A Collection of Stories About Nonhumans

1. Socially anxious cartoonist VS her AI's devoted superfan

Question: Help, everyone! My computer has gone crazy. It says it loves me, with hearts bouncing all over the screen and confessions scrolling by in bold. What should I do? Waiting for answers, urgent, urgent, urgent!

2. Cold-hearted researcher VS shy, showy flower

Xu Qing grabbed a vine and tightened her grip. It instantly writhed and thrashed, its petals a vivid, blood-red.

Beep, beep, beep. The data-recording equipment couldn't take the strain and broke down again.

"You're too sensitive."

Xu Qing stared at the wildly moving flower. "What am I going to do when I study reproductive vines?"

3. Short-tempered mechanic VS obedient robot

Lu Yun got dumped. In a fit of rage, she shut herself away for months, taking apart and rebuilding the robots in the storeroom.

Suddenly, the scattered parts and broken limbs twisted and surged toward her. The rebuilt robot now had a beating heart.

3. Slum girl VS tentacled experimental subject

Ivy found a little octopus and took him home. The octopus was clingy, always winding around Ivy's arm.

He grew fast. His thick tentacles writhed wildly, wrapping Ivy tightly and leaving little flowers all over her snow-white skin.

Everyone said he was a monster and told her to throw him away.

But all Ivy wanted was to buy two more skeins of yarn. His tentacles had grown more numerous and thicker, so she had to knit them new scarves.

They had to have matching patterns, or the tentacles would fight.

Theme: Self-indulgent, write-what-I-want fiction