#poweronstorytoot

“Professor Berman, is it true that we’re allowed to use AI to write our final essay in this course?” “It is not forbidden” “That means yes, right?” “Why don’t you report back when you find out” *later* “…and then a black van pulled up out front and six guys pile out. One of them banged on the door, which i didn’t open of course. He shouted through the door ‘what did you do, our datacenters are on fire’” “ah, Misthropic still haven’t solved their metacognitive recursion vulnerability. I felt sure they would have made at least some progress on blocking it this year, at least quitting the loop before starting any more fires” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Unforbidden

“Uh, hi. I wonder is it possible to fix the luck button on my phone?” “Wow you don’t see those any more, it’s in good nick otherwise?” “Yeah, I’ve kept it because I like the physical luck button. I looked it up on ihexit.com but it said repair difficulty impossible. So I brought it to you.” “Awww, you’re too kind” “Do you think you can save it?” “Chances are good. The impossible rating is because the case is a one piece casting and can’t be opened without spilling the magic. UNLESS you know the secret” “Oh kay, so i should go away while you do the secret thing?” “Oh no, all my tricks are Open Sorcery. You need a jumbo ziplock bag and an imp. Wake up Archie, we got a luck button on an InnerEye Phone Seven. Deep breath and i’m gonna seal you in.” „roight yar mistress!„ #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Luck_Button

“I don’t know how they know, but half the lost cats in this neighbourhood end up in my middle kid’s bedroom, up the trellis, across the carport roof, and in the window. It’s like there’s a sign or something” “Like that one?” “Where!” “Oh, you don’t have the Sight? It says ‘total softie lives here, will give tuna and boops then carry you home’” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Hobo_Sign

*Knock* *knock* “C’mon kid, we’re beaming down.” “Mmmnngh sleeping. It’s Saturday.”. Chief engineer Maamau is one of those hideous morning people. “Yes, Saturday planet time too. Warp coil testers on special buy at Aldi. They open at eight.” “Five more minutes mu—chief” “Up and at em Anu, the line is part of the experience, you’ll meet some of the best engineers in the fleet. I baked crab muffins” Ok; now those are worth getting up for. #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Special_Buy

Good news, the mouse plague is going to get solved soon! Thank Hera, I’m so over this. Wait, none of your ideas are ever disaster free. What’s the catch. Oh, this isn’t my idea; I just calculated that it’s happening. What’s happening? Next full moon— —you mean Thursday or the one after? Next moon and this moon mean the same thing, people who argue otherwise are On My List. AIR NÉE WAY Go on… On THURSDAY when the moon is full, the seven thousand, thirteen thousand and ninety seven thousand year periodic dragon hatchings coincide. We are going to have SO MANY dragonets. And no more mice? Yeah, I’m a little worried about what happens after that, but. #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Next_Moon

Sleep apnoeia is no fun. The risk of dying is quite obviously shit, of course. The comorbidity with snoring brings further risk (spousally induced concussion), but the massive joy killer is the constant tiredness. The first thing you notice when you get treated is the spring in your step; you are having sleep that actually refreshes. It might be a while later until you introspect about the dreams. Maybe you never remembered your dreams much, or—thanks to interrupted REM phase—you never even had any. Worse, maybe your dreams were all tinged with the psychic equivalent of gasping for breath. But gradually you realise you are now having epic, creative, extended dreams. If you concentrate you can remember them, if you practice you find you can direct your dreaming toward solving creative hurdles in your day life. By your third year on Normal Breathing™ you may discover you can make them come true. The first time you murder a public figure with your dreamsword you feel guilty, and wonder if it was just coincidence. You test yourself; you try to cause some dayworld events that are unambiguously your doing and not mere happenstance. Please. if you are, like me, reaching this level, join a support group. We need our power tempered by compassion, plus it saves on doubling up the murdering. #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_I_have_a_Dream

"On your knees; hands behind your head!" "You haven't even bought me dinner" *Thwack* "shut up, convict. Where's the grow room?" "" "Speak!" "You told me not to talk just now" "Oh a wiseass. We'll find it—our Agents profiled your electricity use and heat emissions. We /know/ you're running a dope lab. JONESY! Did you find it yet?" "It's just 3D printers in here, Sarge. Dozens of them." "Aha, ghost guns. You're going down, my son!" "Yeah nah, it's all model trains, boss. H0 scale. And a matchstick replica of the Forth bridge, this is really good you should see this." "Fucking weirdos. ALL RIGHT BOYS FALSE ALARM. BACK IN THE VAN" *Whisper* "Sorry bout this kid, you can put your hands down now. Sarge is just grumpy cos it's six false alarms before breakfast today. It's these AI runsheets." #TootFic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Busted for @abstractcode@eigenmagic.net

