#how to write on video on android

[meat-n-blood]

https://youtu.be/P2WchHyOAYk

Basically the Dragonball Super anime was a mistake and we need better writers.

[thestrawberrygirly]

150 things to do when you're bored 🧸🍰🍓

make a journal and write down about your dreams.

try baking a cake.

draw sanrio characters.

learn choreo of the song 'war of hormones' by bts.

stream bts songs or your favorite band's songs.

clean your room.

play any cute mobile games like Purrfect Tale, Resonance of Ocean, Resortopia, Sumikkogurashi Farm, Rhythm Hive, HelloKittyWorld2 Sanrio Kawaii and more. (these are available on android)

plant some trees.

watch any ghibli studio movie.

declutter your phone.

watch some aesthetic japan vlogs.

read a book.

do some skincare.

make a playlist on spotify about the songs you would like to play if you owned a cute café.

write a book about your dream world.

do pilates.

try coquette aesthetic makeup.

start crocheting.

go for a bicycle ride.

have picnic with friends or alone.

watch youtube videos.

go stargazing.

try skateboarding.

go for a walk and observe the beautiful nature and then journal about it.

try cooking with your partner or friends

make a youtube channel.

start a side hustle.

start blogging.

read your favorite blogs.

listen a podcast.

write a song about your favorite person.

make music on bandlab.

write down goals you want to achieve.

learn new language.

re-organise your closet.

take a day off from social media.

take a nap.

organise your pinterest boards.

write a poem.

write a letter to yourself.

make a cute diy necklace.

invent a cute game to play with your friends.

learn to count in another language.

look through a cookbook and try something new.

water the plants.

pray.

try meditating for 5 minutes.

read my blogs :) <3

draw cute doodles.

make cute things out of air dry clay.

create cute diy stickers.

bake cookies in cute fun shapes.

build a blanket fort and read a book inside while eating snacks.

create a scrapbook of favorite memories.

paint rocks with colorful cute designs.

make cute bracelets for your bestfriend.

write a cute story about fairies.

make homemade popsicles with fruit juice.

watch the sunset or sunrise and take a moment to appreciate the beauty of nature.

go for a nature walk and collect interesting leaves or stones.

have a movie marathon with your favorite films.

have a fashion show with clothes from your closet.

design and decorate your own phone case.

create a memory jar filled with notes of happy moments.

design and paint your own ceramic plant pots.

learn about law of attraction.

do research about the history of something of your interest like 'how it was invented?', 'who started it?'.

create your own font.

play an old online game.

try a coloring app.

work on your wish list.

paint your nails.

take a bubble bath.

start a garden.

make your own short movie with your phone.

complete a puzzle.

write about the most beautiful dream you have ever saw.

organize your house.

make a smoothie.

put an appreciation message on a balloon and let it go.

complete a challenge like 30 day self care challenge, 30 day writing challenge and more.

visit a local art gallery.

watch a lecture or TED talk.

read a self-help book.

read a book on astronomy.

click aesthetic pictures of nature.

make your phone look aesthetic.

give your bedroom a makeover on ghibli studio aesthetic.

create a toothpick tower.

practice writing from your non dominate hand.

write about what a day in your dream life looks like.

take out your pet for a walk.

make something wearable for your pet.

learn about how to beat procrastination.

make a little plushie out of your old socks.

learn a new skill.

make a cute website in carrd.co.

write down 10 things you're grateful for.

sit by a river.

visit a local bakery.

walk around a lake.

scroll on pinterest about nature.

walk in the rain.

watch classic films.

watch fashion shows on youtube.

get a haircut.

drink water, take care of yourself <3

read some beauty tips.

watch ballet videos.

write a quote on moon.

say yes to everything for a day.

read some interesting articles.

watch your comfort movie.

write a fiction story.

make your own calendar.

have an indoor picnic with your partner.

write a list of things you will do with your bestie.

crochet something for your loved one or yourself.

learn graphic designing.

write 10 beautiful things about yourself.

make paper stars.

explore interesting websites.

explore your neighborhood.

make a yummy snack.

make hwachae.

try origami.

write a list of your favorite songs explaining why you love it.

watch run bts.

read some manga.

make strawberry cake.

watch conan gray's old vlogs <3

watch onegai my melody :D

design and launch a cute social media challenge to spread positivity and creativity online.

host a themed dinner party with your friends where everyone dresses up and brings a dish from a different culture.

have a spa day at home complete with homemade facemasks, bath bombs, and soothing music.

design a pretty jewellery.

draw your dream house.

try out guided meditation videos (you will find in youtube).

learn about a new culture.

make homemade jam.

do a random act of kindness.

research and plan a future trip.

try a new type of workout video.

research and practice self-defense techniques.

try a new type of creative writing (screenwriting, playwriting, etc.).

try a new type of DIY beauty product (lip balm, body scrub, etc.).

watch a documentary.

learn about constellations and stargaze.

practice calligraphy.

do a riddle.

[all-the-fish]

Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

[idrawprettyboys]

I finally started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation! I've been curious about it for a long time. I happened to find a book by Brent Spiner the other day (Data's actor) that reminded me of how curious I was to meet his character! I loved the character even before watching it, mainly because I've always adored android characters. I find him super adorable, but there was something that happened in episode 3 that caught me off-guard and made me disappointed about a character arc that could've been. But I'm going to continue, because I still think he's precious, even if the writers didn't write him exactly the way I expected. If anything, I hope this discovery about him will make me see him as more... desirable?

Please watch the Youtube video where I show this painting moving under the light. The scan doesn't show the glitter very well at all. The video gives a better idea of what the painting really looks like in person.

Tools: Canson cold-pressed watercolor paper, Pentel Click 0.7 mechanical pencil, Pentel Hi-Polymer eraser, Sakura Pigma Micron 01 pen, Sakura Koi metallic watercolors, Mei Liang watercolors, Pentel Aquash brush, Sakura white GellyRoll pen, Epson 4490 scanner.

