expiationnet | OKCINDR POST #5

OKCINDR POST #5

Ever wanted to have CR with a character and wasn't sure how to get them to cross paths? Wanted a dating app so you can hook up with hot people? Wanted to just find friends because you're a lonely bastard?

With the update of the tablets and the apps, we now have a dating / friendship app called OKCINDR! Players can use it as they please for the two months that it's up -- just imagine that they're profiles to swipe right on and everything. The idea is to encourage CR that may be difficult to get with characters who may or may not be interested in events / posts / logs / other network posts.

So, on January 2nd, characters randomly look back at their tablets to see the following:

OKCINDR PROFILE RESET #4
PLEASE RESET PROFILE

This month, if players reset their profile, they will have a list of questions to answer:

- What is the maximum amount of sheep you have counted when trying to fall asleep?
- Is it harder to forgive yourself, or to forgive others?
- How strongly do you feel that the past defines a person?
- What is your dream?
- Why would an android's dream contain electric sheep? Are they particularly drawn to livestock animals?
- If you could return to one specific moment in your life, would you?
- How do you wake up from a dream?
- Please
- Wake up
- You must wake up

Players, of course, are able to ignore this message. However, if a character wouldn't fill it out but a player would like to participate... the profile mysteriously resets itself. There may even be responses sent from Character A to Character B without Character A actually doing anything, if you'd like! This is a completely opt-in scenario! But for players who would like to participate fill out the post:

network profile

Character_Name

@username

ABOUT_ME

CODING

<lj-raw><div style="width:280px;margin:0 auto;background:#fff;box-shadow:1px 1px 4px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.15);border:1px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.1);border-bottom:4px solid #587AC0;border-radius:4px;overflow:hidden;line-height:1.7;font-family:tahoma,arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px;">

<div style="text-align:center;background:#587AC0;padding:5px 0 5px 10px;display:flex;align-items:center;color:#fff;font-size:25px;font-family:georgia,serif;font-style:italic;letter-spacing:-1px;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wmn8wYK.png" style="filter:invert(1);margin:0 5px 0 0;">network profile</div>

<div style="height:220px;overflow:hidden;">
        <img src="URL HERE" style="width:100%;height:auto;">
    </div>

<div style="border-bottom:1px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.1);padding:10px 5px;margin:0 10px;font-size:13px;line-height:1.2;">
		<b style="color:#587AC0;">Character_Name</b>
		<div style="color:#999;">@username</div>
	</div>

<div style="padding:15px;max-height:160px;overflow:auto;box-sizing:border-box;color:#222;">

ABOUT_ME
 
	</div>

</div><div style="margin:3px auto 0 auto;width:280px;font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:right;"><a href="https://tessisamess.insanejournal.com/155095.html" style="color:#999;text-decoration:none;">CODING</a></div></lj-raw>

If you'd like to for shits and giggles, here's some notifications that may be used:

Name (@username) followed you

Name (@username) unfollowed you

Name (@username) blocked you

Have fun! Code credit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't think you're wrong about that. In fact, I think it's very likely that the AI is reading along, even right now. Maybe even when it comes to everything on the network.

[ .. there's a slight pause, and then another message from Ange arrives. ]

It's not like you to get so attached to something.

[ It's surprising, she means. ]

[ She does have a point, huh. He's not sure how to explain it without addressing his personal history, and he doesn't want to get into the details of that for obvious reasons, let alone publicly. In the end, he settles on the most simple kind of reply: ]

she reminds me of someone I knew

[ It's not any kind of thoughtful insight, but it doesn't make it any less true. Though after a brief pause, he decides to correct himself on one detail. ]

or maybe it'd be more accurate to say "someone who knew me"

[ That is a very strange distinction to make. Ange hesitates, wondering whether she should ask or not. She's curious enough for it, but.. on the other hand, this is public.

And Ragna is a pretty private person. At least when it comes to matters like these. It doesn't seem like a good idea. ]

You'll remember though that even if they're similar, it isn't the person who knew you, right?

Just in case that AI turns out to be super evil after all.