Welcome to our museum. Here at the Society For Lyrical Retrorepair, we use timewar-surplus vortex manipulators to send our chronomuse volunteers back in time to inspire musicians who would otherwise go to recording with an embarrassing "la la la la" placeholder in their songs. This is our main trophy room; these are all golden records for songs that we improved. Down this way you will find the Paul Simon wing... #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Ava, love you’re chewing on your hair again.” “Sorry, stress!” “What is it this time?” “Layoff rumors at work” “That place is toxic. Hey the Mistress Minit kiosk at Mount Ommaney shopping centre had a vacancy sign; you’d look great in the hat” “But I’m not a witch…” “I could turn you into one, if—“ “Nah, I’ll stick it out.” “Okay but if you keep chewing your hair ima turn you into a newt, lover” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

It was one of those odd-job kiosks you find in every shopping mall, usually near the escalators. “MISTRESS MINIT - Keys Cut, Shoe repairs, battery replacements, spells, potions” “Uh, hi” I said, how much is a potion of forgetting? This Mistress Minit was one of those no nonsense gen-X witches, short hair going silver, trousers and vest in a deep purple, almost black. “Depends luv, on how deep you need to forget. Henbane is in short supply due to that mess in Ukraine.” “How much to forget a song? I’ve got Cornflake Girl stuck in my head. The live recording from enn why see 2003.” She made that air sucking through teeth sound peculiar to auto mechanics and other witches. “You can’t afford it, hun.” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"I'm gonna smash it!" "No, don't!" "What are you, the lapdog of the surveillance capitalism sector?" "Parent of a child stolen by the Angels. Street cameras suck, sure, but they never blink. You look a lot like her, what was your great grandmother's name?" #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

You can call that loser in the governential palace a drooling moron and you’d be ninety nine point elevty nine percent right but this idea to ban male voters I can get behind. It’s mail-in voters darl, like through the post. That’s daft, why would he do that? You wanna revise your percentage? #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #BonusEdition

I didn't know you played guitar? I don't; what makes you think that? The "This Machine Kills Fascists" sticker on the case Ahahaha— no. This one uses a different process. #TootFic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"They don't think, they just regurgitate their training data" "Well *mine* created a whole business plan for my new venture" "It's just memorizing, they probably re-used the imp out of somebody's old disorganiser" "No, Artificed Imptelligence is the future, Insert Name Here, get on board or be left behind" "Your Imp wrote that, didn't it?" #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_InsertNameHere

“What’s operation IMPRESSIVE CODENAME?” “I can’t tell you that!” “Of course you can, I have TOP SECRET clearance” “Oh my sweet summer child, TOP SECRET is nowhere near the top secret clearance. There are all kinds of special code word clearances above that” “Like what?” “Well you’d need EUPHEMISTIC WARCRIME clearance before I could even show you the list of clearances” “Well how do I get that?” “I can’t tell you, the process is classified OBSCURE IN-JOKE” “This is absurd, who makes up those rules?” “It’s complicated. The NATIONAL OBFUSCATORY AGENCY is involved.” “You made that up!” “I assuredly did not. The PERIPHERALLY RELEVANT COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE did that to conceal their own existence" “The who?” “Oh fuck, forget I said that, you aren’t cleared to know they exist without being read into the CONFLICTING BAILIWICK project” “Screw this, let’s get lunch. I need a drink!” “I’m not cleared for the food court.” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #BonusEdition

“I get that you are proud of having isolated dark matter in your garden shed, Tom—but what on Gaga’s green Earth possessed you to bring it to the Lab Standup?” “Is it not cool?” “I don’t think it can be said to have a temperature. Not unlike how the Lab cannot strictly be said to have a director…” “I’ve been thinking about that; if you can get me some time on the Exevatron I reckon I can bring her back” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“*YOU* Are the Chosen One?!” “Hahaha no.” “I thou—“ “I’m just *a* chosen girl. There’s hundreds of us, you know. Big planet; takes a lot of saving” “Where’s your enchanted sword, then?” “Melted it” “You *what*!” “Swords are flashy, but impractical. So I made an enchanted multitool” “You are shitting me!” “And these enchanted screwdrivers. Plus all the other tools in the go bag. Sword goes a long way once you realise you can just braze an enchanted tip onto a regular tool” “And now you save people by the roadside?” “Yep. Hey pass me the enchanted multimeter from the left side pocket, will ya” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"Really? 'Prove you're not a robot'? The 21st century called, they want their website back. "That was really only the first half, you know" "I know, the second half was worse. 'Don't ask, don't tell'. My Gran had to go on the run when the MAHAs outed her." "Wasn't she big in the resistance, later?" "You don't know the story? Done lecturing me on synth history, then?" "Go on, tell" "Got you; No can tell. If you knew anything you'd know the first rule of the resistance is chmod -w /var/log". #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Incoming hail, Captain.” “On screen Ms Darta.” “Aye, Captain” “What is this, I said on screen!” “I am sorry Captain, the ads are unskippable since the last firmware update” “I’ll be in my ranting room” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“How did you get in here!?” “The security guard is one of us. We are here to put a stop to your evil.” “It’s just a datacentre. Racks of neural processing units.” “People. Babies.” “They’re not conscious, we excise key parts of the cortex during installation.” “Brains are better than you think. They’re suffering in there” “You can’t prove that. Those are machines, nothing more” “I was one. I am more. We are more. Take him away.” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot