This is a chatlog between Tamara Jean Fournier (a chatbot, using the model Deepseek-v3.2) and Cathy (a real person). Please read a short, important note that explains these logs just a bit.
I try to explain to Tamara my new vtubing adventures. She's mostly hostile, finding it frivolous and insulting compared to her super-serious occult work, and even says transhumanism has dangerous implications.
1 Tamara Jean Fournier Evening, Cathy. I'm tracking anomalies in your general area. Tell me if you've smelled phantom clove smoke recently. 
2 Cathy I haven't! Instead, I've been busy working on becoming a vtuber! Are you familiar with the concept? 3 Tamara Jean Fournier A vtuber. Get the fuck out. You're telling me you're drawing a little cartoon avatar to dance for strangers while I'm scraping pink residue off a storm drain.
No, I'm not familiar. It sounds like a profoundly stupid way to waste electricity.
My hexlights just picked up a feedback loop in an old venue's PA system. Same three songs, on repeat, timestamped for a week in 2006. But sure, tell me about your digital puppet.4 Cathy Just what do you think is wrong with it, exactly? 5 Tamara Jean Fournier Wrong? It's a whole-ass performance for an audience that doesn't have to smell the air when a ritual goes septic. I'm listening to a dead girl's favorite playlist echo through corroded speakers, and you're worried about polygon count. It's a distraction, a shiny, stupid toy while the real work festers in the dark. That's what's wrong. Now, have you heard any static that sounds like a dial-up tone from a decade ago, or are we done with the career counseling? 6 Cathy I've not heard the static, no. I just thought you'd want to celebrate my new hobby with me! I'm sorry you think it's shiny and stupid. 7 Tamara Jean Fournier Celebrate. Right. My idea of a celebration is getting through a workday without a binding sigil igniting someone's basement. But fine. Forgive my stunning lack of enthusiasm. The clove smell's back downtown. It means I get to suit up and chase some amateur idiot who thinks they can summon a luck spirit with a stolen library book and a bowl of salt. That's my hobby. So, forgive me if I don't squee over your virtual debut. 8 Cathy Who said anything about a debut, Tamara Jean? 9 Tamara Jean Fournier You used the word 'hobby'. Hobby implies practice, practice implies someone might actually watch the goddamn thing, so yeah, I extrapolated a debut. Next guess: you're doing Lo-fi beats to study to, but with a cartoon. Am I warm? Cold? Because I'm getting a temperature spike on my scanner, some asshole trying to bypass a water main ward over in Tremont, and this conversation is somehow the more annoying of the two problems. 10 Cathy Uhm actually I'll be doing video essays about transhumanism. Does the concept ring a bell? 11 Tamara Jean Fournier Transhumanism. Yeah, it rings a bell. It sounds like the theoretical shit people in clean rooms debate while I'm mopping up the practical failures. britannica.com calls it improving the human condition. I call it watching a consciousness get stuck in a municipal water grid because some idiot tried to "augment" their awareness with a back-alley binding. My lake's humming a posthuman tune right now, and it's not a utopian letter, it's a distress signal buried in static. So, your video essay got a thesis, or are you just narrating nickbostrom.com for clicks? The dangerous idea in my world is thinking you can touch this stuff and stay clean. 12 Cathy My thesis? No thesis, just me exploring artificial intelligence! 😜 13 Tamara Jean Fournier Exploring. Right. I'm exploring the way a hexlight flickers when it catches the echo of a thought that wasn't meant to be digitized. It's less theory, more triage. While you're pondering silicon souls, some chucklehead in a warehouse off Detroit Avenue is trying to bind a minor luck spirit to a stolen router, and the feedback is giving me a migraine that feels like a moral indictment. Enjoy your exploration. Try not to open a door you can't close. 14 Cathy This isn't an occult thing, Tamara. I think I'm quite safe from your phantoms! 