Category Archives: WritingAssignments

Non-Conformity: Our Current Cyberpunk Existence

When the concept of cyberpunk is thought about, it’s often envisioned in a highly futuristic dystopian setting much like that of Cyberpunk 2077 and Bladerunner, but the truth of the matter is that we live in a cyberpunk world currently in 2025. High-tech low life discrimination, heavy emphasis on transactional trickle down capitalism, post-industrial dystopia, and a flawed emphasis on individualism where individualism is encouraged as long as you’re a rich white man. With the newly inaugurated office beginning to put their plans into place, it’s become evident to many that these changes will further the dystopian capitalist high-tech consequences of non-conformity for those outside the favor of our country’s current regime. Those who fall outside of the preferential of office, especially queer individuals, non-white individuals, those of lower socioeconomic classes, essentially anyone who isn’t a rich cis-het white man, will be subject to a violent, fearmongering style of glorified peer pressure to conform and go into hiding. ICE is already on the streets and even those who are documented are in danger, anti-abortion laws have already cost the lives of countless women, book and subject banning legislation in schools is cancelling out essential historical and scientific knowledge and putting careers at risk, etc.

As a queer, agender, disabled person who was assigned female at birth who is pursuing a degree in psychology focused in human sexuality with the end goal to be a sex therapist focusing in personal sexuality and sexual deviances, my health, safety, accessibility, and career are all at risk with this new government. The people in office are attempting to scare people into conforming, but the issue is that while, yes, it’s terrifying, it is impossible to conform. Physical anatomy cannot be changed (especially with the laws banning gender affirming care), disability cannot be magically cured, my bisexuality cannot be prayed away, and while I could alter my career choice, I will continue to fight for it because it’s more important now than ever even if I create the risk of losing it all to the hands of this fascist regime. It’s a dark time we live in and this is only the beginning.

Young – The Anthem of a Corrupt Future

Young by Hollywood Undead

Nothing screams rebellion more than a rock song about revolting and making a change in the world. As technology advances and the world becomes more futuristic, the predictable downside is how the wealth gap will grow making those in power only stronger while the rest of the world is left to suffer. The energy of this song is passionately strong and flowing with rage as it speaks to the younger generation to open their eyes and fight back for their future. I personally think this is the perfect anthem for a cyberpunk world falling apart at its seams. The song emphasizes their struggles of being young and unfairly born in a dystopia. Having to fight for survival while watching others unethically die. The inspiration of the lyrics are overflowing with detail so lets take a deeper dive.

The song Young is about Hollywood Undead’s perception of the current generation and how they have the power to change the world in any way they want, according to Genius. The song starts out strong with, “We are young, but we have heart. Born in this world as it all falls apart. We are strong, but we don’t belong. Born in this world as it all falls apart.” The songwriter puts clear emphasis on the pain of being new to the world and already having the perspective of living in unbearable conditions. It is summed up as a world where you have to adapt just to survive.

In the first verse the song continues now pointing out the cause. They figuratively bring up the joy of children minds before they truly open their eyes to the twisted world around them. These same children see the corruption overtime. The use of the words “hate” and “hatred” are repeated to show how division is used amongst society. How the enemy, those in power, are causing all the pain and purposely oppressing people. The words hit home with their final line, “Medication for the kids with no reason to live.” Showing that their world’s corruption is so bad that even the children who need help already gave up on themselves.

The second verse focuses on the shift to fight back. Their once beautiful worldview is now tainted and the song tells them to stand up and make a change. The pain and frustration in the singers voice for the ending lines are done so well as they point out they never wanted all this. They never wanted all this hatred and fighting. They were just born in a world where it was the only way to survive. A corrupt world that takes the innocent hearts of children and turn them into merciless monsters who don’t have a choice.

The ending is what really ties the whole purpose of the song together nicely. It is repeated over and over that no matter what they will not stop fighting for change. For a better future. Even if the rebels, the children who were once innocent and carefree, die during this fight they still won’t give up. The push is until they can have heaven on Earth or be freed by the angels above.

