#OF WHICH I ACTUALLY DOCUMENTED COHERENTLY

[raleighrador]

I think there are some real concerns around LLMs - I’m personally more concerned about the environmental and energy impact, but attribution of training content is also important.

That said - it seems to me to reflect an oddly puritanical interpretation of IP rights which in general is something I’m not settled about on.

I only write Star Wars fanfic. I’ve read tons of Star Wars fan fic. I’ve also read every EU/Legends novel ever published and many of the new canon novels. Many of them multiple times.

Everything I write is painfully derivative - as most fic is. Anyone who has read enough Star Wars and enough fic on AO3 will be able to read my work and say “ah, this author likes XYZ fic and published works”.

We’re all just regurgitating and slightly transforming material we’ve consumed, material created by others. It genuinely isn’t clear to me why that is substantially different to what a GPT does.

In fact given the mechanics of how GPTs work, the pathway they follow to create a sentence is likely less plagiarised than any pathway I follow.

I also think the point about transformative labour is interesting. Writing something au natural is definitely differently painful and frustrating and rewarding than using a GPT. It’s also more effort as a general rule but not in the universal way the above thread implies.

Regardless - I can see how the above is relevant for the writer by why does it matter to the reader? I read and enjoy stories because I think they’re good and entertaining, not because I think the author worked hard. There are many, many stories that I am sure the author worked very hard on but I think they’re bad and boring and I don’t enjoy them and I won’t read them.

As a writer I choose to do most of my writing au natural because it’s a fun hobby. As a reader I don’t care. And if you read my stuff I don’t expect you to care about my effort.

That takes me to the third point which is how people actually use GPTs. I’m sure some people are just plugging in a single prompt and then publishing whatever comes out. I think that’s probably quite rare.

I use GPTs for ideation and editing. I frequently (and I think this is common) first conceive of fics as a very particular interaction or scene that I want to write but I don’t always have an idea of the context that gets there. Sometimes for longer fics I’ve got a whole series of these scenes half baked but no story to tie them together. Plugging these into a GPT and saying “help me come up with an outline for a story that coherently links these together” is very helpful.

Same for editing. “Please fix any grammar or spelling issues in the below text” does the same thing a human editor does but better and faster and also I don’t know any humans I could ask to edit my work.

Both of these use cases are something that a person could do, many people do get people to help with them, and it’s utterly unclear to me what the moral difference between asking ChatGPT and asking the chat on discord is.

I’d be fascinated to know if this same visceral hatred of LLMs and GPTs extends to non-creative writing. I use these things ALL THE TIME to write emails and draft working documents and review documents etc. it has made me more productive, means my job takes less time, and gives me more time to write derivative Star Wars fan fics. Is that also bad and immoral? Should I get a new job because I’m clearly bad at and don’t enjoy my job of corporate laptop tip tapping to do to the way Adam Smith intended?

just saw a fanfic on ao3 have a dedication for chatgpt... that section is meant for your horny perverted mutual who proofread your work, you violated sacred law and you will be torn apart and laid bare btw

[vellichorom]

Fuck- I forgot to add the following question to the last one SLWNWKWBS

But uhm,,, I was just wondering how you do your sketch progress if I may ask?

I always find it interesting To see how artists do their sketches and put down the shapes to archive their wonderful artworks! (And I feel one can learn a lot from seeing the progress :0)

-💜🐈

OHH WELL, WHAT A QUESTION... 💕

i don't think i do it much differently than any other artist really... especially in more RECENT years when i've leaned more into more of a " traditional artist process " rather than just being the most insane person & drawing from nothing,

because i used to do that. no sketch, no skeleton, no regard for anatomy, no pillow, no NOTHING & let me tell you. i'm better mentally for changing that

( no nothing on the left vs used a presketch / skeleton / structure on the right )

okay maybe you can't tell because these were drawn years apart anyway BUT BELIEVE ME ONE OF THESE TOOK MORE PRE SETUP THAN THE OTHER & IT'S NOT THE ONE ON THE LEFT

hi everyone who's been with me since 2018

ANYWAY. THE CURRENT DAY PROCESS;

STEP 1 ) the " beta sketch "

my clients will Especially recognize this term & these shapes;

SEE HOW THIS LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF BULLSHIT NOTHINGNESS? i usually start with This Nonsense to get a good feel of the pose / situation i'm working with / to give a poor client working with me some idea of where i want to go with their request;

this is the starting phase to put an idea in everyone's heads but everything is plenty subject to change;

NOW, STEP 2 ) uhhhhh beta sketch part 2. thumbnailing maybe

NOW i start shaping the ball of clay i've birthed a little more, NOW i start taking anatomy, structure, the final positions & expressions into account according to how i or a client may want them;

this is the stage JUST before linework so the majority of changes are usually done Here. this is still obviously way messy but Much more coherent ( at least to people who are me ) & what i imagine professionals deliver to their clients first as to save time. i however have plenty of that & will harass you with every passing second

STEP 3 ) linework !!!

HOWEVER clean or messy it may be, this is the lineart stage! the second to last course! this is where the BIG SHIT goes down & everything falls into place; everything's WAY cleaned up, the picture is Almost done, & well- you get the idea,

STEP 4 ) heueheuhsijhruigrjhdihirednguerhgiudf DONE

this is where the final colors & details & SHADING & WHATEVER needs to be incorporated comes into play, OF WHICH INVOLVES LIKE 3 ADDITIONAL PROCESSES but i consider this just One Big Step considering it's all relative to me & i don't even stop to BREATHE once i hit this stage

& THEN WE END UP WITH THE FINISHED PRODUCT! just like that!

of course, it maybe takes a bit LESS depending on the seriousness / level of detail necessary for each piece, maybe i feel more than confident to skip right to the lineart & cook, BUT THIS is USUALLY how the process goes!

& i'm sure there's someone out there who probably laughs at me & thinks they can do better or quicker or sexier & TO THAT I SAY

ok cool

MAY THIS HAVE BEEN AN ENTERTAINING & / OR INTERESTING READ FOR YOU! because god knows i have as much trouble explaining this as any marvelous thing i do

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CURIOSITY!

[hpowellsmith]

These haphazard ideas for blogposts keep rotating in my brain:

writing interactive sex scenes in ways that I personally think are appealing and characterful

how characterisation can interweave with dom/sub dynamics in interactive sex scenes and how to make those dynamics feel well-rounded (I feel like this could be its own thing in addition to the above)

my specific feelings about the kinds of cute/adorable characters that are often called golden-retriever

various ways to write nonbinary MCs and NPCs without being weird about it

various ways to write gender-selectable characters in a way that I personally enjoy

[prokopetz]

don't answer that last ask I sent you actually. a) because I've since realized you rightfully don't give a shit about wizards of the coast, and would be justified in deleting the info I wanted from your brain as soon as you learned it, b) because I realized you aren't Google, and c) because I Googled it and found out myself.

on a related note, did you know wizards copyrighted the term "d20 system??" wtf. that was the last place I expected to have problems. I thought it'd be, like, "armor class" or "difficulty class" or something else similarly oppressive and cruel to copyright that would force me to change my whole rules document, and mess with my player's ability to remember which mechanics have had their name changed.

Somehow copyrighting the term "d20 system" feels even wronger than that.

Wizards of the Coast is the outfit that popularised the idea of categorising game systems according to the shape of the dice you roll in the first place. There are a few prior examples of games with similar naming conventions, including West End Games' D6 System – which is where WotC probably got the idea – but the idea of "dX systems", where X is the shape of the dice you roll, as coherent categories of games is very much a post-d20 System phenomenon.

That is, it's not that WotC trademarked (note: not "copyrighted") an existing piece of in-use terminology when they trademarked the term "d20 System"; it's that the idea of lumping all game systems which make use of twenty-sided dice together under the category of "d20 systems" was popularised by WotC's trademark.

(Indeed, if one were feeling conspiratorial, one might observe that the idea that all systems which roll the same-shaped dice are basically interchangeable with one another is a notion whose popularisation has proven very convenient for WotC's post-3E marketing strategy!)

[nostalgebraist]

In other uncanny-valley AI voice news...

Google has this new thing called "NotebookLM," which allows you to upload any document, click a button, and then a few minutes later receive an entire AI-generated podcast episode (!) about the document. The generation seems to occur somewhat faster than real-time.

(This is currently offered for free as a demo, all you need is a Google account.)

These podcast episodes are... they're not, uh, good. In fact, they're terrible – so cringe-y and inane that I find them painful to listen to.

But – unlike with the "AI-generated content" of even the very recent past – the problem with this stuff isn't that it's unrealistic. It's perfectly realistic. The podcasters sound like real people! Everything they say is perfectly coherent! It's just coherently ... bad.

