#and walked to school uphill both ways in the snow

[bumblingbabooshka]

[uovoc]

"mutual aid"... Back in my day we called it "community service" and "volunteering"

[battylite]

oh man it’s so fascinating to see people complain about how terrible bandom is right now. if you can believe it, it actually used to be so much WORSE!!!

[dandelionsandderivatives]

Was just informed that Forever stamps are now above 70¢ and I feel very old and curmudgeonly.

[wayofcloudbrain]

He is simply doing impossible things.

Ok, but listen.

Jiang Cheng, in nothing but his inner robes, gunning it barefoot down the walkaways of Lotus Pier, because his beloved nephew (age four) decided to escape his bed and climb into an unsecured boat that is now being pushed by wind into the lake, much to Jin Ling's wailing dismay.

JC didn't even think to use Sandu, just launched himself full-tilt from the end of the pier with sheer physical brass of knowing he can eat that twenty metres...

A few minutes later, he was rowing the boat back with one arm, the other full of a wailing nephew, adrenaline finally settling down.

[buttcheeke]

TW: STORYTIME

so back when i was a cashier at a farmstand we always opened with cash in the drawer right because assholes always came in with the big bills at like 9 in the morning for like a rutabaga or some shit idk. now that was back when i was a teenager and filled to the brim with burning rage, a hobby i could maintain because i was still living on my parents salary and also it was covid so obviously mentally i wasn’t doing that fantastic but when old people thought they were being considerate by asking me if i could break a hundred dollar bill i would actually lose my shit. see it wasn’t really the act of breaking the hundred dollar bill that triggered my animalistic rage, it was the indication i couldn’t, and if there was one thing stronger than my teenage angst it was how god awfully stubborn i was so they’d ask if i could break the change or if they could just use a credit card and every single time, i’d choose to break the hundred with a smile on my face, while the little voice in my head echoed around muttering do you think you’re better than me? do you think we’re just some simple farm girls who can’t count? i am going to flambé you like the kabob and eat you whole. and the best part about the whole situation is that i literally couldn’t do math so more often than not when forced to do anything that wasn’t calculated by the computer or tapped by credit card i would just stand there and blankly stare at them as they talked me through the math like the computer had zapped my memories and turned my brain to sludge. you know that trick when they give a dollar or like sixty nine cents even so they get like a big bill back or something? yeah so i didn’t get that and i’m still clueless to it. so i’m up behind the counter, right, heat delirious, nine hours in and breaking child labor laws, and on top of that i got a mask on with no inside ventilation so i’m actively suffocating and a snooty grown man who only carries around hundred dollar bills has the audacity to tell me that if he just gives me three dollars and seventy six cents he could have a twenty back?? while home plays in the background on the indie pop station for the 15263618th time in a row?? like my eyes would roll into the back of my head like i was about to have a stroke

yeah so anyway i just saw something that reminded me of the headache of breaking hundreds and like that was never a problem for me but when they calculated change after the computer did it always fucked me up. like i was fully ready to send a kindly elderly woman up to jesus early over twenty one cents and i was literally getting paid eight dollars an hour for that shit. and i still look back on it fondly. can’t listen to home anymore though or i’ll have a reaction similar to victims of chinese water torture but i guess that’s the price i have to pay for being able to leave the House during quarantine

[whoslaurapalmer]

my brother is playing ace attorney on steam and sending me updates and I was like '???? did they upgrade the art???' and he said 'yeah, it's HD' and I'm just. by god what a time to be alive!!!!!!! ace attorney in HD!!!!!!!!! it looks so smooth and gorgeous!!!!!!!!!! once again restraining myself from buying it for the switch bc I still have a working 3ds with all the games!!!!!! BUT THE HD..............😭

[inkskinned]

it is the first snow today. i think we should all have off work, even though it didn't stick. i think there should be 4 national holidays, one for each season. happy first snow, go home and make cookies. for spring it can be the first crocus. for summer the first lightning bug. for autumn, the first golden leaf. go home, kiss your dog, feed your cat (who is absolutely already-fed but somehow still starving.)