[medicine-san]

savanaclaw android [ au belongs to @ceruleancattail ]

[ okay I've felt better now, and as promised here full story with 🍩 and 🐺. unfortunately most context were lost because I tried too hard to keep it short ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I do not speak english, I don't know how to write, this is purely me being dedicated to murphy's law. ]

tw: fluff jack fluff jack fluff jack

leona who funnily enough was bought not to be a miracle as what people originally intended him to be, but a kindergarten teacher.

who would've thought such high maintenance android would end up getting his hands wiping some kid's piss and puke off the floor, his rumoured high intelligence are nought but just for teaching mere children's knowledge. not like he can do anything, his owner need his help. it's in the contract. letting these tiny creatures pestering him, their tiny hands all over him or his tail or his ears. or having them fight to sit on his uncomfortably hard thighs when it's lunch time.

what an insult to his creation.

but recently, he began to experience an unexplainable series of lagging in his speech pattern. his eyes begin to blur at times. simple tasks beginning to feel like a burden as his head would dangerously overheat, even the kids could see the strain he's baring from how much he's scrunching his brows.

the sound, he'd say, the sound. it's annoying.

a sound of something stirring. everytime he heard the sound, his eye would hurt so bad as if it's scratching to come out of his eye socket. his students would just childishly claim it was a migraine, telling him he should rest more. "I could not have migraine you stupid cubs", is what he'd say if not because of the strict filter for his speech.

popup notifications begin to emerge, warning him of a foreign third party running his system. multiple non permitable access to his memory drive, he just now noticed that there are viruses corrupting his system. how could this be possible? he never turned his antivirus software off. is there a malpractice happening without him knowing?

and it doesn't take long for him to figure out the problem.

his eyes are the problem.

the images, the videos, continuously sent to a certain someone he could not mention as that will breach the TOS. even thinking this is already straining his thought process to the point of overheating.

his eyes are the reason.

and with that same eyes, he continues to stare at the messy mess. nonchalantly showing off his bloodied hand with bits of what could be assumed as remnants of skin and flesh to the watching eyes behind the screen. it is a bit dark, but they are not stupid.

especially not after the screen went temporarily blocked before it shows the face of a certain android, specks of blood can be seen on his face.

don't you think delivery guys got away quite easily?

you can be one of those annoying old men who think the whole world is their enemy and will not hesitate to shoot you for wanting to get your ball that accidentally got into his lawn, but will let his gate open for limited access to his front door if you're his delivery guy. well, as long as they keep their bloodthirsty dogs on leash at least. humans are not to be trusted.

maybe it's not the greatest job, but it's one that he enjoys doing. the rush to get everything on time, the competition to stay on top, the joy that comes with being able to see new places and faces. ruggie enjoys it all. can machines even feel joy? he may have no answer to that, but it is something akin to that, if he could describe it.

or at least, that's what the old lady told him. truly, how could she describe human emotion on him, a robot? do humans really have to push their human perspective on everything? that's why they keep getting themselves in stupid situation for being too emotionally attached to objects. but then that's why those heartslabyul ai software is all the hit right now.

because they are lonely.

the old lady is kind. really! she always greet him whenever he came to the area for deliveries. asking him about his day, about the weather, if he's working too hard. such young man shouldn't get his skin burned by the sun! she'd say. grandma, don't you think your concern is misplaced? worry about yourself first, instead of this young roaring machine. I'm still full of energy, and carefully oiled. my gears won't rust away anytime soon, and I'm not getting busted that easily. not while there's still people who need his service.

like this shaky hand that's reaching out of the crack of the door.

the wide, soulless eye staring at him, pleading for that magical key to the world of happiness. to see such unhappiness, and him having the power to change it, oh how thrilling! he couldn't control the grin from widening!

he loves this job, it helps more people to be happy.

for a guard dog, jack model is certainly quite a character. not in a bad way, it's just funny to see this over 190cm android tensing up for his monthly checkups. even while sitting down, he still manage to tower over the mechanic's smaller figure. his ears flatten whenever their hands reaching the inside of him for any loose bolts, quietly whimpering to himself whenever they bumped his circuits with their fragile fingers while checking him up. his sensory should've been turned off, so it's certainly not "pain" he's experiencing.

"calm down, puppy,"

"you're making this difficult for me."

it's difficult for him too. human, can't you see? the way you're talking to him, the way you're handling him, how you'd rub circles around his knuckles whenever he'd had a nasty fight with aggressors, or when you'd aggressively scratch his head and ears after every patch ups with them, cooing him with "good boy"s and "good job"s. all while smelling like oil and chemical, the clinking sound of equipments softly echoing in the workshop, his ears catching up lowly moans of other androids under their care, the buzzing noise of fading life all around the two of them.

how romantic, hell he could imagine himself getting a kiss too from how much his brain is replaying all the romantic scenarios on tv dramas he'd play BEFORE coming here. oh please do, just a peck on my head is all I want. touch my cheeks and pull them lightly, what I'd do just to feel you gracing me with your marks on me. those damned lines play by itself on his mind as he's staring directly at their face. taking notes of how their face scrunched when he's not staying still to their liking, or at how their shadowed figure igniting a certain scene that got his eyes drooping. his tail lightly drumming the chair he's sitting on, the artificial fur sweeping their pants tenderly.

sickeningly sweet.

as if he didn't just had a romantic awakening in the middle of what can be considered a butcher's shop of his kind.

[eunjiahn]

studying methods ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚

"the kpop method"

You're going to pretend that your school is a kpop company, and each class represents a different kpop group, and each student is a member of that group. The best student in each class is the most biased member, and the worst student is the least biased member. work until you are the most biased member. By working hard and putting in your effort, you can become the most biased member of your class and achieve your academic goals.

BONUS - If you want to become the best version of yourself while still using the kpop method, i have a little tip for you! You're going to make a list of requirements for yourself, this can include how you want to dress, how you want to act, make a routine for yourself, etc. Then you can pretend it's your "company" telling these things, as if you were a real kpop idol ˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪

(this method is not mine, credits to the original owner of this method)

" The Rory Gilmore method"

this method is not very complex, but it has a lot of steps.

1. create a schedule - Rory is well-known for her strict schedule and commitment to sticking to it. To study like Rory, you should first make a timetable outlining your study time, your reading time, and free time. Include breaks in your schedule and try to follow it as much as you can.

2. lots of reading - Rory is an avid reader who always carries a book with her. Pick books that interest you and make reading a daily habit ( i recommend reading before bed because it helps me to calm down and helps me with falling asleep). Reading books will help you develop your vocabulary and critical thinking skills.

