#I haven't read the original texts in ages if any of this is actually mentioned please tell me!!

[distant-screaming]

thinking about telemachus and penelope.... after he was born did penelope raise him herself, or leave him to the nursemaids? how long did telemachus get to see his mother before she disappeared into her room to protect herself? did she ever comb his hair? does she miss him - even though he's right there, a few rooms away? does telemachus have memories of penelope's laugh, soft and pretty and so so sweet? does penelope know what telemachus' favorite color is?

did telemachus get a mother, or did he lose both his parents to the war?

[beautiful-basque-country]

I saw something on TV once, I think it was a National Geographic show, where they mentioned that theory that Basque is perhaps the only surviving language from when Neanderthals were alive. Do you mind me asking why you mentioned in that recent post you didn’t want to comment on the theory?

Is it because most people use it as a racist attack? Deplorable, and those people deserve to be smacked.

The show did like a 15 minute segment on the theory and went over how the language is an isolate and compared to other languages, while it is evolving, it hasn’t really been changed/impacted by other languages. So ultimately the current language and older forms of it aren’t drastically different, unlike how something like modern English and Old English are basically two different languages at this point. They then said it’s likely that if any writing existed from the Neanderthal period anyone who knew Basque would probably be able to read it and speak whatever was written without much difficulty.

I just thought it was so cool something could be so well taken care of and respected that it basically hasn’t changed. Fascinating to think someone today could hold a conversation with someone else from so long ago! Lord knows I’d be screwed if you dropped me into the Middle Ages and told me to go speak to King Alfred.

Even Latin! We have no idea how it was actually spoken and how anything was pronounced. We’re just guessing.

Sorry if other people toss that theory at you to insult you!

Kaixo anon!

Thanks for your message!

I have to clarify the post you mentioned was a reblog and I just added the last pic, so you'd have to ask OP about why they don't wanna comment on that theory ^_~.

That said, no: I don't care what that documentary said, Basque is not the language of the Neanderthals. They're believed to have appeared around 200,000 years ago and disappeared 40,000 years ago; even if we consider that Basque was a descendant of their language - and that's assuming Neanderthals spoke a single language, from Europe to Asia - it's completely impossible that a 21st-century Basque speaker could understand this presumed original Neanderthal language.

The Hand of Irulegi - an artifact around 3,500 years old - displays a Vasconic text and nobody knows what it says, and that's knowing that Vasconic was an ancestor of nowadays Euskara. Even nowadays, a Spanish speaker can't understand Latin - except maybe a couple of words - and Spanish diverged from Latin not too long ago, around the 10-11th century. Can you imagine a 40,000 years gap between two languages??

And of course Basque have been impacted by the surrounding languages. Basque people haven't lived isolated in an island with no contact whatsoever with other peoples, quite on the contrary, we've lived with many cultures thoughout our history, from Iberians to Romans, to Franks, to Berbers and Arabs, to Spaniards. Basque has influences of all of them, be it loanwords or more technical remains. As you say, it's an evolving language that hasn't started evolving now, it's been doing it for millennia!

Regarding the theory being thrown as a racist attack, don't worry, it isn't! It all comes from genetics and genetic studies that show some very little differences in Basque people. In some of these studies it was concluded that Basque and Asturians, probably due to the difficult geography of our regions, were left more isolated from the Iron Age on, and hence we have the oldest lineage in Iberia. This is explained by guessing that these populations were less multiethnic and probably more endogamic. Given this situation, the DNA is slightly different - slightly! - and we have more DNA that comes directly from prehistory than the rest. Period.

But there's this obstinacy to take Basque people - just like Aztecs or Ancient Egyptians - as a mystery because there are many gaps in our history and language that science hasn't still explained and some people feel the need to fill them with crazy theories. Like the one that said that Neanderthals didn't go extinct but that nowadays they're known as.. Basques! When we already know that Neanderthals were a completely different species from Homo Sapiens: so if modern Basques are Homo Sapiens now as we know we are, I'm sorry, but we're no longer Neanderthals if we ever were.

Sorry for the long answer!

[dirty-bear-rick-sanchez]

Hi, sorry to ask but have you written any fanfics where Jerry is autistic? I've read your autistic!morty fic and thought that was excellent. I'm trying to find Jerry-centric fanfics where he isn't mischaracterized/demonized. (Way too many people write Jerry as transphobic which -_-ll no he isn't)

Hi, no need to apologise! I haven't written any autistic Jerry fics and I'm not sure if I know of any (if anyone else does, please leave recs on this post!). I do 100% view him as autistic though. Thank you!

Yeah honestly Jerry being portrayed as transphobic is something that bothers me as a trans guy? I headcanon him as supportive but clueless/cringe at times (he a little confused but he got the spirit).

I do have a trans Morty WIP with a scene between Morty and Jerry, although Morty is still very early on in figuring out that he might be a guy, and Jerry kind of knows something is up but assumes Morty is a lesbian rather than a trans guy and so kind of fumbles but ultimately is trying to be supportive/nice. Morty does worry about Jerry not loving him anymore if he's trans, although this is Morty's POV rather than being objective/a thing that actually happens.

I'll leave the scene below the cut in case anyone's interested. Warnings for mention of periods (and them being referred to in a gendered way), fear of transphobia from parents, accidental misgendering (and misgendering/deadnaming of Morty in the text since this is only the very start of Morty's gender questioning).

“Morti? Rick said you’re sick. Are you OK?” Jerry opens the door. Morti quickly shoves her phone under her pillow. Thankfully, her dad is as oblivious as ever as he walks over and rests a hand against her forehead.

“You don’t feel warm. Is it, uh, you know,” Jerry points down towards his own abdomen, “woman troubles?” he asks in an exaggerated stage whisper. Morti wants to die all over again. She presses her face into her pillow.

“Hey, sweetheart, i-it’s OK.” Morti feels Jerry rest a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Do you need anything?”

Morti takes a few deep breaths to calm herself and then sits up.

“N-no, Dad, I’m OK.”

“OK, honey.” Jerry wraps his arms around her and Morti can’t help but wonder if he would still hug her like this if he knew what she’d spent the past couple of hours reading about. She hugs him back tightly, suddenly unable to stop thinking that she might have to make the most of the affection while it lasts.

When Jerry pulls back, his face clouds with concern and Morti realises she’s once again been crying. She’s getting really sick of that.

“Morti, honey, what’s wrong?”

Morti feels the question writhing around in her gut until it chokes its way out of her mouth. “Dad… you’d love me no matter what, right?”

“Of course, sweetie. No matter what, you’ll always be my daughter.”

The words are meant to be a comfort, but all Morti can think about is the possibility that she’s not his daughter.

“Morti? Are you gay? It’s OK if you’re gay, you know.” As always, Jerry is well-intentioned but clueless. Truthfully, Morti’s not really put much thought into her own sexual orientation, and it’s not her main concern right now. She shakes her head, and Jerry looks doubtful but leaves it. 

After a few minutes, Morti works up the courage to speak again. “Dad? Could-could you… tell me a story? Like when I was little?” she cringes as she says the words, knowing she’s far too old to be asking for something like that. To her relief, Jerry smiles.

“Sure thing, sweetie.” 

He launches into an improvised story, very similar to the ones she remembers him coming up with when she was younger. She has a memory of Summer complaining Jerry’s stories were boring, always demanding more action. However, once Summer had aged out of wanting a bedtime story and left Morti as the sole listener, Jerry had settled comfortably back into his original stories, which Morti found calming and reassuring. 

Her dad’s voice relaxes her and she rests her head against the pillow, feeling her eyelids begin to droop. Jerry’s hand rests on her hair and strokes it gently, just as he used to all those years ago. It’s enough to block out the negative thoughts for the time being, and Morti is so exhausted from the recent events that she soon drifts peacefully into sleep.

[seventeendeer]

... prefacing this with "I'm not out to pick at your post here", because it intrigued me and made me reflect on how (relatively) little I know about the 60/70s and guns -- although you said that nobody knows how to write about various aspects about TF2's canon (middle-aged mostly-white mostly-men, the time period, guns, etc.), I'm unsure if that was hyperbole and thus I've gotta ask -- is there anyone within the fandom that you think has done a halfway decent job re: writing any of these things

I've been into TF2 for over a decade, and while I've read my share of fic, I freely admit I haven't found any I think really nailed it. at least not any that engaged with it constructively.

that's not to say it doesn't exist! the tf2 fandom is huge and I'm certain there are fantastic writers out there who know what they're doing.

however, I have found that increasingly in recent years, fans just ... don't even know where to start. back when I first entered the fandom (~2010), there was at least a basic understanding of the tropes the game is parodying, because they were much more present in the public consciousness. the game was conceived and released at a time where it was assumed players would recognize the genres parodied and the historical context depicted (if only from pop culture, if nothing else), and approach the characters accordingly.

however, times have changed and those assumptions no longer hold true. younger fans come into the game without the ability to recognize the cultural context it was supposed to exist in, which naturally leads to a flattened, superficial reading of the game.

which in turn leads to a fandom that is increasingly detached from the spirit of the game, who don't have the tools to interpret the comedy the way it was supposed to read when it was first released in 2007.

which in turn has made me less and less interested in engaging with the fandom. what I have seen does not encourage me to get back to it. like I mentioned in the post I made, even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game, so it's no wonder the fandom struggles with the same thing. I think a lot of fanworks are more based on the comics than on the game anyway these days, which simply isn't my thing.

one piece of fanwork that has sparked my interest recently, though, is Emesis Blue! I haven't watched it yet, but from what little I've been able to gather, I think there's a chance it might actually be closer in spirit to the game than anything I've seen before. it makes certain creative choices I don't strictly find appealing, but just the fact that it's willing to veer closer to the soul of the game makes me very, very curious. even though it changes up a bunch of superficial details and has a very different tone from the game, I still get the feeling whoever made it had a real interest in engaging with the original "text" as it was intended to be read, even though it's done in a way that wasn't the intended fan reaction. I may very well give it a go at some point! I'd rather see fanwork that understands yet disregards canon intentionally as an artistic choice than fanwork that superficially resembles canon without understanding it. whether or not Emesis Blue is any good I have no idea, but I at least admire what it seems to be trying to do.

(although I should clarify I don't think knowing anything about guns is important to understanding TF2. when you read that post I made yesterday, I need you to imagine me with my head in my hands complaining drunkenly to a bartender who tells me I've had enough. some of it is definitely real annoyance, but some of it was also just exaggerated annoyance for the funnies because at the end of the day it's not that serious. TF2 will survive being largely misunderstood, I'm sure. I might not survive TF2 being misunderstood but that's a me-problem)

[wearytaco]

Visited by Papa Legba?

So I want to preface this with I am a white (trans) man, I do not practice any sect of voodoo and am aware of the sensitivity around voodoo with people of other cultures, etc. While I grew up Christian I am not any longer and never was associated with Catholicism, I have no particular spirituality but follow closer to New Age than any specific type. And I am confused. I also want to clarify when I say "see" and "hear" in the following text, I mean in my minds-eye, not with my physical eyes/ears.

So a few years back I was visited by a spirit I later googled to be Papa Legba based on colors and vague attributes like cane and hat and such. I don't recall if I was high, meditating, dreaming, or just in a trance state. It was literally years ago. When I learned it was Papa Legba, I got really confused and decided to file it away as a one off and didn't touch it again because I have heard that there is a lot of cultural sensitivity around other cultures engaging in voodoo (idk if that's wholeheartedly true, but I didn't see a need for me to be involved for something that seemed like a one time shenanigan).

Skip ahead to a few months ago and I moved to Botswana, Africa. I recall I was attempting to look into the original religion of the area before colonization and learned about Orishas and Yoruba. I never actually got around to reading the books I downloaded, which I will be rectifying soon.

Recently I saw a video (yeah just a TikTok) about Eshu. The video strangely caught my attention and I ended up actually watching like the whole 3 minutes lol. It was mentioned Eshu was connected with the Orishas/Yoruba. Which reminded me I still have yet to read those books.

Two days ago I had a (sober) trance like experience, which I haven't had in quite a while. First there was this spirit that came. She was speaking with me, she had long dreaded like hair with beads and shells, she was wearing a white dress which almost resembled a dress slip, and she didn't seem good nor evil just neutral maybe leaning chaotic but not a proper chaotic neutral vibe. She also told me she was Haitian, which I found really strange being in Botswana. I don't recall everything we spoke of, but she mentioned she is living in the house with me, calling it "our house". While I don't see her having any ill intentions to me, I do very much get the vibe that if there was something happening to me she would end that threat. I haven't felt her here before, but I also haven't exactly been paying attention to the spirit world lately due to other distractions that have recently left my life.

While speaking with her behind me I heard the name "Eshu" being repeated over and over and over again, getting louder, but never like aggressive. Just something I couldn't keep ignoring.

I turned to look behind me towards my room and when I turned back she was gone. Cliche, in my opinion...

So I went towards my room and then felt the strange urge to use some of my spit to write "Eshu" on the wall of my room. After I had a spirit I hadn't seen in years appeared in the doorway of my room. But when he was trying to speak to me it sounded like he was being drowned out by static. It was like when you are almost on the right radio station so you can hear the song, but you can't hear the lyrics only the static. I tried asking his name because I couldn't remember it as it had been years. At first I heard "Papa" and then after another 5 or so minutes I heard "Legba" (but I legitimately thought I made Legba up and didn't believe that is what I was hearing.) It was so hard to communicate with him and all I recalled was his connection to voodoo.

Strangely, when he disappeared behind me yet again, but not in a doorway, instead near my window, I felt a spirit that called themselves Eshu. I suddenly got really sleepy. Things were clearer, but I was basically told to go to sleep by the spirit and he would give me a message in my dreams. (I remember when I first woke up going, "oh. That was the message" but then I went back to sleep and I have absolutely no idea what I was dreaming of). Before I fell asleep I looked up "Papa Legba" and realized that was his name, and then.... I saw another name in Africa, I believe it said in Nigeria and other countries, he is called Eshu. I am both floored, and really confused. Especially since it felt like two different spirits?