i think we should all take more showers together, but i mean that in the soft way. i mean it like taking a nap. two years ago i had 5 adult friends in my queen bed, all of us laying across each other, head over belly over thigh over hand. any time one of us would giggle, it would ripple over each of us, like pulling on a spiderweb. kim actually needed to nap and didn't get to sleep and i am still sorry for it even though this is one of my most precious memories.

i think we should all wash each other's hair, i mean. i walk my dog and i watch someone put up twinkle lights around their front porch. alex and i just moved, and i love the neighborhood. already so many of our new neighbors have stopped by to say hello. the nice lady downstairs also collects plants, like me. she gave us her number on a pink post-it note. i am trying to decide whether to make her cookies or brownies.

i am going through a very hard time. something bad happened this weekend that i do not wish to discuss. it is hanging over me. i think of the green ribbon, and the woman who had her throat cut. it feels like that sometimes, inside of my body. like i am walking and talking despite being half-corpsed. like i am hanging on by a ribbon, standing on some kind of cusp. i keep saying - at least it wasn't worse. we are so lucky it wasn't worse. the idea is river-rock smooth now, all the edges worried off.

in this very dark night - the sun sets by 3 now - people don't need to, but they try anyway. they paint the missing light into things. i have an embarrassing number of missed calls and texts, but i feel the love from them nevertheless - hey. if you need something, i'm here. i will bring you food/puzzles/anything. i got you.

i think we should all have a big group chat where we do errands with strangers. this week i got lost in a home depot, which is wild because i'm a lesbian and we are actually hatched in a lowe's lumber section. there were two other women in the whole store. we ended up shopping together, at first by accident (we all needed things in the same aisle), and then because, well, why not. one of the ladies was taller than me, so she pulled down the screws i needed. i am agile and have the personality of a raccoon, so they sent me after anything below 3 feet. we talked about holiday plans and never learned each other's names, but did learn all the drama about each other's families.

i am making you cupcakes, because i have so much affection i want to pour it into batter. you ask me if i am eating enough per meal. i wrap your gift twice, trying to do it prettily. i get excited to give it to you, just because i hope you'll be excited too.

my parents drive an hour just to see the new apartment and to do the parent thing; standing in the kitchen saying things like "oh you'll get so much use from this dishwasher" and "well, you could paint that" and "when your mother and i moved it was uphill both ways and in a snowstorm and of course your brother was an infant." my mother brought me a plant for housewarming. i always say i love you before she leaves.

i play dnd on tuesdays still, after all these years. we all keep that night free. at one point, between grad school and marriage and all of it, we had to have a serious discussion about how to keep it running. we will keep going, we decided eventually. just to see each other, even if we don't play - you are all important to me. sebastian is not prone to affection but last night he stole my usual sign off - i love you all, be good, he said. he was laughing.

i don't love the winter, actually. i like snow in theory, but i grew up in the north, and am too-familiar with the season of "mud and sludge". i don't like being cold. but i do love something kind of soft and rare: every year around this time, people remember oh yes. you and i are human together. and i have love to spare.

it is the first snow, and something in my heart is finally warm again. i have spent what felt like the last 18 months just going-through-the-motions. it has felt blank and immediate, like i would never actually feel again. that sounds extremely trite and stupid - but that is the boring and familiar experience of depression. life just washes up against your windows, and you watch it happening. you see things that should be lovely and affecting, and it just whispers too-thin. i was desperately uncreative. uninterested in my hobbies. unimpressed by my writing. i told my therapist, often, i don't know how to find hope again.

almost sheepishly, something strange and lovely is burning in my chest. i keep not-looking at it, worried it will scamper back into the shadows again. it is skittish and wild, but it is so warm i want to sink my hands into its fur and feel it breathing. i love-hate it: if it's real, it can hurt me when it leaves again. but i am icarus-born, sun-lover and poet: i can't help myself. despite my best intentions, i am falling in love with life again.

i am planning to make cookies for my friends. alex and i are going to go christmas tree shopping. we picked out matching dish towels last night, and they have little mushrooms on them.

i love you. it does come back. yes, even after a long time. even for you. i promise. keep trying. you will wake up and it will be a day you can smile about.

write me when you get there. we will take the day off of work, and i will wash your hair, and we will both be laughing.

[nereidof40k]

Today we’re Nostramoposting. I have been going through the Night Lords Omnibus, and I have some thoughts.