3. Take notes - Rory is well-known for her detailed notes and ability to retain new information. Take notes in class and annotate your books. Make your notes more structured by using highlithers and different colors, and review them daily. (goodnotes - ios, notion - ios and android are great for digital notes)

4. Make use of flashcards - Rory memorises stuff through flashcards. Flashcards can be used for vocabulary terms, key concepts, and other relevant information. Use them to test yourself and review regularly.

5. Define your goals - Rory has a set goal, what are you working for? Make a vision board, write down your goals, visualize. This will help you stay motivated and not loose focus!

6. stay organized - Rory is well-organized, and her study space is always neat and tidy. Keep your study area nice and free from distractions. Use folders, binders, and other tools to keep your notes and supplies organized, make sure your work space is clean and clutter-free.

7. seek help when needed - Rory is not afraid to ask for help when she needs it. Don't hesitate to ask for help from your teachers, tutors, or classmates if you need it. To enhance your learning, ask questions, and seek out extra resources such as textbooks, youtube videos, and study guides.

8. atmosphere - Don't forget to make the atmosphere cozy, light a candle, prepare yourself a cup of tea or coffee, and wear a comfy sweater. Create an environment in which you can stay focused for hours! ˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪

(this method is not mine, credits to the original owner of this method)

Yujin is logging off...

[falling-star-cygnus]

...i've gotten four asks about this sorta thing -> which i'm super grateful for!! thank y'all so much for wanting to see more of my writing!!

i've just sort of been putting these specific ones off until i felt i could adequately display it and even now I feel iffy about the characterization, but I really didn't want to seem like i ignoring y'all either :( -> Masterlist

i have some semblance of a plot now, so... i sincerely hope you all enjoy? this might be the push i need to get out of my funk, and i put in the very best effort for all of you!!

"You were a WHAT?"

"Is now really the time to be surprised!?"

The Ethereal- they kinda looked like one the Ballerina Twins actually, if the Ballerina Twins had galactic glitchy orbs for heads and rainbow glowy nervous systems- warbles at them impatiently. Anby's barely keeping them at bay with her sword.

It's practically a toothpick compared to the giant weapon Thanatos was wielding... They raise their shield-

Billy fires.

It doesn't land, of course it doesn't, but the smaller Demara doesn't get bludgeoned either so the android counts it as a win.

Especially when the bullet ricochets off the sign previously behind the larger than necessary Ethereal and back towards him. Billy tilts his head left just in time to miss it, and pivots on his heel when Thanatos shrieks and flails back. Bullseye.

"It's showtime!" he announces, and lines The Girls up somewhere where their jaw would be. Only about six of the bullets- 12 in total, the android was counting- actually hit before they teleport away again.

Billy reloads.

None of them, except the Boss, used the right typing to properly take Thanatos on.. but there was little to be done until they could carve an escape route out.

The Hares' ready their weapons, turning in slow circles as they wait for Thanatos to appear again. Were they gone..? He knew better than to assume they were, of course, but-

"Billy- behind you!" Nekomata points; he whirls around.

And takes a blade to the head.

There's not much to say for this part, aside from pointing out how cliche and underhanded it was to get him from behind like this, but bits and pieces float around to the surface with just enough clarity to be worth mentioning.

The pavement cracking under the android's weight.

Sparks fluttering out of the cleaved out gash.

Thin oil leaking out of his head like a halo.

Isolation.

Billy stands in the inky abyss of his own mind. His memories- his memories of the Hares'- play out before him like a movie: braiding Anby's hair, putting Nicole's into pigtails, napping in the sun with Nekomata on his chest, warmth-

Fighting as a team, Anby helping him up, Nicole calling his name, the restaurant they all went to after successful raids, fighting alone, Being alone in that truck bed, sand clogging up his joints.

Chill.

The memories fade away, leaving the android with the stilted thought of:

Don't- take them.. from me.

Nothing.

Billy Kid wakes up, and points the nearest weapon- a gun, by the feel of it- at their forehead. The hands reaching for him still, too pale to be anybody from the Sons.

Calloused enough to be Caesar's, though, so they must be some form of blade user. Electric, if the Lichtenburg scars on their finger tips have any weight to them.

The android sits up, ignoring the stab of pain behind his right video processer. He could deal with that later, after figuring out where the actual hell he was. And dealing with whoever it was that moved him.

They're small, surprisingly so, but Lucy and Piper were also small so that didn't exactly mean anything of value. Brilliant white hair, amber eyes, and green and black tech wear.

And a backpack packed with enough thrumming energy to kill the Dead-End Butcher.

Definitely a threat.

Billy Kid doesn't lower the gun, even as he's sure the human's fleshy arms were getting tired of being raised. Or maybe they weren't. He knows their type, he's cut from the same cloth himself.

A weapon.

"Billy, d-"

"How do you know my name," he interrupts, praying to a god he didn't believe in that he wouldn't have to shoot someone so small, "and why are you only using part of it."

He was Billy Kid, the feared enforcer of the outer ring. The only people that occasionally just called him Billy were the other Sons of Calydon. Not strangers.

"We work together," his potential captor calmly says, lowering their hands by their sides, "We're friends. Partners in crime."

"The hell we are."

"We are," they insist.

He doesn't buy it. Billy Kid didn't have friends, he was an android. A weapon and tool for whoever his boss was. Big Sis, the drifters, whoever had him before that.

He cared about them all, more than he should considering what he was made for, but he wasn't built to receive that kind of care in return. Pain spikes behind his processer again, and his free hand instinctively moves to grasp at it.

The stranger jolts forward as the gun dips.

Billy Kid shoots on instinct, even as something like worry[?] coils the wires in his lower torso too tight. There's a click, but in the end nothing but dry fire. And relief[?]

Billy Kid curses at the opening he's provided, and braces himself for the inevitable attack. He doesn't know where the other gun was- because there had to be one, Burnice only ever made things in pairs- and..

Why did he assume Burnice made these...?

Small hands, calloused and scarred, gently- why was he being treated gently- bat his hand away from his video processor. The empty gun is sandwiched between them.

More carefully than he deserves for shooting at them, the stranger inspects something on his face, and the android swings his lanky legs over the side of- it looks like a cot[?] to make it easier for them.

"You took a bad hit to the head," they inform his forehead, only pulling away when Billy Kid starts to get twitchy at the proximity, "an Ionized - Thanatos. It most likely messed with your memory bank."