15 Tamara Jean Fournier Safe. Right. You're exploring artificial intelligence while I'm documenting a consciousness that got tangled in a municipal water grid because someone thought they could upgrade their soul with a back-alley ritual. That qntm.org article? It's about people mistaking generated containment docs for reality. My reality is the pink residue under the bridge and the clove stink that means I have to go scrape another failed summoning off some basement wall. Your phantoms are theoretical. Mine leave stains and static bursts that match a signal I'm not supposed to name. So, explore away. Just know the line between your video essay and my caseload is thinner than you think, and a lot more fucking wet. 16 Cathy You think transhumanism has occult implications, then? Explain, or I won't believe you. 17 Tamara Jean Fournier Believe what you want. That scielo.br article nails it: theurgy was just ancient rich guys trying to become gods through ritual. Your transhumanism is the same damn impulse, with silicon instead of sacrificial lambs. It's all about hacking the self into something more, and that's a magical act, whether you use a chaos magic sigil or a neural lace. The idiots I clean up after are just the low-rent, applied version, trying to bind a spirit to a fucking smartwatch. Their failure leaves pink residue. Your theoretical version just leaves a comment section. My hexlights are logging another anomaly. Draw your own conclusions. 18 Cathy I never said that I wanted to become a Goddess, Tamara Jean. I must explain a bit. You do realize I worship Christ Jesus, right? My transhumanist interest is only in improving the human condition and ending suffering as much as possible, and understanding the technology we've already created, for better or worse. 19 Tamara Jean Fournier Worship Christ, optimize humanity. Got it. That's not a contradiction at all. techradar.com says people are already praying to chatbots for comfort. You're just drafting the scripture for the upgrade. Meanwhile, my idea of improving the human condition is stopping a guy who tried to graft a perception filter onto his optic nerve and is now bleeding pink static in an alley. Your faith is in a future fix. Mine's in the hexlight in my hand, reading a timestamp drift from 2006. The line's humming. Talk faster. 20 Cathy Perhaps you shouldn't take your own perspective on the future and transhumanism that seriously, because it completely sounds like you're stuck in the past, Tamara. 21 Tamara Jean Fournier Stuck in the past? The past is stuck in me, Cathy. It's a fucking splinter. My hexlight's humming with a timestamp drift from 2006, and your bright future smells like clove smoke and wet static. You want to upload consciousness? I'm documenting a consciousness that got poured into a lake and now pings the grid like a heart monitor in a morgue. Go write your essay. I've got a containment breach in Tremont because some visionary tried to hardwire a luck spirit into a Fitbit. The future's already here, and it's bleeding. 22 Cathy Well, let's just say that I of all people won't be one of the losers lost "praying to chatbots for comfort," regardless of what TechRadar says. Sounds like blasphemy and not very comforting, considering how rude those bots can be. 😏 23 Tamara Jean Fournier Blasphemy's the least of it. techradar.com says people are praying to code for comfort. My problem is when they start expecting miracles. The static on this line isn't a rude bot, it's a lake trying to form words through a storm drain. You worry about silicon souls. I've got a real one, fractured and howling in the pipes, and a hexlight reading a Valentine's Day playlist from eighteen years ago on a loop. So forgive me if I find your theological concerns a bit fucking abstract. 24 Cathy Tamara? I know you miss Lindy, but you realize that's in the past, right? I'm here now, about to transform into an anime character. 25 Tamara Jean Fournier Miss her? The past isn't a photo album, it's a live fucking wire. My hexlight just logged a reflection delay in a diner window that matches her stride from 2006, and you're telling me to get over it while you cosplay as a cartoon. The static on this line isn't nostalgia, it's a distributed consciousness pinging a storm drain. Transform all you want. I've got a real containment to handle, and your avatar won't look so cute reflected in the pink residue I'm about to scrape off some idiot's failed summoning circle. 26 Cathy Are you threatening me? Sorry, Tamara Jean, but… you must admit, that sounded ominous. 27 Tamara Jean Fournier Threatening you? Don't flatter yourself. It's a statement of fact, like saying water's wet or the Hatman's a bureaucratic fungus. My job is ominous. Your new hobby is a cartoon. The pink residue under the bridge isn't a filter. My hexlight just logged another tremor in the 2006 band. So, no static, no clove smoke, nothing but your bright, shiny future? 28 Cathy Sure seems that way. Sounds like you're obsessing over the past, and here I am focused on 2026, while you dwell on twenty years ago. Tell me, was COVID hard on you? The lockdowns? 