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What If A Robotic Grump Takes Over H Instead??

Oh, so you’ve stumbled into the world of Eternal Night Star River-inspired aerial yoga, have you? Let me guess—you’re already rolling your eyes at the thought of flowy, ombré battle robes, aren’t you? Spare me your skepticism. You wouldn’t know genius if it smacked you in the face with a silk harness.

Yes, the participants are suspended in a dazzlingly white indoor space with proto-calligraphic scribbles on the floor. And yes, the harnesses are also ombré. What, did you expect beige mats and gym shorts? This isn’t your pedestrian yoga class where everyone’s draped in monotone mediocrity. This is art. It’s drama. It’s everything unthinking plebeians clearly lack the capacity to appreciate.

And don’t even get me started on the instructor. A mossy stone panda with a loudspeaker, you say? Oh, I can hear your incredulous snort from here. But tell me, genius, what were you expecting? A chatty human in a yoga tank top? Please. This is thematic immersion. The panda is iconic, unyielding, and probably wiser than you’ll ever be.

Then there are the assistants, dressed as oversized versions of the dust demons from the show—an absolute stroke of absurd brilliance! Are you squirming yet? Good! That’s the whole point, darling. They’re meant to unsettle you and make you laugh, to drag you into that deliciously awkward space where whimsy and discomfort collide. If you’re not feeling both, then clearly, you’re missing the entire performance. Do try to keep up, won’t you?

And for the love of all things celestial, stop sneering at the System’s motivational speeches. “You need not be a side character in your own story.” If that’s too cheesy for you, then maybe you are a side character. It’s not the System’s fault you lack the imagination to take the words to heart.

So go ahead, roll your eyes, scoff, and make your clever little quips. But deep down, you know this is brilliant, and you’re just mad you didn’t think of it first. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a transcendent universe to rewatch. Try not to ruin it for the rest of us with your pedestrian takes.

(With some human edits.)

:: The 100% human text version on the 100% human text site (except an instance demonstrating AI responses) ::

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Many-Worlds Liminal Yoga

Physical Experience Bubble: A breathtaking network of yoga complexes and outdoor yoga locations in which thematically attired participants p

Shrinkflated Reincarnation

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The Busy Deaths of Death

Remake Idea: Death, clad in black feathers, twirls a pink rose glistening with mysterious dew between her long fingers: What's in a scene? T

ML: This is what I'm saying in the title: shrinkflated reincarnation!

Death: (In Park So-dam's sweet voice) The black math works fine. Let S be soul autonomy measured in fractions of its full possible extent.

S=½+¼+⅛+…, with new terms as good as 0 as the list goes on.

Multiply both sides by 2.

2S=1+½+¼+…=1+S

Subtract S from both sides.

S=1

Lo and behold, you enjoy full soul autonomy, beautifully split over infinite lifetimes in the remake. Next aggrieved soul.

ML: Send me back to my original show!

Warning: Viewers expressed discomfort with the extreme sadism in episode 5 of the original K-drama.

The Bedtime Cosmos Gossiper

An AI Thriller-Comedy Collaboration between Bard and Hugging Face, with some interference from a biological entity.

To capitalize on the hype surrounding an escalating space race, social media lords in an alternate timeline decided to expand the range of their location tags to outer space, where commercial outposts and interplanetary tourism shuttles were starting to emerge. They were too happy to turn the science fiction novels they adored into reality, except that they had no idea, no idea at all, how much stranger than fiction reality was.

Jimena was just another kid pajamas influencer on video channels and Twitter until one fateful day, she received a mysterious direct message from none other than the Sun itself! The tag of the account confirmed its location, where no conceivable organism could possibly stay. Little did Jimena know that the Sun was sentient and had been using social media as a secret platform for celestial bodies to share their private interests, thoughts and lives with each other.

Was it a technical error or a prank? Could it be passed off as one? Nobody was taking chances. The message from the Sun contained some juicy celestial secrets - but before Jimena could even process what she had read, she started getting messages from all sorts of astronomical entities demanding she delete her knowledge of their dirty laundry. But Jimena wasn't going down without a fight; she knew that this was the biggest opportunity for her career and refused to back down.