It's a perfect imitation of superficial, formulaic, cringe-y media commentary podcasts. The content isn't good, but it's a type of bad content that exists, and the AI mimics it expertly.

The badness is authentic. The dumb shit they say is exactly the sort of dumb shit that humans would say on this sort of podcast, and they say it with the exact sorts of inflections that people would use when saying that dumb shit on that sort of podcast, and... and everything.

(Advanced Voice Mode feels a lot like this too. And – much as with Advanced Voice Mode – if Google can do this, then they can presumably do lots of things that are more interesting and artistically impressive.

But even if no one especially likes this kind of slop, it's highly inoffensive – palatable to everyone, not likely to confuse anyone or piss anyone off – and so it's what we get, for now, while these companies are still cautiously testing the waters.)

----

Anyway.

The first thing I tried was my novel Almost Nowhere, as a PDF file.

This seemed to throw the whole "NotebookLM" system for a loop, to some extent because it's a confusing book (even to humans), but also to some extent because it's very long.

I saw several different "NotebookLM" features spit out different attempts to summarize/describe it that seemed to be working off of different subsets of the text.

In the case of the generated podcast, the podcasters appear to have only "seen" the first 8 (?) chapters.

And their discussion of those early chapters is... like I said, pretty bad. They get some basic things wrong, and the commentary is painfully basic even when it's not actually inaccurate. But it's still uncanny that something like this is possible.

(Spoilers for the first ~8 chapters of Almost Nowhere)

The second thing I tried was my previous novel, The Northern Caves.

The Northern Caves is a much shorter book, and there were no length-related issues this time.

It's also a book that uses a found-media format and includes a fictitious podcast transcript.

And, possibly because of this, NotebookLM "decided" to generate a podcast that treated the story and characters as though they existed in the real world – effectively, creating fanfiction as opposed to commentary!

(Spoilers for The Northern Caves.)

----

Related links:

I tried OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode ChatGPT feature and wrote a post about my experiences

I asked NotebookLM to make a podcast about my Advanced Voice Mode post, with surreal results

Tumblr user ralfmaximus takes this to the limit, creating NotebookLM podcast about the very post you're reading now

[tallerthantale]

Neil and Amanda's Fake Therapist

I originally gathered information relating to Neil's fake therapist in a bit of a messy hyperfocus flurry that included some initial errors, followed by various erratic updates, so I wanted to put the main points together into one coherent place. Some of what I'm putting together here was found by others on the subreddit post.

I once again find myself skirting the edges of my typical rules for myself about analyzing public figures, so disclaimer: this is personal opinion, I'm not scientifically or clinically evaluating anyone based off public appearances / statements, I am commenting on what personal impression I am getting off things, and leaving most speculation about internal states out.

Man does this guy make it hard to stick to that though.

The person I'm talking about here is the supposed 'therapist' that Scarlett interacted with while Neil was (allegedly) pressuring her to say the allegations weren't true. His behavior there (with a paper trail according to Tortoise), and what I was able to gather from Amanda Palmer's podcast made it clear to me that he was not operating within the acceptable behaviour of a therapist, so I decided to see if I could prompt a review of his license. All indications at this time are that he does not have one. But it gets worse.

He claims to be a minister, but like the therapist claim cites no qualifications or organizations in his website's bio. This combination of therapist who isn't a therapist and minister who isn't a minister potentially creates a legal nightmare scenario. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, but I'm going to give you my best estimate of the situation, which has involved looking up the law and reading some cases.

As long as he isn't claiming to be a mental health professional, he may be protected in calling himself a nonspecific 'therapist.' He can probably argue it as some kind of spiritual therapy. But because he isn't actually a mental health care provider, he is not subject to mandatory reporting. Generally therapists have a legal obligation to proactively report when someone is a danger to themselves or others. He does not have that requirement. He isn't bound by professional ethics, since he is not a member of any organizations and has no licenses. Moreover, it seems to be the case in New Mexico that if a person reasonably believes you to be a minister, that kicks in clergy-penitent privilege whether or not you actually are a minister.

The origin concept of clergy-penitent privilege is that the law cannot force a priest to reveal what was said to them in confession. The First Amendment means all religions get it equally and it doesn't have to be part of a specific Catholic ritual. In New Mexico, it covers anything that was not said publicly or intended to be passed on regardless of the surrounding context. That means anything said to or by this guy that is not said in public or explicitly intended to be forwarded cannot be used by the legal system for any purpose, no matter how documented or incriminating it is to the client or to him personally. There is no mechanism to remove that privilege form him for being misused because it is derived from his representation of himself as a minister, not his actual status.

According to his linkdin he received a Bachelors degree in creative writing from the University of Rochester, in New York. He then got a Masters degree in Divinity in Organizations from Harvard Divinity School, 1982-1985. These are the only points of education claimed anywhere we have seen. He lists no psychology or mental health qualification anywhere, and is most known as an author. His bookselling success might be due to a claimed promotional appearance on Oprah.

His personal webpage has a long 'client list' or list of 'collaborators' who have hosted speaking engagements. This list was last updated in 2012. The events on his calendar page have no year. I think I recall seeing a section of his website that was only accessible to those who were 'fully committed,' or something like that, but it doesn't seem to be there now. It's possible I'm misremembering, it's possible it got taken down when the reddit thread got popular, I don't have the right skillset to check. He won an award from the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which looks to be engaging in pseudo scientific spirituality in a manner similar to Scientology.

From what I can gather from the video's I've watched, the advice he 'preaches' is a mish mash of bits and pieces of metaphors and perspectives from a variety of religions and philosophies that he probably didn't fully understand. (My speculation.) There are pieces of genuine insight that are lifted from others and that can give the impression he knows what he is talking about to vulnerable people even if he doesn't really understand them himself. He doesn't seem to have any genuine religious beliefs or connections to any religious congregation or organizations. It is unclear if he is or is not technically ordained, but that is something anyone can just do online, and he doesn't even claim it.

Particularly noticeable in his talks are traces of Jungian psychoanalysis (which is the nonsense Jordan Peterson seems to have got caught up in, and it has antisemitic and fascist origins) some Buddhist resilience concepts that have been misused by westerners a lot, and Christian (I think) concepts about universal love and togetherness. They end up mashed together into a message that I believe will influence most victims who hear it to blame themselves and remain in toxic situations, while making perpetrators feel better about continuing to perpetrate. Not saying that was the goal, but if a person had that goal, this patchwork philosophy is what you would put together to achieve it. I'm not going to be specific because I don't want to be like, putting out a guide for people on how to do this.

Amanda says she met the guy before she had a child, but after she was married. That is somewhere between 2011 and 2015. Amanda says she met him at something resembling a TED conference, where all sorts of people got together to do various (rich people nonsense.) She had a mental breakdown in a horse paddock, and the fake therapist was the guy with the horse, teaching about horse whispering.

"And since then, he’s been my therapist, and he’s also become a true friend, to me, and to my family, and to many other people in my life that he’s taken on, and helped out, in some of their darkest hours of need, and he is my emergency phone call. And in a way, he sort of picked up where Anthony, my old mentor, left off, and I don’t find it a coincidence that Wayne walked into my life right around the time Anthony walked out. "

This is not what a therapist does, this is cult leader behaviour. This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if Neil might have known him first and orchestrated their meeting. He is an author with connections to an organization similar to Scientology. It might actually not be a coincidence. Again, pure speculation.

Amanda describes seeking advice from him whenever she was having trouble with Neil, and that talking to him would make her feel like everything was fine again. "Even just to have someone to talk to, to remind me what I’m struggling with, what’s going on, what is home, why does this feel so disorienting, what am I doing? And I can say right now, when I shifted my internal feeling within myself, within my relationship with Neil, around where I was, my feeling in my own house transformed. Because I went, oh, right, none of this fucking matters."

In June 2019 Amanda Palmer has the Portland, OR incident where she tells her fans they need to forgive their r@#ists.

In 2019 the fake therapist did a series of webcasts with The Santa Fe Center for Spiritual Healing over a few months. At times he is titled "Rvrd", and at times he is titled "Dr." there is no reason to believe he is either. In the first one, the host reads a bio she found online, that she says he asked her not to read (she appears to think he was being humble.) This version of the bio claims that he was a Senior Scholar at the Fetzer Institute. When he comes on after she read it, he makes odd comments about whoever might be watching the video online and appears very shaken. The Fetzer Institute has no mention of him on their website. That connection is not listed in his current bio.