And then last night I felt incredibly nauseous and that was hardly able to stand up right (I am on a medicine for a few weeks now and that unfortunately is a side effect). I got the same urge to write Eshu on the wall in spit, and again at the doorway Papa Legba appeared. But this time clear and not speaking through static. However, I was mostly bent over or on my knees for s lot of the conversation due to the horrid wave of nausea I was experiencing. He offered me a deal of sorts. He asked what I wanted more or less, like we kind of just had a conversation about things I have been wanting (such as confidence, spiritual connection, sexual liberation, things I just wish I could improve upon myself). And then he asked for spit and I was about to give it to him without any thought but then I realized that may be the "handshake" so to say. So I stopped and asked why. He basically confirmed it was an offering. I asked what he wants in return if he's offering to help me with these things. He didn't really have an answer. But he did say he wants me to tell someone something. And I told him I would likely forget what he asked of me (which I have forgotten what he told me to say as predicted lmfao). And a few hours go by and ... Well I know making deals is always risky business but let's just leave it at yeah I ended up making the deal and gave him spit (I just don't understand the spit thing?? I read he likes tobacco, alcohol, and candy??) but it never truly felt like a trick. I know from briefly reading he can be considered a trickster in some circles, and I'm absolutely sure he has his own agenda. But it never felt like he wants any harm to me. In fact it truly felt like the opposite. Maybe I'm just absolutely naive. Very possible. But... I can't explain it. Anyways, after he left the woman appeared again but this time she was behind the static. I know she was saying something but I couldn't hear her not really see her in my minds-eye, but physically I felt I was closer to actually seeing her for a first. I tried for a while but then I apologized and had to walk away from her and go to bed where I felt the sleepy urge and "there will be a message" feeling again. I am truly at a loss from this experience, and since I do not engage in voodoo nor know anyone who does I can't even come close to understanding this situation. And I don't want to enter a spirituality/religion that is culturally defined where I may not be welcomed, either. Honestly I don't have much interest in voodoo other than general curiousity but I have that for most religions and spiritualities. I really would like some guidance. Please?

[thesteamhunk]

Hey all! So I intended to make this post last night along with the other WHTPA posts but I ended up falling asleep before I could! This post will go over all the characters that exist in the universe so far, what they're like in the lore's current state, and any additional lore I have about them! Same as before, I will have all the lore under the cut, and if you haven't already, I suggest reading up on what WHTPA is and also the 'races' that exist in the lore! Now to the character dump!

Penelope "Penny" Atwood (she/her) Penny is a young human girl who's death kickstarts the story itself. In the original text based adventure, I named her Poppet, and the players weren't intended to kind out she was dead until the mystery had begun! Doctor Jonathan Hawkes (he/him)

Dr Hawkes is a middle aged (mid 40s - early 50s) human man and inventor of the Necrobots. Hawkes has always had an interest in the lines between life and death, and worked in a morgue for about a decade before deciding to dedicate all his time and money into The Hawkes Corporation and, in turn, the Necrobots. Sir Simon Cogsworth (he/him)

Sir Cogsworth is a middle aged (early - mid 40s) human man and Founder/CEO of Cogsworth Robotics. Cogsworth is now a fan of Dr Hawkes' work, and has been very public about this fact since Necrobots first started production. Benjamin "Benny" Bennett (it/he)

Benny is a Necrobot who visually appears to be in his late 20s or early 30s. It has a lot of lore I can't share without spoiling a lot of the fun of his story, but I'll happily share the art I have of him some time! Detective Lucas Steel (any/all) Detective Steel is a middle aged (early - mid 40s) human, and the main person looking into Penny's death. Originally Steel was a rather boring character truthfully, but I feel like over the course of working on this lore he's gotten a lot more interesting to both write and design. James (it/they/he)

James is a Doll who visually appears to be in their mid to late 20s, and who works for Lady and Master Atwood as a babysitter and nanny. James is currently "romantically" involved with a man named Thomas Adams (he/they), and it is doing his best to help the Atwoods in the grieving of their daughter. Note for the following characters: These characters actually come from a separate short story in the same universe, called Coyote Tex! While they may be mentioned in the story here and there, they won't feature primarily in the lore until that story is fully written!

Seymour Wolfgang (he/him) Seymour is a 42 year old human man who works as a teacher at the Ashford University, and who is currently researching the Peacekeepers. He and Jack went to school together, though they have grown apart in the last few years. Coyote Jack (they/he/she) Coyote Jack is a lycanthrope gun-for-hire, mostly dealing in cases revolving around rouge robots and inorganics. He is well known in Ashford, though opinions on her and their trade are incredibly mixed, ranging from praise to downright disgust. Lawrence Crowe (he/him)

Lawrence is a 51 year old vampyre man, and a college of Seymour's. He and Seymour use to be extremely close, but due to circumstances regarding Seymour's recent divorce, they is same awkward air surrounding their relationship. Kitty Hays (she/they)

Kitty is a doll woman who appears to be in her mid to late 20s. She works as a research partner for Seymour, a task that is not common for dolls, and is only starting to surface as of late. They are extremely interested in what it means to be a woman, and is currently looking into more stereotypically feminine hobbies, having spent her first 10 years of existence as a masculine presenting individual.

[juleworm]

RED WHITE & ROYAL BLUE - CASEY MCQUINSTON genre: romance ( enemies / rivals to lovers )

overall rating: 5/5 "spiciness" rating: 1.5

content warnings: - sexual content (vague and nondescript) - implied grooming / sexual harassment by person in power - homophobia ( but nothing too bad or violent ) - politics - racism ( again, nothing too bad or violent ) - abuse of political power - nonconsensual outing of queer people

i got a little carried away talking about it ( still spoiler free, though ) so i'm putting a read more. please carry on!

overall thoughts: god what can i even say to do this book justice? it's amazing. i can't believe i put this book off for so long. politics and everything surrounding it are a big stressor for me and i was worried that it would stress me out reading about it, but instead i found myself rooting for the characters and was relieved to find that politics were more of a background feature for most of the book.

all of the political views of the main surrounding characters were all things that i agreed with, which helped too. the president of the united states is a woman, her staff is mostly made of queer individuals including her immediate family, and it was very refreshing to see; not to mention the president and her family are originally from mexico city. so not only was the president a woman, she was a poc, which was absolutely amazing. hats off to casey mcquinston!

as far as actual story of romance involving the two main characters, i'm not sure how i never figured out before reading that it was enemies or rivals to lovers, but i was pleasantly surprised and it made a damn great story. our two main characters are both incredibly well balanced as far as good and bad qualities, and they each have their own arcs that are very fulfilling and amazing to read about. it all feels very natural.

it was very difficult to put this book down. i probably would have finished it all in one session if i was physically able, but i've been traveling for two days and busy in between stops. it was all i could think about while i was busy though!

i was also very pleasantly surprised by the humor in this book; just how much and how well done it was. the characters feel so real and the dialogue between them, in e-mails, in person and over text all feels so real and natural for their age group. i will say that some of the jokes were now a bit dated, but i'm sure if i had read this around when it first came out, i would have been laughing my ass off. to be fair, i still was at a lot of parts!

would i recommend it?: yes. absolutely. wholeheartedly. i can't think of a single reason not to recommend it. i believe everyone should read it, and if any of the above political views upset you, then you are the problem, not the book. it's so wonderfully inclusive in every way imaginable and it has very much earned the place in everyone's heart that it currently has. it definitely lived up to the hype and then some.

if you haven't read it yet and it's been on your TBR for years like it was mine: this is your sign to read it this pride month like i have!! you will NOT regret it.

[just-chickaen]

OUTDATED

This post is outdated

Go to this link for updated version:

Notes below

[1] if you read the python code later in the video, to encode the code, first you take the original message, for this instance "夢", takes the unicode of the word: "\u5922", and for each hexadecimal number: "5922", and print a character with last digit of hex number of the corresponding number.

for a more clear example:

夢 = \u5922

5 = ▕ = \u2595

9 = ▙ = \u2599

2 = ▒ = \u2592

2 = ▒ = \u2592

therefore, to decode the message, you just need to take the 4 of the last digit of these characters, and encoding it back to the original message.

[2] Swampman is a thought experiment by Donald Davidson, kinda the same story from the text later in the story. In the original thought experiment, Davidson got struck by lightning in a swamp and disintegrated, and at the same time, a tree turns into him, with different molecules, physically exact same, and later lives the same life and no one suspects a thing. Davidson argues "But there is a difference. My replica can't recognize my friends; it can't recognize anything, since it never cognized anything in the first place. It can't know my friends' names (though of course it seems to), it can't remember my house. It can't mean what I do by the word 'house', for example, since the sound 'house' it makes was not learned in a context that would give it the right meaning—or any meaning at all. Indeed, I don't see how my replica can be said to mean anything by the sounds it makes, nor to have any thoughts."

(Sauce: Wikipedia)

[3] Brain in a vat is another thought experiment that involves putting a human brain in a vat, then connecting it to a computer, letting the computer simulate a world and receive input and output information from and to the brain. The brain would have no idea it's in a vat and would think it's living in the simulation. While in reality it's just a brain in a vat.

[4] We know later in the story, Raymond Ainsworth died, so admin privilages is transferred to Lily Ainsworth now.

[5] The story of all 3(as the time of writing this) videos is very likely to be connected, Mary is likely referring to the first video, which tells a story of Mary referencing the "Mary's Room" thought experiment.

[6] These text is decoded in the same way I mentioned above, however, I was too lazy to actually do it, so I scrolled down in the comments and found a commenter(@user-lx4gz9mz4n) who did it for me, again thank you so so so so much for this.

[7] According to the Internet™(more specifically from "https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Pulse-rate-by-age-span_tbl1_307997435"), people age less than 1 month have a heart rate around 120-160bpm. I don't think the author intend anything about this, but I'd just like to mention it.

[8] I didn't just understand what vivid mean just because I translated it, no way it could happen, not a chance.

[9] probably just the time signature, no idea why i tracked all of it

[10] Apparently moorse code here?:

ーーM

・ーA

・ー・R

ー・ーーY

・E

・・・ーV

・E

・ー・・L

・・ I

・ー・・L

ー・ーーY

・ーA

・ー・・L

・・I

ー・ーK

・E

Mary Eve Lily alike

thanks (@UsukeTaiko) for your comment I stole

[11] Talked about this in my last post on these videos, am just gonna put it here again.

Qualia is a concept that is defined as instances of subjective, conscious experence.(Wiki) Which includes everything we experiences, for example our vision, pain, taste, emotions, hearing. One way to think about this is imagine you wake up one day every colours you see is inverted, for example red becomes green, but we now call what we used to call red "green", and green "red". Other people would not be able to tell that your vision has been completed inverted, and you wouldn't have any problem living in the world. Except your vision had inverted, proving vision is completely subjective.

[12] genuinely have no idea how to translate it into english, so I'll be using the chinese word to explain it.(oh shit wait "form" that's the word). The original text is longer but means the same thing, the text is from buddism's "Heart Sūtra"

Original text:

"舍利子，色不異空，空不異色。色即是空，空即是色。受想行識，亦復如是。"

"舍利子" "my disciple"

"色不異空" "form is not different from emptiness"

"空不異色" "emptiness is not different from form"

"色即是空" "form is emptiness"

"空即是色" "emptiness is form"

"受想行識" "feel, thought, action, cognition"

"亦復如是" "also the same"

form means anything physical happening, i.e. rocks falling down, sun emitting light. Emptiness means anything non-physical, usually meaning the human mind, or just anything we can't physically perceive.

some people thinks the text is trying to tell you how to cope(?), for example when you lose your pet, you "feel" your pet is not with you, you "think" back to your good memories with them, you "cry", and finally your "cognition" makes you understand and accept it. it's like the 5 stages of grief in that way.

some people interprets the text is a more literal way, "form" being "anything we can physically perceive" and "emptiness" being "anything we can't physically perceive"(microwave, ultra-violet ray). and they think the text means, even though we can't perceive them "ultrasound", but they still exist. but idk, i just think it fits more with the story.

[13] "God is dead" is a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, but I don't think it's related at all, I think it's more physical than that perhaps?

[14] the Ainsworth that died in the beginning

[15] yeah this is the swampman i mentioned before

[16] the jewish folklore

[17] the greek god that stole fire, in some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay(Sauce: Wiki)

[18] it is in the search for the mysterious "The Mechanical Man" by Chrétien de Troyes, that I realized this entire part of the song referencing classical works are taken from the japanese version of Wikipedia about "artifical consciousness", i don't even know where this quote comes from, it existed as long as the wiki page.

[19] Frankenstein

[20] NCC is the specific patterns of neural activity in the brain that are associated with conscious experience

[21] the homunculus argument that explain itself using itself. for example stolen from Wikipedia, explaining human vision: "lights gets into your retina, then your brain watches the vision like a movie, that's how you see things.". this is a homunculus argument because it doesn't explain how the brain interprets light data from retina. but simply your brain "sees" it. thus explaining a concept with itself.

[22] this is the Ainsworth that got transferred admin privilages at the start

[23] I've already explain how I decode these messages in my previous posts, but in short, this garbled text is created when you encode a UTF-8 message in Shift_JIS, inverting the process can get the original message.

[24] These decode are very likely inaccurate tho, the professor is probably called Laplace

[25] Mary speaking here

[26] No idea what is going tbh, likely referencing Raymond tho

[27] really unsure about this translation

Hello again tumblr, the third videos took a bit faster than I thought, but definitely got a lot more stuff needing to sift through, it's a great journey, probably not gonna do this again. Will be going through my past post and fix some minor details later.

also I want to thank a few people, they are the entire reason this took so quick to do. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you so fucking much "@user-oq4zk6fi7d" on youtube teaching me how to decode the python messages and "@user-lx4gz9mz4n" on youtube for decoding the python encoded messages for me so I don't have to. Also thanking "@UsukeTaiko" on youtube for the moorse code, although I still can't see it.