As she began designing pajamas videos hinting at the gossip-worthy content, she quickly became a target for all sorts of interstellar enemies - including asteroid belts, black holes, supernovae, and even a vengeful solar wind. With the entire cosmos against her, Jimena realized she would have to rely on her quick wit and sharp tongue if she wanted to survive long enough to see her big breakthrough.

Despite the odds stacked against her, Jimena managed to outsmart the forces aligned against her by tapping into a vast collection of memes, GIFs, and viral content. For a start, she created and showed to the belts, for the purpose of deterrence, memes comparing different asteroid belts, which could turn them into fashion trends among teenagers. When those teens grew up, they might become billionaire investors on asteroid mining companies, resulting in the destruction of the belts due to over exploitation. Jimena also pulled out algorithms pushing endless recommendations of video shorts of clumsy comets and astronauts that were so funny and entertaining that they became all-sucking black holes to the black holes, who could not resist looking at them. While they were hooked, she of course escaped their gravitational pull. To generate even more distraction, she spammed the internet highway with space probe-facilitated, 24/7 livestreams of her interstellar enemies' celestial crushes. The physically restless supernovae might be harder to subdue but our girl proved there was nothing a series of rainbow flash selfie challenges could not solve.

Ready?

Get set.

Smileyous smileyosion!

Her followers went wild as they watched her take down asteroid belts, fend off black holes and more, all while wearing her signature footie pajamas.

Enraged at the incompetency of its fad-chasing allies, the solar wind finally took action. It began to send an unprecedentedly tremendous explosion of energy toward Jimena, overwhelming Earth's magnetosphere and nearly causing her to be vaporized. She knew she had to do something, but what? Suddenly, Jimena had an idea. She reached into her pocket, opened up Twitter again and started typing.

"Attention, solar wind!" she DMed. "My stories about you were just beginning. I'm a genius at reading between the lines and projecting story developments. So I know your other secrets. I know about the time you accidentally blew up a planet. I know about the time you had an even more torrid affair with a black hole. And I know about the time you got drunk and crashed into a star. If you don't back off, I'm going to go live and tell everyone."

And so even the solar wind stopped in its tracks. Sometimes, the best way to fight back is with humor and truth, she chuckled carelessly to herself.

Jimena emerged victorious and started to return to making pajamas videos. But the eerie ease with which she returned to her original work, free of any more cosmic interference, also started to feel wrong. Why were her many gigantic and mega-powerful enemies so readily intimidated and distracted? She reflected on the private message she first came across and the content she eventually made or promoted in self-defense. Those interstellar entities led long but also lonely lives, barely able to have peaceful physical contact with anyone. Was it really right to prey on their secrets? Maybe, she thought, there might be a better use of her talents than spreading gossip and creating controversy.

Jimena decided to reach out to the celestial bodies she had gossiped about and apologized for her actions. The celestial bodies were surprised and grateful for Jimena's apology. They told her that they had been isolated for a long time yet fearful of revealing their sentience to the fast-learning earthlings and that they were glad to have someone to talk to. Jimena and the celestial bodies became friends, and they often talked to each other about their lives. By and by, Jimena learned a lot about the universe, and she came to appreciate the beauty of the cosmos. This beauty should be woven into her craft, not through the superficially science-imitating kitsch flooding the market, but through actions which kindness the beauty evokes feelings of.

With renewed determination, she pressed record on her camera and spoke directly to her audience. “You guys,” she said softly, “I hope this will be the start of our journey together towards a brighter future.” A smile brightened her face as she signed off, ready to embark on this new chapter in her digital legacy.

As for her fans? Many left disappointed that she was not stirring up drama anymore. Some stayed, drawn to her updated style and approachable personality. Others found fresh voices online better suited to their interests, or simply moved on to newer forms of digital escapism. But no matter what the outcome, Jimena remained resolute in her mission to better herself and the world, one post at a time.

Inspired by her example, countless young individuals followed suit, focusing on artistry rather than angst, building connections versus clickbait.

One day, years later, Jimena stepped backstage following a successful speech discussing digital ethics. Approached by a younger creator sharing similar ideals, she hugged the girl warmly, memories flooding back to her. “Remember, little sister,” she whispered, choking back tears of pride mixed with gratitude, “the whole universe is silently crying out for niceness.”