In his last video for the Santa Fe Center he claims to be working on an upcoming project in D.C. with a co-facilitator who was famous for brokering a truce between the crips and bloods. He also comes across like he has been asked to stop working with the center and is being super passive aggressive about it. (My speculation.)

His appearance on Amanda Palmer's podcast is recorded in July 2019, about a month after the last Santa Fe Center webcast, in upstate New York. In the descriptor she says it was recorded after a week long retreat with him she set up for 60 of her Patrion supporters. There is a nearly two year gap between the recording and posting, which is not explained. She describes him as a minister, therapist, leadership mentor, and her personal therapist. In the episode itself, she also describes him as her and Neil's relationship therapist. In the description she promotes his books and his website, and says he is still readily contactable there, but to be patient right now because he is mid move. (The description was posted when the podcast was posted, in 2021. As mentioned earlier, there are features of his website that have not been updated since 2012.)

The fake therapist tweeted about Neil being a 'dear friend' in late 2020. He has under 100 followers, not really what you would expect for a best selling author / therapist / minister / community leader / mentor / horse whisper. While I make references to cult leader behaviour, a genuine cult leader would probably have a larger following. But somehow I don't think he lacks for money. I expect there is a market for pseudo-therapists you can freely talk to about the crimes you are actively committing. You can even involve him in the crime, and it still privileged.

The events of Scarlett's allegations date to 2022, about a year after Amanda posted the podcast episode. Sometime in March is when Neil manipulates Scarlett into saying the allegations are false with what is essentially a su!c!de threat, then asks her to repeat her assurances that it was consensual to the fake therapist. Amanda had recently received a scorching message from one of Scarlett's friends about what was done to her. It seems like Neil is doing this to win a fight with Amanda in their "relationship therapy." Scarlett gets a message from the fake therapist.

Tortoise describes it as him "saying he'd be happy to speak to her in complete confidence because he had heard that she found herself in his words 'in the midst of relationships, stories and narratives, not alas necessarily of your own making. Sadly, this is not a surprise. Two creative dynamic people can easily draw others into their orbit unaware of how powerfully the magnetic pull of their influences can have on others.'"

My perception of this message is that it plants the suggestion to Scarlett that her friends are brainwashing her to think she was r@ped by pulling her into 'narratives not of her own making.' I could see how people might interpret the later lines regarding magnetic pull as being about accidental power dynamics abuse, but I read it more as him saying Scarlett's friends are opportunistic manipulators looking to make a name for themselves by taking down a famous person.

Either way, there are a considerable number of things happening there that an actual therapist would not ever do, for a variety of very good reasons. Tortoise's attempt to call him to ask for comment was thwarted by the fact that his phone has been specifically programed not to accept voicemails. Not like, the voicemail box was full or something, he went out of his way to do that. Which means Tortoise can't quite claim that he didn't respond to requests to comment, because they couldn't leave a message. Other organizations probably run into similar difficulties establishing evidence that they have contacted him. It's not a smoking gun, but I don't like it.

A year later Amanda Palmer makes her post on the Russel Brand allegations, where she argues the solution to serial predatory behaviour is to try to get them to stop doing "stupid shit" by trying to heal their lacking and fear with love and compassion and forgiveness, because that the ONLY cause / motivation for abusive behavior. And some unarticulated hope for non-specific accountability vibes.

This post looks to me like the perspective of a person who has been continuously exploited, and manipulated into thinking it is their personal responsibility to heal people who have no interest in being healed. It reads to me like a person who has been justifying staying in a toxic situation to themself so long it has warped their entire worldview. It reads to me like the inevitable end result of this fake therapists preaching.

I don't think that absolves her of what ever her role has been in facilitating access to victims, or actively promoting these views to her audience, but it is something to keep in mind.

There is a broad rage of possibilities for what is going on with this guy. The spectrum runs from deeply misguided fool to deliberately exploitative criminal. Either way it looks like he is charging people money for the service of turning them into the "this is fine" dog. This is not fine. This is not ok. Unfortunately it probably is legal.

[aetiologies]

01:15 / NANAMI KENTO

the typing came in whispers. a wave, a chorus of thumping rhythms of clicking plastic keys. strings of coherent thoughts formed into patterns of text upon a word document. occasionally the sounds would stop. a pause, a lilt in the air as your brain attempted to catch up with itself again.

it was another late night at the office. overhead fluorescent lights dimmed with only the faint glow of your computer screen shining upon your face. the shadows of which made the bags under your eyes to appear heavier.

bodies of salarymen no longer filled the cubicles as the only semblance of life was you and nanami—the only helpful member of your project group—and his awfully bright desk lamp.

you skipped dinner in order to catch the trailing workload your other colleagues failed to carry and you were not sure how much longer your aching stomach could bear the thought of another missed meal.

you scratched at the nape of your neck, eyes flickering to the blond whose visage seemed worse for wear as well.

“where are you going?” he asked through the clamor of your packing.

“getting something to eat.” you explain, “i’m thinking pancakes. care to join?”

“pancakes?” he repeated.

you nod.

“this late?”

“time is a concept and we are victims of capitalism and to those who run it.” you shrugged and by the time you lifted your gaze to meet his, it seemed as if nanami had already met you halfway.

nanami was a competent man. it did not take much struggle for him to complete tasks nor was he easily annoyed. everything came rather easy to him and most days you wondered if he was actually human under that damn khaki suit. you figured he was not much of a happy-go-lucky that would entertain such spontaneity but here you two were, striding down the empty hallways of your office building on your way to get pancakes at one in the morning.

“and where would you get said pancakes this late into the evening?” he questioned, one that should have been a blatant answer, though he wished to be entertained by your thought process.

“the convenient store.”

nanami hums, “figured. though, i believe pancakes are much better homemade.”

“you have any better options?” you asked.

“i have a mix at home.”

“oh…” you trail off, somewhat disappointed. your initial plan was to fetch food by yourself anyway, though nanami caught the way your mood shifted.

you aimed to look away, to evade his curious gaze as the elevator door opened. he sighed, having to spell it out for you, monotonous and indiscreet to hide his red-tipped ears. “i’m asking for you to come over. i’d rather you not walk home alone this late…”

[ernmark]

I just stumbled across somebody saying how editing their own novel was too exhausting, and next time they'll run it through Grammerly instead.

For the love of writing, please do not trust AI to edit your work.

Listen. I get it. I am a writer, and I have worked as a professional editor. Writing is hard and editing is harder. There's a reason I did it for pay. Consequently, I also get that professional editors can be dearly expensive, and things like dyslexia can make it difficult to edit your own stuff.

Algorithms are not the solution to that.

Pay a newbie human editor. Trade favors with a friend. Beg an early birthday present from a sibling. I cannot stress enough how important it is that one of the editors be yourself, and at least one be somebody else.

Yourself, because you know what you intended to put on the page, and what is obviously counter to your intention.

The other person, because they're going to see the things that you can't notice. When you're reading your own writing, it's colored by what you expect to be on the page, and so your brain will frequently fill in missing words or make sense of things that don't actually parse well. They're also more likely to point out things that are outside your scope of knowledge.

Trust me, human editors are absolutely necessary for publishing.

If you convince yourself that you positively must run your work through an algorithm before submitting to an agent/publisher/self-pub site, do yourself and your readers a massive favor: get at least two sets of human eyeballs on your writing after the algorithm has done its work.

Because here's the thing:

AI draws from whatever data sets it's trained on, and those data sets famously aren't curated.

You cannot trust it to know whether that's an actual word or just a really common misspelling.

People break conventions of grammar to create a certain effect in the reader all the time. AI cannot be relied upon to know the difference between James Joyce and a bredlik and an actual coherent sentence, or which one is appropriate at any given part of the book.

AI picks up on patterns in its training data sets and imitates and magnifies those patterns-- especially bigotry, and particularly racism.

AI has also been known to lift entire passages wholesale. Listen to me: Plagiarism will end your career. And here's the awful thing-- if it's plagiarizing a source you aren't familiar with, there's a very good chance you wouldn't even know it's been done. This is another reason for other humans than yourself-- more people means a broader pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.

I know a writer who used this kind of software to help them find spelling mistakes, didn't realize that a setting had been turned on during an update, and had their entire work be turned into word salad-- and only found out when the editor at their publishing house called them on the phone and asked what the hell had happened to their latest book. And when I say 'their entire work', I'm not talking about their novel-- I'm talking about every single draft and document that the software had access to.