"Sounds convenient," he scoffs, lowering the gun to his side, "Most likely messed with my memory bank?"

"It definitely did, we were friends," the stranger presses, strangely insistent, "What's the last thing you remember?"

They take off their backpack as the android thinks back on it. Whether to prove they weren't a threat or gain his trust to attack later, he wasn't sure.

What he was sure of was the fact that the harder he thought about it the harder his head pounded. Everything dating up to the past year and six months was just- blank. Corrupted files that spat static and made him want to lie down for a while.

More than that, he felt... lonely, for some reason. Like a big chunk had been carved from his sternum and left to burn in front of him.

"Billy?"

"I don't remember you."

And oh. He'd take it right back if it meant that look never crossed their face again.

It's barely there for a second, but it's a look of pure hurt. Hurt that makes something close to guilt roar where his mechanical heart sat. He never wanted this stranger to look at him like that again.

He never wanted anyone to look at him like that, to be honest. Fighting was fun- it was what he was built for- and the thrill was something that almost nothing could replicate- but...

Flashes- memories- of Lucy and Piper flit through his head, images and phantoms of them tucked into his sides on warm days and colder nights. A rough hand carding through his hair.

...being sent.. off?

“I’m-”

The door cuts him off with a bang!

"What's taking so long!? Is he ok?"

"Nicole! Anby told us to wait-"

Long pink hair and calculating green eyes bully their way into the room. Something in his programming wants to stand at attention all of a sudden...

The stranger- the white-haired stranger, because now there were three- moves away from the confused android. It looks like they want to say something but apparently thinks better of it and turns towards Billy Kid.

"I don't think I should be the one to say it," they- the thiren said her name was Anby[?]- announce, with all the enthusiasm of a dry rock. Which seems to be her MO, endearingly enough. Endearingly?

The pink haired- Nicole puts her hands on her hips.

"Say what?" she demands, before turning her critical gaze onto the android, "Are you ok or not, Billy?"

Again, shortening my name... Who are these people?

"All systems are operational," he reports anyway, because despite her brash words she sounds worried, "Except my memory banks, apparently."

Side-eye.

Anby's nose just barely scrunches at his tone.

"What do you mean your memory banks?" Nicole prompts, gaze flicking between the two.

"He doesn't remember us."

The Cunning Hares freeze. Silence rules the small space they've tucked themselves into- which... kinda looks like a garage? A nice garage compared to whatever you'd find in the Outer Ring.

Much too nice to be anywhere close to the Outer Ring.

"Where did you take me?"

Nobody answers for a good while.

Until the thiren lets slip:

"...it's so weird to hear you talk like that.."

She shudders from her fluffy ears tips to the sleek finishes of her tails. Were they prosthetics? Why were they blue at the at the base-?

What was wrong with the way he talked?

And why didn't she answer his question-

"Not- not in a bad way!" the thiren is hasty to tack on, "you just... you don't sound happy anymore.."

...happy? He wasn't built to sound happy. He wasn't even supposed to talk much outside status reports and communications. Although- sure, the android often broke that somewhat unspoken rule when Piper and Lucy needed a bit more help to drift off at night, or when Burnice needed someone to bounce a new design off of, or if Lighter was talking about something that happened while he was out in shops, or-

...you got the idea. Caesar hadn't explicitly banned him from talking with the other Sons, not by a long shot, he just- didn't want to push it.

The silence surrounding the ragtag four stretches into something distinctly uncomfortable.

"That.. aside," Nicole- who he assumes is the Boss- eventually starts, "We.. ahem. We got your wound patched up just fine, but... we ended up needing some help to get you back here."

Billy Kid tilts his head.

It made sense, of course, he was an android made of reinforced metal. And while he didn't doubt the strength of these people- especially Anby- he had an itching feeling that their strength was.... not particularly rooted in the weight-lifting sense.

So who-?

"Well. This isn't exactly the reunion I was hoping for."

....there was no way.

Caesar, the Big Sis of the Sons of Calydon herself, walks through the- admittedly abused looking door. Billy Kid shoots to his feet.

And severely underestimates the refractory period required following the repair of a head wound. He stumbles.

A sturdy arm catches his middle with ease.

"Easy, Kid," Caesar reprimands, hauling him back to his feet, "There's no reason to do that, I'm not your boss anymore."

Her words are oddly quiet, as if the other three in the room weren't supposed to hear. Big Sis had always been good at that. Quietly being reassuring without being coddling.

That achingly hollow feeling returns.

From behind Caesar's large frame, he can see the Hares' lower their hands slowly. Their faces are oddly stormy..

Anby bullies her way between them.

"Quite the team you've found yourself, by the way," Caesar continues as if she hadn't, "I'd ask you to fill me in, but.."

...right. Her pale eyes lock onto his, and-

She gives him a single nod of approval. Something loosens in his wiring.

"You'll be alright, Kid."

"Of course he will." Anby cuts in, squaring her small shoulders, "Even if we have to remake all the memories he lost, Billy will always be a member of the Cunning Hares."

And-

Billy finally believes it.

[probablyasocialecologist]

