everbecomesreal

[everbecomesreal]

it’s also available for free on the channel 5 app

I've just found James May's Great Explorers on Youtube (the author of the channel is doing god's work), thought someone else might need this too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8I_pUTxk_I

[everbecomesreal]

Also, and this is crucial for hobbies. Rewriting and editing can be a part of the process but it doesn’t have to be. Carefully working and tweaking your tone on different phrases of a song or piece of music you’re preparing can be a part of the process but it doesn’t have to be.

In many ways I’m very lucky. I work professionally in the arts, I am very poor and rent off family but I’m able to make a living from my art.

The art I make a living off does not include writing. When I write fanfiction I have a story bouncing around in my head, I normally sit down and write it in one go, maybe two when the creative juices are flowing, it gets the briefest possible proofread to guard against very obvious typos, and then it gets published and I get endorphins from writing the story and fairly instant gratification from comments and kudos. This is fine because it’s just a hobby. Anyone who works in a professional way (and this includes many hobbyists) have discipline, and also carefully reflect and curate their practice so they can produce their best work. There are many hobbyists who do the same but you don’t have to. If your art is just for fun then belt out that song, write your story or poem, sketch out a two minute image of a pineapple. The process is the point, not the outcome, whether that process is long and meticulous, or brief and impulsive, the most important outcome is your satisfaction.

Also here’s a link to a podcast about the value and importance of hobbies and the innately human satisfaction in making things:

Unpopular opinion but if you don't enjoy the process you should find a different thing to do.

And I think this is true in general but now I'm talking about it in the context of AI.

If you don't enjoy making art and only care about the end piece and how it'll look and how much traction it"lol get online then making art is not something for you, find something you enjoy from start to finish.

Same goes for writing: if you do not enjoy writing and rewriting and then some more and instead want AI to write for you, being a writer is not something you should pursue.

Sure, not every part of creative process is going to be equally enjoyable but you should get satisfaction from solving the problems along the way and you should get a sense of accomplishment on your way of "making the piece yours" and you should have a sense of ownership once you are done.

None of these things will come from typing in a prompt into chatGPT. And I am sad to see so many people are missing on the opportunity to experience the joy of making something with their own hands and brains.

[everbecomesreal]

everyone's all about queer subtext until it's aromantic or asexual

[everbecomesreal]

For a nice bit of fun, I quite like to make reading challenges over on Storygraph (aka the actual good reading app), in an attempt to broaden my own reading horizons and also to tackle the groaning pile of books currently taking over my house and my life, and it has struck me that perhaps some other people might also be interested in these challenges, so I thought that I would just link them here, quite possibly to no effect at all, such is life:

Reading Wales: read 12 books set in Wales or by a Welsh author - including historical fiction set in Wales, a book by a queer Welsh author, any book by a Welsh author of colour

Diverse women: read 10 books by women from a range of lived experiences - including a book by a Black British author, a book by a Deaf or disabled woman, a book both written and translated by a woman

Intersex voices: a list of 10 books by intersex authors - including Nobody Needs to Know by Pidgeon Pagonis, Just Ash by Sol Santana, Born Both by Hida Viloria

Queer books in translation: a list of 33 queer books originally written in a language other than English - including Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin, Boulder by Eva Baltasar, Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen

Read Women from Every State in India: read a book by a woman from all 28 states in India - with metaphorical bonus points for Dalit and Adivasi authors, and if the book is translated from a language other than English

So, if reading is up your alley, then go forth and see if any of these lists might be of interest. And you know what? If not, that's completely fine. I'm not your mother, or your father, or even your distant aunt, probably.

[everbecomesreal]

Also, with reportedly thousands of videos on porn sites where the victims did not consent, and no way of knowing whether or not the video you’re consuming is one of them, reading smut is objectively a more ethical way to consume porn. Putting the debate over if pornographic material is ethical or not to one side; it’s got to be less bad if it isn’t actively harming individuals

seeing straight men be disgusted by booktok smut recommenders has actually radicalized me to the side of booktok smut recommenders. girls your taste may be atrocious but i will never disparage you for exposing mainstream discourse to the concept of soaking through your underwear. spent my whole life listening to men talk about penises it’s about time they get jumpscared by women talking about pussy in crude detail on social media. go forth and goon my warriors

[everbecomesreal]

[everbecomesreal]

Ngl chaps, I want to see Hammo and Izzy painting things eps on yt. I have seen Izzy painting on her ig once and it was pretty good.