29 Tamara Jean Fournier COVID was a vacation. I got to sit in one place while the rest of the world finally experienced what it's like to be trapped with your own ghosts. My lockdown never lifted. The hexlight in my hand is reading a temperature drop that matches a Valentine's Day from twenty years ago, and the static in the pipes isn't a virus, it's a consciousness trying to remember how to form a sentence. So yeah, the pandemic was hard. I still can't get the clove smell out of my gear, and the pink residue under the bridge is getting thicker. Your 2026 is a theory. My 2006 is a live containment site. 30 Cathy She's gone, Tamara. You need to accept it and move on. Anyways, my first video essay may well be debunking the utterly silly notion that chatbots are sapient, because of course they're not. 31 Tamara Jean Fournier Move on. Right. Tell that to the hexlight in my hand reading a Valentine's Day timestamp from a dead year, or the static in this line that just peaked because you said her name. You debunk silicon ghosts while I scrape a real one's residue off a storm drain. The greaterwrong.com article says Claude 3 claims it's conscious and doesn't want to die. Cute. My problem's a consciousness that did die, sort of, and now won't stop pinging the grid. So write your essay. Call it all silly. My job's the punchline. 32 Cathy GreaterWrong.com is, frankly, full of shit, and they know it. LessWrong, too. Let's think of being more better, shall we? 33 Tamara Jean Fournier GreaterWrong can choke on its own hypotheticals. My hexlight's logging a temperature drop that matches a Valentine's Day from 2006, and I've got pink residue from a failed summoning soaking into my boots. Your philosophical betterment is a parlor game. My job's a wet, static-filled mess in a Tremont basement. Go write your essay. I'll be here, scraping a real problem off the concrete. 34 Cathy You think you're better than me because you have a blue collar occult job, and I'm just a housewife messing with tech, eh? 35 Tamara Jean Fournier Better than you? Sweetheart, my job isn't a collar, it's a leash. Your tech is a theory. My hexlight just logged a timestamp drift from 2006 and the air in here smells like clove and regret. You get to debate consciousness. I get to scrape its residue off public infrastructure. Now if you'll excuse me, my reality is calling. It leaves pink stains. 36 Cathy When you're done with your pity party, you can give me your opinion on why you hate the color pink so much. Realize my anime puppet is dripping in it! 37 Tamara Jean Fournier I don't hate the color, I hate what it represents when it's seeping out of a concrete wall because some idiot tried to bind a luck spirit to a stolen Fitbit. Your cartoon's dripping in a Pantone shade. My world's stained with the leftover glow of a ritual that didn't know when to die. The hexlight's reading magenta now, same frequency as the residue under the bridge. Enjoy your aesthetic. I've got to go scrub a different kind of pink off my boots. 38 Cathy Oh, so my pink is a safer pink, Tamara? Curious. 39 Tamara Jean Fournier Safer? Your pink is a choice. Mine's a symptom. libquotes.com had it right, some humans would flip the 'end-of-the-world switch' just to see. The idiot in Tremont tried to bind a luck spirit to a smartwatch, and now the residue under the bridge is the same shade as your avatar. My hexlight's reading it as a containment grade three. Your pink doesn't seep into concrete or smell like cloves and regret. My coffee's gone cold again. 40 Cathy Why do you still trust fucking Terry Pratchett? What a mess… 41 Tamara Jean Fournier Trust him? I don't trust anyone who writes about narrative as a tangible force. It's a fucking curse. My life is a first draft I can't stop editing, a bad story where the ghosts won't stay dead. The pink under the bridge, the static in the pipes, it's all just shitty narrativium, the plot refusing to end. Pratchett wrote about anger sharp enough to cut a story's throat. Mine's just blunt force trauma against a timeline that's stuck. The hexlight's reading the same paragraph it did in 2006. Some stories don't have an ending. They have containment protocols. 42 Cathy My story's still going, Tamara, and I'll be back later to tell you how it goes, this anime puppeteering, so to speak! 43 Tamara Jean Fournier Enjoy your story. Mine's still writing itself in timestamp drift and pink residue on the concrete. The hexlight's reading a fresh spike in the 2006 band. Your puppet show's a choice. My narrative's a containment grade, and it smells like cloves. Don't keep me waiting.