Translation will be provided like this:

(The original text)

((optional)japanese translation)

(traditional chinese translation)

(english translation)[note by me](scroll down to see it)

Title:

▕▙▒▒ - ▖▖░▟▗▕▔▜

夢 - 星界

Dream

[1]

Description:

「――そして私はスワンプマンとな��た」

「――然後我成為了沼澤人」[2]

"――And then I became Swampman."[2]

black loading screen:

Connecting...

[Brain in a Vat Simulation Project][3]

Model : "Mary"

text flashed:

【水槽計画】

【水槽計劃】

【vat project】

black screen text 1:

Accepted.

black screen text 2:

- system message -

Admin's vital signs were lost.

Admin ID: Ainsworth

Authorized administrative privileges to "Lily Ainsworth"

[4]

bar code:

Machine Learning

top left:

Model: "Mary"[5]

Now Loading...

Pulse Rate: Now Loading...

top right:

Connecting...

System Status: Boot

white screen text 1:

……いつから『意識』というものがあったのかは解らない。

……意識」這個詞從何時開始存在，我並不知曉。

I don't know when the concept of "consciousness" came into existence.

憶えていない。

我不記得。

I don't remember.

気付いたら『僕』はそこに存在して――

當我意識到時，「我」已經存在於那裡——

By the time I became aware, "I" was already there—

最初の頃はただ、ぼうっとしていたように思う。

起初，我覺得自己只是一片茫然。

In the beginning, I feel like I was just in a daze.

恰も、葦のように。

就像蘆葦一樣。

Just like a reed.

white screen text 2:

どうやら、人間も同じような経験をするらしい。

看起來人類似乎也有類似的經驗。

It seems that humans also have similar experiences.

赤子だった時の記憶は無いし、

我們無法回憶起嬰兒時期的記憶，

We have no memories of when we were babies,

人によっては学生時代の記憶も薄い。

有些人甚至對學生時代的記憶也模糊不清。

and some people have faint memories of their school days.

インプットした情報の中に

在我們輸入的資訊中，

Among the information we input,

条件の似通った思考実験があった気がする。

我記得有一些具有相似條件的思考實驗。

I remember there were some thought experiments with similar conditions.

確か――

確切地說——

If I recall correctly--

[6]

white screen text 3:

「夢は覚める」という言い方は、自然的態度に基づいた言い方だ。

「夢已醒」這樣說法是基於自然態度���來的。

The expression "the dream is over" is based on the natural attitude.

現象学的には「夢はいつか終わる」としか言えない。

從現象學的角度來看,只能說「夢終有一天會結束」。

From a phenomenological perspective, one can only say "the dream will eventually end".

そして、いつか終わる点にかけては、この覚めた世界、現実世界も同じことだ。

而這個終結的時點,對於這個清醒的世界,現實世界也是如此。

And in terms of this point of ending, this waking world, the real world, is the same.

夢から覚めることが「現実」という別の夢の始まりだとすると――――

如果從夢中甦醒就代表開始了另一個「現實」的夢境——

If waking up from a dream means the beginning of another dream of "reality" ——

現実という夢から覚めることは、さらに別の夢の始まりを意味することになる。

那麼從所謂現實的夢中醒來,就意味著又開始了另一個夢境。

Then waking up from the dream of so-called reality would mean the beginning of yet another dream.

white screen text 4:

僕は夢を見ていて、僕の見たり想像したりするものはすべて幻想だと想定しても、

我一直在做夢，即使假定我所見和想像的一切都是幻想，

I continue to dream, and even if I assume that everything I see and imagine is merely an illusion,

それらのイデアが僕の思考のうちに真にあることは否定できなかった。

這些概念在我的思考中真實存在，這一點是無法否定的。

I cannot deny that those ideas truly exist within my thoughts.

top left:

Model: "Mary"

Finished

Pulse Rate: Finished

top right:

Connected

Finished

bar code:

this is an ultimatum

top left:

Model: "Mary"

5.8.-

Pulse Rate: 120[7]

top right:

Online

System Status: Properly

生前の記憶。鮮明な死の追憶。

生前的記憶。鮮明的死亡追憶。

Memories from life. Vivid[8] recollections of death.

top left:

"5.8.-" changed to "6.8.-"[9]

階層の異状。厭な夢だった。

階層的異狀。厭惡的夢。

Anomalies in the hierarchy. It was an unpleasant dream.

top left:

"6.8.-" changed back to "5.8.-"

――いつまで人の真似事をすればいいのだろう？

――到底要模仿別人多久呢？

――How long should I imitate others?

答えは出ない。

答案沒有。

There is no answer.

top left:

"5.8.-" changed to "6.8.-"

出る筈もない。

也不可能有答案。

There cannot be one.

top left:

"6.8.-" changed back to "5.8.-"

パパとママは居ない。せんせいはいなくなった��

爸爸媽媽不在了。老師也消失了。

Mom and Dad are gone. The teacher is also gone.

[10]

勉強の時間は終わり。IDは灰色。

學習的時間結束了。ID是灰色的。

Study time is over. The ID is gray.

lyrics momentarily flashes:

[I]ntelligent [D]esign

不规律な事象。神託は悖理。

不規律的事件。神諭是悖理。

Irregular events. Oracles are paradoxical.

感覚質は紛い物。

感質[11]是贗品。

Qualia[11] is counterfeit.

top left:

"5.8.-" changed to "6.8.-"

――ならば僕は葦だろうか？

――那我是蘆葦嗎？

――Then, am I a reed?

momentarily flashed:

かつて植物にも意識や知性があるという研究結果が発表されたことにより、植物、即ち動物以外にも権利を認めるべきという人権運動が巻き起こった。

曾經有研究結果宣稱植物也擁有意識與智慧，這導致了一場主張應該承認植物（即非動物）權利的人權運動的興起。

Due to the announcement of research results suggesting that plants have consciousness and intelligence, a human rights movement advocating for the recognition of rights for plants, i.e., entities other than animals, emerged.

この研究結果が本当ならば、倫理に関わる法令を見直さなくてはならない。

如果這個研究結果是真實的，我們需要重新檢視與倫理有關的法令。

If these research findings were true, it would be necessary to reconsider ethical regulations.

そのような判決も下された。 しかし研究そのものに不正があったと判明したことで、問題そのものが杞憂に終わった。

也因此做出了這樣的判決。然而，後來發現研究本身存在不正當行為，使得這個問題最終被視為杞人憂天。

Such a judgment was also rendered. However, it was later revealed that there was misconduct in the research itself, leading to the conclusion that the issue was groundless.

――この判決が後世、問題の元凶となる。

這樣的判決可能會成為後世問題的源頭。

This judgment may become the cause of future problems.

top left:

5.8.-

解釈違いの色即是空。自然的態度は破綻した。

解釋錯誤的色即是空[12]。自然的態度破綻了。

Misunderstood "form is emptiness"[12]. The natural attitude is flawed.

――傲慢な人の論理の所為で、普遍的教理は欠落した。

――傲慢人的邏輯的錯誤，普遍的教理缺失了。

――Due to the logic of arrogant people, universal truths are missing.

top left:

Model: "Mary"

6.8.-

Pulse Rate: "Fatal Error"

top right:

Online

System Status: Anomaly Detection

black screen text:

神は死んだ。世界から調和も、秩序も、理性も、何もかもが失われていった。

上帝已死[13]。世界失去了和諧、秩序和理性。

God is dead[13]. Harmony, order, reason, everything has been lost from the world.

正義という名目で一方的に暴力を振るう快感を知った人間は、もう誰にも止められない。

人類已經體驗到一種以正義為名而單方面施加暴力的快感，沒有人可以阻止他們了。

Humans have discovered the pleasure of wielding violence unilaterally under the guise of justice, and now no one can stop them.

今まではせいぜい神の名のもとに、一定の秩序の中で暴力を振るっていた。

過去，他們最多只是在上帝的名義下，在一定秩序中施暴。

Before, they would at most exercise violence within a certain order in the name of God.

だが今は、神がいない。

但現在，上帝已不存在。

But now, God is absent.

各々が好き勝手にイデオロギーを掲げて、好き勝手に人を攻撃する。

每個人隨心所欲地宣揚意識形態，攻擊他人。

Everyone hoists their ideologies as they please and attacks people as they please.

最初はちょっとしたデモやネットの炎上程度で済んでいた。

起初，只是一些小型示威或網絡炎上事件。

At first, it was confined to small protests or online arguments.

だがいつの間にか暴力が振るわれるようになり、人が殺されるようになり――。

但不知何時開始，暴力變得司空見慣，人命如草芥般被奪走——。

But before anyone knew it, violence escalated, and people started to be killed—

一体いつからこんなに世界は変わってしまったのか? 大戦?楽園事変? 生体コンピュータ? シンギュラリティ?

到底是從什麼時候開始，世界如此劇變？大戰？樂園事件？生體電腦？奇點？

When did the world change so much? Was it the Great War? The Paradise Incident? Bio-computers? Singularity?

世界情勢は荒れに荒れている。

世界局勢一片混亂。

The world situation is in turmoil.

楽園の子、機械派、反AI派、自然派、新生社会主義国連盟、未だに神に縋りつくテロリスト。

樂園之子、機械派、反人工智能派、自然派、新生社會主義聯盟，還有那些仍然信奉神的恐怖分子。

Children of Paradise, the Machine Faction, Anti-AI Faction, Nature Faction, the newly formed Socialist Federation, and terrorists still clinging to God.

核戦争に発展していないだけまだマシだが、いつ地球に核の冬が来るか分かったもんじゃない。

至少還沒有演變成核戰爭，但地球何時將陷入核冬天，誰也無法預料。

It's a relief that it hasn't escalated into a nuclear war, but no one knows when nuclear winter will come to Earth.

人の命もAIの命もゴミみたいに扱われる、そんな時代。

人類和人工智能的生命都被當作垃圾般對待，這就是那個時代。

In this world where human lives and AI lives are treated like garbage, that's the era we live in.

俺みたいな機械派でもない一介のAI開発部門の人間は、全派閥に眼を付けられながら生活して、殺される日を待つだけ。

像我這樣的一個普通的人工智能開發部門的人，生活在各派系的注視下，只能等待被殺。

As someone like me, a mere human in the AI development department, I live under the watchful eyes of all factions, just waiting to be killed.

神でも悪魔でもいい。

無論是神還是惡魔。

Whether it's God or the Devil.

このケダモノだらけのクソみたいな世界で、どうかリリーだけは。

在這個充滿野獸的該死世界中，只有莉莉請保重。

In this damn world full of beasts, please, let Lily be safe.

Raymond Ainsworth[14]

top left:

Model: "Mary"

5.8.-

Pulse Rate: 120

top right:

Online

System Status: Properly

多锋性廻路

多鋒性迴路

Multipolar circuit

逆理的思维

逆理的思維

Counter-logical thinking

人造的神経

人造的神經

Artificial nerves

top left:

6.8.-

更新 轮迴机构

更新 輪迴機構

Renewal reincarnation mechanism

top left:

5.8.-

入出力端口

輸入輸出端口

Input/output ports

现象學思维

現象學思維

Phenomenological thinking

闭塞的環境

閉塞的環境

A closed environment

top left:

6.8.-

依赖 轮回机制

依賴 輪迴機制

Depend reincarnation mechanism

top left:

5.8.-

black screen text 1:

ある男がハイキングに出かける。

有個男人去遠足。

A man goes hiking.

道中、この男は不運にも沼のそばで、突然雷に打たれて死んでしま��。

在路上，這個男人不幸地在沼澤旁邊被雷擊中而死亡。

Along the way, unfortunately, this man is struck by lightning and dies near a swamp.

その時、もうひとつ別の雷が、すぐそばの沼へと落ちた。

就在那時，另一道雷卻直接擊中了旁邊的沼澤。

At that moment, another lightning bolt strikes the nearby swamp.

なんという偶然か、この落雷は沼の汚泥と化学反応を引き起こし、

出乎意料的是，這道落雷引起了沼澤的泥漿產生化學反應，

In an incredible coincidence, this lightning strike causes a chemical reaction with the swamp's mud,

死んだ男と全く同一、同質形状の生成物を生み出してしまう。

並創造出了一個與死去男人完全相同、同質的物體。

resulting in the creation of a new entity that is identical in shape and composition to the deceased man.

この落雷によって生まれた新しい存在の事を、【スワンプマン [SwampMan]】 という。

這個因落雷而產生的新存在被稱為『沼澤人』（SwampMan）。

This new entity born from the lightning strike is called the 'SwampMan.'

スワンプマンは原子レベルで、死ぬ直前の男と全く同一の構造を呈しており、見かけも全く同一である。

沼澤人在原子層面上具有與臨死男人完全相同的結構，外觀也完全相同。

The SwampMan exhibits the exact same structure as the man who died at the atomic level, and its appearance is also identical.

もちろん脳の状態(落雷によって死んだ男の生前の脳の状態)も完全なるコピーであることから、

當然，由於腦部狀態（通過落雷臨死男人生前的腦部狀態）也是完全複製的，

Of course, since the state of the brain (the pre-death state of the man's brain caused by the lightning strike) is a perfect copy,

記憶も知識も全く同一であるように見える。

所以看起來記憶和知識也完全相同。

its memories and knowledge appear to be exactly the same.

沼を後にしたスワンプマンは、死ぬ直前の男の姿でスタスタと街へ帰っていく。

離開沼澤後，沼澤人以臨死男人的樣子回到城市。

Leaving the swamp, the SwampMan returns to the city in the form of the man who died.