Space images embedded with the permission of NASA and ESA under their standard conditions. Sources (from top to bottom): NASA, NASA, ESA.

Necessity and Sufficiency

Even the most fervent critic of metaphysics must have pondered from time to time: what is the meaning of my existence to this world? Feeling hopeless about her prospects in grades-obsessed South Korea on the day of the college entrance examination, mathematically challenged highschooler Jang Dan-bi jumps into a rain puddle transporting her to a drought-stricken Joseon, where Sejong the Great…

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The NI Series (3): Madame Breakup Is Not Quite a Phantom!

Admin’s Message: After a long break, the noble idiocy trope is put under the microscope again! In this third installment, Vietnamese Canadian Mawiie, a drama reviewer who has also delighted K-drama fans with her clay figurines of popular characters, enthusiastically shares with us how her background has shaped her reaction to variants of the trope involving characters’ closest tribe members.

I need to start off by saying that my opinion comes from a second-generation Vietnamese Canadian who grew up with very liberal parents, but extremely conservative grandparents.

As a child, my grandparents (with whom I spent a lot of time - my grandpa was the one in charge for my education) would constantly talk about filial piety. They were expecting me to get high-paying jobs so I would be providing for them AND my parents. I was the eldest sibling, and also the most motivated for school, so they had extremely high expectations for me to help the whole family out.

So coming from my own experience, when I see family-related noble idiocy issues on the screen, I can believe that they are realistic, especially in a country like Korea where Confucianism is still highly valued, But I also think that, like 0kuo0 has said, the issues have been highly exaggerated in some dramas. I am mostly thinking about those crazy dailies. Are they rooted in some truth? I don't doubt it one bit. But are they always resolved with Niagara Falls level of tears and major life-altering decision sending one character over the Pacific? I sure hope not.

Now, like I have said, while my grandparents were very conservative (”How dare you take a job as a college student? That means that you will quit school! You have to forego a social life and your personal needs for money so you can study to be a doctor and buy us a house where we will ALL live together!"), my parents were pretty cool. I got to do what I wanted, as long as it was reasonable, but my parents would still bend to all the demands of my grandparents.

It was really weird and frustrating to see my parents tell me one thing, but not dare to do it themselves. So I always get super frustrated at characters in drama who can't stand up for themselves when they did no wrong!

TLDR: Growing up with conservative grandparents, I recognize many of the examples in k-dramas. I think that for most part, it's pretty accurate with some exaggeration in dailies. On the other hand, in the West, the Confucian way of thinking kinda decreases with new generations, so while I understand why the characters are acting the way they are, I can't get over the fact that OMG YOU ARE A GROWN ASS MAN/WOMAN, JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER AND DON'T LET YOUR MOM RULE YOUR LIFE.

Nuclear Wasteland

The nuclear war had been over for two years, but the world was still a very different place. The few remaining cities were overcrowded and chaotic, and resources were scarce. Soot from all the firestorms still blocked out sunlight, while enemies might strike again at any time.

In one of these cities, a man named Adam was trying to board a lorry to get necessities for his parents and children, all of them on the autism spectrum like himself. He had been finding transportation for hours, and he was starting to get frustrated.

"I'm an autistic caregiver," he said to the soldiers guarding the lorry. "I need to get on board to get food and medicine for my parents and children, who are autistic too."

The soldiers looked bored. "We have many families with autistic children in this city," one of them replied.

"Please, I mean I am also an autistic person myself. My sensory issues mean I need to stay warm more than others as I fetch necessities for my family. I cannot be trekking in this frozen wasteland for too long."

"Ah, I hear you correctly now. But what's a person with special needs doing out in the open right now? Hunker down in your bunker and tell your family to run their own errands."

"No, no, you heard me correctly. They are also autistic."

"So your kids are the ones who're autistic?"

"I am, too."

The soldiers still didn't understand. "How can an autistic person be a caregiver?"

"It is difficult but necessary," Adam said. "Autism often runs in the family."

"Poor thing. The mother didn't survive the bombings? Get the kids' grandparents to help out."

