#I used to hear a random fact

[new-berry]

The curve of the earth makes a horizon

Martin/ Ben all fiction, future fic 2063? You are wrong about seeing a spelling mistake.

“When you kiss me I feel like it’s going to be like this forever. A better version of forever, that never gets boring.”

Martin looks through the lens of his camera, adjusting the shot by millimetres until the image was perfectly centred on nothing at all important.

There is a lot of rock. “Lots of fucking rock.” He says out loud. Looking around guilty for a second like someone might hear him. That someone might take notice of this old man standing on the lip of the Caynon taking photographs.

A late in life hobby, an excuse to go out into the wilderness. Careful, sanitised, wilderness. Retracing the holidays they took when they were younger.

His kids, their kids, insisting on regular check-ins, and scrutinising his itinerary. Turning into the hectoring nags they accused him of being when they were young. He takes a ridiculous deep satisfaction at this.

Martin knows that people can drown in sand. His kids, their kids, scold him for watching too many grim documentaries. Like he isn’t Nordic. Like every God his people ever had wasnt mostly a warning that the vagaries of fate will screw you over every time.

Kids raised in too much American sun. Playing in the pool with their dad. Martin the one with snacks and sunscreen. The desert lays waiting on the ground and in the air, and you can wake up with a throat like sandpaper and your lungs squeezing pain every time you draw breath.

There is a difference looking into a fjord, a satisfying cool promise. Ben cutting through the water like an otter. The summer of the midnight sun when Martin walked around every day with a ring in his pocket trying to find the perfect moment to propose.

Martin read that you, a younger you he supposes, even younger than his children now. You can see for nearly five kilometres before the curve - like a wine glass held with the stem between the index and middle finger, red wine swirling a little with the hand moving in time to the conversation full bloodied and alive on your tongue - of the earth makes a horizon.

That is a long way to see, longer if it is both behind and ahead of you. Martin turns away from the agonised mouth of the Grand Canyon. It looks, he’s pleased, exactly like he remembers. Exactly like yesterday. Exactly like last week. Exactly like forty years ago.

When they were young and Martin would insist they had to do something utterly different, and then park up on a beach for Ben.

The first time they saw the Victoria Falls and all that water was just too much to process and he and Ben had gone back to the lodge, barely speaking to each other the whole way home, and fucked all night. Hands rolling over each other like white water, faster and faster and dissolving into steam.

How they had missed two days of the safari and could have just stayed in London and fucked in their own bed. How Ben had looked so wide eyed and innoncent and said “a lot of fucking zebras man” whenever people asked about their trip.

He didn’t understand The Falls then, didn’t understand canyons, terrified by their immensity. He needed the thin steel of Ben behind him to back him up. Needed Ben’s breath in his ear and his hands on his hips. Now he gets it. The extent of time, the patience of waiting to cut through the last few layers of rock to the soft belly of the world underneath. Not blooming and fading, patient and enduring.

Love as a dream that someone else had last night. Martin woke up early, still cool enough to walk up to the edge here. Pretty soon the stones will be spiky with heat. He’s here under a sensible beige hat, his face shaded. Trousers with too many pockets and his kids, their kids, unread messages on his phone. An expensive gold watch that he rescued from Ben’s wrist.

He rests his hands on the metal guardrail that will soon be too hot to touch. The phantom of tattooed fingers that used to slide over his rest just outside his vision.

Eventually, the sludge left of the Colorado River still wading through the bottom of the Canyon will cut right through to the other side of the earth. This is how long it would have taken Ben and the boys to dig a hole to China, like they tried to years ago.

Ben’s face so serious, and their faces so intent. Blurred in his memory to little shovels moving as sand was flung around, all their shoulders getting red. The next morning the tide had smoothed the beach flat and they made sandcastles, Martin balancing out the sides where they were uneven, and Ben decorating them with shells. The careful little hands patting sand into place now sending him daily messages reminding him to hydrate properly in the heat.

He couldn’t have coped with that dark plodding river so many miles below his feet alone when he was young. Would have been terrified with the idea of running out of time. So much to achieve, so few winters left.

It is almost dark by the time Martin pulls into the small town he’s been using as a home base. It’s almost time to move on, he can feel it. Too long in the dust, and he’s longing for a damp that can settle in his body and anchor his brittle bones down. But he keeps driving around these small towns with their ordered streets filling in a checkerboard on the map. First street the thickest black line through the centre of the town, cutting second street west off and making it second street east, making order of the desert.