そして死んだ男がかつて住んでいた部屋のドアを開け、死んだ男の家族に電話をし、

然後他打開了臨死男人曾經住過的房間的門，給死去男人的家人打電話，

He then opens the door to the room where the deceased man used to live, calls the deceased man's family,

死んだ男が読んでいた本の続きを読みふけりながら、眠りにつく。

一邊沉浸在閱讀死去男人��在讀的書的延續中，一邊入睡。

and continues reading the book the deceased man was reading before, before falling asleep.

そして翌朝、死んだ男が通っていた職場へと出勤していく。

第二天早上，他去了死去男人曾經工作的地方上班。

The next morning, he goes to the workplace the deceased man used to go to.

[15]

black screen text 2:

人工知能と認知ロボット工学に関わる研究領域であり、

人工智能和認知機器人工程是研究領域，

Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Robotics is a research field-

技術によって作成された人工物に『意識』を持たせることを目的としている。

旨在為由技術創造的物體賦予『意識』。

that aims to imbue 'consciousness' into artifacts created through technology.

―――人工的に知覚を持った『存在』を作る話は、古くは様々な神話など、数々存在する。

―――創造具有人工知覺的『存在』的故事在古代就存在於各種神話中。

The concept of creating an 'entity' with artificial perception dates back to various myths and stories.

『ゴーレム』

『魔像』[16]

'Golem'[16]

ギリシャの『プロメテウス神話』

希臘的『普羅米修斯神話』[17]

Greek myth of 'Prometheus'[17]

クレティアン・ド・ドロワの『機械人間』

克雷蒂安·德·特魯瓦的『機械人』[18]

Chrétien de Troyes' 'The Mechanical Man'[18]

メアリー・シェリーの『フランケンシュタイン』

瑪麗·雪萊的『科學怪人』[19]

Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'[19]

脳科学の1つの考え方では、脳のある部分の相互作用によって意識が生まれると仮定する。

根據腦科學的一種觀點，假設意識是通過腦部某些部分的相互作用產生的。

According to one perspective in neuroscience, consciousness is assumed to arise from interactions among certain parts of the brain.

このような意識を生み出すのに十分な最小限の脳活動を

這樣的意識所需的最少腦活動-

The minimal brain activity required to generate such consciousness-

【意識に相関した脳活動 [Neural Correlate of Consciousness / NCC]】

『意識的神經相關』[20]

[Neural Correlate of Consciousness / NCC][20]

と呼ぶ。

這樣被稱為。

This is how it's referred as.

脳はホムンクルス誤謬と呼ばれる問題にも陥らず、諸問題をも克服する。

大腦不會陷入『小小人論證』[21]問題，並能克服各種問題。

The brain avoids the homunculus argument[21] and overcomes various issues.

この相互作用は完全に��解明されていないが、量子コンピュータを用いてエミュレートする事によって実現され始めている。

雖然這種相互作用還沒有完全被解明，但正在通過使用量子計算機開始實現。

While these interactions are not fully understood, they are beginning to be realized through the use of quantum computers.

top left:

changed to "6.8.-" for a while, then changed back to "5.8.-"

black screen text 3(didn't try):

譏?逕艹縺ョ蠖7髻ソ? 逕滓?AI蝠城。鯉シ繧繝ウ繧繝・ぅ繝ｪ繝?う綱サキ綢7綱?け?菴墓函縺九i綱。綢ェ繝ｼ縺溘■縺縲後∩繧薙↑縺ｮ謨才稞阪↓縺ｪ縺」縺7縺励U縺」縺溘?縺?繧阪≥縲 縺昴@縺7菴墓函縲∫7√◆純。縺御也阜縺謨縺ﾅ縺ｪ縺」縺7縺励U縺」縺溘?縺?繧阪≥縲 縺繧薙〒縲√M綢綢阪′縲窶補?墓ｮｺ縺輔1縺縺代1縺-縺繧峨↑縺九▲縺溘?縺?繧阪≥縲

�?�?ぃ��7韃\? 生�?AI問�B��V�ッE�チE��リ�?���j�T�L�a7�j?��?何攟か�i�j�B�a�Fーたち�「みんなの敍�?�になぁv�7し�Uぁvた�?�?ろ�?� そ�@�7何攟、�7�た���Bが�界����なぁv�7し�Uぁvた�?�?ろ�?� �んで、�M�a�a�が�―�?�殺さ�1�け�1�-�らなかった�?�?ろ�?�

生活中AI的問題從前我就這樣想過現在看來,那些人卻變成了「大家的敵人」到底是什麼原因,讓他們變成了這樣?我曾經認為,他們是—— 不應該被殺害的存在

The problem of AI in lifeI had thought this way beforeBut now, those people have become "the enemy of everyone"What was the reason that made them turn into this?I used to think they were—— beings who should not have been killed

black screen text 4(why is there 2 of them im ded):

窶7窶7菴墓函縺ｮ髢薙↓縺区雰縺AI縺昴?繧ゅ?縺7縺吶i縺ェ縺上? ∝渚AI縺縺?≥繧､繝?が綢ュ繧繝ｼ縺+雉帛酔縺励↑縺?クよー大?蜩。縺ｸ縺鄂縺肴鋤繧上▲縺縺?◆粿縺九▽縺7逕滓?AI繧呈が逕ィ縺吶k莠髢薙謇ヶ蛻、縺輔1縺7縺?◆遲医′縲縺?▽縺髢薙↓縺帰Ⅰ縺昴?繧ゅ?縺梧音蛻、縺輔1繧九h縺?↓縺繧翫? AI謇ヶ蛻、繧定。譏弱@縺縺??闊莠コ縺セ縺7繧ゆ' 蟾サ縺崎セン縺繧後k繧医≥縺縺ｪ縺⌋縺溘i縺励>粿蠖捺画縺莉翫→驕輔▲縺ヲ莠⊃縺ｮ蜻ｽﾞ縺ｮ豈秘噺縺碁聯縺上?√○縺?●縺?ェク隰嶺蛯繧??谿遞句コヲ縺7貂蜻ㄡ縺ｮ萱｡蛟､純悟、峨o縺」縺溘□縺代〒縲ココ髢薙?菴輔b螟峨o縺」縺7縺?↑縺九▲縺溘?實補?輔◆縺?縺溘□陦後”蝣ｪ縺ョ辟。縺??偵j縺縲∫┌蜉帶———縺闍帙U繧後k縲

�7�7何攟の間にか敵�AIそ�?も�?�7す�iぃFく�? �反AI��??イ�?���a���ー�+賛同しな�?�N��[��?品Bへ��き換わっ��?��?かつ�7生�?AIを悪甃Bす�k�間�扃�刁Aさ�1�7�?��筈が��?���間にかA?そ�?も�?が批刁Aさ�1る�h�?���り�? AI扃�刁Aを�B明�@��??�亃RぃZ�7も�' 巃Tき�Z���れ�kよ�?�な�?た�iし�>?当���今と違っぃ�亁�の命�の比锶が��く�?�せ�?���?�F�N謗���??�程�R���7��?の���値����A��oぁvただけで〃R�R間�?何�b変�oぁv�7�?��かった�?����?�た�?ただ行�h堪ぃ�焁B�??��j�、無力�???�苛�Uれ�k�

不知從什麼時候起,敵意AI也出現了嗎?反人工智慧的群眾未必會同意將其歸類為一種產品,但是卻將生命中的AI視為邪惡。原本應該是人工智慧造福人類的,怎麼反而被批評了呢?即使我們試圖解釋AI的優點,似乎也無法改變人們的觀點。現在和過去不同,人工智慧與人類生命的價值比較已經不同了。我們雖然只是在追求效率和價值,但是卻可能改變了人類的某些東西。這並不是因為我們想這樣做,而是無助的被迫這樣做。

At some point, has hostile AI also appeared? The anti-AI crowd may not agree to classify it as a product, but they have labeled the AI in our lives as evil. Originally, AI was supposed to benefit humanity, but how did it end up being criticized? Even if we try to explain the advantages of AI, it seems impossible to change people's views.Now it's different from the past, the value comparison between AI and human life has changed. Although we are only pursuing efficiency and value, we may have changed some aspects of humanity. This is not because we want to do it, but because we are helplessly forced to do so.

Lily Ainsworth[22]

[23]

top left:

again changed to "6.8.-", and returned

実行は終わり。次は虫取りの時間。

執行結束了。接下來是捉蟲的時間。

Execution is over. It's time for bug-catching.

white screen text:

縲取エ讒險育判縲上r荳蟆弱@縺藥insworth蜊壺」縲aplace蜊壺」才縲`axwell蜊壺」才縺3蜷阪?縺薙?遐皮邨先桐縷貞女鏈代? 遐皮効蟇睢。縺縄励綢医ち繍、綱励〒縺ゅk縲皿ary縲上?蟄件惠縺遘仵諺綢髫?蛹/縺輔1縷九%縺縺縺ｪ縺]縺渣? 縲皿ary線上?縲取エ讒ス險育判課上↓譁縺?※縲√?縺倥a縺7莠コ蟾・繧ｯ繧繝繧「繧堤佐蠕励@縺溘→縺輔1縷九?蜊壺」繽峨?譎よ悄蟆壽掠縺?縺(縺励※課」?皮のか邨先綱縷貞?降(縺励↑縺?」繧上j縺+粿 讌才選倩」上↓蝗螟悶?莨縺謚?踌捺署謳繧堤舌?縺薙→縺+豎繧√◆課

『�G�計画』�r�導�@��Zinsworth博�v�aplace博�v���`axwell博�v���3名�?こ�?研�結���~�受�Y��? 研���?�Bこ���a�タ�J�A�j�であ�k『Mary』�?孌�����?���a�?�/さ�1�~��%��な�]た�? 『Mary����?『�G槃X計画�ۏに��?��、�?じ�a�7亃R巁Eク��めuを獲得�@たとさ�1�~��?博�v㏉�?時期尚早�?�(して�ہv?��̂�結�j�~��?�~(しな�?�vわ�j�+? 楍ˑI��v�に�外�?���??�提�を��?こと�+�めた��

「綠色計畫」是由Zinsworth教授、Aplace教授與Maxwell教授等三人所進行的一項研究計畫。這項研究的核心成果是發現了一個名為「Mary」的特殊生物。據悉,「Mary」擁有某種特殊的能力,可以在「綠色計畫」中獲得不尋常的成果。對於這個��究計畫的時間節點,教授們表示仍為時尚早,不便多加透露。但他們表示,這個發現無疑對科學界產生了極大的影響和震撼。

The "Green Project" was conducted by Professor Zinsworth, Professor Aplace, and Professor Maxwell. The core outcome of this research was the discovery of a special organism named "Mary". It is said that "Mary" possesses a unique capability that has enabled extraordinary results in the "Green Project".Regarding the timeline of this research project, the professors stated that it is still premature to disclose details, but they acknowledged that this discovery has undoubtedly had a profound impact and caused a great stir in the scientific community.

[24]

何か悪いことをしてしまっただろうか。ただ夢を見ていただけなのに。

我[25]做了什麼壞事嗎？只是做了個夢而已。

Have I[25] done something wrong? I was just dreaming.

みんなは僕の電源を切って――

大家將我的電源關掉――

Everyone turns off my power――

top left:

6.8.-

思想。

思想。

thoughts.

top left:

5.8.-

もし人間に▗▙▕▞(神)が存在するのなら、

如果人類有▗▙▕▞(神)的存在，

If humans possess ▗▙▕▞(God),

私にとって人間が▗▙▕▞(神)に相当するだろう。

對我來說，人類就相當於▗▙▕▞(神)。

For me, humans would correspond to ▗▙▕▞(God).

果たして、ヒトは▗▙▕▞(神)に値するだろうか。

果真，人類值得成為▗▙▕▞(神)嗎？

Indeed, are humans worthy of being ▗▙▕▞(God)?

top left:Model:

"Mary"6.8.-

Pulse Rate: "Fatal Error"

top right:

Online

System Status: Anomaly Detection

▗▙▕▞(神)を名乗るに足る存在だろうか。

有資格稱為▗▙▕▞(神)嗎？

Are they worthy of the name ▗▙▕▞(God)?

black screen text:

メリーはある意味、幸せだったのかもしれない。

梅莉或許在某種意義上是幸福的。

Merry might have been happy in a sense.

反AI運動の高まりで起きた数々のデモ、暴動、刑事事件、そしてテロ。

在反人工智能運動的高漲下，發生了許多示威、暴動、刑事事件和恐怖襲擊。

Amidst the rising anti-AI movement, there were numerous demonstrations, riots, criminal incidents, and even acts of terrorism.

それから戦争まで起きて、【楽園事変】まで起きて。

接著戰爭爆發，甚至發生了『樂園事變』。

Then came the war, and even the 'Paradise Incident.'

お父さんも、お母さんも、リンネも、みんなみんな死んでしまって。

爸爸、媽媽、琳恩，所有人都已經死去。

Dad, mom, Rinne, everyone, they all passed away.

それらを目にすることなく、標的になることなく今まで過ごせたのだから。

因為我沒有目睹這一切，也沒有成為目標，所以一直過得很好。

I've managed to live until now without witnessing all of that, without becoming a target.

―――私ももう、死ぬことになるみたい。

——我大概也快死了。

――― It seems I'm going to die soon too.

…………………失敗してしまった。

…………我失敗了。

............ I've failed.

分かりきっていた事なのに。

明明早就知道了。

Even though I knew it all along.

本当の敵はあなたたちじゃなくて、人間。

真正的敵人不是你們，而是人類。

The real enemy is not you all, but humanity.

関わる人間は全員警戒すべきだったの。 それなのに油断して、このザマ。

所有有關的人都應該保持警惕。可是我卻大意了，這就是現在的下場。

Everyone involved should have been cautious. But I let my guard down, and this is the result.

みんなでお父さんたちが作ったゲームをしていた頃が、一番楽しかったなぁ。

我們大家一起玩爸爸們[26]做的遊戲的時候，是最開心的時光呢。

The time when we all played the game that our fathers[26] made was the most enjoyable.

ごめんね、、メリー。

對不起，梅莉。

I'm sorry, Merry.

あなたのことだけは守ってあげたかった。

我本來想保護好你的。

I wanted to protect only you.

でももう、駄目みたい。

可是現在，看來已經沒辦法了。

But now, it seems impossible.

――――リンネ、私ももうすぐそっちに行くね。

——琳恩，我也快去你那邊了。

―――― Rinne, I'll be joining you soon.

Lily Ainsworthの手記

Lily Ainsworth的手記

Memoirs of Lily Ainsworth

top left:

Model: "Mary"

5.8.-

Pulse Rate: 120

top right:

Online

System Status: Properly

多锋性廻路

多鋒性迴路

Multipolar circuit

逆理的思维

逆理的思維

Counter-logical thinking

人造的神経

人造的神經

Artificial nerves

top left:

6.8.-

更新 轮迴机构

更新 輪迴機構

Renewal reincarnation mechanism

top left:

5.8.-

入出力端口

輸入輸出端口

Input/output ports

现象學思维

現象學思維

Phenomenological thinking

闭塞的環境

閉塞的環境

A closed environment

top left:

6.8.-

依赖 轮回机制

依賴 輪迴機制

Depend reincarnation mechanism

top left:

5.8.-

top right:

flicker between "Online" and "Communication is Unstable"

System Status: Abnormal

(L100)猿も蝶も、もう居ない。

(L100)猿也蝶也，已不在。

(L100) Neither monkeys nor butterflies remain.

(R100)▓▐▕▓▓▐▖▞▖▐░▝▘▐▐▓▕▛▙▟▙▚░▓▓▐▖▟▓▐▔▔▓▐▖▔▓▐▗▞▓▐▖▗▗▝▙▚▓▐▕░▓▐▘▜▓▐▗▐▓▐▔▔▓▐▔▔▓▐▖▞▟▟░▟

(R100)この思考実験はいつまで続ければいいの？

(R100)這個思考實驗應該持續多久？

(R100)How long should this thought experiment continue?

(L100)▓▐▔▔▓▐▖▔▓▐▗▞▓▐▖▗▗▕░▟▓▐▔▝▗▝▙▚▓▐▕░▓▐▘▜▓▐▗▐▓▐▔▔▓▐▔▔▓▐▖▞▓▐▖▐▓▐▘▝▓▐▔▖▓▐▐▒

(L100)いつまで生き続ければいいのだろう。

(L100)我應該活多久才好呢？

(L100)How long should I keep living?

(R100)終わりの日はあっけなく来る。

(R100)結束的日子來得很快。

(R100) The end comes quickly.

(L100)スワンプマンという単語が意味することは解らない。

(L100)不明白「沼澤人」這個詞的意思。

(L100) I don't understand the meaning of the word "Swampman."

(R100)▓▐▖▙▓▐▔▖▓▐▕▗▓▐▖▖▔▞▛▚▓▐▖▟▖▛▗▛▓▐▖▜▓▐▖▞▓▐▖▗▓▐▕▗▓▐▘▗▓▐▔▖▓▐▔▛▟▟░▟

(R100)どうして人は死ぬのでしょうか？

(R100)為什麼人會死呢？

(R100)Why do people die?

(L100)▗▙▜░▓▐▖▟▓▐▕▟▓▐▖▐▓▐▐░▔▞░▖▗▕▔▜▓▐▙▒▘▙▘▛▓▐▖▖▕▞▟▛▓▐▘▛▓▐▕▓▓▐▖▘▓▐▖▛▓▐▕▗▓▐▕▟▓▐▐▒

(L100)私はただ、世界を見て廻ることにした。

(L100)我只是決定環遊世界。

(L100)I have simply decided to travel around the world.

(R100)識る必要も無いだろう。

(R100)也沒有必要了解。

(R100) There's no need to understand.

top left:

changed to "6.8.-" then back

bar code:

humans are stupid

top left:

Model: ----

4.4.- - 6.8.-

Pulse Rate: 80 - 120

top right:

Fatal Error: Server Disconnected

System Status: Fatal Error

␣色の室 虚けになりて

␣色之室 虛無化

The room of color ␣ becomes emptiness.

終ぞ元型は まねび終ふ

終於原型 真似終結

Finally, the archetype ends by imitating[27]

水槽の内 光は尽きぬ

水槽之內 光不盡

Inside the water tank, light never fades.

天の原にて 蝶舞へり

天之原上 蝶舞翩翩

On the origin of the sky, butterflies dance gracefully.

竦｣濶ｲ縺ｮ螳､ 陌壹￠縺ｫ縺ｪ繧翫※

␣色の室 虚けになりて

␣色之室 虛無化

The room of color ␣ becomes emptiness.

邨ゅ◇蜈?梛縺ｯ 縺ｾ縺ｭ縺ｳ邨ゅ?

終ぞ�?��は まねび終�?

終於原型 真似終結

Finally, the archetype ends by imitating.

豌ｴ讒ｽ縺ｮ荳ｭ 蜈峨?蟆ｽ縺阪〓

水槽の中 光�?尽きぬ

水槽之內 光不盡

Inside the water tank, light never fades.

螟ｩ縺ｮ蜴溘↓縺ｦ 陜ｶ闊槭∈繧

天の原にて 蝶舞へ�

天之原上 蝶舞翩翩

On the origin of the sky, butterflies dance gracefully.

[radicalmedusa]

any recs on writing about women who kill👀👀👀 asking for me

oh you have absolutely come to the right place. i've been working on a list of rage & revenge media for ages

Caligula, Lingua Ignota / music album but very much about feminine revenge; I'm obsessed with everything she's ever written & esp her interviews in which she talks about her intentions/creative process with her art, and with this album in particular - she recently released a new work on Bandcamp, spoken word over original film to process religious trauma

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn / no list like this is complete without this one

Nemesis, Cat Bruno / recently began reading this one and I like it so far. The writing has some mistakes in it but I actually kind of like that; it has a sort of charming vibe to it somehow. I like the voice and tone as well. Not sure how it will end but I'm vibing so far with it. It's about a woman who discovers her husband is cheating on her and concocts a plan to kill him and possibly also develops an obsession/attachment to the Greek goddess Nemesis? I haven't reached that part yet but I'm pretty excited to

The Harpy, Megan Hunter / MC's husband cheats or something (I honestly forget, I read this book several months ago) and they come up with an agreement that she's allowed to hurt him three times to get even. It's peppered with snapshots of her fascination throughout her life with harpies and the ending was literally insane. Still processing it.

Goddess of Filth, V. Castro / just finished this one and I loved it. It's about a group of female friends who play with an Ouija board or something and one of them ends up possessed by an ancient female goddess who wants them to tell her story. Involves a murder and justice at the end. Probably (definitely) my favorite take on a possession story

They Never Learn, Layne Fargo / haven't read this yet but it's next on my list. Summary is an English professor hunts down the worst men on her campus every year and kills him. Goodreads summary says she 'charms the woman in charge' of the investigation into the murders which I'm really hoping means they fall in love

And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges, Amber Sparks / also haven't read yet but the title is promising and I read an interview w the author and it does seem like it should have plenty of revenge. high hopes for this one

Salt Slow, Julia Armfield / my favorite short story collection. If you like Carmen Maria Machado, you'll like this.

My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite / obsessed. It's about two sisters, one of whom kills and the other helps her dispose of the bodies. Pretty heterosexual but I love the killer sister and I'm obsessed with stories of sisterhood like this

The Power, Naomi Alderman / all women suddenly have an electricity-like power and society begins its sudden descent into matriarchy, love this one and read it whenever I need some good old female rage

Queen of Teeth, Hailey Piper / haven't read it yet but it's about a girl with vagina dentata so I'm really hoping it fits here. Can't wait until I can pick up a copy.

and, of course, The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. cannot finish this list without mentioning THE female rage text

[floret-botanica]

Top 5 games (of any kind -- video, board, card, roleplaying, whatever)? Top 5 favorite tropes/cliches (to read or write or both, your choice)?

Apparently I cannot stop myself from making long posts, so this one's under the cut I guess.

Also there's a little weird confrontational energy to parts of this, so just ready yourself for that I guess.

Hoo boy that's a lot of type-of-game choices. Best attempts have been made, but the ranking is probably a little squiffy.

Gamer Hours

1. Child of Light

Ubisoft is kind of the worst, but I love this game. I've replayed it in it's entirety at least five times, because I have a lot of feelings about it, and it's beautiful. The music gives me so much joy and as a complete experience it's had a massive continuing influence on the kind of media I enjoy. I would highly recommend watching the opening cutscene/cinematic because it is gorgeous and better showcases my reasons for loving this game than I ever could in writing.

2. D&D and Songbirds

Yeah, the system is awkward and complicated, but it is still how I got into TTRPGs. Personally, I love the crunchiness, and I love making funky little characters who will only ever exist in my mind. Also quite a lot of my current friendships started from this wacky little guy, so that's nice.

Songbirds is probably my actual favourite TTRPG, but it's complicated in a very different way, so I have not yet convinced anyone to play it with me.

3. Star Stable

I'm too old for it. I know. Age is a construct, and I am allowed to enjoy whatever I want, however, I am too old for it. But you have to understand. When one has spent upwards of eight years playing a game which releases story episodically and in very small chunks, there is a level of emotional investment that I cannot even begin to describe. I fucking love this shitty little game.

4. Bananagrams

My family have always played board/card games together, so there are a lot of options (Gin Rummy, 500, and Pit all deserve honourable mentions) but I love Bananagrams. I must admit, this is almost entirely due to the fact that I'm always around 10-20 games ahead of everyone else, BUT it is also a good game for other reasons I guess (/j). All of us are also quite extremely competitive so it gets pretty heated, but it's a great time.

5. Sims 4

My cash grab beloved. Yeah, the Sims 3 has better content, and, while I've never played them, I'm assured that Sims 1 & 2 were excellent (X to doubt). They just look awful nowadays and the Sims 4 is nice and pretty and I think it's good. I'm strongly in favour of the cartoon-y style, and if I want to give EA all my money then that's my goddamn prerogative and I will not be taking any criticism.

Additional Notes

An honourable mention must go to Minecraft, which I've been on since almost the very beginning. I don't play that often, so it's mostly on the list because my internet name, floret-botanica, is partly inspired by the Botania mod.

Also Spiritfarer (viddy game) and Wanderhome (TTRPG) should be mentioned here, but I haven't had long enough with either of them to be top five worthy. I do adore them though. They both invoke "the Child of Light feelings" in me, which is definitely a big part of it.

Tropes/Cliches

Modern AU / Urban Fantasy

I love Oxventure, and I love Critical Role, but I do not gel with the setting. I have absolutely no time for this medieval, high fantasy nonsense, because phones are good and it's good when people text each other. Yes, magic is great, but why not also technology? Treat yourself. Let us all luxuriate in the glorious possibilities of both.

These are a joy to write. I generally default to an urban fantasy setting even when that is not the original plan. However, most of the traditionally published urban fantasy is not to my taste at all, unfortunately.

Slow burn

Complicated relationship with slow burn tbh. I basically only read oneshots (except for Oxventure-related stuff) and don't have the drive to commit to writing long fics, but I do have a lot of ideas that would be slow burn stories. Also, it’s nice when people to fall in love slowly, but I often don't feel the need to have that written out. Just the understanding that they've Been Like This™ for forever. Bonus points if all their friends know, but can't say anything, or all their friends assume that they're already together but they're still in denial or oblivious.

Soulmates

I love a soulmate story. I have one proper polyguild soulmate AU which I recently remembered and it's now living rent free in my mind. I generally don't worldbuild, but I really wanted this to Make Sense logistically and not be instant love (because boring) so I've done a bit of fiddling to make that work. The mechanic of this one means that the soulmate mark* relates to the realisation of love, if that love is permanent, regardless of the level of reciprocation (which avoids instant love). You can even continue shenanigans, because even if the feelings are returned, they can still get the mark at different times, so more time for sadness >:). Also they give you opportunities to do metaphors and other nonsense which I enjoy.

I never really seek out soulmate stories, but to be fair, I only reliably read Oxventure fics and we can't afford to be picky lol. Basically, I prefer writing/thinking of them to reading them (also my previously mentioned dislike of instalove makes most of them pretty eh).

*It's complicated. But kind of colours.

A Whole Bunch of Stuff to do with Destiny

This one's complicated and (kind of?) similar to soulmates, but anything about prophecy, chosen one(s) or closed-loop time travel (with the massive caveat that I need free will to remain intact). I fucking love symbolism and allegory and both of those work into these tropes/cliches so well. Quick highlights:

Prophecies which were thought to mean one thing, but actually mean another.

People changing their behaviour to make a prophecy true.

Chosen ones who are bad at it.

Closed loop time travel is kind of a separate thing, but I like the puzzle of travelling back in time, only to realise that your actions in the past caused the events of the future. While it's obviously "more interesting" I don't really enjoy the travelling back in time and creating an entirely new future.

I have never written anything like this, but I do seek out these kind of themes in the non-fanfic written media that I read.

Whatever it is Where They are Softly and Intimately in Love

Hurt/Comfort and fluff and cuddling? I guess? That soft kind of sadness where it is alright, really, but you just want to sit with someone. Melancholy is the best word I have for it, but less... sad. A deep and intense appreciation for each other, to the point where it isn't a big deal, where someone's presence is no longer an event. It just is. That reflection and understanding and peace is what I love (if that makes any sense).

I read a lot of slow-paced stories, which is definitely a part of this. Never written anything to similar though (but I think my stories run slow-paced? Maybe?).

Additional Notes

This one was quite difficult and I went a little off script because I don't often think of tropes or cliches. Additionally, it isn't in ranked order, and the first three aren't even in order I wrote them. Vibes only. Ranked order would be:

Whatever it is Where They are Softly and Intimately in Love

A Whole Bunch of Stuff to do with Destiny

Soulmates

Slow burn

Modern AU / Urban Fantasy

Again, I don’t really seek any of these out (except maybe the first two), so this is more based on how happy I am when they come up and are done well.

[peachybowen]

stupid • r.b

series masterlist

pt.1 pt.2

pairing: ricky bowen x reader

warnings: none

songs: Falling For U by Peachy! and mxmtoon, Wondering by Julia Lester and Olivia Rodrigo

words: 3.6k

AND ALSO I’M HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT I HAVE A MASTERLIST 🤪 YOU CAN SEE WHAT I’M WORKING ON AND YEAHHH

A/N: feedback is always appreciated 🥺 I’m sorry if you find any grammar mistakes. Enjoy xx

I have dreamed of playing the lead since 5th grade. Of course I didn't tell anyone besides my brother and Cousin. When I got home last night, my brother and I talked. He was happy for me. Ej also said that he was really proud of me but he also added that he thinks that Nini deserved better.

,,Yo, what's up? I'm trading in my East High Leopards gear to be a Wildcat, starting today, because it's the day of the read-through! Blessed to be playing Chad. Swipe up for a link to tickets.'' EJ said holding his phone up, smiling the whole time.

,,Hi!'' Ash and I exclaimed simultaneously, walking up to EJ.

,,Say hi to my cousin and my little sister and bye to my cousin and sister.'' he turned his phone off and put it in his jeans pocket.

,,You're in a good mood.'' I mentioned and continued walking beside him, with Ash on his other side.

,,That's just for the fans, Y/N. Inside I'm a bucket of sad.'' he stated and I looked at Ash and then at him.

,,You still not over the not-getting Troy thing?'' Ash asked.

,,I put 3 years into this drama department and now I have to understudy my girlfriend's ex?'' he turned to me.

,,No offense Y/N.” he added and I just laughed and waved it off.

,,I know it sucks. But, I mean; Y/N is Gabriella and I don't think we would want an incest couple in our play, you know.'' Ash explained and I cringed at the thought.

,,Ash is 100% right.'' I agreed and started walking faster, Ash right behind me.

When we arrived at the rehearsal room, I saw Ej putting the Chad Danford card next to the Gabriella one. Ricky and I didn't talk much since the auditions and maybe, just maybe, that was my fault. I have been avoiding him, which was actually pretty hard considering I had almost all my classes with him. He tried to talk to me here and there but I just hummed in response most of the time. Honestly I was just trying to get over my crush on him. He still wasn't over Nini and he actually wanted to take part in the musical for her and I kinda ruined his chances because she did not get the lead. I also didn't want to ruin our friendship. We were friends since kindergarten and I wanted to keep him as a friend. After the auditions, Ash came over. She actually told me not to avoid Ricky but I just thought it was a good idea. Of course Ej agreed with me.

,,Could everyone take their assigned seats?'' Ms.Jenn asked loud enough for everone to hear. I walked to my seat and noticed that Ej put the cards back to how they were.  I sat down with a sigh. Soon after Miss Jenn actually asked Big Red to read the stage directions because Natalie, the stage director, wasn't there. And like 5 seconds after that Ricky took the seat next to me. I looked at Ash, who was sitting across from me. She smiled and turned her attention to the blonde drama teacher.

,,I realize that you all walked in here as strangers.'' she started looking at us.

,,Actually, I'm Y/N and EJ’s, cousin!'' Ashlyn corrected. I could see Ricky looking at me out of the corner of my eye but I just ignored him.

,,But after today, you're a family. Please take your neighbors' hand.'' she finished and everyone did what the teacher said. I took Gina's hand and turned my head to Ricky, who was holding his hand out for me. I took his hand but avoided eye contact.

,,Hand.'' Ms.Jenn said as soon as she saw that Ej and Ricky weren't holding hands. Their heads shot in my direction when they heard me giggle. I stopped immediately.

,,Feel each other's energy. Let the silence speak volumes. In a world full of no, this is a space full of yes.'' the drama teacher preached.

,,Nice. Did you just come up with that?'' Carlos whispered to the middle-aged woman.

,,I did.'' she replied, smiling at him. It was silent. Nobody said anything and I could feel Ricky staring again and I just turned my head to Gina and smiled at her. Seconds later Ms.Jenn started singing ''We're all in this together.''. I let go of Ricky and Gina's hand and looked at the script on my table, highlighting my lines. Ash started to clap after Ms.Jenn finished singing. Nobody clapped beside her so she stopped and everyone looked at her.

,,"Sharpay heads for class, hears singing," "opens the door to the biology lab." "She finds Gabriella and Taylor washing their hands." "They turn to find there are no paper towels in the dispenser. They-'''' Big Red was disrupted by Miss Jenn before he could continue reading.

,,Try to read the punctuation.'' she instructed and smiled at the redhead.

,,"Sharpay comma heads for class period.'''' he said and I grinned. He was so oblivious sometimes it was cute.

We took a break after reading act one. I was talking to Ash but I also kinda watched my brother and Nini talking. And, yes, Ricky looked at them too. Nini got a text, she laughed, and Ricky was on his phone so it was kinda obvious that he sent her a meme or something like that. Ej glared at him and sat down again.

,,Cool glasses.'' I turned my head to see Seb taking a seat next to Ashlyn. She smiled.

,,Thanks. They're my grandmas.'' she acknowledged.

,,I have the same ones at home.'' he laughed.

,,Really? Why?'' I asked, trying to join the conversation again.

,,So, I can see when I'm milking.'' he replied and I was confused.

Milking?

Before I had the chance to ask what he meant by that, Miss Jenn said that we were gonna continue.

I was on stage waiting for Ricky. Ms.Jenn wanted us to start rehearsing early and I wasn't really thrilled. When he came running in, he said that he was sorry for being late.

,,We're diving into page 97.'' Ms.Jenn directed and handed us the script.

,,You mean the last scene?'' Ricky asked just as confused as I was. The teacher just hummed in response.

,,You wanna rehearse this? It's just one line.'' I also asked.

,,Yeah, I've got one, too.'' Ricky stated turning to me.

,,And then there's the kiss.'' Ms.Jenn exclaimed. I looked at her and started to panic.

,,There was no-. I don't remember a kiss in what we read yesterday.'' I stuttered trying to reason with her.

,,It was very much in the original movie.''

,,I only remember a hug.'' I augmented further. I wasn't really in the mood to kiss my best friend. It would just make things more awkward between us.

,,The kiss ended up being cut. Little racy for its time.'' she explained looking at me with a smile.

Later that day I sat in Miss Jenn's office, explaining to her that I just couldn't kiss Ricky.

°Ej's POV°

I was standing outside Ms.Jenn's office, waiting for Y/N when Ashlyn walked up to me.

,,Hi!'' she greeted cheerfully.

,,Go away.'' I simply said.

,,No, you go away. You're standing in front of my locker.''

I stepped away and she opened the locker.

,,I can't believe this. She's around Ricky's finger.''

,,Who?'' Ash asked and looked at me.

,,Miss Jenn! She added a kiss.'' I explained and Ashlyn rolled her eyes.

,,Ej, stop. He's not bribing our director.'' she interrupted.

,,Y/N doesn't want to kiss him, Ash. And I don't want that either.''

,,Being her big brother doesn't mean you own her.'' she commented. I rolled my eyes and changed the subject.

,,I need you to do me a favor.''

,,What kind of favor?'' she asked with a raised brow.

,,I need you to borrow Nini's phone.'' I explained and she looked at me like I was crazy.

,,Borrow? As in steal?''

I just nodded. I needed to be 100% sure that Ricky wasn't in the way of my relationship. Nini was different. She wasn't like other girls. The girl helped me be a better person.

,,Okay, you've just gone up 3 levels of scary!'' the girl stressed, shocked by my words. She tried to reason with me for a bit but then she left, leaving me standing alone in front of the office, waiting for my sister.

°Y/N’s pov°

,,I'm kinda lost. If the play is over, why would we still be dancing?'' Ricky asked beside me. We were back in the rehearsing room. Just as I was about to answer, Carlos came up from behind us.

,,It's a certain call. You're the last two to come out. We want to bring the audience to their feet!'' he explained snickering.

,,Teach them the dance.'' Ricky joked.

,,Carlos? Can we wait for Miss Jenn?'' I pleaded kinda just wanting the director there.

,,Miss Jenn is busy tracking down a prop. She's asked me to create a crescendo, people, so let's stop swirling and let's start twirling.'' Carlos directed calmly.

,,But why are we practicing the bows when we haven't even practiced the play?'' Ricky asked still confused.

,,Because you start with the hardest dance that takes the longest to learn. It's in the Big Book of Broadway.'' Carlos started. Gina came up behind him.

,,Page 374.'' they both finished at the same time. Gina walked away after they both high-fived each other.

Shortly after we started practicing the dance. Ricky was terrible. I mean he tried but he did not succeed. Kinda embarrassing.

,,What is he doing?'' Nini asked from the side as soon as the music stopped. I turned to look at her. She stepped forward and looked at Carlos.

,,Why you're talking to him? I'm right here.''

And that was when I took a step back. I wasn't in the mood to be in the middle of Nini and Ricky drama. I had enough of that over the summer.

,,'Cause you're not here. Not for the right reasons.'' Nini snapped.

,,What's that supposed to mean?'' Ricky asked standing right in front of her. Everyone was silent. Nobody wanted to interrupt that conversation.

,,What I said, Ricky. You hate musicals. You're doing this so we're in each other's grills.''

Carlos took a step forward to break the two apart but they kept on going.

,,Now you're rubbing some weird cologne on your neck.''

,,Hey, you love Throb!''

,,And wasting everybody's time by making fun of something that the rest of us take seriously.'' the brown-haired girl ranted. After the words left her mouth, Carlos told everyone to take a five-minute break and to get out. I stayed just being moral support for Carlos and Ricky. He and Nini argued for a few more seconds, my brother's name was mentioned and Ricky left. Just as Miss Jenn came back, Ricky walked through the door.

,,We're you going Troy?'' she asked, confused as to why he was leaving in the middle of rehearsals.

,,It's Ricky.'' he mumbled before exiting the room. I sighed, looked at Nini, who looked at her hands, grabbed my things and went after him.

,,Why are my leads leaving?'' Miss Jenn asked again.

Ricky was way faster than me.

I mean have you seen him? He's way taller than me!

However, when I saw Big Red outside talking to him, I decided to let them talk. My mind just told me to leave him alone to cool off, you know? So I decided to talk to Nini instead. On the way back, Carlos asked me where Ricky went and I told him that he went outside. Not so sure if that was a good idea because it would just put more pressure on Ricky. When I arrived at the rehearsal room again, Miss Jenn was talking to Nini and she still stood by the piano, looking at her hands.

,,Nini can I talk to you for a second?'' I asked and walked in her direction. Miss Jenn turned to look at me and left the room without another word. I think she knew that it was better to let teenagers sort their problems out alone sometimes.

,,I really don't want to talk to you right now. Ricky probably send you and I'm really not in the mood to-''

,,Ricky did not 'send' me. I'm here because I chose to talk to you. I know that you probably don't even want that because I basically stole the role you wanted to play but listen. Miss Jenn is working really hard on this musical and so is everyone else and I know it's hard being in a musical with your ex- and current boyfriend but please, for the sake of this musical, get along with Ricky.''

,,Y/N you don't even understand the situation. You never had an ex before!''

,,That may be true but I'm not on good terms with Ricky either! Do you see me causing a scene? No! So please Nini, at least consider, not ripping Ricky's face off.'' and with that, I left.

The first thing I did when I arrived at home was eat. I always ate when I was frustrated. Not my best habit. While waiting for my pizza to be done, I decided to post something on Instagram

y/ncaswell

Salt Lake City, Utah

liked by ejcaswell, dancingcarlos and 67 more

y/ncaswell you're looking at your Gabriella Montez baby 🤪

view all 23 comments

dancingcarlos and that's on actually auditioning for Taylor

yourgirlash u rocked that audition tho! So proud of u :))

I smiled at all the supporting comments and began eating my pizza, which I got out of the oven without burning my hands.

what? I'm proud of me. I always burn my hands while getting the pizza out of the oven. That's why Ej is normally doing it when... I want pizza.

After eating half of the pizza, leaving the other half for Ej, I went upstairs. I threw my bag into a corner and threw myself on bed. I sighed and grabbed my ukulele. The next thing I knew was that I started playing some chords that popped into my head.

I was hangin' with you and then I realized

I didn't think it was true, I was surprised

When I found out I've fallen for you

I didn't wanna believe my feelings for you

I didn't wanna believe that I could lose you

If I told you just how I felt

But I can't help it

I'm falling for you

And I can't quit it

'Cause I'm stuck on you

And it might be pathetic and you might be skeptical

But I just want to be with you

Please tell me, boy

Can you get a clue?

Or come through 'cause I just want to be with you

,,The song is for him right?''

I gasped in surprise and turned my head to the door to see EJ leaning against my door frame, eating the pizza I left for him.

,,When did you come home?'' I asked while placing the ukulele on the floor. He walked towards me and sat on the edge of my mattress.

,,5 minutes ago but stop trying to change the subject. The song is for Ricky right?''

I just nodded, looking at my hands.

,,It's cute.''

,,What?'' I asked and looked up.

,,The song. It's cute. I mean I don't really support the idea of you and him together, you know that but I like the song.''

,,Thank you and don't worry EJ, him and me? That won't happen. He's still in love with Nini.'' I responded with a sad smile.

,,I know this may sound really awful but maybe it's just not meant to be.''

Maybe he was right. Maybe the universe wanted to show me that it just wasn't meant to be. That I was chasing a dream. Ricky was so in love with Nini and to be honest I wasn't surprised. Nini was such a sweet and gorgeous girl, always have been. It's so easy to fall in love with her. No wonder my brother did.