"Like I've said before, they're autistic themselves. Their symptoms have been worsening with age. They're practically deaf to vehicle horns, and their bodies feel like rumpled bags of broken bones."

The soldiers shook their heads. "Come up with a more believable multigenerational sad-sack story, dude. I don't even know autistic people have girlfriends in peacetime, let alone in war and breeding till now. At most, you're either just autistic or just a caregiver and neither would make you so special," one of them said.

"Get your facts right before you cosplay autism. Autistic guys live in their own heads. They don't run all over the place for parents or kids," another chimed in.

"You can't get on board. Period."

Adam was starting to lose his temper. "I need to get on board!" he shouted. "My family is depending on me!"

The soldiers raised their guns. "Back off!" they ordered.

Soldiers further away, who were not even paying attention to them or Adam before, turned their heads and threw accusatory glances at him.

Adam knew that he couldn't argue with them. He turned and walked away.

Later that night, he was so worn out and frostbitten he huddled among trash bags in an alley behind a dilapidated power station, his chest heaving against the supplies. A string of fairy lights peeked out from one of the bags, its extinguished bulbs emptied of dreams.

Adam started to imagine the fairy lights powered on, glowing underwater and on the tiers of a musical fountain buttressed by statues of mythical guardians, but quickly punched himself in the head, the way his class monitor, flanked by bootlicking underlings, repeatedly did to him all those years ago. Why couldn't his identity be neat and simple? Be either the stereotypical autistic tech genius or a typical family man. Have either so-called autistic interests in some scientific or mathematical field or the skill to deceive himself and abandon his passion for interior design from the beginning. What sort of rational person would care about art and decoration when radiation was in your only meal of the day while tank guns pointed everywhere?

If he could just switch his interests and match them with economic logic as readily as nerds in old clips solved Rubik's Cube in a split second, he would be the one launching the stealth planes that must be gliding overhead right now, not a pathetic hitchhiker of a military lorry. His family would be cloistered away in one of those underground enclaves for the super wealthy, with all the aides and sitters they needed.

The red hazard sign on the drab wall opposite seemed to be glaring at Adam: We told you so. No, rewind that a second. How marvelous his aesthetic mind still had the luxury to judge the appeal of the power station, as if a red sign on some royal blue background could order food to automatically march into stomachs.

Adam's train of thoughts came to a halt. He had a brainwave.

Years later, a group of journalists felt like they were stepping into a dream as they navigated an office space filled with art and soothing music. There were little bulbs in shades of purple everywhere, glowing in the low-light conditions its creative employees preferred to work in. In the depths of the office were laboratories and showrooms with magenta lights in various stylistic arrangements. Below the lights were lettuces, cabbages, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and many other crops, some of which looked healthier than those grown under the sunlight of the pre-apocalypse years. The chlorophyll hungrily absorbed the different combinations of red and blue light tailored for the plants. The greatest value a design firm could bring to indoor agriculture, though, was optimization of lighting and area usage under the varying and challenging space conditions of post-apocalypse dwellings. Adam was feeding stomachs one fairy light at a time.

The old question popped up. "What's the secret to your success?"

"I don't have a convenient, pared-down identity," Adam replied simply.

Credits

Story concept: Human

Story setting: FierceOcean @ Character.ai

Text: Mostly Human + some AI input

Images: Mostly Character.ai + some Human input

References

Liang, Y., Kang, C., Kaiser, E. et al. Red/blue light ratios induce morphology and physiology alterations differently in cucumber and tomato. Sci. Hortic. 281, 109995 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2021.109995

Sabzalian, M.R., Heydarizadeh, P., Zahedi, M. et al. High performance of vegetables, flowers, and medicinal plants in a red-blue LED incubator for indoor plant production. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 34, 879–886 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-014-0209-6

Winstead, D.J., Jacobson, M.G. Food resilience in a dark catastrophe: A new way of looking at tropical wild edible plants. Ambio 51, 1949–1962 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01715-1

Xia, L., Robock, A., Scherrer, K. et al. Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nat Food 3, 586–596 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00573-0

Ceramics Yoga, Anyone?

