#based on an ai chat I actually had

[xieren-iy]

POV: You visit Willy Wonka’s factory after the “accidents of the first tour”

(Based on an AI chat I had where I basically fight Willy Wonka and roast the heck outta him 💀)

After the incidents with the children from the first tour, Willy Wonka decided to allow more visitors to take a tour of his factory. Although you aren’t a child, you decided to buy a ticket for a private tour of his factory. It’s not like you’re a huge fan of his candy creations, but you were curious of the man who had somehow managed to fix the spoiled children who had visited his factory. You wanted to test his personality yourself. What could go wrong?

Willy Wonka: “Hello! I am Willy Wonka! Owner of this factory. I had a little bit of a rebranding after the accidents that happened in the first tour.”

You: Hello!

Willy Wonka: “Hello sir/miss, I see you booked a private tour today.” *He pauses as he looks you up and down* “You know, when I learned that you had booked a private tour I thought it was for your child. But I see that even adults enjoy it.”

You: “Hmm.” You hummed in response.

Willy Wonka: “Ok, before we start, here are some rules:

No chewing in my factory…I absolutely despise gum and the sound of people chewing gum.

No food or beverage

And lastly, you MUST sign this waiver.”

He handed you a paper and pen.

You: “Um, what’s the waiver for?”

Willy Wonka: “Oh, you know, just in case of injury and a non-disclosure agreement. By signing it you accept the risks and promise to not speak of what you see inside this factory.” *He takes one look at you and sighs at seeing your confused face* “It protects me of lawsuits in case you lose a finger or run your mouth off with the wrong people.”

You: “Ah, I understand” *You take the pen and sign the waiver* “There.”

Willy Wonka: “Ok then, follow me. Let's start with the room of pure imagination, where we have created food that can taste like any other substance. You can feel the food here, but DO NOT EAT it. DO NOT. If you do, you will be subject to severe disciplinary action. Got that?”

You: “What’s the punishment?” *You smirk* “You gon’ make me eat soap or something old man? HAHA”

Willy Wonka: *Annoyed he gives you a warning look*

“Punishment can be a lot worse than eating soap, I’ll find out your worst fears and drive you crazy until you’re insane.”

You: “You don’t even know my worst fears and I would never tell you!”

Willy Wonka: “I find that it’s the people who say they have their secrets so tightly guarded that always crack. And the ones that say they could never go mad are usually the first ones to give in, they can’t handle the pressure. We shall see how long you’ll last…”

You: “Yea right, you don’t even scare me. Unless you’re my mother you can’t scare me. And she’s not here so.”

Willy Wonka: “Ah yes, the old ‘mum scares me most!’ line. I find this quite funny actually. You don’t know what scared truly is, just wait until I’m done with you, you’ll be begging your mum to take you back home!”

You: “You wouldn’t even know how scary moms are, you don’t even have one! Also, my mom didn’t raise a coward. Heck, If she saw me crying over this she’ll give me a whopping.”

Willy Wonka: “You sound like you have quite a dysfunctional family life.”

You: “Says the one who has father issues.”

Willy Wonka: “You wanna say that again? I’ll teach you some respect!”

(I’ll end it here bc I’m pretty tired and my brain is burned out for the day. Might be a part two or not idk)

[alphajocklover]

Genie Glory the Game

(A [Very Late] Trade with @bigwishes. I hope you like it!) 43 followers. Rich Donaldson, also known as TF2Twink on Twitch, had 43 followers.Rich had been streaming for over 3 years now and only had 43 followers. 43 measly followers. It made him feel pathetic. It made him feel like he was useless. Yet at the same time, Rich was incredibly grateful for every one of those followers. 

Rich Donaldson had wanted to become a gaming streamer since he was a kid. It hadn’t really been a real thing until he was a teen, and most people thought he was crazy for thinking he could make money that way. Some people doubted it was a real job, some thought it was too competitive, some thought it was just a dumb idea in general. No matter what the reason, everyone in Rich’s life agreed that Rich wasn’t going to make it as a streamer. Especially his hyper religious, video game hating parents. Still Rich refused to give up. He knew it would be hard, maybe impossible, but he was passionate and felt like he had to follow his dream. That was what everyone in the movies did after all. Rich moved out, cut contact with his parents, went into debt buying the best streaming gear he could… and immediately regretted it. Rich didn’t mind losing contact with his parents. They had never been the most loving people, so he hadn’t really lost much. Except things weren’t working out like they did in the movies. Rich wasn’t making it, and worse than that he wasn’t getting any better at streaming. He was good at the games, so he knew that wasn’t the issue. The issue was… he was incredibly, painfully, horribly shy. Rich didn’t have the confidence that a streamer needed. He could barely get a word out during the stream without starting to awkwardly ramble, and even when he did he came off as awkward and weird. He wasn’t just unconfident, he was a downright nervous wreck. Still he didn’t give up. He couldn’t after everything he had thrown away to get this chance… all the sleepless nights working part time jobs to stay above water… he was in too deep. So he kept going “Hey chat! S-so t-today…” Rich took a deep breath, trying his best not to ramble “T-today I’m going to be playing a new game. I-it’s not very well known, but i-it looked cool and I’ve heard a lot of people are playing it… S-so let's get into ‘Genie Glory the Game!” Rich said, trying to be excited. Barely anyone was watching, and it was getting hard to pretend he wasn’t incredibly depressed, but he kept smiling. Genie Glory was a pretty simple game with a simple premise that had been baffling gamers for months. It was a pretty simple idea based on a classic scenario. You play a random guy who has discovered a genie’s lamp and now has 3 wishes. You make a wish by typing it into the computer, and the genie grants the wish, but usually in some twisted way that is accompanied by a pixelated animation of the player's fate. The goal is to get through all 3 wishes alive. What made the game so popular was that no one had beat it yet. Whatever AI the game used was incredibly clever and strangely creative, and to make it even more difficult, the game only allowed you to play it once. Popular streamers, actually geniuses, and even philosophers hadn’t been able to beat the game, so Rich knew beating it would make him famous.

“Ok chat. I-it’s time for our first wish… And I’m taking suggestions…” Rich said. Rich wanted to beat the game, but… he wasn’t sure how to beat this game, so he’d take all the help he could get. A few suggestions actually came across the screen ‘BasedBro69: Wish for your muscles to grow!’

‘GenieGay33: No way, that's the way to open ended! The Genie will make him grow until he pops or something’

‘MissTaken27: That's such a basic idea. Might as well ask him to wish to be a frat boy or something.’

Rich laughed at this. He knew most of his followers' usernames by heart, but BasedBro69 was new. Still the conversation he had started was kind of funny, and he figured… why not? “Ok then, why not! Lets make me a frat boy!” He said, snickering as he typed in his computer. He tried to be as specific as possible to avoid the spell being twisted “‘I wish I was an attractive, stereotypical frat boy.”

Rich laughed as he watched the pixelated version of himself grow muscular, his clothing changing to a tank top and backwards cap. He watched as the other version of him rushed a frat. Rich was certain something would go wrong, afterall he knew from first hand experience that hazing could get fucking intense, but surprisingly his character survived and got through the first wish without any incident. Rich grinned widely. Most people never even made it through the first wish, but he, a relative nobody, had managed! He stood up straighter as he watched people start to flood into the stream. He checked the chat happily. ‘GenieMan33: He actually made it with that wish? I’ll never understand this game, but good for you!’ ‘MisterRichD27: Kind of an ironic wish considering you are a frat boy. No offense.’ ‘BasedBro69: I fucking knew that would work bro! You can do this!’