He came here, decades ago, with Ben. They were new to each other then and imagined, he imagined, you could make order by planning. But they didn’t stick to the route, they went off the map. Kept the secrets though, the ones they whispered, the ones they thought.

That trip that was carefully named many things, a vacation, a break, a road trip. A get away. Before the beach. Neither of them willing to admit out loud yet that it was a dress rehearsal for their possible future.

The two of them. A car. Two boys at play, all the weight of London sanded off. When he finally saw the Canyon he understood their trip. The first time he had gone to the desert he was a child and time has wounded his face to grooves but he’s still a boy hopelessly in love. Tripping over his tongue and Ben’s trying to explain what he wanted their future to be.

In his dreams he is young. And Ben is there. Ben drives and Martin has just woken up, woozy and not entirely sober after sleeping in a moving car. And he can smell Ben’s sweat on him, feel the salt and skin itching under his fingernails. Ben isn’t talking, just driving through the black, humming in tune with the white lines, dots and dashes, that appear in the headlights.

A truck appears from nowhere and breaks the spell, and Ben spills out a flood of words and love that chip the first stone face of the canyon away.

He’s told his kids, their kids, he’s travelling around. But he’s never far from a canyon. Every day when he comes back from walking the scrub looking for inconsequential images he can send back - nothing with bones picked clean in the sun, nothing with snakes, nothing with vultures posed on power lines like cartoons - he reminds himself it’s time to go soon.

Propped against the lamp is the last picture he took of Ben, when Ben was only just there. It’s in the sun all day and it’s faded almost away. And Martin holds to the idea for seconds every morning that replacing the past is as possible as replacing a photograph. That last picture that he took as much with his mind as his camera, swept years and travel from Ben’s body. Martin can only see his eyes and the gleam they held.

The smooth ordered bands of his skin with the carefully shaved beard that Martin would run his fingers over. Even now he runs his fingers over the image, Like peeling a sun burnt layer of skin off. The same way he’s brushed frost from a window, cleaned dust from a shelf, and underneath, not another layer, but the gleam of the glass and wood, the round of bones.

He knows that he can’t walk to the edge too many more mornings. That their kids are waiting, messages need to be answered, and the garden they planted needs watering. That no matter how far into the horizon he looks he won’t find that flung apart longing that they left here years and years ago. The earth curves, closes off behind you, no matter how desperately you look back.

[ganondoodle]

wait i just realized... the mastersword isnt even important enough to warrant zelda doing to such extreme lengths to repair it bc its NOT EVEN REQUIRED FOR DEFEATING GANONDORF

idk about you but the mastersword being not just this weak after all this but also not even required is like ... hurting the whole plot SO bad for all that zelda knew she was basically killing herself by doing the dragon thing ONLY for the mastersword, which isnt even needed to reach the end why do the dragon thing at all??? she could have put it in some other divine place for it to recover (she knew where the springs are, she knew where the krog forest is, heck she even knew where the forgotten temple is BC THEY WERE ALL THERE* and im not going to belive any of them came into existence afterwards), in botw it took 'only' a 100 years to regenerate the damage it took in botws past which, while not as extreme as in totk, was pretty bad! yeah it gets outright broken in totk but like ... really? far over 10 000 years to recover it? through ZELDA? one of the most divine being IN THE FORM of one of the most divine beings aside from the very gods themselves?? whats the use of it being able to regernate if it takes THAT long?? feels easier to forge a new one for that matter?? and the excuse that "it needed to be able to resist miasma" is like .. why tho? yeah ok fine i could do the entire bossfight with JUST the mastersword, but again, its not required! i can do it with anything else!! and its doesnt cleanse miasma either, like the sword did in tp when you could do away the twilight stuff when it got the super glow stuff so its really like ... she did that JUST for the sword? really? the fact that her becoming a dragon is the way to get her back into her time isnt something she could have known and it working out like that makes it feel like a massive fail of the writers bc it makes it feel less like an actual decision she made for good reason and more bc its a decision the writers made bc the writers already knew where it would end, the writers knew shed be turned back in the end no problem so they had her do the dragon thing despite it being pretty senseless from her perspective

