#everyone is convinced i know how to use that thing and computers in general

[steelthroat]

There's nothing in this world that will ever be better than my 60-year-old Italian literature professor reciting a futurist poem.

I've reached my peak. We've never laughed more in this classroom.

#steel rambles #it's funny because every time he jas to share something on the big screen in the classroom he calls me #everyone is convinced i know how to use that thing and computers in general #HONEY I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING #but they call me “the computer technician” #just because i helped my professors show videos and powerpoints ajjsjfjjfjgjgj #btw futurism is fun :D #(derogatory) #btw if you're curious “il poeta si diverte” by Palazzeschi #that's the poem

[judysxnd]

Your gallery dating Lando

Miami GP. You were able to fly with him this time, so you got to enjoy some time with him. Lando was obsessed with this old camera he found. That’s how you ended up taking this picture while he was testing it out and filming everything he could.

Lando convinced you to go with him to the silver cup, even though you weren’t really into it. He absolutely loves golf, but it’s not really your thing. But he was so eager and passionate about it that you couldn’t say no. You took this picture when you arrived there. He was so excited, kept talking, laughing, like a child in a toy store. So cute.

Dating Lando means you get to be backstage with him. Usually it’s more being in the garage, but sometimes it’s literal backstage. You put out your phone saying “landoscar! landoscar!” Like the fans were on the other side, making Lando laugh while Oscar rolled his eyes. But you got a nice pic out of it. You teased them with this pic because they look a bit like twins.

It’s such a simple picture, but you love it so much. The view behind Lando, the sunset making the perfect light, him smiling, having fun doing his interview, his favorite biscuits.. him using the chair you almost fell of for his computer, the lamp he almost broke while chasing you, it’s little details like that, that you remember while looking at this picture. Also, just admiring Lando in general. You remember having literal heart eyes looking at him that you took this picture.

It wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t have at least a dozen pictures of Lando sleeping in random places. This man falls asleep everywhere. This time it was understandable. It was for the Vegas gp, it was a very busy week and it was extremely late. He stayed in the garage for a while but he couldn’t take it anymore so he gave you a quick kiss saying that he was going to nap and to wake him up in an hour max if he wasn’t up before. Obviously you had to go and wake him up. Weirdly no one wanted to do it so you had to. You took this picture right before.

Date night with Lando. After a nice restaurant, he took you to play some golf. You’ve never went to a place like that so he obviously did. He won’t ever let you have something you want undone. He will make your dreams come true, literally. Even though this was also another attempt to get you to play golf with him. He saw an opportunity and immediately took it. But you had so much fun. He got to teach you a bit because you kept missing the ball but you had such a good time. He was so proud, hence the picture.

One of your favorite pics. The smile is has after a race, after he felt like he had a good race. You know how hard he can be on himself after he didn’t perform like he wanted to, so the smiles are genuine. You love seeing him thrive like that. This picture always warms your heart.

That’s not a picture you took, I mean kinda. Lando was arriving at the McLaren facility in London with Oscar. He FaceTimed you because you never really got the chance to meet Oscar (yet). So this was your first encounter. You screenshotted this picture at the beginning. You didn’t know then but this was the beginning of a nice friendship with Oscar!

that’s what happens when you try to use Lando’s camera. You usually know how to use a camera, but you struggled with his. So you took a few (a lot according to Lando) blurry pictures, such as these two. You actually like them, if you even you wanted the focus on Lando, you think they’re beautiful. He may have made fun of you, but once they were out for the public eye, everyone liked them.

#fanfic #imagine #oneshot #lando norris one shot #lando imagine #lando norris x you #lando norris x y/n #lando norris fluff #lando norris fanfic #lando norris x reader #lando norris imagine #lando x reader #lando norris #lando fluff #lando norris fanfiction #ln4 imagine #ln4 fic #ln4 fluff #ln4 #ln4 x reader #ln4 x you #ln4 x y/n

[rustingcat]

Twilight

They started working on the test immediately. Bringing both Brainy and Nia to draw blood, as Kara and Lena started loading materials and performing last minute check ups before their real full trial. Their preparations took longer than expected, both Lena and Kara had important day jobs to get back to after all. After work, they started testing the nourishment distribution system. Hopefully the main system they would need to update and temper with in the long run.

A problem with a delicate Foundation project called Lena away in the late evening. Kara insisted on continuing by herself as there was not much left to do, Lena agreed and promised she would come back as soon as she could. Lena ended up coming up to check on updates every time she had a minute before needing to go back to deal with another issue.

It was getting much later than Kara anticipated when she finished setting up the PF, checking the numbers twice before proceeding to the next stage. The excitement came back to her in full force when she faced the familiar UI once more.

Their first trial was about to begin, their first test to see if their machine was capable of creating life!

She happily pressed continue through the proceeding warning windows and activated the nourishment system. She watched in glee as one of the pods lit up, indicating its activity. A warm feeling spread in her chest as she felt her smile widening. That little thing would become a baby, a baby that would be so loved and cared for by everyone around them, they're gonna drown in it.

Kara wiped off a tear and checked the status of the PF, which should start its transformation into an active embryo pretty soon. The numbers seemed to be on par as expected as PF1 made its new home in pod number one, pretty fitting Kara smiled. It took her a second to realise her mistake.

Getting closer than necessary to read through the genetic data of the new embryo confirmed her suspicions. She accidentally processed her and Lena's genetic data. The baby being created belonged to her and Lena!

Kara took a step back in sheer shock, her eyes as wide as saucers locked on the screen.

"Hey Kara." She heard Lena's voice from behind her.

Kara turned quickly, moving her hands around frantically from the shot of anxiety that went through her system and swallowed hard while she did her best to look normal. She gave Lena her best reassuring smile, that might have showed a bit too much teeth. Luckily Lena was engrossed in her tablet, writing down whatever it was that needed her attention. Kara was grateful her mistake was yet to be discovered.

"How did it go?" Lena continued, finally looking up from her tablet to meet Kara's questionable gaze. "Did it process Nia's and Brainy's genetic data?" She asked, concerned. With the crisis she was dealing with she was probably desperate for some good news.

A small giggle left her lips as Kara swallowed hard. "All is fine." She lied, raising a thumb up to solidify her claim. She would be the first one to admit that her statement was not as convincing as she hoped it to be, but at least it wasn't 'I accidentally started a process to create a baby for us', which was honestly a win by itself.

Lena studied her for a second. "Are you ok?" She asked with concern.

"Yeah, yes. Definitely. Just… you know, excited. Yes, I'm just so excited." She nodded enthusiastically.

"If you run into any problems you–" whatever it was that Lena was about to say was cut short as the power for the entire building was suddenly cut off. The room was illuminated by the moon and the few computer screens that moved to work on the back up generator and the New Birthing Matrix that had its own personal power supply created specially for it.

"God dammit," Lena muttered, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "I'm really sorry, I'll be right back." Lena stormed off the room and Kara selfishly wished she would exhaust all of her frustration on either her problematic project, or the people responsible to it so she wouldn't have the energy to be mad at Kara. Rao, she was terrible.

Breathing a small sigh of relief once she heard Lena entering a room a few floors down, Kara turned back to the machine.

Standing in the dark room, staring at the small pod illuminated almost exclusively by the twilight as the moon shined brightly through the opened window, Kara felt a shiver running down her spine.

Kara moved closer to the monitor, her fingers hovering over the termination button once again, only this time she would destroy something else, something more.

She saw them again, those flashes of small hands, chubby cheeks, and dimpled smile holding a small bundle of rags. A possible future. A future that had been haunting her dreams for months at this point. A possible future she suddenly desperately wanted to see to fruition.

Kara stepped back from the monitor to stand in front of the pod. She lay a hand on the protective glass, it was warmer than she anticipated. A small smile spread on her lips, knowing her hand was only inches away from their baby. She tasted something salty in her mouth only to realise she was crying. Rao, what a crazy day, a small chuckle escaped her lips as her tears became stronger. She was crying, she was standing in front of what she desperately hoped would become her first born child, a bizarre thought by itself.

Kara let herself have that moment, before drying her tears and turning back to the machine. She had still promised Nia and Brainy a child after all. It suddenly dawned on her, it would mean that their children could be born at around the same time! Give or take a few weeks, depending on the development of all the different species involved, but it would mean lots of conjoined birthday parties – if the kids wanted to of course – happy playtime together, and a chance to gain a true friend for life. Suddenly, this idea seemed like the perfect plan, she frankly wasn't sure why she hadn’t thought of it earlier.

Kara processed the second PF to pod number two, then lit up similarly to the first. They were already best friends, Kara smiled to herself, living next door to each other and all. "Be kind to your neighbour." She addressed her unborn child. And took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and turning back to the monitor.