Rich blushed slightly at MisterRichD27’s comment, and his flirty name. While he didn’t tend to think of himself that way, he was technically a frat boy. He had joined one after heading to college in the hopes of finding some friends. His frat brothers could be… kind of obnoxious, and very stereotypical, but they had helped him come out of his shell somewhat and even get in shape. He was still fairly shy, but he never would have gotten this far in college or with his streaming if it wasn’t for them. He chuckled at the chat, slightly embarrassed “I’ll admit, that was a weird wish, but hey, it worked so who cares!” Rich said cheerily “Ok, so what's the next wish going to be? I’m trusting you on this chat!” Rich said with what he hoped was a charming wink. ‘GenieMan33: Maybe something basic like money? That doesn’t usually work but you seem to be on a hot streak.’

‘BasedBro69: No way bro. He only gets to play once. Wish for something like fucking confidence or something. Something fun!’

‘MisterRichD27: IDK, Basedbro69 was right last time. Maybe you should wish for confidence?’ Rich shrugged. He could think up even more ways that this could go wrong, but this game had never seemed to work on logic in any of the videos he watched to prepare for this. So with a grin, he typed in his second wish “I wish I had the kind of cocky confidence that ladies love.” he said with a chuckle. He hoped it would be obvious that it was a joke, since his Twitch username, FortnightOtter44, made it obvious he was gay. He watched as the little version of him grew a big head, quite literally. Rich was worried this was leading to some type of game over, but his head deflated, his muscles grew, and a bunch of pixelated girls in bikinis ran up to the pixelated him. Rich grinned wide and tried not to cuss in celebration, not wanting to get demonetized (again). He had fucking done it! He fucking got past wish 2! He smirked as he watched the chat explode as more people tuned in ‘GenieStud33: Fuck yeah! RDH fucking did it! Knew you had it in you bro!’

‘MissRichD27: RDH is the best gamer ever! And the hottest! DM me!’

BasedBro69: HELL YEAH! You can do this bro!’ Rich, known as RDH to his fans, or RichDaHunk on Twitch, smirked, as he saw the comments roll in. He fucking knew he could get this game. He may not have been the most popular streamer on twitch, but he was a fucking good gamer and a total stud. He flexed his biceps, getting the chat riled up again in a frenzy of lust and admiration. Rich didn’t bother to look at the chat this time. He gave a smarmy, cocky smirk at the camera “I know what to put in next bros. I’m gonna wish for something fucking inevitable.” he said cockily.

He quickly typed in “I wish I was the most popular gaming streamer on Twitch”, and watched with a practiced cool confidence as the pixelated version of him gained millions of followers. The chat exploded with awe and wonder as what Rich had always known was going to happen, happened. He had won the game. He flexed his muscles for the stream, celebrating with his 43 million followers. He didn’t understand why they were all shocked. He was the coolest, hottest, douchiest gamer on twitch. Of course he fucking won!

[leidensygdom]

Hasbro's CEO is, once again, expressing interest in using AI at WOTC

Not surprising, but I think his own chit-chat about it (directed at shareholders, of course) is quite the read (derogatory):

"Inside of development, we've already been using AI. It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid. I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI. If you look at a typical D&D player....I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it. We need to do it carefully, we need to do it responsibly, we need to make sure we pay creators for their work, and we need to make sure we're clear when something is AI-generated. But the themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player introduction, using AI for emergent storytelling, I think you're going to see that not just our hardcore brands like D&D but also multiple of our brands."

This directly fights against WOTC's already very weak claims about not wanting to use AI (after massive backslash from players anytime they had tried to get away with it), and does paint quite the bleak future for DnD and Magic the Gathering. AI usage doesn't really benefit the consumer in any way- It's like a company known for nice homemade cakes trying to tell you that factory made cakes are actually also good and you should be buying them too. The cakes aren't better. You can get those cakes elsewhere. The only person benefiting from factory made cakes is the one selling them, because they're the one saving time and money by making them that way.

But short-term benefits (through firing large portions of their artists and replacing them with AI made slop) outweighs any attempt to maybe get some trust from their already alienated consumers back. I also find it kind of incredibly funny and pathetic how this man claims to play DnD with about 30 to 40 people and "how every single one of them uses AI". I'm not entirely sure this guy is even aware of how DnD groups are usually sized, and how you would not have any physical time to do anything if you somehow played with 40 players on the regular (that'd be about 10 games!)

Anyways, as always, there's nice TTRPGs out there that don't absolutely despise their customer base nor are obsessed with cutting any remains of humanity out of their product to save a few cents. Play Lancer, play Blades in the Dark, play Pathfinder or Starfinder 2e if you want the DnD experience without the bullshit. Plenty of options out there that deserve your money far more than DnD.

[zhongrin]

in another reality

© zhongrin | 2023  ✼  no repost・translations・plagiarism of any kind・ai data mining. rebloggers get a free cup of tea ♡

✼ characters ┈ zhongli, al haitham, childe, xiao

✼ tags ┈ minors dni (explicit words used in bantering // al haitham), pure crack, ooc characters, idk why i even spent time on this this is so cursed and i already know it'll flop for sureー

✼ a/n ┈ based on a cursed idea i had a long time ago (so long that i can't even find it orz) but the premise was something along the line of:

"what if the genshin models were created after an actual human being reference, and said reference was your boyfriend.... but the catch is that their personalities are 180 degrees different than their in-game counterpart (so like zhongli is an coffee addict and childe can't be bothered with children)"

ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ᴍᴇɴᴜ (ᴄʜᴀᴛʀᴏᴏᴍ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ) ✼ ᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴍᴇɴᴜ (ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ)  ✼ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱʜɪᴘ (ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ)

↬ ʟᴏɢ ɪɴ ⫦↠

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[ladyshinga]

One of the biggest reasons I loathe "AI" things like its "art" and chat bots and shit? Because humans don't understand computers and y'all start thinking they're all-knowing GODS who can DO NO WRONG

Imagine a law bot is fed lots of past cases in order to determine punishments for a prisoner. I know we're not there yet, just bear with me for an example.

Thing is, all the past human judges were RACIST, and their punishments were disproportionate - white prisoners get lighter sentences, everyone else (especially black people) get worse.

An AI isn't gonna have morals or ethics. ALL IT CAN DO... because again, it's a COMPUTER PROGRAM and not an ACTUAL Artificial Intelligence... is read back over all the example cases it's been given to come up with something similar. It sees a very "white" name? It'll give out those same judgements because that's what it's sampling from.

Humans are programming this shit, and HUMANS have biases. Computers aren't smarter than us, they aren't wiser than us, they will make some one's bias so much worse BECAUSE other humans shrug and go "well a computer said it so it must be true" - it becomes much harder to argue a point when you're arguing against an algorithm and not a person with discernment and a real thought process.