[artbyblastweave]

An aesthetic decision I really like about the Mad Max setting- focusing on Fury Road in particular here- is that the timeline and the setting deliberately defy coherence. Countless elements of our world have carried over- the guns, the vehicles, the musical instruments, the religious concepts, and nominally some of the actual people- but the world is geographically impossible, you don't see much contemporary architecture even in a ruined state, and there's no version of the timeline where this can be the same Max Rockatansky as the original films. But it is. The incongruities are deliberate. The setting is mythic, these are campfire tales told about Max, the King Arthur or the Omnipresent Jack figure of the new age. The world that was is swallowed in myth, the world that exists is borrowing some of the old world toys, and being up-front and bombastic with signifiers of the mythic and abstracted nature of the setting absolves you of the need to make the worldbuilding make sense- or rather, to make it make sense in the way you'd have to take a stab at if you had a year-by-year internal worldbuilding timeline of How Everything Went Down.

Fallout 1 is not exactly like this. It can't be, because you could kill a man with an overhead swing of the setting bible. But it's tapping into a similar impulse. People in the first game are using old world tech, but they don't really live in the old world; they live in settlements using materials scavenged from the old world, or in old world towns that were unimportant enough back then that their current identity totally overwrites whatever came before. They don't live in LA: They live in the Boneyard, which gives you a pretty good idea of how much of what we think of as "LA" would be recognizable as such if we were exploring the space in first-person perspective. When you encounter an area that has a direct, well-documented, and unambiguous connection to the old world, it's a Big Deal, and they're hard places to get to- places that the average person living their life in the wastes would die trying to access. Of particular note in this dynamic is The Brotherhood of Steel- for all their technical understanding of the knowledge they hoard, they've clearly seems to have undergone a few rounds of Canticle-style cultural telephone, mutating from Recognizably The American Military into a knightly order. Fallout 2 does this to a lesser extent- it has more settlements directly named after their pre-war counterparts- but it's also a game about a society that's starting to pull back together and form into something resembling the old world, for better or for worse. And it reproduces the trend of stuff with a direct, legible connection to the old world being inscrutable and dangerous to outsiders- specifically with the reveal that the Enclave consider themselves to be the direct continuation of the pre-war government, that they've just kept electing presidents out on that stupid little oil rig. I haven't really made up my mind on whether the timeframes of the games- 84 years followed by 164 years- actually work for the vibe they're going for, in particular it doesn't work with Arroyo- but on the whole, the vibe coheres.

You get into the 3d games, and it becomes much harder to continue to pull this off. One major tool that Fallouts 1 and 2 used to maintain that sense of abstraction was the overland travel map; you were visiting island of society in a vast sea of Nothing. You had encounter cells that consisted of burnt-out, looted shells of cities, maybe good for a camp site but not as anything else. Another important tool towards this end was the isometric camera angle. In a topdown worldspace you can scrub out a lot of environmental details that would be immediately recognizable to the player as artifacts of our present society if you were exploring the space in 1st person. The examine button can feed you vague, uncertain descriptions that convey enough detail to make the item recognizable while also conveying that there's been a level of information decay. Once you move into a 3d worldspace you lose both of these elements- the worldspace is what it is, I can walk across it in eleven minutes stripping it for loot as I go. I can read every sign on every still-standing building, and I've got eyeballs on every old-world bit-and-bobble with a handy interface description of what I'm looking at. And you hit random encounters in the 3d games at basically the same rate, in real-world time, that you did in the isometrics- but the isometrics could successfully abstract it out to represent that you were hitting something noteworthy every couple of weeks, while in the 3d games it's kinda inescapable that you keep getting jumped every single day walking back and forth up the same stretch of road. Not only is it recognizable, it's cramped.

I think that Fallout 3, to its credit, did a decent job of navigating this and trying to maintain the islands-in-a-sea-of-nothing vibe from the isometrics- most of the settlements are built slapdash in places that were obviously never intended for long-term human habitation (bomb craters, overpasses, suburbs), the landmark-heavy city proper is textually a difficult-to-navigate deathtrap, and the poison-sky green filter, memeworthy as it is, does help shore up the impression that you're inviting death by trying to move through the space. Fallout: New Vegas I think addresses this by going in the total opposite direction; It's set in an area of the country where the infrastructure was abnormally well preserved, and the pre-war culture was revived artificially, and from a thematic standpoint it's really interested in digging into the implications of those two things. The fact that the lonely-empty-decontextualized-void aesthetic isn't long for this world dovetails well with the cowboy themes. They have a fair number of future-imperfect context-collapse gags but they don't overdo it by any stretch of the imagination.

Fallout 4, from many directions, is sort of catching the worst of the heat here. The world is recognizable, aggressively so. In fairly-authentically recreating the suburban sprawl of the Northeast, Bethesda simply surrounded the inhabitants of the commonwealth with too much Boston for a sense of true distance from our world to be possible. Everyone still has the accents. They still know the names of all the old neighborhoods. They're still doing the "Park your car" bit. It's still Boston. And it's a busy Boston, too- you can't throw a rock without hitting a farming settlement that's doing well enough to attract tribute-seeking bandits. It's densely packed with points of interest, and those points of interest are packed to the brim with salvageable materials that, going off of the new crafting system, should be in enormous demand to the people who've been living in this area for 210 years. The game doesn't really advance a satisfying explanation, even an aesthetic explanation like fallout 3's poison sky, for why everything around you hasn't been stripped clean before you even came off the ice, why all these environmental storytelling tableaus are just waiting for you to find. It doesn't spend nearly enough time hammering out what the 200-year chronology of the most-livable area seen in a Fallout game looks like- Why don't you see something comparable to the NCR emerging? Something something CPG massacre (which is mentioned twice in the whole game, AFAICT.) And what's being lost here, right, is the ability to use the sands of time to smooth over rough spots in the worldbuilding, in the chronology. You can't hide behind the idea that the world you're experiencing is mythologized. It's presented as real, and it doesn't make much sense if it's real!

And to top it off- Fallout 4 probably has the highest density of characters who were actually there, by some means or another. The Vault Tec rep, Daisy, The Triggermen, Nick Valentine, Eddie Winter, the vault 118 inhabitants, Arlen Glass, Oswald, Kent Connolly, The whole of Cabot House, Captain Zao, The kid in the goddamn fridge and his goddamn parents, and uh. The big one. You. You, the player. Which is such a goddamn splinter under my skin, from a storytelling perspective. You were present in the before-times- but only nominally, only to the exact degree necessary to establish that that was the case. The ugly shit is alluded to, but not incorporated into the character's day-to-day in a way that's obvious to the player, you're there for like six minutes and it's pretty nifty if you overlook that bit at the end where everyone got nuked. Your ability to talk about the world before is always vague, vacuous, superficial. The dirty laundry you dig up on terminals around Boston never seems to meaningfully impact your character's worldview, their impressions of the then and the now. All of which combine to make this the simultaneously the most specific but also the most frustratingly vague game in the series. At its best, Fallout's love of juxtaposing the then and the now would make it a great setting for the Rip Van Winkle routine. But it requires a strong, strong understanding of what the world was like before and after, a willingness to use the protagonist to constantly grind the jagged edges of those things against each other, a protagonist with a better-defined outlook than Bethesda's open-ended-past approach allowed for- and it has to be in service of a greater point. And for Fallout 4 to do anything with any of that, the game would have to be about something instead of being something for you to do. Maddening. Maddening.

[copperbadge]

I am now home, fed, rested, and festooned in cats. 

I had a lot of opinions about the case I was jury on, but I don’t know how much of it I’ll write up; I kept a kind of disjointed journal, but it’s not super coherent. Turns out if I don’t document my thoughts in real time I get bored of my own mind very quickly. 

We were jury for a complicated medical civil case; we heard testimony from six doctors and two nurses and saw so much imaging. I’m sure the plaintiff suing the medical center had bigger concerns, and it’s not like you get detail with the internal imaging we had to examine, but it must have been rough on him that in the course of learning about his injuries, which were on his lower body, we also had to look at multiple images of his dick. It certainly startled me when I realized what we were seeing for the first time.  

Most of the trial I was kind of okay with just keeping things to myself, writing and thinking about it privately, but I was dying inside that I couldn’t talk to you guys until now about the asshole juror I mentioned earlier. I had intended to use writing about him as a safety valve -- a sort of “Hey I can’t talk about the trial but wait till you hear what That Guy did today” -- but uh. 

So I didn’t actually bully anyone off a jury, but for the rest of my life I am definitely going to claim I did. 

The second day of trial, the bailiff grabbed me before trial and said the judge wanted to talk to me; I thought I was in trouble but it turns out that he wanted to know about my interactions with the other juror. Apparently the bailiff had seen me step in when he was pestering a fellow (female) juror the previous day. Later he got super aggressive with the bailiff herself, and I guess she saw me watching and gauging whether to step in then, too. (I didn’t end up getting involved because she handled him just fine and also she has a gun.) 

