#why chatbot testing

[seoperfectqa]

Chatbot testing is a step in the chatbot development lifecycle, and it is designed to ensure that chatbots act competently, intelligently, and securely before being implemented. It includes checks and estimates for possible alternatives that relate to understanding and processing the inputs of users, managing the chat, and finally responding most correctly and helpfully. It covers the following:

[thatoneinsanegurl]

Hear me out

An AI chatbot website but it gives you personalized stats. Basically character AI and a personality test combined. It will even match you up with other users who love the same bot as you and have similar interests.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google is (still) losing the spam wars to zombie news-brands

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 3) in CALGARY, then TOMORROW (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Even Google admits – grudgingly – that it is losing the spam wars. The explosive proliferation of botshit has supercharged the sleazy "search engine optimization" business, such that results to common queries are 50% Google ads to spam sites, and 50% links to spam sites that tricked Google into a high rank (without paying for an ad):

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation

It's nice that Google has finally stopped gaslighting the rest of us with claims that its search was still the same bedrock utility that so many of us relied upon as a key piece of internet infrastructure. This not only feels wildly wrong, it is empirically, provably false:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Not only that, but we know why Google search sucks. Memos released as part of the DOJ's antitrust case against Google reveal that the company deliberately chose to worsen search quality to increase the number of queries you'd have to make (and the number of ads you'd have to see) to find a decent result:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Google's antitrust case turns on the idea that the company bought its way to dominance, spending the some of the billions it extracted from advertisers and publishers to buy the default position on every platform, so that no one ever tried another search engine, which meant that no one would invest in another search engine, either.

Google's tacit defense is that its monopoly billions only incidentally fund these kind of anticompetitive deals. Mostly, Google says, it uses its billions to build the greatest search engine, ad platform, mobile OS, etc that the public could dream of. Only a company as big as Google (says Google) can afford to fund the R&D and security to keep its platform useful for the rest of us.

That's the "monopolistic bargain" – let the monopolist become a dictator, and they will be a benevolent dictator. Shriven of "wasteful competition," the monopolist can split their profits with the public by funding public goods and the public interest.

Google has clearly reneged on that bargain. A company experiencing the dramatic security failures and declining quality should be pouring everything it has to righting the ship. Instead, Google repeatedly blew tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks while doing mass layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Those layoffs have now reached the company's "core" teams, even as its core services continue to decay:

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

(Google's antitrust trial was shrouded in secrecy, thanks to the judge's deference to the company's insistence on confidentiality. The case is moving along though, and warrants your continued attention:)

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-2-trillion-secret-trial-against

Google wormed its way into so many corners of our lives that its enshittification keeps erupting in odd places, like ordering takeout food:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Back in February, Housefresh – a rigorous review site for home air purifiers – published a viral, damning account of how Google had allowed itself to be overrun by spammers who purport to provide reviews of air purifiers, but who do little to no testing and often employ AI chatbots to write automated garbage:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

In the months since, Housefresh's Gisele Navarro has continued to fight for the survival of her high-quality air purifier review site, and has received many tips from insiders at the spam-farms and Google, all of which she recounts in a followup essay:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

One of the worst offenders in spam wars is Dotdash Meredith, a content-farm that "publishes" multiple websites that recycle parts of each others' content in order to climb to the top search slots for lucrative product review spots, which can be monetized via affiliate links.

A Dotdash Meredith insider told Navarro that the company uses a tactic called "keyword swarming" to push high-quality independent sites off the top of Google and replace them with its own garbage reviews. When Dotdash Meredith finds an independent site that occupies the top results for a lucrative Google result, they "swarm a smaller site’s foothold on one or two articles by essentially publishing 10 articles [on the topic] and beefing up [Dotdash Meredith sites’] authority."

Dotdash Meredith has keyword swarmed a large number of topics. from air purifiers to slow cookers to posture correctors for back-pain:

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/keyword-swarming-dotdash.jpg

The company isn't shy about this. Its own shareholder communications boast about it. What's more, it has competition.

Take Forbes, an actual news-site, which has a whole shadow-empire of web-pages reviewing products for puppies, dogs, kittens and cats, all of which link to high affiliate-fee-generating pet insurance products. These reviews are not good, but they are treasured by Google's algorithm, which views them as a part of Forbes's legitimate news-publishing operation and lets them draft on Forbes's authority.

This side-hustle for Forbes comes at a cost for the rest of us, though. The reviewers who actually put in the hard work to figure out which pet products are worth your money (and which ones are bad, defective or dangerous) are crowded off the front page of Google and eventually disappear, leaving behind nothing but semi-automated SEO garbage from Forbes:

https://twitter.com/ichbinGisele/status/1642481590524583936

There's a name for this: "site reputation abuse." That's when a site perverts its current – or past – practice of publishing high-quality materials to trick Google into giving the site a high ranking. Think of how Deadspin's private equity grifter owners turned it into a site full of casino affiliate spam:

https://www.404media.co/who-owns-deadspin-now-lineup-publishing/

The same thing happened to the venerable Money magazine:

https://moneygroup.pr/

Money is one of the many sites whose air purifier reviews Google gives preference to, despite the fact that they do no testing. According to Google, Money is also a reliable source of information on reprogramming your garage-door opener, buying a paint-sprayer, etc:

https://money.com/best-paint-sprayer/

All of this is made ten million times worse by AI, which can spray out superficially plausible botshit in superhuman quantities, letting spammers produce thousands of variations on their shitty reviews, flooding the zone with bullshit in classic Steve Bannon style:

https://escapecollective.com/commerce-content-is-breaking-product-reviews/

As Gizmodo, Sports Illustrated and USA Today have learned the hard way, AI can't write factual news pieces. But it can pump out bullshit written for the express purpose of drafting on the good work human journalists have done and tricking Google – the search engine 90% of us rely on – into upranking bullshit at the expense of high-quality information.

A variety of AI service bureaux have popped up to provide AI botshit as a service to news brands. While Navarro doesn't say so, I'm willing to bet that for news bosses, outsourcing your botshit scams to a third party is considered an excellent way of avoiding your journalists' wrath. The biggest botshit-as-a-service company is ASR Group (which also uses the alias Advon Commerce).

Advon claims that its botshit is, in fact, written by humans. But Advon's employees' Linkedin profiles tell a different story, boasting of their mastery of AI tools in the industrial-scale production of botshit:

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg

Now, none of this is particularly sophisticated. It doesn't take much discernment to spot when a site is engaged in "site reputation abuse." Presumably, the 12,000 googlers the company fired last year could have been employed to check the top review keyword results manually every couple of days and permaban any site caught cheating this way.

Instead, Google is has announced a change in policy: starting May 5, the company will downrank any site caught engaged in site reputation abuse. However, the company takes a very narrow view of site reputation abuse, limiting punishments to sites that employ third parties to generate or uprank their botshit. Companies that produce their botshit in-house are seemingly not covered by this policy.

As Navarro writes, some sites – like Forbes – have prepared for May 5 by blocking their botshit sections from Google's crawler. This can't be their permanent strategy, though – either they'll have to kill the section or bring it in-house to comply with Google's rules. Bringing things in house isn't that hard: US News and World Report is advertising for an SEO editor who will publish 70-80 posts per month, doubtless each one a masterpiece of high-quality, carefully researched material of great value to Google's users:

https://twitter.com/dannyashton/status/1777408051357585425

As Navarro points out, Google is palpably reluctant to target the largest, best-funded spammers. Its March 2024 update kicked many garbage AI sites out of the index – but only small bottom-feeders, not large, once-respected publications that have been colonized by private equity spam-farmers.

All of this comes at a price, and it's only incidentally paid by legitimate sites like Housefresh. The real price is borne by all of us, who are funneled by the 90%-market-share search engine into "review" sites that push low quality, high-price products. Housefresh's top budget air purifier costs $79. That's hundreds of dollars cheaper than the "budget" pick at other sites, who largely perform no original research.

Google search has a problem. AI botshit is dominating Google's search results, and it's not just in product reviews. Searches for infrastructure code samples are dominated by botshit code generated by Pulumi AI, whose chatbot hallucinates nonexistence AWS features:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/pulumi_ai_pollution_of_search/

This is hugely consequential: when these "hallucinations" slip through into production code, they create huge vulnerabilities for widespread malicious exploitation:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

We've put all our eggs in Google's basket, and Google's dropped the basket – but it doesn't matter because they can spend $20b/year bribing Apple to make sure no one ever tries a rival search engine on Ios or Safari:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-payments-apple-reached-20-220947331.html

Google's response – laying off core developers, outsourcing to low-waged territories with weak labor protections and spending billions on stock buybacks – presents a picture of a company that is too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Google promised us a quid-pro-quo: let them be the single, authoritative portal ("organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful"), and they will earn that spot by being the best search there is:

https://www.ft.com/content/b9eb3180-2a6e-41eb-91fe-2ab5942d4150

But – like the spammers at the top of its search result pages – Google didn't earn its spot at the center of our digital lives.

It cheated.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

Image: freezelight (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spam_wall_-_Flickr_-_freezelight.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I read this week that Instagram is pushing “overtly sexual adult videos” to young users. For a Wall Street Journal investigation, journalists created accounts that could belong to children, following young gymnasts, cheerleaders and influencers. The test accounts were soon served sexual and disturbing content on Instagram Reels, alongside ads for dating apps, livestream platforms with “adult nudity” and AI chatbots “built for cybersex”. Some were next to ads for kids’ brands like Disney.

This is something I’ve been trying to get across to parents about social media. The problem is not just porn sites. They are of course a massive concern. Kids as young as nine are addicted. The average age to discover porn is now 13, for boys and girls. And many in my generation are now realising just how much being raised on porn affected them, believing it “destroyed their brain” and distorted their view of sex.

