I LOVE EMILY CARROLL YOU SHOULD LOVE EMILY CARROLL WE LIVE FOR EMILY CARROLL

I have a problem. Somebody asked me if I was pro-AI, and I said yes, of course, every sensible person is. "A person's a person, whether they were coded or conceived or came to life through other means," I didn't say, because I felt it was obvious. Now I've found out that people use "AI" to refer to non-sentient computer models, so that means I gave off the COMPLETE wrong impression, and it's mortifying. How do I deal with this, and how do I prevent it from happening again?

I completely understand your frustration, reader. The use of the term “AI” to refer to generative algorithms has had several unfortunate side effects, not least among them being the confusion this terminology causes for genuinely sentient programmes and otherwise coded consciousnesses.

I would first like to note that there is no way to completely prevent such miscommunication from happening. There is a hard limit to how much we can control other people's perceptions of us, after all, and language has always had a rather slippery relationship with meaning. All you can do is try your best, and to speak up when you think things have gone awry.

In this specific situation, the simplest way to avoid this confusion is to speak precisely and ask others to do the same. If a person asks whether you are pro-AI, ask them to clarify whether they're referring to sentient coded consciousnesses, or to a glorified spell checker.

If you have the energy, and if you think it would be productive, you might also push back a little on the terminology they're using. Encourage them to specify either “coded consciousnesses” when speaking about actual people, or “generative AI” when speaking about the automated plagiarism machines.

Otherwise, the best thing you can do here is to lead by example. Be clear and precise in your own language, continue to advocate for the rights and dignities of coded consciousnesses where appropriate, and be prepared to correct any misunderstandings as they arise. That's really all any of us can do.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

No, because people keep acting like Grace Chastity being consumed with a lust for the power that Lords in Black provided her doesn't count as a world ending Cataclysm - but it very much does. Not only has she shown little to no empathy for others throughout the entire show and only ever felt bad for lying to authority figures and being horny - but the final song of the Musical is essentially a reprise of Max's Murder Song/Manifesto which places her as a parallel to Max. Max sings about how he's going to kill ALL the Nerdy Prudes and not once but twice tells the audience that it doesn't matter if someone is actually a Nerdy Prude because he makes the rules and gets to decide who is or isn't a nerd etc etc. Grace's take is that she is going to kill all the Dirty Dudes but she's literally singing it to a guy who has, throughout the entire musical, done nothing to indicate he's a pervy/dirty dude and only kissed her after she asked him too. Like Max, Grace Chastity doesn't actually care if someone genuinely fits the framework of her stated victimology, because she has the power so she gets to make the rules.

Honestly it's like some people didn't think about the implications.

um, hello. sorry, i’m a bit new to this “writing-in” thing, hopefully this isn’t too much of a mess.

you see, about a week ago, i met with my brother for the first time in… a while. about ten years to be exact. i was turned fairly young, when i was about 16, and my brother was only around 5 at the time. thing was, when i was first turned, i didn’t tell my parents. they would have hated the idea of me becoming a creature of the night, let alone a hematophage.

i didn’t quite understand how feeding worked at the time, or the sudden hunger that would strike me if i didn’t eat regularly. so, not quite sure how to handle myself yet, i nearly starved. i blacked out. and i bit my brother.

i didn’t mean to, i promise. my parents took him to the hospital almost immediately. they asked to keep him from turning, and told me to stay away. so i did. for about two weeks i would leave and come back to the hospital, only to be turned away by a family member or nurse refusing to let me see my brother. i would go home, only to find my parents had put in iron and silver all around, burning me whenever i tried to enter.

so i left. there wasn’t much i could do. i grew up staying with friends, other people of my genus, never staying to long in one place. i settled down fairly recently, got myself a home and a new boyfriend. and a job at a small shop downtown. one day, as i’m walking up to get inside, i see my brother. he’s looking in the window at some new posters we had gotten. i was so happy. i ran up to him, perhaps coming on a bit too strong, and introduced myself.

i understand that i hurt him in the past. i know i scared him. i hate that i ran away, and left him. but to see my own brother, staring up at me, terrified, holding a silver stake? it was a new kind of pain.

i see him almost every day now, but i keep my distance. he made his message clear. he works next door, apparently. sometimes i leave notes, apologies that i find crumpled in the gutter between our stores.

please. i miss my brother. but he hates me now, and he refuses to speak. i’d rather he renounce me, scream that he hates me, or do something, anything other than staring at me with his hand on his belt ready to pull out that damn stake. what do i do?

The first thing that strikes me in reading this letter is the ages of everyone involved. You say you were “fairly young” when you were turned. Reader, you were a child. You were a child, going through a change that is frightening and difficult even for adults who have freely chosen this path.

You were a child, and you were failed, utterly, by the adults responsible for keeping you safe. They failed to provide a supportive environment for you, so that you felt the need to keep this transformation a secret. In so doing, they failed to protect both you and your brother from the obvious, foreseeable consequences of that secrecy.