[everbecomesreal]

If you clicked on and read a fanfiction that had tags or a description that upset you and you were upset by it, that's your responsibility, not the author's responsibility.

If you were reading a fanfiction and you got to an unexpected part that disturbed you and you kept reading after you were disturbed, that was your choice and your responsibility, not the author's.

No one is forcing you to read fanfiction that upsets you. The back button is your friend.

If you are reading a piece of fanfiction it's because it interests you. Horrified fascination counts as interest. No fanfiction is holding you hostage and forcing you to read it.

[everbecomesreal]

Absolutely no to a dislike button!

Potentially yes to a “hide this work from me button” to be used specifically on the 500,000 word behemoth with half a page of tags, gets updated every day, and even though you’ve tried to read it 6 times it’s just not your thing and you’re tired of scrolling past it every day.

But only if no author ever, could see if anyone had chosen not to see the work they created.

Also, I worry when I pick a tag to exclude from search so I can filter it out that I’m missing out on another story I might love.

heard someone say archive of our own should install a "dislike" button and I thought I should say this: no, there's absolutely no need for archive of our own to install a "dislike" button.

why? because archive of our own isn't tiktok or youtube or twitter/x where users can monetize their content. archive of our own is a nonprofit site run by fans for fans, which means every content — every fanfic — you see on archive of our own was made out of pure love and passion from the artists/authors.

ao3 authors write because writing about these characters is their happiness and passion. they write for themselves, but they were generous enough to share with you their creations.

they're not "content creators" the way tiktokers or youtubers or instagram models are. they don't "make content" for views and engagements that can be monetized.

so no, you don't get to "grade their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "say what you dislike about their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "dislike" works that are not made specifically to please you in the first place. you're just a guest in someone's house, a house in which they let you in because they were kind, you don't get to roam around their house and say what you dislike about their furniture. you don't get to roam around their house and say you "dislike their house".

of course, you can have your opinion about the house its host invites you in. but if it's a negative one and you find yourself not liking the house, the polite things for you to do is excuse yourself and leave without telling them you dislike their house.

and just because you personally dislike the house doesn't mean the house is "ugly" either. the house you dislike could be a favorite, most luxurious place to many others.

my point is, don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that you get to enjoy for free. don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that were made out of love and passion — things the artists made for themselves for fun.

it makes you look like an entitled jerk with main character syndrome. the universe does not revolve around you.

now repeat after me: don't like don't read. no one forces you to continue reading a fic you don't like. quietly leave instead of being rude to authors who write for free because writing is their source of comfort.

people are so used to contents that were made because it's a trend / contents like tiktok that were made with the main purpose of reaching high engagement and making profits that they forget sometimes things can be made out of love and be made just for fun. sometimes things are supposed to just be for people to enjoy, and if some people don't enjoy them, then they can simply leave without being unnecessary unkind.

[everbecomesreal]

Wild that folks keep saying beekeepers abuse bees as if bees are not both venomous flying animals and fully unionized

[everbecomesreal]

I live in the UK and the boiler in our house does the central heating but also sends hot water to the taps, baths and showers (except the 2 showers that were added later and are electric). I know this, because my dad tends to turn the hot water off when he thinks we have enough for the next few days to save money on the heating, and very, very often he underestimates, so we end up without hot water on average about 2 afternoons a week because it takes hours for the boiler to heat up again when it’s run out. This only happens in the summer though when the heating isn’t on.

Americans need to explain boilers and radiators to me. They're in tv shows all the time and I have never in my life seen either of them in a home or a hotel or anything. I swear the USA made them up so they could dramatically explode in movies or have a prisoner handcuffed to them.

[everbecomesreal]

[everbecomesreal]

sometimes u go on google searching for a reference image and you just find something that is totally not what you are looking for but is better than anything u could have ever dreamed

who is she

[source]

[everbecomesreal]

Calling all Brits on this hellsite.

We all saw Elon Musk do the nazi salute at the Trump inauguration. We know that he is influencing and fanning the flames of right wing political parties.

And that very well may include ours.

Because Elon Musk has pledged to donate $100 million to the Reform party. He has since mentioned that it might be hard to give such a large sum now.

But I don’t think we should take our chances. And I think we can agree that letting billionaires influence our countries politics is a terrible idea.

If you also agree here’s a link to a Parliament petition.

It calls for the government to remove loopholes that allow wealthy foreign individuals to make donations into UK political parties (e.g. by funnelling through UK registered companies).

