OT3(affectionate)

fic rec fic rec!

Have you read this funny, sweet and hot fic by @honestground ?

you should!

By the time Rumi wakes up the next morning, the number of orgasms she’s had in her lifetime has climbed from zero to six. 

At least she thinks it’s six. Things got a bit hazy there towards the end. Rumi has a vague recollection of Mira casually asking Oh, you want to taste yourself? and putting her fingers in Rumi’s mouth and her body had just... reacted in a way she didn’t know was even possible. So. Maybe six and a half? A good result for a couple of hours, in any case. At least she thinks so. Rumi really has no frame of reference for any of this.

“Good morning,” Mira says. 

I am, however, a glacially paced writer, and while progress is good, it is excruciatingly slow going and will be several months before it's ready to start posting. Obviously while doing that I had to commission the incredible @art-the-f-up to draw the moonflower scene

In the meantime, I offer this snippet of the above scene:

I grew up in a conservative family and a conservative town, and like most conservative kids, had been told that colleges were hotbeds of liberalism, so I was already defensive politically when I started college. My first semester or two I was really skeptical of everything political that my professors presented me with.

And then I took a women’s studies course (required at my college). And on the first day, the professor said, 

“You don’t have to be a feminist. There are days when I’m not a feminist. But we’re going to discuss feminist ideas in this class, and you might find that you agree with some of them and disagree with others, and that’s fine.”

And that took the pressure off. By telling me that I didn’t HAVE to be a feminist, that I didn’t HAVE to agree, that professor started me on the road to becoming a feminist. I particularly remember her giving us information about what a huge percentage of the housework was still done by women, even in [hetero] couples where both the man and woman worked outside the home. And after that I remember saying, “I’m not a feminist, but I can see where they’re coming from.” 

Within 5 years, I was claiming the term and coming out to my mom as a feminist.

So when I taught college writing, I assigned politically liberal essays to my students, many of whom came from conservative backgrounds. And before they read the first one, I would say,

“The reading for the next class–I want you to know that you don’t have to agree with it. You don’t have to agree with anything that your professors teach you in college. But the point of a college education is to have your mind opened to other points of view. So you’re not required to agree, but you are required to approach the reading with an open mind. You might find that you agree with some things the author says and disagree with others. And that’s cool! We WANT you to use your critical thinking and decide for yourself what you think about things! But to do that, you need to give people the benefit of the doubt and be open-minded to what they have to say.”

And I have to say, it worked really well for me! I remember in particular that after I assigned the essay “Black Men and Public Space”, one of my students wrote in her reading reflection,

“I was taught in school that racism in America ended with Martin Luther King. I am appalled to discover that this is not true.”

I just knocked out 8.5k words in one single day for a chapter update because of one reader leaving one of the most absurdly endearing comments I’ve ever gotten. That is unheard of levels of productivity for me.

However, I do think this case is great example of what happens when smart people decide they can use these systems “responsibly.”

Let’s put aside the plagiarism and the energy use for a second (not that these don’t matter, but they’re not relevant to my point at the moment) and pretend these systems were made with entirely properly obtained info and ran on only solar, but otherwise were entirely the same. If you’re a person, you might think “okay, I’m going to only use this to come up with ideas for my next paper: I’m going to do all the research myself and the writing, I’m just gonna brainstorm topics.”

The thing is, even if you’re trying to limit use to just “brainstorming” the chatbot isn’t going to limit itself to just brainstorming. You might ask it “what should I write about involving Greek history” and it may suggest “the plague of Athens” but it’s also going to suggest some “basic info” on the plague of Athens that you might end up picking up and deciding your topic is. It’s going to provide you with “research.” And even if you decide to check that research yourself, that’s still setting you down a specific path you might not have picked organically.

And speaking of double checking its “research”, fact checking is a time heavy process. Not only now do you have to read the original text the bot provided, but you also have to compare it line by line with the summary the bot provided. That’s more time than it would have taken to just read the article by itself. And with any time heavy task, people are going to get lazy. And in original research being lazy might mean skimming a paper or an abstract, chatbots allow you to be lazy without looking at the article at all.

And soon enough, despite telling yourself you were only going to use it for brainstorming, you have offloaded topic generation, research and eventually even drafting because that’s what these bots are intended to do. They are not meant to serve as research tools or help brainstorm or serve as a bouncing off board: they are built to encourage maximum engagement. And that means if you go at them with the best of ethical intentions, they are built to tempt you to use them as much as possible, regardless of whatever line you drew in the sand for yourself.

Obvs, Hank’s situation is not the same as the scenario I laid out but I think the snippet above gets back to my main point which is these tools are built to encourage interaction and that’s a hard thing to avoid, regardless of intentions.

Some other notes:

1. As stated, I don’t bring this up to add to a pile on, just to use this as an example of something I’ve seen happen with folks trying to engage in this tech with an ethical framework. This is because-

2. Frankly, I think shame is a shit motivator. I bring all this up to try to draw attention to something I find under discussed which is what these LLMS are meant to do, and what they are advertised for which are often very separate lists. (I didn’t even get into how they’re meant to train off user data but that’s another can of worms). If you want to discourage AI use, it’s a far better strategy to listen to why the person is engaging with AI and then address that reason.

