Oooh Mark Is Doing Cryptic Stuff!!

And then there’s me:

She looked like sunlight on the water, warm and cold at the same time, eyes like whiskey and hair like ice, a too-soft cardigan over a Metallica t-shirt and ink all over her fingers when she reached for the book in my hand. When she spoke, it was like listening to the ice crack under your feet as you slip through to the freezing depths, or the first chord in a rock song shredded out on the steel strings of an electric guitar.

“Please let go of my book. You’re gonna rip it.”

Are you a “can’t write dialogue” writer or a “can’t describe anything” writer

On Today’s Unus Annus Video!

So today Unus Annus tackled the idea of artificial intelligence, and I got really excited and wrote a text wall comment that’s undoubtably going to get buried there, so I thought I’d post it here for anyone who’s interested! Posting it under a cut because HOOO BOY it’s a long one.

tl;dr AI is super cool and scary and much closer to being a thing than we think it is. Signed, a nerd who did way too much research for her scifi book.

Hi! I actually did a TON of research into the mechanics and ethics of AI when I was writing my first novel in 2018.  Be prepped for a text wall dump of cool AI info!

So you're actually hitting on one of the biggest conundrums of artificial intelligence technology, which is, to quote the wiki, "If an AI system replicates all key aspects of human intelligence, will that system be sentient"? At that point, there is significant debate over who would own the rights to the system, or whether there would be a way to determine that at all. This point in history, where it becomes impossible to distinguish between an AI and a human being (AKA, the first machine to pass the Turing test) and in fact, the AI surpasses human intelligence, is referred to as the singularity (Originally coined by Scifi writer Vernor Vinge). The majority of the debate comes from what to do in the event of the singularity, which is taken by many to be a when not an if. Do we trust that the machines we make will trust us? Or do we stop them before they get that far because they might consider us a threat to their existence and wipe us out instead?

Lots of Scifi writers have tackled this idea in their works (including me!), but one of the most famous solutions is the one proposed by Isaac Asimov in his short story "Runaround", which was published in 1942 (this story later became part of I, Robot, which is where you've probably heard the rules before). Asimov instituted in his fictional robot-filled society three basic rules:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Asimov's laws have been a huge part of the discussion around real scientific research into the capabilities of programming and machine learning because people see them as a way to safeguard advances that we make. But they also present the problem of not seeing robots as equal to humans, which could cause serious stress in sentient robots.

An interesting dive into this is Sophia, the world's "first robot citizen" from Hanson Robotics. Sophia isn't truly sentient, but she's the closest thing we have right now, being able to learn and react on her own without constant input from her research and development team. She can even make facial expressions that mimic real emotional responses! The trick with Sophia is that she recognizes that she isn't a human, and is, in fact, an experiment. She is designed to be okay with this and has even expressed excitement about it (which, like, amazing, a robot that can express excitement?!). If she were to ever say that she does not wish to do an interview that her team wants to do though, would she have the right to say no? What if she asked for her image to be taken down from a certain site? If she, herself, decided she no longer wanted to make public appearances? Would she have the right to do that, and would it be morally problematic to reprogram her to consent? Where does she cross the line from simulated sentience into real, self-contained sentience?

It's the same problem you talked about with owning your own image. If we as people don't know where we stand on that, what can we say about the machines we create and their ownership of themselves? No one has steady answers. It's all very interesting, and legitimately concerning, but also fascinating. I'm excited to see what happens next...if also a little worried.

Sources for above text wall: - Sophia's page on Hanson Robotics' website: https://www.hansonrobotics.com/sophia/ - The Wikipedia for artificial intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence - Asimov's "Runaround": http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44191 - Vernor Vinge's work on the singularity: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940022856

I wanna get back into writing some fanfic. Share some inspiration with me, please? What’s your favorite fic or edit or vid for your fandom?

Coffee and a Chat. (Ninth Doctor Imagine)

Pairing: None, Nine/Rose if you squint real hard

Rating: G

It was raining. Again.

Though, of course, this was London, so it wasn't like you'd expected today to be sunny. But all the same, it was a dreary, grey, rainy September day.

And it was your birthday. A horrid one, at that.

You sighed and leaned back in your chair, putting a hand under your chin and moodily sipping your coffee, brooding on the day's events. First, you'd woken up twenty minutes late for school, then, when you got there, not one person had remembered your birthday at all. Then your favorite book had been stolen from your bag, only for you to find it later, food-stained and ruined, in the school cafeteria. After school, when you were supposed to be meeting your friends to go out to celebrate, you'd been stood up.

