taciturnlexemic

[taciturnlexemic]

Microsoft Office, like many companies in recent months, has slyly turned on an “opt-out” feature that scrapes your Word and Excel documents to train its internal AI systems. This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.

If you are a writer who uses MS Word to write any proprietary content (blog posts, novels, or any work you intend to protect with copyright and/or sell), you’re going to want to turn this feature off immediately.How to Turn off Word’s AI Access To Your Content

I won’t beat around the bush. Microsoft Office doesn’t make it easy to opt out of this new AI privacy agreement, as the feature is hidden through a series of popup menus in your settings:On a Windows computer, follow these steps to turn off “Connected Experiences”:

File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences > Uncheck box: “Turn on optional connected experiences”

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I feel like we need a refresher on Watsonian vs Doylist perspectives in media analysis. When you have a question about a piece of media - about a potential plot hole or error, about a dubious costuming decision, about a character suddenly acting out of character -

A Watsonian answer is one that positions itself within the fictional world.

A Doylist answer is one that positions itself within the real world.

Meaning: if Watson says something that isn't true, one explanation is that Watson made a mistake. Another explanation is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a mistake.

Watsonian explanations are implicitly charitable. You are implicitly buying into the notion that there is a good in-world reason for what you're seeing on screen or on the page. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie all the time because they're from a desert culture!")

Doylist explanations are pragmatic. You are acknowledging that the fiction is shaped by real-world forces, like the creators' personal taste, their biases, the pressures they might be under from managers or editors, or the limits of their expertise. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie because somebody thought they'd sell more units that way.")

Watsonian explanations tend to be imaginative but naive. Seeking a Watsonian explanation for a problem within a narrative is inherently pleasure-seeking: you don't want your suspension of disbelief to be broken, and you're willing to put in the leg work to prevent it. Looking for a Watsonian answer can make for a fun game! But it can quickly stray into making excuses for lazy or biased storytelling, or cynical and greedy executives.

Doylist explanations are very often accurate, but they're not much fun. They should supersede efforts to provide a Watsonian explanation where actual harm is being done: "This character is being depicted in a racist way because the creators have a racist bias.'" Or: "The lore changed because management fired all of the writers from last season because they didn't want to pay then residuals."

Doylism also runs the risk of becoming trite, when applied to lower stakes discrepancies. Yes, it's possible that this character acted strangely in this episode because this episode had a different writer, but that isn't interesting, and it terminates conversation.

I think a lot of conversations about media would go a lot more smoothly, and everyone would have a lot more fun, if people were just clearer about whether they are looking to engage in Watsonian or Doylist analysis. How many arguments could be prevented by just saying, "No, Doylist you're probably right, but it's more fun to imagine there's a Watsonian reason for this, so that's what I'm doing." Or, "From a Watsonian POV that explanation makes sense, but I'm going with the Doylist view here because the creator's intentions leave a bad taste in my mouth that I can't ignore."

Idk, just keep those terms in your pocket? And if you start to get mad at somebody for their analysis, take a second to see if what they're saying makes more sense from the other side of the Watsonian/Doylist divide.

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I think I invented a time machine.

I think it lets me go back in time and change the past, but when (if?) I do, I'm flung back to a new present, without that reason to go back.

It's driving me mad.

For my sanity, I will go back and stop myself from inventing it.

Forgive me.

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robot mecha anime that is almost entirely about all the hundreds of mechanics and engineers that make the mech possible. the actual mech is only ever shown in parts in the bay or as a blip on a radar. the whole this is shot in a way that makes the machine as eldritch and incomprehensible as the monsters it is fighting. maybe it’s set before digital video so all glimpses of it in action are bad angles on terrible analogue monitors. such that you never even really lock down how its anatomy works. the pilot can be there and be important, but like it’s like a weird eldritch horror take on office politics.

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we are in a media literacy crisis

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🔹 Someone else's fiction cannot cause you physical harm.

🔹If someone else's fiction is causing you emotional or psychological harm, or distress, you can put it down and not read/watch it.

🔹Your emotional well-being is not the responsibility of fiction writers.

🔹Someone else's fiction is not about your personal trauma.

🔹When reading or watching fiction, you always have the power. You can always stop. You are never reading fiction without your own consent.

🔹Fiction writers are not responsible for other people's mental health.

🔹The content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of its author.

🔹Just because someone writes about bad things happening, doesn't mean they want those things to happen.

🔹Don't like? Don't read.

