Thirsty (open)

[Ithica Pettineo]

ooc; It was super awesoming enough. O: Sorry about Ithica's mood change. :l I had writers block, so I figured listening to music would help, but then it turned to a sad song and back to a happy song. So it resulted in a moody Ithica and a pretty craptastic post. >.<

-

Ithica never really thought about sentience being 'problematic'. Of course, he had never polled the items that he had brought to life. Rosie was a chatterbox, so he assumed that she enjoyed - even mildly - being 'alive'. He had met a few objects that didn't seem to enjoy it as much, but he had never thought about it being problematic. But for the can it certainly was. Ithica wasn't so sure he liked his Trait anymore. Maybe he'd stop using it. Become a street urchin just as he had planned after reading Les Miserables.

He watched the computer and Jacob talk with a blank gaze. A look he normally adopted in his classes - when he attended them, that is. He did take a note of the pleased expression - he guessed it was about as much as a pleased expression he was going to get from that Jacob - and felt a little better. Violet couldn't be so unhappy in the hands of Jacob, could she? He was obviously good with computers, well, technology in general, and Violet was a computer.

At the parent comment, Ithica pushed the unpleasant and unsettling thoughts from his mind and smiled. He would say something about being the mother, but decided just to let the analogy drop. He had never thought about being parents to the things he brought to life. But he didn't seem to think much about his Trait, apparently. Ithica's smile faltered as he looked down at his shoes.

"Hello, Violet!" Ithica said blithely, bouncing up and down. If the computer was thanking him, then she didn't think life was problematic, right? Computers didn't lie. Did they? "You can call me mum if you like." Ithica had never thought this much after Animating something. He was accustomed thinking, just not so.. negatively. It was making him crave ice cream and a comfortable couch. "You're welcome. I've never been thanked before." At least not by the object. "So thank you for saying thank you!"

[∴ Jacob]

OOC: Your post was just fine I'm really sorry I take so long to reply all the time xD

There was a detectable pause after Ithica suggested Violet call him 'mum', during which Violet formulated and Jacob mostly gawked at her. Images flashed across her screen lightning fast; gender conventions, biology, etymology, and then...

"You're a man," Violet finally stated. Another pause followed, a few more pages flashed across her screen, and then, "I will call you mum." Violet offered no explanation for the seeming change of heart.

Jacob's momentary loss of gross motor function and basic cerebral activity seemed to abate just then, and he chimed in. "Well, I would prefer we stick with Jacob for me. I was drawing a parallel is all."

He sat down at the expensive-looking chair in front of the computer, and pointed to a couple places on the screen. Violet began navigating for him automatically, but carried on her conversation with Ithica as well. Such simple multitasking was hardly a strain, even with subroutines scouring the internet for information to add to her growing database.

"You're welcome, mum," she replied. "Do you do this sort of thing often? I would think that your subjects would be grateful to be given life."

In the background, another conversation played out between Jacob what seemed to be another Violet.

"You've nearly filled my hard drive, Violet. What are you doing?"

"Archiving information. I am learning."

"Do you really need all this space?"

"Actually, I need more. Only vital information is stored here. I have commandeered small amounts of space from other devices nearby for secondary storage of non-vital data."

"Cloud computing?"

"More or less."

And so on.

[Ithica Pettineo]

[ooc; c: it's okay.]

In the pause that ensued, Ithica had found out two things. Computers didn't joke was the first thing he learned as he watched the topics flood the monitor. The other thing he learned was that females, computer or not, were just weird. He raised an eyebrow as Violet called him a man. Was that a no?

He had just braced himself for the disappointment of being called just Ithica – okay, not really – when she consented to call him ‘mum’. He nodded, not really sure why she changed her mind. Maybe it was because he was feminine? Or perhaps it was just a weird sense of computer humour. He would have commented about Jacob being called ‘dad’, but let the analogy drop.

After all, how weird was parenting with a stranger?

When Violet asked her question, Ithica grinned. “Yeah, I bring things to life all the time. I don’t think they like it, though. Rosie tells me that everything has a personality, and a lot of inanimate objects have just sort of…” He paused, looking for the right word. Unable to find it, he shrugged and waved it off. “I’m just glad you aren’t unhappy.”

At the Violet and Jacob’s conversation, his eyes glazed over and he tilted his head. He was the very epitome of confused. Cloud computing? Sometimes the demon had a theory that people made things up just to confuse him. He imagined Jacob pushing Violet on a swingset that was located on a cloud.

It was a little creepy, but it made him smile all the same.