To bring about its hypothetical future, OpenAI must build a new digital ecosystem, pushing users toward the ChatGPT app or toward preëxisting products that integrate its technology such as Bing, the search engine run by OpenAI’s major investor, Microsoft. Google, by contrast, already controls the technology that undergirds many of our online experiences, from search and e-mail to Android smartphone-operating systems. At its conference, the company showed how it plans to make A.I. central to all of the above. Some Google searches now yield A.I.-generated “Overview” summaries, which appear in tinted boxes above any links to external Web sites. Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, described the generated results with the ominously tautological tagline “Google will do the Googling for you.” (The company envisions that you will rely on the same search mechanism to trawl your own digital archive, using its Gemini assistant to, say, pull up photos of your child swimming over the years or summarize e-mail threads in your in-box.) Nilay Patel, the editor-in-chief of the tech publication the Verge, has been using the phrase “Google Zero” to describe the point at which Google will stop driving any traffic to external Web sites and answer every query on its own with A.I. The recent presentations made clear that such a point is rapidly approaching. One of Google’s demonstrations showed a user asking the A.I. a question about a YouTube video on pickleball: “What is the two-bounce rule?” The A.I. then extracted the answer from the footage and displayed the answer in writing, thus allowing the user to avoid watching either the video or any advertising that would have provided revenue to its creator. When I Google “how to decorate a bathroom with no windows” (my personal litmus test for A.I. creativity), I am now presented with an Overview that looks a lot like an authoritative blog post, theoretically obviating my need to interact directly with any content authored by a human being. Google Search was once seen as the best path for getting to what’s on the Web. Now, ironically, its goal is to avoid sending us anywhere. The only way to use the search function without seeing A.I.-generated content is to click a small “More” tab and select “Web” search. Then Google will do what it was always supposed to do: crawl the Internet looking for URLs that are relevant to your queries, and then display them to you. The Internet is still out there, it’s just increasingly hard to find. If A.I. is to be our primary guide to the world’s information, if it is to be our 24/7 assistant-librarian-companion as the tech companies propose, then it must constantly be adding new information to its data sets. That information cannot be generated by A.I., because A.I. tools are not capable of even one iota of original thought or analysis, nor can they report live from the field. (An information model that is continuously updated, using human labor, to inform us about what’s going on right now—we might call it a newspaper.) For a decade or more, social media was a great way to motivate billions of human beings to constantly upload new information to the Internet. Users were driven by the possibilities of fame and profit and mundane connection. Many media companies were motivated by the possibility of selling digital ads, often with Google itself as a middle man. In the A.I. era, in which Google can simply digest a segment of your post or video and serve it up to a viewer, perhaps not even acknowledging you as the original author, those incentives for creating and sharing disappear. In other words, Google and OpenAI seem poised to cause the erosion of the very ecosystem their tools depend on.

[twopoppies]

Brooklyn_Babylon fics as T-Shirts

Hike Up Your Skirt (And Show Your World To Me) E, 18K

Louis has a very hands on approach to training his new secretary. How else can he make sure Harry realizes his full potential?

Literally Making Love (E, 30K)

Holding up one of the android's eyes to the workshop’s windows, he smiled as the light picked up the gold flecks in the pale green of his irises. Louis had always paid attention to even the tiniest details.

—

All Louis intended to do was rescue someone in need from loneliness. He had no idea it would be himself.

An Invincible Summer (E, 45K)

Never content to stay in one place for long, a few months down south researching for his novel seemed like an idyllic, slow-paced summer to Louis. He wasn't ready for the blistering heat, the backbreaking work of watermelon picking, or how stifling the attitudes in rural Georgia would feel. And he definitely hadn’t anticipated falling in love with the farmer’s son.

The summer of 1946 would turn out to be everything worth writing about.

gathered on wings (E, 33K)

What Harry Styles wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist.

What he needed was a new sugar daddy to pave the way.

Louis Tomlinson is an artist who isn’t what Harry is looking for.

Somehow he still manages to turn Harry's world upside down.

Whoever, However (E, 9K)

Louis could feel his heart rate pick up as he positioned the camera and Harry slowly stood up. They both knew what came next—it had been clearly outlined in the advert Harry answered. The studio Louis worked for was filming a new series of camboy videos. Louis’ job was to make it look like amateur porn—sweaty, sensual, dirty—but well lit and edited. He was an artist, thank you very much.

—

Or: Louis has a much better day at work than he’d expected.

Thank you @awesomefringey and @lovingstheantidote for indulging my nonsense and looking for t-shirts. 😂 Clearly, I’m procrastinating writing my new fic.

[liongoatsnake]

ESSAY: My Hearthome in ABZÛ

by Ocean Watcher from House of Chimeras (He/they) I was inspired to write this essay after attending the panel, "No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes" at Othercon 2024 Note: This won't be the official home of this essay. I'm planning on adding it to our system's website, The Chimeras Library sometime in the future either as a standalone essay or part of something bigger.

My Hearthome in ABZU

by Ocean Watcher from House of Chimeras Date Written: 15 August 2024 Approx. Word Count: ~2,180

Approx. Reading Time: ~17 minutes

“They say home is where the heart is, and for most people it consists of four walls and a welcome mat. For me, it’s the ocean.” ~ Bethany Hamilton, Soul Surfer. Directed by Sean McNamara. California: Sony Pictures Releasing, 2011.

Defining Hearthome

A hearthome is a location, whether real or otherwise, that an individual has a strong emotional connection toward to the point it feels like a “home,” typically despite never having lived or spent a significant amount of time there. The specifics on what qualifies as a hearthome within this general definition is largely up for personal interpretation.

The location in question can be as all-encompassing as a whole planet all the way down to something much, much smaller. The location could be a real place (whether that be one that still currently exists or a location that once existed but doesn’t anymore), a setting depicted in fictional media, or something else entirely. It can also be a specific easily named location or merely a general description of a place. Finally, the exact kind of emotional connection and feeling like “home” a location can elicit can range from a feeling of familiarity, of comfort and relaxation, safety, nostalgia, homesickness, and/or more. In short, within the definition of hearthome there are many possibilities on how the experience can exist.

The term used to describe someone who has a hearthome or the state of having a hearthome is sometimes called hearthic, though not everyone uses it. (So, for example someone might say “I have a hearthome in [insert place here]” rather than saying “I am [insert place here]hearthic.” Whether hearthic is used or not alongside the term hearthome is largely personal preference.

Describing ABZÛ

ABZÛ (also written as Abzû) is a video game initially released in 2016. The game fits within several genres including adventure, simulation, and art video game. It has no dialogue and so the story is told solely through visuals. The main draw of the game is the graphics put into the diverse ocean environments and the wide range of marine life that inhabits each area. Most of ABZÛ is home to animal species that can be found in today’s oceans; however, there are over a dozen or so species that appear in the game that went extinct a long time ago.

The gameplay itself consists of the player controlling an android diver exploring a large variety of ocean environments in a vast ocean and getting to see a myriad of marine life at every turn.

Knowing the backstory of what occurs isn’t needed, but for some context: Deep at the bottom of this ocean was a primordial source of infinite energy. Where the energy permeated from the ground life spontaneously came into being. An ancient civilization discovered they could collect and use it to create (marine) life whenever and wherever they wished. However, at some point, they created machines to automate the process. The creation of these machines caused a disruption of the natural flow of life as they took up so much energy they drained the vitality of the ocean away. The civilization disappeared, leaving their machines to continue to operate. The objective of the player-controlled robot diver, another creation of the ancient civilization, is to return the energy back to the ocean and put an end to the machines causing the destruction.