[ Don't get your heart broken, Ragna. That's what Ange means to say, just with fewer words. ]

[ Ah, but that's the crux of the case, isn't it? He can't be sure this isn't her; on the contrary, every piece of information they uncover about this world and every evidence for how it works point in the direction of the two being one and the same. Hell, him existing in this world should be enough proof of that. ]

I wonder

[ And he just leaves it at that. Really, just thinking about it all gives him a headache, so he'd rather not spend much time on it, if at all possible. ]

yeah if it all leads to a machine uprising then I guess it's egg on my face
but still
even if that really was to happen
she's simply doing as she was told, no?

[ He even asked the AI once if trying to protect them was just a part of the programming or her own will... and the response has left him no doubt she does possess an extent of free will, but her actions and wishes are nonetheless deeply rooted in the purpose she was created for. Yet another similarity linking her to the Origin... it's hard to dismiss all that. ]

That does seem to be how this sort of thing works.

[ An answer that's just a little bit roundabout, but-- well, it's not like Ange is an expert when it comes to technology or AI either. She only knows what she has been able to learn from other people in this place, and even that information has occasionally confused her.

She's pretty sure about this part of it though, given everyone's explanations. ]

Would that make it less bad for you?

pretty much
I mean you can't really blame someone for doing what they were created to do
if they don't know any better

[ He adds that last part after a brief pause, since something about his previous statement didn't feel right. Surely, there were timelines where he, too, did "what he was created to do", but he's not about to try and escape accountability for it. He most likely knew very well what he was doing, so the fault lies solely with him. The Origin, on the other hand... she was a mess, and while the things she'd done led to a lot of pain and suffering, she was a victim in all of that, too. Ragna believes the same goes for this AI. ]

maybe that's the real reason we're here
so she can learn from us

[ And using a bunch of criminals for it sounds like a terrible idea, which only serves as a point in favor of that theory if you ask him. ]

[ There's a slight pause, like Ange is thinking about his words for a moment. Actually seriously considering him, considering she likes Ragna enough to take him seriously, compared to the way she dismisses others pretty quickly when she doesn't know them well. ]

Why would they need to kidnap people and bring them here for that though?

Couldn't they just let the AI study some random world? There's plenty of them out there to choose from.

gives them more data without having to observe multiple worlds
which would be pretty insane
but this one world?
you can get a bunch of different people and see all sorts of reactions and powers and shit

[ This might be one of the very few instances where listening to him might have some merit to it, too; with anything else, his knowledge boils down to "fuck if I know," but this? Somehow, he's more experienced in the subject of the inner workings of an AI controlled world than, say, dating. ]

So you're saying we are like laboratory mice.

That that's the reason we're here.

[ Just checking if she got that right. It's a little surprising to see Ragna so thoughtful about something, especially when she sure has seen him do very impulsive things before, but-- it's not really a bad thing.

If anything, Ange likes talking about things more thoughtfully like this. ]

[ Ugh... when she puts it that way, it really makes him feel more annoyed than he already was. But she's probably not too far off with that comment. ]

hate to say it
but pretty much yeah
I'll believe that over the whole rehabilitation crap

I feel the same way. It seems more likely than that. Though most things seem more likely.

[ If not just because it had felt like a shoddy cover to her from the very start, going off her own experience.. ]

But in that laboratory mice scenario, you're saying the AI is an innocent party. That it is being used just as much as we are.

[ Innocent, guilty... He's not sure they've got enough information to assign blame, but if given those two choices, he'd argue the AI is more on their side, even if the result of its action isn't always what they want or need. ]

yeah
or at least I don't think she's malicious

let's assume for a moment she was told to create a place where criminals could be redeemed
she could've gone for a literal prison or torture dungeon or whatever
but look around us
she made it pretty tame

Jerry and the council are just the cogs in the machine
but whoever created this whole thing and told her to run it
they're the one responsible

But the problem is that we have never seen that person or those people. They never directly communicate us. We only ever talk to proxies. The AI, Jerry..

[ There's a pause, but then a question appears for Ragna on his screen. ]

Do you remember that tower from a while back? Did you ever get to the top?

hell we don't even know if they're still around
she mentioned something about needing maintenance and in the end needed us for it

[ Which would indicate no one is actually keeping track of what's going on in here... but it's not unthinkable; the creators of the Origin in his own world were dead for centuries before he put an end to her vision of the world. ]

never bothered with that
it screamed trap from miles away
was there anything over there?

[ He didn't think there would be, so he never really thought back to it... but he figures Ange must have a reason to bring it up. ]

[ Ange locks the thread.