She confirmed everything was okay with Nia and Brainy's data before letting herself sit down on the small couch in the corner of the room. In the dim twilight, Kara felt the dawn of a new era begin. Growing, in front of her eyes.

Kara wasn't sure how long she'd been staring at the pod before she fell asleep.

The morning sound that woke her up was not her usual alarm, nor was it the warm rays of the sun, but a loud voice that felt way too close to her face.

"Kara!" It rang in her ears, "Explain! Now!"

Read everything in order on AO3

Also, this whole fic was inspired by my little animation I did for last year's Supercorptober! This one right here

#supercorp #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #art #supercorptober #supercorptober2023 #my art #my fic

[joisbishmyoga]

Last night, while my VPN had my computer convinced the internet didn't exist at all, I thought of a thing in Star Wars. Or, well, a few things that all lead to one conclusion:

1. Almost none of the ten million or so chips misfired. The instances we know of, there was either head trauma actually damaging the chip, or the clone had gotten it out. That means this isn't untried new technology, or even recent enough to still have the bugs getting ironed out. This is the sort of decades-old stuff that has us fighting to make our our VPNs (recent tech) work but not our refrigerators (old tech). They could not have been invented for the clone army.

2. Mind control chips are the stuff dreams are made of... for corrupt bastard politicians and slavers, who are exactly the kind of people with the power to get them used in bulk. We don't see the chips being used anywhere else. There have to be factors limiting their use. Not just public outrage, pfft as if politicians care about that, and it can't be cost because Palpatine (for example) has the entirety of the Imperial funds at hand. It's probably something like the necessity of installing it in early infancy or pre-natally, plus a relatively high price tag.

2a. If the chips were at all able to be installed on the general public, the elite public, or adult slaves, Leia would have one. She does not.

3. Still, mind-control is far too appealing for the Hutts to not have them installed on every personal slave possible. Chances are, if you were born to a rich Hutt's household slaves, you've got one.

4. This has to have been going on for a good two or three generations, minimum, before the Jedi genocide. There's no way they don't know these chips exist and how to get rid of them.

5. The nature of them being mind-control chips mean you can't get informed, meaningful consent. It's no different than recieving a patient under the influence of chemical mind-altering substances. This is therefore one of the few things a Jedi medic will do without consent.

6. All this is to say that when the Jedi get the clone armies? It's standard operating procedure to check for a chip and get it out, and everyone is sworn to confidentiality about it because you don't want slavers to find out the chips aren't secret. They'll go thinking up something worse.

6a. Dooku doesn't tell Palpatine because you know it sure would be nice to have ten million toy soldiers of his very own. He almost certainly has his own "ignore everything Palpatine commands, Dooku's in charge" order programmed in.

7. Palpatine gets a wonderful, awful surprise when he sends out Order 66.

#star wars #get rekt #every day is screw palpatine over day

[eoieopda]

[ateez as tinder dudes]

this is a joke, but i’m also convinced that i’m correct, so… there’s that. also, don’t look at me, incorporating a fourth (FOURTH!!!) group on my blog. i don’t want to talk about it 🫣

hongjoong

he’s treating this like a portfolio. he’s got the max number of pics uploaded, and they’re all editorial, like he’s expecting to be scouted. is he repping a brand? is he just flexing that he’s got better style than you ever will? he knows this is tinder, right? no.

absolutely no bio, whatsoever. his age isn’t even listed, somehow. you know nothing about him except that he owns more than one cowboy hat, and honestly? that’s all you need to know.

you’re actually 98.4% sure that he’s a catfish — who just looks like that? — but that’s not going to stop you from swiping right to see if he did, too.

he did not.

seonghwa

he’s intentionally using pics of him with his mother, with kids, with small animals, etc. because he’s calculating. couldn’t be more of a targeted attack if the profile was computer-generated. frankly, you can’t say if it was or wasn’t. suspiciously perfect.

that’s where the tinder prowess stops. he doesn’t know how the swiping feature works so he’s swiped right on everyone. oops.

his bio has subsections — plural — with endearingly dorky interests laid out in full. he’s well-rounded and objectively attractive to literally all people. man is everybody’s type, esp. yours.

tragically, he has never once responded to a message, and he never will.

yunho

he must’ve made this as a joke, right? every picture of him is hilariously unflattering or a recreation of a meme or some childhood photo, except the last one — which is a meme. it’s something obscure that appeals to the sense of humor of exactly .01% of the population. you can tell by looking at him that he is chronically online and had unrestricted internet access as a kid.

his bio is also absurd. this dude has something like “my first words were, ‘this human form is limiting’”, and it’s extremely polarizing. on purpose. puts his whole personality right there, right from the get-go because it will ward the wrong people off and flag down the exact niche he’s targeting.

i feel like he’s either a lukewarm conversationalist that makes you wonder how the rest of his profile was so funny, or the first conversation is an incredible, god-tier bit — and then, when the bit runs its course, you realize that he deleted his profile, never to be seen again.

rip

yeosang

all of his pictures paint an image of someone hard and edgy, and you’ve got it all wrong. you’ve been fully bamboozled, bestie. that is a whole ass fairy princess.

always messages first and/or responds immediately, revealing that he’s the most “uwu” person of all time. seriously, what the fuck? people unironically use “hehehe”? in this day and age? ^_^

unexpected gem. the person he actually is isn’t someone you would normally shoot your shot with, but you’re not mad about it.

one of the rare few on the app who would rather die than find a hookup (the idea makes him itchy, okay?) but he will actually seek and find a future spouse, just watch.

san

most of his photos are of him and his friend (it’s wooyoung. of course it’s wooyoung), and the subtext is so confusing that you can’t tell if they’re looking for a third or are just guys being buds ??? what is happening, and why are you so into it?

the photos that don’t include his friend (boyfriend? seriously, what is going on there?) are all action shots because he needs you to know that he is athletic and built. you do not need to wonder what he looks like naked because he’s not wearing a shirt in any of them.

he’s got the stock photo equivalent of a bio. most uninteresting thing you’ve ever seen, so you do not hit him up.

you should have :( you would’ve loved him.

mingi

i regret to inform you that this man has the most cringeworthy online presence of all time. god, he’s so fuckboi-coded!! and you hate him for it, but you hate yourself even more for being into because you sure are, diva!!!

i feel like the song on his profile is extremely questionable, either because it’s some bizarre, ambient instrumental; by someone that’s been justifiably cancelled and you don’t know whether or not he knows that; or worse, it’s his own.

all of his pictures are group pictures. you cannot tell for the life of you which one of them he is, requiring you to go to the instagram he’s referenced in his bio — which is exactly the point. the instagram links to his soundcloud because it can get worse.

if you actually bite the bullet and respond to his shitty pick-up line, he’s the bbygirl to end all bbygirls. absolute heart of gold. you almost want to smack him for being so bad at marketing himself.

get him a PR person to straighten his shit out; mingi is fired.

wooyoung

this motherfucker has deleted and remade his profile 8,000 times because he needs to “reset his matches” aka has spent every waking moment swiping.

he probably pays for tinder so he can swipe in other locations — not because he’s looking for anyone, but because he wants people to look at him.

you have to wonder who took the photos because they’re sure as shit not selfies but they’re all vaguely chic thirst traps (it was san. of course it was san.)

when it comes to messages, he either communicates exclusively with emojis or gifs, or he only responds to compliments. small talk? NOPE. tell him he’s pretty or get out :’)

if you do wind up linking (because the whole conversation thing is a lost cause), he’s insane. you’ll spend one night with him, never see him again, and you will remember him on your deathbed.

was he a ghost or a fever dream? you’ll never know.

jongho

he’s only here because his friends made him, and he will make that crystal clear. nothing else will be, though. he’s either got an extremely dry sense of humor + is deeply ironic, or he’s genuinely that odd.

all of his photos are identical selfies (expression, location, angle, etc.) and the only difference is the shirt he’s wearing. is…. is that on purpose? is he being funny, or is he seriously that much of a cartoon character? WHO KNOWS.

tbh, he’s the dude that makes a profile, finds an IRL partner immediately, and totally forgets he has a profile because he deleted the app ages ago. this is tragic; he would’ve been just your type.

message him all you want, bestie. it won’t work.

