#404 LA Times

[thoughtportal]

You won’t find him on wikipedia, but his work is woven into the music of Madonna, New Order, The Police and countless others. @beachboyz2men shares more about how Dan got his start, from creating telephone hold music to ending up working with Dr. Dre, helping to shape the sound of early hip-hop, and beyond…

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

here's all the covers of all the ot 2023 contestants' first singles !!!

[chaoswithcausation]

Happy Halloween to my Secret Skele-Kon, @wallowaffles !

+ un-Halloweened vers. under the cut and accompanying ficlet, because you said you liked funny stuff but I wasn’t able to translate it super clearly into the drawing. Hope that’s okay! 😅

“You cheater.” Bart hissed. 

For someone who liked to act like he knew everything, Kon thought that Tim seemed to really enjoy pretending not to know what their friend was talking about. Tim raised a brow behind the sunglasses covering his face, but otherwise said nothing. 

Bart clearly got the message though, because he jabbed a finger at the screen in front of them. “You are not that tall.” 

“Yes I am. I’ve been this tall for years,” Tim said, imitating Bart’s tone.

“Liar!” Bart slammed his hands on the desk a la Ace Attorney, which Kon took as a cue to intervene. Cassie seemed to agree, because she hopped over the couch and joined as well. 

Kon slid slightly between Tim and Bart. There was a table between them, but he knew from experience that that wasn’t nearly enough to stop either one. He exchanged an amused look with Cassie, and the corners of her eyes crinkled. 

“Maybe the shoes added some height, Bart,” she said, plopping her head down on top of his. Her own goggles pressed into her chin from where they rested atop his head, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

“Look at the picture, Cassie. He’s gotta be on his tiptoes.” Bart insisted, shoving the picture in question into her face. Kon muffled and snort and Tim huffed in pretend-impatience as Cassie shot the speedster a look, but examined the picture obligingly. 

“Well, I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she began, and Kon snatched Bart’s celebratory fist pump out of the air before he accidentally punched her. “But, I don’t think you have any room to be complaining since you were also on your tiptoes.” 

“Yeah, but that’s different!“ he defended, while Tim began loudly objecting. “I’m the shortest! I’m allowed to cheat!” 

“Oh, this is bullsh-“ 

“Mr. Greatest Junior Detective here is taller, so ipso facto, thusly, and ergo, he should be grateful for the inch and a half he’s got!” 

Tim, who had been moving forward and raising his hands as if to throttle Bart, stopped in place. Cassie doubled over snickering, freeing Bart, who looked extraordinarily smug. 

Kon muffled a wheeze in his fist and tried not to devolve into laughter too at Tim’s perfect impression of what the spinning wheel of death would look like as a facial expression. 

Error 404, reaction.wtf not found, his brain supplied helpfully, and the laughter slipped out, growing in volume as it went. 

Tim didn’t move for a few more seconds, until finally he blinked, scrunched up his entire face in a scowl, and lunged for Bart. 

Bart shrieked with glee and leapt atop Cassie’s shoulders to get away. She yelped, immediately dumping him, and Kon hooked both his arms around Tim’s waist to pull him back. 

“Tim, buddy-“ he tried to reason. 

Tim, clearly not interested in listening, wriggled back and forth in an attempt to escape. “He made a dick joke at my expense while quoting Ice Age, Kon! Ice Age!” 

“In his defense, it was a golden opportunity.” 

Bart blew Kon a kiss. “Thank you.” Then, with a devious grin, he blew Tim one, too. 

Tim went fake-limp in a way that meant doom was impending, so Kon quickly wrapped him in a blanket of TTK. He tossed him over his shoulder and started walking to the door. “Oooookay, cool-down time. We should watch the first episode of Wendy: tis the season!” 

Bart immediately zipped past him to get to the living room first. “No way! Halloween means movies!” 

Cassie flew after him. Kon could hear her slightly muffled voice, just to be contrary, suggest that “Mean Girls has a Halloween scene in it. We could watch that.” Bart, in a fit of holiday-purism, started sputtering protests about how Mean Girls is not a Halloween movie. 

He chuckled, and Tim huffed from his position on Kon’s shoulder. When the super looked, however, there was a smile twisting the corners of his mouth upwards. Tim blew a puff of air in his face. “Can I get down now?” 

Kon smiled innocently. “Dunno. Can you be civil now?” His grin stretched wider, and he raised his voice slightly while Tim lifted an eyebrow. “I mean, you did stand on tiptoes for the picture.” 

Bart’s muffled voice crowed victoriously. 

Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoyed 😊

[gimpyhair]

Stupid prompt/drabble to the universe:

Levi receives a report on his desk, signed Hange Zoe-Ackerman. He decides to confront Hange about it, banging on their door "Yo, four-eyes, what's the meaning of this!?".

Hange opens the door, kinda awkward, and responds "oh, I didn't mean for you to find out this way-" Levi sees a ring on their finger and is super confused (did he fucking married Hange without realizing it). Hange then happily screams "-but I'm your new aunty!❤️"

Kenny comes out of nowhere and fully kisses Hange on their lips. Levi is speechless, under shock, does not compute, error 404

Kenny gives Levi pocket money and tells smugly him to go buy an ice cream or something to "give the grown ups some alone time". Hange giggles in a very ooc way, then playfully smacks Kenny'ass

Levi immediately wakes up, screaming (a la Kakyoin screaming meme). Hange, who is laying on the same bed, is like "babe, what's wrong, titans again?". Hange is ready to go full comfort-mode like every classic levihan fanfiction. But Levi refuses to talk because of how fucking stupid that nightmare was.

[buddiebeginz]

In the middle of a rewatch right now and I'm at s4. I know what I'm about to say is unpopular because I've had people angry at me before when I've made posts about it but I feel like one of the characters who the show and fandom too often treat like they can do no wrong is Maddie. I love her and I especially love her relationship with Buck but there are some storylines with her that forever drive me crazy.

I think all of the characters have made mistakes at different times that's part what I love about the show. That all of the characters are relatable and we've watched them grow and change and have to really deal with the messes they make.

Maddie though I feel often gets a pass because of what she dealt with from Doug or because she essentially had to raise Buck.

In s3 Maddie used her position at the call center to stalk a woman. To lie to her and pretend to be her friend so she could try and save her from her life. I get that a big reason Maddie did this is because she wasn't in a good headspace after what happened in s2 with Doug but it was still all kinds of messed up. She even lied to Chim about it. Sue at the call center tells her she needs to go talk to a therapist and Chim calls her out for lying but for the most part no one makes a big deal about it even after she continues to get involved in that woman's life.

My bigger issues with Maddie though are connected to Buck. In s4 Maddie finds out Buck is going to therapy and he won't really tell her why. She gets worried about him and decides without telling him to not only tell her parents that he's in therapy but to invite their parents to come for a visit. Which I found to be so thoughtless. Whatever relationship Maddie might have with her parents it's clear they didn't have that with Buck. You can tell that by the whole baby box thing.

She should have asked him before talking about his private business with parents Buck wasn't even in contact with. She definitely should have talked to him before inviting them to LA. He should have had the option to not see them if he didn't want to. If you watch 404 when Maddie tells Buck their parents are coming he talks about how it's basically too late to do anything about it now. How Maddie waited until they were already almost there to even tell him they were coming. Maddie also talks about how Buck had been in Texas (for the Lone Star crossover ep) so she literally waited until he was away and had no ability to voice his opinion on them coming.

Even worse than just bringing the parents there is that Maddie kept Daniel a secret from Buck, long after both of them had moved out of their parents house. Like I could understand her not really having a choice when they were little and both still living at home. And I know Maddie had a lot going on with Doug for a while but when she came to LA she should have found time to sit Buck down and talk to him about their brother. Instead she decides to tell Chim before she ever tells Buck and lets Buck find out accidently.

I know some have argued that she was just trying to protect Buck but I'm sure she would have wanted to know if she was in Buck's position. Also keeping Buck in the dark about the truth of his own life and family for his entire life isn't protecting him it's just being cruel.

I will always hate how the show handled all of this stuff with Buck because I think he deserved to be angry at least for a little bit with Maddie and he deserved to be able to tell her how her keeping this from him made him feel and the show didn't give that to him. I'm not saying I didn't want them to make up of course I did and I love their relationship but I wanted some accountability from Maddie and the show never gives that.

[stillness-in-green]

current feelings on the state of the manga (in general), predictions, worries, fears? Is there anything about the final war arc and those first few epilogue chapters that you liked?

Current feelings on the state of the manga:

Image macro reactions aside, it's not like there's nothing? In the epilogue thus far, I like the single panel we get of Gentle and La Brava reuniting. I really like Spinner calling Deku a murderer and Deku not arguing the label. I like the first half of Spinner's breakdown. And in the last war arc, I’m sure there was stuff I liked; you could probably find any number of things in my chapter posts for such time as I was doing them.

The trouble is that the stuff I liked by and large didn’t go anywhere, or actively got shitted up in the long run.

To pick the example that springs most readily to mind, I loved the bit in Chapter 379, where Shigaraki devours Vestige!AFO from the inside out.  It was satisfying, vindicating, and perfect on basically every level—and then it went nearly nowhere for forty chapters until it got undone anyway.  That latter point is the big issue, of course: VFO wound up coming back anyway, one last sucker punch from the fucking possession plot that scuttled the ending more generally.

But it’s not even just the possession plot’s return.  It’s the way the story and Deku just adamantly refused to engage with Shigaraki on his own terms and as his own person.  He was still chatty as hell, but, as @codenamesazanka outlined here, Deku just didn’t talk to him in return.  Deku has only one solution for Shigaraki—punching him into submission—and so the narrative never even bothered making him try to engage Shigaraki in conversation.  Instead, Shigaraki had to be reduced to a problem that punching could solve.

There are even a bevy of smaller annoyances like Shigaraki’s writing sometimes veering into cartoon supervillain caricature, as when he gloats that Deku and the world are about to watch All Might die in Chapter 404, only for the narrative to show why he's wrong literally a single page later by starting to explain the metaphysical but still sharply literal power of Wishing Energy, undermining both Shigaraki's character writing and the threat he poses when the bulk of Deku’s fight with him still lay ahead!

To me, that’s the story of the whole endgame.  Even the things I like—Shigaraki’s return, the PLF advisor’s fiery speech at the hospital, Ochako vindicating Toga’s pain, Monoma in general, Kurogiri choosing Tomura in the end—just don’t go anywhere that’s ultimately satisfying.  It’s hard to really call them “things I liked” when they were so squandered.

[nordleuchten]

ALL of La Fayette’s Grandchildren

(This post discusses the death and loss of children)

While four children are still pretty easy to keep track of, La Fayette’s abundance of grandchildren can be quite confusing. You often see the following graphic, published in Jules Germain Cloquet’s book:

Jules Germain Cloquet, Recollections of the Private Life of General Lafayette, Baldwin and Cradock, London, 1835, p. 227.

All fine and dandy, but I was looking for more detailed information and I wanted to include the children that had already died by the time Cloquet publishes his book – I therefor made a graphic of my own. :-)

I am tempted to make one for the great-grandchildren as well, since La Fayette was very exited to become a Great-Grandfather – but this one was already a wild ride and La Fayette had more great-grandchildren then grand-children, let me tell you.

Anyway, some names are written in italics, these are the names the individuals commonly went by. I find it funny to see that all of Virginie’s children went by their second name, just like Virginie herself mostly just used her second name. Anastasie’s second child has an Asterix to her name. I have only once seen the name spelled out, on the certificate of baptism. The twins were baptized in Vianen (modern day Netherlands) and the name on the document was the Germanic spelling “Maria Victorina” – I used what I assumed is the best French spelling of the name.

The dates in bold indicate that the corresponding documentation of the birth/marriage/death can be found in the archives.

Anastasie and Charles: Finding Célestine’s dead twin sister was actually a surprise for me since I have never before seen her being mentioned. Anastasie gave birth for the first time in a town near Utrecht in what today are the Netherlands. The achieves there still have the certificate of baptism (on February 30, was the clerk sloppy or did the region in 1799 adhere to a different calendar style where February could have more then 29 days?) and we can very clearly see that there were too children. By May 9, 1799, La Fayette wrote to George Washington and referred to only one grand-child:

My wife, my daughters, and Son in law, join in presenting their affectionate respects to Mrs Washington & to you my dear g[ener]al the former is recovered & sets out for france on monday next with Virginia—our little grand Daughter [Célestine] is well, will your charming one accept our tender regard?

“To George Washington from Lafayette, 9 May 1799,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-04-02-0041. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series, vol. 4, 20 April 1799 – 13 December 1799, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 54–59.] (02/12/2024)

I suspect that Anastasie had a stillbirth around August/September of 1801. La Fayette mentioned in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on June 21, 1801:

Anastasia Will Before long Make me Once More a Grand Father

“To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette, 21 June 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-34-02-0318. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 34, 1 May–31 July 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007, pp. 403–404.] (02/12/2024)

There is no mention of this child being born and both the achieves in Paris and Courpalay yield no information so that it is unlikely that the child was born and then died young. Georges’ daughter died very young and she still is in the archives. Given La Fayette’s wording we can assume that Anastasie’s pregnancy was already somewhat advanced and the term miscarriage is only used up until the 20th week of a pregnancy, after that it is considered a stillbirth.

Georges and Emilie: The couple lost at least one daughter, Léontine Emilie, young, aged just four weeks. La Fayette wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on February 20, 1807:

My family are pretty well and beg to be most affectionately respectfully and gratefully presented to you—We expected a Boy to be called after your name—But little Tommy has again proved to be a Girl [Léontine Emilie].

“To Thomas Jefferson from Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, 20 February 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5122. [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. It is not an authoritative final version.] (02/12/2024)

La Fayette later wrote to James Madison on June 10, 1807:

We Have Had the Misfortune to Loose a female Child of His, four Weeks old [Léontine Emilie]. My Younger daughter Virginia Has Lately presented us With an other infant of the Same Sex [Marie Pauline]. My Wife’s Health is Not Worse at this Moment, But Ever too Bad.