(wouldnt it have felt more in character and logical to put the mastersword somwhere safe where it can recover over all those centuries and search for a way to return to her time herself? like in these two games ZELDA feels like the more important thing that the sword, -zeldas prone to sacrifice herself for other- WHY! its better for everyone if you are alive rather than dead! you got to this time by yourself and also somehow not jsut shifted the time but also PLACE bc you sure as hell didnt appear in a cavern in the middle of the land, you have wielded incredible magic before and are a researcher, surely theres some way for you to at least TRY to return on your own?? how cool would it have been to find little markers and spots where clearly she has left you some sort of message, maybe like a way for you to do something that helps her in the past, USE THE WEIRD ASS TIME BUBBLES FROM THE TUTORIAL AGAIN!! send back something she needs to return! go and talk with impa and purah to determine what shes trying to tell you, help her along the way and in the end she makes her triumphant return, having grown and learned with what she did instead of regressing her chaarcter to the big eyed maiden that you get as a reward at the end through unsatisfying bs reasons and hurray she doesnt even remember, perfect little fairytale of no consequences wahoo- im salty about this let me be salty-)

you can absolutely combine a free to explore open world with good story without restricting it by much, like locking the bossfight behind aquiring the mastersword doesnt feel like that big of a change and its not making it a whole lot more linear, most people do it anyway right?

(also a thing im doing in my rewrite of it is locking certain things for some parts, it just makes sense if you are trying to tell a story, but its pretty clear now they werent trying to do that, just throw you into a box of virtual toys, and i think thats just sad)

*yeah actually whats up with the sonau/rauru putting their little nuclear super weapon storage room inTO THE ANCIENT RELICT OF THE FORGOTTEN PAST TEMPLE BEHIND THE BIGGEST STATUE OF HYLIA IN EXISTENCE?? you cant tell me all those ancient ruins (springs, forgotten temple) were made AFTER all of the shitshow that went down in totks past; putting it behind that statue? building it into there feels incredibly disrespectful, maybe it makes more sense if you just see it as the devs wanting to put somethign new there, but if you consider it in universe its just ??? also HOW is any of it in such a good shape??, it looks like they buried sonia there a year ago, the structures look like they just came out of a 3d printer despite supposedly being older than their recorded history??

on that note ... how does the room with the order and location of zeldas tears make sense .. are you telling me someone of the past ran around after dragon zelda recording where her fucking tears went down and what markings it made on the ground and then built a room next to the nuclear weapon storage room with the laughably unceremonial grave of the fucking queen just to put all that into statue form? also none of the geographical things changed in ALL that time?? the castle is drawn on there too so i guess that was super fresh then since it "was built above ganondorf as a symbol of royal blahbla" at least in botw you had the photos on your SHIEKAH stone to recover them once you found the place they were taken in, it felt so organically integrated ..

[roseworth]

i think its evil and pointless that they split wicked into two movies and the worst part about it is that the best songs are in act two so the first movie wont even have the bangers

[steelycunt]

‘gay retelling of a classic!’ ‘feminist sapphic twist on this greek myth!’ why don’t you write a better book than that. i think we deserve better books than that

[angeloftrumpets]

shout out to one of the guys on r*blox i was beefing with and said "thats disgusting youre taking stuff out of context in the bi/ble" to me saying my favorite part of the bible is archa.ngel gab.riel kissing me directly on the mouth

[jessiesjaded]

I know that we're so used to having everything handed to us immediately these days but it does drive me crazy how people cannot wait for confirmed reports on serious things- like the information will come eventually but no one can sit and wait until shit is confirmed, so they just start spreading any rumour they see and it's like.... you're not helping. You're only muddying the waters. When it's something serious, it's especially not helpful. What is so difficult about not spreading unconfirmed rumours? what is so difficult about actually waiting to find out specifics? Jumping to action isn't always helpful, sometimes inaction until further notice is better.

[crowcryptid]

WORK NIGHTMARE INCREASED

NIGHTMARE! NIGHTMARE!

One of my much older cousins works at my job now?? Has been there for months?? Works in the building right next to mine but I never saw her till today??

anyway. I don’t know who told her or HOW she even knows this but she was like “So you’re like gay right? Or is it something else?” We. Are in public. My coworker walked by just a few minutes later. SHE COULD HAVE HEARD THAT. HELLO? SELF AWARENESS? HELLO??