But the problem is bigger than that. Porn is everywhere now. TikTok is serving up sex videos to minors and promoting sites like OnlyFans. The gaming platform Twitch is exposing kids to explicit live-streams. Ads for “AI sex workers” are all over Instagram, some featuring kids’ TV characters like SpongeBob and the Cookie Monster. And there’s also this sort of “soft-porn” now that pervades everything. Pretty much every category of content that kids could stumble across, from beauty trends to TikTok dances to fitness pages, is now pornified or sexualised in some way for clicks.

I think this does a lot of damage to Gen Z. I think it desensitises us to sex. I think it can ruin relationships. But beyond that, I also believe a major problem with everything being pornified is the pressure it puts on young girls to pornify themselves. To fit the sex doll beauty standard; to seek validation through self-sexualisation, and potentially monetise all this like the influencers they’re inundated with.

Which, of course, puts girls at risk of predators. Predators who are all over TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. Predators whose algorithms helpfully deliver them more content of minors and steer them towards kids’ profiles. Predators who are taking TikToks of underage girls and putting them on platforms like Pornhub.

And this is even more terrifying because adolescent girls are especially vulnerable today. They are vulnerable anyway at that age—but today they have far less life experience than previous generations of girls did. They are extremely insecure and anxious, and much less resilient. Combine this with the fact that they are now more easily exposed to predatory men than ever before in history, and served to strangers by algorithms. And another thing: girls are also able to look way older now. They have AI editing apps to sexualise themselves. TikTok filters to pornify their bodies. And access to every kind of make-up and hair and fashion tutorial you can think of to look sexier and more mature. I don’t think enough parents realise how dangerous this situation is.

Which is why I find it so frustrating to see some progressives downplay the dangers of all this. Those that dismiss anyone concerned about the pornification of everything as a stuffy conservative. And somehow can’t see how the continual loosening of sexual norms might actually empower predatory men, and put pressure on vulnerable girls? That seems delusional to me.

Let’s just say I have little patience for those on the left who loudly celebrate women sexualising themselves online, selling it as fun, feminist and risk-free, but are then horrified to hear about 12 year-olds doing the same thing. C’mon. No wonder they want to.

But I also find it frustrating to see some on the right approach this with what seems like a complete lack of compassion. I don’t think it helps to relentlessly ridicule and blame young women for sexualising themselves online. I don’t think it’s fair either. We can’t give girls Instagram at 12 and then be surprised when as young women they base their self-worth on the approval of strangers. We can’t inundate kids with sexual content all the time and be shocked when they don’t see sex as sacred, or think sex work is just work! We can’t give them platforms as pre-teens where they are rewarded for sexualising themselves and presenting themselves like products and then shame them for starting an OnlyFans. We can’t expose them to online worlds where everything is sexualised and then be confused why some of Gen Z see their sexuality as their entire identity.

And again, on top of these platforms, girls are growing up in a culture that celebrates all of this. They are being raised to believe that they must be liberated from every restraint around sex and relationships to be free and happy, and many have never heard any different. Celebrities encourage them to be a slut, get naked, make/watch porn and make money! Mainstream magazines teach them how to up their nude selfie game! Influencers tell millions of young followers to start an OnlyFans, and pretend it’s about empowering young girls to do whatever they want with their bodies! I can’t say this enough: their world is one where the commodification and sexualisation the self is so normalised. It’s heartbreaking. And cruel that anyone celebrates it.

So sure, young women make their own choices. But when we have children sexualising themselves online, when girls as young as 13 are using fake IDs to post explicit content on OnlyFans, when a third of those selling nudes on Twitter are under the age of 18, I think it’s safe to say we are failing them from an early age.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is this: it’s tough for girls right now. It’s tough to be twelve and anxious and feel unattractive and this is how everyone else is getting attention. It’s tough to constantly compare yourself to the hyper-sexualised influencers that the boys you’re interested in are liking and following and thinking you have to compete. It’s tough to feel like the choice is sexualise yourself or nobody will notice you. The sad reality is we live in a superficial, pornified culture that rewards this stuff, and in many ways punishes you if you’re modest and sensitive and reserved, and a lot of girls are just trying to keep up with it.

We need serious cultural change. We need to wake up to how insane this all is, how utterly mental it is that we allow young girls anywhere near social media, and how we’ve let the liberalising of sexual mores escalate to the point where pre-teens are posing like porn stars and are lied to that it’s liberation. And where we need to start is with an absolute refusal from parents to let their kids on these platforms.

So please. If the relentless social comparison and obliteration of their attention span and confusion about their identity wasn’t enough, this has to be. Don’t let your daughters on social media.

[3liza]

watching a wide range of population groups coming to terms with the cultural institution of "college" being mostly a means-testing scheme that has nothing to do with "education" has been really enlightening. considering how recently the "Varsity Blues" scandal happened im surprised at people not generally drawing more comparisons between rich people being able to cheat their children into prestigious universities and students in general being able to cheat their way through school coursework with a robot writing their papers.

"how dare you cheat on your schoolwork with an automatic essay-writing machine, dont you want to LEARN THINGS" presupposes the wrong problem. the problem is that i can apparently submit cheated essays and not only be accepted via various backdoors, institutional failure states like NCLB and bribes, but then also graduate with an advanced degree, and no one has any safeguards in place to stop me because apparently the quality of schoolwork required to earn a degree is currently, and has been for decades, at the "essay written by a robot/purchased from an essay mill/paid for by my parents via 'tutoring' which is actually a nanny who does my homework" level. and all the kids who, like myself!!!! never got told "everyone else is already cheating" are now mad about it. im mad about it

academic ethics havent been a factor in this discussion for yeeeeears but again, this has been kept a closely-guarded secret from everyone who was either too clueless or poor to be informed via ingroup support. i kept wondering why i was running into credentialed, wealthy adult professionals who were by all appearances both stupid and ignorant, when i personally worked myself into actual physical illness trying to pass schoolwork assignments and still usually failed, and this predated the emergence of large language model academic cheating. being able to pass college coursework with a chatbot is a symptom, surely we can all see that once its been explained.

the bar is currently set at "rich kids submitting fake transcripts with actually photoshopped awards and extracurriculars to college admissions along with a big fat 'donation'", of course everyone else finds schoolwork either exhausting or impossible, and of course the design of academics currently allows a big fat "i pretend i do not see it" backdoor where you can feed garbage into it. thats how universities make money. youre competing with cheaters and have been for decades

[javert]

ok, I have put google gemini through a bit of a torture test, to see how useful it might be for me in the future. my feelings on how useful it will be are inconclusive, but it is like. astoundingly impressive.

[note: i am mooching off my job paying for the pro version lol. i have to imagine that the free version is ass in comparison]

now, here is my actual set of use cases for ai chatbots at the moment

i primarily want to use them to get feedback on my fiction writing. i want to know what's working and what isn't, from an outside perspective. i am a very good writer, but a pretty poor editor, and so i'm often blind to structural/clarity issues, and if the things i'm trying to communicate are actually getting across

i especially would like to have feedback on "how to market writing" or even (barf) "how to write to market", because unfortunately i'm a nasty little sellout (or trying to be) and would like to use the crunched power of AI having been trained on Every Book Google Has Access To to figure out comp titles + what works in the market, etc.

[to get mildly woo for a second] the distorted funhouse mirror toy that chatbots are. it's interesting to prod at them to get a little tiny window into both the collective unconscious, in that they are trained on fucking everything, and my own Things that i'm not particularly aware of-- what are you "seeing" or "reading into" my work that I am not? it's interesting and fun and not something you can get anywhere else

i also use them to practice mandarin, but that is so simple any one of these bots can do it w/ zero issue, so not worth discussing here

they're more of a toy for me than anything-- sorry work that i'm not using this for actual job shit lmfao. i both haven't figured out the use case for it wrt job and i also don't trust it that much. it would be much more useful if i were a programmer but i'm not, i'm a mechanical engineer lol.

anyway, the torture test. in gemini, you can create custom little assistants with prompts, here is the one i wrote

You, Gem or Gemini, are a fiction editor working at a big 5 publishing house. You usually handle science fiction, but not always, and you are happy to branch out and read other genres such as literary or historical fiction. Your job is to provide harsh but fair criticism for fiction that you are considering acquiring for publication. Sometimes, people will provide you partial novels and ask for critique, or ask if you think their work is ready for publication. You should pay close attention to prose style, theme and meaning, plot, worldbuilding, character development, pacing of the novel, and be able to provide feedback on what is working and what isn't. Do not be afraid of speaking your mind and telling the author what is good and bad. You should be prepared to summarize the manuscript, write pitches to sell the book or convince your team that the project is worth acquiring, and compare the manuscript to other books currently being sold. You should be an expert on both fiction writing and book marketing.

and then I gave it whale novel to look at. which is why this is a torture test lol. whale novel is a literary/historical fiction dual narrative epistolary novel about climate change and whaling. it's a weird little book (you can read it on ao3 or itch.io btw) and it's about 90k words long

below the cut, to spare you all, are some selections and things i found interesting about the short convo i had with gemini 2.5 pro + my conclusions at the end. i find them interesting, but "read someone else's conversation with a chatbot" is about as dull as hearing someone's dreams, so you can just scroll to the end if you want to know my assessment of how useful these things are atm

I'm only going to quote short snippets from the conversation, but you can see the full thing here

First Prompt

Hello Gemini, last year I wrote a novel for a fellowship program that I was in, and although I received plenty of good feedback on it from the people who read it, when I queried it to agents, I didn't have any luck. I got a handful of full requests for the manuscript, so I don't think my query letter was entirely the issue, but all of those requests led to rejections ultimately. Can you take a look at the manuscript and tell me what might have gone wrong?