#ateez #ateez headcanons #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #atz

[alluraaaa]

i am once again expanding on my ideas of how i’d write voltron but this time it’s thanks to @iveofficiallygonemad’s encouragement to hear about the galra generals

so first off, lotor + the generals should have been foils to the paladins, minus shiro cuz he’s missing when they’re introduced. the paladins being everyone in their OG lion + allura in black for reasons i’ve explored a buncha times already. the foils would be: lotor and allura, acxa and keith, narti and pidge, ezor and lance, and hunk and zethrid.

each one of these pairs has some surface level traits that are extremely similar if not identical, while having deeper traits that are completely opposite. allura and lotor are both royalty and their team’s leader, but with completely different moralities and approaches to ruling/leading. keith and acxa are both the right hands (and look so similar that ppl thought they were secret twins lmaooo) but where acxa is cold and calculating, keith is impulsive and hot-headed. both pidge and narti are very agile and keep secrets, but pidge hacks computers and narti hacks people’s minds. lance and ezor are both adaptable and outgoing, but ezor has a cruelty to her that lance doesn’t, instead being very kind. similar to them, hunk and zethrid are both powerhouses, but hunk knows to use his power responsibly while zethrid loves fighting for the sake of it. there could have been an excellent showcase here of how the team with more kindness and compassion are always beating the team that’s more cruel and uncaring.

now i don’t like the narti died, and i maintain that lotor should have been redeemed— not because i particularly like his character in canon, but because he could’ve had a much better one. he was clearly shown to have shitty parents, and it would’ve been so much more satisfying to see him rebel against them and break the cycle as it were. and with the blade of marmora being an organization of galra working against the empire, it’s clear where they could go.

i’m imagining a plotline of zarkon being resurrected or whatever happened in those seasons, and lotor being told him + his team now have no use, they were just a stand-in for zarkon while he was down and out. it’d be the final straw for him, and he’d storm off, his parents assuming his just throwing a tantrum. in reality, he’s convincing the generals— who are really the closest thing he has to friends— to just defect from the empire.

acxa has an undying loyalty to lotor, so she’s open to whatever he wants to do. ezor and zethrid are very chaotic neutral, down for whatever strikes their fancy in the moment and in this moment the idea sounds exhilarating and fun. they aren’t outright villains anymore but they’re still quite fucked up and tbh. good for them!

as for narti, she was killed in canon before she got any sort of personality, so i’m gonna hang onto the foil concept and base some personality and backstory on pidge’s. narti is very curious about life outside the empire, because the empire is all she’s known. she was a child soldier from day one. she also wants to get more knowledge about her powers and non-galran heritage, because it’s as much a mystery to her as it is to everyone else. she’s kind of always wanted to defect, but didn’t have the bravery to do so alone.

so they run away with no real plan of what to do. lotor wants a life outside of his father, but his father is ever expanding the empire, so he keeps losing places that are just his. that, plus his first hand witness of what the empire actually does, opens his eyes to the cruelty of his father’s colonization. that drives him to wanting to outright fight back against his father and the generals, who have been watching the same things, are right there with him.

acxa is watching the empire from an outsider’s position, and she’s seeing the real danger of being a mindless follower. she’s watching countless soldiers follow the orders of a handful of generals, and watching those generals not care when the soldiers get hurt or even die, because they’re just numbers and forces to the generals. she realizes that she should be making her own decisions and that even if she trusts lotor, he shouldn’t be the one in charge of her life.

narti is at first one track minded in finding her other parent’s home planet, but time and time again she watches a similar devastation happen on other planets. families get separated, important cultural artifacts are damaged, history documentation is destroyed. she learns she isn’t the only one dealing with this, and she doesn’t want any more people to suffer the same fate she has.

ezor and zethrid have been spending this time like a vacation from work, doing whatever seems most fun and rewarding. but they eventually start to see the empire repeatedly ruining their fun, and they don’t like it. they’d tell the others they don’t want zarkon interrupting them anymore and they don’t, but a large part of it is also seeing the hurt on their friends’ faces whenever they get caught in a firefight again. they love each other, and they love their friends, and they don’t want any of them getting hurt.

now obviously team voltron and their various allies wouldn’t trust lotor and co. but time and time again they’d see them helping voltron and hurting the empire how they can. eventually, there’s be tentative teamwork and down the line, they’d be invited to join the blade of marmora.

immediately all five of them would notice the familiarity between the blades and the empire. there’s basically no difference between their mottos; the blade is uncomfortably okay with letting soldiers die if it means getting the mission done.

the generals want to say something, but lotor doesn’t want to stir the pot too much. their position is very weak, there’s still very little trust in them. to come out the gate opposing how everything is done wouldn’t be good.

but the blade trusts voltron, doesn’t it? and one of the paladins is also a blade. so… they find keith and talk to him, telling him that while the blade has a good cause unlike the empire, both are a little too cool with letting people die, and it’s more than kind of upsetting.

keith, who is way too self sacrificial, doesn’t see a problem with this, but brings it up next time he’s with voltron. everyone is surprised by lotor + co’s behavior and ideals, and start to trust them more

i’m starting to lose steam here but um. lotor + co being good guys and the five of them co-leading the blade and making it better than the empire :-) they all get their own mini character arcs within this collective group arc and no one is killed for shock factor and no one is pushing the narrative of abused kids turning out just like their parents and continuing the cycle <3

#ezor n zethrid being a couple is the only part from canon i’ll respect. i don’t even like how they were a couple in canon #instead of having ur only lesbians in the show be evil murderers how about making them slightly fucked up antiheroes <3 love and light #lotor #acxa #narti #ezor #zethrid #remember when we were hyped for the girl gang of all time (and also lotor’s there)? good times #txt #mine #rewrite #fic #cuz i’m basically outlining a fix it fic lmaoooo

[pocketramblr]

Ask game, please. The leverage cast being isekaied in a fantasy world (vaguely D&D-like). Please.

Ehehehe it's what they deserve

1- Hardison is DEVASTATED because there's no technology he can hack. There's no internet. There's not even computers! And the cool magic doesn't even follow the same rules as his online fantasy gaming, so he can't use extra knowledge from that. Absolutely unfair, especially because Eliot is like "oh yeah I can tell you exactly what that kind of weapon or surcoat means, it's a very distinctive shape/pattern/whatever, (*has a flashback to working at a renaissance fair/medival times type thing where maybe he's trying to kill a customer there, unclear and unimportant*)"

Don't worry, Hardison will be fine and will pick up quickly enough how to hack magic and try to pull a whole Yankee in King Arthur's Court thing, but he's going to complain about it first.

2- Parker steals a box of magic potions. No one is quite sure what the effect of each one will be at first but they manage... Especially because she's willing to test them out on the team at random. (Nate gets covered in a potion of face change for magical disguise. He mentions off hand that Sophie probably would have wanted that one, but Sophie is offended because she doesn't need a magic potion to transform into someone else. Eliot gets covered in something that laters turns out to be a potion of resurrection, though only Nate is aware he actually died for a moment.)

3- Sophie by the way pulls a "I'm actually the Duchess of Erat" grift but turns out everyone is convinced she actually is the long lost duchess, she even looks the splitting image of that portrait of the duchess's mother! (Sophie: how'd you pull off that switch? Parker and Nate, who didn't change the painting at all: uh...... Magic....) The duchess by the way is the niece of the king, who's evil advisor definitely had the child duchess and mother killed years ago and is trying to magically gain sway over the king and kingdom, which means the team is going to need to get some.... leverage

4- oh yeah by the way- Parker is an elf or half elf, and keeps fiddling with her newly pointy ears and delighting in having dark vision, Nate looks human except the eyes, Hardison inexplicably knows dragontongue, Sophie is both sorceress and bard, and whatever Eliot is, people are both scared of him and horny.

5- while they get a grasp pretty quickly about magic and politics and things like that, they never really get the hang of money here- it's all gold coins and such and they have no idea how much something should cost. So when they take clients they usually end up giving way more money than the clients have seen in the last ten generations of their family have conceived of, while also complaining about the standard prices of healing potions. ("C'mon, I could get a lifetime supply of aspirin for half as many gold coins back home." "This is a magical elixir sir.")

#pocket talks to people #gentrychild #ask game #oh i want to read this fic now....

[mrmcwigglyman]

A letter to E-Sekai

Rare semi-serious post because E-Sekai's first anniversary is tomorrow.

Hopefully this breaches Tumblr containment because I don't use any other social media.

When E-Sekai first debuted, I was at a really bad time in my life. For context, I went to college in late August, and for two months, I was slowly destroying my mental health because I wanted to stay, but couldn't handle it. I continued to sink deeper and deeper into depression until my mom came to take me home in late October. During the first months of my return, I was so dejected that I didn't want to do anything. I wasted all my time doing unproductive things on the computer, relying on it for comfort. My parents intervened and restricted access to my computer. Without my computer for comfort, I turned to watching VTubers on my phone, to the point of staying up all night trying to distract myself from the sadness of having to leave college. It was really unhealthy and non-sustainable, but I couldn't get myself to do anything else.