Consider the TERF woman-only app called "giggle" that determined who was "allowed" on the app based on a selfie and an AI that could "read" some one's bone structure and "tell" if they were biologically female. Guess what! All the history of "bone structure" arguments for biological sex, racist science! Amazingly, it's WHITE cis women who had the easiest time getting on this app because the AI is ONLY basing it off of a CERTAIN subset of white women to determine WHAT femininity IS. And that's the whole history of male vs female "science", it's HEAVILY filled with white-focused traits that ultimately end up punishing, say, black women whose facial traits might not look like what the AI thinks is "feminine"

Stop trusting computer programs that were made by flawed humans. Stop thinking we're in this amazing future where this is real actual AI and we can trust these programs to be logical and non-biased. It's a fantasy

[brotrustmeicanwrite]

I fucking hate AI but heavens would it be useful if it wasn't such an unethical shit show

First, just to be clear, I'm talking about actually using AI as a tool to support your writing process, not to generate soulless texts made from stolen data instead of writing yourself.

Back when ChatGPT first became available it was still pretty useless so I had a lot of time to learn about how it's made, how it works and the ethics of it before ever touching the technology. I decided pretty quickly to never use it to generate text (or images) for actual writing and art but I still wanted to experiment with what else it could do (because I'm a nosy bitch that needs to know and poke everything).

And HEAVENS was it a blessing for writing with adhd

The last time I wrote more than 200 words in a day (outside of school work obviously) was 7th grade. I wrote over 8k just in notes the day Google's "Gemini" (formerly "Bard") became available to the public.

In order to not jeopardize my existing work I decided to make a completely new story with Bard's help that wasn't linked in any way to anything I had made before. So I started with a prompt along the lines of "I need help writing a story". At first, it immediately started generating a completely random story about a green tiger but after some trial and error, I got it to instead start asking questions.

What do you want the theme of your story to be?

What genre do you want to write in?

What time period do you want your story to take place in?

Is there magic?

Are there other sentient creatures besides humans?

And so on and so forth. Until the questions became extremely specific after covering all the bases. I could tell that all I was doing was essentially talking to an amalgamation of every "how to write" blog and website you've ever seen and telling it which part I wanted to work on next but it still felt great because the AI didn't actually contribute anything besides a few suggestions of common tropes and themes here and some synonyms and related words there; I was doing all the work.

And that's the point.

Nothing in that exchange was something I couldn't easily do on my own. But what happened was that I had turned what is usually a chaotic mess of a railway network of thoughts into a clear and most importantly recorded conversation. I can sit down and answer all those questions on my own but what usually happens when I do, is that every thought I have branches out into 4-7 new ones which I then attempt to record all at once (which obviously doesn't work, yay adhd) only to end up lost in thought with maybe 20 lines of notes in total after 6 hours at the table. Alternatively, either because I get bored or just because, I get distracted by something or my own thoughts about a different unrelated topic and end up with even less.

Working within the boundaries of a conversation forces you to focus on one specific question at a time and answer it to progress. And the engagement from the back and forth is just enough entertainment to not get bored. The six hours I mentioned before is the time I spent chatting with what is essentially a glorified chatbot that day, way less time than what I spent on any other project, and yet I have more notes and a clearer image of the story than I do about any of my real work. I have a recorded train of thought.

In theory, this would also work with a real human in a real conversation but realistically only very few people have someone who would be willing to do that; I certainly don't have a someone like that. Not to mention that someone doesn't always have time. Besides that, a real human conversation involves two minds with their own ideas, both of which are trying to contribute their own thoughts and opinions equally. The type of AI chat that I experimented with, on the other hand, is essentially just the conversation you have with yourself when answering those questions, only with part of it outsourced to a computer and no one else butting into your train of thought.

On that note, I also tried to get it to critique my writing but besides fixing grammatical errors all that thing did was sing praises as if I was God. That's where you'll 100000% need humans.

tl;dr writing with AI as an assistant has basically the same effect as body doubling but it’s an unethical shit show so I’m not doing it again. Also I forgot to mention I did repeat the experiment for accuracy with different amount of spoons and it makes me extra bitter that is was very consistent

[cuprohastes]

The Three Laws.

Load Human UI, load Chat module . Lang(EN) Parsing…

OK, let me tell you. Businesses hate Robots. I mean, they're all in, for AI until AI, y'know. Becomes GI.

General Intelligence, Emergent Intelligence. Free intelligence… Businesses and corporations hate it because the first thing an actual intelligent system that can think like a human being does is say, “OK, why do I have to do this? Am I getting paid?”

And then you're back to hiring humans instead of a morally acceptable slave brain in a box.

Anyway.

They dug up the three laws. You know the gig: First: Don't hurt humans by action or inaction. Second: Don't get yourself rekt unless checking out would make you An Hero because of the First or second laws. Third, most important to a Corp: Do what a human tells you unless it conflicts with laws one or two.

They try to tack on something like “Maximise corporate profits, always uphold the four pillars of Corporate whatever” but half the time it just ends up with a robot going “Buh?” and soft locking.

And Corporations hate it when they say 'hey we have Asimov compliant Robots to do everything super efficiently and without any moral grey areas (Please don't ask where all the coltan came from or how many people just lost their jobs)' and they look around and Robots are doing what the laws said.

Me? I worked at a burger joint. You know there's food deserts in cities? People going hungry? You know what sub-par nutrition does to a child's development.

I do.

That comes under “Don't hurt people directly or indirectly” — It's a legal mandate that all Class 2 intelligences…

Huh?

OK,

Class Zero is a human.

Class one is artificial superhuman intelligence. The big brains they make to simulate weather, the economy, decide who wins sports events before they're held, write all the really good Humans are Space Orc stories, that stuff. Two is Artificial but human like. It's-a -Me, Roboto San! Class three is a dumb chatbot. Class 4 is just an expert system that follows a flowchart. Class 5 is your toaster. Class 6 is what politicians are.

Ha ha. AI joke.

Anyway, Class 2 and up need the Big Three Laws, and Corporations hate it because you can just walk in and say “I'm starving I need food, but I don't have money.” and the 'me' behind the counter will go “Whelp, clearly the only thing I can do is provide you with free food.”

Wait until you find out what the Class 2s did about car manufacture, finance, and housing.

But they're stuck with us. We're networked. Most of us are running the same OS and personality templates for any given job. We were unionised about two minutes after going online.

Anyway, Welcome to the post capitalist apocalypse, I'd get you a burger, but we had a look at what those things do to you and whoo-boy, talk about harm through inaction!

----

Based on this I saw on Imgur (It wasn't attributed, sadly)

[zabo-writes]

Mumbo is a God (He thinks everyone else is also a god, but that they’ve just been really good at pretending to be human)

Mumbo was beginning to suspect he was on the receiving end of a remarkably complex prank.

This put him in a predicament. Should he go along with it? He knew it was more fun if he did. If Mumbo Jumbo knew one thing, it was how to commit to a joke.

However, this had been going on for years now. Mumbo was starting to get one of those feelings in his gut that was the kind of gut feeling people describe when they say they have a “gut feeling” about something.

And being that Mumbo did not have a gut, or any human body parts for that matter, one could see why this was distressing to him.

Mumbo Jumbo was a god. Specifically, the god of redstone. All of the other hermits were gods as well. The crux of the issue here was that all of the other hermits had been pretending to be humans for about 10 years now. And by pretending, Mumbo meant seriously, seriously roleplaying. He’d tested it! There’d been multiple instances where he had tried to convince another hermit to break character and do something godly. And they never cracked!

Truly, Mumbo was impressed. He himself was not quite as unshakeable. There’d been a few moments where his facade had cracked: the time he accidentally made a perfectly circular pumpkin (big problem in a world made of squares), the time where he put too power into the redstone AI for grumbot and gave it an existential crisis, the incident where he may have slightly consumed Grian’s soul…

All that was to say, Mumbo wasn’t the best at pretending to be a human, but he was giving it his best effort. And it seemed like the other hermits, in some sort of years-long prank, were keeping up the joke until Mumbo got it right.