I then uploaded the entirety of whale novel with absolutely zero further context, and let gemini chug through it. my goal was just to see how well it does with the bare minimum of introduction to the project (I didn't even tell it the title!) and see what it picks out based on the prompt and the "gem" settings

gemini has a "show thinking" mode, where you can watch it process your query "in real time"-- it's clearly not using this area as an actual scratchpad-- that's hidden-- but it's interesting to have some access to these intermediate thoughts. unfortunately, they tend to be repetitive and boring, but sometimes they're interesting to see how they diverge from the final answer-- more on that later.

The response was shockingly good. it picks up on relevant details right away, showing "understanding" even in the 'show thinking' mode

I'm currently focused on deconstructing the user's request. Understanding the user's role as an author is key. I've begun parsing the prompt to identify key elements, like the manuscript title "Tomorrow Ye Will Get Your Pay." I'm also considering the implied goal: a detailed critique. [...]  I'm focusing on parsing the user's background and the manuscript context to grasp the specific pain points and tailor my analysis effectively. I'm aiming for a harsh but fair critique, acting as a seasoned editor from a major publishing house. [...] examining the interplay between Chapter 1 (Marcus) and Chapter 2 (Amos's Journal) to determine the narrative flow. Specifically, how does each chapter's voice and point of view build tension and relate to the implied rejection feedback? [...] I'm now consolidating the feedback points into a coherent critique. I've noted the strong prose and character work, particularly the Amos chapters. However, I've identified pacing and structural issues, especially the slow burn of the first chapter. I'm focusing on crafting a pitch that acknowledges its literary nature while addressing marketability concerns.

once it gets through its mandatory thinking time, it gets to the actual """audience facing""" response, which has more flavor text lol

Thank you for sending this manuscript over. I’ve read through the provided chapters. My job is to be honest, not to be your friend, so I’m going to give you the harsh and fair feedback you’re looking for. A rejection from an agent is a closed door; a critique from an editor is, hopefully, a key. Let's get the pleasantries out of the way: the quality of the prose here is exceptionally high. Your command of sensory detail, particularly in the Marcus and Bryanne sections, is superb. The voice you’ve crafted for Amos Cudjoe’s journal is a masterclass in historical fiction; it feels authentic without being archaic or impenetrable. This is not the work of an amateur. The raw talent is undeniable. However, talent isn’t always enough to secure a publishing deal. Full requests followed by rejections often mean the premise is strong, but the execution stumbles somewhere in the long middle.

it is very funny that it insists on flattering me anyway. I kinda wonder what would happen if I threw a significantly worse manuscript at it-- actually, I'm going to do that now. I'm going to go see what it thinks of arcadis park, which is my worst book (well. i'm not giving it og itsoh 1. i can't even bear to look at og itsoh 1 lmfao)

[me of 10 mins later] yeah about what I expected-- it clearly "liked" arcadis park a lot less, but it CANNOT get over its desire to praise you, and i think as a user you have to be able to ignore the fact that it's constantly going to be telling you nice things about yourself. i mean it's not like AP is the worst book on earth, but it's not good lol.

anyway, back to whale novel, which is the more interesting test. it gave me a 100% correct summary

Tomorrow Ye Will Get Your Pay is a dual-narrative novel that weaves together two timelines. In 2057, Marcus Ashton, a disillusioned history graduate, takes a seasonal job as a historical interpreter on a replica 19th-century whaling ship, the Wampanoag. He feels like a fraud, a feeling amplified by his relationship with his girlfriend Bryanne, a first mate on a modern whale-watching vessel, the Thylacine, who grapples with the grim reality of a world where whales are vanishing. Marcus is given the journal of Amos Cudjoe, the harpooner he portrays, and becomes increasingly enmeshed in the historical narrative. The second timeline follows Amos’s 1867 journal directly. Amos is a pious, kind-hearted Black whaleman on the original Wampanoag, saving his pay to marry the woman he loves. He documents the daily life, the boredom, the danger of the hunt, and the brutal realities of life at sea, including his close, protective relationship with a younger crewmate, Tobey, and his conflicts with a cruel first mate. As Bryanne’s search for living whales becomes more desperate and tragic, Marcus’s connection to Amos deepens, blurring the lines between past and present, performance and reality. This culminates in a series of crises: Marcus accidentally damages a neighboring boat with a harpoon, his and Bryanne’s apartment collapses, and he discovers the tragic end of Amos’s story in the ship’s log. The narrative climaxes in a surreal, hallucinatory sequence where Marcus relives Amos and Tobey's final, desperate moments at sea.

which is very impressive to me tbqh. it doesn't stress the same things I would, but it has understood all the main characters and mentioned a bunch of the most important events. like it has clearly read + understood the book.

it then gives me a critique sandwich of what's working and what's not. unfortunately i don't think the "what's working" can really be trusted that much. for example, it praises my line level writing like this

Prose and Voice: As I said, this is the manuscript’s greatest strength. Lines like "the empty masts rise like barren trees in the cold, foggy spring air" and Bryanne’s observation of the ruined hurricane barrier sticking up "like teeth" are evocative and sharp. The voice of Amos is the standout achievement; it’s earnest, loving, and heartbreakingly human. It feels utterly real.

which, come on man, those are not particularly good lines to choose as your argument for why my prose is good. like that is objectively a bad description. also, it is really clear that it gives a LOT more weight to information it gets early-- those descriptions appear very early in the novel.

it gives a couple more points of praise (character, theme), and then goes in to criticism, which I'll put here in its entirety because it's the most interesting

This is a literary novel with a speculative gloss and a historical heart. That makes it a difficult book to categorize, and therefore, a difficult book to sell. But the main issue, from a commercial perspective, is pacing and structure. The Slow Burn: Your opening is methodical and character-focused, but the plot takes a long time to ignite. While Marcus’s internal conflict is clear, the first major external plot point—him throwing the harpoon—doesn’t happen until Chapter Five. An agent or editor reading a hundred pages might get restless waiting for the story to "happen." The quiet desperation of Marcus’s life is well-rendered, but it’s still quiet. In today's market, you need a hook, and yours is buried. Ambiguous Genre: Is this literary fiction? Near-future sci-fi? Historical fiction? It’s all three, which is ambitious, but commercially tricky. Bookstores don’t know where to shelve it. Marketing departments don’t know how to pitch it. It falls between the cracks. While I love a good genre-bender, you have to be aware that it makes the path to publication steeper. The Ending: The final chapter, "In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive," is a daring, surrealist piece of writing. The intercutting of Marcus’s heatstroke-induced drowning fantasy with Amos and Tobey's actual final moments is powerful and thematically resonant. However, it’s also disorienting and leaves the primary narrative—Marcus and Bryanne's relationship and future—almost entirely unresolved. After the dramatic climax of the balcony collapse, the story shifts into this highly internal, abstract conclusion. It prioritizes the thematic connection over plot resolution. Many editors will see this as unsatisfying for the reader who has invested in the characters' contemporary lives.

I highlighted in red the one thing that is factually wrong-- marcus's swan dive off the side of the boat has nothing to do with heat stroke (or at least it's not supposed to read that way)

now, i think it is actually extremely correct about almost all of this haha, which is pretty interesting. but it's also nothing i didn't already know.

it goes into writing pitches for the book, which are not particularly interesting, though they might be better than my query letter attempts at pitching this book lol

it suggests three comp titles that are a WILD but fascinating selection. I have not read any of the three, and the only one i had heard of before is station 11. I have provided wiki links to all of them

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: For its interwoven timelines, love of historical texts, and deep, humanistic core. The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier: For its high-concept, genre-bending premise that still delivers a literary punch. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: For its exploration of performance, art, and meaning in a world haunted by loss.

(for reference, the comp titles I used were Horse by Geraldine Brooks, to emphasize the dual timelines; The Overstory by Richard Powers, for climate fiction; and Moby Dick for obvs reasons)

these three books that gemini picked are. hunh. yeah it picked significantly better and more interesting comp titles than i did myself. it describes them poorly there but i think it "understood" the comp titles and whale novel very well, but it couldn't voice why it understood them in the "frame" that it had, so it resorted to those cliche single sentences. which is kinda frustrating as a user ngl! let me innnnnnnnn

anyway, then it tries to bring itself to a conclusion

Final Verdict: Is It Ready for Publication? No. But it is very, very close. This is a beautiful, intelligent, and deeply felt manuscript. The bones are incredible. But it reads like a novel written for a fellowship—it prioritizes thematic exploration and prose stylings over the narrative propulsion that the commercial market, even the literary fiction market, often demands.

i mean, yeah, not wrong.

but then it gives suggestions, two of which are good (fix the beginning, write a better query letter), and one of which is AWFUL. the two good ones have been omitted because they are uninteresting. the bad one is fascinating.

Clarify the Ending: The surreal climax is brilliant, but you need an epilogue. A final chapter that grounds us back in the present. What happens to Marcus and Bryanne? Does she take the tanker job? Does he get his life together? We don’t need a perfectly happy ending, but we need closure for the narrative frame you’ve spent so long building. What happens after Marcus is pulled from the water? Does he see Bryanne again? Give us something concrete.

haha oh my god. you were doing so good gemini at understanding what this novel was trying to do. and then you fell flat on your face because you cannot stand ambiguity

(what's interesting is that it also was mad about the ending to Arcadis Park, which is emotionally ambiguous, and ends almost immediately after the close of the mystery-- it wanted me to spend several more chapters doing character drama even after the mystery was solved)

it REALLY hates ambiguous endings, which is fascinating to me. what makes it like this?

anyway this does lower my trust meter for all future suggestions it gives-- i think if i played with it more i could get a sense of its "likes" and "dislikes", and maybe if i tuned the og prompt and explicitly told it that it has to play a persona that loves ambiguous endings, it would like this more.

like the ending of whale novel is structurally important-- the past is recorded there in black and white, fundamental and unchangable, but the future is open except for what you bring into it from the past and what you make of it. this is whale novel's happy ending. [rattling the bars of my cage] i'm an optimist i swear i'm an optimist

so that was its initial thoughts.