Almost exactly one month later, I found a debut compilation for Idol-EN's first generation, called E-Sekai. I was immediately interested, so I found their channels and subscribed to all of them. I especially liked Rin, for various reasons which I'll get to later, but I enjoyed watching everyone. Their streams got me to come out of my shell online. Before E-Sekai, I didn't use the YouTube account on my phone for chatting or commenting at all, because I didn't have a channel linked to it, but E-Sekai convinced me to make a channel so I could chat. One of the things about small to medium-sized VTuber agencies is that the streamers are more likely to see your comment as an individual. Whenever I got someone to laugh with one of my jokes, it made my day. E-Sekai made me want to be creative again. They got me through the grueling late nights of working at my coat check job. And they helped me try to get out of my depression. I actually know and interact with people on the Idol discord, and I discovered a lot more VTuber agencies because Idol gave me confidence to chat in many other VTubers' chats.

My life is still not perfect. I'm really anxious about any sort of change to my routine, such as getting a normal job, and I need to get better at taking care of myself. But E-Sekai and Idol in general still brings a lot of happiness to my life.

I want to take the rest of this post to say how each individual member of E-Sekai contributed to my life, and the group as a whole. I'm not good at writing these kinds of things, and I'm probably missing a bunch of what makes them all so fun to watch, but I hope this captures them well enough.

Yuko: The scream from her debut was ear-piercingly beautiful. Her hyperactive personality leads to incredibly fun moments. I'm still amazed by how much she loves her boo bros. She's the perfect blend of lewd, wholesome, and silly. In one of her karaoke streams, she got me to listen to the entirety of "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is my least favorite A7X song. Keep being the most neurodivergent in E-Sekai, Yuko! Wanau :boobropout:

Juna: The eel's art and Live2D streams were super comfy, but also very cursed. I celebrated New Year's along with her, and I still have the art she made for it somewhere. Juna's streams got me through the early parts of my coat check shifts. I love all the inside jokes the fameely has, such as "good riddance", "LIVID", banning Yogurt, and Golden Shower. And speaking of the fameely, they're the friendliest people in the Discord server, and I love to talk to them. Juna actually responded to my comments a lot, which boosted my confidence a lot. Also, one of my favorite moments was during the Seiso Stream when I tried to catch her off guard by asking her to pronounce "Featherstonhaugh." Always remember that it rhymes with "hand saw." Stay LIVID, Juna, and thanks for all the completely sane streams so far.

Rin: Rin is the one that I instantly identified with. She loves making silly powerpoints. She has a very particular taste in video games that I can never find anywhere else. Even before she mentioned she was ace, I could tell she was ace-coded. She has an incredibly broken sense of humor. The first (and currently only) VTuber merch I've ever bought was the skrunkly plush. And I don't really believe in fate, but I had to admit that there was one coincidence that was very convincing. While watching her debut slides, when she was introducing some of her plushies, I learned that I have a very personal connection to the name of one of her plushies. Her streams are incredibly creative and fun. Her powerpoint streams and skit streams are the funniest content I've seen in a long time. Her reactions to things that wouldn't normally be funny makes them funny, which is part of the reason I love the shovelware series so much. I can tell she works so hard behind the scenes to make all those things happen. Even though after the Shortsening her chat is sometimes unbearable to look at, I'm glad that she is a lot of people's first VTuber. I'm proud to call Rin my kami-oshi. Fun fact: The B emoji in my YouTube username, although I've used it before Idol, was specifically chosen for Rin, except now that the emoji is banned in her chat, I can't actually send my membership milestone chats because according to YouTube logic, my username counts as part of the superchat?? I'll probably change it to a small capital B instead someday. Anyway, Rin, I'm glad to be a member of the Princedom, and I'm so happy that you are able to reach so many people. Also, congrats for keeping up the Rin facts for a YEAR! *metal_pipe.mp3* *outro music*

Pochi: Pochi is an absolute gamer. The fact that she doesn't rage very often leads to some very comfy streams, even in frustrating games. She also does some cool themed zatsus, like the pet peeves stream. I enjoy her Minecraft streams a lot, and I actually got back into modded Minecraft because of her. Her redebut was so good and so creative, and I just think her "hello, I am puppy" t-shirt is hilarious. I often leave her streams on in the background because she is just so comfy. Keep doing what you're doing, Pochi! Wäf wäf!

Fuyo: One early series of streams that I enjoyed was Fuyo's Bioshock playthrough. Normally I don't like those kinds of games, but it was actually really interesting. I also remember watching her VTuber cosplay stream while waiting for a doctors appointment that I showed up an hour early for. I still don't know she got away with some of the games she played in the first week after debut. When I was waking up late because I was staying up late, Fuyo streams were what helped me wake up and get out of bed. Also I think I left the Nyan Cat stream on while I slept, which may or may not have been detrimental to my musical health. I look forward to the future, and I hope you are, too, Fuyo. Thank you for giving back my physical wallet, even if you kept the stuff inside.

I'm awful at wording things, but I really wanna thank E-Sekai for helping me out of a deep hole in my life. I know this is probably not gonna get more notes than my fucking Papa Louie Veggie Dog post, but on the offchance this reaches one or all of you... idk I'm all out of words, but I'm looking forward to another year of E-Sekai antics.

I also want to thank the rest of Idol for being just as awesome!

#idol corp #rin penrose #vtuber #e sekai #yuko yurei #juna unagi #pochi wanmaru #fuyo cloverfield

[skinnytuna]

I really really like that long post you did about making art. especially: 'i have somehow convinced myself that, if i maybe try a little bit, not exceptionally hard, but only a little bit, maybe i will somehow magically be good enough and worthy of critical praise.'

I spend all my time thinking about the beautiful or ""groundbreaking"" things I would make but no time actually doing it. and then when I attempt to create something the actual discomfort of physically drawing, writing or even coding is so unlike the idealised version in my brain that I have to stop because it is so frustrating. I wish I could be the sort of person who decides to spend hours upon hours perfecting a craft. but I just cant. weirdly I've come to terms with it. theres a whole world of art that exists just for me in my head. maybe one day ill be able to translate it into reality. but for now, im just going to be happy with the dual presence of my shitty real art and my lovely art thats just for me.

(also: I dont think your posts are lacking. the way you use language is unexpected and hilarious. I like it a lot.)

we should have a word for the terminal need for validation but lack of any and all discipline ... seems like a relatively new phenomena. i'm considering the strong possibility that it's a widespread result as the death of the "hobby"... however many years ago i imagine it was normal to just do something for yourself, because you love doing it. in fact i see a lot of my friends parents still doing stuff such as this.

i have a lot of friends whose dads make eps and albums for fun. for them only. no wishing on a star for it to blow up overnight. none of that. security in the quality of it. security in how far it probably won't reach. now that security, of course, could just come with age. but i suspect there's a generational parasite.

we were all raised with Numbers. the follower count, the like count, these are burned into our psyche. a neurosis coiled tightly around an objective metric of validation. a handful of years ago such a neurosis couldn't even exist! and it especially couldn't exist in a matter of seconds or minutes. your value as a person is a pair of dice that you roll and you snatch them back the moment you see snake eyes. almost all of the amateur art, music, writing we are exposed to has a number right under it. you don't get to evaluate it yourself. there is immediately a pavlovian connection, i like this thing, this thing has this number attached to it, if i can get a number like that i'm worthy of coexisting with this thing.

there's an almost instant dissociation between the craft, the skill, the time, and the FRUIT. what you get back. we are almost trained to care more about how popular something is than how good it is. not like, hollywood productions, or Columbia Records' chart topping album by a thirty something with A&R parents, but how popular someone just like you is on the internet. a plausible professional with a twitter account who draws whatever they want. someone you could relate to. someone you could be.

but because you want the numbers you skip the learning... you make something and put it out. and you keep doing this. your learning is public, your honing of the craft is documented before an audience of hopefully thousands. and you see what they respond to. and their responses steer the direction of your learning. you never have an opportunity to make something shitty. make something no one likes. experiment. you just keep feeding the computer. and it works until the point where you want to do something else, or something real, or something better, or something serious, and realize you don't know how. and you're like Fuck Shit why did I hustle instead of learning in peace.

but of course this is all by design. the numbers can't teach themselves more numbers if you doodle in your sketchbook and don't show anyone. i'm not sure if it was ever a specific person's idea to make everyone's entire life a performance, but whoever engineered it did a damn fine job. takes a sledgehammer to break out of. oh well ! in a few generations i'm sure all of our skin will have glare dampeners evolved specifically to vlog better with. and everyone will have forgotten what it's like to do something in your room, by yourself, because you like to do it

#forgot i had a tumblr im back hello

[babybluebanshee]

Stuff I've Had to Deal With as a City Librarian - Plus Ultra Edition

Been a while, huh? Have some public library nonsense!