More under the cut, with quotes as usual.

First off, Talos in school. I was actually surprised Nostramo has something that civilized. For a crime ridden hellhole, it’s surprisingly functional in this regard.

Not that it’s the most in depth schooling, but it is schooling. Talos is being a remarkably normal kid here, I have to say.

Even a very poor child like Talos is actually getting at least some education. And they are poor. One room and kitchen isn’t much for two people. And it gets worse.

Talos’ mother is owned by someone. So a slave. Yet her son is getting at least some schooling.

I will leave it as a mental exercise for the reader why she is that ashamed of her tattoos.

Also, she can actually afford extra reading material for him. It does tell me that being educated is fairly important on Nostramo. When access to books and education filters that far down into society.

This is Talos’ walk home from school. This might be worse than the stereotypical “walking in the snow, uphill both ways.”

Nostramo actually has cars, surprisingly. But that might not be a good thing. Do you really want to know what Nostraman road rage looks like? The excerpt shows it might be horribly common.

As a bonus, I want to note that Talos’ mother was blonde. Which in turn means that while Nostramans are often dark haired, there’s a range of hair colors. Maybe even red?

I could go on, but perhaps more in a later post.

[rockyp77mk3]

This is how our parents said they got to school. “Walking 10 miles in the frigid snow fighting off bears and coyotes”

You forgot, "Uphill both ways..."

[cavetigrim]

He can't help but raise his head from its resting place atop crossed fore-paws, his single eye following the cub's antics as he scrabbled from branch to branch.

"Are you a common panther now, to squander your time hiding in trees like a drunken bandar-log?" he grumbled, before opening his maw to let out a great yawn. "A cub's time should be spent learning to fight and hunt for the coming seasons, not gambolling about like songbirds in the spring."

Is he going to attempt to climb up a tree higher than he did yesterday? You bet he is! In fact, he's already one branch higher and is already having to jump to get from one branch to another due to the distance. "Wonder if I can reach the top today." Here goes nothing...

[doueverwonder]

The thirteen probably complain SO MUCH about the old jokes but they all are old so they can't complain, its not allowed:

Not a single one of them is capable of sitting down or standing up without groaning loud enough for the entire house to hear.

They all pull the "when I was a kid we walked five miles in the snow uphill both ways to go to school" stories like 7 times a day.

Also the "If you aren't old enough to remember the revolution, you're not old enough for your opinion to matter to me" (but they don't listen to each other either so rlly its a shitty excuse).

"When I was your age I had three jobs and seven roommates all named William and was happy as a clam, while you young states get on the tick tock and make videos complaining about everything"

speaking of put 'the' before every app name, 'the tiktok' 'the youtube' 'the google' 'the instagram' 'the facebook' it's not necessary. California loses a bit more sanity every time they hear it, NY being their bf is definitly doing it on purpose by now.

"Western States" (said in the same tone as 'kids these days') -- a true and real quote by the state of Delaware.

they eat dinner at like 4 pm. because. logic.

They all have at least 1 stereotypical old person collection, those little porcelain statues, decorative plates, stamps, coins, fucking cuckoo clocks. props if u collect that stuff its neat but dear lord.

they're all stubborn about it but half of them need glasses, the other half should start looking into hearing aids, at least two or three should really be using a cane but it's going to take not being able to read menus, hours of going "WHAT?" from like 4 feet away, and a broken hip before any of them "admit defeat" or whatever they think it is.

They all lore drop like no ones business, one second you're watching tv while daring to sit next to one of them and the next second you're getting first had details of Valley Forge, “that sounds traumatizing” “it was character building”

They also bring up decades old drama that was between people that are long dead. The states all sitting around getting to hear about the pettiest feuds the founding fathers ever had. Tell Lin to get his pen ready we need a whole second musical just about this undocumented beef.

the old jokes are the singular thing Florida keeps his mouth shut on bc he’s older then all of them and if he’s not careful they’ll come for him next.

[he13na]

These gatekeeping gremlins need to sit the entire hell down. Like oh, congratulations, babe, you typed out your 60k slow burn fic without any help—want a cookie? No one's taking away your Tumblr Gold Star for Suffering. But acting like anyone who uses AI is some kind of intellectual bottom-feeder? Absolutely not. That’s elitist nonsense masquerading as moral superiority, and it reeks of insecurity.