HOW DID YOU EVEN KNOW THAT. I NEVER TALK ABOUT IT. I don’t think it’s obvious either. If it was obvious I think women would be more friendly with me

I did not know what to do man I just kinda nervously laughed and told her I don’t like to talk about it and then she’s like “I’m open minded” Yeah ok. Anyway I just was like “we can talk about that some other time” because wtf

She asked so many questions. Interrogated me.

Now she knows that’s where I walk through and there’s no other way for me to go to avoid her.

[killianhemlock]

SENZ I KNOW YOU’LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE THIS AND I WILL NEVER HAVE THE BALLS TO POST THIS SOMEWHERE UOU CAN SEE BUT LISTEN TO ME !!!!!!!!!! PEOPLE LOVE YOUR CHARACTER, ALL OF HIS FLAWS ARE WHAT MAKES HIS CHARACTER SO GREAT IT ISNT A HINDRANCE AT ALLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOPIXEL IS HARSH SOMETIMES AND MOST OF THE THINGS DONE TO LINK AFFECTED YOU TOO AND THATS OKAY!!!! YOURE FINDING YOUR GROUP!! YOURE FINDING YOUR MOTIVATION !!

SHAKES HOU SHAKES YOU SHAKES YOU PLEASE HEAR ME DUDE YOU ARE DOING SO FUCKING WELL FOR KNOWING ABSOLUTELY NO ONE GOING INTO THE CITY !!!!! YOURE DOING SO GREAT AND PEOPLE LOVE YOUR CHARACTER !!!!!! YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST WITH WHAT WAS GIVEN TO YOU, AND YOURE EATING THAT SHIT UP !!!!! KEEP GOING DUDE !!!!!

[wanderingmind867]

Speaking of useless trivia (something I have an overabundance of): did you know Zach Galifianakis's uncle nearly became a US Senator? It's true. Nick Galifianakis was a congressman from North Carolina in the 60s who ran for Senator of North Carolina in 1972. He lost to infamous rascist and extreme conservative Jesse Helms, a man known for hating gays and black people. Jesse Helms hated the civil rights act, for God's sakes! He was possibly even more conservative than Ronald Reagan! He was awful! But clearly North Carolininians in the 1970s liked him. They reelected him over Nick Galifianakis fairly handily. But that's an interesting story, isn't it? Not something I would have known if not for my current (I think it's still currently ongoing) political hyperfixation. Here's a link to show how I learned all this:

[outlying-hyppocrate]

now that luke black knows about fr*nchified sameaux mi sais spavas i am complete. i <12 that so much

[baycitystygian]

I already know I’m autistic but if I didn’t already then the fact that I noticed the difference in mixing between the version I’m used to of “White & Nerdy” and the Dolby master on apple music wouldve for sure tipped me off

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[sheeezu]

Yes, this is a new account, I just made this. I don't care if people question the authenticity of my post, my experience as a shifter, or whatever I'm about to say.

I don't know how to use Tumblr, nor do I know how to make my post reach people who need it, nor would I be a narcissist and say "you're lucky if you found my post!" I don't mind if this reaches an audience or not, I'm glad to get everything off my chest.

Yes. I've shifted.

I have shifted realities, more times than I can count on my fingers, and that is for a very specific reason, which I'll explain later.

I'm writing this because I'm about to permashift, and no, I won't hear out any antishifters or people who don't like permashifting in general, I don't care about your opinion so don't waste my time.

Before I start, I'd like to say one thing:

I was irrational minded, I lacked belief in myself and shifting. Shifting often times felt like a chore more than a fun activity, and i have to admit, it became an unhealthy habit.

So? Why did I mention this?

Because I had been lurking around shifting communities and I realised everyone feels like this, a very (mentally) painful feeling where the lack of shifts starts acting as your biggest enemy, and the phrase:

"Shifting needs practice!"

Sounds like poison when it comes from an experienced shifter.

Though, is the phrase actually true?

No, not at all.

Shifting does not need practice!!

Here's why:

(BTW, I will explain my "method", no matter if I have time or not. Also, I don't call this reality "Current Reality", instead I call it Void reality, so don't get confused.)

The "practice" you're doing is only affecting your void reality (taking time out of your day, making you constantly think you're in your learning phase, so it doesn't exactly lead to your desired reality, does it?)