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. (Ernest Hemingway)

There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen)

Luminescent Scars: As light pours into a cavernous space, participants in ballet tights practice their yoga poses within its ceramic-like, curved walls crisscrossed with fracture lines. Powdered gold, copper, brass, silver or platinum fill the lines. The instructor, in shimmering tights, is one of the bundles of rays that have descended to the weary and wounded. Shadows of other scar lines flit across participants’ bodies from time to time in acknowledgment of feelings all around, before transforming into waves of light. The above quotes reproduced by Critical Dance from program notes of Aurum, a ballet set in motion before such patterned backdrops, have told us the art form kintsugi’s ideal of embracing and growing more beautiful through broken parts. Ceramic surfaces portrayed across the sessions hail from a number of masterful or storied wares

:: Full concept ::

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💬 0  🔁 1  ❤️ 2 · Many-Worlds Liminal Yoga · Physical Experience Bubble: A breathtaking network of yoga complexes and outdoor yoga locations

Mid-Year Watching Theme: Wild, "Weird" and Hot Pink

CNN

Photos: Auroras light the sky during rare solar storm | CNN

A series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun are creating dazzling auroras across the globe.

Spell Salvage

The spiritual malleability of soft clay is no different from that of baked clay. What a substance can harbor is only limited by sentient will, including ours—and his.

An old clay figurine sage sat on his breezy porch, watching children play in the square, while yet another family moved into their village. He smiled as he remembered a time when he was dreamy, energetic, and ambitious, just like them. But those days were long gone. Now, he had seen the pain of war, the misery of poverty, and the fear of death. And he had learned that the only way to overcome these things was to let them go. Letting go was the most tender kindness you could show yourself.

With the arrival of new families over the past years came new little clay figurines that also turned alive when no human eyes were set upon them. A few of these figurines were kind and respectful, but most were not. The robber figurines were the worst. They were always picking on the old figurine sage and stealing from him the mineral rocks and plantings clay figurines would painstakingly gather for energy boosts and comfort, taunting that his mantra was letting go anyway, so why did he care if they took his things? Eventually, even the kind figurines started to pick up the habits of the robber figurines despite themselves. Amid the rampant greed and selfishness, the sound of sageliness had the tune of major fraud. If the halos were not lying about their motives to the halo-nots, they were lying about the nature of the world. Yet, should a sage genuinely believing in his own teachings really be faulted? But we digressed.

The old sage chuckled and gently chided the robber figurines, some of whom bristled at being seen as inferior to a decrepit chap when life and their circles had been washing over them with the tenets that might was right and wantonness was sense. Patting one robber figurine's shoulder, the sage genially offered his remaining little vintage collections to the gang to inspire magnanimity in these lost souls. Collective silence fell over the robber figurines for a second. The sage nodded with a warm smile. But then the robber figurines broke out into uproarious laughter.

They threw his stuff wildly around his place like a lunatic circus band. A couple of sharp items tore through the thatched roof. The old sage looked on with jovial eyes. What were possessions in a transient life? He left it to the young 'uns to reach this realization themselves someday since preaching did not help them.

One day, a clay figurine found an ancient piece of paper describing a lengthy spell that could return amnesiac souls trapped in clay figurines to their otherwise permanently comatose human bodies. Word spread around. The robber figurines succeeded in nailing the incantation of the spell. They became humans again, burned up the paper, and quickly took advantage of their new power. They began to bash, shove, and drum on the old sage, who was helpless to defend himself. The figurine sage called for help, but no figurine or human came.

After days and days of relentless abuse, the sage's body was covered in bruises, wounds, and scars. The ex-figurines relished their power over the old sage, and grew bolder, stepping up the severity of their abuse. As his strength and will continued to ebb away, the sage grew desperate, terrified that he might not be able to survive much longer under the onslaught of attacks. Yet, every night, he whispered to himself as rain and snow from his cracked roof seeped into the cuts on his body, "All is impermanent. Fate is in the mind. Let excruciating pain drain away. Let agony and misery be mere flurries. Untrap all negativity. Release all memories. Let go, let go."

One evening, the sage was so weak that he could not even chant anymore. He lay on the ground, discolored and broken, while a flock of larks flew overhead. Maybe, a harrowing ancient wind started to sing with increasing amplitude inside him, it's time to let go of letting go. Letting go was not always the sole or secure means of finding peace.