To James Madison from Marie-Adrienne-Françoise de Noailles, marquise de Lafayette, 10 June 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-01-02-1768. [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of James Madison. It is not an authoritative final version.] (02/12/2024)

As a sidenote because it confused me while searching for the letter; the archives list Adrienne as the author. I am certain that is wrong because a) Adrienne was not corresponding with James Madison, b) this is not her writing style but La Fayette’s, c) the letter does not have her typical signature and d) there is the passage about the authors wife’s health – this one at the least gives it away.

Identifying Léontine Emilie was actually quite a bit of luck as well. I found the letter to Madison by accident and that letter is the only source that mentions her that I know of. I have never seen her in any other letters, documentation, contemporary or secondary books. The letter helped to narrow her birthday and her date of death down and with that information I searches the archives in Paris and Courpalay in the hopes of finding the child – and I was lucky. While I of course understand the order of things, it still saddens me to see that you can be born into such a prominent family – your father was a Marquis, your grand-father was the Marquis, and still, not even your families biographers care to even mention you.

Virginie und Louis: For all I know, and I again have to say that I have not nearly as much data/correspondence as I would like with regard to these topics, Virginie never lost a child. There is always the question what La Fayette would feel comfortable telling and to whom. There is also the question if La Fayette himself was always aware of everything. For example, in the case of a miscarriage very early on in the pregnancy he might have not included it in his correspondence or in fact maybe not even known himself.

As much as would wish a happy family life for Virginie, stillbirths, infant deaths and especially miscarriages were and still are not uncommon.

I have put excerpts from a few more letters by La Fayette to his American friends under the cut that help identify his grandchildren.

La Fayette to Thomas Jefferson, June 4, 1803:

I am Here, with my Wife, Son, daughter in law, and New Born little grand daughter [Natalie Renée Émilie] taking Care of my Wounds, and Stretching My Rusted Articulations untill I can Return to my Beloved Rural Abode at La Grange.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette, 4 June 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0361. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 485–486.] (02/12/2024)

La Fayette to Thomas Jefferson, April 20, 1805:

Here I am with my son and daughter in law who is going to increase our family [Charlotte Mathilde]. Her father is to stand god father to the child and if He is a Boy we intend taking the liberty to give Him Your Name.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, 20 April 1805,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-1556. [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. It is not an authoritative final version.] (02/12/2024)

La Fayette to Thomas Jefferson, April 8, 1809:

(…) My Children are in Good Health. Two of them, My daughter in Law [Clémentine Adrienne], and Virginia [Françoise Mélanie] are Going to increase the family.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, 14 December 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3215. [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series. It is not an authoritative final version.] (02/12/2024)

[mariacallous]

Recently, I was using Google and stumbled upon an article that felt eerily familiar.

While searching for the latest information on Adobe’s artificial intelligence policies, I typed “adobe train ai content” into Google and switched over to the News tab. I had already seen WIRED’s coverage that appeared on the results page in the second position: “Adobe Says It Won’t Train AI Using Artists’ Work. Creatives Aren’t Convinced.” And although I didn’t recognize the name of the publication whose story sat at the very top of the results, Syrus #Blog, the headline on the article hit me with a wave of déjà vu: “When Adobe promised not to train AI on artists’ content, the creative community reacted with skepticism.”

Clicking on the top hyperlink, I found myself on a spammy website brimming with plagiarized articles that were repackaged, many of them using AI-generated illustrations at the top. In this spam article, the entire WIRED piece was copied with only slight changes to the phrasing. Even the original quotes were lifted. A single, lonely hyperlink at the bottom of the webpage, leading back to our version of the story, served as the only form of attribution.

The bot wasn’t just copying journalism in English—I found versions of this plagiarized content in 10 other languages, including many of the languages that WIRED produces content in, like Japanese and Spanish.

Articles that were originally published in outlets like Reuters and TechCrunch were also plagiarized on this blog in multiple languages and given similar AI images. During late June and early July, while I was researching this story, the website Syrus appeared to have gamed the News results for Google well enough to show up on the first page for multiple tech-related queries.

For example, I searched “competing visions google openai” and saw a TechCrunch piece at the top of Google News. Below it were articles from The Atlantic and Bloomberg comparing the rival companies’ approaches to AI development. But then, the fourth article to appear for that search, nestled right below these more reputable websites, was another Syrus #Blog piece that heavily copied the TechCrunch article in the first position.