Of course, if you view it as a skill, it will in some way act like that, it'll become a skill for you, and you can never succeed on your first, second, third, hundredth try, because in your brain you have registered the fact that shifting is this grand, universal task, and that it is very difficult (because its common sense that you practice difficult things to get good at them)

Practice is a very humane and earthly act, if people have succeeded doing just practice, then good for then, they're right in their own way, but it didn't work for me, and in my opinion it's the worst way to view shifting, and often times it is demotivating, and you'll mess up you're entire journey.

Shifting is not a skill, shifting is a universal law.

I'll become more clear as I explain my journey:

My journey:

I found shifting from a random YouTube video 3 years ago. I might have only said cool and moved along.

A year later something traumatic happened in my life, which shook me so badly I needed an escape.

First of all, I chose astral projecting, but I realised I was too much of a coward to do so.

Then I came towards shifting, first DR was very typical, it was Hogwarts.

Having no knowledge whatsoever in the topics of spirituality, meditation, I went straight to methods, because they were like guides for me, I was very inexperienced, of course, and looked at other people and what they were doing for guidance.

Alice in wonderland method didn't do much, raven method was too uncomfortable (side note, all this raven method does is make you too focused on your void reality, cmon, in your DR are you laying down like a starfish?) And I was having terrible trouble with my intrusive thoughts (which made the floor disappear from under my feet, made the stairs for the stairs method too short to climb or straight up made them dissappear as well)

I didn't have any luck that year, no mini shifts, no lucid dreams, or sleep paralysis. And my DRs never remained constant. They always changed on a daily basis.

I was big on methods, I couldn't realize they never worked for me.

Although, this year of failure led me to finally figure out where I belonged.

A DR made out of scratch, which I spend much effort in putting the pieces of it together.

The DR, which was called "Home reality" really made me feel settled in my journey.

LOA, and the consciousness theory were the leading factors which made me shift.

And don't worry, it isn't what you're tired of being told, I didn't just apply any orthodox definition of LOA and succeeded.

Background to my first shift:

It was a particularly stressful day, I really missed my home.

I was studying at my college (I still am, but...) and I was dreading giving a chemistry test, I did not prepare. In my mind, one thing was constantly looping in my head.

The scenario of the chemistry teacher coming in, and taking the test, and the next day I get it handed back with a big fat zero.

But then I stopped and wondered, having already known about the consciousness theory, so according to it:

"I am constantly letting this thought run in my mind, and constantly letting this reality dictate what happens next."

Basically, I realized what was about to happen next was indirectly in my control, but with my line of thinking, I was letting this reality control it directly.

I stopped, like actually stopped thinking.

And with a blank mind I thought.

"I won't have to take any test today."

And went around telling my classmates this with a confident tone.

The teacher came in, said we'll instead do some practicals in lab.

So the test got cancelled.

Going home, I got excited, i felt powerful.

I decided to apply this to shifting.

Before shifting, I took a nap during the day, (if you're tired your body insists on sleeping, so your mind will get hazy and you will start acting lazy towards your goal)

And after living how I normally would, before bedtime, I listened to some songs, and look at a Pinterest board which reminded me of my home reality.

My method and what happened next:

First phase of shifting:

When I laid down on the bed to start shifting, I first got comfy (for me, if I feel sleepy for some reason, I laid on my back, I can't fall asleep in that position, but if I think ill stay awake until I reach a "detached state" then I sleep on my side, it's comfortable)

I obviously wasn't checking the time, but I spent about 10 minutes getting relaxed, all I do to relax is:

a) look at the blackness (closed eyes, looks like starry skies) and try to believe I'm looking at the milky way.

b) think about my home reality, just faces of my loved ones, and nostalgia inducing images.

c) Affirm, but don't focus entirely on affirming, usually in the back of my mind I'm repeating "I have shifted to my home reality" "I have shifted my senses to my home reality" "I have stopped sensing the void reality" "I am smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing and seeing my home reality" no other fancy affirmations required. (Now that I think about it, you need to affirm NOW because this method has two phases, one where you are shifting, and one where you have shifted, and you are in the 3D, where you are occupying your DR self, their thoughts, and memories, and popular method usually only have one phase, either you are shifting, or have shifted. So my point is if you affirm later and you'll be affirming when you're supposed to be in your DR, and obviously, your DR self won't be spouting out affirmations about shifting to a random reality for no reason.)

During this time, you'll feel tingly all over. It's a good sign.

And you'll feel a certain detachment, like you aren't exactly here, you have no idea what position you're lying in, and where your feet are. (Please, for the love of God do not start counting your feet or get freaked out that you can't feel your leg, you'll come back to the void reality.)