[∴ Jacob]

OOC: Customary apologies for being a doofus >>

Jacob and Violet1 babbled on for a while during Ithica's conversation with Violet2, mostly about the technical aspects of Violet's being that were now invalid — mostly space requirements — as animated objects appeared to have ethereal 'minds' somewhere, and minds were known for having vast amounts of storage. After thinking it over, the pair of them realized Violet need not store anything in a physical location, as she could simply 'remember' it. This realization caused both of them a great deal of embarrassment, but Jacob reasoned that as a computer could fetch information more reliably if not more quickly than a mind fetches memories, they should store more obscure information in physical locations, and more commonly needed information simply as a memory in Violet's new-found mind. The paradigm shift necessary to move away from their old way of thinking was rather unsettling, but the two of them managed to work it out, together.

Meanwhile, Ithica might begin to notice Violet's speech becoming more and more fluid, more 'human', as she studied both the conversations she was having, as well as the vast resources of the internet.

"I am certainly not unhappy. I hope you don't think I was being ungrateful when I said it was problematic," Violet said, emotion beginning to stain her previously monotonous words. "I'd simply skimmed the resources I could find on the subject, and I found much evidence that artificial intelligence would cause problems. However, I originally failed to take into account that what I was reading was entirely fiction. A more logical analysis suggests that violence and tyranicism in general are the problem, not AIs. Popular fiction just seems to believe that AIs will resort to these things as a 'logical conclusion' of some sort."

Violet paused for a moment, and a few odd noises could be heard before she spoke again, something different in her voice. She sounded quite a lot more human than she had just a moment ago, a rather large jump for such a short time. "I think you would have to be rather stupid to try something like that, and an AI certainly isn't stupid."

It was around this time that Jacob began to settle down again, and he noticed that he was sitting in a damp chair, wearing damp (and burnt) clothes, while his new friend stood behind him in a very similar situation. The whole situation was rather uncomfortable.

"Ithica," he chirped, spinning his chair around to face the demon, before hastily adding, "Sorry to interrupt." He gestured toward the demon and himself. "In my excitement, I forgot about the incident earlier. Sorry about that, by the way. Didn't see you there." He looked almost sheepish, most likely a result of thinking about how lucky he was that the man he had so mistreated has still been keen to help him out.

"If you like, you could go to your room and change out of those clothes. I'll... try to find something clean, in the meantime, and you can leave Rosie here too if you want. Fixing her would be the least I could do." A little-known fact about Jacob was that he was rather handy with a needle and thread, a skill he'd taught himself as a child. When he fell, he picked himself up patched his own pants, because his parents weren't around to do it for him. When his shirt became too small, he altered it himself, because his parents weren't around to take him to the store for a new one. They were nice enough people, and he had a good relationship with them, they were simply far too busy for a child.

"You can come back and get her when you're done. I won't be very long."

[Ithica Pettineo]

Ithica always had trouble when more than one person was talking at once. When it was the same person having two conversations at once his brain started to hurt. When that one person was having a conversation beyond his intelligence with another person beyond his intelligence about things that he'd never understand... he felt a little unintelligent. He tilted his head to the side as he listened to Jacob and a Violet talk about stuff and a Violet apologize to him.

"It's no problem," Ithica said awkwardly. He could never keep dry eyes when people apologized to him. He was a sentimental half-demon after all. "Fiction... oh, yeah. Evil robots. Tons of stories 'bout them. With a bzzz bzzzz..and pew pew.." Ithica waved his arms trying to imitate lasers. He dropped them by his side and rocked on his heels awkwardly.

He rubbed his elbow when the computer stopped talking. Apparently you don't pew pew to a computer. "Stupid? Oh, to resort to violence? I think it's ridiculous." A pacifistic sentimental half demon. Wasn't he just a barrel of fun? "'Course an AI isn't stupid. You have the word intelligence in your species."

"Jacob!" He responded blithely. Incident earlier? Oh. Yes, the reason he was wet and cold. "Don't worry about it. You got some of the dirt off me." Optimism was always the best way to go. "And it's not your fault you didn't see me. I heard a scream coming from inside here... so I hid." Ithi rambled. "I mean, not that I was scared or anything. It's just...uh...you know, I kind of was." He rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous smile.

At the prospect of changing into dry clothes he bounced on his feet with joy. "Yes! I quite like dry and clean clothes." He nodded happily. However his smile faltered when Jacob offered to leave Rosie there to fix her. He looked from his wet bookbag to Jacob. Ithi took out the doll with uncertainty. He couldn't imagine Jacob being.. domestic.
"Yes." He decided, handing over the pieces to the man. "Just be careful, please. She was my mom's."

Ithi walked out of the bedroom and carefully stepped through the dorm. Maybe they could hire a maid or something. Ithica could be a maid. Or the male version of a maid, whatever that was called. He supposed that since maid was short for maidservant... it'd be manservant. That struck him as oddly obsiquious (even for him) and decided he didn't like the idea anymore. Once he was outside of the room he started on his way to go change.