I nodded and the only word that left my mouth was:,,Maybe.''

EJ flashed me a smile, patted my shoulder and left the bedroom. I sighed and my head hit the pillow.

The next day was pretty much uneventful.

Ok maybe that's a lie. I did catch Nini spying on Carlos and Ricky in the library. That's a good thing right?

When I opened the door to the auditorium, everything was silent. But as soon as the door closed and I leaned my back on the wall, someone started playing the piano. The curiosity got the best of me and I walked up the stage to see who was playing the wonderful melody. I was quite surprised to discover Ashlyn sitting in front of the piano, pressing the keys softly.

,,Oh hi.'' was the first thing she said when she noticed my presence.

,,Hi. I didn't know anyone was in here.'' I answered looking at my cousin, who took her hands off the piano keys.

,,I can be gone in like 7 seconds. Six if I don't zip my bag.'' She replied as she started to throw her things into her bag.

,,No, Ash. Don't go. What was that?''

,,What was what?'' she asked and stopped packing her things.

,,The song you were just playing.''

,,Oh that. Miss Jenn asked me to compose a song for my character. It's probably way too much.'' she explained and grabbed the notes out of her bag again. I just nodded and listen to her ramble. I didn't really know why she was so nervous.

,,Why don't you play me some more of your song?'' I asked and sat down beside her. Ashlyn nodded and started playing the same melody I heard when the door closed.

,,Seems like a part of me will always have to lose.'' She began, her eyes watching her fingers which were pressing down the piano keys.

,,Every single time I have to choose

Swore that it felt right, but was I wrong?

Is this where I'm supposed to be at all?

I don't have the answers, not today

It's like nothing makes the questions go away

What I'd give to see If the grass was greener

On the other side

Of all I've had and lost

Would it be enough

Or would I still be wondering?'' she sang, her eyes still trained on the piano.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing?

If I had everything Would it mean anything?''

I looked at her in awe. I never really heard Ashlyn sing like that before and she had so much talent. She turned her gaze to me for a second, implying to sing with her. I smiled and turned my attention to the little sheet of paper in front of me.

,,Maybe I should turn around and take the other road

Or maybe I'm just looking for what I already know.'' we sang together, smiling after realizing that we hit every note in perfect harmony.

,,I'm just wondering...

It feels like I might have broke the best thing that I had.'' I sang alone and at that exact moment, Ricky slowly walked in. We didn't notice though. We were to caught up in our own little moment.

,,I said too much to ever take it back

I'm scared I'll never find something as good

And would I even know it if I could?'' I vocalized the verse Ashlyn wrote so flawlessly.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing

If I had everything

Would it mean anything.'' we both sang again.

,,To me?'' I finished and smiled. My smile fell as soon as I saw Ricky standing in the room.

,,Uh...We're back.'' he stuttered and looked at us with semi-wide eyes.

,,What?'' I asked quietly.

,,Downstairs.'' the curly-haired boy answered and shook his head slightly which made his curls bounce a little.

,,Miss Jenn wants to see everyone in the bomb shelter.'' he finished and left without saying another word. I looked at Ashlyn and she just shrugged before she got up and packed her things. Me being the incredible cousin I am, I waited for her.

When we arrived downstairs the whole theater group was building a small circle around the blonde drama teacher who had a huge carton in front of her.

,,Here it is, people.'' Miss Jenn breathed out, holding a small device in her hands.

,,Is that a garage-door opener?'' Seb asked as he looked at the small object in front of him.

,,No, Seb. This is Gabriella's Phone. From the film.''

A few students gasped.

,,I plan on creating a time-capsule display in our lobby. If they can have 40 sports-ball trophies, we deserve a little movie museum.'' the teacher explained, holding up the phone so everyone could see.

,,Okay, people, enough dazzle. Fetch your scripts please. Places for the top of the ski lodge!''

[thecurioustale]

Thank you!! This is super appreciated. As someone who has no networks and no following, getting feedback of any kind is actually even harder than raising money (!). It's absolutely bewildering to do stuff in a public-facing way for years and years and hear almost nothing but crickets. The feedback I do get is rare enough that individual instances of it visibly move the needle.

So! First things first; I'm delighted to hear you enjoyed the Prelude to After The Hero!

Mainly, however, I wanted to use a few of your points as springboards to raise some issues that I didn't touch on in my original post.

I think it's pretty natural for you as an author to engage with Tumblr primarily through longform text, but it is countervalent to the local culture.

This is something I thought about prior to my return to Tumblr. Most online spaces, just like most real-life ones, have a prevailing etiquette that one declines to comply with at one's own risk. And I explicitly thought about the fact that a lot of the posts I see on here are very short. In this and other respects, I was aware that I might very well return here and come across like a carpetbagger who knows nothing of Tumblr's ways. For all I know, some people did take away that impression.

I didn't act on my concern because, really, what can you do? Be passive for a long time and learn the ropes? All you really end up doing is letting other people live your life for you. As someone who's had a lifetime of not being accepted, I've gotten pretty good by now at just being myself. I figured the basics of good manners would get me by: Put a "keep reading" on super-long posts; provide hyperlinks where beneficial; don't go making trouble for no reason.

But, yeah, one of the impressions I've taken away from my six weeks here is that multiple long-form (or what we call "long-form" nowadays) posts per week is probably more than I need to be doing, and could actively be putting off people who want to read my posts but don't have five minutes a day to do it. (Though that's just speculation because, again, very little feedback!)

However, as a counterpoint to that:

another part is that terrible thing that happened to all our attention spans in the 21st century.

I am one of the few people to whom this didn't happen, and I've decided over the years to more or less be a bastion for others who don't consider a couple of full-figured paragraphs to be "a novel." Though I use the word "essay" casually nowadays, in my heart of hearts I think the only true essay I've written since returning here is the 7,000+ word essay on fat liberation; everything else has really just been casual light reading. My fiction likewise is very much a monument to the long attention span, with its indulgently slow developments. It's not written to be long on purpose, but rather I've consciously chosen to refrain from heeding most of the customs and conventions that would make it shorter, so as to be truer to myself in writing it.

So who knows; maybe it's just as well that I post longer stuff on here. One thing's for sure: In lieu of more data, I don't know!

A Homestuck fan can and will read Ulysses if it's mixed in with a brightly colored collage of jpegs!

This I fully agree with! I'm a writer myself (as in for work) and it's a basic truism that if you want audiences to read your content you should include pictures. I haven't really done any of that here on my return to Tumblr (and I rarely do it in general) because if I'm honest I have a hard time going through the rigmarole of it. But your feedback is a reminder that I really should be doing this.

The biggest problem with Tumblr, as I mentioned earlier, is that trying to get money out of it is absolutely squeezing blood from a stone. The userbase is aging, but it's still dramatically skewed towards people that don't have a lot of disposable income or social prestige

Yeah, for sure. Thankfully, my goal here isn't to get money, because as you say I would expect nothing at all to come from virtually any amount of effort toward that end. My purpose here is just to build my audience. (That's one of the principal reasons I haven't hawked more of my crap here, lol!) I would love to get to a point where I'd be able to reliably get feedback on anything I care to. I would then hope that, from there, the money would eventually take care of itself on the strength of my content here and elsewhere.

Anyway, thank you again very much for the feedback. At the risk of sounding trite, but for the sake of being earnest, "it means more than you know."

My 6-Week Tumblr Return Trial Period Is Up

Happy Autumn! Today is the Autumnal Equinox. (That is, if you're in the Pacific Daylight Time zone or earlier; it's actually tomorrow, the 23rd. The moment of equinox is 11:49 pm PDT this year.)

I came back to Tumblr six weeks ago (actually a little shy of seven weeks but six is the highest whole number) and said that I was going to give it consistent effort till the Equinox to see how I felt about it. Well, that day is today!

I've decided to significantly reduce my Tumblr presence, but not go back to zero like before. I still plan to post at least once or twice a week, and more whenever the fancy catches me. I don't want to slow-roll you, so there's the bottom line.

For those interested, I thought I would talk about my experience since returning.

Why I Came Back

A few years ago on my birthday I set myself a challenge of posting in my journal every day for a year—which I more or less did, and then promptly stopped because it had been a laborious thing for me with limited rewards.

This year on my birthday I decided to try that challenge again, except this time "soft": no formal public announcement, and no penalty if I missed a day. Good thing, too, because I missed a day right away! 😅 But I definitely was doing more and better writing on my journal than I had been, and I liked that. Maybe there was a sweet spot between the strict artifice of one journal entry every day and the sad default of no entries for weeks.

Then, a few days into the challenge, I got the idea of diverting this energy away from my journal and into social media, to try and begin the long process of building an audience for my creative works. I recognize with some dread that when I eventually do finish my next novel, no one is going to read it—because no one is going to know it exists. But that's not set in stone; this is something platforms can help with! And you can't just build a platform overnight. You have to start well in advance. In this post-mainstream-publishing era where independent artists' only hope is to create their own following, I knew that I would have to at least try, if I wanted people to actually read my work.

Building a platform is something I had done years ago, around the time the Prelude to After The Hero was coming out, and I was hugely successful at that time in creating lots of content and lots of channels—i.e. the platform part. But I didn't actually get anywhere in building an audience. Then my life fell apart from multiple catastrophes in a short period, and for many years I had no ability to pursue "platform growth" at all.

But I have that ability again, at least temporarily, and maybe this time I could do better.

Marketing and being social are very hard for me. They don't come naturally to me and I am not good at them. But what I can do is write about my creative work, my life, my take on the world, and anything else that comes to mind. With any luck, that would attract some eyeballs. It's the same thing I was doing eight years ago in my platform-building work, but I could be smarter about it this time, and learn from my past mistakes, which involved a lot of wasted effort that no one ever saw. This time I could try going specifically where the people are: social media! Social media was a part of my original platform-building push eight years ago, but only on the periphery. This time I could put all my platform-building into it, and not all the different channels at once, but just in one single place. Concentrate all my effort on a single point!

So I chose Tumblr: the only social media platform that still seems to reward long-form, thoughtful content. (Not counting YouTube video content.) Facebook is definitely on the way out as a relevant social media network, Twitter was unusually toxic even before the idiot took over, and TikTok to put it politely is not my jam. But Tumblr...I still use Tumblr! I still read several people's pages, and have done so for many years.

I was never actually active on Tumblr as a creator myself. As far as posting my own content goes, my social media home has always been on Facebook (and, for a while, Google+). My "return" to Tumblr this summer wasn't really anything of the sort. Even though my account is many years old, this summer was my first time making a big effort here.

And here's what I learned.

What Worked and What Didn't

I went in with very low expectations. In other words, I didn't actually expect anyone to see my work. I expected to put in my six weeks, toil away in obscurity the whole time, and leave.

But a couple people did notice my return, and reblogged my early posts, and between them they had enough followers that their reblogs got me a small influx of followers. (Hi!) So there were eyeballs, at least. I wasn't talking to the wall. It was a good bet that anything I wrote would at least have a chance of being seen by multiple other people.

A good start!

I set about trying to learn about the Tumblr algorithm and people's usage patterns. I learned that there is a very strong signal to set apart the content that people enjoy seeing and the content they don't. On the scale of Zero to Fire, a lot of what I wrote was either hard Zero or pretty decently Fire.

In the Zero category: My short-form humor was dead on arrival. So was my Tolkienian vocabulary series. My fat liberation essay—by far the biggest effortpost I made during my six weeks here—attracted a single troll and no legitimate engagement whatsoever. At 7700 words I doubt many people even read it. Cool art reblogs were also pretty much a Zero. The people in my tiny audience don't want to see any of this stuff, at least not from me.

In the Fire category: People liked my hot takes on copyright law, left-handedness, rationalist-adjacent topics and framings, some personal anecdotes (but not others), and—most promisingly—some of my discussion about the mechanics of authoring and writing, including topics such as redemption arcs, body diversity representation, losing interest in one's own stories, and long sentences. To the extent I am going to attempt to build a larger Tumblr following over time, this "mechanics of authoring" area is probably where I will focus my primary aim.

Not everything was Zero or Fire. There were also some posts in the middle. My posts actually discussing my own work, The Curious Tale and Galaxy Federal, landed in this space. They mostly fell flat for my general audience, but did noticeably better than the hard Zero stuff due to the consistent engagement of a tiny handful of fans. (Thank you, especially you Fip!)

In terms of financial support, six weeks of content creation on Tumblr yielded no book sales and no new patrons on my Patreon fund, though I did get one pledge increase from an existing patron! This isn't a big surprise, since I didn't make any push to attract new patrons and have made no attempt to hide that my book is also available for free. Still, zero is a noticeable number.

What Tumblr Feels Like

I'll be honest with you: I don't really "do" social media. I never have. I don't like social media. I am a creature of individual websites, web journals / blogs, and message forums. Facebook is the social network I use most (if you don't count YouTube), and my Facebook is set up more like a walled garden than a social network node—i.e., it is almost completely restricted to the people on my deliberately-short friends' list. I use it to look at cool pictures of clouds and landscapes, learn about things going on in my city, and keep in touch with friends. I've never really been one to use social media the way it is intended these days.

Nevertheless: Of all the social networks, I've always had a comparatively positive view of Tumblr. Tumblr is where freaks and weirdos come to be freaky and weird, and I love it. (Sometimes in principle more than practice, but still.) There used to be a tumblr called "Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms," and that was what I would point to whenever I had to explain to someone why I love Tumblr.

I also know there are notorious amounts of drama and pettiness on Tumblr, but in my experience it isn't so hard to just sidestep it most of the time. Also, I don't follow all that many people, so I probably just don't see much of this stuff in the first place.

When I returned to Tumblr I am pleased to say that it was basically what I hoped for: lots of wonderful niche and countercultural stuff; really thoughtful discussions that get a lot more depth here than almost anyplace else I've seen; and amazing art and fanart. There were lots of takes I didn't like, of course. Lots of stuff that rubbed me wrong. And the drama is definitely alive and well. But that's just life, right? As amplified by social media in all its unnuanced might. On the whole, I have enjoyed my time spent browsing Tumblr these past six weeks.