The judge questioned me about what I’d seen and done and why I’d done it, and then informed me he was removing the juror from the case based on what I’d told him about the man’s behavior. I’m given to understand there may be a charge of contempt of court and a fine, but I’m not clear on the details and it appears I won’t have to get involved further.

But yeah, that’s why you didn’t hear any more about him. Realistically he was removed for harassment, but I like to think a small part of it is that I fucked with him so visibly and thoroughly that they knew “this jury box isn’t big enough for the both of us.” 

Anyway, I’m glad it’s over. I would have liked to have spoken to the plaintiff and his wife after the verdict and expressed my sympathy for what they’d gone through, but I think perhaps understandably they didn’t want to linger. Besides, we found in his favor; he seemed pleased with the outcome and his wife was happy-crying as we left, so I expect the message was understood. 

My job is not exactly mindless, but it also doesn’t usually involve paying hardcore attention to complex medical testimony for six hours a day. I am exhausted. Fortunately this weekend is relatively laid back -- my only commitment is to a Pride beach party tomorrow, and I’ve used some of my jury pay to purchase one of those pop-up shade tents, so the plan is to sit in the shade with snacks and beverages and be the Beach Dad. 

[honeycloudz]

Perfect Storm | Chapter Three: Trapped with Truth and Dare

Content Warnings: MDNI, Mentions of blood on Sanzu (not his), Mentions of a gun, Sanzu teasing but hes also an ass, being stuck in an elevator, Smidge of angst if you squint, Sanzu is a menace while playing truth or dare, Ran teases too, Emotionally Constipated Jealous Sanzu, Fem!Reader has very brief wet dream (I promise Ill do actual smut soon), Mating press

Back to- Perfect Storm Chapters Next- Chapter Four: WIP

Today had been an unusually boring day without the normal banter of your coworkers as well as the strange quietness of not having Sanzu around. The Haitani’s and him had gone on a mission with Takeomi, leaving you with the usually quiet Mikey who shooed you away to your office to get paperwork done, just as Mochi and Kokonoi were doing in their own respective spaces. Bored, you sigh, walking to your office ready but dejected for the long day of paperwork ahead of you.  You stare at the clock ticking hung above your door, counting down the seconds before you can go home after long exhausting hours of signing documents and crime. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the clock strikes midnight as you let out a silent cheer and pack your belongings into your purse to then make your way to the rickety old elevator. You press the button that lights up beneath your finger and hum contently, excited for your plan to sit back on your comfortable couch and catch up on your favorite show. When the elevator opens, you step into it, continuously pressing the button to the first floor (as if it were to make the doors close faster) and just as they were about to shut- a hand suddenly makes its way between them- startling you. Your hands quickly make their way to your purse, where your gun is resting, on instinct. 

You curse under your breath in anger when Sanzu steps foot in the elevator, dress shirt covered in blood which you knew wasn't his own. Noticing your shift in attitude, he smiles smugly, and to your dismay speaks. “What? Didn’t miss me today princess?” he voices sarcastically. He watches you closely, trying to get a rise out of you. “Yeah, of course, just as much as my gun misses your big ass forehead. All that room up there and still not enough to make one coherent, well adjusted thought.”, you hissed back just as sarcastically, ready for the interaction to end as the elevator slowly descended. “My forehead isn't big” he grunted, turning away from you, picking and choosing what hears as per usual. “Is too” you spat back at him. As he was about to retort back, the elevator shook aggressively and grinded to a halt. “W-what is happening” you questioned out loud in fear to no one in particular. When suddenly the red emergency lights glowed and the audio system boomed with Rindou’s voice, answering you. “Hey uh, i know we would all love to end this night peacefully but unfortunately for you both, you'll be stuck in here for the next hour”- panic set in as you realized you'd be stuck with Sanzu alone - “please don't kill each other in there, we are all working to fix it (you hear slight snickering in the background, probably Ran laughing at your current predicament) dont worry itll be okay in no time”. Rindou finishes, sounding uncertain, not helping your current crisis. “Fuck” you curse out loud, hope dimming quickly. He turns to you, annoyance on his face. “Really?”. He exhales out of frustration, “Well, we are here together whether you like it or not, what do you wanna do to pass the time while they work to free me from hell?” You look at him, anger and shock written all over your face, “Free you from hell!? Go fuck yourself, and go to that corner, dont even breath near me asshole.” You reply and take a seat in the corner, opposite to his. He (surprisingly) listens and takes a seat away from you, “Pff, whatever, take that stick out your ass, I'd like to make it known I don't wanna be here either.” he huffs out. Choosing to ignore his comment, only a few minutes pass in silence, and to your dismay he starts repeatedly tapping the wall with his fingers in a rhythm, the sound getting on your already worked up nerves. “Oh my gosh, ok we’ll pass the time with whatever but you have to stop with that shit”, you glare at him. He laughs back in response, stopping his finger drumming. “Hmm..” Sanzu pauses to think before turning to you and declaring, “Lets play truth or dare”. You look at him, surprised by the childish remark when you notice the mischievous glint in his eyes. After a few seconds of thinking it over you respond, “Sure, but I start”. He nods, giving you the go-ahead. “Truth or dare?” you question, his answer being ‘truth’. With another short pause of thinking you ask him, “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?” and for a second you swear you see a look of hurt on him, before its masked with the smug smile he returns quickly, and you feel guilt for some reason. He looks away from you for a moment before whispering “my scars” quietly, but loud enough for you to hear. You frown and look away, thinking when he breaks you out of your thoughts, questioning “Truth or dare?” to change the subject. “Uh.. dare” you boldly decide, quickly regretting it when he dares you to lick the floor. “Yeah I'm not doing that.” you say, unimpressed. “Fine, then it has to be truth!” he retorts. “Well there isnt many dares we can do in here anyway, so lets just keep asking truths”. You respond. And for the first time probably ever, you both agree on something.

“You ever fuck anyone that works here?” Doing a double take and staring at him in shock he only looks back, completely serious. Exhaling you answer, “Good God, and no.” You look over at him and he almost seems relieved? Knowing it's your turn, you ask him something almost equally as strange, “Have you ever practiced kissing in a mirror?” He looks at you weird, then laughs and you feel a small smile making its way to your face. “What? Thats so weird, why do you ask?” he runs his hands through his tuft of pink hair giggling at you. “I don't know, its a very you thing to do, and you didn't answer!” you defend yourself playfully. A few seconds of silence and him looking away is all the answer you need. He continues to look away before he hears you trying not to let a sound out, when he faces you he notices the wide smile on your face, that you tried to hide with a hand clasped tightly around your mouth, clearly you couldn't control it when he hears your laughter. And although its at his expense, he would usually respond with something mean, yet, for a moment Sanzu forgets he hates you. “Yeah whatever, laugh all you want, I was a teenager and now I can get the real thing and more, whenever I please.” He defends himself while you swipe the unshed tears from your eyes, calming down. 

Trying to change the subject, he questions, “If you had to pick someone from our team to fuck, who would it be?” Sanzu continues to ask out of pocket questions to try and embarrass you. Your face heats and your stomach drops and for a moment you think of him, on top of you and you decide to throw the thought of your head permanently. You look away, trying to think and all the comes up are filthy thoughts of him. “Ch-change the question.” You cough out. He leans in, “Nah I think I wanna hear your answer, princess”. He directs his complete attention on you, stare unwavering. A few seconds pass before you whisper “Ran”. For a reason unknown to him, Sanzu feels angry. Not at you for a change, but at Ran as if it were his fault. He masks his irritation by asking “Why him, of all people?” Quickly you respond “He was the first that came to mind” you lied, when suddenly the loud audio system answers, this time by Ran himself.

“Really? I'm honored sweetheart.” He giggles out to your complete shock and horror. “YOU CAN HEAR US?!” you question.

“Yeah, I'm surprised Sanzu didn't tell you.” You turn back at him with betrayal in your eyes and he only shrugs. God what an asshole, and to think you were starting to enjoy yourself even a little bit around him.

“I would've never answered that if I had known they can hear us! I don't wanna play anymore” you huff and cross your arms. “Aww the fun was just starting” Ran teases you, earning a quick shut up.

Sanzu decides to call it quits too, your answer the only thing replaying in his mind. You both stay silent for the duration of the period. Thankfully, before you fall asleep, a tired sounding Kokonoi announces that the elevator will work in the next minute. You stand, stretching and yawning, ready to get home when you notice the grumpy look on Sanzu’s face.