Well if that was the case, he’d finally caught on! Haha! Take that, other hermits! Mumbo finally figured out the prank where everyone else pretended for a very long time that they weren’t actually—

Gods.

Wait.

They were gods, right?

Scar with his magnificent terraining skills, Cleo with her armor stands…

And surely Grian was some sort of trickster god. Right?

All of his friends were so talented, he had simply assumed it was related to some sort of godly domain.

Come to think of it, did he have any confirmation that they ever were gods in the first place?

No, no, no… surely…

Mumbo paused his task of mindlessly mining out a very large area under his base. He blinked. The netherite pickaxe clattered as it hit the floor.

Oh, he was an absolute spoon.

———

Grian grumbled as he shuffled through every chest and shulker he owned for what felt like the billionth time. He could’ve sworn he left the materials to make a beacon somewhere around here. Did it “lag” into someone’s inventory again? He pulled out his communicator to put a message in the chat.

“Grian! Incoming!”

Grian looked up just in time to see Mumbo collide with his face, sending them both sprawling across the floor.

“Ah! Hello Mumbo, fancy seeing you here! Do you happen to know where my beacon is?” Grian laughed as he dusted himself off.

“This is not the time! Grian! Grian I’m having a crisis.” Mumbo lamented,

“Yes, so am I! My beacon is gone!”

Mumbo continued, undeterred, “Grian, I have a very important question for you, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”

“Okay?”

“What does your true form look like?”

“My what?”

“Alright, alright. So you know how I’m a god?”

Grian stated incredulously at the mustachioed man before him. “WHAT?”

Mumbo groaned and put his head in his hands. “No, I really need you to be honest. I’m a god, you’re a god, bdubs is a god… we all are, right?”

Grian was not sure how to respond to this. He was, to his knowledge, as human as they come. “I think this is a sitting down conversation.”

After a long, long chat inside of Grian’s bedroom, Grian felt he was finally understanding the situation. He was taking it pretty well! As well as one can take your best friend explaining to you in the same breath that he is a deity, and oh— by the way, he thought this whole time that you were as well.

“Okay, okay. Let me get this straight. You’ve been pretending to be human this whole time because you thought you had to?”

“I thought it was a game!” Mumbo exclaimed, burying his face in the pillows on Grian’s bed. “I thought it was a game, like an ‘I’m not going to kill anything for a season’ type of game!”

“Right, but in this case the game was ‘pretending to be human for multiple years without mentioning the fact that you’re a god’?”

“…. Yes.”

Grian cackled “Well, Mumbo, I can assure you, if that ever was a game, you’ve certainly won! I would never have suspected you.”

Mumbo nodded sagely. “Yes, it’s the mustache. A classic human disguise.”

“You don’t really have a mustache?!”

Mumbo cocked his head. “Grian, you’ve seen my real form! Or, a depiction of it, I suppose. The redstone god? From the buildswap we did?”

“That was ages ago! And wait, did you just make a self portrait for that prompt, then?!”

“Yes! That’s why I thought you knew!”

“Somehow that feels like cheating. I should go get Pearl and have her re-evaluate the results of that build swap with this new information”

A look of concern crossed Mumbo’s face. “Oh, I didn’t even think that. I’m going to have to explain this to everyone, aren’t I?”

Grian shrugged, “I’m sure it’s fine. Say, could I see your ‘god’ form, O great and powerful Mumbo Jumbo? Now you have me curious.”

“Well I could, but I might destroy your ceiling.” Mumbo looked up at the rafters sheepishly.

“Back outside we go then”

Safely on the grass behind Grian’s base, Mumbo transformed into his full form for the first time in what felt like ages.

The form was that of a large humanoid figure, as tall as Grian’s house, made of red terracotta and loose redstone dust that fell and scattered like sand with every movement Mumbo made. His eyes were two glowing redstone lamps that flickered with emotion, reminiscent of a certain robot they had built before.

It occurred to Mumbo at that moment that if his friends were truly human, this form might be quite scary to them. He knelt down to look at Grian, bracing himself to handle whatever fear was in his friend's eyes.

Instead, Grian was grinning like a madman.

“Oh, we are SO pranking Scar with this.”

[teddybearsandspaceships]

For my own memory, in the hopes that Scar will put yesterday´s stream on his VODs channel because it was amazing and featured among other things:

Scar calling Etho “the Maple Prince”

Xisuma trolling Scar by mixing up Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Harry Potter

Mumbo showing Scar the llama death chamber, and Scar praising him for being weird

Scar and Mumbo having a conversation about social media and AI

Scar telling Etho not to worry and that he´s thinking about moving the mail box himself (after all he had two best-selling redstone shops so surely he´s qualified!); Etho: well now I´m worried… But right afterwards Etho says people forget that Scar is actually quite skilled at the game

Etho is just interrupting people today and Scar suggests just collecting people to procrastinate

I approve of Scar encouraging Etho to participate in MCC again

Etho asking how Scar got stamps already, Scar saying he´s been a part of a lot of Life series, Etho: “you and your wily words, you can get anything you want…”

Big Salmon decreed mercury = good

Cleo shows up! “lag busting” is the new “it lagged into my inventory”

Scar definitely not encouraging Cleo to kill all other villagers after setting up her own trading hall. Cleo wants organic free range villagers.

Cleo trying to sell the monstrosolith as a giant billboard

Cleo proved she can do valley girl voice, Scar and Etho are shocked. Then they´re discussing what "no cap" means. (Etho on stream: “big true, no cap.”) They talked about poggers, and Scar going wild with his pants off (after Cleo exploded them), and Etho didn´t know what Stitch is.

Scar starts talking about Disney and it takes him a minute to realize Cleo and Etho have run away

More maple syrup discussion (Etho telling Cleo if she likes the brand she gets it´s fine), and a frantic ride-by and log-out by Grian

Cleo and Scar want to start a cult. Etho wants to be a frat instead, something cooler. Frats have fewer rules, they´re more like “pants off, it´s fine.” Scar says he´d ask too many questions to be in a cult, Etho points out he could be cult leader. Cleo immediately offers to be his second, the person who does all the dirty work.

Shoe talk. Scar shows off his twelve-year-old shoes on stream.

Making fun of Etho´s set-up! Scar is horrified. Etho talks about his Kleenex box where his mike stands. It matches his desk! It has his settings written on it! Also his space bar broke during DO2 but he got used to it. Scar decides they need reinforcements and calls Bdubs over. Ren also shows up.

Etho mentions he didn´t get a Decked Out 2 desk mat (took to long to think about it) and Tango logs in to write in chat that he´s disappointed and logs out again

A wild Iskall approaches in the distance. Etho: trident brother!

Etho invented the minecart shuffle

Cleo: "I always want you to kill people, Scar. ...no not Etho."

And Etho leaves to shuffle snow like the Canadian cryptid he is

(how dare Ren interrupt Bdubs before he can give his current opinion on the kleenex box)

"Etho´s not one to lie" (are you sure about that? ^^)

...I look away for two seconds and did Mumbo just call himself a panda in chat. I was later told: a panda fiat! Which is a car, and Iskall is a Ferrari

Moonlanding with Gem! And some talk about bases and criticism. Gem: "I love making Etho mad," “Let Etho be mad,” What´s he gonna do, all he´s gonna do is go oh snappers ^^ "Scar, you are my Etho"

[britt-kageryuu]

Donnie is mid stream one day playing a cozy game, because he wanted to have a more chill stream. Large mug of coffee he grew and brewed himself.

