#for the fucking time

[oceanremnants]

[890005.66]

PRIVATE - First Dewdrop of Morning, Fifth Sunrise; UPSILON.

---

<FDM> you.

<UPSILON> ...Me?

<FDM> i'm getting married. to EA.

<UPSILON> I'm quite aware! You've seemed quite excited in your endless sharing of the wonderful news, and for good reason! I'm very happy for the two of you.

<FDM> right...

<FDM> ...

<UPSILON> Is something the matter?

<FDM> ...........

<FDM> i'm inviting you. this is your invitation.

<UPSILON> ...You are? Truly?

<UPSILON> I

<UPSILON> This is a massive honor. Thank you, Sunrise.

<FDM> ...no problem.

<FDM> just make sure to come with an overseer. or maybe a bodyguard...

<UPSILON> Is that a threat?

<FDM> it's a warning. mess up even once and i'll give ea full permission to snap off your eartennae and

<FDM> i dunno. stab your puppet with them? but they're too soft to stab anything...

<UPSILON> Out of anything you could possibly recall about our previous friendship, you remember how soft my eartennae are?

<FDM> i remember every upgrade i've given to others or otherwise assisted with the creation in. you arent special.

<UPSILON> Of course, of course.

<FDM> ...

<FDM> you already know about the +1 rule?

<UPSILON> One additional guest per each invited persons, yes!

<FDM> you're going to invite ftl. that isn't a question.

<FDM> please try to keep the bullying to a minimum.

<UPSILON> I would never dream of harassing EA. Let alone at his own wedding!

<UPSILON> Especially not by acquiring one of your own upgrades and using it to pour a bucket of water on their head.

<FDM> ...

<FDM> you

<FDM> MY UPGRADE?????

<UPSILON> And FTL would obviously not assist in making sure that she's as soaking wet as the sopping wet slugcat everyone knows her to be, of course...

<FDM> MY FUCKING UPGRADE. THAT I MADE?

<UPSILON> Perhaps we could even flood the place a tad... Annoy the rest of the guests, and tarnish his reputation along with it~

<FDM> NOOOO

<FDM> SHE DOESNT HAVE A REPUTATION TO TARNISH

<FDM> LEAVE HER LOOONE

<UPSILON> Do you have any better ideas?

<FDM>

<FDM> ...

<UPSILON> ...?

<FDM> well,

<FDM> blood, for one...

<UPSILON> Blood.

<FDM> real blood.

<UPSILON> ...Real blood??

<FDM> vivisection's getting covered in fake slow-drying blood, for our wedding.

<FDM> slow-drying so they aren't just... sticky... the whole time.

<FDM> so,

<UPSILON> Real blood could hardly ruin one's ensemble, but it absolutely would put one in a sticky situation~!

<FDM> ...were you always this disgustingly corny.

<UPSILON> You were cornier, dear brother.

<FDM> i refuse to believe this slander and i'm cutting comms.

<UPSILON> NoooOOOOOO

<FDM> ...do sort of have to go now though

<UPSILON> .Oh.

<UPSILON> Well. It certainly was fun chatting again, my littlest of brothers~!

<UPSILON> Keep in touch?

<FDM> once my vacation's over.... maybe.

<FDM> ...good chat.

<FDM> see you later, yoops.

<UPSILON> Goodbye, Sunrise!

<UPSILON> Wait-

-=COMMUNICATIONS TERMINATED=-

[koobiie]

i feel strongly about this

[guiltyidealist]

new favorite YouTube comment just dropped

[mintaii]

take responsibility

[teaboot]

Okay so I'm a security guard, right

And part of why I like my job is cause I'm pretty good at deescalating conflicts without violence or police involvement

And that *might* be because my primary coping mechanism for stress is humor, and if the guy in the uniform isn't stressed out, usually nobody else is either

But anyhow today I witnessed a crime, which 911 had already been called for

And I'm telling the guy, you know, as he's running away, that nobody's gonna touch him, we don't do that here, I don't have any weapons and he can totally walk on out if he wants to

And he gives me this 'go-fuck-yourself" type answer, right? As you do

And I fucking

I fucking. Start danCING

I DONT KNOW WHY

I WAS JUST LIKE "aight guess I'll go fuck myself then, cheerio" AND START FUCKING DANCING

LIKE MY BRAIN WAS LIKE "Cool not being attacked, gotta keep the witnessed calm, gotta stay chill and breezy" AND THE PHYSICAL RESPONSE FOR THAT WAS TO SYART DOING THIS SASSY FUCKING JIG

I DIDNT EVEN REALIZR I WAS FDOUNG IT UNTIL SOMEONE POIU TED IT OUT AFTER

and it all ended fine and the dude is in custody and I get a call from my boss like "Yeah we're gonna need to send footage to police"

AND

FUCKING

THIS IS GOING TO BE SHOWN IN COURT SOMEWHERE

IM DOUNG A SRUPID LITTLE DANCE ON CAMERA AS THIS GUY LOSES HIS MIND AND ITS GONNA BE ON COURT SOMEWHERW

THIS IS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THING IVE WVER DONE

I HATE MYSELFD

[unforth]

Y'all I know that when so-called AI generates ridiculous results it's hilarious and I find it as funny as the next guy but I NEED y'all to remember that every single time an AI answer is generated it uses 5x as much energy as a conventional websearch and burns through 10 ml of water. FOR EVERY ANSWER. Each big llm is equal to 300,000 kiligrams of carbon dioxide emissions.

LLMs are killing the environment, and when we generate answers for the lolz we're still contributing to it.

Stop using it. Stop using it for a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. We need to kill it.

Sources:

[chiimeramanticore]

compilation of this type of post

edit: idk how much this is gonna do but since making this post i got covid and need some help, please consider it

[azvhaalk]

glorious evolution

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

the picture of dorian gray (1890) - oscar wilde

"fuck my yaoi life"

[historiansmp3]

it’s fucking insane that a moderator had to say “there is no state where you can kill a baby after it’s born” at a presidential debate.

[mysillycomics]

[vulpinesaint]

quiz enjoyers! i am now inviting you to come create something in my workshop❕

[teaboot]

When I was a kid one of my moms would call her period "moon time" or "her monthlies" or shit like that and my other mom straight up stealthed it, but when I'm a dad I think I'm gonna go straight down the middle and call it Werewolf Week. Like sorry kids, dad can't roughouse right now, it's Werewolf Week

[aretarers]

mantra when you fuck up is "i'm in my early 20s it's literally not a big deal"