So you can start the next phase.

Middle phase (optional):

To prepare for the next and last phase, you can do this to get ready, or don't (First read the third phase)

This is all about connection to your DR.

Think about memories from your DR, focus on the faces of your loved ones, the way you act, talk, your mannerisms in your DR, or you can simply say affirmations like these one:

My name is ___.

I work as a ___.

My age is ___.

Don't try to imagine vividly or anything, lightly touch upon the basic details of your DR, the construction and foundation of any reality and the person, who has existed there for their entire life.

(That's you!)

Phase three:

Take a sudden, abrupt stop from your stream of thoughts. (Yes intrusive thoughts will still pop up but don't give any importance to them) when you're in a blank state of mind, not longer than 30 seconds, you need to build up to the last step of your shifting method, and journey.

a) start imagining hearing the voices of your loved ones or just any voice, calling your DR name, your nicknames, with different tones. (For example, i heard my name in an angry tone from my father when he was scolding me, I heard my name followed by a laughter when my S/O teased me.)

OK, for me, I started feeling intense, groundshaking symptoms at this moment. Sudden flashing of lights, extreme feeling of floating, and ofcourse, feeling tingliness so much that it felt like pins and needle on my entire body. (I did ignore the symptoms)

b) plan the rest of your day in your DR, which you will be spending.

AGAIN, PLEASE DON'T SAY IT LIKE THIS.

❌️When I reach my DR ❌️ I will have to go to that eye specialist for that appointment.

Instead: (and the more you personalize it, the better)

Ughhh, I have to go to that appointment- this day will suck.

(Don't mind my example, that was the only thing I could think of at the moment)

c) in this reality, you are constantly thinking of something, your thoughts are definitely what constructs this reality, and your current thoughts are affecting your subconscious. (By this point, your subconscious is grounded in your DR, so don't worry about that bastard.)

Now, you're going to start thinking, thoughts which are going on in your DR self's mind, start with one sentence, with which you'll be able to start consciously thinking like your DR self.

And think in the style, tone, and mood of your DR self, and keep the thoughts strictly related to your DR.

Thats it, but what happens afterwards? And what happened to me?

So for me, I started feeling weird while I was thinking.

And I remember I thought this:

"Ugh, I don't want eggs for breakfast."

(I'm not saying this is the key to shifting, at this point, I had covered various topics, including, weather, my upcoming work assignment, and praised my S/O for a good 5 minutes.)

And I started panting, like suddenly I was trying to catch my breath, the room felt bright, so I opened my eyes, and well, I was in my home reality :)

I was delirious for a few second, my S/O was looking at me worriedly, but surprisingly, it didn't even take me a minute to adjust, it felt all so natural and I wasn't scared.

I didn't even feel emotional, at all, and didn't hug my S/O with tears in my eyes, I straight up asked to be served breakfast, incase anyone was wondering.

So that's it.

Although i have much to say, I'm tired of writing, but I'm more than willing to answer each and every one of your questions, although I only have 7 hours left till I permashift, I'll remain mostly active till then.

And no, I'm not rereading this to fix my grammar, so just ask if anything confused you.

Ask away.

I'm still not sure if this'll reach anyone or not.

[lumsel]

chinese room 2

So there’s this guy, right? He sits in a room by himself, with a computer and a keyboard full of Chinese characters. He doesn’t know Chinese, though, in fact he doesn’t even realise that Chinese is a language. He just thinks it’s a bunch of odd symbols. Anyway, the computer prints out a paragraph of Chinese, and he thinks, whoa, cool shapes. And then a message is displayed on the computer monitor: which character comes next?

This guy has no idea how the hell he’s meant to know that, so he just presses a random character on the keyboard. And then the computer goes BZZZT, wrong! The correct character was THIS one, and it flashes a character on the screen. And the guy thinks, augh, dammit! I hope I get it right next time. And sure enough, computer prints out another paragraph of Chinese, and then it asks the guy, what comes next?