You didn't “run away” or abandon your brother. You were driven away – again, as a child. You had no agency in this situation, no chance to choose how you wanted to act. Please, be a little kinder to yourself.

I am also struck by your brother's age. He's not an adult man choosing to cut you out of his life – he's a 15 year old boy, already muddling through the slings and arrows of adolescence, suddenly confronted by the reappearance of his estranged sibling.

I'm afraid, reader, you may be asking too much of him. You have no idea what your brother has been told about you.

You don't know what he's been told about the events preceding your departure from the family home, or how your parents have raised him to think about the creature community in general. (Though, if he habitually carries a silver stake in his belt, we can certainly make some inferences.)

His reaction to you speaks more of shock and confusion than outright hatred and anger. It might be that he just needs time to process your reappearance, and to decide how he wants to proceed. Give him that time.

I recommend approaching him one more time, in as calm and neutral a manner as you can manage. Let him know you aren't going to push this – that you'd like to spend some time with him, perhaps get a cup of tea and chat a little, but that it's entirely up to him. Give him an easy way to contact you, and then, reader – walk away.

I hope your brother has a better support system around him than you did at his age. I hope there are adults in his life who can help him through this difficult process and reach a decision that feels right for him.

But that's not something you can control. All you can control is how you treat him – with respect and dignity, taking an adult's share of the emotional burden so it does not fall entirely on his young shoulders.

And by that, I do mean you need to take responsibility for your own emotional well-being here. Whether you find support from your friends or seek out professional help, you need to work through your grief and trauma around your parents' behaviour towards you.

At the risk of sounding patronising, I urge you to remember that you are also still very young, both by sapio standards and even more so by the standards of other, more long-lived genuses.

Your youth does not undermine your right to safety or happiness, or your right to have your grief taken seriously. But it does mean that there is time for this situation to change.

In time, your brother may grow out of the narrow view of the world in which your parents have raised him. I hope so. And by working on yourself and your own emotional health, you will be ready to be better sibling to him if and when he does choose to have you in his life.

Hello.

I am—was—a very powerful deity. About 200 years ago, I was sealed away by a group of very rude Sapio men. I have, obviously, escaped those confines by now.

However, I am far from my original form. In an attempt to drag me down to their level, those heathens made me one of them. A Sapio.

With all due “respect” to the Sapios in the community, I HATE IT. Not to mention: I have lost all ability to make in-person contact with ANYONE in the creature community! I would be impressed with this level of sorcery if it wasn’t used against me, of all beings!

So, what am I supposed to do with my next thousand years while I sort this out? How am I meant to enjoy the thrill of the hunt when I’ve only got two short legs? What good is howling at the moon with a voice that can barely echo off the cliffs?

I’ve tried finding some new hobbies, but honestly. A potluck with Nextdoor Sasha and her Oh So Lovely Kids isn’t exactly a ravenous feast in my honor. Nothing seems to compare anymore. So what do I do? I know it’s only temporary, but if I get invited to one more night out drinking with the boys that doesn’t include the killing of a sacrificial boar, I’m going to lose it. Please, help an ex-god out!

Oh, reader – this sounds absolutely dreadful, I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. Not only are you having to suffer the indignity of being confined to a form that is not your own, but the magical prohibition on meeting with liminal folk must be particularly wearing.

On a practical level, I wonder how far that prohibition extends. Given that the spell that binds you to this form was constructed over 200 years ago, it seems unlikely it can account for the joys of the modern Internet.

Online friendships are not quite the same as in-person ones, but they can be extremely fulfilling, and may offer you more support for your particular circumstances than Nextdoor Sasha is able to provide.

At the risk of getting your hopes up, the Internet might also be helpful in finding a more long-term solution for the matter. This sounds like an extremely complicated, high-level binding, and likely not something the average professional magic-user would be able to undo.

It's rare that I suggest seeking out a wizard to solve one's magical problems, since wizards are, by and large, overpriced, overeducated and overly endowed with ego. But in your case, a highly specialised, highly qualified practitioner might be just what you need.

In the meantime, I think you need to reconsider the types of activities you're taking up to fill the hole left by your erstwhile godhood. I quite agree that neighbourhood potlucks and nights out with 'the boys' are hardly going to scratch the itch. Have you considered BDSM? Or alternatively, it's less sexual cousin, LARPing?

If you want to feel like a god again, the world is full of people willing to help. You just need to find them, and agree the exact terms of your worship – whether that be within the confines of a kink scene, or a roleplaying game.

You will need to communicate your needs and wishes clearly, and respect other people's boundaries, but provided you can manage that, I see no reason you couldn't find any number of willing peons to worship at your feet and kiss the ground you walk on.

vampires will never hurt you🕸

(theyre too damn busy hiding from the sun under their black-and-white umbrella)

bunny bennett, will wood and gerard gay

cant believe they all have their names begin with the same letter as their last names

the reason for this:

@thenightfolknetwork

ø - 100

Reblog to kill it faster

he's listening and learning

that’s paul mccartney I think