ABZÛ is overall a short game, with most players seeming to complete it within an hour and thirty minutes to two hours, on average.

Home is Where the Heart Is Indeed

So, my hearthome is ABZÛ.

To start, I want to put some context between the game ABZÛ and my hearthome ABZÛ. The environments in the game are striking and hold an emotional importance to an extent that I have labeled it as a hearthome; however, the ABZÛ that I think of in my mind’s eye and thoughts is not just an exact mirror of the game. That is because the ABZÛ I have conceptualized in my own mind is laid out like a normal(ish) ocean thanks to some noemata I have.

The noemata I have reads that all the “game-y” elements necessary for it to function as, well, a game, aren’t present in the idea of ABZÛ that makes up my hearthome. So, all the things necessary to keep a player in a defined area and on a specific path are absent. Further, all the different locations shown in the game would exist in a much more natural way. Plus, even more biodiversity would exist than shown in the game itself (as it is only populated with a little more than a few hundred different species whereas a more realistic ocean would have tens of thousands). Basically, the concept of ABZÛ in my mind looks and functions a lot more like a natural ocean (if a much, much more vibrant and filled with even more aquatic life, one).

I also have noemata that reads that while the old structures of the civilization still exist in a way like how they appear in the game, the inverted pyramid machines have long broken down and been reclaimed by the ocean and there are no unnatural dead zones. (So, I guess, one could say my hearthome is based off how things look at the end of the game.)

So, there is all that.

That is all well and good, but now I want to cover why exactly I distinguish ABZÛ as a hearthome; why I feel it warrants a special label of significance to me at all.

Not to state the obvious, but games are meant to be emotionally and/or mentally moving. They are meant to make a player feel something. ABZÛ is no different. It is meant to be a “pretty ocean” game, if you will. The environments in ABZÛ certainly reflect a more idealized and concentrated concept of ocean life (the magnitude of marine life at any particular point in the game itself being far more than an ecosystem could sustain). So, of course, the game is meant to be visually stunning and calming (save for a section in the game roughly 3/5ths in) in relation to the ocean, but my feelings for the game go deeper than what would be normally expected.  

It is true that much of the allure I have toward ABZÛ could be dismissed as merely as a natural consequence of my alterhumanity being so immersed in the ocean if not for the fact there are aspects of ABZÛ that draw out emotions and noemata that can’t be easily waved off in that manner. There are plenty of ocean-themed games and whatnot, yet it’s this specific one I have this connection toward. I have no idea why exactly I have a hearthome in this game specifically. I couldn’t tell you why. For whatever reason, its ABZÛ that resonates with me so strongly.

The biggest thing that stands out for me is the fact the area in the game that holds the most profound feelings of familiarity and belonging is the underwater city. At one point in the game, some underwater caves open into a vast underground space where a half-submerged city exists. (My view of things through some more noemata looks a lot more like an ancient city proper because, again, ABZÛ is a game so what exists is a lot more simplified and limited.) It is a city abandoned and in ruins and yet every surface is still covered in tile and brick of beautiful blue hues. Plants like trees, flowers, and vines populate the space above the water, lily pads and other floating plants pepper the water’s surface, and below sea plants like kelp, sea grass, and so much more cover much of the floor. Sunlight shines down from high above; my noemata filling in with the idea the city resides within a long extinct volcano rising above the ocean’s surface. Animals are everywhere both above and below the water. It’s this place I gravitate towards the most.  

But what exactly do I feel?

Something about it resonates with me. It is a place that feels like home to a part of me. Something about it feels deeply right and missed despite never having lived there nor do I feel like it is a place I am “from,” in any specific way. The feelings my hearthome draw out of me can mostly be best described as comfort, relief, safety, and rightness. There is something familiar about it, even upon my first playthrough. There is maybe even a tinge of nostalgia even though I strongly feel like there isn’t anything past-life-like at play as to why I have this hearthome. It just feels so familiar and comforting to me.

Starting out, my feelings also included what I can best describe as a yearning or longing to want to be there, even if only to visit. There was a desire to know a place like it with my own eyes as much as I knew it already in my heart somehow. So, there was a bit of almost homesickness there too. All these feelings are described in the past tense because of something that happened a bit after first playing the game.

Sometime after first playing ABZÛ, a sunken city with strong similarities to the one in the game was discovered in the ocean in our system’s innerworld. It is not a perfect exact copy, but it has all the same elements and looks how my hearthome appears through the lens of the noemata I have. I know I didn’t consciously will the location in our innerworld to come into existence, no one here can make such blatant conscious changes to our innerworld; however, I’m far less certain if my discovery of the game and the emotions it elicited didn’t cause the sunken city to appear in our innerworld as an involuntary reaction. (Not long after its appearance, several other areas in the game also found their way into the ocean of our system’s innerworld.) Since its appearance and discovery, I spend much of my time in these impacted areas, especially the sunken abandoned city. Since its appearance, the location has become a much beloved place to be, not just for me but also for many other aquatics in the system. The area is aesthetically pleasing and interesting to move around in. There is a lot of wildlife so hunting instincts can be indulged and so on. When not focused on fronting it is a nice place to exist in.

I’ve been aware of my emotional connection to the setting depicted in ABZÛ since July 2018 after playing it for the first time. Since buying it on Steam, I’ve logged many hours on it and have played through its entirety several times. However, I had not labeled my feelings towards this game as a hearthome until recently. Back then, I never questioned or analyzed my feelings surrounding the environments in the game. I knew it soothed something in me to play the game, going out to the sunken city in the innerworld for a while, or even just imagine myself swimming in one of my favorite areas, but I didn’t think about why exactly that was the case.

I didn’t make the connection between my experiences with ABZÛ to the term, hearthome until August of 2024. The moment of realization came while listening to the panel, “No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes” at Othercon 2024. Upon Rani, the panel’s host, describing the meaning of the term, I realized my feelings towards ABZÛ fit perfectly within the word. It wasn’t even a particularly jarring realization, and I am not sure how I had never made the connection before. Since that realization, I’ve come to label my feelings around the game, ABZÛ as my hearthome.