He guesses again, and he gets it wrong again, and he goes augh again, and this carries on for a while. But eventually, he presses the button and it goes DING! You got it right this time! And he is so happy, you have no idea. This is the best day of his life. He is going to do everything in his power to make that machine go DING again. So he starts paying attention. He looks at the paragraph of Chinese printed out by the machine, and cross-compares it against all the other paragraphs he’s gotten. And, recall, this guy doesn’t even know that this is a language, it’s just a sequence of weird symbols to him. But it’s a sequence that forms patterns. He notices that if a particular symbol is displayed, then the next symbol is more likely to be this one. He notices some symbols are more common in general. Bit by bit, he starts to draw statistical inferences about the symbols, he analyses the printouts every way he can, he writes extensive notes to himself on how to recognise the patterns.

Over time, his guesses begin to get more and more accurate. He hears those lovely DING sounds that indicate his prediction was correct more and more often, and he manages to use that to condition his instincts better and better, picking up on cues consciously and subconsciously to get better and better at pressing the right button on the keyboard. Eventually, his accuracy is like 70% or something -- pretty damn good for a guy who doesn’t even know Chinese is a language.

* * *

One day, something odd happens.

He gets a printout, the machine asks what character comes next, and he presses a button on the keyboard and-- silence. No sound at all. Instead, the machine prints out the exact same sequence again, but with one small change. The character he input on the keyboard has been added to the end of the sequence.

Which character comes next?

This weirds the guy out, but he thinks, well. This is clearly a test of my prediction abilities. So I’m not going to treat this printout any differently to any other printout made by the machine -- shit, I’ll pretend that last printout I got? Never even happened. I’m just going to keep acting like this is a normal day on the job, and I’m going to predict the next symbol in this sequence as if it was one of the thousands of printouts I’ve seen before. And that’s what he does! He presses what symbol comes next, and then another printout comes out with that symbol added to the end, and then he presses what he thinks will be the next symbol in that sequence. And then, eventually, he thinks, “hm. I don’t think there’s any symbol after this one. I think this is the end of the sequence.” And so he presses the “END” button on his keyboard, and sits back, satisfied.

Unbeknownst to him, the sequence of characters he input wasn’t just some meaningless string of symbols. See, the printouts he was getting, they were all always grammatically correct Chinese. And that first printout he’d gotten that day in particular? It was a question: “How do I open a door.” The string of characters he had just input, what he had determined to be the most likely string of symbols to come next, formed a comprehensible response that read, “You turn the handle and push”.

* * *

One day you decide to visit this guy’s office. You’ve heard he’s learning Chinese, and for whatever reason you decide to test his progress. So you ask him, “Hey, which character means dog?”

He looks at you like you’ve got two heads. You may as well have asked him which of his shoes means “dog”, or which of the hairs on the back of his arm. There’s no connection in his mind at all between language and his little symbol prediction game, indeed, he thinks of it as an advanced form of mathematics rather than anything to do with linguistics. He hadn’t even conceived of the idea that what he was doing could be considered a kind of communication any more than algebra is. He says to you, “Buddy, they’re just funny symbols. No need to get all philosophical about it.”

Suddenly, another printout comes out of the machine. He stares at it, puzzles over it, but you can tell he doesn’t know what it says. You do, though. You’re fluent in the language. You can see that it says the words, “Do you actually speak Chinese, or are you just a guy in a room doing statistics and shit?”

The guy leans over to you, and says confidently, “I know it looks like a jumble of completely random characters. But it’s actually a very sophisticated mathematical sequence,” and then he presses a button on the keyboard. And another, and another, and another, and slowly but surely he composes a sequence of characters that, unbeknownst to him, reads “Yes, I know Chinese fluently! If I didn’t I would not be able to speak with you.”

That is how ChatGPT works.

[britneyshakespeare]

wait i just remembered a weird dream i had last night. i was going through some kind of stack of applications or profiles or something. it was something teacher-related. all the kids were from some kind of mormon group that i was... doing this work for? idk IDK the important thing was the kids were part of the church of jesus christ and latter-day saints and i was reviewing their information for data purposes. the information was filled out by the kids and one of the sections was simply "ethnicity"—specifically ethnicity and not race. because ethnicity is something that can actually be a meaningful part of your identity, and race is a concept created by white supremacy, and no one loves pointing that out more than white people, right? i'm white myself. i think white people would much rather say "oh i'm irish" "i'm german" "i'm italian" because it signifies their family comes from something and somewhere. as soon as we say "i'm white" it denotes nothing but a privileged status we only have because of colonialism and white supremacy. but even that privileged status doesn't necessarily mean much by itself because we can be marginalized in other ways, which white people also like to point out when it can apply to themselves. but then again some white people really don't have any connection to the culture(s) of their ancestors and feel they have no claim upon anything better than being a white american, which is more the fault of the pressure of immigrants to assimilate than it is most people's fault as individuals.