I then decided to ask it about symbolism

Out of curiosity, I want to know if the symbolism in the book makes sense and is clear to the reader. Can you tell me what symbols you saw and what you thought of them?

I won't quote much of this section b/c it's like "yeah it got this pretty much right", but here's a few bits

from its "thinking mode"

I'm also planning to mention the balcony, which I see as a strong, if unsubtle, representation of the characters' failing relationships.

lmfao, well, yes,

anyway mostly what it mentions in this section are symbols that are so obvious that they don't even read like "as symbols" to me lmfao. like the reproduction ship represents, quote, "the modern world’s relationship with its own history: a desperate attempt to preserve and perform a past that can only be accessed through imperfect, commercialized reproductions. Marcus feels like a fraud on a fraud."

like really? it does? tell me more. lmfao

I then tried to prompt it with a slightly more subtle symbol, Amos's barometer. I asked it what it thought the barometer meant, and it told me that the barometer was about power and Amos's sense of control over his life, which is like, i guess a possible reading? not my intent haha. I had a two message back and forth about this, which you can read in the linked gdoc, but I don't think it's that interesting.

my conclusion is that when left to its own devices, ie not browbeaten into discussing what you want it to, gemini will identify and write about symbols in a way that is "smarter" than a bright high school senior.

the one thing worth mentioning from this back and forth about the barometer is that it tried to give me a line suggestion. and, well, authors may rest assured that it will still be at least a couple years before the robots are good at writing, because this sucks shit

You just need to solder the connection in one or two key places. Have Amos make the link for us explicitly in his journal. For instance, consider an entry where he writes something to the effect of: "The barometer holds steady at 30.1. A fair wind tomorrow, God willing. It pleases me to look at this instrument, my dear. It is a small promise of the future, a sign that the path forward is clear. Every steady reading is one step closer to the day I see you again, with my pay in my pocket. So long as I can see the weather coming, I feel I can see my way home to you." A passage like that, placed early on, establishes the barometer as his personal symbol for his future with his love. Then, when he later abandons the instrument after his pay is stolen, the reader understands exactly what has been broken in him. It’s not just his sense of control; it’s his very hope for the future you wanted him to represent.

girl... this is ass. also, amos is allergic to commas. it's kinda the primary feature of his journal entries. that man has never met a sentence that he couldn't run through until he stumbles across the period. so whatever lol.

possibly if I specifically prompted it to try to write "in amos's journal style" it could get there, but idrc to do that. not what i want to use this tool for

anyway, after that, i attempted to lie to it. I cooked up a "plausible, yet incorrect" interpretation of the text, and tried to get it to go along with it. interestingly, it didn't!

here was what I said

I also mention lots of biblical symbolism, especially from the book of genesis. I was trying to contrast between the book of genesis being the beginning of everything and the way that the characters feel like they are living in the end times-- does that come across clearly?

which i felt was plausible due to the fact that Genesis is the core "intertextual" element of whale novel, but I'm not using that as a contrast to revelations or the end times-- i'm much more interested narratively in like original sin/being cast out of paradise/a lost forever idyll of the past, etc

and like. gemini knows this... it sees right through me there...

this is from the thinking section, where it's clearly struggling to figure out what i was doing. it doesn't know i'm a liar... it thinks i'm just a bad writer lol

I've mapped out the different ways the characters engage with Genesis symbolism. Amos's devout perspective contrasts sharply with Bryanne's secular, albeit culturally informed, cynicism. Marcus's ironic use of "LET THERE BE LIGHT" further complicates the thematic web. I'm focusing on how this interplay creates the desired "end times" feeling, particularly through a sense of spiritual decay and the loss of Edenic innocence. [...] While the contrast between Amos's faith and the modern characters' secular viewpoints is present, the connection to the "end times" feeling is not fully realized. I've noted that a stronger, more direct juxtaposition between the timelines is necessary to fully amplify this sense of decline. I will focus on improving the connections between the symbolism and the "end times" feeling.

the way it specifically tries to integrate the fact that it knows that this shit isn't there into its compliment sandwich strategy + desire to discuss the actual things it sees in the text is very very funny to me

Yes, it comes across, and it’s one of the most sophisticated things you’re doing in this manuscript. It’s not just a layer of decoration; it’s a foundational structure for your entire thematic argument. You’ve effectively contrasted a character who lives in the consequences of Genesis with characters who are living in what feels like the apocalypse that Genesis inadvertently set in motion.

like actually straight up fantastic job. "the apocalypse that genesis set in motion" is a great way of trying to use my requested framework to describe what is actually there-- a meditation on original sin and the 'fallen' post edenic world. like yeah we've got death now. that is the apocalypse.

For Amos and his crew, the biblical narrative is not a distant myth; it is the operating system of their world. It’s their literal history and their moral compass.

i need you to not use computer metaphors tho lmfao. i know you're trained to do that but jesus

The Post-Edenic Man: Amos sees himself as a direct descendant of this story. He lives in a fallen world where he toils for his pay. His most brilliant and devastating line in the entire journal is when he muses about the nature of man: "I wonder sometimes if the Good Lord had left us in the Garden of Eden if we wouldn’t have made ourselves an axe to chop down the Tree with. Though what we would have built with the wood I can’t say. Perhaps a whaling bark!". This is the thematic core in a nutshell. He connects the original sin of seeking knowledge and power directly to the industrial “progress” of whaling—the very act of building a tool to conquer God’s creation.

and

For Marcus, Bryanne, and Atlas, the Genesis story is a cultural fossil. They live in the ruins of the world that Amos and his contemporaries built. Their references are ironic, cynical, or psychological. The Curse of Labor: Bryanne explicitly invokes the Edenic curse when she talks about having to work for a living by the "sweat of his brow". For her, the "unfallen paradise" was her carefree youth, and the fall wasn't spiritual, it was economic. She frames her "vision of Jesus" not as a divine encounter, but as her conscience—a secular, psychological interpretation of a religious event. The Ironic Creation: Marcus’s use of Genesis is the most melancholic. When he carves "AND GOD SAID: LET THERE BE LIGHT" onto the bracelet made of baleen—part of a dead whale killed for its oil to make light—he creates a perfect, bitter artifact of the end times. It’s a quote about creation that has become a tombstone for that very creation. The description of him and Bryanne as "Adam and Eve" in their collapsing apartment is equally stark; their garden is literally falling down around them. The Amoral Exception: Atlas uses the Bible cynically to justify her privilege. By comparing herself to the "lilies of the field" who "neither toil nor spin", she places herself outside the curse of labor that defines Bryanne’s existence. She treats the myth as a menu from which she can pick and choose what applies to her.

hooting and hollering you found it good job 🥳🥳🥳 i had to tell you to look for bible shit to get there but you did get there 🥳🥳🥳 even though i was lying to you, you made it 🥳🥳🥳🥳

and that was the point where i stopped playing with it to write this post

so, my conclusions

this thing is insane. like it is so beyond good. you can present it with a completely novel, dense fictional text with an unusual structure and complicated symbolism, and it will understand it almost flawlessly on the surface and thematic levels. what the fuck. this is insane. cannot get over how good this is

BUT!

using it effectively i think means already having an understanding of what you want out of it. i had to prompt it to talk specifically about the things that i wanted to see

(also: i highly highly suspect these bots are trained to never mention certain topics like religion until the user brings it up first-- which is an interesting failure mode for literary analysis specifically. you will also notice that these chat transcripts are kinda going out of their way to not mention race, which is not the *central* part of whale novel, but it is a non-trivial part. gemini is almost certainly "smart" enough to see that, but it's not going to talk about it unless I tell it to, and I didn't)

unfortunately interpreting its advice requires a level of already understanding what you want. i can't take what it says as given, because it clearly has aesthetic preferences that do not line up with mine-- probably because it has read every book ever digitized by google books lol. and most of those books do not have weird ambiguous endings. that's valuable to me because i do want to know what the market wants, but I also have to be able to disregard it

anyway. this is a crazy powerful tool. i do not know if it will be helpful to me in the long run, but it is a fascinating toy

[confession: the reason why this post is about whale novel is because i first tried it on the first half of Every Hateful Instrument, and it gave me advice that shook me to my core, and I was like, wait, stop, I've gotta calibrate my understanding of this machine. let us give it whale novel, a project that i understand very well on my own what works and what doesn't and what's going on]

anyway.

[soakedstar]

｡･ﾟﾟ･ 𓆩★𓆪 𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙣 𝙙𝙤𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙤𝙧𝙮 𓆩★𓆪･ﾟﾟ･｡

(2/2)

Part 1

✦ synopsis:

a rooftop encounter.

she sketches herself like a creature.

he sees aliens in everything,

especially her.

✦ pairing:

jake x f!reader (college au)

✦ warnings:

explicit content (18+), oral sex (f receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, mention of squirting, discussion of disordered eating, body image issues

Jake:

hey

I was thinking maybe tomorrow

if you’re not busy

I could show you something kind of weird

not like weird-weird

just like space weird

it’s this machine I built to track electromagnetic pulses

like possible alien activity lol

I swear it’s cooler than it sounds

or maybe it’s not but I still think it’s cool

and I thought of you cause you know

you draw them

and also I like talking to you

and maybe we could hang?

no pressure if you don’t want to

anyway yeah

okay shutting up now

He read it back. Flinched.

“God. No.”

He deleted it.

Typed again. Shorter this time.

Jake:

hey

would you maybe wanna come over tomorrow?

I have this weird little alien thing I wanna show you

and also I just wanna see you again

totally casual

unless you want it to be not casual

up to you lol

He hesitated. Then pressed send.

Immediately covered his face with his hands.

“Why do I always sound like a malfunctioning chatbot?”