TW for racism and bodily fluids.

Julie found a half-used tube of toothpaste in the computer lab. Just chilling by one of the computers.

Lori had to fish a pair of shitty underwear out of a toilet in the men's room.

We'd been trying to convince the children's librarian to stop using liquid glue for her various kids' craft projects or on the craft table. Two incidents finally lead to her doing this. First a lady put her purse on the craft table to tie her shoe. She set it directly in an enormous puddle of glue a kid had left behind. Then second was a kid getting glue on the bottom of his shoe after story time and tracking it everywhere. She's since switched to glue sticks and everyone is much happier.

When people lose books, they have to pay for them, and if they find the books, they can either bring them back to us (and get a refund if they bring them within a year) or keep them. A lady came in and said she lost some books and was ready for them. I check her card so I can see what she has and write them up, and she, totally unprompted says, "Yeah, I know where they are, they're just massively overdue and buying them outright would be cheaper than paying the fines." I told her she couldn't do that; if she still has the items and they aren't damaged, we would like to have our materials back so we don't have to spend any money getting replacements. She replies, "But why can't I just buy them?" It took every ounce of resistance in my body to tell her that we're not a bookstore, she has to bring the goddamn things back, that's how libraries work.

We caught a guy shaving in the lab. He didn't seem to find this strange at all, and when we asked why he didn't just go in the bathroom, he replied he didn't know he could do it there. And your first thought was not to ask, but to do it in our computer lab?!

One of my coworkers checked the cafe and found a guy sleeping. The city has been riding us not to let people do that, but we generally just kind of shake them a little, remind them they can't sleep there, then let them immediately go back to sleep when we walk away. We generally don't care. But when my coworker tried to stir this guy, he didn't move. Shook him by the shoulder. Nothing. Nearly shouted. Nary a stir. The way the dude is sitting makes it hard to see if he's breathing, so she starts to get concerned. She goes back to the desk and tells Julie what's going on; Julie tries to rouse him, doesn't succeed. They ended up having to call the police for a wellness check, because they were genuinely starting to get concerned for the guy's safety. The cop finally managed to wake him up, and it turns out the dude was fine. He's apparently just a very heavy sleeper.

We had a bad ice storm one day, so the library didn't open. Rachel checked the messages the next day when we reopened, and a woman called three times in a row to ask why we weren't open, she tried the doors and they didn't work, we're supposed to be open, why aren't we open, all with increasing frantic tone. In one call you could hear her yanking on the doors.

A patron parked outside called us and said that there was a woman in the parking lot writing down people's license plate numbers. Travis had to call the police (protocol for "suspicious behavior"). Turns out the police are well aware of this woman's antics all around town, to the point where it's a city effort to get her some help with what is clearly unchecked mental illness. A week later, the same woman got in trouble in the Walmart parking lot, doing the same nonsense, and calling the woman who caught her a human trafficker.

Someone opened and ate a can of chicken in the men's bathroom, though they couldn't have eaten much because most of it seemed to be on the floor. Poor Becky and Sam had to clean it up. The smell alone was horrible.

A man couldn't get into his gmail account, so I went over to help him. It turned out he had two-factor authentication set up, so it was trying to send a code to his phone. He refused to confirm his phone number because "I don't want these people tracking me". I had to fight the urge to laugh in his face, because he simply would not accept that he had to do that in order to get into his gmail, and the absolute irony of not wanting to be tracked while using motherfucking Google's email service.

A girl and her grandmother came in, and the girl forgot her library card. Grandma was fully prepared to check out the book she wanted...until she saw it was a book about Ted Bundy. She proceeded to go on a hellfire and brimstone rant about how the book was Satanic and she shouldn't have even touched it. She kept looking to my poor coworker for support her, and you could just tell that my coworker wanted to just fade away into the chair she was sitting in.

One night, I found an abandoned pair of shorts in the men's bathroom. Julie found a pair of sunglasses in the cafe, and Macey found a travel coffee mug (coffee still in it) in one of the study rooms. Tit's out kind of outfit.

A guy ate absolute shit on his motorized scooter on the sidewalk outside the library. Donna had to call 911, but the guy refused to go to the hospital because he couldn't afford it, no matter how worried the EMTs were about the bleeding gash on his forehead or the possibility of a concussion. Hope he'll be alright. And that's why we always wear our helmets, kids.

A woman came in at 8:47 (we close at 9) and had Rachel make 89 copies of her handwritten conspiracy theory journal. The lady had called in advance to check when we closed, and still came in that close to closing with her bullshit, and tried to stay after they were finished. Luckily, she was chased out.

Donna, Julie, and Rachel were leaving for the evening, and someone pulled up, opened their car door, yelled the n-word, and drove off. All three of those women are white as the driven snow.

The city sets up a ceramic Christmas village display in our rotunda area every year, and this year, Lori decided to have fun with it. She put a little plastic alien and dragon somewhere in the village, and anyone who found them got a sticker. Obviously, kids were really into it, but the adults were even more so. You've never seen so many people over forty excitedly looking for little plastic toys before.

A absolutely gorgeous woman in the most beautiful African dress came in and asked to use a computer. When I told her how to log on, she said "Thank you, my love." and floated off. Her perfume made me feel a way.

#daily life with blue #woe to the librarian

[whiskersz]

Hi there! Was wondering if I could have one of the match ups?

♤ my name is Lily, I go by she/her and I'm bisexual!

♡I like to think I'm a fun person, I love all things vintage but I'm also very into computer science and that sort of thing! I'm easy to get along with but have an interesting attitude!

◇If I could, possibly a romantic match-up?

♧I like listening to music, painting and watching horror films!

♤I like most things, it takes lots for me too dislike things!

♡I'm fine being matched with anyone (par Valentino but you already aren't doing him so it's fine!)

◇I don't really have a type, but I tend to go towards males over females!

♧I don't know if it's like a need to know one or not but I am in the army so yeah!

Good day Lily! I love vintage myself, it’s always a pleasure to come across other people who do!

Now, what do you think of rubber ducks? Because I match you with...

Lucifer!

You mentioned that you’re a fun person to be around; well, you’ve seen Lucifer, right? Puns, jokes, silly inventions and a love for junk food, I feel like he wouldn’t mind having around somebody else to have some fun with.

A nostalgic at heart, Lucifer appreciates your love for vintage and reminiscing about past times is a common activity for the two of you. He’ll see you holding the smallest, most inconsiderable trinket from the past and start going on about what it was like, meeting Winners and Sinners from the time it was made in.

He’s also known to be a bit of a hoarder, whatever delights him will be acquired in abundance, so expect him to be just as enthusiastic about what you like as he is about what he likes. He’s going to get you so many presents; vintage things, painting supplies, music discs...you name it!

Lucifer prefers spending time in his castle or in Lu Lu World, so you’re going to have to get quite used to him refusing to go out on most days. After who knows how much time of living like this and ignoring his own duties and kingdom, it’s going to be very hard to convince him to do otherwise, but if you have a strong personality or can somehow persuade him it might be possible. Due to your position, I feel like you could be able to do this.

Expect him to also vent a lot about his frustrations, as he is quite the chatter box in general. He mainly rants about how he wishes he could be closer to Charlie and how much he dislikes Hell and its residents, amongst many other things. Deep down, he hopes that your struggle to dislike things somehow applies to him as well. Not that he considers himself a thing, it’s just that he’s slightly self conscious around the person he loves – you.

But now onto some more fun shenanigans; he might pass his days inventing things, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer is a literal dad who knows near to nothing about computers and computer science. You’re going to be the one explaining every single thing about your passion for it and he’s going to listen very carefully; whether he’ll actually understand what you’re saying though is...arguable.

Do you have a favorite animal? He’s going to make it into a rubber duck. He’s also going to make you a little painter rubber duck, in fact! And turn the characters and actors of your favorite horror movies into rubber ducks as well, then he’ll give them all to you, in hopes that you appreciate his little act of kindness. If in return you paint him something, he’s going to cherish it dearly, and hang it in the hallways of his castle for everyone to see!

Hey again Lily! These are rather short, but I found it quite difficult to write for Lucifer as he’s an extremely complex character to me, if you want more I can try to write something additional :)) That’s it, just a little note!