but. this is a long preamble. i was going through these mormon kids' information. mormons are stereotypically white, right? there's a lot of white people. i've never been part of the mormon church so i don't feel like i can elaborate on it more than that. i know bc of the work of missionary's they're not all exclusively white but the origins of mormonism are certainly white and american. and on the ethnicity question, like, almost every single one of these mormon kids said "white and poor" "poor white" "underprivileged white". that kind of thing. i remember going through it and i was like "theres no way all these kids are that poor. where are they getting this identification from as an ethnicity"

[zosan-secondchances]

The Pirate King of the North

Main Themes: Villain Sanji, Alternate Universe, Zosan Ship

AU where Straw Hat Pirates meet old Sanji from a reality where Reiju didn't have emotions.

Warning: Long post ahead and some One Piece spoilers. Contains strong language.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Young Zoro hates the fucker but those scars and piercings are doing a number to his soul.

Old Sanji's story goes like this:

He didn't experience compassion from anyone else aside from his mother, who--you know what happened.

Judge kept him locked away until he was 13. He had him released when he was deemed too broken to do anything, and he was apparently a waste of space. As far as the world was concerned, he was already dead. He gets left behind at some random pirate town in the North.

His swirly brows were recognized by the pirates who took him in--only for him to be enslaved because people would pay a lot to have their way with royalty.

He picked up some skills from the other slaves and became cunning af--because he had to be.

At 17 he started a revolt against the slaver pirates, effectively taking over as their new pirate captain.

He became the feared "Mr. Prince" and his words are as sharp as his bite.

He's underweight because he doesn't give two shits about good food.

"The All Blue? It's nothing but an old fishwive's tale," he says.

He used his cunning mind and new pirate crew to hunt down and kill his own father from the shadows.

He enslaved his own siblings and becomes the new ruler of Germa Kingdom. Over the years, he used them for warfare and expanded the territory of the North.

His heart is a bottomless pit for power and control.

He had a fling or two or several with is closely allied with Doflamingo because god damn they're both mad like that. The alliance eventually lead to direct connections with Celestial Dragons.

Sanji gains more power and becomes the notorious "Pirate King of the North"

Meanwhile at the other side of the world, Luffy didn't make it as far as he could have without a good cook.

Luffy would have recruited one from Baratie but the restaurant was absolutely destroyed before the smaller Straw Hat crew could make a difference. Some of the staff didn't make it.

Zoro left the crew when it fell apart at some point.

Due to Zoro's reputation and bounty that he had occurred during his limited time with Luffy, he was offered a position as a Warlord, ultimately taking over the late Jinbe's old role. He accepted and served for several years before he was assigned a job that he didn't know would be the most challenging one yet.

The Celestial Dragons didn't like the fact that Sanji had started to have more worldly control over their own, so Zoro was quietly assigned to hunt down the great Pirate King of the North. Zoro accepted because he felt that he needed more experience before he could take on Mihawk again.

Zoro quickly realised that this mission is not a walk in the park.

Sanji loves toying with the Demon Warlord so he insists on taking him on by himself.

It becomes an endless game of cat and mouse. Sometimes Sanji chases and sometimes he runs, sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses.

They're at each others' throats everywhere in the world. Any person, city or being of any kind that gets in the way usually gets torn apart in the chaos. The hunt goes on for a lifetime. They're currently in their 40's.

Zoro severs Sanji's left arm during one huge fight.

Because of this, Sanji relentlessly tries to get Zoro to marry him to use him in so many ways he can think of--both as an asset and under the sheets--oh the things that he wants the swordsman to do and beg for.

Sanji likes to refer to the tiniest scar on his lip as "Zoro's love bite"

He was about to get a nice fresh one on his chest when some fuckers teleported him away.

Hearing old Sanji's backstory was a bit much. It was young Zoro's turn to have a nosebleed that day.

----------

Oh yes I had fun drawing old silver fox, damaged Sanji. I wish I have the time to colour it up. I've also been very much into reading AU stories, especially soul brand ones. Keep them coming, you beautiful people.

Edit: Woo! I finally decided to make my own AO3 account. It's about time. Link here for the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60686077