He stands too, and when the elevator dings and the doors open, he shoves past you walking- almost stomping away. You recollect yourself from the powerful push and make your way to your car. The only thoughts on your mind being him and his stupid face, his stupid smile, his stupid laugh too. You replay the soft look on his face in your brief moments of getting along, the thought being soured when you remember how he pushed you.

Exhausted, you finally get home, kicking off your heels somewhere random, not even bothering to undress you hop in bed quick to crash out.

Even in dream land he wouldn't leave you, your sleeping mind conjuring up the vulgar images of Sanzu groaning from on top of you, grabbing the under part of your legs that were wrapped around his torso, to put your knees to your shoulders, effectively trapping you in a once again, this time in a mating press, before he leans in and whispers “Cum for me, pretty girl”, while speeding up and deepening his thrusts, the filthiest grunts and praises leaving his pretty lips. Moans and whimpers leaving your own. “Hngh- Hah, I love those sounds, make more princess.”

A/N: omg? me updating so soon? once in a LIFE TIME, im sorry i think this chapter kinda sucks, forgive me </3, anyway some of you were wondering how my nipple piercing went, and it went fantastic! I really love them and im glad it went well lmao, anyway PLEASEEE send me requests, it can be smut or anything!! holy shit i forgot about the taglist too im just remembering, ill bring it back for next chapter <33 Love you guys, thank you for the support and reading!

[topazadine]

Let's do another spicy writing take, one that is going to get a lot of people very mad. However, please note that I am saying this out of love and concern. This is not an attack on you personally or on your writing process.

Take a deep breath, prepare to listen with an open mind. Alright. Here goes:

Stop starting a million WIPs.

I am serious. Please. Do not do that. Do not start a million WIPs.

Why? Because then you won't get any of them done. And why is that? Because you'll lose motivation, get distracted, and hop on to the next thing, leaving a trail of heartbreak in your wake.

I have 131 stories on Archive of Our Own and have written over 2 million words of fiction. Two. Million. Words.

Don't believe me? Look.

And then there's more that is not accounted for here: a 110k novel, another 109k novel, and a 20k novelette, along with my current WIP which is currently around 10k. All told, I have written approximately 2,084,000 words.

Are they all perfect? No, of course not, especially the older stuff. But is it done? Yep.

And I did that by doing each project one at a time.

If I get another story idea while I'm in the middle of another story, I write a note in my WIP list, but I don't start it. Only when I'm letting a story "rest" before editing do I start outlining another book, but I still don't start. I wait until I've finished one entire project before I do another one.

Your brain does not actually multitask. Our brains aren't wired to do that. This article from Forbes explains:

You are highly unlikely to be part of that 2.5% even if you think you are. I'm not, and you're probably not either.

What you are really doing is task switching. Take it from the software management program Asana:

That article from Forbes elaborates:

And it is even worse when you are hopping from one WIP to another, essentially changing contexts.

Pleexy, another task automation company, continues by discussing 'context switching':

Every time you stop working on one WIP, you are switching contexts and pulling yourself out of the world you have created, jumping into another. Now your brain is struggling to reorient itself, and it's not going to do its best work.

"But I love writing different WIPs and I get some of them done!"

I am sure you do, but is it your best effort? Would you have been able to write faster, more coherently, better, if you had only worked on one? Probably. And don't you want to do your best?

"But I have ideas and if I don't do them right now I'll forget them!!!"

Then write them down. I have a whole WIP list of things I am intending to write later. Make a notepad document, a spreadsheet, whatever, for your different WIPs.

When you think of something interesting for that project, put down a small note underneath it, but don't start writing! Your brain will let it marinate and when you're done with your current project, you'll have a better idea of what to do with it.

I like to visualize things before bed, so a lot of the time, I will use that visualization for a different project as my way to calm down, but I'm not devoting too much attention to it before I'm ready to work. I've got some scenes and images that I have daydreamed about, but I haven't drawn attention away from my current WIP by actually beginning to write.

This way, I can devote all of my brainpower to my current project while reserving a little bit of attention and aspiration for the next one. I also avoid writer's block because I have my next WIP lined up, waiting for me, and I can transition to it almost immediately.

Generally, I don't go more than a few days without starting a new project (after completing one!!!!!) because I am prepared for it: I can give it my full attention. There's no sitting around and waiting for inspiration.

"But I have so much inspiration for this project and want to start right away!"

Something I am learning as a writer is delayed gratification. I am an impulsive person and I want to jump into things right away, but then I get disappointed with the results. For example, I released 9 Years Yearning before commissioning a really good cover. I regret that and I'm going to learn from that mistake with the next book in The Eirenic Verses.

By waiting, you get a better payoff.

I've got four different projects waiting to be released and one waiting for serious revisions. They are all finished, but they're not polished. It would be very easy for me to spend a few hours formatting them and then just throw them up, but I won't get the best payoff then.

Instead, I'll wait for a break between projects before turning back to them and fixing them up, giving them all my attention. Yes, it means I don't release a billion books a year, but it also means I release my best work.

Writing is not a sprint; it's a marathon. It's okay to give your projects a break.

By letting my stories rest, sometimes for entire months, I can come back to them with fresh eyes and make sure they're perfect. The same is true of your WIPs. Let them sit and marinate for a while.

How to avoid having a billion WIPs:

Make a list of future WIPs. Put it in one document. Add things as you think about them.

Put this list of WIPs away and ignore it.

Allow yourself to get some writer's block if you're struggling with your current project. Writer's block is okay sometimes. Don't use writer's block as permission to start something else.

Put reminders up that tell you not to start things. I like the phrase "bird by bird" which I got from the eponymous book by Anne Lamott (which is really good writing advice).

Read up on task switching and the myth of multitasking to show why having a million WIPs doesn't work.

Interrogate yourself. When you have a bunch of WIPs, do you actually get any of them done? Be realistic and ruthless with yourself.

Look back at how many WIPs you have in storage. Identify your WIP completion rate. It's probably lower than you think.

Read about the writing habits of other writers. You'll find most successful writers do not have a ton of different projects at once. They also go one at a time.

"No I'm going to write a million WIPs anyway! You don't know me!"

Okay, then go for it. You're not obligated to take my advice. I can only tell you that the science - and my personal experience - says that's not a good idea.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter to me if you continue to stop and start a gazillion different projects and get none of them done. That's your problem, not mine.

But I'd rather you be able to finish something you're proud of, because then you're growing as a writer, and I always encourage personal growth.

It honestly makes me sad when people go "teehee I have soooo many WIPs and I just started another one hehehe!" because I know, without a doubt, that almost none of them will see the light of day.

You deserve better than a bunch of unfinished projects. You can achieve more than that. Put down the WIP list, focus on your current story, and go for it.

[starry-nights-garden]

Jaemin ✧ 10:06pm

✧ NCT Dream Jaemin x gn!reader ✧ words: ~1.3k ✧ genre: fluff ✧ warnings: none

Desc.: In which you try to get some urgent work done while your boyfriend Jaemin decides it's time to be very distracting.

It’s a perfectly quiet Friday evening. You’re sitting at your desk, typing away on your laptop, switching back and forth between several documents. Next to you is the cup of coffee you finished not too long ago - you’re aware that you shouldn’t consume any caffeine at this hour, but your deadline is drawing closer at lightspeed and you just can’t afford to lose even a single hour to inattentiveness at this point.

You gnash your teeth and shake your head at yourself. You don’t know why you always have to procrastinate until the last possible moment. You also don’t know why your boyfriend thinks now is the best possible time to start an attempt at distracting you. At first he simply walks into the room and puts his hands onto your shoulders, peeking at the laptop screen from behind. You expect him to ask if your work is coming along well, or maybe if you ate dinner - which you actually forgot to have - or if you’re not getting tired. But nothing. He remains silent, and when Na Jaemin remains silent in such a situation, you know he’s probably planning something. Feeling suspicious, you roll your shoulders back, hoping he would let go of you.

“What?” you mutter, too focused on not losing your train of thought to form a proper sentence. But still, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, his fingertips dance down your upper arms and eventually he puts them on your waist. A premonition makes a chill run down your spine, and at the same time you can feel yourself getting angry. Your hunch of what he’s about to do is proven right when you feel his breath against your neck, just before you can feel his lips touching that same spot too. You involuntarily let out a sigh, and for a second your body disobeys your mind and your eyelids flutter shut. However, no matter how much you want to let him coerce you into taking a break, a wave of internal stress reminds you that you have no time to lose. You lean forward, escaping at least his kisses while his hands remain resting on your sides, and you go back to staring at the screen in concentration.

However, he also wouldn’t be Na Jaemin if you could shake him off that easily. 