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The younger me stares for a long time. She approaches as if walking towards a volatile creature she's never seen before, and moves one side to another to inspect. I've always been a little too curious. She reaches out to feel my hair, which is chopped short compared to hers in my old ponytail style. It won't be another year maybe before she makes that choice.

I can't help but notice the lightness behind her eyes, knowing it hasn't happen to her yet. She's got a couple years yet... and I can't help but be jealous.

She notices. She knows to look beyond my glasses for dark circles, because they're hers. Despite all the people telling us we look so young she knows I look older and more tired than I should. I wonder if she's disappointed, or scared that this is what she'll one day be. One day, she knows within the next 5 years, this will become her future. She stares at me for a long time before speaking.

"... will it hurt?"

I'm more cynical than I've ever been but I make the effort not to scoff at her, "Yes... it'll hurt more than anything ever has in our life."

She nods. I know she's scared. I know myself.

"More than Matt?"

"Much much more..." I debate telling her. But it won't be stopped and knowing ahead will probably make it all worse. "I can't imagine something hurting us more than it did."

I tear up thinking about it. It's been a while, I figured I'd gotten used to thinking about it by now since I never really stopped. Maybe her being here is making it all more real again. Knowing how close it is.

"... wow... that terrible, and I'm still here."

"... what?" My attention shifts, coming back from being miles and years away to watch my younger self.

"I've had a bunch happen already, and things suck pretty bad right now, but it sounds like you've been through a lot... and I'm still here." She shakes her head and sighs. "That's comforting, right? I mean we were really over dramatic in 2016, remember?"

"Over dramatic might be uh--" she gives me a pointed look and I relent quickly. "Right, yes, very over dramatic... though shit sucked."

"We made it though. And we're holding out now... so I'll take it. I'm proud of us."

"... thanks."

[taciturnlexemic]

Top-Tier Villain Motivations

They will be safe. It doesn't matter who else or what else burns as long as They will be safe.

I will be safe. The hunger and the cold will never touch me again.

Fuck any bitch who's prettier(/cooler/better-liked/better at making dumplings) than me.

Yes, Master

Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. LOVE ME!

I know the terrible things these so-called "heroes" will do if I don't stop them (<- is absolutely wrong)

I don't want a better future, I want a better past!

No other way to get performance art funded these days

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btw. your search for the most morally upright and ethical piece of media that has the most correct “representation” will destroy your ability to find the most profound and beautiful and human of stories. and may even destroy the stories themselves before they are created. if you even care.

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The "there is only one bed" romance trope, but there is only one mech instead.

Each of you have mission critical skills for this op, but we only have a single seater chassis available. You two are going to have to figure out who is sitting on who's lap while also sharing a neural link to the mech.

You've grown accustomed to your sensory inputs getting lost in a machine, but never the nerve ending of another pilot.

You try and shake these concerns away. Think of the mission, only the mission. You reach out for the mech's weapons systems and feel the presence of someone else's ghost reaching out in unisin. The warmth of it cause you to hesitate. Is it getting hotter in here? Is that racing heart yours, or the other pilots? Maybe it's the reactor, its rhythmic thumping increasing in pace and heating up from the additional inputs and feedback

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When you understand that kids and teenagers being salty about literary symbolic analysis comes from a very real place of annoyance and frustration at some teachers for being over-bearing and pretentious in their projecting of symbolism onto every facet of a story but you also understand that literary analysis and critical thinking in regards to symbolism is extremely important and deserves to be not only taught in schools, but actively used by writers when examining their own work to see if they might have used symbolism unintentionally and to make sure that they are using symbolism effectively:

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By Czeck writer Karel Čapek, inventor of the term ‘robot’ as well!

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I'm sorry but I have one draft that I never finished but I laugh every time I see it

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ok fine maybe i DID come back wrong. what are you going to do about it. kill me? put me back in the ground? after all this effort? all this pain and suffering only to find out bringing me back wasn't worth it after all? you worked so hard. are you going to waste all of that just because im not what you wanted? just because i belong only to myself? are you going to let me pick out my own coffin

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im a fucking sucker for the “character gets so badly injured that they can’t think clearly and start calling for help in a distressingly vulnerable way.” characters who start using nicknames for their friends they haven’t used since they were kids. characters who start begging for their brother they haven’t seen in years to be there. characters who would usually use their parents’ names or call them mother/father/etc crying out mama when they go down. u understand.

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‘don’t you want your favourite character to be happy???’ no? i want my favourite character to be interesting. i want me to be happy. which sometimes involves my favourite character being in exquisite agony