On the topic of alterhuman terms, I don’t use the term hearthic to refer to my state of having a hearthome at this time, solely because the word just doesn’t feel right when I try to use it in context. That could change, but for now, that is that.

I do consider my hearthome to be a part of my alterhumanity. My hearthome certainly fits neatly into my wider alterhumanity; ocean life and all that. That being said, I don’t think my hearthome has as strong of an impact on my daily experiences as other aspects do. My feelings around my hearthome are most often closer to something in the background more than anything. It is still there, and it is still important, it is just not as blatant and impactful in my daily life compared to something like my phantom body from my theriotypes. The fact parts of the game now exist in the innerworld and are prime locations for me to go after fronting to alleviate species dysphoria is perhaps the most blatant way my hearthome impacts my greater alterhumanity.

Bibliography

505 Games, ABZÛ. 505 Games, 2015, Microsoft Windows.

“Glossary,” Alt+H, https://alt-h.net/educate/glossary.php . Archived on 19 Apr 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20200419100422/https://alt-h.net/educate/glossary.php

Lepidoptera Choir. “Hearthic” astrophellian on Tumblr. 9 April 2022. https://astrophellian.tumblr.com/post/681107250894503936/hearthic . Archived on 30 September 2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20220930143533/https://astrophellian.tumblr.com/post/681107250894503936/hearthic

Rani. “No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes,” Othercon 2024, 11 August 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYVF_R6v50Q

[orange-coloredsky]

antiblackness became rooted in the story of fo4 from the moment they decided to put a twist the literal plight of enslaved africans into a story about robot civil rights. the freedom trail and the railroad are a weird mash up an of american-middle-school-level historical understanding of Black americans' fight for freedom and like. genuine white-saviorism. do i believe theres a way to write android-rights fiction without being antiblack? probably. ive read a decent amount of sci fi with similar themes that didnt rub me so wrong. but the inclusion of historical locations and factions as some nod to what im assuming they meant to be cyclical history is fucking disturbing. the synth plight in fo4 is so haphazard and full of holes but what they happened to nail down is so abhorrent that i throw a majority of it away when im writing any of my stories.

the speculative issue of android personhood can be attached to so many other ideas besides fucking slavery and Black american trauma. the talos principle (one of my favorite robot centered video games) looks at it through the lens of philosophy and religion. the monk and robot series is about exploring and understanding cultures outside the one youre used to. asimov goes at it from the angle of literal functionality: the three laws and how they can be followed, or bent, depending on a robot's level of taking things literally. these stories arent flawless or written by perfect people in any way, but dear god they are a shining example of how we can explore what makes a person or what makes a "human" versus "nonhuman" without shoving poorly researched and heavily whitewashed american history into our story about robots.

[lacefuneral]

ok i've seen some posts about the tumblr alternative cohost but none that were actually helpful so!

(disclaimer: i am very new to this website. users who have been there longer can and should chime in with additions and/or corrections)

Cohost Introduction Post

What is cohost?

Cohost is a fledgling website that is essentially a tumblr clone, but with its own culture and site-specific features. It is also very much a work in progress. You are encouraged to talk in the cohost forum to suggest changes for devs, report bugs, and upvote other people's suggestions. This website WILL grow and change over time. And as such, I do not know if/when the information I share here will be outdated. Edit: To answer an ask I received, anyone can join cohost without an invite. It used to be invite-only. It is not this way anymore.

Is "adult content" allowed there?

Yes. Cohost is not on the app store, meaning that it is not subject to Apple's specifications. You can post illustrations, writing, and photographs (cohost does not support any video formats at this time, just gifs). Cohost has an elaborate filtering and trigger warning system (moreso than tumblr), and you can disable adult content for your entire account or for individual tags. I actually don't engage with the adult content at all on there. Visual CSEM (both real and fictional) is specifically forbidden (although frankly I think the guidelines could be stricter wrt written content. Still, does seem to handle this better than AO3 does, going as far to say that written content about real minors is forbidden.)

How are minors protected?

The minimum age to join cohost is 16, and requires proof of parental permission to join. Users who are under 18 are automatically age-gated and cannot view adult content.

If cohost isn't on the app store, how is it used?

You can, of course, use cohost on a computer, but it is designed with mobile in mind. Opening the website on any IOS browser, clicking "share", and then "add to home screen" will install an app for you to use. The same can be done on an android. There is a guide here.

How does cohost work?

First, you create an account. Then you wait for approximately two days (read: weekdays) for the account to be activated. This is done to prevent spam bots. In the meantime, edit your profile. List some interests, your pronouns, your other social media links. Give yourself an icon. Note: icon and banner file sizes are small. You may need to shrink and compress images.

After the two days are up, make your first post! Write a basic introduction (with what you feel comfortable you feel sharing) and list some interests you like, maybe some hobbies, media, etc. And then tag this post with "#welcome to cohost". This will let existing members know that someone new has joined, and they may initiate conversation and/or follow you.

Next, go to the search and type in "The Cohost Global Feed" and click on the tag. Bookmark this tag. This is essentially one giant community space where you can find random users. (There is currently some discourse on the website as to whether this tag existing is a "bad thing" or not because "cohost isn't supposed to have a global tag". Just ignore that lol). Next, go back to search and type in things you like. TV shows, maybe. Video games. Music. Anything. See if people have posted in the tags. Follow them. Comment on their stuff. Click "like" to bookmark the post if you want to.

Most crucially, make sure that you bookmark the actual tag so you can look in that tag again later without having to manually type it each and every time. Also, you get a feed called "bookmarked tags" which allows you to scroll through all of them at once, which replaces the "for you" feature other websites have.

You can "share" a post (called "rebug" in user slang) which serves the same purpose as a reblog on tumblr. In a rebug, you can add your own tags or comment in the body of the post. Cohost users do not talk in tags as much as tumblr users - they tend to prefer to speak in the body of a rebug, or in the comment section (replies). At this time, you cannot view all reblogs. But you can view all comments in the comment section. Any post that is rebugged will preserve the tags of the OP, with any additional tags added being attributed to you. Rebugs are named after the website mascot Eggbug, a purple bee-like insect.

Posts are called "chosts" - and shitposting is called "shitchosting." Two examples of global shitposting tags are "#css crimes" - which is when a person does goofy things with the HTML/CSS editor to make colorful text, fake chat windows, and such - and "#shitchosting" which is a general shitposting tag. I've also seen people use tags like "#random".