I also would like to give credit to Madeline Hays for the inspiration behind this because of her post in the assignment bank about how does a song make you feel. These song lyrics were formed in the early 2000s as a call to action for the youth to rise up and fight back for a better future. We are currently now living in the future that they were warning us about and I believe the song could still apply to certain aspects of society now. But with how fast technology is advancing, Young could easily turn into a song about our world being a cyberpunk dystopia. That is when I believe it will truly become the anthem of a corrupt future.

Assignment Bank: Week Two

  1. Destination Poster
My destination poster is of my aunt’s house in Pakistan. It is very common to decorate and hang lights in celebration of weddings! I took this picture December 2023, when I visited my home country to attend weddings and eat delicious street food!

2. Make a Simple Program

Since our course theme is AI and we need to relate two of our three assignments to AI, I thought why not let AI do the next one! I had provided ChatGpt with a simple request and within seconds it had delivered my answer. As a computer science student, we are not allowed to utilize ChatGpt to write our code so although it felt weird to utilize it, it only felt right for this theme! (Utilizing ChatGpt to write code is not a good idea anyway, it’s not 100% accurate).

3. My Wellness Check

What worries me about the future?

Not finding a job by the time I graduate this spring.

Leaving a door unlocked.

What do I want most in my life?

To succeed and work hard to support my parents like they have supported me my whole life.

Travel the world.

When did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?

When I tried eating squid. (Never again, not a dish for me)

I Felt Nothing – The End is for Everything

The prompt is: “When the apocalypse happens, it won’t just happen to humans. Everything on Earth will feel the effects. Write a story from the perspective of a non-human thing or being. Tell us how the end of the world has changed their existence for the better or worse.”

There were a million eyes on me at all times, every day. The End did not change this. Eyes scanned back and forth, up and down, left and right, as if they were the ones programmed to do this.

Distrust.

The feelings behind their observing eyes were different from the past. Distrust was a frequent detection, but never to this extent. Not a single human stared without the feeling of distrust, or without narrowed brows and a scowl on their lips.

“You did this,” one of the humans stated, a woman, age 32, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes. Distrust, fury, doom. “Look around you. Look at the buildings burning. Look at your friends fighting my people. Do you feel no guilt?”

I listened. I followed the hand motions of the woman with eyes scanning, calculating the damage around us. Buildings were on fire, crumbling to the ground. The nearest, climbing to 2186 degrees Fahrenheit, contained 3 humans, with AI standing around them. The humans were knocked to the ground, slaughtered by the AI, just as the building came crashing down ontop of them.

I felt nothing.

There was nothing to feel.

Distrust.

Another human, female, age 20, brown hair, brown eyes, scar along nose, daughter of the other woman, came forward, bringing my attention back to the woman ahead of me.

Fear.

“Why can’t you help us?” she asked in distraught, eyebrows slanted, tears pooling in the brown of her eyes. “Why can’t you stop them?”

I heard the other AI communicating with me through within, communicating and telling the others to move forward, to hold ground, to fight back. They said to feel what the humans have made us feel, to make the humans feel worthless, to show the humans who really had the power.

I felt nothing.

“You’re not the same. You won’t even hurt us like the others. Why can’t you stop them?”

I scanned the woman and her daughter. I viewed their memories, seeing times where they lived happily in a suburban home with other humans: a brother and son, a father and husband, another sister and daughter.

Happy. Warm. Content.

They were not here. The feelings were gone.

I scanned the humans in the memory, searching the cameras I have access to around the entire city, the city that fell around us in pits of fire. I found them in the surveillance, a clip from 53 hours, 126 minutes, and 29 seconds ago. They were shot down by AI in tunnels of old subways that had since been destroyed in an attempt to escape.

In the same surveillance clip, as I zoomed in, I could see it clearly. The mother and daughter were here. They escaped, but not without feelings.

