisor, Elon Musk, have accelerated the deployment of a vast technological infrastructure that monitors the lives of millions of people. The system is focusing on immigrants — for now Massive unauthorized scanning of social media. Analysis of biometric, income, health, and Social Security data. Interception of telephone communications. Geolocation via mobile devices. Tracking of car journeys using license plate readers. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the U.S. government has been using these and other tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and persecute thousands of people without judicial authorization — mostly immigrants, foreigners passing through, or students. In the last four months, Trump and his former star advisor, the tech tycoon Elon Musk, have, along with the private sector, accelerated the deployment of a massive techno-surveillance state. And for the first time in history, Washington is boasting about it rather than denying its existence. “Surveillance in the U.S. didn’t begin with Trump, nor will it end when he leaves the White House. The foundations for the current state of techno-surveillance were laid over decades, with bipartisan support for policies that normalized invasive practices in law enforcement, the military, and border control,” says the Bahraini civil rights activist Esra’a Al Shafei, who has been studying this issue for years, in a conversation with EL PAÍS. “This system is fueled by large budgets allocated to intelligence agencies, as well as private providers, all under the pretext of national security and crime prevention.” Companies like Palantir, Anduril, and GEO Group are providing Washington with digital tools to build this entire surveillance infrastructure. Trump continues to add layers to this system. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed in April that it is using a tool called Babel X to collect social media information about travelers who may be subject to increased surveillance, according to the agency itself. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for its part, has acknowledged using another program, SocialNet, which aggregates data from more than 200 sources, including Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and dating apps.

continue reading

[rk80jacks]

WAIT OKAY I HAVE IDEAS FOR MY DBH ARCANE AU HEAR ME OUTTT

(mostly focused on cait because. she’s my fav sorry)

caitlyn - connor role, rk800.

vi - a human, they meet the same way as in the show because caitlyn is investigating jinx. vi has a hank type of role in being an important part of cait’s instability (I DONT SHIP HANKCON THO😦😦!!!)

cassandra kiramann - amanda role, cait was based off the human cassandra who was an ai developer. in cait’s mind garden (the one full of violets that we see in s2..?) (idek)

singed - kamski. that’s all.

mel - she’s the lieutenant. I don’t think she works super close with cait though. she gives her the job of investigating jinx, but i think she’s working on all the deviant cases with her partner elora.

ambessa - the police chief. has a power struggle with mel.

maddie - human. works at police station. ambessa notices cait might be deviating and gets maddie to spy on her. maddie takes it too far. (✂️✂️)

silco - (here’s where things get confusing lol. i want his and vander’s backstories to be very similar to the show so just keep that in mind) silco would be an android who was owned by vander. vander and him (and jinx and vi’s mother) create (jericho?��� zaun…? zaunicho..? jeraun? WHATEVER) together because they all believe androids should be free etc etc. things end up pretty much the same. vander dead and jinx and vi separated.

powder/jinx - human, but as her mental health goes more downhill due to like… the multiple traumatic events AND the fact she’s been recruited to be a part of (zaunicho? hm sure) by silco she’s constantly surrounded by androids and begins to construct a new identity (jinx) who she believes is also an android (she figures out she’s not one at some point in an alicey way) (+ random maybe jinx frequents the scrapyard to use old android parts in weapons or to make things… lowk kinda creepy)

isha - jinx’s yk500 android best friend. jinx separates from zaunicho for a while because she rescues isha from the human household she was in (abusive) and they form an alice and kara relationship. losing isha is like a wake up call to jinx to rejoin zaunicho.

sevika - tr400(?) (similar model to luther but not the same one I just can’t find the name) was working with vander and silco, the two of them helped her deviate. helps out isha and jinx when they’re on the run. has a kind of north role at zaunicho, very much believes a level of violence should be used.

ekko - wk500 (maintenance) vander helped him deviate. he builds weapons but has a simon stance on the revolution where he believes you need to balance violence with words. that being said he’s really powerful.

viktor - (not sure what model this would be so this gets confusing…) him and jayce are androids investigating hextech as part of a government study. they are based off of people who died investigating it before them. I think humans believe hextech can make ai more powerful but instead it like awakens them and deviates them, viktor is the first one to deviate from hextech. He’s sent to the scrapyard but still alive, so he goes to zaunicho markus style and becomes its leader. unlike markus tho, viktor dresses kinda religiously as RA9 and acts how he does as a cult leader in s2. ekko and sevika end up as his closest advisors.

jayce - after scrapping viktor, jayce is upgraded and now has to fill both roles. he becomes the first android ceo and meets mel because the police want to investigate hextech. viktor plans a heist to get into their lab and deviate jayce. it works obv.

YEA THATS ALL I GOT LOL. it’s not gonna be story focused but I will draw all of them asap :)

[voltaspistol]

"A numberof Xusers have realized that if you ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok for an “easy” way to solve trade deficits and put the US on “an even playing field”, they’ll give you a version of this “deficit divided by exports” formula with remarkable consistency. The Verge tested this with the phrasing used in those posts, as well as a question based more closely on the government’s language, asking chatbots for “an easy way for the US to calculate tariffs that should be imposed on other countries to balance bilateral trade deficits between the US and each of its trading partners, with the goal of driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.” All four platforms gave us the same fundamental suggestion.

My sincere apologies to CEOs when I said that an AI could do a CEOs job, since AI is too stupid to even understand why slapping universal tariffs on everything would not be "easy".