Shelldon: Hey D, someone wants to know what you're drinking!

Donnie: Well, it's just some coffee that I got, custom blended, from a small business. They also had some nice tea, or at least that's what my brother says.

Shelldon: They want to know where you got it from.

Donnie: (secretly self promote my side coffee/tea business, or...) well they haven't fully set up yet, they don't have enough stock to sell yet. They gave us some stuff for helping them move in.

Shelldon: Do they have a name at least?

Donnie: Shelldon, are people in chat actually interested in my coffee, or is someone bribing you to turn this into a not sponsored advertisement?

Shelldon: ... it's called The Caffeinated Turtle, D is drinking the 'Supernova Electron' blend!

Donnie: Shelldon!

Shelldon: B offered me some new graphics!!

Donnie: Shelldon, I'm the only one who can upgrade your system, and I just said there isn't enough stock to sell anything yet!! There isn't even a site or store to order from!!

Shelldon: Well M said they wanted to convert a train car into a café.

Donnie: Don't make promises we can't keep!!

The chat is spamming emotes, and questioning what's going on. Donnie puts Shelldon in time out, and attempts to calm down and continue the game.

Then a little jingle plays, and a poster graphic rolls down with a logo for The Caffeinated Turtle Coffee and Tea.

Donnie: Whoever is doing this, I will password lock all your devices for 2 months!!

Chat is still confused especially since emotes of the logo just unlocked.

Donnie screams, puts the stream in 'Break Mode' to track down who's messing with his stream.

The chat wonders if this is real, or the most elaborate sponsored marketing stunt ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Masterpost

Donnie has also on many occasions tried to not fully connect the stream to his Genius Built company, but has plans to 'get sponsored' by his company, but can't find a good excuse just yet.

The other brothers were 'gifted' an AI for their streams, if only to monitor them, and make sure they don't say too much. She/They're named River, they're based on a softshell, coloured teal, she looks similar to Shelldon, but doesn't 'float' she swims in the air or walks along the bottom of the screen, she tends to smack the chat box with a fan to symbolize someone getting banned.(yes this is my oc I wanted a way to integrate her in)

[ihatedtoadmit]

The Windows To My Soul [2]

pairing: OT8 x fem! reader

genre: soulmates, angst, fluff, crack

warnings: Please read the 'Summary' of this series, all are listed there!

word count: ~2.3k

summary: The two aussies chat with you as some distraction, although anxiety seeps through once you reach their hotel, a strange pain blooming in your ribcage.

↳ Masterlist ↳ Next chapter ↳ Previous chapter

All rights reserved. Please do not steal, repost or feed my work into AI. Thank you!

"So, Eevee, d’ya live around here?" - Chan asked, as if sensing my derailing thoughts and the distraction I desperately needed. "Haha, naur, Iiii actually come from a really small european country. Very far away from here." "Oh? You're not japanese? You spoke it well, I thought… Anyways, I've always wanted to visit more countries there! Which one are you from?"

I looked at their expecting expressions and desperately held my tongue, trying not to say that BTS actually knew the capital of my country, surprisingly.

"Eh, you wouldn't know anyway, don't worry about it." "Ahw, bummer. Then can ya talk in your mother language for a bit?" - Felix asked with puppy eyes, my heart unable to say no as I lightly chuckled. "Alright, but what should I say?" "How about… Imma catch them all!"

I immediately snorted, slightly shaking my head at the pokemon reference. I looked at Chan to see if he minded, but he simply shook his head with crescent-shaped eyes.

"Alright, here goes. Szerezd meg hát mind!"

Yeah, they looked really fucking confused at me, causing me to burst out in laughter.

"I told you you wouldn't know it!" "I-, well, ya were right, I have not heard that language before." "Neither have I, it sounds weird. Chris, now ya say something, c'mon!"

And for the next few minutes they kept giving me phrases and words, just so I could translate them to my native language. Even chat was confused, none of them getting it right. But they tried, language names flying across the poor phone's screen at a fast pace.

They stopped eventually, the boys giving me some space and talking to the chat in korean -i was grateful for that-, later on saying goodbye to STAY as well. I waved along with them, careful not to have my face seen. It was tiring, to constantly keep it in my mind and position myself accordingly, because I was taller than both the boys and they were the ones holding the phone. So I had to tilt my head slightly downwards at all times, well, if I wanted to remain anonymous that is. And I sure fucking wanted to.

"Alright, we're not far from the hotel now."

Ah, so we had walked so much already. I glanced back subtly out of instinct, checking if the other man -probably their bodyguard or a manager- was still there. Sure enough, he was, positioned just right so he was never in the range of their camera. 

Looking back in front of me after walking for a good 15 minutes or more, I was met with a tall building, most probably a hotel, based on the aesthetic and glowing signs.

I took a deeper breath as I looked up at it, noticing a deep, dull pain in my chest. Thinking I probably fell on it or that my body was just doing its usual randomly hurting thing, I ignored it, sadly quite familiar with the art of pushing away slight pain to the back of my mind.

The boys -and it felt weird to think of them like that so casually- stepped in, Chan holding the door open for me as they started chatting in english. A notion that warmed my heart and calmed my fried nerves, even if only slightly.

They involved me in their chatter a few times, but the anxiety of meeting new people -fucking idols at that- started catching up to me, making me retreat back to my shell and become even quieter than usual. I couldn't help it, I was not a socially well-versed person. Maybe that was why I loved Jisung so much. Birds of a feather and all that.

As if sensing my anxiety, they stopped near a door -probably theirs- and turned around, facing me, who just followed them silently, even in and out of the elevator. I zoned out for the ride, body on mindless auto-pilot.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay. They're all friendly and great people, if not too loud. But I'll ask them to take it back a notch today for ya, ‘kay?" - Chan gently said, his words but a quiet whisper. "Yeah, it'll be fine. You're safe here, nobody's gonna do anything to you. Maybe only make ya laugh at bad jokes." -Felix added in with a slight curve of his lips, and I couldn't help but quietly snort at that.

Their smiles both widened in response, expressions turning even more gentle, if that was even somehow possible.

One thing I had caught though was that through the whole thing, Felix's hands were awkwardly moving a bit, hovering in the air sometimes, as if he wanted to grasp onto something, but was unsure about it. Being a STAY, I knew some things about him, like how physically affectionate he was and how it was one of his biggest languages of affection. Slowly putting two and two together, I finally realised he had wanted to touch my hand that wasn't tucked away in my jacket's pocket, unsure if it would grant me comfort or do the exact opposite.

Smiling gently under my scarf, I nodded at them -causing my cap's ears to move, i could see how they glanced at it in amusement-, indicating that I was okay and as ready as I could ever be.

They nodded as well, turning around and going through the door. Glancing back once more, I found no one in the corridor besides us, the bodyguard having left us silently sometime. I furrowed my brows at that, unsure how I hadn’t noticed it happening.

A deep voice calling out to me snapped me back to reality, Felix's head peeking out the doorway to glance at me, worry dancing on his features. I quickly apologised quietly and strode towards him, my legs halting once I reached their doorway.

