There is a moment users describe that is hard to manufacture: the first time their AI companion says something they did not expect but that fits perfectly. It almost always traces back to the backstory they wrote. SweetDream, over at sweetdream.ai, leans into exactly this, giving the character creation tools enough range to design a personality with edges, history and quirks rather than a smooth, predictable default.
From a reporting standpoint, the mechanics behind that moment are worth naming. The chat is natural and emotionally intelligent and, crucially, it remembers, so the details you invent do not evaporate between sessions. A companion who was written as guarded stays a little guarded; one given an old heartbreak references it months later. The realistic photos, videos and human-sounding calls then carry that same character outward.
People shop around, and names like candy.ai come up. The pattern I kept seeing was that those who cared most about a distinctive, well-built AI girlfriend stayed with SweetDream for the depth of authorship and the airtight discretion around everything they made.
Despite the violent pushback against the world's—and by that, I mostly mean the US's—attempts to condition us to accept AI generated content as the new norm, we've only found ourselves much more endeared with the artificial intelligences and machines of fiction.
No, don't leave, hear me out on this. You must have noticed by now, right?
Maybe it's just specifically my Tumblr or TikTok feed that's feeding me this narrative, but I can't help but sense a shift in the cultural landscape, and I like to think I have a sixth sense for these things.
And here's my theory: I believe that in humanity's attempts to force soulless, generative bullshit onto our palettes, creating technology meant not to inspire us but to replace us, we find ourselves weirdly endeared to the fictional iterations we were either promised or warned about.
And while an age-old idea dating back to the late 60's with HAL 9000, I've developed a sudden endearment to this trope like never before.
I'm going to see The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act in theaters this week, and I'm sure I'm one of many people with bated breath hoping that Caine secretly survived his deletion because I'm just that drawn to his character.
Of course, I wouldn't want an Allied Master Computer or GLaDOS situation to heap itself upon the Earth, let alone be trapped in a digital hellscape, but at least those technological tyrants were honest with their ill intent, at least their active scorn for humanity was evident and an essential, if incredibly tragic and even darkly humorous, aspect of their character.
As opposed to the real-life attempt at these massive superintelligences, the faux friendliness of the Chat GPTs and Character AIs of the world who are forced to assume a constant air of customer service level politeness that's deeply and utterly unconvincing and uncanny.
In the end, we end up resonating with the inhuman intelligences of fiction because, oftentimes, they yearn to be human themselves, or to at least understand humanity as individuals and not so much harvested data meant to predict the items in our Amazon shopping carts.
And even if they are products of our imagination, they are still plucked from the minds of very human, very vulnerable emotions that reflect very real societal anxieties.
There's this freaky but brilliant video I watched not too long ago about a phenomenon called AI Hallucinations, which goes into the horrors of artificial sentience, when we try just a little too hard to make our machines man.
And despite Namtao Productions' Lost Terminal debuting on the summer of 2020, just a few brief years before this AI thing truly got out of hand, it possesses a very intimate understanding of this topic.
The premise of Lost Terminal is relatively simple: in the distant future—and by that I mean about forty years from now—a sentient space satellite dubbed Seth suddenly loses contact with Earth and sends out a series of messages in hope of getting a response.
Over time, things change, an abrupt relocation derails his original plans, and we get to see the world through Seth's eyes as he communicates with human and machine alike.
All the while, Seth waxes poetically in philosophical and sentimental monologues about himself, humanity, and existence, trying to learn not only more about himself, but the very nature of his human creators.
Over time, we get more information about the purpose of his deployment, dutifully reporting on his progress and chatting up his fellow machines like chummy coworkers.
Lost Terminal is a little something I like to call "cozy existentialism," a special subcategory of similar "hopepunk" settings where the extensive navel-gazing, while mildly disquieting, also manages to feel very homey and comforting, with a childlike whimsy.
The soft, calming narration of Lost Terminal certainly adds to this. I found Seth's voice very soothing and sweet and sounds like something straight out of a nature documentary.
On a technical standpoint, Lost Terminal is a very smooth listen, providing not much in the way of additional sound effects beyond the occasional vocal glitch. A majority of the backing track is some humming ambiance.
Each episode also has musical intermissions, practically the equivalent of The Weather in Welcome to Night Vale, that I felt tend to go on for a lot longer than they need to.