“Baby, let’s forget about your deadline for a while…” Despite him keeping his voice low, you don’t miss the underlying worry. You sigh again, this time pushing the air out of your lungs with more force, to which he spins you around in your chair, making you face him.

“I can’t-” You make an attempt at protesting, but the feeling of him cupping your face with one hand combined with the look in his eyes silences you. It’s not even an unexpected reaction, during the time you’ve been dating so far you learned how effortlessly he can sweep you off your feet and erase all coherent thoughts in your head, at least for a while. You collect yourself while taking a deep breath and try to suppress all feelings as he tilts his head to the side, questioning. “I can’t now,” you simply answer, making sure to sound as stern as possible. You feel him caressing your cheek with his thumb once, twice, and again you’re fighting your body urging you to just give in and take a rest. 

Jaemin brushes off your words as his gaze drops from your eyes to your lips, and when he leans in you don’t have it in you to stop him from kissing you. There is something demanding in the way he slowly moves his lips against yours, and his hand now placed at the back of your neck makes sure you don’t pull back before he breaks the kiss. But even then, he doesn’t move his face away from yours more than an inch or two, and you can feel his warm breath tickling your skin as he searches for some kind of answer to his actions in your pupils. Meanwhile, you can practically hear the angel and devil sitting on your shoulders as they argue and yell at each other over whether you should direct your full attention to your boyfriend or to the paper that’s waiting to be continued. In the end it’s Jaemin himself who ends the dispute in your mind, as he presses his lips against yours once again.

Your hands eventually find his shoulders, and when you rake your fingers through his short hair, he deepens the kiss, probably to show his approval. You part for air eventually, and as soon as you have caught your breath you whisper his name.

“You know what’d be real sexy of you right now?” you mumble, and this time you don’t let yourself be shaken when his gaze drops from your eyes to your mouth once again.

“Hm?” he hums, dragging the sound a bit and grinning in approval.

“If you leave me the fuck alone and let me finish this shit.” You pull back and point your chin at the screen of your laptop. Your words came out more sharply than you wanted them to, but he doesn’t seem fazed by the sound of them. He must be thinking again as his eyes rest on your figure, and eventually he gives up with a shrug. Wordlessly, he leaves, but only to come back not even a minute later. He got his own chair from his room, putting it right next to yours and sitting down. With his elbow rested on your desk, he scans your face, making you wonder what he’s up to now.

“What??” is all you say, hands already put on the keyboard, ready to resume working, and being very done with his antics.

“Do you want something to eat?” His question takes you by surprise. He follows it up with “I know you skipped dinner.”

“It doesn’t matter whether I want dinner or not. I don’t have the time,” you argue.

“I’ll make you something. Just tell me if you have any preferences.” Now it’s you who’s staring, eyebrows raised up high.

“You’re… actually gonna be helpful after failing in trying to seduce me into neglecting my work?”

“I didn’t try to seduce you into neglecting it,” he answers calmly. “I tried to seduce you into taking a break.”

“Same thing…”

“So? What do you wanna eat?” he asks again, all while never taking his eyes off your face. “I might be forced to order something instead of making it myself if it’s something too extravagant, though. I can’t stand in the kitchen for two hours while letting you starve.”

“I’m not starving…” you answer silently, though you have so much more to say. You consider pouring the gratefulness you’re suddenly feeling into another kiss, but since he might take that as another opportunity to try forcing you into a break, you decide against it after all.

“Just… some fried rice, or something simple,” you eventually say.

“Hmmm,” Jaemin hesitates, and then eventually he sits up straight, signaling that he’s about to get up. “I’ll make it so it will give you enough energy to power through this.”

“You’re putting coffee into it?” you joke and you lure a short chuckle from his lips as he stands up. He gives your shoulders a gentle squeeze and then captures your chin between his thumb and index finger. You let him turn your head towards him, and after giving you a peck on the lips, you feel the deprivation course through your body more than anything.

“Don’t be like that…” you mutter, and this time it’s you who’s hiding a whine in your voice. Jaemin gives you a big grin and pats your head.

“You’ll get proper kisses when you’re done here,” he says, before disappearing into the kitchen to prepare you a late dinner. 

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for assuming a fellow student used ChatGTP on one of our group projects?

i’m in my late 20s, and i decided to pursue a (post bachelor) degree where one of the required courses is also open to bachelor degree students. this is a class that is heavy on fieldwork, meaning we go into the field, and then go home and write a paper about it, and since this group is small enough, group reports are done with everyone collaborating, no sub groups. our first report was pretty much torpedoed by our professor, who took serious issue with how we didn’t call in ahead for some format changes, didn’t write the report in a way she liked, dismissed our photographs as unprofessional, and almost accused one of our members of committing plagiarism because for one section of the report, we were asked to do risk analysis. since we had never been taught an official way to do it, and the professor gave us an old report from a few years ago as a reference point, that member used it to base her own analysis and the professor went so ballistic, our member was almost in tears. so now you know that the professor is extremely sensitive about the topic of plagiarism. of which she considers chatgtp a part of.

now, the second time around i was in charge of managing the report, and i decided to make it absolutely perfect so we could minimize any friction with the professor. so, same as last time, the group distributed report sections amongst ourselves, and i would edit and coordinate so that the end result would be coherent and to our professor’s liking. and when it came time for me to start editing the document, i start with the introduction, which sounded very familiar in tone, and it read very nonsensically to me. almost like no one who was actually trying to convey an idea would write those sentences. when it dawned on me that possibly, the reason why the sentences sounded so nonsensical was because the writer could have used chatgtp, but that the tone and topics sounded straight up lifted from the introduction i wrote for our first group report, i was pretty damn mad, but i decided to take a diplomatic approach. 

i contacted another group member who had formerly been a students association leader and asked her to mediate for me: had this student used chatgtp lifting from my introduction? his response was that no, he hadn’t, but that he had “taken inspiration” from my introduction to write his. hearing this was very aggravating, especially since the mediator a. disagreed that it sounded AI generated and b. said maybe i should be flattered because i’m just a really good writer. this despite the fact that the introductions for the two reports did not have anything to do with one another. they had different objectives and different skills to practice, so even if he had just “taken inspiration” from my introduction, he had written a terrible introduction that could barely be understood, paying no attention to what he was supposed to be writing. so at that point i just took over that section in the rewrite because i felt like i couldn’t trust him to actually put in any work and contribute.

later on in the editing process, i also caught some suspicious sentences in another section, written by someone else, that sounded like someone had copy pasted from another source. i didn’t think of this as an intentional attempt at plagiarism, more like whoever wrote it had pasted some reference sentences to write his own things rewording the core idea and then citing the sources. but i still took the time to message the guy and tell him maybe he should be more careful in case our professor got on our case over it and started yelling plagiarism about it. and his answer was to be offended that i would even accuse him of such a thing, and that maybe i should be careful about levying such serious accusations at people.

this guy had never been cold to me in my life. i think the other two must have talked about my chatgtp suspicions in some other group chat and now i was the bad guy for having even briefly suspected that something had been up. i decided to just concentrate in doing my job and ignore whatever shit these people had started about me behind my back, and what do you know, we get our report back with perfect marks. no thank yous. no word about it in the group chat where we organized. this despite the fact that when we handed in our first report, much appreciation was given to the girl that helped organize the report hand-in. hell, about half an hour before i handed in the report the girl i asked to be our mediator sent a meme saying “leaving before i end up looking like an idiot” before leaving the group chat which was. an insane thing to have to face in response to my working my ass off to make the report work.

if it were just the guy that i had accused of using chatgtp who turned on me that were acting like an asshole, i could take it, maybe that the mediator, but it’s ridiculous that we turned things around completely from the first report and no one’s mentioned the report since i handed it in. did they all just suddenly decide to enforce the silent treatment? did i not approach it in the right way? i said at multiple points that i wasn’t interested in bringing this up to our professor because as i mentioned earlier, she can be kind of a pain to deal with, especially where alleged plagiarism is being discussed.

for context: the group member who wrote the suspicious introduction had never been a very involved student in the class, which could be a constant bummer considering it was a very group oriented fieldwork class. he had previously mentioned he had no idea what to put in the introduction. i still don’t think i would have given a single thought about his previous track record in class if this incident hadn’t happened.

What are these acronyms?

[thelordofgifs]

2024 Fic Roundup

Thank you so much for the tag @emyn-arnens! I love a good stats summary, but sticking the rest of this under the cut for those who prefer not to think about the numbers.

Total Words Published at end of year: AO3 says 58,099, not counting the seven parts of tfs I haven't crossposted from tumblr yet (which probably gets me up to around 75k-ish).