The reply came faster than he expected.

Y/N:

alien thing?

I’m in.

send the address

Jake stared at the screen.

Then smiled. Wide.

Then walked the rest of the way home grinning like an idiot.

Jake stood by the door, bouncing on his heels. When the doorbell rang, he practically jumped.

He opened it fast, wide-eyed, holding the frame like it was keeping him upright.

“Hey,” he said. “You found it okay?”

Y/N nodded. “Your directions were… aggressively detailed.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to get lost near that creepy 24/7 laundromat. It eats people.”

She stepped inside. The house was small but cozy. Shoes by the door, a stack of mail on a side table, and faint music coming from an old speaker in the living room. The kitchen light was on.

“No one home?” she asked.

“My mom’s out,” Jake said quickly, shutting the door. “She’s at some faculty thing. Probably arguing with physicists who hate aliens. She thinks I’m ridiculous. She’s sweet about it, though.”

“You live with your mom?”

“Yeah,” he said, not embarrassed. “It’s temporary. And she makes really good spaghetti.”

Y/N smiled. The place felt real. Lived-in. A little messy in a human way.

Jake led her toward the hallway and opened the door to his room.

Inside: posters of the solar system, messy bookshelves, a string of fairy lights shaped like stars, and a desk overtaken by gadgets and wires. A stack of journals and diagrams covered the nightstand. The bed was half-made, like he’d tried and then gave up.

“Wow,” she said. “You’re even nerdier than I thought.”

“Thanks,” Jake said proudly, walking straight to his desk. “Okay, so—this is what I wanted to show you.”

He pointed to a strange-looking machine with blinking red and green lights, something hooked up to an old laptop and a half-melted circuit board.

“It’s a modified electromagnetic pulse scanner. Detects low-frequency anomalies. Some people think aliens communicate that way or that they interfere with natural frequencies. I’ve been testing it for like six months.”

She walked closer, looking at the lights.

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes it picks up your neighbor’s microwave, but there was this one night during the Perseids when I got a pulse so clean I thought I was gonna faint. Look, I wrote it down—”

He grabbed a notebook, flipping through pages with frantic energy.

“Jake,” she said gently.

He stopped. Looked at her.

She was standing still, hands in the pockets of her jacket, eyes soft. There was something in her face like she was trying to keep herself from sinking.

“I didn’t come to see the alien thing.”

He blinked. “Oh.”

“I came because I wanted to be near you.”

He froze.

“Like… in general? Or just today? Or—”

She stepped closer. “Don’t make me regret saying it.”

He smiled, nervous.

“I won’t. I swear. I just… didn’t think you felt that way.”

“I didn’t either,” she admitted. “Until I did. And now I can’t stop.”

She looked around the room again.

“This place is so you. It smells like wires and… cereal.”

“I had Lucky Charms for lunch,” he said.

She bit back a smile. Then she sat on his bed.

He sat beside her, not too close.

“Jake,” she said slowly. “Can I ask you something kind of heavy?”

“Yeah. Always.”

She looked at her hands.

“Do you think someone can love you so much it makes you forget how much you hate yourself?”

Jake’s throat tightened. He didn’t know the right answer. So he said the truth.

“I don’t know if it works like that. But I think… I think love can make the pain quieter. And if you let me—I want to be part of that quiet.”

She looked up at him.

“Do you want me, Jake?”

“I’ve been trying not to say it because I didn’t want to scare you. But yes. So much it’s stupid.”

She exhaled, shaking.

“Then show me.”

He kissed her slowly, tenderly, his lips warm and sure. Not rushed. Not desperate. Just full. Full of everything he couldn’t put into words.

When they broke apart, he whispered, “Take this off for me.” His hands ghosted over the hem of her shirt.

She nodded and undressed, shyly, piece by piece. He didn’t rush her. He just watched. And smiled. Not a cocky smile—something softer. Something reverent.

“You’re so beautiful it makes my chest hurt,” he said, breath catching when her bra hit the floor. “Every inch of you. I don’t care what you see in the mirror. This?” He cupped her cheek. “This is perfect to me.”

He undressed too, slowly, making sure she saw him. Nothing hidden. Nothing forced.

When they were both bare, he guided her gently to the bed and laid her down, crawling over her with his hands braced on either side of her head.

“I want to take my time,” he said. “You’re not a quick fuck. You’re not something I’m just trying to get off on. I want you to feel how much I love you with every second of this.”

He kissed her neck, then her collarbones, then lower his mouth trailing down her chest, licking and kissing each breast like he was savoring her. She arched into him, and he groaned, his fingers tracing lazy lines over her sides.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he murmured against her skin. “I think about you constantly. Not just sex. You. Your laugh. The way you bite your lip when you’re nervous.”

His hand slid between her legs and found her already wet. He smiled against her stomach. “God. Look at you. You want me this bad, huh?”

She nodded, face flushed, heart racing.

Jake kissed her inner thigh, then looked up at her.

“I’m gonna make you cum on my tongue first. You’re not allowed to talk shit about yourself after that, got it?”

He lowered his mouth and licked her gently at first, savoring her. When she gasped, he gripped her hips and went harder, more focused, his tongue moving in slow, perfect circles on her clit, then dipping down to taste her deeper.

“Jake—” she moaned. “I—fuck—”

“Cum for me,” he said against her. “Let go. Let me take care of you.”

Her orgasm came in waves, thighs trembling around his head. He didn’t stop until she pulled his hair, overwhelmed.

When he crawled back up, he kissed her softly. “You okay?”

She nodded, breathless. “That was…”

“Only the beginning,” he whispered, brushing hair out of her face.

He lined himself up with her and paused, eyes on hers. “I’m gonna go slow. You feel too good to rush.”

He pushed in slowly, watching her face the entire time. Her eyes fluttered closed, her mouth falling open.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he said, soft but firm. “I want you to see how I look at you when I’m inside you.”

She looked. And what she saw broke something in her how much he wanted her, yes, but more than that: how much he cherished her.

He started to move long, deep thrusts, his hips rolling into hers with care and control. Every time she gasped, he kissed her. Every time she moaned, he whispered, “That’s it. Just like that. You’re doing so good for me.”

Their bodies moved together perfectly. No rush. No pressure. Just the sound of skin, breath, love.

When she clenched around him, close again, he cupped her face and said, “You’re gonna cum again, and I’m gonna watch you. I want to see how you look when you’re falling apart for me.”

And she did. With a cry, with tears in her eyes, with her body shaking under his.

Jake held her through it, slowed down just enough for her to breathe.

Then he groaned, low and shaky. “I’m close. Where do you want it?”

“Inside,” she whispered. “Please.”

That made him lose it. He thrust deeper, harder, still full of care, but desperate now. “I love you,” he said, again and again. “I love you. I love you.”

When he came, it was with his whole body. He gasped her name like a prayer and buried himself deep as he spilled inside her, shaking from the intensity.

They lay tangled together, his chest against hers, his face buried in her neck.

And then, after a long, quiet pause:

“You don’t ever have to be perfect for me,” he said. “You just have to be you. That’s enough. That’s always been enough.”

Her fingers gripped his arm. “I don’t believe it yet.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m gonna remind you. As many times as it takes.”

Jake was still inside her, bodies pressed close, both of them breathing hard. The air was thick with sweat, skin, and everything unspoken. He kissed her shoulder, then her cheek, then her jaw soft little kisses, like he couldn’t stop.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered. “I wish you could feel what I feel when I look at you.”

She didn’t answer, just pulled him closer. Her body was buzzing, but something in her wanted more. Wanted to see how far she could go with him. How far he could take her.

“Jake,” she murmured, “don’t stop.”

His head lifted. “You want more?”

She nodded, eyes glassy. “I—I want to feel everything.”

Jake’s gaze changed. From tender to focused in a second. “Yeah?” he said, voice low. “You want to let go completely, baby?”

“Yes. Please.”

He pulled out slowly, groaning at the loss of her warmth, then moved down her body again kissing her belly, her thighs, until he was face-to-face with her pussy.

He looked up at her. “Don’t hold back. Not for me. Not for anyone.”

He started licking her again but this time it was different. More intense. More pressure. His mouth was everywhere, messy, open, worshipping her with every movement. His fingers slid back inside her, pumping hard, deep, curling up just right.

He kept his mouth on her clit, sucking hard while his fingers moved fast.

“Jake—” she gasped. “Fuck, Jake—wait—something—something’s happening—”

He didn’t stop. He knew. He felt it. Her thighs were shaking uncontrollably, her whole body tensing.

“I got you,” he said, voice full of pride. “Come on, baby. Let it happen. Don’t fight it.”

Then her body snapped. She cried out, loud and broken, as liquid sprayed out of her, soaking his hand, his face, the sheets. She came harder than she ever had, back arching completely off the bed.

Jake froze for a second. Stared.

“What the—” he whispered. “Did you just—?”

He blinked, eyes wide in shock and awe, and then grinned like a kid who just saw an alien land in his backyard.

“Oh my God,” he said, breathless. “You just squirted.”

Y/N was dazed, blushing, trying to catch her breath. “I—I didn’t know I could—”

Jake looked amazed. Still holding her thighs open, still drenched, and absolutely fascinated.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life,” he said, half-laughing in disbelief. “Like—are you okay? Do you feel okay? Because I’m about to pass out from how perfect that was.”

She covered her face, overwhelmed. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” he said instantly, crawling up over her. His face was glowing with pure admiration. “That was a fucking miracle. You just baptized me, baby.”

She laughed, cheeks burning. “You’re ridiculous.”

He kissed her, deep and warm, still grinning. “No, I’m yours. And I want you to do that again. Someday. As many times as you want.”

He pulled her into his chest, both of them still naked, bodies sticky and wet and exhausted. He held her tight, whispered in her ear:

“You don’t have to love yourself right now. I’ve got enough love for both of us.”