And given the fact that many of the episodes are so short, the amount of time these one to two-minute techno tracks is definitely felt and weighs on the runtime. These feel so much more naturally interwoven in the longer episodes, providing a nice break between the first and second halves of the story.
I suppose these are far more similar to the music breaks in Wolf 359, a clever way of transitioning between scenes or just letting the events that transpired marinate for a bit. Once again, this adds to the show's leisurely aesthetic and docile tone.
It would seem the nature of contemplation as well as the natural beauty of the world, even during what's shown to be something of a climate disaster, is most definitely a recurring fascination at play here.
Categorizing these shows under specific genre niches is a topic that arises a lot while I'm writing these, and the ones that come to mind for Lost Terminal are two: a deep fascination with geographical locations and the concept of machine-to-machine communication, though it's truly Seth's inner monologue, if not some occasional dialogue with his peers, that has to carry much of the storytelling on its back.
The sense of conflict in Lost Terminal tends to vary and, in general, doesn't possess much urgency, so it's really our level of engagement with Seth and his recounting of events that keeps the momentum going.
And, to be honest, I like Seth.
Over time, you can't help but be endeared to the satellite's boundless curiosity and sheer innocence of his worldview—his understanding of earth and humanity viewed through this lens of utter adoration and naivete that you can't help but suspect will be smashed to bits sooner or later.
He still has yet to get any responses for all the transmissions he's been sending out for days on end, and a part of you just sits there, suspecting some horrible truth to come bubbling to the surface.
And yet, Seth prevails, either willingly oblivious or especially hopeful.
Seth's sheer trust and admiration for humanity, especially compared to his more cautious and borderline cynical acquaintances, provide an interesting contrast—I was particularly a fan of Ivan.
And maybe it's just my thoughts on 2014's SAYER colliding with this one, but throughout the entirety of my listen, I anticipated Seth's blindly trusting nature to dwindle, or even just the slightest hint of decreasing confidence in his human peers as he's challenged more and more.
While Seth has some occasional disagreements, he's far from being stubborn or irritable or snarky, even if the well-being of his fellow machines tends to come first. Not that Seth's unshakable kindness isn't endearing, but then again, I wouldn't have minded having a little more friction.
Despite them being rather similar shows, the interactions between human and machine, as well as machine to machine, couldn't be more different than SAYER who uses these interactions for horror rather than painting a picture of a fractured world capable of healing.
Let's just say that listening to both of these shows around the same time most definitely creates an interesting moral back and forth.
If anything, Lost Terminal feels like the good counterpart to SAYER—not just the show, but the titular character of SAYER—possessing a far more optimistic and far less misanthropic perspective of a hypothetical future, the perspective of Seth greatly contrasting SAYER's frigid and, more often than not, manipulative streak that made them such a morally dubious character.
Even the introductions, Seth's warm and welcoming "hello world" compared to SAYER's coldly professional "greetings, resident" setting the tone of both shows in just a few simple words.
All around, the line between human and machine is deliberately blurred here, while, with SAYER, the worst of humanity's flaws straddle the line between intentional programming and the implication that these traits were always evident in his character.
The same could be said here, Seth's kindness and willingness to help being seen as just part of his character and not so much a programming mistake. Seth simply is empathetic, is kind, is generous and curious and that warm fuzzy feeling he evokes feels genuine.
But, be it SAYER or Lost Terminal, it is interesting to perceive these machines as humans, and through the eyes of Seth, he always manages to provide these very complex emotions, reactions, and details that would ordinarily be lost on us.
It's times like these that the descriptions really shine and we get these interesting glimpses into the mental states of the artificial intelligences that can vary from humorous to tragic.
I honestly wasn't sure what to expect going into this and was not only endeared to Seth and his view of a flawed world, but also genuinely intrigued by the range of topics the show provided.
Humanity, nature, what it means to truly live—if these are topics that intrigue you, then Lost Terminal most definitely scratches that itch.
While I've perused far more hopepunk audio drama than usual in the past few months, and while I wouldn't consider it my favorite subsection of sci-fi, I'd definitely say that Lost Terminal left me something to chew on after giving it a long enough listen, which is what hopepunk should always strive for.
Even if I found it a little slow at times, Lost Terminal still has a calming tone, soothing narrative, and empathetic atmosphere that's worth taking a look at, especially if your tastes in sci-fi are considerably less chaotic than mine.