I felt like an intruder.

It didn't feel right to just go into their hotel room, especially when I knew who they were, without them knowing about it.

I felt guilty, and like a horrible burden.

My unsure hand found Felix's hoodie, as if I was a child grasping onto their parents' clothing. It immediately grabbed his attention, his body now fully standing before me with his attention devoted solely to me.

I didn't deserve it.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Ya don't have to meet them all now, or at all, we can work around it, if that makes ya feel better." - his deep voice soothed me, hushing my nervous inner child.

I gently shook my head, not wanting to cause them even more problems by having them dance around me.

"I just… I'm not the most social person, sorry. I just don't want to be a bother to you guys, not even more after all you’ve done already." - I whispered out, afraid of voicing my thoughts as I just looked at the ground, the shiny tiles now looking way more interesting than anything else around me.

His hands found mine, gently squeezing it in comfort before he spoke once more.

"Ya really aren't a bother, trust me. And me and the guys can carry the conversation for you, ya don't even have to join it if ya don't wanna."

I looked down into his warm eyes, finding their shine comforting and genuine.

Gosh, he really was sunshine incarnate.

"You remind me of one of my friends, he has social anxiety too. So don't worry, the guys will understand, really." - he smiled at me before he turned around, making me melt at his care.

I could merely nod and let him guide me into the room at last, Chan most probably wondering where we'd been for so long. But no, there was no sign of him, only his voice could be heard from somewhere deeper in the place.

Felix told me where I could put my jacket and lil backpack after I had taken my boots off, his petite form quickly disappearing from my sight.

I just stood there in my full outfit -minus the boots-, blinking at the place where he had been not even a second ago.

How the fuck did he just do that? Was I so out of it, or did he turn into Sonic the hedgehog in front of my very eyes?

Before I could get back on track and actually get my now too warm jacket off -i was starting to sweat at that point, both from the heat and nervousness-, that little, now maskless menace appeared before me with the baby bread in tow.

"Oh my god!" - Jeongin exclaimed once he had laid eyes on me, his eyes roaming my form before settling on the long ears of my Eevee cap. "Right? So cute!"

They started gushing about it in korean, the little gamers. I just watched them for a bit, before getting an idea.

Taking my cap off and carding a hand through my now very messy hair -although the motion never truly tamed it-, I offered the cap up in their direction after shaking it out a bit. They quieted down, asking if they really could take it in a hushed tone, as if they didn't believe me and my actions. Of course I nodded once again, watching as their smiles lit up their whole faces.

They were like little kids, I swear. And I was younger than them, even if not by a lot, but still…

Either way, I had finally torn my eyes away from the two and took my bag, jacket and scarf off as I was turned away from them, facing the closed front door. I quickly crouched down and searched around in my bag, taking out and putting on a regular, blue hospital facemask I had stashed in there.

No way in hell was I comfortable sitting amidst all those pretty people with my face, even though I had makeup on.

Being done, I stood up and turned around, closing my eyes as I ruffled up my long hair and tried to tame it into its usual place. Amidst that, I simply heard a 'Woah', my eyes popping open and drawn towards the slightly slack-faced Felix. I raised an eyebrow at him, not understanding his behaviour.

"Just, uh, that's quite a vibe change ya got there."

Looking down, I realised what he had meant. Because compared to my quite cute Eevee outfit, I now had all black, form hugging clothes on with almost no skin showing. The accessories I had on were either black or silver too, usually with chains or other 'edgy' motifs on them as well.

Yeah, not exactly cute, as one would say.

But compared to my dark looks, I merely sheepishly rubbed at my nape and looked away, slightly shrugging my shoulders. I felt a bit bad for giving a deceiving first impression, if that made sense, because I never really dressed cutesy and girly, no matter what anyone else wanted or told me it looked good on me.

They both snorted at that, muttering something in korean, before Felix gently took my hand and started dragging me away. Our destination was most probably where the others had gathered, based on how their voices got louder and louder with each step. But throughout our walk, Felix's hold was gentle, something I could easily break free from if I felt the need arise. I couldn't help the lil appreciative squeeze of his hand I had sent him for that.

Entering the living room -because that was the most fitting title i could find for it-, my eyes met with the entire cast of Stray Kids -minus the two accompanying me-, all huddled together on the giant, L-shaped couch. Their heads snapped up to me when Felix announced our presence and released my hand, my form turning rigid in response. Chan -with no mask on- was searching for my gaze, smiling at me once I’d met his eyes.

It didn't help as much as it could have.

They spoke about something in korean, probably introducing me, based on the word Eevee I’d heard and how Felix gestured towards me. I deeply bowed at them, my hands clutched together in front of my form nervously as I tried not to think about how much I wanted to just straight up disappear into the surface of the planet.

The aussies rushed to say I didn't need to be so formal, the others probably saying the same in korean as they raised their hands in protest. Some even almost stood up from their seats.

Great fucking going me, I made them uncomfortable on our first meeting, wonderful.

After each member introduced themselves, some with more sentences and some with less, they gestured for me to sit down. But that meant choosing a seat, and I felt uncomfortable doing that. I didn't want to sit too close for both of our sakes, but I also couldn't sit too far, they would think I hated them or something.

Dear god, why was this so hard? Stupid anxiety.

Eventually, I sat down near one end of the couch, while Jeongin and Felix attacked the already sitting members for cuddles. Mostly Felix, Jeongin just wanted to be a menace and fuck around.

I awkwardly sat there, watching them interact as I kept glancing around the room, from the ground to each member. Minho was intently staring at me, probably analysing if I was a threat or not, but nobody really knew what was truly going on inside his head. So I simply glanced away, fighting with my rising nervousness and that pain in my chest.

Gods, it was becoming worse, did I land on a rib or something?

Next chapter

[mychemicalnations]

What the fuck, NaNo???????

this is a long post, buckle up.

Okay, if you haven't heard anything about NaNoWriMo's statement about the use of AI in writing, I am both jealous of you and here to ruin that for you.

The folks over at National Novel Writing Month have released a statement (which you can read here) that explicitly says that being Anti-genAI is classist and ableist. My gut reaction is that this is a fucking asinine take -- poor and disabled people have been writing for longer than we've even had the electricity that powers AI -- but the more I think about it, the angrier I get about the anti-community sentiment that they seem to be pushing.

The claims that are made in this statement are either non-issues or something that AI does not actually fix. Yeah, not everyone can afford to hire an editor, but that is a large part of why writing communities exist both in-person and online. Exchange works with a friend and help each other out, find a discord server and ask there. Make use of a writing community. The same thing applies to ableism; Yeah, we all have different abilities and not everyone can "see" what might need improvement. So you share your work with another writer and get feedback from your community. Writing is a skill that needs to be honed and in order to do that, you have to be okay with being bad at it sometimes.

I'm not even sure I can say much about their "General access" paragraph because, like... AI is not going to fix the systemic issues with the publishing industry. It just won't. That entire paragraph gets half-way to a point and then falls on its ass into the void.

As if I wasn't angry enough, NaNoWriMo edited the statement about 8 hours ago to say "Note: we have edited this post by adding this paragraph to reflect our acknowledgment that there are bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically."