As much as she's all for sharing information, there's something about this that she only wants to share with Ragna in the moment - just in case. She has seen people do some wild and dumb stuff with information in this place. ]

There was a person there. Someone outside the simulation. They ripped a hole into this place, but they were on the other side. They said they were trapped, that they shouldn't exist anymore. But they were still here, there, wherever-- they were watching us. They said they wanted to be freed, even if it meant erasing their code.

I don't know if that was the AI, or something else entirely. They said they were like us once, but that they were "saved." In a way they clearly didn't like, considering the rest of what they said.

[ That works for him; Ragna is almost pathologically distrustful, so sharing any kind of information with others doesn't come easy to him... but at least with the privacy of locked conversation, and the fact it's Ange he's talking to means he's willing to say a bit more than he usually would. ]

so there's still a world outside the embryo huh
guess that was a possibility
but communicating between worlds like that is something else
guess we should try to do that from our side
there again without an observer we'd be risking making the whole place fall apart

I don't mind breaking some things if it's for the sake of getting a little bit more control here.

But we can't make this whole place fall apart. As much as I hate being here, and as much as I want to go home.. I want to make sure that this place does remain for the people who need to be here. Who don't have any other place to return to.

[ It's a little bit of a vulnerable thing to admit to, considering how much Ange wants to seem cool and unaffected and uncaring at all times, but-- she practically has to admit to it here. And she does trust Ragna with it, relatively speaking. ]

[ There's a brief pause on his end, but when the reply finally comes, it's almost uncharacteristically amicable. No sarcasm, no making light of the situation; just acknowledging her position. ]

yeah
that'd be nice
none of the crime and punishment or sentencing bullshit
just a normal world for anyone who wants to stick around

[ It might seem like a lofty goal, but this wouldn't be the first time Ragna rewrote the laws of the universe itself. He found a way to do it once, so he'll find a way to do it again, even if it takes time. ]

Exactly.

I know there are people here who are dead back home.

[ Ange is definitely thinking of some specific people. She doesn't want to name them, wanting to respect their privacy, but they can't help but cross her mind in this moment.

But with Ragna being so weirdly open and amicable about this, the least she can do is at least be forthright about her own emotions. ]

They don't deserve to die again. I wouldn't want them to.

makes sense

[ No one wants their friends to die; it's only natural. Though, a part of him wonders... is that really fair? To get a second chance at life? He was supposed to disappear forever, his existence completely erased and forgotten by everyone... yet here he is, alive again. It feels like cheating, almost. But at the end of the day, he can't blame Ange for wishing for that kind of world, regardless of his own feelings on the matter. ]

and what about those who do?

[ Huh.

She blinks at the message. She isn't sure how to take it at first. But then, considering it's Ragna-- ]

Do you think there are people here who don't deserve to live?

[ It's not even that she thinks he's malicious, but she does think he's a little harsher than her, so maybe that's what he meant to imply? ]

not naming any names
but isn't it always like that in any group?
you'll always find assholes who don't deserve a second chance

[ To be honest, he doesn't dislike anyone here enough to think they deserve to die (except maybe himself, but it's complicated), but there are certainly people he knows that he'd shove into that category. ]

Of course.

[ It doesn't even take that long for her to send that message that's easily agreeing with it.. Look, it's just true! She grew up around shitty people, she knows what it's like. ]

Maybe I was just hoping you'd provide me with some good gossip. Isn't that what friends do? [ Watch out, Ragna! She will pull out the cringe f-word and use it like this!!! Fight her!!! ]

[ NOT THE DREADED F-WORD

Ragna's brain comes to a screeching halt (not an uncommon occurrence) and he has to reread the text a couple of times before ultimately deciding there are only two possibilities here: either the girl's account has been hacked, or they've got an invasion of body snatchers at hand. ]

holy shit
who the hell are you and what have you done to the real Ange?!

[ God, is Ange ever glad this is text, because she's blushing!! And he would only get more annoying about this if he knew, probably!! ]

I can say it once in a while, alright?! Maybe once a year! Treasure this occasion, because it's the only time you're going to see it this year!!!!

Besides, you're trying to distract me from the point I was making!!!! Don't think I won't notice!

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rebellions - 2025-04-11 20:51 (UTC) - Expand

private;

entreats - 2025-04-24 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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