And now it was raining. Great.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

You blinked and looked away from the window, up at the owner of the voice. A tall man with close cropped hair (and rather large ears, though you'd never say) smiled down at you and plopped himself into the seat across the table. You smiled back politely.

"If you like rain, I suppose." You turned your head back to the window, hoping he would leave.

"I like it myself, but I s'pose some don't. Don't understand why. Rain's so refreshing! It clears up all the dust and the smog and the car fumes and things, and it sounds pleasant, and it's fun to run in if you do it right." Clearly not. You refrained from sighing again, and instead raised an eyebrow and turned to look at the stranger in more detail.

He looked older, but not old. Mature, perhaps. As if you couldn't put an age on him at all. He wore boots, dark jeans and a dark green jumper, over which he had on a well-worn leather jacket. Overall, he looked as if he could be a workman of some description, or perhaps a traveler. Based on his way of talking, you assumed he was from somewhere in the North of England, and that it wasn't the first time he'd sat down to chat with a stranger, and that he saw nothing at all wrong with it. But he didn't seem dangerous, and actually the way he described the rain made it sound a bit fun. So you decided not to boot him from his seat immediately.

You put your coffee back on the table. "Well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound nearly as bad."

"Oh, there's always a way of makin' things not sound so bad," he smiled, resting his elbows on the table. You mirrored him.

"What's your name?"

"(Y/N)."

He nodded approvingly. "'S a good name, I like it." You laughed a little.

"Thanks, I've had it since I was born." That made him chuckle.

"And what's yours?"

"I'm the Doctor." You blinked.

"The Doctor?"

"Yeah."

"That's your name."

"Yeah. Problem?" He said, amused, as if he'd had the same problem a thousand times.

You laughed. "Yeah, problem is that's not a name."

"It's what people call me!"

"But no one just calls people 'Doctor'!" you insisted with a grin, "People call each other by their titles and their names!"

"Your people do, but not everyone does."

That caught you off guard. "What d'you mean, 'your people'?"

He seemed to catch himself in a mistake. "I mean, you lot."

"Right, yeah, that clears it up." He shook his head happily.

"I just mean that other places, it's fine when I call myself that. No one asks any questions, they just call me as I tell them."

"Well," you picked up your drink again, "for normal people, there're titles and names together. So, Doctor who?" You toasted your drink mockingly and took a sip from the cooling coffee.

For some reason, "the Doctor's" smile brightened and he chuckled to himself.

"What did I say that was so funny?"

"Nothin', nothin'. It's just I get asked that a lot." He tilted his chin up, thinking. "You ever think, if someone made a book or a movie or sommit about you, what they'd call it? I reckon they'd call mine 'Doctor Who'."

"I don't know that anyone would be interested enough in my boring old life to make a movie."

The throwaway comment made the Doctor blink and frown a little. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I'm nothing special, is all." He shook his head and leaned forward a little.

"(Y/N), just your existing makes you special. Think of all the coincidences that led to you being here, today, right now. One atom had to hit another just right to cause a huge explosion. One rock had to get just big enough and be just far enough from this sun to support a few little puny shrubs and some fish, that had to survive long enough to evolve into apes, that had to get smart enough and lucky enough to evolve into people. And two of those people fought the odds of meeting each other, a one in a few billion chance, to come together and cause you to live on a little soggy island and sit here today chatting to me. You're made of stardust and happy chance, and if that doesn't make you special, then I dunno what does."

Before you could really even process what he just said, and close your gaping mouth, the bell over the cafe door tinkled, and the Doctor looked up to smile at someone. You glanced over your shoulder to see a pretty blonde girl motioning to him to come with her, apparently a bit panicked.

You turned back to see him standing, and blurted, "D'you have to go, Doctor?" You really didn't want him to. For some reason, it felt like you'd be saying goodbye to a good friend.

He smiled again and stuffed his hands in the pockets of that worn leather jacket. "Oh, I never stay in one place too long, (Y/N). And apparently," he nodded to the door with an amused smirk, "it's a bit urgent." He walked up beside you and put a hand on your shoulder. You put your hand over his.

"Do you do this all the time?"

"Have coffee with strangers?"

"No," you smiled, your voice oddly a little choked, "say amazing things to strangers and then just leave."