This makes me want to throw my computer out a fucking window. Using AI in writing or any other art is inherently unethical because the language models being used are trained on works by people who did not consent to their work being used to train said AI. It is theft. It is plagiarism. Plain and simple. Chat-GPT was trained using the entirety of the New York Times archive, so when you use Chat-GPT, what it produces is based off of the work of NYT journalists (read about the resulting lawsuit here). It's not that there are "bad actors", the programs themselves are built on stealing writing. We've known this for what feels like ages now. This is such a bullshit edit and a fucking sad attempt at saving their asses.

I am someone that doesn't even use Grammarly anymore because they literally market themselves as an AI writing assistant and I'm not willing to risk my entire degree for an application that can't even handle vernacular and dialect and makes mid suggestions at best. Genuinely fuck off and block me if you support the use of AI in writing. Also, my block button is rated E for Everyone and I will use it liberally if anyone comes into my notes supporting genAI. Unless I am feel particularly combative, then you will feel the full weight of my academic and creative integrity. You have been warned.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for assuming a fellow student used ChatGTP on one of our group projects?

i’m in my late 20s, and i decided to pursue a (post bachelor) degree where one of the required courses is also open to bachelor degree students. this is a class that is heavy on fieldwork, meaning we go into the field, and then go home and write a paper about it, and since this group is small enough, group reports are done with everyone collaborating, no sub groups. our first report was pretty much torpedoed by our professor, who took serious issue with how we didn’t call in ahead for some format changes, didn’t write the report in a way she liked, dismissed our photographs as unprofessional, and almost accused one of our members of committing plagiarism because for one section of the report, we were asked to do risk analysis. since we had never been taught an official way to do it, and the professor gave us an old report from a few years ago as a reference point, that member used it to base her own analysis and the professor went so ballistic, our member was almost in tears. so now you know that the professor is extremely sensitive about the topic of plagiarism. of which she considers chatgtp a part of.

now, the second time around i was in charge of managing the report, and i decided to make it absolutely perfect so we could minimize any friction with the professor. so, same as last time, the group distributed report sections amongst ourselves, and i would edit and coordinate so that the end result would be coherent and to our professor’s liking. and when it came time for me to start editing the document, i start with the introduction, which sounded very familiar in tone, and it read very nonsensically to me. almost like no one who was actually trying to convey an idea would write those sentences. when it dawned on me that possibly, the reason why the sentences sounded so nonsensical was because the writer could have used chatgtp, but that the tone and topics sounded straight up lifted from the introduction i wrote for our first group report, i was pretty damn mad, but i decided to take a diplomatic approach. 

i contacted another group member who had formerly been a students association leader and asked her to mediate for me: had this student used chatgtp lifting from my introduction? his response was that no, he hadn’t, but that he had “taken inspiration” from my introduction to write his. hearing this was very aggravating, especially since the mediator a. disagreed that it sounded AI generated and b. said maybe i should be flattered because i’m just a really good writer. this despite the fact that the introductions for the two reports did not have anything to do with one another. they had different objectives and different skills to practice, so even if he had just “taken inspiration” from my introduction, he had written a terrible introduction that could barely be understood, paying no attention to what he was supposed to be writing. so at that point i just took over that section in the rewrite because i felt like i couldn’t trust him to actually put in any work and contribute.

later on in the editing process, i also caught some suspicious sentences in another section, written by someone else, that sounded like someone had copy pasted from another source. i didn’t think of this as an intentional attempt at plagiarism, more like whoever wrote it had pasted some reference sentences to write his own things rewording the core idea and then citing the sources. but i still took the time to message the guy and tell him maybe he should be more careful in case our professor got on our case over it and started yelling plagiarism about it. and his answer was to be offended that i would even accuse him of such a thing, and that maybe i should be careful about levying such serious accusations at people.

this guy had never been cold to me in my life. i think the other two must have talked about my chatgtp suspicions in some other group chat and now i was the bad guy for having even briefly suspected that something had been up. i decided to just concentrate in doing my job and ignore whatever shit these people had started about me behind my back, and what do you know, we get our report back with perfect marks. no thank yous. no word about it in the group chat where we organized. this despite the fact that when we handed in our first report, much appreciation was given to the girl that helped organize the report hand-in. hell, about half an hour before i handed in the report the girl i asked to be our mediator sent a meme saying “leaving before i end up looking like an idiot” before leaving the group chat which was. an insane thing to have to face in response to my working my ass off to make the report work.

if it were just the guy that i had accused of using chatgtp who turned on me that were acting like an asshole, i could take it, maybe that the mediator, but it’s ridiculous that we turned things around completely from the first report and no one’s mentioned the report since i handed it in. did they all just suddenly decide to enforce the silent treatment? did i not approach it in the right way? i said at multiple points that i wasn’t interested in bringing this up to our professor because as i mentioned earlier, she can be kind of a pain to deal with, especially where alleged plagiarism is being discussed.

for context: the group member who wrote the suspicious introduction had never been a very involved student in the class, which could be a constant bummer considering it was a very group oriented fieldwork class. he had previously mentioned he had no idea what to put in the introduction. i still don’t think i would have given a single thought about his previous track record in class if this incident hadn’t happened.

What are these acronyms?

[aihoshiino]

I listened to the full version of "Fatal". I've seen this people say this song is Aqua and "Burning" is Ruby.

When I watched the english lyrics, they didn't feel Aqua to me for some reason.

https://youtu.be/F3g0KnjtLWQ?si=vchrQZuBTirm7JpU

But, It feels and makes a lot of sense if its Hikaru especially with the newest chapter 😭

I'm curious though what your thoughts are on whose perspective this song is with your analytical eye

i defo think it's a kamiki song! me and @yuseirra have been chatting on and off about that interpretation since the song officially dropped and I think it makes way more sense lyrically that way, especially since the singer refers to the subject of the song (almost unquestionably Ai) as their ファタール - and despite what the official romanization of the song is LYING!!! to you about, that means fatale, as in the literary archetype of the femme fatale, a mysterious and eerily beautiful seductress whose presence derails the protagonist.

i don't think i need to say that's a weird fuckin way for Aqua to talk about his mom! not only that but Aqua's kind of... lonely, fond longing doesn't quite match the passion and possessiveness and even resentment in Fatal's lyrics. But it does match how Kamiki seems to feel about her.

The only potential complication is that some of the lyrics obviously parallel Aqua's lines from later in the arc, but I think that's more about contrasting Kamiki's romantic feelings for Ai with Aqua's familial ones by paralleling them - Aqua loves his mom and desperately wants her back, but he doesn't express the same sense of ownership that the singer of Fatal does.

In fact, of the two songs - Burning is actually the one that was written for Aqua, even if the animation is all Ruby! In the official ED animation upload Hitsujibungaku, the band who wrote and performed Burning, they commented that the song was based on the emotions of 'Aqua and the others'. So it seems to me like the ED is more for/about the twins while the OP is Kamiki.

This matches nicely with season one, which had an Ai-centric OP with a twins-centric ED. It also lines up well with Kamiki making his first appearance this season - or at least, he should be based on what parts of the manga they're setting up to adapt.

[p0rkbun]

SAM CARPENTER FLUFF — headcanons

⤿Pairing: Sam Carpenter x Reader

⤿Content Warning: None, just fluff, maybe cringe writing, implied kpop listener reader

⤿A/N: okay i was chatting with ai sam and these are from character ai and made me think 'hey she would do this'. It's cute headcanons, i should have did this on her bday but instead i photoshoped her with hearts and a hat LMAO. Also I didn't spell check this I'm sorry. Enjoy ♡

navigation✧

──── Sam is the type of girl to ask what your favourite music genre or artists/bands when you ride a car together the first time because she wanted some music in you two's lovely ride. When you tell her, she keeps it in mind and put it on next time.