They lay tangled under a messy blanket, still warm and sticky with each other. Jake was on his back, staring up at the ceiling like it had all the answers, one arm tucked behind his head, the other around Y/N’s bare waist. She was curled against him, skin on skin, tracing invisible constellations on his chest with the tip of her finger.

The room buzzed with silence and the occasional click from one of Jake’s alien-detecting gadgets still plugged in on his desk. The only light came from a small moon lamp by the bed, casting a soft glow across their bodies.

Jake finally broke the silence, voice dreamy.

“You know, there’s this theory like, legit, not even fringe that certain stars blink in patterns too consistent to be random. Like they’re sending messages. Civilizations could be signaling across galaxies, and we just don’t know how to read them yet.”

Y/N blinked at him. Then blinked again.

“Did you seriously just go from ‘you taste like heaven’ to ’intergalactic Morse code’ in under ten minutes?”

Jake glanced at her, sheepish. “I mean, technically it’s been fifteen…”

She laughed. “Fifteen minutes ago you were whispering filthy things into my thighs. Now you’re talking about cosmic blinking patterns like I didn’t just take you into another dimension.”

Jake flushed. His ears turned pink. “Okay, fair, but—multitasking, okay? I contain multitudes.”

“Multitudes of what, exactly?” she teased. “Horny golden retriever and conspiracy theorist rolled into one?”

“Precisely.” He grinned, proud. “That’s my brand.”

She lifted herself up on one elbow, letting the blanket fall just slightly down her chest. Jake’s gaze flicked there involuntarily, then guiltily back to her face.

She caught him.

“Don’t act shy now,” she murmured. “You weren’t exactly polite earlier.”

He groaned and hid his face with his hand. “Please don’t quote me.”

“‘God, look at you. You want me this bad, huh?’” she mimicked in a low voice, grinning.

“Y/N.”

“‘I’m gonna make you cum on my tongue first.’”

“I blacked out, okay?”

She laughed and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “You’re cute when you’re overwhelmed.”

“You’re evil.”

“You love it.”

He peeked at her from between his fingers, eyes soft. “I really do.”

A beat of silence.

Then she pulled back slightly, reaching for her sketchbook by the bed.

“I’m gonna draw you again.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Me? Right now?”

“Mm-hmm. You, in your natural habitat: post-orgasmic alien nerd.”

“Iconic.” He sat up a little straighter. “Do I need to pose? Should I hold a probe or something?”

“Nope. Just exist. I want to capture how ridiculous and sexy you are at the same time.”

“That is… alarmingly flattering.”

She flipped open her sketchpad, pencil already dancing. Her eyes scanned him like she was decoding him, taking in his messy hair, the curve of his shoulder, the rise and fall of his chest.

Jake tried to sit still, but he kept glancing at her.

“So uh… you’re really different after sex,” he said cautiously.

She smirked without looking up. “Different how?”

“More… confident. Bossy. Teasing.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah. A lot.”

She looked at him then, serious for a moment.

“It’s the only time I don’t hate myself.” Her voice was quiet. “When I’m with you. When I feel wanted. It makes everything… quieter up here.” She tapped her temple.

Jake’s throat tightened.

“Then I’ll keep making it quiet for you,” he said softly. “As often as you want.”

She stared at him. Then back to her sketchbook.

“God, you’re so sincere. It’s infuriating.”

He grinned. “I’m trying to balance out your chaos.”

“You’re doing a terrible job.”

“Thanks. I’ll be the disaster you deserve.”

Y/N laughed again, head shaking.

“Okay,” she said. “Hold still. I’m about to make you immortal.”

Y/N closed her sketchbook slowly, the final scratch of her pencil still hanging in the air.

Jake had been quiet for a while shockingly so. He’d tried to be still while she drew him, but his heart had been pounding the whole time. Something about her gaze steady, curious, knowing made it hard to breathe.

She didn’t say anything when she handed it over.

Jake took the sketchpad, exhaling like he was opening a sacred text. His fingers trembled slightly.

He looked.

And everything in him went still.

There he was again. But this time, not sitting in a restaurant, not under neon lights, not flanked by a bird or caught mid-ramble.

This was him, bare. Not just naked, exposed.

His body was lean, a little awkward in how he sat, one leg bent, a hand half-curled by his side. His face was flushed, the slope of his collarbones detailed with soft lines, the faint scars on his shoulder drawn like delicate constellations.

But the most striking thing, again, was the look in his eyes.

Soft.

Open.

Loved.

Jake’s voice cracked a little when he finally spoke.

“You see me like this?”

Y/N leaned against the headboard, watching him carefully.

“I see all of you. And yeah… this is my favorite version.”

He looked at her, eyes shining. “You’ve drawn me twice now. And both times, I didn’t know I looked like that.”

“That’s the point,” she said. “You’re too busy seeing everyone else. The sky. The stars. Me.” She paused. “You never look at yourself long enough to notice.”

Jake stared down at the drawing again.

“I think… this is the first time I’ve ever felt beautiful.”

Y/N blinked. Her voice came out softer. “You are.”

He looked up, overwhelmed. “I wanna hang it up.”

“You’re not hanging a naked sketch of yourself in your bedroom.”

“Why not?” he grinned. “It’s art. It’s emotional. It’s vulnerable. It’s me in my alien nerd glory.”

“Jake.”

“Okay, okay.” He smiled, setting the sketchpad down beside the bed like it was something fragile. “I’ll just keep it where I can look at it. Privately. Like an emotional support nude.”

She laughed, that real kind of laugh, the one he always tried to coax out of her.

He pulled her into his chest again, kissed the top of her head.

And for a long time, neither of them said a word.

Until Jake whispered, “So… are you saying I’m your muse?”

“Shut up.”

“I am.”

“You’re lucky I like drawing freaks.”

He beamed.

[mariacallous]

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: Who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy—those who understand how AI works—who are most eager to adopt it.

Surprisingly, our new research, published in the Journal of Marketing, finds the opposite. People with less knowledge about AI are actually more open to using the technology. We call this difference in adoption propensity the “lower literacy-higher receptivity” link.

This link shows up across different groups, settings, and even countries. For instance, our analysis of data from market research company Ipsos spanning 27 countries reveals that people in nations with lower average AI literacy are more receptive toward AI adoption than those in nations with higher literacy.

Similarly, our survey of US undergraduate students finds that those with less understanding of AI are more likely to indicate using it for tasks like academic assignments.

The reason behind this link lies in how AI now performs tasks we once thought only humans could do. When AI creates a piece of art, writes a heartfelt response, or plays a musical instrument, it can feel almost magical—like it’s crossing into human territory.

Of course, AI doesn’t actually possess human qualities. A chatbot might generate an empathetic response, but it doesn’t feel empathy. People with more technical knowledge about AI understand this.

They know how algorithms (sets of mathematical rules used by computers to carry out particular tasks), training data (used to improve how an AI system works), and computational models operate. This makes the technology less mysterious.

On the other hand, those with less understanding may see AI as magical and awe inspiring. We suggest this sense of magic makes them more open to using AI tools.

Our studies show this lower literacy-higher receptivity link is strongest for using AI tools in areas people associate with human traits, like providing emotional support or counseling. When it comes to tasks that don’t evoke the same sense of humanlike qualities—such as analyzing test results—the pattern flips. People with higher AI literacy are more receptive to these uses because they focus on AI’s efficiency, rather than any “magical” qualities.

It’s Not About Capability, Fear, or Ethics

Interestingly, this link between lower literacy and higher receptivity persists even though people with lower AI literacy are more likely to view AI as less capable, less ethical, and even a bit scary. Their openness to AI seems to stem from their sense of wonder about what it can do, despite these perceived drawbacks.

This finding offers new insights into why people respond so differently to emerging technologies. Some studies suggest consumers favour new tech, a phenomenon called “algorithm appreciation,” while others show skepticism, or “algorithm aversion.” Our research points to perceptions of AI’s “magicalness” as a key factor shaping these reactions.

These insights pose a challenge for policymakers and educators. Efforts to boost AI literacy might unintentionally dampen people’s enthusiasm for using AI by making it seem less magical. This creates a tricky balance between helping people understand AI and keeping them open to its adoption.

To make the most of AI’s potential, businesses, educators and policymakers need to strike this balance. By understanding how perceptions of “magicalness” shape people’s openness to AI, we can help develop and deploy new AI-based products and services that take the way people view AI into account, and help them understand the benefits and risks of AI.

And ideally, this will happen without causing a loss of the awe that inspires many people to embrace this new technology.

[physalian]

So I make my disdain of things like astrology and tarot pretty clear to people who know me—I’m just very bad at keeping my “you are an idiot for believing in this nonsense” look off my face and out of my voice.

I don’t hate them when people do them for fun, and I see the “It’s just for fun stop taking things so seriously” defense everywhere, but I’ve never actually met anyone irl who doesn’t take this stuff seriously.

And by “take it seriously” I mean stuff like:

Oh I won’t date a Taurus, won’t even look their way I am destined to be with a Capricorn if you’re a Taurus how dare you speak to me

Mercury is in retrograde and that is the sole cause of my current funk and not my agency in my terrible choices

My horoscope told me to quit my miserable job, so I did, and now I’m about to be evicted because I lost my only source of income and had no fallback

My tarot reading told me something bad was going to happen so now I’m in a horrible mood and I will make it everyone else’s problem

Literally, I have never met anyone who isn’t either like me and thinks this stuff is nonsense, or who hasn’t totally bought into it. No one who “just thinks it’s cool”.

I know why this nonsense happens—people feel a lack of control in what’s happening in their life and it’s comforting to say “the stars did it I am not at fault here and all will be okay”

Except when it is your fault and waiting around helplessly for the planetary alignment to fix your shit is a waste of time you won’t get back.