As reported by 404 Media in January, AI-powered articles appeared multiple times for basic queries at the beginning of the year in Google News results. Two months later, Google announced significant changes to its algorithm and new spam policies, as an attempt to improve the search results. And by the end of April, Google shared that the major adjustments to remove unhelpful results from its search engine ranking system were finished. “As of April 19, we’ve completed the rollout of these changes. You’ll now see 45 percent less low-quality, unoriginal content in search results versus the 40 percent improvement we expected across this work,” wrote Elizabeth Tucker, a director of product management at Google, in a blog post.

Despite the changes, spammy content created with the help of AI remains an ongoing, prevalent issue for Google News.

“This is a really rampant problem on Google right now, and it's hard to answer specifically why it's happening,” says Lily Ray, senior director of search engine optimization at the marketing agency Amsive. “We've had some clients say, ‘Hey, they took our article and rehashed it with AI. It looks exactly like what we wrote in our original content but just kind of like a mumbo-jumbo, AI-rewritten version of it.’”

At first glance, it was clear to me that some of the images for Syrus’ blogs were AI generated based on the illustrations’ droopy eyes and other deformed physical features—telltale signs of AI trying to represent the human body.

Now, was the text of our article rewritten using AI? I reached out to the person behind the blog to learn more about how they made it and received confirmation via email that an Italian marketing agency created the blog. They claim to have used an AI tool as part of the writing process. “Regarding your concerns about plagiarism, we can assure you that our content creation process involves AI tools that analyze and synthesize information from various sources while always respecting intellectual property,” writes someone using the name Daniele Syrus over email.

They point to the single hyperlink at the bottom of the lifted article as sufficient attribution. While better than nothing, a link which doesn’t even mention the publication by name is not an adequate defense against plagiarism. The person also claims that the website’s goal is not to receive clicks from Google’s search engine but to test out AI algorithms in multiple languages.

When approached over email for a response, Google declined to comment about Syrus. “We don’t comment on specific websites, but our updated spam policies prohibit creating low-value, unoriginal content at scale for the purposes of ranking well on Google,” says Meghann Farnsworth, a spokesperson for Google. “We take action on sites globally that don’t follow our policies.” (Farnsworth is a former WIRED employee.)

Looking through Google’s spam policies, it appears that this blog does directly violate the company’s rules about online scraping. “Examples of abusive scraping include: … sites that copy content from other sites, modify it only slightly (for example, by substituting synonyms or using automated techniques), and republish it.” Farnsworth declined to confirm whether this blog was in violation of Google’s policies or if the company would de-rank it in Google News results based on this reporting.

What can the people who write original articles do to properly protect their work? It’s unclear. Though, after all of the conversations I’ve had with SEO experts, one major through line sticks out to me, and it’s an overarching sense of anxiety.

“Our industry suffers from some form of trauma, and I'm not even really joking about that,” says Andrew Boyd, a consultant at an online link-building service called Forte Analytica. “I think one of the main reasons for that is because there's no recourse if you're one of these publishers that's been affected. All of a sudden you wake up in the morning, and 50 percent of your traffic is gone.” According to Boyd, some websites lost a majority of their visitors during Google’s search algorithm updates over the years.

While many SEO experts are upset with the lack of transparency about Google’s biggest changes, not everyone I spoke with was critical of the prevalence of spam in search results. “Actually, Google doesn't get enough credit for this, but Google's biggest challenge is spam.” says Eli Schwartz, the author of the book Product-Led SEO. “So, despite all the complaints we have about Google’s quality now, you don’t do a search for hardware and then find adult sites. They’re doing a good enough job.” The company continues to release smaller search updates to fight against spam.

Yes, Google sometimes offers users a decent experience by protecting them from seeing sketchy pornography websites when searching unrelated, popular queries. But it remains reasonable to expect one of the most powerful companies in the world—that has considerable influence over how online content is created, distributed, and consumed—to do a better job of filtering out plagiarizing, unhelpful content from the News results.

“It's frustrating, because we see we're trying to do the right thing, and then we see so many examples of this low-quality, AI stuff outperforming us,” says Ray. “So I'm hopeful that it's temporary, but it's leading to a lot of tension and a lot of animosity in our industry, in ways that I've personally never seen before in 15 years.” Unless spammy sites with AI content are stricken from the search results, publishers will now have less incentive to produce high-quality content and, in turn, users will have less reason to trust the websites appearing at the top of Google News.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/23/2024

listen i got my last job through one of youse on here so weirder things have happened: i got fired bc the nonprofit wasn’t doing so hot. let me know if you have a weird data/database or market/tech research job. i promise my worksona is so so so nice and pleasant to work with. remote only, looking more in the $75k range but can be a bit flexible if it’s a cool enough job, i am in the central time zone of the USA and will not need sponsorship anywhere but DO need the cadillac of healthcare and dental plans. portfolio, publication list, and linkedin with my government name available on request!

