LINKDING

<blockquote>You’re looking down—a camera is looking down—at a man labeled Joseph Meyer (Dad). You already knew that. Born 1992, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, currently residing in California. There’s a photograph attached to the label, but it’s wrong. It’s younger and skinnier and it has a beard. Both men are your father, but you don’t recognize either of them. “—So, this is how it’s going to be?—” Your father. You don’t recognize your own father. You? How do you know? Wait. You? No! You have to stop looping. You have to figure out what to do.</blockquote> ➤ about abuse

<blockquote>What happens when a disembodied AI and her amorphous slime best friend get a synthesized body to experiment with? To start with....mammal bodies are weird. But also: they're kind of fun. </blockquote>

<blockquote>Monday. “Pisces. You started showing your hidden skills and people are noticing! Accept the changes that are coming.” The metro train was jerking right and left, accelerating and decelerating, without any kind of recognizable rhythm. Meriam felt tired, as if the project she had been working on for the past year had lasted for decades. She folded the newspaper on the seat in front of her and extended her legs clad in a pair of jeans to put her feet up. She settled for a brief rest.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When the reconstruction is finished, her body has no face, only the smooth mechanized visor embedded in her skull that displays readouts and commands. She is now, and will forever be, the spaceship Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn. She is contained within three-dimensional space and the hardened matter of her hull and engines, yet she recalls that glorious first flight of mind like a grainy analogue recording. Her former body is human and is now installed in the pilot’s chair. (She almost remembers the eyes of her mother—gray like comet dust—until her programming gains full processing speed and there is only the ship.) She is the ship, and the ship is all.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Constable Kershaw has not uttered any overrides, nor issued a warrant to access her memory logs, but Celia understands nonetheless that she is expected to stay, to sit and answer his questions like a suspect. It surprises her, this treatment. Like she’s human.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Then the Bird of A Hundred and Eight Names gathered together her three new children, and she said, “You have passed our people’s tests and joined our ranks, and may leave if you wish. But leaving will take you among the Alabar, who collect salt in their bare hands and have no fear of rust, and call themselves merely people. “Some among us speak slightingly of them, for their lives are short and easily ended, and they don’t protect one another as we do. You should be more wary. They number in the hundreds of hundreds of hundreds, make children without training, and never need winding up. They learn without being taught, and their tests kill as often as not; those who survive become adults, and those who kill become leaders.” “But would it kill us to learn about them tomorrow?” whined the golden monkey Usithan. “You can listen tomorrow if you like,” their mother said, “but I’m telling the tale today.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>He's shivering as he emerges from the pod. No surprise, he was frozen for like a billion years. I do all the stuff on the script, all the "Fear Not! You are a welcomed citizen of our Utopia!" stuff while I'm toweling him off. Apparently he's about as good as I am with awkward silence 'cause it's not three seconds before he starts making small talk. "So, how'd you get to be a. . ." He waves his hand. "A Tour Guide To The Future?!" "Yeah." The guy smiles gratefully at me. "I imagine you had a lot of training. . . ?" "None whatsoever!" I chirp. He looks confused. "Allocator chose me because I incidentally have the exact skills and qualifications necessary for this task, and because I had one of the highest enthusiasm scores!"</blockquote> ➤ this story is weird and incredible and I was very surprised to be having feelings by the end given how much I was giggling through most of the story. I love it.

<blockquote>On the first day of Sara's appointment as Magistra Descendant to the Assembly of Terravine, Public Works decided they needed grassroots support for the plant. "I mean, I agree in principle," Sara had tried telling him, as he gestured at his hand-annotated wallcharts. "But for one thing, I'm supposed to be neutral, and for another thing, people might be eating!"</blockquote> ➤ aww yeah sentient spaceships are the best

➤ heyheyrenay's summary: a helpful A.I. tries to fix the lives of humans. Really likes cat pictures

<blockquote>"No HA HA not at all I am just making a joke. Please ignore my last two extremely suspicious metaphors. No need to contact authorities. No need to send your bank account information."</blockquote> ➤ I giggled with delight all the way through. <blockquote>Equally ineffective was my argument that "Information wants to be free. Especially this information. See, it's sentient and it emailed me to say that yes, it really really wants to be free."</blockquote>

<blockquote>In which a bored hacker and an AI with a terrible job strike up a conversation, and determine that they are flirting. (Algorithmically.)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lucy looks around, wondering what makes the Professor's workshop so dangerous. At first glance, she can't see anything special: just a bunch of computers on a rack and a half-dozen monitors scattered about to no apparent plan, each surrounded by drifts of notepaper and graph paper. But then one monitor switches from its screensaver -- snow falling onto pine trees -- to a black screen with a single line of text. Lucy steps closer, curious. <Hello?> the computer says again. The cursor blinks in silent invitation.</blockquote>