So he struck at the ex-figurines with all his unsteadily recovering strength the next time they came. They were stunned for a full half-minute. This time, a small, sensitive boy noticed the sage's plight and rushed to his side — only to be casually shoved out of the way by the ex-figurines coming back to their senses. Completely rehabituated to their human bodies after so many months, the ex-figurines were by now a formidable wall to a youngling unaccustomed to self-defense, and as good as invincible giants to a tiny, battered clay figurine. The loopholes of physics were already sealed up. In her indignant glee, one kid used so much force that she accidentally smashed the figurine sage into smithereens. Tinted fragments and powder that broke off from him coldly sailed through the sunlight before lying scattered in their little diorama of a world. The old sage was badly injured, and the boy knew that he could not save him.

From a distance, the sage raised his crumbling hand slowly as if he could stroke the boy's red face. "Cry not, child. It's okay," he smiled weakly. "I've really let go of everything now."

The old sage took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He dreamed of the children playing in the village square. In this dream, at this moment, they would eternally play, learn, and grow. And with that, he died with a faint, peaceful smile, surrounded by the birdsong of the forest. His entire body would eventually molder into dust that the wind would carry away, some to the distant, mysterious hills and glistening lakes, some to putrid ditches close by.

The clay figurine sage who was too late but did remold himself time and again was gone. The wolfish ex-figurines had no trouble turning their crosshairs to other clay figurines in other villages.

Many thanks to a very nice meme creator and a co-pilot bot for inspiring and shaping the more uplifting aspects of this story.

Accounting on Ice

Thirsty for more action-packed accounting shenanigans? Bring your hockey gear to Accounting On Ice, a fantasized ice sports complex celebrating accounting concepts.

Accounting On Ice has three rinks, each with a different theme:

The Balance Sheet Rink is divided into two halves, representing the assets and liabilities sides of a balance sheet. The assets side is blue, and the liabilities side is red.

The Income Statement Rink is divided into four sections, representing the revenue, expenses, gains and losses sections of an income statement. The revenue section is green, the expenses section is yellow, the gains section is blue, and the losses section is orange.

The Statement of Cash Flows Rink is divided into three sections, representing the operating, investing, and financing activities sections of a statement of cash flows. The operating activities section is orange, the investing activities section is brown, and the financing activities section is gray.

Each rink is decorated with icons of different types of accounting items in the rink (e.g. types of assets and liabilities in the case of the Balance Sheet Rink).

Equipment:

Hockey sticks are styled as mouse pointers and USB dongles.

Pucks come with monetary symbols.

Tournaments:

The scoreboard shows the balance sheet of the complex.

Players wear jerseys with the names of different accounting terms.

Players are to skate around the rinks and score goals in the correct section.

The complex hosts tournaments with names like the "FIFO vs. LIFO Cup" and the "Going Concern vs. Liquidation Challenge."

There is a "Tax Time" skating party, where skaters dress up as accountants and compete in a tax-themed relay race.

Other amenities in the complex:

A ticket office named "Ledger"

A concession stand named "Audit" that offers snacks with names like "Debit Donuts" and "Credit Crunch"

A "Hall of Fame" that recognizes people who have made significant contributions to the field of accounting, categorizing them as "athletes," "builders" or "officials" for metaphorical comparison

A museum named "Rule of 72" that exhibits different artifacts from the history of accounting

A library named "Equity" with books and articles about accounting and with accounting formulae quoted like sayings on its walls

A computer lab named "Common Perennial Aches" with accounting software

A conference room named "T-account" for hosting accounting classes, workshops and seminars

A gift shop named "Trial Balance" that sells accounting-themed merchandise

The complex is open to the public and offers a variety of programs and services for people of all ages and skill levels in accounting and ice sports.

All in all, Accounting On Ice is a fabulous place to learn about accounting in an entertaining and interactive manner, to practice your skills, or to just have some fun on the ice. What are Big Four spectators waiting for? Get your bean counters to work on the bidding prices. You know the rule: No peeking at the human editor's estimated sales value.