listening

both of these are from my sister! this is another FULL ALBUM rec (good lord). The Offline’s album La couleur de la mer is a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist, inspired by his long walks in the fog on the French Atlantic coast. a little spacey, a little soul, very sixties/seventies neonoir. i am quite fond of the very first track, Thème de la couleur de la mer.

she’s also sent me a bunch of tiktoks with Perfect (Exceeder) by Mason and Princess Superstar. hell of a goddamn music video for this thing. mid-aughts clubbing music at its finest. stopped me from dissolving into a puddle of emotions on the way to and from the vet today bc it’s too goddamn bouncy to be sad around

reading

im reading a trilogy i want to discuss as a whole whenever the third one comes through as a library hold, and a book by a friend. i do not typically talk about books or fics by friends here bc none of them have ever asked for critique, and i dont want to play favorites or inadvertently miss someone’s work. so here’s a story about porn on Wikimedia, which is the kind of database drama and technical arguments that fascinate me.

given the number of articles from 404 Media i shout about here and elsewhere i really should sign up for their $5/mo subscription tier when i have a steady income again

watching

somehow missed Star Wars Visions 2, their second anthology of weird little shorts. i was not super impressed by the overall storytelling this time around, but it was fun to see them reach out to more global studios and see a wider range of styles. there’s some goddamn incredible stop motion in here.

i particularly enjoyed Journey to the Dark Head, which not only has some interesting fringe Force believers and beliefs but has one of the sickest anime bullshit lightsaber fights in this season. this one is by Studio Mir, most known for the Legend of Korra.

also really liked The Spy Dancer by Studio La Cachette, partly bc it’s incredibly beautiful and i like when Star Wars leans into art nouveau, and partly bc it felt the most like a complete short story. emotional arc and everything! strong beginning middle and end! this IS a really low bar, but a lot of the shorts this season did not have a coherent little story to tell or a strong emotional arc, or fumbled their arc partway through, and were just kind of vibes and animation showcases? nothing necessarily wrong with that, also how i felt about most of the last collection. my expectations are underground for any Star Wars media.

playing

as is tradition i dithered about this section the most. this is more of a What’s Next? planning ramble.

the laptop gets shipped back to my old job today so i will no longer have a working modern computer. i have to dig the switch out and see what’s up. maybe start a whole new run in breath of the wild or whatever the last pokemon game was. i think i also have the sword boyfriend game everyone was up in arms about two years ago? and i think i am somehow part of a switch family plan that lets me have some older games?

this section may look very different in the next ??? amount of time until i get a company laptop again. or finally replace the motherboard on my personal desktop but that sat in my car for several weeks during the heat wave this summer while i did not have an apartment and i am really REALLY afraid to open that box.

oh the free epic game this week is a platformer, a genre i have historically not cared about. godspeed to those of you who do

making

soup bc aldi had alphabet pasta and that jolted me out of myself for long enough i was briefly convinced making alphabet pasta soup would fix me. so i found this recipe while in aldi. despite this not being a very good soup or a very good recipe, i feel a little triumphant bc i now know enough to brown the tomato paste before putting it in the soup. unfortunately i overcooked the pasta. there’s kind of a lot of texture happening here, and i wish i had chopped things finer, but i will probably steal my best friend’s blender tomorrow and blitz some of it down.

it’s edible. im going to eat it all. it will not be going in the rotation

[thedragonhermit]

Okay NOW I've got a proper Resident Evil x Pikmin AU going!

Which I don't think I'm going to completely share?? Because it's a lot and the post would be massive. So instead here's some more sketches plus some new details! (Also here's my first RE Pikmin post if you haven't seen it)

Here's Brad! Who should've been in my drawing of the STARS team, but I didn't think to add him at the time ajhdfjhgashj Also they've got a Rescue Pup, as a treat! Currently unnamed as idk what to name it. I'm open to ideas tho! Preferably a name related to RE, maybe even one of the other STARS members' names??

I've decided Leon is a Koppaite, so that means he gets a little redesign!

Carlos is a Hocotatian as Umbrella originated on Hocotate, so most if not all of their members are Hocotatians. Ada is a Hocotatian because they're known for their love of treasure and all things shiny (money/pokos included). Also it's probably obvious but her design is heavily based on Brittany's.

Every crazy wacky adventure occurs on PNF-404, and the RE BOWs are instead Pikmin enemies/bosses. So that means a team up of Wesker and the Emperor Bulblax!

Leon gets to deal with a Waterwraith Mr. X (with Ada still giving him the "weapon" to defeat him), and Claire gets to deal with a Titan Dweevil carrying William Birkin's body.