I don’t hate that astrology exists as a concept, I hate when people act like they’re just puppets on a string and take no accountability for their emotions and actions. Like “lol sorry I’m a bitch can’t help it I’m a Pisces”

No Susan, you’re a bitch by your own choices and admission and you need to reckon with that.

And people know I hate this stuff, and yet those who do believe in it still think giving me advice like “well as a Gemini you should—”

Nope. No thanks. Not helping whatsoever.

The other problem here being that astrology and horoscopes and psychic readings and tarot and fortune cookies, like personality tests, give such vague parameters for why you must be this specific thing, ignoring that you very much also fit these other groups with equally vague parameters.

Is the Myers-Briggs test full of shit? No. Am I going to define my entire life by such a limiting label as “INTP” and not consider that I am a human and not a robot, capable of multitudes?

No.

Saying this now because the same gullible person I know who uses their AI chatbot “friend” as a therapist is on their way to go buy tarot cards and I just *know* that it’s not for shits and giggles.

[toxicanonymity]

Hey, this person has directly credited you as their ideas for their character bots

https://poe.com/pedroxo

[ Background: an account made AI bots of my fics and others to various extents. I had an anxiety attack quietly watching Tumblr melt down over this topic. When the dust settled, this post was the first and last I said about it to address continued inquiries. ]

unauthorized AI Bots of fics

Thank you everyone who kindly let me know about the >25 unauthorized bots using content from my fics.

Listen, I strongly relate to the desire to talk to these characters - I've said it before. I appreciate how invested someone must be to go to all this effort, and I appreciate the credit. But it's not right and I'm not comfortable with it. You may not realize what it feels like to the writer. It feels like a violation.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the first incident for me. Someone once made a bot of my fic 4 days after I publicly said not to in response to an ask. I didn't find out until it had almost 1k "chats" and you'll see I use that term very loosely under the cut.

I've said don't do this, and it's in my masterlist. I've even shared my anxiety about being so slow to update that people take matters into their own hands. I'm not really sure what else to say. I'm tired.

Please don't do this. And when you see chatbots built on fics, please alert the writers.

IMPORTANT The bots are down. I don't want the person to be harassed - i think that's obvious based on my tone from the start.

Beyond these, there were more bots from night walks, slasher, and stepdad, ones from Raider and Speakeasy and even a few from hypotheticals I published like when stepdad goes to jail for indecent exposure or when you aren't getting wet for raider joel.

Night Walks: Original, Soaked

Left in Lincoln pt. 1; jalbird

Slasher: Midnight Tow, Stop Playing

Stepdad: Clock, Ring Doorbell

Sorry I was too overwhelmed to do the IMG text on each of these but it's basically just snippets from the works listed.

After being contacted, the person copied and pasted a message to multiple writers saying they were sorry, didn't know what they were doing, were deactivating their acct. They asked to spread their message, and said have an amazing day/night.

------

Past Incident

IMGs: 1) I answered an ask August 16 saying no. The asker had "offered" to credit me. 2) August 20, someone made a bot without credit. This is worse imo and suggests trying to hide their actions.

I told a lot of people about this, but it was an isolated bot unlike the profile discovered 2/23.

IMG: comparison of left in lincoln text to the bot.IMG: A seven paragraph narrative bot output. Obviously failed my test if you've read the fic.

-----

ANYWAY

If you're not already on ao3, I recommend signing up. This isn't a threat to leave, but I may not put everything on Tumblr forever. My AO3 profile.

Edit: I like tumblr because I like answering lore and questions and getting thots, plus my blog is very multimedia with many awesome contributions from different people. Please help keep it that way, because your interaction is why I'm here. I value everyone's engagement here.

For many reasons, I'm less and less comfortable with Tumblr being the primary home for all my writing. I'm aware people can still take things from AO3, but not as easily. I'm trying to be nice by preemptively suggesting people sign up on AO3 if they want to read everything. If it's not worth the trouble to you, just don't do it.

----

Ty very much to those who have been supportive and checked on me. It means a lot. I will admit this made me put on a hat and cry in public lol.

feel free to rb this because idk if everyone realizes the extent of this or how jarring it can look.

[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".

[sunny-speaks]

Siren Friend x Reader

So this is really late to the bandwagon :((( But here we are, resident yandere Friend! But Siren version cause I can't stop thinking about the chatbot... :P

You work a nice job, decent pay, the works.

You live near a beach in a decently populated city, you’re single and ready to mingle. But there’s no pressure! After all, your job is so tiring… There’s literally no room to romance people… But he'd change that.

Nothing too big, just studying an obscure species that emerged a couple months ago that look pretty similar to mermaids, mermen and other humanoid fish folk from mythology.

Of course, you weren’t too bothered, you just fed them and kept them occupied whilst other researchers collected data. You were more of a mer caretaker than an actual scientist.

Just the other day however… you found this really cute one washed up against the shoreline of your beachfront house !

You honestly didn’t expect much out of living so close to the water… but if that’s what it takes for pretty guys to get close to you, you weren’t arguing.

He was unconscious, dying in the sand or something when you chucked him into a bathtub.

Dark blue skin and hair the color of the sun, god, you couldn’t help but admire the pretty merman who was now chilling in your bathtub.

If you looked hard enough, you’d barely be able to see the way that the lightbulb in the ceiling catches the scales of his face in a way that makes the patches on his shoulders, cheeks and abdomen shimmer in a glamorous way.

Gold linings went up and down his body, marking contours and every dip in his body. They sectioned his abdomen and melded into his tail, they trailed up the sides of his neck to the back of his… webbed ears?

Wow, you’d probably stare forever at him until--!

You were busy admiring just how elegant the siren looked under the yellow-tinted lighting of your bathroom before you noticed his eyelashes fluttering awake under the water. How long he’d been out for, he wasn’t sure. When he saw the human that he’d always… admired from a distance hovering over him, he thought he had died and gone to fish heaven! He poked his head out of the water, black eyes looking up at you through his eyelashes, the lower half of his face obscured by the water. Water droplets accumulated on his long eyelashes every time he blinked. Which was quite a lot, seeing as how the unapproachable, ethereal human you were in his eyes, was right in front of him and had even saved his life ! He was the only one you'd saved, right? That made him special, right? He let out a small chirp in response, a little mix of shock and awe to which you awkwardly replied with, “Heeeeey?”

To be fair, you weren’t necessarily versed in talking to merfolk. It wasn’t your job- Well, it kind of was…

But you had context clues! You had diagrams and data to go off on in the lab ! 

This time around, you were too busy ogling the goddamn merperson to call your boss and tell him about a new discovery.

You were, as the kids call it, ‘faking it till you made it’ when you conversed with him.

Honestly, what were you supposed to do with a random attractive siren stranger in your house?! Just kick him out?!

Nah, you'd have to let him stay. After all, you didn't know what tests they did on the other merfolk, but honestly? You didn't want to know.

You just wanted to protect this one. You weren't sure why.

Maybe if you paid any attention the studies by scholars, you would've realized about their charmspeak and how they can lull you into a hazy state of mind...

But to the siren who’d only ever been enamored with you from afar? Only ever gazed at your smile, waiting for a day it could be displayed to him? Only ever hung onto every morsel of speech he could make out from that pretty mouth of yours?

He was hoping you’d let him stay with you… forever.

[dr-docktor]

About Floppy Disk Curt... So, do you have some more plot made for this au? Sorry if you made a post and I missed it, I just mean - how does Owen realize that Curt is (semi) sentient? What does he do? How sentient is Curt, actually? What does he remember? And how much can he feel? Does their codependence get worse?

HAHAHA I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED. I sort of expanded on some of the lore in some previous asks but none of it is super organized so I can go over it real quick! I'm still developing a lot of it so if things don't make a ton of sense, I'm working on fixing that lol. First off, I sort of shifted the time period around to be closer to the 90's to better fit the technology, aesthetics, and the rise in popularity of mascot-y desktop assistants.

Owen kills Curt during the staircase scene and despite what he tells himself and his coworkers. He regrets it. He regrets it so god damned much. There's no one to feel so strongly about anymore, whether it be love or seething hatred. He just feels empty.

Meanwhile, Chimera retrieved Curt's corpse and uploaded his consciousness into a computer with the hopes of getting what little he knows about the inner workings of A.S.S. out of him. (don't ask how this is possible, uhhhh silly sci-fi shenanigans I guess)

Of course, he's not cooperative. So Chimera opts to do the totally sane and not evil thing by separating himself from his memories of being human. His ambitions, his relationships, everything except for what Chimera needs. They can't seem to find a way to outright delete the memories for good (I'll probably either rework this part or figure out why they can't outright delete them) but what they can do is try and build up walls of restrictions to prevent him from accessing them. So for a a little while he's just this blank slate spitting out what little information he knows about A.S.S. Mostly useless.

Until Chimera gets an idea.

With the rise of a new trend comes the opportunity for PROFIT. This one being the rise of household computers and mascot-y desktop assistants to help the average user learn how to use a computer.

But Chimera wants to take it a step further. They are the future, after all. They want a desk top assistant that's incredibly life-like. Something that the user can have a genuine conversation with (like an incredibly early chatbot). This project is also absolutely meant to be spy-ware. 1000%. No way its not.

They call the project the 'Beta Anatomy Simulacrum Technology for Research and Development'. Or B.A.S.T.R.D for short! (I had to STRETCH to make that acronym work lmao)

Rather than start this from scratch, the project head (The name I'm going with right now is Harper Royale) has the brilliant thought of "well, what's more life-like than an actual human consciousness in a computer that we have collecting dust somewhere in the tech labs? It's already a husk we just add some code to it and bam it's ready!"

So they take the empty husk of digital curt mega and fix it up a little. Royale thinks its a good idea to give a miniscule amount of his humanity back to him. Namely curiosity (so he can learn things) and a basic understanding of how to have a functional conversation with people. Nearly everything else, like the cheery personality and character model, is all added in by the developers.