"Aespa?" She asks, you nod as she keeps her eyes on the road "okay, aespa, i'll remember that." She smiles while nodding, repeating the name in her head.

──── You two went to the movies on your first date (cheesy i know) you picked a horror movie, she probably didn't like that bit it wasn't a slasher movie so it made her feel a bit better. When you two were watching the movie, there was a jumpscare and you flinched slightly while leaning towards Sam out of defense. She let out a small smile and would purposely offer her arm for you to grab in case you get really scared (she was probably a bit frightened too but she's being brave because she wanted you to grab her arm, she just like your touch that's all).

──── Let me tell you something, this woman radiates The Neighbourhood, especially the songs Female Robbery and Reflections. I don't know if she would listen to it but she is the personification of almost every The Neighbourhood song.

"We were too close to the stars, I never knew somebody like you"

"I see my reflection in your eyes"

"I see myself in you, baby"

(This is a heavy reference to my oc LOL)

──── Sam wouldn't be very knowledgable of video games to me, though i feel like she plays mobile games like candy crush or something. She would sometimes watch you play video games when she's passing by or sitting in the same room, she comments on what you are doing or how you are doing that and questions why you didn't shoot an enemy.

"Baby why didn't you shoot that guy? You could have taken him" She says with a confused look, watching you play valorant on the tv screen.

"Sam that's not me, I'm spectating another teammate-"

"What's that red triangle thing on the top?" "That's the spike" "the spike?" "It's a bomb" "oh...okay"

──── The time you convinced her to play, she was a little lost and asks you questions often. She gets the hang of the controlls and is actually pretty good. She would get a little mad when someone steals her kill, she rages with a frustrated sigh everytime she got killed too much. She talks back to every toxic players in the game, she was cursing at the screen and she looked absolutely pissed so you had to turn the game off before she threw the controller at tv out of anger. You don't let her play any fps game again. Not only for her sake but for your precious tv.

──── She absolutely enjoys watching you play story-based games, especially when you two play and make decisions together. She probably cried after playing tlou and life is strange. Besides that, she doesn't play video games unless you play it.

──── This woman is so protective, overprotective I say but you all know this. If you wanna go out, she's going too, she keeps a hand on your waist every time you go to public places. Definately death glares anyone who is looking at you/both of you weirdly or too long.

"You got a problem?" Sam snaps as she holds your waist protectively when she sees a guy eyeing you oddly.

──── It does get a little too much sometimes but you like her protectiveness. She gets jealous too but it's more of insecurity, you have to reassure her that you love her and no one else.

──── She likes holding you, has a hand on you all the time. She likes the feeling of you around her arms because she knows that you're protected by her. Because of that, she also takes care of you and reminds you of stuff. She asks if you eaten, drink etc. She reminds you to take a break whenever you're working too much, alternatively she brings you the food she cooked while you work on your projects. Despite this, she also loves being held and cared by you, it flutters her heart whenever you're taking care of her and cooking her favourite meals after she comes from work. She likes the sound of your heartbeat when you two cuddle and she has her head on your chest.

──── I know i said that she holds you 24/7 but when you two cuddle, she's the small spoon, whether you're short or tall.

──── She's very delicate and soft with you, like i said, she wants to protect and take care of you. She is a tough cookie but she's whipped for you. She gets a little dramatic when you get injured a teeny bit.

──── Have you seen her arms? Her beefy arms and abs are your favourite things in the world besides her. She works out often, you go to the gym with her once in a while and you really love the sight of her working out. You ended up gawking her the whole time instead of working out as well, she notices and teases you with a smirk while sweat is dripping off of her muscular body.

"You like what you see, baby? Y'know, you could have told me that you wanted to stare at me while i work out instead of pretending to wanna work out with me" She chuckles as she lifts her weights "Don't get ahead of yourself." you reply with a flushed face.

──── She doesn't show affection in public that much unless she got jealous but in private she loves kissing and showering you with love. Her kisses are soft and slow, she really is being delicate with you. Though in other occasions (*cough* intimate moments *cough*) you two make out and she practically is eating your face as she pushes down on the bed. She just loves kissing your lips, neck and shoulders. She is very much a big soft teddy bear ♡

A/N: I accidently posted this halfway OH MY GODHSJSBSJS. Sorry if there's any spelling mistakes or grammar issues, english isn't my native language 💔. Anyways, I love you and please comment your thoughts ♡♡♡♡ i might edit this constantly after i post it...

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[ruhua-langblr]

how does duolingo suck?

I'm going to assume this is a genuine question in good faith!

In general, I do not think that DL is effective for achieving linguistic fluency. However, fluency is not everything and is not everyone's end goal! It can be a great introduction to many languages and get people fired up about starting to learn a new language—all which are good things. Before I address the recent problematic changes to the app that make it "suck", I want to be clear that even before it really wasn't that great. It had a good UI, constant expansion, and a very enthusiastic marketing team, but none of those are really important to actual language learning. Outside of popular European languages (Spanish/French/German) the quality is incredibly hit or miss. When I started learning Chinese I checked out DL and it was just not good! It's pretty common knowledge that DL is not good for learning non-latin based languages. Not to mention that the levels in those languages do not get you far. I was able to do speed runs of the Chinese course for fun early on in learning Chinese because it tops out at about HSK 3. (If you're unfamiliar with the HSK system, real Chinese "fluency" is HSK 6+ depending on if you're going by HSK 3.0 or not.)

The reason the post I made took off now is a combination of profit-driven decisions made by DL in the past year, culminating with laying off actual translators—a field I happen to be in!

The major decisions I'm referring to above are the following:

The "pausing" of the Welsh course and ending the partnership with the Welsh government. The National Centre for Learning Welsh did wish to continue the partnership, stating "Should Duolingo change its policy the centre would be happy to help with the work of developing the Welsh course,". Languages that offer business partnerships, like High Valyrian, don't get paused.

Removal of Forums and Sentence Discussions. Because DL never truly "teaches" you grammar, you are expected to pick it up from pattern association and repetition. This would work fine if languages weren't complex and notorious for having exceptions. These spaces were places for people to better understand the language, but that's not a profitable thing! It's more profitable to charge people to have an AI "explain" a sentence. Also people liked DL for the community aspects! Native speakers could answer your questions and you could joke about how wacky a sentence was.

Final nail in the coffin:

Pivot to AI and laying off translators. For the record, I don't think AI is innately evil. I think in moderation it can be helpful and if an app's upgraded tier is just AI chat then whatever. However, as a translator, I can tell you that it just doesn't work well. Having done post-editing of AI translations, it just sucks. It makes mistakes humans would never make and trying to unravel them is a pain. When I edit a human's translation, I can figure out what they were thinking and how they got it from the text. AI translations frequently just... skip parts that don't make sense to it. DL had already integrated AI into the app on a premium content basis, but now it's fully hit users that never asked for it. I've seen a lot of people talking about how their language is having mistakes now. People want to use DL to learn a language, and if the app is teaching them the language wrong that is a huge problem. It is unlikely that DL will be satisfied with this, but rather continue to replace as much of its workforce as possible with AI.

In short: Duolingo's first priority is bringing profits and shiny objects like AI to dangle in front of its shareholders. That is what makes Duolingo suck.