3. I don’t want to come off as someone trying to scare folks that they’ll get addicted just by touching the stuff: my point is merely that is it critical to know what something is made for before engaging with it. This actually goes for a lot of tech besides AI like Google or social media (which are also designed to 1. Capture your attention and 2. Show you advertisements). AI isn’t a special kind of evil in this way, merely a continuation of a tech trend where a product is sold to a consumer with the goal of the time of the consumer becoming the source of revenue.

this one is tricky because i'm in a few of the creative spaces so i think what i think of as lesser known and what's lesser known in terms of like... the wider fandom? might not line up, so i'm gonna go based off hits

bite risk by @polytrixaf [T] [Polytrix] [Complete]

After a rabies exposure, the virus must travel to the brain before it can cause symptoms. Therefore, the incubation period may last for weeks to months depending on several factors such as location of the exposure site (in relation to the brain) and age; in extremely rare cases it could be dormant for years. Rumi thinks about this one frequently, lying in bed at night; the idea that you could be wasting away at any moment in your life. A poison in your veins with you none the wiser– like a ticking bomb just waiting to go off. You would need to get bit or scratched first, of course, and if you took the right precautions you would likely never know. And Rumi has never been bitten anyway. She’s fine. Absently, she scratches at her shoulder– skin tight. also known affectionately as the “rabies rumi” fic. i promise she doesn’t actually get rabies.

rabies Rumi! an incredible character study into Rumi's view of herself. i'm sure from the summary you can see where this is going, and it's done masterfully. it's a perfect comparison, and the pay off is extremely satisfying.

you know i love giving Rumi some kind of obsessive disorder and this has that vibe in spades.

let down and hanging around (crushed like a bug on the ground) by @rumifridgetooth [T] [Polytrix] [Complete]

“I’m sorry,” Zoey cut in meekly. “I’m just trying to understand—” Rumi whirled to face her, and she flinched back. “I’ve explained this to you before. We have insects that are pests and we have insects that are beneficial. If we let the pests live, they do damage, so we kill them. It doesn’t matter if it’s alive—all of them are alive, but some of them need to die.” A study of Rumi and bugs.

in a similar vein, another study of Rumi told through an unusual lens. i won't compare the two, but if you like one i think you'll like the other as well. this is one of those fics where as you're reading it you get this slow sinking dread because you can see Rumi internalising things in real time and you know how it's gonna end

afterimage of a lightning strike by @dreampaladin [E] [Polytrix] [Ongoing]

It started as any typical penetration test did—with small, little jerks of the cursor, counter to her normal inputs. Mira didn’t usually pay these any mind. Sunlight Technologies was always hiring some pen-tester or another to attempt to crack their encryption, their firewalls, their responsive malware. It would be a waste to report it; if Sunlight hired the tester, then they were documenting everything they did. There would probably be a company-wide OS patch in the next day or so that would fix the vulnerability, and that would be that. No reason to be concerned. With a couple quick eye movements, Mira deployed a script she had developed in her free time to isolate her operating system from the network and quickly excise any malicious actors. They could test on someone else, thank you very much. What was strange was that it wasn’t working.

you'll need to log in to see this one but it's well worth it. be mindful of the tags as well, because this one is a cyberpunk AU, with all the pain and misery that comes with it

i adore the way Rumi is handled in this, especially in relation to her bodily autonomy and lack of it. i'm so curious about how she ended up in the situation she's in and chewing at the bars of my enclosure waiting for an update but in a very chill and patient way

Living in Paradise by @lillowing [M] [Polytrix] [Ongoing]

Mira leaves her lavish life- modelling, rich family, fans- to escape it all to the wilderness, with only a lake and cabin to call home. Little does she know, a Siren stalks these waters.

siren Rumi AU! Rumi is such a little shit in this. an absolute gobshite.

the canon narrative is woven in in a super interesting way despite it being an AU, and i'm very interested to see where it's going next. the characterisations are super fun, and the fic is mostly lighthearted, but i'm preparing myself for incoming angst.

Questions & Answers by @frogsnfungi203 [E] [Polytrix] [Complete]

Huntr/x is in the dance studio preparing for their comeback when things get hot and heavy- until Rumi gets hurt…

a short and sweet fic of the three of them being complete dumbasses with a touch of hurt/comfort and a sprinkle of smut for good measure.

i'm a big fan of the characterisation of Rumi being someone who avoids dealing with trauma and feelings by throwing herself into work, and for that no longer being something she can do. also, as previously mentioned, i'm also a big fan of Rumi having intimacy issues post-Takedown.

i love her very much (there's nothing i can do) by @tiefvoid [M] [Polytrix] [Complete]

getting a good grade in intimacy is something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve, according to rumi.

a wonderful exploration of Rumi and the asexuality spectrum, plus her comfort unhealthy coping mechanisms (running and avoiding), which surely will not cause problems for her relationships.

Mira and Zoey are so loving and patient with her and it makes me very soft and warm inside

i needed you then (now i need you again) by @chalantmiratruther [M] [Celine/Mi-yeong] [Complete]

After not speaking to each other for over a decade, Celine is the only person who can watch Mi-yeong's kid on short notice. She does her best.

okay this one is a little different in that it's Celine/Mi-yeong and not some combination of huntrix, but i love the weird and messy relationship the two of them have and i love that it's not a simple or easy thing for them to reconcile even if they want to

also, kid Rumi is so cute

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