Fandoms: just the Silmarillion this year!

Most kudos: Notes on the Care of the Tormented, ed. Elrond Half-elven (T, Maedhros & Maglor, 4k)

Most hits: the cleaving (G, Maedhros & Maglor, 8k)

Most comments: the cleaving again

New Things I Tried: I made much more in-depth attempts at OC-centric fic, which turned out so much more fun than I expected! I got a bit more detailed with the smut, and definitely branched out a little with the characters I wrote.

Fic I Spent the Most Time On: the fairest stars, even though my posting speed slowed way down from last year. swan song (G, Finarfin/Eärwen, Elwing and OCs, 18k) also ended up rather consuming my summer.

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: I opened the document that became kept you like an oath (G, russingon, 1k) at midnight and clicked "post" on AO3 at 2am. This was perhaps not the healthiest thing I could have been doing with my night, but it was the most fun.

Favourite Thing I Wrote: I wouldn't have listed it at the time, but the more I think about it the prouder I am of before the black gale (E, OFC x OFC, 8k). It was such a new venture for me, but I think it’s some of my best prose and distils my thoughts (about violence, and corruption, and when exactly a person – or a people – is past saving) better than almost anything I’ve written. Plus it put me in all my Númenor feels ❤️

Favourite Things I Read:

A very inexhaustive list, but here are some standouts from my 2024 AO3 bookmarks!

In Memory to Dwell by @eilinelsghost (G, Finarfin & Finrod, 6k): such a moving and tender exploration of Finrod’s post-reembodiment journey, with absolutely beautiful prose as always from Frankie.

Right-ho, Edrahil! by @actual-bill-potts (G, Finrod & Edrahil, 4k): “Finrod tries to steal Lobelia Sackville-Baggins’ spoons” is an incredible concept to begin with, and this fic is (perhaps unsurprisingly) the funniest thing I read all year.

A Tale That Wasn’t Right by @zealouswerewolfcollector (M, russingon, 2k): a fantastic use of epistolary format, and such a fraught and complicated YoT-russingon dynamic.

Two Half-Kings and a Full Lake Between by @melestasflight and @polutrope (T, Fingolfin & Maglor, 12k): yesss messy Finwean drama my BELOVED. This is such a fascinating and in-depth view of the period immediately after Fingolfin’s host arrived in Beleriand, I love it.

naught green upon the oak series by @welcomingdisaster (E, Maedhros/Maglor, 38k): goddd this series drives me INSANE it’s just such an awful preventable and yet inevitable tragedy and yet they LOVE each other so and aahh go and read it I’m not coherent.

Tagging everyone I mentioned above, if you’re in the mood for a rather late 2024 retrospective! 🩷

[thebottomfromhell]

I am completely sorry for leaving you all hanging again, this apology is probable very cheap at this point, it's been rough lately. Right now I feel as if my mental health was in shambles. You see, I sometimes do work for my mother, who is a judge, and write of some testimonies on court and the last one really got to me. It was a SA case between cousins, one a young adult (the accused) the other a teen (the victim) in which almost everyone took the side of the accused, creating the story the girl (the victim) was lying, that it was "consented" but she fear the consecuences from her mother, who everyone in that family knew was abusive but nobody ever did everything. I have been hoing through statement after statement, writting people defending the guy and I'm done, I'm exhausted, both mentally and emotionally. Never a case has gotten me this much.

I really don't want to turn this into a ramble, it wouldn't be appropriate of me to take this things out here. But I want to give you some tipa if you are ever in court or need to take something, specially SA, to court. Idk, I feel this is the minimun I should be doing.

Check the actual age of consent where you live. There is an age where is you are touched or anything sexual is done it you, is automatically considered rape, but that age is never "under 18". In most places from 13 years old to older you WILL need proof that it was forced/violent to prove it was not consented. That being said, be aware that an adult going for a minor, while not ilegal, IS creepy, IS bad and actions should be always taken.

The first thing you do if you are hurt and want to take it to court is go to get medical attention, the first. Same thing if something happens to someone you know, if you don't know what to do, go get medical attention. In some countries there are medical centers linked with the local investigation/cop organization, those WILL be cheaper. Always tell the one attenting you what happened, sometimes they will lead you to a doctor/psycologist/investigator dedicated to court.

You WILL have to give several testimonies most of the time, one to the police/investigators if included, one to the lawyers, and one to the court/jury. Sometimes the jury and lawyer will use your previous testimonies to clarify things or spot contradictions. Everyone in court have these documents at hand, so don't you even think of changing the story and ALWAYS specify if you are adding a detail you disn't say before and say why you didn't add it.

Your testimony and statements must always be as detailed as possible, never assume, while they do, that the jury knows what happened. You are the one telling. In case of SA you must say the name of the specific body parts that were touched, with what and how. It's all for it to be coherent with the results of the medical evaluation.

In most cases you will have to wait years for evidence and people to be recolegted to have some to go to court. It's valid if you don't remember everything, but take note on places, time and date, and if possible, faces and/or names (nicknames count too).

"I don't know" and "I don't remember" are VALID answers in court, always say this lines instead of lying.

Never refer that you don't remember other testimonies you gave, it gives the impression you don't remember your "lines". Just say "I don't remember what happened exactly, what I remember is..."

Sometimes layers will ask the same thing several times, phrased differently, in order to get a different answer. Don't be ashame to repeat the answer and call them off by saying "I already answered (say the answer again)" in case the lawyer in your side is bad and doesn't object the question for repetitive.

In case of vaginal rape, AFAB people have all different types of hymen, it doesn't always break, but there are still other rypes of vaginal scarring. Infections are also common in case of SA. Penetration of almost any type leaves scaring, other forms of touch that are not punches or hit does not.

Try, if you have the means, to have a psicologist with experience in court (in spanish profesionals linked to court are called peritos) and colaborate. Even if you don't have the symptoms of a "good victim" "default victim", you WILL have simptoms, that their testimony explaining thems helps a lot to make the jury believe you.

In some places if you are a family member of the accused you will be obligated to attend to court but you will have the right of not giving testimony if you fear your word can be used agaisnt that person. The accused also tends to have the right of not giving testimony, and if they do give testimony they are not obligated by law to say the truth unlike witnnesses (because, let's be real. Who is going to admit it?)

You can be charged for lying in court, conviction will change depending where you live. However, if nobody (the lawyers, the judges and the jury) decide to let it slide in order to not make a whole new case based in that you lied, you might get away with it, specially if you lied in a detail. (Really, I have seen so many people get away with it.)

Anyone who fears being accused of rape over being raped doesn't know shit and it's a massive red flag. In court you have to prove both that there was "sex" and that it was "forced" as two separate things. Most of the time you can't prove it without scars that match a medical history and proves of violence used against the victim. Most of SA cases never get to court anyway, then proving it is even harder.

Always anwser the question of the lawyer first and then explain. First, because your testimony is being registered so that makes it easy to mark, and second, if you start with the explanation you might loose the focus and not only never answer the question, but it looks af if you are making an excuse.

Most white cisgender straight people, specially man, don't really know what SA is. Most of them will think that doing it while the other person is drunk, to give an ultimatum, to insist until the other will allow in order to be left alone, to scare them into doing it, anything if there wasn't penetration, or even things like groping and catcalling don't count as SA. They do. So most of these people will defend the idea that it wasn't SA because they genuinely don't understand that what they did was SA. Always be explicit and precise with what happened.

Related to the other point, most people, again cis staight men mostly, think that it has to be violent, that one must be forced to submit, and there must be punches for it to be rape. That is not the case, but always be prepared to have to fight off this idea.

Defense lawyers, in my personal experience, tend to be assholes more than any other lawyer. Some will even treat the case as if winning a competition over making justice.

Cases CAN be reopen if a LAWYER asks for it, but most of the time it doesn't work because witnneses refuse to go a second time, specially the victims as it opens wpunds and forces them to live the trauma again, specially with minors.

It can vary in different countries, but most of the time is actually harder to condemn than not. To condemn the judges have to specify what evidence makes the story of ehat happened believable, build up a story/theory of that happened linked to everything exposed and the sentence must be approved by the jury. On the other hand, a "there wan't enough evidence" is enough to absolve. (That is why to reopen the case might lead to setting the accused free in a easier way, since there aren't as many testimonies nor as many evidence as the last time)

Some lawyer of defense, this links from the two previous point, will be assholes for that, to make the work harder for everyone. Witnesses, other lawyers, judges and jury alike, so the evidence and testimonies can't be collected properly.

I will see if later I have anything more to say, but this is all I can recolect for now. Reminder that laws might change depending where you live, always check them and try to be aware of your rights.