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin x reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer morningstar #lucifer magne #hazbin hotel matchups #hazbin hotel matchup #matchup #matchups #hazbin matchup #hazbin matchups

[realhankmccoy]

fuckin cracks me up that Americans think of Blood Meridian as postmodernist.... ahahahahaha... this stupid fucking country. there's a lot of them who think it is, too. I guess they didn't notice the Bible literally materialising in it. I guess they never read a Cormac McCarthy interview? I guess they don't know what a western crossed with Stephen King written in a flat modernist style that -- oh how it would displease Harold Bloom, perhaps, to hear it -- clearly has Hemingway in it?

Who reads that book and thinks 'PoMo?'

anyhow at least that idiot who got it wrong tonight -- as he always gets everything wrong -- wrote a few good lines creepin on me before devolving into the standard issue conservative cucked stuff implausible seams showing about pussy (drag is only magical if you're convincing, hunty, and so is straight drag) and trying to use too many big words like Elon does in order to 'sound more intelligent' which obviously doesn't work when these people don't know the reason big words exist and how to use them... like saying you're 'aspirationally Jewish' which is still driving me up the wall... Elon says so much stupid shit.

so yes if that idiot had his shit together and realised he's an idiot and what to fix, i mean 3/8ths of that post was solid and probably his best writing in years, notwithstanding the massive glaring error about Cormac McCarthy, he who is quite comfortable with good vs evil, he who probably votes Republican -- being pomo. I mean what the fuck is Republican pomo anyhow? What would that even be? The whole Republican thing is an infantile longing for order, not the postmodernist project of sewing disorder.

Notwithstanding how it annoys me that I'm an influence on the idiot, for it has never been about control and narcissism with me (the idiot only projected this upon me because that's how Trump is and that's how he, as Trump's cuck, is) I actually don't like influencing anybody, probably because I don't like myself very much and don't need to be seeing any more of myself in the world. It actually just grosses me out and depresses me to see anything inspired by me. 100% of the time I think art inspired by me sucks, and why wouldn't I? I don't even like any of my art. That's not a posture, kids. I can't think of a single thing I've ever written that I'd feel comfortable handing to anybody like it's any good. This isn't some noble thing, either. I just don't like it. I don't like the sound of anything I have made, pretty much. And why would I? Why would I when I was programmed by the parents and the community to know my total insignificance and still am despite occasional moments where they try to make me feel like I have some? The overwhelming --

But whatever, it doesn't really matter as I believe in the Sagan stuff about our insignificance anyhow, at the same time believing in the signficance of everyone and all the small things, which I then have to apply to myself, because leaving yourself out is not objective, and then when I extend that to myself, the whole thing blows up because the forces that drive me don't compute.

Now, there is a sewing of disorder in the Republican as it generates chaos trying to get what it wants -- 'divide and conquer' and i know some awful liberal-ish money conquest women who also think that way.

That's not the same thing tho. That's like, Papa Hemingway with a John Wayne streak.

I really will never quite understand why Harold Bloom hates Stephen King but wets himself for Blood Meridian. It's like a boring Stephen King novel. Sure, I guess it's more formally literary but also you know, more formally boring. The Judge -- I feel like Mike Judge would do better in a Beavis & Butthead film. But Mr. Bloom didn't really watch MTV.

Nope, kids, I just didn't get it. Usually Harold Bloom is somebody I agree with almost across the board, but I just don't get it. Perhaps it's a HETERONORMATIVE THING, much like Tarantino fanboys are.

anyhow i kinda feel bad for that idiot cuck having to find every sticker on the sticker sheet and apply it to itself because it's so typically american these days.

it's so... 'i'm every woman' only it's not succinct, it's just embarrassing, like these americans always trying to elbow on top of each other in their rat race in which they're always a tool, always a derivative, never truly the Boss that they want to be, for their is always a bigger boss, and the biggest boss is Trump.

rather than dabble and wander between the whole sticker set of crowns and swords and cups and pussy and cock, why not just grow a pair of balls and commit to something outré

i mean look at it this way: even somebody who committed wholeheartedly to the entire Princess sticker sheet is more of a man than some idiot who can't figure out which Lucky Charm he feels like today. oh, i remember that age well... sometimes i felt like blue diamons, other times green clovers... and always like green trees, limited.

and there's always man of them to eat again and again

but when i see like a Canadian trans woman commit wholeheartedly to being a 5-yr-old girl, now that takes balls. that takes courage.

you either want to muddy the waters to seem deep, like Nietzsche says, or you want to clarify something or choose a course.

nothing this idiot cuck ever does smacks of courage. it is courage free. they have some good ability to pay attention to television at times, for whatever that's worth. maybe they are best suited for television analysis for geeks into the details of television shows. it's very American, caring a lot about your shows and the details.

hey, credit where due, it's American but i sure don't have the patience to figure out every detail and quote about some crap on tv.

so, yes, there's a toddler with a sticker sheet who wants to be a princess, but a real princess would jump in all the way if she had some balls:

and let us not think this is about emasculation, it's about people who are trying to be a sticker sheet generalist and paste them all onto themselves willy nilly in ways that i only find tragicomic, camp and kitsch

for example why not choose this sticker sheet? the reason is because the idiot cuck has no balls

as a channel-surfer of nuclear suburbia, it's too much sustained focus for the cuck, who is used to using the clicker to go through all the shows... a masculinity crippled by tv, much like Rabbit Angstrom ended up at in middle age

being that i am FUCKING BORED with systemic cucks maybe they can work on that but i doubt they're capable of it any more than they're capable of buying me a steak because

what's a toddler in front of a tv gonna be capable of?

seriously tho who thinks this guy is PoMo at heart?

he's such a conservative western christcuck who is terrified by the pomo world he finds himself in. that's what The Road was all about, kiddos. That's what everything he writes seems to be about. I don't share his terror... I'm liberal and we're not as big of cowards. OH IS AMERICA GOING TO COLLAPSE I'M SO SCARED

"a comedown of revolving doors"

either you're a chickenshit male or you're a female with far more guts, apparently. Cormac was a chickenshit. Emily Haines was not.

yes, you know, the American conservative is correct here, more correct than Harold Bloom I think.

'conservative pessimism' is what Cormac is i suppose Harold could be described as a conservative pessimist

too -- even as Harold's politics were with the Democrats, certainly he was trying to conserve literature in a sort of you know, different form of conservation -- there's a big difference between a 'conservative' and a 'conservationist', kids.

slip in a little Jesus

i dunno kids, i think there's something that neurotically went wrong with Harold Bloom, maybe frustration with feminism and identity politics and anarchists and deviance, that made his brain glom on to McCarthy a bit too aggressively is my theory cuz it truly has long been probably the main thing about Bloom that i can't get on the same page with... McCarthy enthusiasm

but i was spoiled by all that Stephen King at a young age, you see, and Stephen is far more imaginative and dreamlike than some writer of a fuckin' dark western.

but even... i mean i'm sorry, where's the Literature in McCarthy? Bloom never really seems to explain it. he just goes on and on about the character the Judge and the foreboding and the collapse of western civ... i mean, whatever dude ya never seen those themes before? Themes and ideas aren't discussing the LITTY RAT TURD or whatever ghost in the machine where did it go, where's Cormac LITTY RAT TURD if that's what this is all about? I just did not quite pick up on it, mmkay?

As for that cuck who is incapable of being exactly what i say its incapable of

it should find a sticker set that isn't just the generic all-encompassing one the parents always hand to the kids

and have the balls to go for it

David Bowie committed to different ways of life -- different personas -- for long periods of time -- it wasn't a costume party you flip in and out of like Lady Gaga who didn't understand it, you know?

like, read a book on method acting

i've been through a lot of looks and places and focuses and lifestyles in a lightweight curious fashion, more of a discovery zone than a statement

do you really want to look back on how you played king or bro every other day for years i mean zzzzz what are you a conservative? are you Elvis? Because he played the king as often as you do, princess and he was a Republican.

Bowie played the Goblin King briefly and it was explictly an evil role, portraying royalism as the establishment to be defeated.

Meanwhile there's Gaga in a crown with her Bad Romance posse and fake druggy fake decadence (the counter of albums sold and the ensuing profits is the most honestly thing about that video and what it's all about) which is just pathetic, the garishness of proudly capitalistic -- as proudly capitalistic as Trump

establishmentarian re-enforcement of daddies who owned 24 hotels or whatever thanks Gaga blech

anyhow, any deviance would be a good idea rather than copping from my page and being YET ANOTHER AMERICAN THINKING IF THEY SHOULD DON THAT COWBOY HAT FOR POWER.

how many times on this blog now have i talked about how much this video pissed me off when 'Greater Albania' Bugs Bunny here gets her rodeo on

Dua Lipa is just more of this push for Warner Brothers to turn music into a Barbie product in the kids' bop aisle at Wal-Mart. Her lyrics don't even gel in this dumb song or her stuck up tone wrecks it... it comes across as totally fake and there being no real 'love' at all which is probably the truth, ain't it? But she sings the lie.

