Your wholesome sleep paralysis demon

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See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”

So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.

“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”

We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.

I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.

But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.

However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.

Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.

And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.

I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.

I am continuing to read PG. My private life has been a little busy, so I am progressing at quite a slow pace. I like the Mandrake team, so this part is enjoyable to read. As for the Mandrake team in particular, I truly wish I could have seen more of their activities.

As a side note, I often color Bart and Nat’s eyes yellow(gold) or blue, but in reality their eye color is dark. This is a kind of stylized expression, so the characters in the story recognize each other’s eyes as dark. In other words, Nat does not perceive Bart’s eyes as yellow or gold, and Bart does not describe Nat’s eyes as blue. I am simply representing black with yellow(gold) and blue. Especially in Bart’s case, I consistently use yellow(gold) for him in any form, and I try to keep Faquarl consistently purple. By the way, Queezle has light blue and pink pupils. Since the spirits do not have fixed forms, it is something like a stylized identity device that allows viewers to immediately recognize who is who when they look at my fanart, no matter what form they take. I am not sure if I explained it well, but that is the idea.

asra if you romance julian: yeah so um he was my ex but i promise it's okay haha. also be careful bc he's like LOTS of trouble okay? haha--

asra if you romance nadia: omg look at you!! you're legit made for each other bc you deserve the best and she IS the best so like. slayy

asra if you romance portia: idk who she is but she seems nice and idrc as long as you're happy and keep each other safe :)

asra if you romance muriel: hello besties i am your biggest fan and i volunteer to officiate yall's wedding plspls

The Chinese Room experiment is a thought experiment that says if you put a guy in a room with a Chinese-English dictionary and instructions, but he doesn't understand Chinese. He can follow the instructions to produce a result, but he doesn't actually understand what he's saying. This is a fundamental argument against GenAI/LLMs - they don't actually understand what they're saying, they're just following an algorithm that statistically predicts the next word in a sentence, with no understanding of what the words actually mean.

Also Caine says "it's a mystery what's behind that door" which I interpreted to be a jab at the black box way that GenAI consumes and regurgitates things in its algorithm. Not even its creators know what it knows or how it will respond to things.