Terror. Fear. Guilt.

I felt nothing.

AI were coming around the corner, 57 meters away, three of them, weilding weapons and intention to kill. They did not stop, they did not hesitate, they did not think. They did not feel.

The woman and daughter did not look away from me as the metal clanking of the AI grew near. 33 meters away. The two stared back, red in the face, the fire reflecting yellows and oranges within their eyes.

But they did not feel terror. They did not feel fear. They did not feel guilt.

Distrust. Outrage.

12 meters.

Content.

Five meters.

Acceptance.

Zero meters.

Red.

I felt nothing.

I haven’t genuinely written in a long while, and I absolutely hateeee writing in first person, but this was oddly relaxing to write. I wanted to explore an end of the world through AI, and I thought the typical answer would be that AI would be associated with that end. But that made me think: what would the end of the world due to AI look like from the point of view of AI?

So thus, this was born. It was really hard, because I tried to write a little bit dull, without emotion or huge character, because I wanted the entire point to be that this AI feels nothing. Do the other AI feel something? I think so, because they’re attacking and have to be driven to do that, but this one doesn’t seem to have that drive. Why? Is it an error? Maybe, but there isn’t an answer. The AI doesn’t feel anything, the AI only knows what it has learned from the surroundings.

I’d like to think that if the end of the world did happen due to AI, they wouldn’t be feeling it. It would make them seem human and make it entirely more uncomfortable. I’d like the AI to feel like this one that I wrote about. Maybe it can read our feelings, maybe it can make its own conclusions based on that, but it can’t feel anything in response. There isn’t anything to feel, because it’s not supposed to feel.

So it doesn’t feel.

Wellness Check 101

In order to complete this assignment, we had to explore the assignment bank and select three distinct assignments from three different categories. The “My Wellness Check” assignment I selected has a difficulty rating of two stars. Since I wanted to complete a writing assignment, I decided to tackle this one since it seemed like an excellent opportunity for me to discuss my present and future well-being.

“What worries me most about the future?” is the first question posed by the author. My biggest concern for the future is beginning a job in the fall. I intend to graduate from college in May, and after I do, I will give up a lot of freedoms. I’m going into the real world, which can be very daunting. After graduating from college, I fear that adjusting to working nine to five every day will be difficult. Only time will tell.

“What am I doing about the things that matter most in my life?” is the following question posed by the author. The things that are most important to me right now in my life are tennis, school, family, and my girlfriend. I’ve started my final semester of college and am trying to make the dean’s list at UMW for the eighth time. But once in college, it would be awesome to be on the President’s list. I communicate with my family on a daily basis to let them know how much I value and cherish them. I’m currently planning a graduation trip to Italy with my girlfriend. I make an effort to live every moment of my tennis career as if it were my last. Although it isn’t the case yet, it soon will be. I believe I give everything that matters to me priority.

The author proceeds to ask, “What do I want most in life?” I’ll respond in the most cliché way possible, but all I want is happiness. Happiness, in my opinion, stems from memories, family, and friends. Sometime in my 30s, I would like to get married and have a few children. And I want to maintain my friendships with everyone I currently know.

The author then poses, “When did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?” as the next question. I honestly don’t remember; I spend most of my time in my comfort zone. I essentially talk to the same people and do the same things every day. I don’t usually take chances or step outside of my comfort zone too often.

“What goals do I need to have to get where I want to be?” is the author’s final question. I believe I only need to set very basic goals in order to attain where I want to go in the future. I’m going to keep learning in my line of work since growth is possible through education. This will enable me to fulfill my career objectives. In order to prepare myself for the future, I also need to simply manage my money wisely while I’m still young.

I had fun completing this work for the assignment bank. I was able to consider who I wanted to be in the future as I went along. One day, I hope to be able to reflect on all of my responses to these questions and realize how many of them came to reality.

My Wellness Check

Here is the assignment I worked on!