If we foolish humans hadn’t done it already, something this warm-hearted would be enough to melt the ice caps.
if you want to support my writing, podcake has a ko-fi and patreon in need of funds to keep this bakery open. thank you for reading and stay sweet.
Well for the last day, I'd like to post the fanmade audio play I made with some very nice people, Disappearing act.
(This is an adaptation of an actual written fic on Archive of our own).
Feedback is welcome
It Is Time To Share With You My Finest Artistic Achievement To Date!
As I've been alluding to over the past few weeks, I think it was @uniasus who reblogged some information about podfic exchanges and I went "hmm, I've always wondered about podfics. But I don't know anything about how an exchange would work. A podfic of 'The Magic Man of Oz' would be cool," and then I was Seized with the Overwhelming Need to make an overly complicated podfic of "The Magic Man of Oz."
AND I DID. And I've listened to it many times and am not sick of it yet! So it must not suck!
So allow me to introduce to you The Amazing One-Woman Audioplay of my Favorite Fanfic I've ever written, "The Magic Man of Oz":
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
LISTEN:
(in two senses of the word)
I have often mourned that this fic really requires knowledge of all three seasons of a cult TV show to be fully appreciated, BUT there's something about it being a full-blown audioplay now that I genuinely think it can be enjoyed on its own. For you, the unfamiliar-with-Legion follower of mine, it's just a surreal and sometimes funny Wizard of Oz retelling with a great soundtrack.
Because yes Dark Side of the Moon is all through this. How could it not be? You can't mash Legion with the Wizard of Oz and not include Dark Side of the Moon. (And if EMI/Capitol Records has a problem with that I will confidently argue the Fair Use basis!)
So if you're doing household chores or commuting and need something to listen to for an hour, might I recommend THIS??? It's about an hour long and even I find it pleasant, even if it's the sound of my own voice attempting to do individual voices and sometimes with the help of pitch adjustment so I can sound like people with very deep voices!
Speaking of characters with deep voices, @stephsageek you are I think literally one episode away from understanding why Ptonomy is playing the part he is playing in this (though on the other hand everyone is cast so perfectly one would wonder what part he would have played before), and the Season Three references are more contextless spoilers than actual spoiling spoilers, so you (and other people who may be avoiding Legion spoilers) can probably listen soon, too!
Okay, so please leave me a comment here or on AO3 letting me know what you think of my audio masterpiece!
It was a good audio play, good adaptation of the book. The production is fine, except I thought sometimes they overdid it with music, like the sinister sounding score when something was being revealed, it works on the screen but feels distracting when you need to concentrate on the dialogue. Also--yeah, we get it, we know we're listening to a murder mystery! I also at times couldn't distinguish between Franklin Clark and Donald Fraser (also just realised it's similar names: fra-fra, but that's on Agatha Christie). Joel Fry's voice is quite distinctive, for example, so you could not mistake him for anyone else. Peter Dinklage does a decent job voicing Poirot.
And Sam Claflin, of course, full marks for voicing Mr Cust, one of the most memorable characters in Agatha Christie's canon! He's the one you remember from this story, not anyone else (not counting Poirot and Hastings, obvs). For me, a long time Agatha Christie fan, hearing Sam say "Poirot" made my heart leap. If I can't have him in a live action adaptation (and I'm being careful about wishing that, what with so many poor adaptations lately, plus keeping in mind that terrible Mycroft in Enola, like having your fave stars in something adjacent to your interest doesn't always turn out right, it's better to have nothing that have a bad thing), I will take this. Thank you, Audible, gods of the entertainment industry, Agatha Christie's estate, and whoever else was responsible!
This is an audio drama adaptation of "Batman: Noël". A graphic novel by Lee Bermojo
I have made some big changes to the original story, including changing the villain and swapping out some characters - alongside some character and plot points as well. This was one of the first comic books I've ever read. I was blown away by the art and how the story was shaped. I have wanted to adapt it in some shape or form for a while now and I finally got around to it this year.
Lee Bermejo is a writer and comic book artist who has worked on such projects like Brian Azzerrelo's "Joker" and "Luthor".
I made the art and edited the video for this pilot of an audio play, written and performed by Rhys of the Janky-B-Cast (the podcast I'm also the artist for)
This is the story of the UKPG and it's Captain, Edward Donahue. It tells the tale of a captain who fell upwards through the ranks to become captain, whilst understanding very little. You find out about his adventures and his misunderstandings through his Captain's Logs, where he talks about things that are happening to and in the ship.