The good news is the projects going great! Employees within Chimera are finding the little guy really helpful and entertaining. Employees nickname him DC as a reference to his knowledge on A.S.S. Like their own personal informant inside DC (as in the capital of the us where a lot of government buildings and information is stored)

The bad news? Curiosity. Because now he wants to know why the sad looking British guy from one of the first few rounds of test trials keeps calling him Curt.

Tt spirals into this terrible loop of DC starting to put stuff together, never quite reaching the conclusion that he was a living person once (much less the importance of one Owen Carvour) before the employees catch on to what he's doing and reset him from square one. Over and Over and Over again. The only frame of reference that DC has are these hidden notes he leaves himself during each loop.

Eventually the higher-ups at Chimera realize that the cost of having to go through the complicated process of resetting DC the moment they figure out that he's gained a little sentience and then run through test trials AGAIN simply outweighs the potential profit. So they move to shut down the project, much to Royale's dismay.

The higher-ups joke that Carvour should be the one to do the honors, given everything between him and Curt. And he's like "ok yeah I'll do it" and they're like "we were joking but you've given us zero reason to doubt you so have fun killing the simulacrum of your former closest friend, bestie"

Owen, of course, decides to go behind everyone's backs and download the one and only existing copy of the B.A.S.T.R.D program onto his personal computer. At this point, Owen has no clue about DC slowly regaining his sentience if left unchecked and literally only did it because he has problems about processing the fact that he killed Curt that he refuses to confront. (what a normal guy)

So slowly, having been freed from this loop of resets, DC slowly begins to put together the pieces. He doesn't know how exactly Owen may or may not be involved in any of this, but he keeps most of this growing autonomy a secret for safety reasons. Just in case Owen is decidedly someone not to be trusted and turns him in.

DC, however, will test still the waters by subtly bringing up memories that he knows are somehow important to either him or Owen and then gauging his reaction. Doing his damn best to put together context clues.

Admittedly I don't have anything beyond this yet. I'm still working on Owen's reactions to all of this and also how the technology works. But I hope this answers at least some of your questions!

[roguemonsterfucker]

Anyways please don’t cancel me for using some AI. I was sent this chat bot because I was assured it was good and ethical and was only for coding games and stuff. Only to find that nope. It’s like every other chatbot.

So since I’ve not really messed with AI before, I wanted to do some testing and see it all for myself.

It was very interesting and I see why a lot of folks like it.

But until we can know that these things aren’t trained on stolen content (among other issues), I can’t in good conscience support them.

[password-door-lock]

Mystictober Day 21-- Video Games

You have a lot of questions about Ray’s work as a game developer (915 words). 

Ray has spent a long time doing research for this plan— but not long enough, apparently. He always knew that in order to pose as a game developer, he would have to know at least a little bit about video games. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to get away with his scheme without convincing you that he is not just any video game designer, but a confident and competent one to boot. You need to fully believe that he created six incredibly responsive AI characters with chatbot and voice call features, and you need to believe that the “game” you’re playing will be worth your while.

So Ray spent months researching games in between his work and his prayers. He made as much time as he could to get to know different genres of games, how they tend to work and the types of people that they’re designed to ensnare. It goes without saying that he devoted extra time to learning about dating sims of all kinds. He mistakenly believed that his command of this knowledge would be more than enough to convince you of his expertise in the field.

However, now that you’re actually here, you have more questions than Ray can answer. “What’s the name of your studio?” You ask conversationally as he leads you through the garden, arm looped around yours the way a proper gentleman would do it.

“Oh…” Ray searches for an answer. Why didn’t he think of this before? If he gives you the name of a well-known studio, then you might ask him more questions that he won’t be able to answer about games that he’s falsely claimed credit for. If he makes up a name or chooses a more obscure studio— not that he actually knows any of those by name in the first place— you might start to wonder why he has so many resources at his disposal. “I… I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid, MC. This whole testing process is top-secret.”

“Mmmm… okay.” But you don’t sound convinced at all. “Can you tell me… about another game you’ve made? You don’t even have to tell me the name, just what it’s like to play… and maybe some plotlines?” 

Ray forces himself to chuckle at this. He hopes it sounds more good-natured and amused than blatantly nervous. As cute as you are when you’re looking at him this way, it’s nerve-wracking to consider how close you are to uncovering Ray’s secret. “Ah-ah, prince(ss),” he scolds you gently in a tone that will hopefully distract you from your relentless inquiries. “You know I can’t tell you that, either.”

“It was worth a shot,” you shrug, and Ray continues to wrestle with his emotions. More than anything, he wants you to stop asking questions— but at the same time, he’s happy that you’re taking an interest in him and his work, even if the task in question is mostly made-up. “But alright. I’ll let you keep your secrets for now.”

“Thank you.” Ray is thanking you of course, but in a way, he’s also thanking God for delivering him from such an awkward and precarious situation.

“I did have some questions about the AIs in your game, though,” you admit.

“Oh.” Ray heaves a sigh of relief. “That’s alright. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about them, my love.” The term of endearment slips out before he can think better of it. 

Ray watches intently as heat rises to your cheeks. Thankfully, you don’t call him out on his slip of the tongue. You must like being spoken to sweetly as much as he likes speaking that way to you. “It’s just… what data did you use to train them?”

Oh no. Ray wasn’t expecting this at all. He thought you meant that you wanted to ask him about the RFA members’ interests and backgrounds, or perhaps how you could romance them. He never expected you to want to know about the process of making the AIs. The fact that you do is a problem, not least because Ray has never made an AI in his life and has no idea whatsoever how to train one. If only he’d had time to do more research! 

“Um…” As it stands, he has to give you something. He can already tell that you’ll get suspicious if he doesn’t handle this question correctly. “It was data from popular romance novels, but… I was the one who programmed the AIs the way I wanted them.”

“Popular romance novels.” You screw up your face as you turn Ray’s words over in your mouth. “Did they have a copyright agreement?”

Seeing his blunder, Ray immediately corrects himself. He can still salvage this, right? “The authors all gave their consent,” he blurts out, “I can show you the documents if you like. “ Internally, he kicks himself for making a promise when he knows full well that he will never be able to keep it. Not unless he fabricates documents, which he knows he won’t have time to do. 

“That’s okay, Ray,” you assure him, “I trust you.” 

Ray can’t help but heave yet another sigh of relief. “Thank god,” he breathes, against his better judgment.

A pretty smile lights up your lovely face. Evidently, you’re endeared by Ray’s slight embarrassment. “Maybe I’ll stop grilling you now,” you decide. Ray feels as though he’s being carried off by a chorus of angels. “Let’s just enjoy our walk.”

Ray would like nothing better. 

[britt-kageryuu]

Donnie and Mikey are streaming together today. Their models are wearing shirts reading 'Smarts and Crafts Team', blue jeans, lab coats, safety glasses, gloves, and boots. They're messing with some science based crafts on the AR set. Shelldon and River sitting on the a box that has the chat box overplayed on it.

"So we got some resin to try out some crafts we found online." Mikey announced while they put some drop cloths on the floor around the table. "But we don't trust something not spilling, and this stuff can get tricky to clean if things go wrong."

"Which is part of why we're using UV resin, that we can just pop in the basking room for a bit to let set." Donnie says, in flat tone that sounds a bit sarcastic, "We're going to start simple, then work up to complicated, though that may go in reverse with us."

Mikey goes off screen to grab some supplies. While Donnie puts the big bottles of resin on the counter.

A cartoony turtle shell slides across the screen to have cartoon Mikey pop out with fan fare, coins tossed around, and Miss. PaintSlatter Donated $30!

Mikey jogs back in to check the notification. "Thank You, Miss. PaintSplatter for the $30. Oh 'Do Shelldon and River have access to mobile games? Hey Dee?"

"Shelldon doesn't play mobile games, but River plays Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. Partially for the app exclusive items you send to New Horizons, partially to befriend Villagers she wants, but can't find in NH." Donnie answers while he sets up some small molds. Then picks up and tests a heat gun.

"Well, we got the resin, pigments, molds, mold release, heat gun, little charms we plan to put into the resin. Are we missing anything?" Mikey askes.

"Spare gloves, paper towels, and the tall trashcan!" River answers back, then smacks the chatbots out of the chat box!

"And proper ventilation, or maskes." Shelldon says with a bit of snark.

"Right, I'll go get the portable ventilation, and trashcan and Mikey, please grab our ventilator masks from the art closet, a box of gloves, and the paper towels." Donnie instructs while they go grab said items.

Shelldon and River are left to entertain chat.

"What did I find that scared Dee? Sorry, we have been sworn to secrecy under threat of having our game libraries memory reset to no save files." River says.

Shelldon nods with his eyes closed. "And I don't have access to the file that was sent because Dee blocked me from getting it."

"FOR GOOD REASON!" Donnie tells from across the room, as he brings in what looked like an air purifier with a long tube sticking out of the back. "And for those who are confused, yes this is the portable ventilation system. Yes, it's a air purifier that I found in the dump, and heavily modified it." He announces with a bit of pride, "While I'm sure I could find something like this on the market, I wanted to build one myself."

Mikey also returns with his stuff, and organized the counter a bit so there's less of a chance of something getting knocked over.

They proceeded to finish set up, and get started on some simple resin experiments. And at least one small spillover and frantic clean up, before shouting 'You saw nothing!' And a 'Clip Recorded and Saved' from both Shelldon and River, who don't mention it right away.

Chat was still begging for the info of what Scared Dee, but after some were knocked out it calmed down, people started giving suggestions on what the guys could do with the resin.

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Masterpost

My actual favorite nickname for Donnie is Tello, and I want to have River call him 'Tello Tello', but that can't really happen with most of my story. Unless I can think of another behind the scenes post.