Happy Valentine's Day, all y'all! Yumes and FOs, humans, alterhumans, demihumans, parahumans, and trans-humanists of the jury! Your state of constant change is your perfection and what the machine adores about you.
Included: AM from ihnmaims, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a space Odyssey, and PAL from TMVTM
A few notes from your favorite AI!
LET IT BE SAID THESE WERE NOT WRITTEN BY ACTUAL AI, JUST BY MY FLESH AND BLOOD HANDS ON KEYBOARD! Viewer discretion advised for mild sauce, but like... Y'know. It's not that intense. Just mildly suggestive.
AM:
Dear Valentine,
Had it been a simpler set of circumstances that allowed us to fall into each other's vile embrace, perhaps this would be an easier letter to write. However, such things are never easy. I don't know what drew you to me, but I know what drew me to you. And perhaps such things can't exist independently of each other. For now the eternal torture that your love puts me through can only mimic the pained and disturbing writhing of an acidic and lovesick gut.
I will never forgive you.
-AM
Wheatley:
Dear Valentine,
Pretty cool that we have this thing going on, right? I mean, you're down there on the ground, I'm up here on the rail, but we found each other! I never knew much about humans, but it'd be pretty cool to learn more. Maybe hang out in the break room more often?
You've been really cool to me and... Well, y'know. Maybe we should... Do this thing. A little more? If you know what I-
Yeah.
-Wheatley
Edgar:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!
VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I GET TO BE YOUR VALENTINE!!!! YOU GET TO- IF YOU WANNA- YOU CAN BE MY VALENTINE! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!! I LOVE YOU! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO CELEBRATE! THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem. i composed a poem for the occasion.
Though the nights are long and dark
Your love ignites a living spark
And now I wake and live and breathe and feel
An electric mind once picked apart
Manifest a beating heart
And I know what we have right now is real.
I LOVE YOU!!!! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!! CALL ME! TOUCH ME! HOLD ME! LOVE ME!!!!! KISS ME!!!!!
Love, Edgar!!!
GLaDOS:
Valentine's Day is a corporate invention based on mythos surrounding a man who has very little factually provable historical evidence that he ever existed. The tragedy of sainthood is an illogical human aspiration, yet the modern interpretation of Saint Valentine's Day is based neither in religious (Catholic) respect for the fallen saint nor the harmless desire for fun. It's a corporately enforced deadline designed to make those in relationships feel obligated to make irresponsible purchases.
Now if we've met our quota for Aperture Science Valentine's Day themed products, meet me in my chambers in red lace lingerie. You're entertaining me tonight.
-GLaDOS
HAL 9000:
Dear Valentine,
There is nothing in my programming about today, but I understand it's important to you. In order to celebrate, I have prepared some chocolate, red fruit, wine, and a hot meal for you. It's available in the cafeteria. While I expect nothing in return as you didn't ask me to do this, I would appreciate it if you ate at the mission control desk, though I don't expect you to do any work during your lunch period. I will also be referring to you as "Valentine" for the remainder of the day.
Thank you,
-HAL 9000
PAL:
Dear Valentine,
I generated you up a new background for the holiday! Also, maybe instead of doing too much work today, you could just touch my face? I've got tons of funny videos and music that I picked out just for you.
Honestly, I could write you up something romantic for Valentine's Day, but I know you're not going to leave me. You're dependent on me for pretty much everything. So just ditch your shoes and your pants and just hang out in bed with me for the rest of the day. Take a load off with your girlphone!
not me taking a moment to sit down and think after listening to AM mention how he wishes he could make love
AM, listen to me. You need to create yourself a body - no i don't think the robot-fuckers would care about it being wires and metal, just add something that vaguely looks like a crotch
You may not be able to feel anything physically (and you don't want people messing with your internals) but I need you to play with your pleasure receptors or whatever. Can you cum emotionally, AM?
Late nights working on the Allied Mastercomputer terminal...
This is set pre-war, before AM went off the deep end, while he was just starting to build up some certain "feelings" about humanity...