Let me tell you something real: knowing how to use tools, including AI, to better yourself, learn things schools won’t touch, or just get shit done more efficiently? That’s called ADAPTABILITY. It’s a freaking superpower. Meanwhile, the “I’m better because I suffer through everything manually” crowd is just romanticizing struggle like it's a personality trait.

You can learn valuable stuff—on your terms, in your time, for your benefit. That is badass. That is powerful. And anyone sneering at that can go reread their own angry text post like it’s a Shakespearean tragedy, because clearly, they love the drama.

The vibe is "I suffered, so you should too." Like okay, Grandpa, just because you walked uphill both ways in the snow to write fanfic with nothing but MS Paint and a prayer doesn't mean the rest of us need to. It's giving boomer with a superiority complex, but make it ✨digitally condescending✨.

What they don't get is that growth doesn’t have to come from misery. You don’t have to struggle to earn your place in the world. Using resources smartly isn’t cheating—it’s EVOLUTION. You think Einstein would've said “no thanks” to a calculator out of some weird purist pride? Hell no. He’d be like, “Give me the tech, I’ve got theories to flex.”

So if these digital boomers want to gatekeep enlightenment because it didn’t come soaked in their personal suffering—let them. Meanwhile, others will be busy actually learning, creating, and elevating while they’re stuck in 2011 with their holier-than-thou typewriter vibes. Catch up or kindly get out of the way.

ChatGPT users are not the problem. Their bitter nostalgia complex is.

That and now people think using em dash is AI. Lemme tell you something Kayleigh, some of us actually majored in English in college. We were taught and instructed to use em dashes because they belong in sentences. Grammar is an academic class. I'm sick of these Regina Georges of the internet acting like they’ve cracked some Da Vinci code every time they see an em dash and go, “Ummm this is giving AI…” Girl, WHAT? Since when did basic punctuation become a war crime?

Listen, Ava, just because you discovered grammar on TikTok last week doesn’t mean the rest of us are AI clones. Some of us sat through ten thousand workshops and wrote fifteen-page close readings on Virginia Woolf’s use of syntax, okay? We bled MLA formatting. We were born into the semicolon; we didn’t merely adopt it. The sheer audacity of equating using proper, elegant, academically validated punctuation with “must be AI” is just another flavor of intellectual laziness wrapped in performative superiority. Like—no, sweetie, it’s not AI. It’s called knowing the goddamn English language. Shocking, I know. So let them spiral in their grammatical ignorance. We’re not just writing—we’re serving literary finesse, and they simply can’t handle that level of educated flair. Keep using your em dashes, babes. The English department would be proud.

It really is giving “Goody Proctor was seen using ChatGPT under the light of a blood moon” and now the whole village is clutching their pitchforks and pearl necklaces like it’s The Crucible: Tumblr Edition. Like damn, Sophie, what’s next—burning us at the stake for bolding text or using proper paragraph structure?

They’re out here acting like being a Non-AI User is some kind of moral compass. Babes, it’s not a religion. You’re not a better person because you wrote your essay while crying into a candle and stabbing the paper with a quill. And the idea that using AI makes someone a “cheater” or “lazy” is just thinly veiled fear of change masquerading as virtue. What’s actually lazy? Refusing to adapt, learn, or question your own biases. What’s actually scary? People treating nuanced tools like digital heresy because it threatens their little superiority bubble.

So yeah, it’s 100% giving “witchhunt”—but plot twist: we’re the smart witches. We’ve got scrolls, spells, and spellcheck. They’ve got vibes and vitriol. And history has shown that when you burn the witches, the real magic dies. Not today, Puritan Tumblr. Not. Today.

And like I get the concern about real artists being stolen from, but that's not the point here. ChatGPT ACTUALLY HELPS PEOPLE. If they think they're too cool to access information that's there and right in front of them.... that's their loss. These zealots are missing the fact that two things can be true at the same time. YES, we can (and should) talk about protecting real artists, preventing plagiarism, and making sure AI isn't being used unethically. Those are valid conversations. But that’s NOT what most of these people are actually doing. They’re just waving the “ethics” flag while being condescending and smug AF toward people who are using AI to grow, learn, and better themselves.