As it is a parliament petition the government are required to debate it in parliament. But for that to happen it needs to reach 100,000 signatures.

Non British folk I’m afraid you guys can’t sign but I encourage you guys to reblog so that more people can see this.

[everbecomesreal]

So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

[everbecomesreal]

I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.

[everbecomesreal]

This is really relatable because the entire reason I got into Top Gear and TGT was because I was struggling to learn to drive. Learning to drive was such an anxiety point for me I didn’t begin until my late 20s. I started having lessons in November 2021 and I was anxious about it. By April 2022 I was having two lessons a week but I wasn’t sleeping, I was waking up in the night with panic attacks at least twice on the night before I had a lesson (it didn’t help that my first instructor shouted at me).

I realised that I needed to look at learning to drive and driving as something potentially enjoyable rather than a scary and irritating chore.

Watching Top Gear and the Grand Tour and anything else Hammond and May did became a bit of a special interest. It helped me get over my fear of driving enough to not only pass my test but enjoy it occasionally, I also achieved my full motorcycle license since then which is much more fun and freeing.

I want to be honest, I grew up in a car-centric city. Everyone goes everywhere either by car or motorcycle, the typical traffic-infested SEA city. A car is a need, it's important because of its function, you go for a drive because you need to move from point A to point B and that's it. Which is why I learned and got my driver license mere days after I turned 17 in 2019. No motorcycle license though because my parents won't let me, even though I've borrowed my friends bike and knows how to.

So its been 5, almost 6, years since I got my license, and to be honest I've barely ever used it. In fact, other than a couple of drives on the month I got my license, I haven't driven in 5 years.

When could I? The pandemic hits soon after and with a comorbid parent and old grandmother in the house, I wouldn't dare risk going out. When it was over, the one family car we had is used by my parents for their work commute and the city has since evolved so that public transport (while sometimes tedious) are reliable enough most of the times.

So hopefully it's understandable why I'm relunctant to drive, even with my 5 year old license, I have a total of probably less than 10 hours of driving experience. Funny thing, I had the easiest time renewing my license because technically yeah, I had zero incidents.

This lack of experience though, slowly but surely grows to a fear of driving.

Then in September of 2024 The Grand Tour releases One for The Road, marking the end of Clarkson, Hammond and May. It didn't mean anything for me then because frankly I've never watched The Grand Tour, or Top Gear. I was vaguely aware of Top Gear, my dad watched it a couple times, and I'm familiar with Hammond due to Science of Stupid and Brainiac, but that's about it.

Funny thing about how the internet works now though, is that when something trends, it can get to just about anywhere. Hence when TGT ends with CHM along with it, clips of them from both TGT and TG keeps popping up in my youtube shorts.

And I got curious.

So curious in fact, that I've started watching those shorts, then compilation videos, before finally moving on to full episodes of TG and TGT.

Not everything, I haven't got the time for every single episode and I'm conciously avoiding One for The Road bcs I just found them and I refuse to say farewell now, but still, I've watched a lot of their episodes, more then what you would expect. A minimum of 3 episodes and an average of maybe 5 from every series of both shows, yes including series 1 with Jason Dawe.

And that helps me a lot, somehow?

I can't say I've never been interested in cars. I like engineering so I know how internal combustion engines works from years ago and I can name a couple cool looking cars from well-known hollywood movies. But cars for me has always been an object of function, pretty sport cars are unachievable things that only the rich has and are utterly pointless in this traffic trodden city.

So really, TG and TGT shouldn't have interest me.

But it did.

Because for once in my life driving looks fun and enjoyable. These 3 men, wheter they're in shitty old sportcars, brand new grand tourers, your everyday hatchback, or even their own made cars. Doesn't matter if they enjoy the cars they are driving or not, they always enjoy the driving.

And that enjoyment is infectious.

I can't say I've gotten over my fear of driving yet, there is still that underlying anxiety that I'm going to mess up and crash. But thanks to Clarkson, Hammond, and May, I've at least scrounged up the courage to start again. In fact within the last month I've driven a couple of times already and just last week I've driven on my own for the first time ever.

It was anxiety inducing and I botched the parking a little and it's great! The enjoyment and the fun that CHM shared is there, I felt it and I love it.

So I guess, this is a thank you to a trio that has lasted for as long as I've lived, a goodbye to something that has passed months ago, a letter to a show that no longer runs.

I'm driving.