Now you might be thinking "Oh, Pikmin 1's final boss for RE1, Pikmin 2's for RE2, that means Pikmin 3's will be Nemesis!" and I have to tell you that you're wrong because that boss works better for someone else. And I also have to say I honestly don't know what boss would work for Nemesis??? I'm kinda thinking some kind of Smoky Progg/Gattling Groink abomination...

I'm not super set on Saddler's whole deal, but I DO know he has to do with Bulbmin because the parasitic Pikmin are Las Plagas in this AU.

Eveline gets the Puffstool to keep the mold/mushroom/mind control theme alive.

And last but not least, it's Mother Miranda who gets Pikmin 3's final boss, because the Plasm Wraith is PERFECT for her!!!

[lividamusement]

LAS/Pikmin: Olimar wants to go home.

Olimar is way to calm about being sent back to PNF-404 and not seeing his family or taking a well deserved vacation in the games.

First time making an animation.

[yakusoma]

[FR]

(en bellow)

Premiere fois que je fais un gif. J'ai eu une grande dégradation de la qualité du dessin, mais j'ai beau essayé je n'arrive pas à la résoudre, malheureusement.. :/

J'adore Pikmin 4, c'est l'un des meilleurs jeux auxquels j'ai joué. Je l'ai fini et je l'ai recommencé avec mon challenge, et je suis aux anges.

J'aime beaucoup le fait qu'ils aient décidé de créer un nouvel univers/une nouvelle ligne temporelle pour justifier les changements sur l'oignon, Olimin, etc., sans complètement effacer ce que nous avons connu depuis 20 ans, vu que ces changements n'existent que dans le deuxième univers. J'imagine que ça aurait été difficile de continuer après le troisième opus, vu comment les Pikmin ont plus ou moins créé une religion autour d'Olimar et que cela se conclut sur la question du pourquoi tout le monde s'écrase sur Ter... PNF-404 (en plus avec Hey! Pikmin qui se place quelque part dans le premier univers). J'ai hâte de voir ce que Nintendo va nous reservé pour la suite en espérer qu'il ne sorte pas dans 10 ans...

[EN]

First time making a gif. I had a big degradation in the quality of the drawing, but no matter how hard I try I can't solve it, unfortunately. :/

I love Pikmin 4, it's one of the best games I've ever played. I finished it and started it again with my challenge, and I'm absolutely loving it.

I really like the fact that they decided to create a new universe /timeline to justify the changes on the onion, Olimin, etc. without completely erasing what we've known for 20 years, since these changes only exist in the second universe. And, I imagine it would have been difficult to continue after the third game, given how the Pikmin have more or less created a religion around Olimar and that the game concludes with the question of why everyone is crashing on Ear... PNF-404 (plus Hey!Pikmin takes place somewhere in the first universe). I can't wait to see what Nintendo has in store for Pikmin 5, and hope it's not released in 10 years…

[moni-logues]

The Comeback [teaser]

Pairing: Jimin x reader

Genre: exes-to-???, angst

Word count (teaser): 404

Content: no warnings for the teaser!

Summary: Jimin hasn’t seen you since you left him, broken-hearted, to go and follow your dream in LA. That was two years ago. Now, it’s NYE, you’re at Taehyung’s party and his new, almost, sort of girlfriend is not.

KTH: hey man, just so you know, y/n will be at the party tomorrow. wanted to give you a heads up. 

Jimin had read the message what felt like a thousand times since it had come in the night before. He kept unlocking his phone to look at it again to make sure it really said that. You were coming. You would be there. In the same room as him. For the first time in almost two years. For the first time since the last time. Since you left him.  

He had done so well. He hadn’t thought about you for weeks, months even. He had blocked you on every social media platform he had. He had got over you. Finally. Finally. And he was proud of that. Because you had destroyed him. Your leaving had reduced him to a shell of his former self. He didn’t get out of bed for a week. It was four before he left the apartment. It was almost eight months before he went on a date and he had come home from that and cried as if the break-up had been yesterday.  

He had thought you were it. He knew you were both still young, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be serious; that didn’t mean that you weren’t endgame. He had thought you were. He had thought it would be the two of you against the world, both chasing unlikely dreams in a city much bigger than you. He had fantasised about it all so clearly. Where you would live together, where you’d move to when you both got more successful and started earning more money, whether or not you’d move upstate or even out of state completely when you got married and decided to have kids. Because it was ‘when’ to Jimin, not ‘if’. There was no question in his mind. He’d put it all on red. On you.  

And then you left him.  

The worst part was that he couldn’t really blame you. He understood. It was an opportunity you couldn’t pass up. It was your dream. He wanted you to have it. He had done the same; that’s why he didn’t follow you out there. You both had dreams to chase and that they ripped you apart was the catch. You both took the deal. 

KTH: you’re still gonna come, right? 

Jimin sighed and tapped out his reply. 