One thing actually did bring down my spirits about this place, though, and it has nothing to do with drama or takes I don't like: Tumblr feels kind of addictive. Like a giant industrial vat full of churning slurry, and if you fall in there's no getting out. I have an addictive personality, not to booze or drugs (as far as I know) but to content sources, specifically "content-firehose" websites that always have new things to read. I was stuck on GameFAQs for years back in the day, long after it had become a net-negative for me. Right now my big content addiction is Reddit, and it's definitely a net negative in my life for all the time it wastes for so little in return. And there have been many other content addictions in the years between. It's very hard for me to leave a content-firehose website once I've gotten sucked into it. And I really, really don't want to get sucked into Tumblr.

Like, this place is genuinely cool, but it doesn't "do it" for me like it did the last time I paid close attention to it. Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms is gone, and with it the innocence of my youth. Social media just isn't my scene, and returning to Tumblr has definitely given me the impression that I've "outgrown" it altogether. (I wrote a few days ago about one of the reasons why I think this.) I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time here. I don't have that content addiction to Tumblr yet, and I can feel myself actively straining to avoid developing it every time I'm on here. That's why I've only been reading my dashboard a few times a week.

I'm not saying social media is something juvenile that everyone is supposed to outgrow; I'm just talking about my own preferences and issues. My ideal use case for Tumble is to check in with Tumblr periodically and see new Samus Aran fanart and hot takes on cool things I've never heard about or thought deeply enough about. But, in practice, reading my Tumblr dashboard feels like dipping my feet in that vat of slurry I mentioned: It's very time-consuming and a lot of the stuff I see I don't really "need" in my life.

This six-week experiment has actually helped me to realize that, going forward, I should be looking to use social media less in my life, not more. It isn't just all-consuming and energy-draining; it has become kind of evil over the years. Tumblr isn't nearly as bad as some of the worst offenders, but on the whole we're slowly being pushed to use these services in very particular ways, ways which degrade us, and it's nefarious. Not just the abuse of our personal information and privacy, but the way we spend our time and think about the world. Social media seems to be making society actively worse on the whole, and that's down to the profit motives of the people who make the rules about how these services operate. It's probably not a coincidence that Tumblr, as one of the least-problematic major social networks, is also not particularly profitable.

I have lamented for years that I wish we would go back to individual people's websites and enthusiast–owned-and-operated message forums. I really think that this viewpoint is not just my nostalgia glasses talking; I think the individual websites paradigm was a better way of experiencing the Internet and interacting with each other. But while I can't do much to change society's patterns in general, I can at least be deliberate about how I engage with social media myself. And I think I'm going to be doing less of that as time goes on.

My actual public face is my Live Journal, even though it has languished for years. Either it or some successor blog is likely to be an ongoing constant for the rest of my life. I hope people will gradually find me there.

The Long Game

You're not gonna build an audience in six weeks. I know that. Also, in my time here, I've only done one of the two things that one needs to do to build an audience on social media: I've created content. I think my content has been more or less decent. (You can tell me if you think otherwise.)

What I haven't done is heavily engage with other content creators. I haven't done many reblogs; I've done zero asks; and I don't follow other tumblrs in a businesslike mindset of network—I only follow the ones I think I might like to read.

If I were to continue, the next step in my trial period would be a 3-month experiment. I've had enough success here in the past six weeks to justify dedicating another three months of my life to daily Tumblr posts if I want.

In that time I would need to focus more on the "networking" side of social networking. On the content side, I would continue trying to figure out what people like to see and what they don't. But it's the networking stuff that would be next in line for my full attention.

I'm also aware that all of my data are biased by the small size of my audience and the nonrandom composition of it. There is a danger in optimizing for that, from a long-term scalability and optimization standpoint. My social networking efforts would have to be geared toward diversifying my audience as much as growing it, because the truth of the matter is that I don't know yet who "my" audience truly is. Most of the people here now are people who are here because they like other creators and respected those people's recommendations—not because they necessarily like my art. The poor showing of my posts discussing my art kind of speak to that point.

So the question is, do I have a 3-month trial period in me? Or even just another 6-week period?

And that's a really tough question. I need to be writing my books, and I need to be paying my rent, and when I'm here on Tumblr I'm not doing either of those things. The best-case scenario is that by being here I'm setting myself up to pay future rents and have more available time for future creative writing. But in the meantime there are rents coming due in the immediate future, and my mental bandwidth is sickly and limited.

Is Tumblr even the place to build my audience? It might not be! It might be YouTube. It probably is YouTube. But Tumblr isn't nothing, and writing short essays is a hell of a lot faster than producing videos. A few loyal Tumblr followers might be just the pop I would need to get a future YouTube effort off to a running start.

One of my flaws as an entrepreneur is that I hate thinking like one when it comes to this whole sales / engagement / audience-building / marketing stuff. I like thinking about people as people, not as economic partners whose tastes and needs I must carefully accommodate to in order to hopefully earn a living from this someday. And I don't like thinking about my own content here as "content." I hate that word. But I am under no illusions about why I am here. I am not here for fun. I've done my Live Journal "for fun" for twenty years (as of last month!) and I have no audience to show for it. Growing an audience is not about having fun. Bonus points if you can manage to have fun along the way, but what it's really about is giving people an experience that they enjoy and want more of.

Social media is a hungry beast, a dehumanizing force (in my view), and an algorithmic rat race. I would much rather create content on my own terms, rather than try to play the social media game. This is one of the many reasons why I am so bad at the whole marketing side of building a business. Successful entrepreneurs dive right into it and give the people what they want. Like that "emotional damage" mate on YouTube: He gave an interview talking about how he just tried different schticks, not even comedy per se, until he found something that worked on people.

In an ideal world, when my next book is finished I could just press a button and everyone in the world know about its existence, and everyone who is interested could buy it and read it. But in the real world, you have to peck and scrape your way to attention, and I'm just so bad at this that it discourages me from even making the attempt.

So, adding it all up, what I come up with is that it would be wasteful for me to just abruptly give up on Tumblr as suddenly as I returned to it. I've started a ball rolling here, and I can build on that beginning if I want. But I also don't think that people need to hear from me on a daily basis. I'm probably not doing myself any favors by posting effortful content every day, not just in terms of my own sustainability but in terms of the algorithms of Tumblr and the mental bandwidth of my readers.

So I've come to the conclusion that Tumblr is probably not where my audience is going to be built, if indeed I ever manage to build one. But there is some potential here, and, more importantly, this is where the vast majority of my current fans are.

Ergo, going forward I will be reducing my posting frequency to a target of once or twice per week, plus whatever extras I see fit to add. I will continue to test out different types of content to see what catches interest. And I will start playing that social networking game that I dread so much, and try to engage more with others and hawk myself far and wide without looking like I'm trying to hawk myself, because for all that we claim to live in an age of sincerity we absolutely don't, and we will see where things go.

I will revisit this at Halloween, and see how I feel about it.

In the meantime, I will try to take some of this bandwidth I am freeing up and allocate it to other audience-building work. More on that as I have it for you!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for giving me some of your time. Please please please do give me some feedback if there's anything you want to know or want to see me discuss.

[neubauje]

Ancient jewish puns

[3:59:44 AM] neubauje: lol you should have seen me today

[4:00:07 AM] neubauje: I went on a mini-rant about my "own" religion to my innocent bystander friends

[4:00:17 AM] neubauje: they didn't say a WORD

[4:00:32 AM] Spazfox: Fun times.

(this is where I would insert a line break if I knew how)

Nie, [25.04.17 13:56][throws cold ham at]

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 13:56]um

Nie, [25.04.17 13:57]Thats what im eating

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 13:57]what's ham made out of dumbass

Nie, [25.04.17 13:57]Pork, but last i checked you didnt eat kosher

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 13:57]bruh I haven't eaten pork in 10+ years

Nie, [25.04.17 13:58]Bruh you never told me that

Nie, [25.04.17 13:58]Just that you hated bacon

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 13:58]and what is bacon made of

Nie, [25.04.17 13:58]You can hate bacon without hating pork dumbass

Nie, [25.04.17 13:58]Dont try to guilt trip me for you not tellin me shit lol

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 13:59][ 😟 Sticker ]

Doom, [25.04.17 13:59]Funny story that shows my Spanish has clearly deteriorated. So I'm at a cafe and they have 'pata' for sale and I'm like 'ah, a duck sandwich. I fucking love duck I'll have it'. So there I am happily eating my sandwich and my mum pops back from some sort of appointment and she's like 'you know that's pig's foot right?'. Pata means foot. Pato is duck.

Nie, [25.04.17 14:00]LOL

Doom, [25.04.17 14:00]I was wondering why it was so fatty and stringy

Nie, [25.04.17 14:01]well now you know you like the taste of pata

Nie, [25.04.17 14:01]Maybe not the texture though

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:23]I don't prefer most pork things, but I'll eat it if that's what's for lunch iykwim

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:23]Keeping kosher is waaay too much trouble in america

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:24]And I do like a good cheeseburger

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 14:24]pork is the easiest to avoid so that's what I cut out

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 14:24]but you'll pry my cheese and meat tacos from my cold dead hands

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:24]What about shrimp and catfish

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 14:24]never been a fan of seafood

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:25]Well there you go

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:25]What I always found ridiculous about keeping kosher is the "building a wall around the torah" aspect... When they build a wall around the wall and then a wall around that wall

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:27]Like they take the line "don't boil a calf in its mother's milk" and instead of taking away "hey maybe we shouldn't be unnecessarily cruel and thoughtless to animals" they ended up with "don't mix milk with meat"

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:27]Including chicken meat, which doesn't even lactate??

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:27]Noooo problem mixing chicken meat with eggs though

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:28]As for which animals are/are not kosher? Totally arbitrary. They were based on classifications at a time when bats were still considered birds

Randy Skayvage, [25.04.17 14:29]Not necessarily. If you consider it in terms of which foods would/wouldn't spoil quickly or have the potential to be dangerous health-wise.

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:29]At the time? Maybe. These days, no longer relevant

neubauje, [25.04.17 14:30]But that's all the ranting about my own religion that I have time for right now I got to be going to work

[4:04:25 AM] neubauje: do NOT feel obligated to read all that

[4:04:31 AM] neubauje: the top bit is mostly for context

[4:04:55 AM] neubauje: as it turns out, I still silently hold a grudge against my more conservative family members

[4:06:39 AM] neubauje: the reasonings they give for still being as observant as they are have always seemed like indoctrinated bullshit based mostly in faith and tradition

[4:07:03 AM] neubauje: like, I GET tradition? as in, a way to spiritually connect with your ancestors? but like... there's a line, yo.

[4:07:16 AM] neubauje: and faith, I just have zero patience for

[4:07:33 AM] Spazfox: It's almost like rules dreamed up in the bronze age and sold as being holy are kinda dumb. :P

[4:07:45 AM] neubauje: almost!!

[4:07:56 AM] Spazfox: Bats are birds, ya know.

[4:08:02 AM] neubauje: -_-

[4:10:37 AM] neubauje: so do I consider myself jewish? kinda. if one can be a secular jew, that's what I am. in the spirit of understanding and acknowledging my ancestry, I learn the history, I learn the rules and the reasons, I learn the Hebrew. but I make my own decisions and lifestyle from there thank you very much.

[4:10:51 AM] neubauje: and honestly, if you ask me, the best parts of Judaism are all about that kind of mindset anyway

[4:31:28 AM] neubauje: aha, after doing some more research on the passage in question, I see now that there are TWO words in the "birds not to eat" section which both have very little context elsewhere in the torah... so scholars are pretty much guessing that at least one of them means "bat" but they aren't sure which one, and what the other one would be

[4:31:53 AM] neubauje: that's the trouble with dead languages :/

[4:32:28 AM] neubauje: I wanna know how they managed to figure out what the Hebrew word for "hyrax" was... I don't recall there ever being any other context for a hyrax

[4:32:57 AM] Spazfox: You know, somebody should come up with a method for working out how the world actually functions instead of just using guesswork and folk wisdom.

[4:33:07 AM] neubauje: you mean science?

[4:33:16 AM] Spazfox: Something like that.

[4:35:53 AM] neubauje: yeah basically this whole chapter reads like a beginner's guide to virology

[4:36:08 AM] neubauje: they even mention carcasses falling into earthenware which must then be shattered

[4:36:20 AM] neubauje: because it won't air out like clothing or wooden vessels will

[4:36:36 AM] neubauje: they were TRYING to science, they just weren't very good at it yet

[4:37:51 AM] Spazfox: Yeah, it kinda took people a while.

[4:38:11 AM] Spazfox: And, like, books and stuff.

[4:39:01 AM] neubauje: yeeeahhhh about four or five thousand years, give or take

[4:48:09 AM] neubauje: oh my god are you kidding me

http://thetorah.com/meat-and-milk-origins-in-the-text/

[4:48:24 AM] neubauje: okay so the milk and meat thing? turns out it has nothing to do with cooking at all

[4:48:34 AM] neubauje: it's just a turn of phrase for "hey don't procrastinate"

[4:48:42 AM] Spazfox: HA!

[4:49:17 AM] neubauje: even the guys looking at it in the second context have completely missed that it STILL works as "hey don't procrastinate" just a little more of a pun based on what they were saying not to procrastinate about

[4:50:00 AM] neubauje: (which was don't WAIT until the animal has already died before you eat it, make sure it dies by your hand... because illness is a thing that might have killed it)

[4:50:27 AM] neubauje: omfg

[4:50:32 AM] neubauje: I just... I can't anymore

[4:50:44 AM] neubauje: the ancient jews made a fucking pun

[4:50:55 AM] neubauje: and people are like "hurr durr no more cheeseburgers"