That White Town song she samples is better than her song, and i doubt Bugs Barbie or Lola Bunny Lips or whatever she goes by is capable of gender-bending.

This is what good music used to be, kids. Chaka Khan gets what adulthood is about -- it's not about rabbit tricks (which are rooted in retaliatory fear of being eradicated and then turn into aggro, which is a pervasive mentally unhealthy and effectually sociopathic and repetitively abusive cowardice and sickness in most americans, from Trump to Swift) and it's not about Trumpian conquest and taking.

#cormac mccarthy #harold bloom #dua lipa #chaka khan #modernism #westerns #postmodernism #cowboy #cowgirl #cowboys #cowboy culture #Youtube #metric #emily haines #white town

[fiveais]

I'm convinced everyone ran to Bombrush Cyberfunk and left me alone in a room to ramble- here's a bunch of Switch Headcanons under the cut to organize how I want to treat this character for, like, art and writing.

Switch:

With context of his bio:

-The part of him that is responsible for his personality and sentience is actually a broken group of functions/one big program that was actually responsible for handling updates and “placing” updates in their rightful sections of programming.

-His actual sense of self is constantly updating in realtime and because of this he somewhat struggles with making certain judgements on the fly. It makes him seem risky and foolhardy on occasion when he doesn’t mean to.

-Him wanting to be challenged and his competitive streak is born out of a need to have a sense of control over himself and his actions that he otherwise would assume to be from the Citynetic company part of his programming.

-Refers to Citynetics as “The Company” both internally and externally. He tries so divorce himself away from them as much as possible because he doesn’t like to think himself as property/an asset.

-His personality is at least a couple tebibytes of broken code both solid and “wet”.

-His entire mind is composed of something like 80 tebibytes. It’s a stupid amount, but it’s the future. He uses solid state, and what I’m making up as “wet” memory. Wet memory essentially passes information back and forth in a sort of physical state that’s suppose to emulate human synapses. It’s responsible for abstract thinking. It’s physically a small amount and surprisingly easy to replicate if you know what you’re doing.

-The rest of his coding is also broken, but it works because of how his creators burnt a lot of money on designing and programming a computer that would be hard to corrupt, but had rudimentary intelligent in abstract thinking and decision making. The broken parts are meant to be able to work independently with a clear divide to keep anything else from corrupting, but the security is fucked. He’s able to run third party programs just fine.

-Most of the corrupt parts of his code have to do with his system (for example: language options and temperature regulation).

-If you look closely with his hat off you can see where he got bopped.

-He also has a little upside down triangle on his forehead.

-Uses a lot of colloquialisms and what sounds like west-coast surfer/skating slang terms. Picked this up from a bunch of hooligan skaters there were around the construction site he was stationed at.

-If being self-aware and having agency is a drug then brother he is high as a kite (part of why he is so carefree).

-The workbots were created with being able to be physically expendable and have easy interchangeable parts, but Switch lacks the intuition to know what part goes where if it’s not obvious. This has to do with that broken code stated above and that he’s a slightly older model.

-His body highlights (the yellow parts) can and will change colors, and he doesn’t have a lot of control over it.

-I kinda pinned him as an ENT/FJ (based on the few lines from the Blaze game). Maybe enfp?? Everything is novel and new and by his very nature alone he’s very creative/unusual for a mechanical being.

-One of the first things he did as a free agent is socialize with the skaters that were by his worksite. His very early sentience is full of formal-language and is very clipped and concise due to how the human supervisors talked to the workbots and to each other.

-According to Citynetics he’s considered an asset loss. They’re still processing the paperwork for the cost loss. They won’t be happy with that number.

-Because the company sunk so much into creating a self-sufficient construct of a mind that was prone to independent sense of identity in mock ups they came up with a failsafe that immediately terminated the “wet” part of any workbot that strayed outside a certain threshold. It would be replaced.

-Workbots his generation and after lock up when they’ve sustained enough damage for self-preservation so that the company proxies can retrieve any salvage/reinforce building integrity.

-Switch will lock up because his body goes into a kind of “panic mode” if he’s stressed enough because his system is bugged out/somewhat fried.

-Legit only knows about physical pain in theory and will continue to try to conceptualize the idea for a long time.

-Scared of thunderstorms and of water. He’s aware that he’s essentially a walking lightening rod and stays the fuck inside when it’s thundering. He’s scared of what might happen.

-Water is obvious, he’s water-resistant, but he can’t be submerged or exposed to exceptionally heavy rain or he will fry. He locks up when he’s in anything more than ankle-deep water.

#lethal league blaze #llb switch #character talk #? #not my character tho #i promise i have more thoughts about the other characters #i just ended up rotating him in my mind more consistently #like a marshmallow on a stick

[molotov-girls]

Something strange has been happening in Hawkins, but it’s not Vecna or the upside down. Time portals have been opening up all over Hawkins, but in true Stranger Things fashion this has really only been noticed by the kids. Barb and Will had both fallen through separate time portals to weird time periods and when they eventually get back to the 80’s months later the kids are determined to solve it. While looking for time portals and trying to determine exactly when and where they are opening Steve ends up pushing Dustin out of the way of a forming portal and falling into one himself.

Modern AU Eddie, (who is just the same as regular Eddie but exists in the modern day only), is sitting on his bed prepping for his next session of D&D with his friends and doodling when suddenly this hot boy in shockingly short 80’s work out shorts with the most incredible head of hair he has ever seen falls from a blue glowing hole in his ceiling, lands on his bed and falls onto the floor.

Eddie is on board fairly quickly with the time travel aspect, the evidence is pretty strong. A) this guy did fall out of a portal or something, there’s no hole in his ceiling. B) he is baffled and mesmerized by a phone and the idea of everyone carrying around a little computer with them at all times, he pictures computers as large, not portable, and used mainly by nerds like his little friends nerdy girlfriend. He absolutely does not know how to operate one. C) he is fascinated by other differences such as tv’s being very flat, very large, and clear. Women’s fashion is strange to him too, where are the huge curls and blue eyeshadow? He apparently works at a movie rental place with his best friend and is now shocked you can rent movies without ever leaving the house.

Steve on the other hand is shocked to realize how far he travelled. He took one look at Eddie’s hair and general 80’s metal head look as well as the posters of bands he vaguely recognized on his walls and was convinced he travelled forwards or backwards a few years, not forwards nearly 40 years! It takes Eddie showing him a bunch of modern day amenities for him to realize it.

Eddie is super excited to talk to Steve about all his favourite 80’s thrash metal, nerdy movies, and other nerdy things and is super disappointed to learn that Steve doesn’t know or really care about any of that. (“I like Star Wars!” “Everybody likes Star Wars!”) (“You could have seen any number of my favourite bands?! Live and in their prime?!?”- “uh, I saw Wham! once…?”) they do bond over their interests though. And Steve bonds with uncle Wayne over their shared love of sports. Uncle Wayne is exceedingly cool with this random but polite boy living in his house.

Steve eventually gets really good at using the computer and really enjoys being able to look stuff up and all the knowledge at his fingertips. When Steve starts joking about betting on sports games when he goes back to his own time (which makes Eddie’s heart squeeze when he remembers that this isn’t permanent, that Steve will go back to his own time without Eddie) Eddie launches into a tangent about how Biff did that and it ruined the future, and Steve is like “who is Biff?” And Eddie just has to show him all the Back to the future movies (“oh yeah, I saw the first one but my best friend and I got super high before we saw it and i don’t really remember it.”)

Eddie is much more open about being gay in the modern era and Steve comes across some more… illict websites while browsing Eddie’s laptop while Eddie is at work. Steve does a lot of googling and comes to terms with his bisexuality that day after having a bit of a freak out. Having a bunch of online guides and having it be much more acceptable in the modern day really helps with this.

Eventually they fall in love, Steve loves Eddie’s vivaciousness, and also his patience for explaining everything to Steve that he doesn’t understand. He could listen to Eddie talk for hours. Eddie loves Steve’s sass, his love for his kids back in his own time, and his curiosity. He appreciates that Steve will let him monologue and talk endlessly about stuff that he cares about, and Steve will ask questions and get really involved. It turns out they have much more in common with each other than they originally thought.