PJM: yeah I'll be there 

[risingsoleil]

Fic Writer Interview

My lovely friend @sheepwithspecs tagged me here, and I will spread this by tagging @yellowsalt3 @linnorabeifong @vr-tb @chiefbeifongcanrailme

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 14!

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 414,633

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Choices, Chances, Changes

You Are My Life

Talking to the Moon

The Other Side of Heaven

Lay All Your Love on Me

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I definitely try to respond to comments! The fact that someone spent time and energy to comment means so much to me, and I want to acknowledge that. I'm not the best at leaving comments, but I'm trying to do it more often as a reader bc I, too, am often dying at how awesome fics are

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

It's probably Meant To Be. Now that I think about it, I might write an extra piece for this fic just bc I feel like being salty lol

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

The Only Light We'll See - The whole fic was just an excuse to write steamy, smutty Linzin and let them have a happy life together. I guess you could argue that the main Linzin and family AU I write could also be one of them, but I haven't completed their story yet in this universe. Tbf, I don't think my Linzin AU has an "ending" but whatever happens, Linzin gets their happy ever after

7. Do you write crossovers?

Right now, I don't. But I was more open to writing crossovers when I was a kid.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I haven't thankfully, I have really awesome and sweet and kind-hearted readers in my circle 💞

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hell yeah, I fucking do! It's prob one of my fav things to write 😂 Idk what they mean by "what kind" but I've written possessive, romantic and loving, quickies, foreplay, first times, and spontaneous stuff. It's fun and my otps tend to be...super horny vibes

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven't, but I would be interested in seeing one of my fics translated!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! It's Come As You Are with picajc and @alemanriq, and this holds a special place in my heart

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

404 error. I have too many, but for now it's Lin/Tenzin

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Probably Olvídame y Pega La Vuelta just bc I lost the vision for it

15. What are your writing strengths?

I think emotions are a big part of my writing process and it comes through in my fics. I channel my own emotions into my writing and it does leave a more profound impression.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Sometimes I want my writing perfect in the first draft, and it stops me from just enjoying the process. Recently, I've been wanting to write and that has manifested into writing for "results" rather than quality. I mean, I still try to write my best and for the fun of it. It's just that work sucks my energy and the time I have left for myself is recharging 😭

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I need more context with this question. Does this mean if I do something like this:

Lin and Tenzin raised their brows at the girl with the electronic device.

"어머, 죽겠다! 린베이퐁과 텐진 진짜 앞에 있다," she said aloud, though the language is not her mother tongue. "어떡해...인스타로 올리겠지"

In general, I would be open to it because it can open up new pathways for writing

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Meet The Robinsons

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I don't think I have one. For the most part, if I want to write for a fandom, I just do it lol

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Choices, Chances, Changes. I swear a divine force guided me into writing this bc I was so compelled to bring it to life. The updates were posted every few days, and the story was completely written in 6 months.

There were 21 chapters.

Also, it was the first fic I completed in like 14 years (omg I sound old now 💀)

Thanks @sheepwithspecs for tagging me! 💜

[megabuild]

SO my feelings on the 404s are... complicated. They are colored a bit by me having a bit of a dissociative disorder but who doesn't these days amiright. Anyways, I believe that each 404 clone is Etho, or at least a version of etho, whether it be a snapshot in time or a version from specific experience, but they are not the "main" etho. The Main Etho may have the whole script available to him, but the 404s may only have fragments or 'hints' of the script, a la the 404 in the life games knows how it's supposed to end, knows that this has happened before but differently, and that the others died before it. When they do die, the 'story' makes it's way back to Main Etho, who then tells that story to all of us. This leaves the question which Ethos are 404s, which I think is very fun to think about :] <3 meta etho anon

this was sent a few weeks ago and I totally forgot to answer because I don't really have anything to add lol but I like it a lot. It's always nice to see how different people interpret the clones and "our" etho's relationship with them. Amen to the dissociative disorder part as well lmao I would be lying if I said my own love for 404 wasn't heavily impacted by me getting into it shortly after coming to terms with having c-PTSD

[thatonepikminperson]

Do you have a fav pikmin creature?

ooo, good question.

I could just do the cop out answer of Yellow Pikmin, but we ain't here to hear about the Pikmin, we here to hear about la creatures of PNF-404

For favorite normal enemy creature, I think I'd be the Pearly Clamclamp. (If I was counting enemies related to bosses, then it'd be the Scornets lol)

For favorite boss creature, BEADY LONG LEGS. I LOVE THAT GUY SO MUCH

and all time is of course,

OUR BOI BEADY LONG LEGS IT CAN TAKE MY SOUL ANY DAY ANY TIME I LOVE THIS CREATURE SO MUCH

thanks for the question :D