"Oh, that. Yeah. Yeah, I do." He winked and pulled a package, which looked much too big to fit, from his pocket and set it on the table beside you. "Happy Birthday, by the way, (Y/N)."

And with that, he was gone. You watched him meet up with the girl and walk down the street with her, your eyes not leaving him until they lost him around a corner.

An odd sound echoed through the street, and you frowned. Somehow, you knew it had to do with him. You picked up the package and opened it carefully.

It was a copy of your favorite book, first edition, autographed, and with a tiny note inside that only read, in cramped quick handwriting, "Hell of a time finding this and getting it sighed, you know. See you someday."

But No One Came.

A/N: Guess who got into Undertale? And of course the first thing I write about it is an angsty Sans piece. So! This takes place in the early part of a genocide run. Enjoy!

"undyne...we've got a problem." Sans frowned a bit as he spoke into the phone. He stared up into the trees as he told her about the human...or what looked like one. Because, clearly that thing wasn't human. It wasn't a monster, either, though, which was the unsettling part. It was...nothing. Empty. It sent a shiver down his spine when he'd first seen it. But the woman behind the door had called it human, so he'd supposed... But then they were so cold, and silent. The look in their eyes... "yeah...yeah, we'll try. don't worry about paps," he half smiled, the looming purple door appearing at the end of the path, "I'll make sure he's not in the way of the fight. he's busy setting up a puzzle before waterfall, and they'll never get that far." He nodded. "yeah, you watch yourself too, 'dyne. i'll see ya when i see ya." He hung up and glanced up at the door. He could really use some cheering up...a joke or two never hurt anyone, and he could warn the old girl to take care of herself. He knocked a couple of times on the door. Nothing. Sans frowned again. That...never happened. She was always here. Maybe she'd gone to do something? He knocked again, harder this time. Again, there was no response. "lady? you there?" Nothing. Something felt heavy behind his ribs. Something was wrong. It was then that he spotted a track in the snow. It looked as if the snow had been pushed aside by the door opening...but...it was always locked. He'd tried again and again, but... He tried it now...the handle turned. The door was heavy, but he could move it. This didn't feel right.

"hello?" It was dark in here...silent. He walked for a long time, down a hall that looked darker and darker with every step, until he came to a doorway to a small room, with nothing in it but a patch of dying grass. The door on the other side was still open. He took a few cautious steps closer. It smelled a bit like...butterscotch? Or maybe cinnamon. The feeling he’d had when the door opened was getting worse with every step he took. "lady?" But then he saw something that made his bones go cold. A pile of dust lay in the middle of the room, with a footprint in the center of it. That thing... Was in Snowdin. Was heading for his brother.

He was running before he knew what he was doing. He passed through a doorway and suddenly he wasn't in the dark place anymore, but in Snowdin. "PAPYRUS!" There was no one around. No one, not a single monster. Even Monster Kid, the stupid child that he was, had finally wandered away. It was too quiet in his town, except for the unusually loud and frantic echo of his own voice. He didn’t know if he’d ever yelled like this, ever had every fiber of his being on as high alert as it was now. "DAMMIT, PAPS, WHERE ARE YOU?! ANSWER ME! PAPYRUS!" He wrenched open their front door and raced up the stairs, shoving Papyrus' door aside with a BANG. But he wasn't there. No, no, no, no, no... He turned and ran out the door, but instead of appearing on the landing, he was running down the path out of town. Papyrus had been working on something near Waterfall. Maybe he'd taken refuge. Maybe he'd found Undyne. Maybe...maybe... He skidded to a stop.

A red scarf had been kicked to the side of the road. There was scattered piles and smears of dust, not even enough for a proper burial. For a long moment he couldn't move. He couldn't make a sound. It couldn't be real, there was no way, he couldn't be...he wasn't...he wasn't... He was screaming, and there was beam after beam of power and light bombarding the ground, the trees, the sky, the rocky walls of the Waterfall entrance. The ground was shaking and he was screaming and everything was on fire. He came to his sense after a while, and the screaming cut out suddenly, turning into heavy breathing. And the heavy breathing became sobbing as he crumpled to the ground, clutching the scarf. He stopped himself eventually. Stood slowly. Shakily stuffed the scarf into one of his pockets, resting his hand on top of it. He stared around him at the carnage he'd wrought. Stupid, goody-two-shoes, stickler-for-the-rules, spaghetti-loving, pun-hating...wonderful Papyrus. The poor guy had tried to make friends with even this thing. He probably hadn’t even put up a fight at all. He’d probably spent his last breath believing that he could change them, make them good again... No. No more of that. There was only one thing in the world that was worth his energy now. No more breaks. It was time to end this.