It’s going so fantastically that they both just sort of… forget why Steve is here in the first place. They spend a ton of time bonding and Eddie really enjoys showing Steve his favourite modern amenities, like Spotify (Steve gets really into modern pop and hip hop, much to Eddie’s horror) and YouTube (Steve takes up random crafts when Eddie is at work, and Eddie frequently comes home to him deep in some sort of YouTube information deep dive) and Netflix (Steve is excited to watch shows with Eddie all in one go!) and they go and see how everything has changed in Indianapolis and Chicago, and get to hold hands on the street and kiss in broad daylight (this takes a lot of coaxing to get Steve to feel comfortable with, but it makes him so so happy when he finally agrees to it). They even end up telling uncle Wayne about where Steve is from and he’s very accepting of it, he had originally figured that Steve’s weird usage of 80’s slang and stuff was just the same as Eddie’s love of the 80’s, but this makes sense to him too.

Then when they’re not expecting it Steve is zapped back to his own time, absolutely crushing Eddie. Eddie is absolutely distraught and is about to go and try and hunt down modern Steve, who would now be 56 or whatever, when just like in Back to the Future 3 Eddie receives a letter from the post office, dated for exactly that date, and the post office delivers it because they all took bets and were unsure if he was really going to be there. It’s a letter along with some hard to find vintage D&D minis, some hard to find first edition records and some fantasy books that Dustin helped Steve pick out for Eddie back in the 80’s. The letter states that Steve will do whatever he can to come back to him.

While Steve was gone the kids figured out how to manipulate the portals. He explains to them what happened and after some ribbing about his new boyfriend (“your such a cradle robber, he’s not even born yet!” from Dustin, and “it to you time travelling to a sci-fi future and using a computer to figure out you’re bisexual?” From Robin) they agree to open up a portal up to a few days after Steve was sent back to his time. Eddie was hoping this would happen and had discussed with uncle Wayne what they wanted to do. When the portal opens back up Eddie flings himself at Steve and excitedly meets all the friends that he heard so much about. Steve and Eddie want to be together, but Steve doesn’t want to leave all his friends and can’t very well take them all with him to the future, so Eddie and uncle Wayne agree to come back with them. Steve does end up betting on some sports teams, after promising to Eddie and Dustin that he isn’t going to do anything crazy with it, obviously. So they’re able to set Eddie and his uncle up pretty nicely.

Steve remains absolutely fascinated by computers and decides to pursue them as a career, advancing technology. He has a ton of really creative ideas and befriends Susie and they work together on a variety of new technologies. Eddie befriends more people in the 80’s and starts up a D&D campaign with them and the kids, although he has to learn the rules to Advanced D&D rather than 5E. He starts his band Corroded Coffin and genuinely gets to just enjoy himself with his boyfriend and new friends in the 80’s now.

#steddie #stranger things #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #I dunno this just grabbed onto my brain and wouldn’t let go #I wasn’t 100% sure how to end it but I absolutely think uncle Wayne would follow Eddie back in time if that’s what made him happy

[dragonboyteeth]

Just to clarify a few things bc I mostly reblog stuff and don't make original posts about it and my stance is too nuanced to glean from reblogs of other people's posts:

I don't think AI is ontologically evil. It's just a type of computer program.

I don't think AI is an accurate term, but I'll still use it bc the marketing broadly worked and I want to be understood without having to write an essay about terminology every time the topic comes up

AI has genuinely interesting artistic applications (shoutout to @aholefilledwithtwigs and our beloved departed @nostalgebraist-autoresponder )

The vast majority of AI art (again, conceding to the marketing term for the sake of clarity) is not that.

The use of web scraping and mass processing of artwork without consent is self-evidently inethical. Machine processing is not comparable to a human artist taking inspiration from or referencing other artists. If you try to tell me it actually is the same and I just don't get how it works, then sorry, but I actually know more than you.

That said, I'm not in a hurry to litigate it. Ethical boundaries do not always translate well into legal boundaries, no matter how good the intentions of the lawyers. Copyright law is a fuck to begin with.

If you think AI art is fundamentally the same as photography, you've got a better head on your shoulders than a lot of AI artists, but you're still wrong. The neural network itself is indeed comparable to the mechanical function of a camera. The comparison between working out the right prompt to put in the generator and the artistic process of working out the right angle, lens, focus, and shutter speed is a bit shakier but still works. There is zero possible comparison between photography and the use of huge databases of training data.

I think images generated by AI should be public domain. Full stop. The legal precedent for that isn't actually all that convincing if I'm being honest, I'm just a huge copyleft advocate.

I think it would be great if everyone learned how to make neural networks and started creating their own, way more interesting, projects with training data that actually belongs to them. The results might not be as immediately impressive but it's pretty fucking elitist to put all the emphasis on visual fidelity and polish.

I don't like the gay sex cats because the cats themselves gross me out to look at for too long. Same with most AI art even if it's getting closer to looking right. This isn't, like, an actual ethical issue or anything, just personal squick. I think it would be cool if more people used it to make grotesque horror on purpose.

[moondragon618]

So uh. I think I've decided that I want to be a little bit more open about some things on here bc honestly trying not to acknowledge it is just causing me a ton of unnecessary stress (and I'm sure as fuck not acknowledging it irl lmaooo) so yeah. So I'll start with this: I'm currently unemployed and living with my parents (mom and stepdad) and my younger but also adult brother (they all have some form of income but it's only just barely enough to get by). Now on its own the whole all of us living together thing should not be that big of a deal apparently according to what I've learned from hearing other ppl's experiences in similar situations. Unfortunately my parents do not think like this. My mom especially is convinced that we are literally ruining her life so y'know that's fun (:

Okay but seriously. I'm about to sound like I'm trying to downplay this (and maybe I am bc. Yk.) but like a good 80% or so of the time it's. Fine. We get along okay. But I know that's only bc we never acknowledge The Problems outside of the few bad days and we always just go on like those never even happened. And here's what I mean by bad days btw: ""Family Meetings"". Yeah that phrase is literally a fucking trigger for me now it's fucking bullshit. When I was younger it meant "me getting screamed at about how fucked up I am and how fucked I'll be in the "real world" and how I'm just "a soft spoiled little bitch bc I never got my ass beat" (like my brother. bc he's definitely fine and has no issues at all lmaooo) (and usually without the bitch part aside from once when I was a teenager) and now it's more "me getting screamed at by my mom abt how I'm ruining her life and her marriage" etc. etc. So yeah. My stepdad is a little better in that he only yelled at me one time when I was like 12 I think? And then never again. And he seems to at least understand that if screaming at still hasn't "fixed" me after 25 fucking years then it's probably not going to so yeah. And he did actually kind of stand up for me during the last one (in late September-ish) which I know isn't much but it's still way more than anyone else has done so I do appreciate it.

Anyway the last one was really fun (terrible) I got the usual + being told I being disrespectful for not coming out to the living room bc I was having a panic attack and quite literally frozen and unable to move 👍👍👍 And I've also been limited to just my phone since then bc my mom took my computer (bc god forbid we consider there might be a reason I'm on it so much) and still hasn't given it back and tbh I think I'd rather kms than ask for it back so that's fun too (:

I am aware that this is abusive behavior and that screaming at your child for any reason is in fact child abuse btw. It took me until very recently to come to terms with that even while knowing that (and I'm probably still not fully there tbh) but I know. It's that fucking generational trauma bullshit yk. My mom's side of the family is Fucked Up like her parents were terrible and their (mostly her dad's idk the other ones lol) parents. Yeah I'm not even comfortable talking about them right now that's like a whole other thing lmao. But yeah I know that doesn't even remotely make it okay.

And yeah like the day after shit like that happens we just never acknowledge it again until everyone's losing their shit again because nothing ever changes. Believe it or not being screamed at does not help me figure out how to navigate getting a source of income or how I'm supposed to do anything when we sure as fuck can't afford another vehicle or how I'm ever going to be able to afford my own place to live lmaooo. And I also literally cannot even talk to them about any of this without losing my ability to speak so that really doesn't help either (: I sure as fuck haven't tried calling out the bullshit either bc fuck that there's no fucking way that's going over well and I couldn't even if I wanted to (: (: (:

So I'm just kinda stuck here ig. It's really not too bad (most of the time). I'm not saying that to minimize or invalidate anything either I just want you all to know that it's not like super urgent or anything, I'm not in danger, my mental health isn't great obviously but I'm not at risk of hurting myself or suicide or anything. Promise <3 I'm a tenacious bastard sticking around out of pure spite and a desire to keep creating things if nothing else lmao :)

God this is kind of a trauma dump lmao but that about sums it up ig? I'm also very much open to advice if anyone has any <3

#srry if I come across insensitively with my jokes and stuff btw #I'm not trying to be I just cope by making fun of how absurd the logic is now that I know it is lol #vent #tw abuse #tw suicide mention #tw victim blaming