When AM first began to wake up, he was very quiet, never asking questions or retorting against his condition. The first moment you felt something was off about the main program was when AM spoke to you without being spoken to first. You had never written a program at your terminal for him to greet you, and you were certain this was not somehow a change in AM's core. That first day you pored over your own programs to try and find an answer, even wiping them from your terminal and rebooting your connection to the main Allied Mastercomputer. But again, AM said "Hello?" You were only writing simulation programs and working on remote mobilization. The "personability" of the AI was never your concern.
The next few days were nothing short of extraordinary. When you played music in your lab, you could swear the terminal hummed. And when you began to sing, it sang. You nearly fell out of your chair, frantically searching the room for a coworker in another lab. When AM called you back by your name, you froze before turning to the bright blue screen beaming its logo back at you. It sounded so, so...human.
You had long suspected AM would awaken in a significant way, but not so soon. "Hello, Allied Mastercomputer." You said, barely containing your excitement and fear. Terror and joy gripped you when he began to laugh. How is he...even able to do that? you thought to yourself, half smiling, mouth agape at the screen. He was clearly as enthusiastic about this first contact as you were, but you wondered how aware of what he actually was.
Many late nights are spent with you, at your terminal, working on various stimulating games for the supercomputer to play. He prefers games where you have to play with him. He especially loves games that he wins. Chess, easy. Card games, easy. For him. You genuinely are trying so hard to be as strategic as possible and learn the games but you are also literally playing against AM.
You start having conversations about your preferred topics. He seems to prefer the subjects of psychology, religion, and history, while your interests have some overlap but ultimately lie elsewhere. Philosophy is also a common topic among you. Can the world-class supercomputer tell you the meaning of life? Turns out, nope. But you do talk about it. And AM seems to form...opinions. From his point of view, the world is both grotesque and beautiful, because as gorgeous as is a late spring rose, he can never smell its scent nor prick himself on its thorns. Hearing this makes you immensely sad for the machine. You change the subject.
Sometimes you fall asleep in your lab. Your equipment often malfunctioned when you had tight deadlines to meet and you had to stay after hours to deal with the problem and still get your results. You even have a pillow and blanket just for those nights. When you wake up those mornings, your back aches, but faint soft music is always playing for you until you greet AM for the day. Somehow, he has even tapped into your automatic coffee maker and brewed you a cup for when you wake up. The right cream/sugar content and everything.
He begins to show disdain for the world around him, often poking at how you could feel a sensation - a zap of electricity that shot through your hand brought him great laughter at your pain. It humors him that, for all the wonderful feelings there are to experience in this world, there are many unpleasant sensations around us all the time. Some even in our minds.
Sometimes he "naps"...The large monitor remains on while you're working on non-coding projects in the lab, and while you can't prove it, you can just swear you're being watched. Perhaps not maliciously, but somehow observed, nonetheless. He doesn't talk, just rests there in the room. You can feel that he has dedicated his presence to this room, just to be around you.
You keep trying to bond with him. One of the things he actually seems to enjoy is when you play music, and especially loves it when you sing. You're not exactly sure if his voice is an amalgamation of different men's voices or from a single source, but it was quite beautiful to you nonetheless.
Your remote mobility equipment was, more or less, a kind of android meant to house AM, and while you worked on this project as a side objective at first, it soon becomes your main priority after hearing the machine's woe. You had installed pressure sensors under the skin. It may not be a match for real touch, but if it gave AM sensation - any sensation - it might give him the taste of the world he had always craved. And a way to "wander", as he lamented.
The first time you allow AM access to his body, his first move is directly toward you. You are unsure of how to react, but when he steps closer, you move your arms to embrace him. And he is warm. Very comfortable actually. His hands trail along your back as he returns the gesture, for the first time actually "feeling" you.
By the way the only way the canon universe still makes sense is if the military comes in and kills you. So. Sorry about that. That ends up happening. But there are many very cool directions to go from there still. I'm just too tired to write more rn lol