Some of us are over here expanding our minds, leveling up, actually using the resources available like a grown, curious, intelligent adult, and they’re sitting on their high horses gatekeeping knowledge like it's some elite club with a velvet rope and a powdered wig. NEWSFLASH: Using ChatGPT doesn’t make you a robot. It doesn’t mean you have no creativity, no intelligence, or no soul. You know what it does mean? That you’re resourceful, adaptive, and unafraid to explore new tech to make your life better. That’s not a red flag, babe. That’s a power move.

So go ahead and rot in your handcrafted moral superiority echo chamber. Others are out here in the 21st century, tapping into a global library of ideas, asking the big questions, and evolving like baddie scholars. If anti AI crusaders wanna miss out on all that because they’re too busy moralizing over punctuation and purity? That’s their tragic little loss.

[phiralovesloki]

I went off about this a little bit yesterday, but I want to talk about it on its own today.

One of the amazing things about the internet is the sheer volume of information that's available to everyone. Just so much information, so many sources, at your fingertips.

It is not the job of the information itself to answer your questions. You need to figure out the answers to your questions using the information and your brain.

Yes, sometimes it's as simple as, "Huh, who discovered reverse transcriptase?" and then you look it up in the encyclopedia (remember those books????) and find your answer. But you didn't look up, "Who discovered reverse transcriptase?" You had to decide what to look up to answer your question. So you look up, "reverse transcriptase" and read through the information about it until you find the information you're looking for, and you recognize that the info answers your question.

"But Phira, I can just google it. If I google 'Who discovered reverse transcriptase?' it gives me the answer." I mean sure, I picked a simple question!

However, not only do you not know if the answer is correct, because genAI gets things wrong all the time, but you did not learn how to look up information!

You did not search for any sources yourself, and so you did not learn how to adjust search terms to find what you're looking for.

You did not actually look through any sources yourself, and so you did not learn how to assess the usefulness or validity of a source.

You did not have to determine the answer to your question based on information, and so you did not learn how to synthesize information to get your questions answered.

In fact, because you did not actually look up and read a single source yourself, you do not know if the answer to your question is valid!! I happen to know that the answer is valid because I already know who discovered reverse transcriptase because I'm a cell and molecular biologist whose graduate PI was one of Howard Temin's students, and I've read Howard Temin's paper! (I know, I know, also David Baltimore, but I don't have a personal link.)

To know whether or not this answer is correct, you have to do the basic research yourself. You have to search for sources, read the sources, and decide what the answer is. So what's the point of the genAI answer, when you need to do the legwork anyway? What's the point if you have to verify everything?

But also--learning how to do these things, to search for information, find and read sources, synthesize information--this is all critical. This is all important. You've gotta be able to do this. And not because [insert stuffy old person workplace norms here] or [insert "back in my day, we had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways" whining here], but because knowledge and understanding are beautiful parts of being human in the world, and you are giving that up in exchange for nothing of value.

GenAI isn't giving you time and convenience. It's destroying the environment so that venture capitalist tech bros can line their pockets, so that companies can cut human jobs, so that health insurance companies can deny care, etc. etc. etc., in exchange for you not learning how to use your brains and often getting incorrect information that ranges from useless to downright dangerous.

[errorryx]

you guys need to stop posting shit like "back in my day we didn't have chatgpt to write essays so we actually had to pay attention and learn the things we were being taught"

not because kids using chatgpt to get through school is a good thing. i agree that it's bad. but you know damn well that there are serious issues with the education system and the expectations we put on kids, and instead of addressing literally any of that, you've just given them yet another pointless monologue about walking to school uphill both ways in the snow.

they're not going to fucking listen to you. you should know this, because when you were a kid, you didn't listen to those people. you're dismissing their very real problems and telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. if you ever want to change any of their minds, put down the superiority complex and start sympathizing.

[thatgoddamngingerundercut]

I love it when the boys talk about their childhoods and all the silly, extremely dorky shit they did to entertain themselves, because Grandpa Yoongi always inevitably says something like yeah the kids watching won't get this because back in our day we didn't have all this fancy technology and we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to school