The Colonel’s Full Name

Abe calls him “William J. Barnum” when he stabs the picture, and the chalkboard has “William Jackson B” written on it.

Therefore, the Colonel’s full name is William Jackson Barnum.

Just in case you wanted to know

Thoughts about the WAIA

Honestly I would love to do more theorizing surrounding the WAIA but there’s not a lot of theorizing to do. 

It’s pretty out in the open. I don’t think the FNAF connection is super lore-steeped; I think it’s just Mark poking fun at his King of FNAF status. What I do think is lore-steeped is the WAIA’s responses, which are super on-the-nose but not in an overbearing way. This is direct storytelling done right, and I think that Mark is extremely talented to be able to pull it off.

HUGE SPOILER WARNING FOR THE REST OF THIS POST.

In the “He said...potato salad?” video, the WAIA says:

“A man goes to a party. This man met an old friend. The two friends share some wine. The two friends played a game. The most dangerous game. I didn’t know the gun was loaded. I didn’t know. 

Was it my fault? Was it?”

This got me so hard the first time I played through, and I picked “No.” I picked “No” because in my mind, Wil is not at fault for Actor Mark’s crimes. Wil is the victim of cruel manipulation and the entity in the House; he didn’t make a decision to kill Actor Mark. He wanted so badly to reconcile that he was willing to play “the most dangerous game” to get him back. And when it all went wrong, he couldn’t bear it.

What got me more than anything was the dialogue in “No.” : 

“You can’t change the past. You can tell all the stories you want to tell; it won’t change what happened. You can’t rewrite the past; if you live in fantasy forever, you’ll lose yourself in the story.”

This just about made me cry, and when Wilf’s voiceover mentions that “he’s a perfect scan of my noggin,” it made it worse. 

This is Wil’s thoughts untethered from the influence of the House and the breaks in time and space he continues to experience. This is Wil, as close to sane as he can get, and he’s just...accepting. 

He knows he can’t change anything, and that becoming Wilford Warfstache, telling Wilford Warfstache’s story instead of his own, can’t fix it and instead means he’s slowly losing William Barnum. 

Or maybe that he’s already lost him.

I like to think that sometimes dark will get these twangs of guilt or regret and he can never work out why, but there’s a reason he’s never got rid of that cracked mirror in his office. Or maybe he is just as broken as Wilford except wilfords response to being torn apart was to just spiral into it while dark tried to fight back and regain agency over himself? Like that’s why he’s so determined to get revenge, he’s just as hurt by wkm as wilf, he’s just dealing with it differently

I think Dark retains all the memories of WKM, and all of Damien’s memories, but the person/people that he was are forever changed (but maybe not completely gone), and that the dark entity that powers him led him to a different kind of insanity, one that’s hyper-focused and obsessive rather than sporadic and hyperactive and stereotypically “mad”.

The crew of a crashing spaceship. No one speaks but the captain, who tells them all how well they’ve done, how proud she is, and thanks them for their service. All eyes close together as the screen fades to white.

The last survivor in an empty world lies on his deathbed, an android holding his hand because no one else can. Pictures of his family line the room, and he can’t wait to join them.

A little girl adrift at sea, on the remains of a dingy from a sunken navy ship. It was take your daughter to work day before everything went wrong. She clutches a small bear to her chest and hums to it.

Panning shots of graves, up to the latest funeral. A small gathering around an unmarked grave. Someone remarks that it’s a shame that he should save the entire human race, and yet no one knows his name.

An empty woods. A deer strolls into the scene, and begins to graze on the grass growing from what might once have been a front porch step. Slow, scrolling shots of a house gone back to nature. A note scrawled on yellow paper. “We kept them out as long as we could. I love you.” There are red and black splatters curling the corner of it.

Radioactive (Music Box Version) - Imagine Dragons

by JoshuaSaundersMusic

‘I SAW YOU DIE' 

‘two men go to a party, they both share some wine, and they played a game. The most dangerous game. I didn’t know that gun was loaded, I didn’t know. Was it my fault?’

‘you can’t change the past, you can tell all the stories you want to tell, it won’t change what happened. You can’t rewrite the past. If you live in fantasy forever, you’ll lose yourself in the story.’