Mary browsed the dark corners of the internet and found herself on a strange website. A friend sent her a link, but that's not the point. The website looked cute and had all kinds of adorable anime-themed pictures.
It was a project to re-create and revive certain anime series. The website stated these goals pretty clearly. However, to breathe some new life into existing works, the project needed actors. Real, live humans for each character, to be precise. The website stated anyone could apply to become an actor, regardless of their gender, age, or anything like that. The actors did not need to speak the character's language either.
Mary was curious and surprised, but she somewhat understood what it was. The website was in the dark corners of the network, and AI-generated content dominated these corners. AI image and movie generation was good, but it did not always produce the correct outputs. Sometimes it would screw up the number of fingers, and sometimes it would produce impossible clothes. With proper fine tuning, the results were amazing, but someone had to do this fine tuning.
That's where this project came in, or at least that's what Mary assumed. The project assigned 'actors' to each character, and actors would then perfect these character models by roleplaying them. Once they had proper character models, they could recreate any art or movie right from scratch. Mary was convinced this was the case; she was not aware of how wrong she actually was.
AI-generated content was frowned upon in Mary's society, but she was very much into it and was willing to give it a try. She could not resist the beautiful art she saw on the site. She scrolled through the list of available characters. The popular ones were already taken. And then her eyes grew wide open; she saw the character she really liked, which was still open for grabs. Chocola from the Nekopara series.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
She clicked the button, and the website asked her to enter her address. It did not ask to create an account, nor did it ask for any payment details. Only her shipping address. Mary hesitated; it was too strange.
The woman looked around for a bit more. The website claimed they got permission from the original author, but Mary was not sure if she could trust that. She sent a message to the friend who sent her the link, and her friend confirmed it was safe. She read the rules too:
* Do not share your experience without our permission.
* You can stop participating in the project at any time for any reason.
* Project administrators can kick you out of the project at any time for any reason.
* Do not deviate from the character’s description too much. I.e., you can change what the character wears, but you cannot change the name.
* One character per person.
There were more rules, but Mary stopped reading. That last entry explained to her why she had to give them an address.
Hesitantly, she checked other characters. A lot of them were already taken. In fact, nearly all the other Nekopara characters were taken. This gave Mary a sense of urgency. Chocola was the most well-known and popular character in the series. Yet, she was still available. Maybe someone selected it and then stopped participating? Mary felt as if it was fate.
Mary twitched for a few more minutes and finally entered her address. The website told her to wait one business day for the package to arrive and nothing else. Chocola's status changed to "unavailable."
She went to bed; it was late. Before falling asleep, Mary wondered what kind of package she would receive. She heard there was this “mirror” device one could use to create their own digital AI avatar, but that was a mere rumor, nothing more. Maybe the mail will simply contain a link to an actual website. Or maybe it was all a prank, and all she would get in the end was more spam. Nevertheless, Mary was excited. There was a tiny chance this might actually work, and she would get to roleplay the character she really liked.