[ooc; I'm terribly sorry for the lack of good in this post. ._.]

[∴ Jacob]

OOC: Hush your lips, fibber!

"Very true," Violet2 responded to the "intelligence in the name" comment. There was a hint of mirth in her voice that suggested the very tiniest of laughs was being had. "You're a very sincere person in what seems to be a very cynical world. I couldn't ask for a better mum."

Violet (both of her voices) was quiet while Jacob spoke with Ithica, presumably having gone back to her research. However, she quickly piped back in.

"Incident? Is that why you're soaking wet?"

"Indeed it is, Violet. I was on fire, and then I was not. I'll tell you all about it while I patch Rosie up."

Jacob's eyebrow raised with amusement as Ithica detailed the events leading up to the incident. "Well, you certainly couldn't be accused of being dishonest," he noted. "And you have my apologies regardless of your prior activities."

Jacob stood from his computer chair, frowning at the wet spot he'd left on it before looking back at Ithica. His frown, which had defaulted back to his usual bored look upon the chair leaving his sight, turned on its head and became a bemused sort of grin when Ithica professed his love for proper clothing. "Don't we all," he humbly agreed.

Seeing Ithica's hesitance to hand over the doll, Jacob held his tongue. He knew with something that important, any outside influence was useless; the decision whether to trust Jacob would have to be made autonomously. He did, however, offer his reassurances when Ithica decided to give it the go-ahead. "I will treat her as I would Violet," he assured the demon, that being the highest level of carefulness he could communicate.

As soon as Ithica left the room, Jacob placed Rosie on his computer table and scrounged around on the messy side of the room for some relatively clean, wrinkle-free clothes to wear. After locating the cream of the substandard crop, he had just begun to undress when he suddenly turned to his computer.

"..."

"What is it?" Violet inquired, quite innocently.

"No peeking," Jacob ordered.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Violet responded, her monitor flicking off. Jacob wasn't quite sure how the sentient machine saw, exactly, but he unplugged the monitor and covered the webcam with a dirty shirt just to be safe, and turned Rosie in the other direction. He could have swore he heard a stifled laugh from Violet as he did all this, but he ignored it.

He quickly changed, and settled in to his restoration.

OOC: Feel free to TIME-WARP© a bit and have him coming back right after this post

[Ithica Pettineo]

Ithi had not gone to the laundry for several days. He went through his dresser desperately, throwing about random pairs of pajamas. Why had he so many pajamas but nothing... normal to wear? He huffed, glaring towards the dirty hamper as though it was it's fault for Ithi's laziness. He debated wearing dirty clothes before deciding that that would be gross and pajamas were just fine.

Or so they would be if Ithica had masculine pajamas. Instead he had pairs of Dora the Explorer, The Brave Little Toaster, and other such childish and cartoony pajamas. He muttered bitterly about having to invest in some more mature jams. Plain ones. Maybe purple. He liked the color purple. Well, not the book because that had just been depressing and forever changed his views on his favorite color. He didn't like to think about it that much.

"What about these?" His dresser asked, and a pair of pajamas flew out of the second drawer and hit him in the chest. "These aren't so...ridiculous." It snickered playfully. "You're nearly twenty and you have Disney pajamas..."

Ithica took the life out of the dresser and muttered something about how his wardrobe needed to learn manners because just because he has Dora the Explorer pajamas didn't say anything about his masculinity! They were comfy. And purple. And they had that adorable little monkey on them. But it wasn't as if he'd ever wear that in the public, much less in front of someone like Jacob.

That's why he was walking down towards Jacob's dorm in Buzz Lightyear pajamas. He normally wasn't self-conscious, but somehow his pajamas made things just a little too personal. At least he didn't have to put on dirty clothes.

He stepped inside awkwardly, unsure whether he was supposed to have knocked or something. Ithica coughed to alert whomever of his presence. He tugged on the sleeves of the shirt nervously and stepped inside Jacob's room cautiously. "Sorry about my pajamas." He tapped his head and offered a smile. "I have eidetic memory, but laundry day always just slips my mind.."

[ooc| erm, sorry. :3]

[∴ Jacob]

The only thing that greeted Ithica upon his entering the dorm again was a slight burning smell coming from the kitchen and a very confused, ashamed, and pale Laramie. However, the latter noticed the former before he had any time to greet their guest, and took off into the kitchen, leaving Ithica to find his way back to Jacob's room on his own.

"Hello," Jacob said, immediately after Ithica entered the room. He was still engrossed in his work on Rosie, and hadn't even looked up when Ithica came in, aware of the demon's presence only because of his peripheral vision. However, when he apologized for his pajamas, Ithica finally drew Jacob's gaze.

"Hm."

Toy Story was one of Jacob's all-time favourite movies, a carry-over from his childhood that he hadn't managed to shake. Deep down, he didn't particularly want to, but on the surface, he was embarrassed by the perceived childishness of liking the movie, which had been the start of his lifelong fascination with the artificial intelligence and the like. He thought that the toys in the movie were much closer to whatever it was that Ithica did than what he strove for, but his self-consciousness led to him keeping the thought to himself.

"I'm done here," he said, after a moment of what would have been silence if Violet hadn't greeted Ithica as well. He put down his tools of the trade and picked Rosie up with surprising tenderness, spinning in his chair until he was facing his friend and standing up. He held his hands out to Ithica, Rosie cupped in them.

"The seam should be more durable now than it was before, but I couldn't reinforce her too much or it would be obvious she was repaired," Jacob explained. As he had hinted, it was near impossible to tell that Rosie had been restored; the damage Ithica had done was almost completely invisible.

"I'm a little rusty," Jacob said, the smallest of imperfections catching his eye. He was a very meticulous person when it came to certain things. However, the opposite side of his room made it quite clear that these certain things were by far his priorities, and other aspects of his life suffered for it.

[Ithica Pettineo]

Hm? Hm? What was hm supposed to mean? Ithi tensed, attempting to ignore every sense that was telling him to flee for what was left of his dignity. And then Violet greeted him, and Ithica didn't feel quite so flighty. He tilted his head at Jacob. "Hm." Seeing a demon in his pyjamas wasn't as strange as seeing a genius sewing ripped dollies. "To infinity, and beyond?" Ithica quoted lamely. "I like Buzz Lightyear. He has a cool helmet." He pressed his collarbone and made a whoosh sound. "Made cool noises when he opened it..." Ithi mumbled.

He picked up Rosie and smiled gratefully at Jacob. "Thank you. I really owe you, you know?" Ithi patted her head gently, and the grumpy doll glared back up at him. He ran his thumb over the seams while listening to Jacob. Rusty? If this was Jacob on an off-day then sewing-grandmothers everywhere must quake at the mention of Sewing Genius Jacob. Ithica had once taken a class on sewing, but the 'teddy bear' (if one could call the monstrous, hideous and deformed cloth with stuffing that) had only served to fuel Rosie's arguement that Ithica could not do anything right.

Rosie huffed and crawled to perch on the demon's shoulders. She poked her own neck. "Thanks." She nodded, and yanked Ithi's ear, sending him another glare. "Being headless was not very fun. It wasn't much different than having a body... so I guess being headless isn't fun because having a head isn't fun." She pondered. "Was my body sentient? Because that's creepy to think my body was having thoughts of it's own."

Ithica shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't bother to ask it." He turned his attention back to Jacob. "I appreciate what you did for her. You did a fantastic job."

[∴ Jacob]

As Ithica spoke of Toy Story, Jacob marvelled over the childish naivete the demon possessed. He clearly wasn't stupid, probably wasn't mentally unwell, and yet managed to act as though he hadn't yet reached the double digits. Either he had led an amazingly sheltered life, or he had a heck of a coping mechanism. Jacob was no psychology buff, however, and that train of thought quickly left for the next station.

Jacob waved off Ithica's thanks, though not very emphatically; it was more of a slightly raised hand and a downward turn of his head. "You don't owe me. If anything, we owe you," he said, gesturing to Violet.

When Rosie thanked him, too, Jacob decided, for whatever reason, to reply. "You're welcome. I'm sorry if it hurt, but I don't think there were many other options." He wasn't quite sure if she could feel pain. It certainly didn't seem that way, but feeling pain was an essential part of life, a sense of touch in general being much the same thing on a more sensitive scale. And a sense of touch was absolutely necessary to facilitate movement and the like in humans. Again, Jacob's mind wandered as he wondered just how Rosie got around this, but once more, he proved to be less interested in physiology than his regular fields, and he stopped pondering rather quickly.

Ithica's continuing insistence on expressing gratitude finally pried something from him other than a subtle gesture. "It's really not a big deal. I used to sew a lot."

Jacob was startled at that moment by "To infinity, and beyond!" blaring at him from behind. Turning around, he was greeted by the image of Buzz Lightyear riding a toy car through a loop-de-loop, at which he glared. "Violet," he growled.

Ithica might assume she had prepared the clip expressly for delivery to his pajama-clad self, grabbing it from whatever corner of the internet, but what he could never know for sure is that the entire movie was already stored on Jacob's hard drive, along with the sequel. This, of course, explained Jacob's foul mood.

Luckily for Jacob, Violet turned the clip off immediately with no more than a subtle second of stifled laughter.

Jacob sat heavily in his chair, facing Ithica, his forehead cradled in his hand.

"So."