If a post makes you laugh, check out the OP's profile. See if they post frequently, and if you have any common interests. If you realize you want to block or mute someone instead, you can.

You can send asks just like on tumblr, but your inbox must be manually opened first. So remember to do that.

How do I look at my own blog?

This is one of my gripes about the UI. You would think, intuitively, you would click here (at the top of the screen). But you would be wrong!

It is ACTUALLY under the sidebar menu, called "Profile." And I'm not the only one to to complain about this. (To get back to your dashboard, by the way, you click on the cohost logo.)

Are there sideblogs?

Yes! Each sidepage (sideblog) has its OWN set of likes AND followed pages (blogs). This allows you to easily switch between multiple sets of dashboards. A lot of users use this to have a SFW dashboard and an adult content dashboard. But it works like tumblr, too. You can have a side page/dashboard for whatever you'd like. Maybe one of your pages is for programming. Maybe another is for photography. You switch between your pages by clicking the arrow next to your icon/username at the top of the screen. ("Ohhhhh.... THAT'S what that's for.")

What's the userbase on there like?

Mostly programmers. Trans people. Furry artists. Plural systems. Furry trans plural programmers. Certainly a lot of shitposters. The website is trans-run and, as such, has zero tolerance for TERFs. Everyone seems pretty friendly from what I can tell. And there's very much a culture of "follow someone randomly based on their vibes" that doesn't happen as much on tumblr. Tumblr is more like "I really like this TV show, I'm going to follow 40 blogs about just this interest." Because the cohost community is so much smaller, there is a lot less content overall, especially fandom content. You can't follow 40 fandom pages because your fandom tag has a total of 3 posts, all made by one person approximately a year ago (well. for me anyway).

Cohost, then, actually has much more in common with real-life socialization. You seek out people with interests that may be very different from your own, and to find a common interest is very exciting! Unlike tumblr, you are encouraged to tag as much as possible. This allows your posts to be seen, to find common interests. And, of course, don't forget to look in "#Welcome To Cohost" too! You may find some new friends there.

What file formats can I post in?

Currently, I am aware of basic image formats working (like jpeg, png) animated gifs, and mp3s. You currently cannot upload videos to cohost. I believe the reason is not related to server costs, but rather as a way to curb the uploading of copyrighted content.

How does cohost make money?

There are no ads, and yet, as far as I am aware, cohost is operating comfortably. There is, however, an entirely optional "cohost plus" that is $5 USD a month. Currently, there are a few perks, but not enough to convince me.

What if I think something about cohost should change?

Cohost has a forum where users can submit ideas for features and other users can discuss/upvote those ideas.

Here is a list of posts made for newcomers to read:

[seitokaisnihongo]

The Entirety of Japanese, Lesson #1

AKA - I'm sorry, you do have to learn all three scripts.

Welcome to our first lesson! Today, we are going to learn how to read Japanese.

Sort of.

See, it's not something you can learn in one day, or one lesson. Learning a language is a gradual process that doesn't cement until you start *using* it.

So we will go over the basics, both the WHY three scripts and the HOW to learn all three over time, and then provide 10+ FREE resources from all over the internet for you to practice with!

Let's go!

Why All Three Scripts?

Short answer: because I said so.

Kidding.

The Japanese language has no spaces in it. Unlike English where there is a space between each word, Japanese sentences look like this:

スモモも桃も桃のうち

All three scripts are in this sentence. It translates to "plums and peaches are both like peaches". An odd sentence, but here's why I chose it...

When you write it in *just* Hiragana (the basic, "first" phonetic script), it looks like this:

すもももももももものうち

Yikes. So many も, with no way to tell apart the multiple words in the も train.

So... how can you tell similar words apart when written out?

Wait, let's look back a bit. Can you tell where different words are in the sentence before? Yes. Even without being taught *anything* about the Japanese language, you can tell where different words start just by looking at it.

By writing in multiple scripts, you can tell similar words apart.

Okay... But How Do I Learn Them?

There's quite a few ways to learn them. In fact, on Thursday we will be publishing community responses from our Discord detailing how THEY learned the scripts.

But for now, here is the two first scripts you'll learn in their entirety, thanks to Coto Japanese Acamedy

You'll learn these first for three reasons:

First, they are easier.

Second, you can spell any word in Japanese with these two scripts. Not a hard and fast rule, but Hiragana is used for native Japanese words and Katakana is usually used for international loan words, emphasis, names, and 'sound effect words', aka onomatopoeia.

Third, you'll see Hiragana above Kanji (the difficult one) that tells you how to pronounce Kanji.

As far as actually learning them, you *could* just write them down over and over.

Writing is super important when learning Japanese.

But it might be easier to start with some apps, games, and videos where you can learn the characters both in context AND within words.

Here's our favorite FREE resources:

Duolingo (Website, Android, and Apple) is great for learning singular words and Hiragana / Katakana, however explanations of grammar is limited to desktop. Still, PERFECT for the beginning stages regardless of device.

Bunpo is another free app for learning Japanese!

JapanesePod101's videos on Hiragana and Katakana over on Youtube are fantastic for hearing natural speach.

Tofugu's Hiragana and Katakana blog posts have the * best * mnemomics, with sound bites.

Busuu's (Website, Android, Apple) Japanese course starts off with Hiragana words to get you speaking immediately.

Kana (Apple, Android) is a free app dedicated to JUST Hiragana and Katakana.

Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese is the holy grail for new Japanese learners. Of course, it has a no-frills explanations of all three scripts.

Japanese Ammo with Misa has detailed lessons on everything, including Kana.

Here's a video on the difference between printed and written Hiragana fonts.

And finally... our discord server.

Wait... what about Kanji?

Well, the problem is there's a lot to learn. A LOT.

You'll be learning them over the course of yearssssssss. But that's fine; you can tune into our lessons to learn them.

Join right here to practice what you learn! You'll also gain access to new friends learning the same language AND more free resources.

We can't wait to see you there!

[all-souls-matinee]

BONUS Halloween in August/September Review: Alien: Romulus (2024)

[Eschewing my usual format of 1-2 sentence summary + 1-2 paragraphs of thoughts, this one will be a combination to include several spoilers. It also assumes some prior knowledge of the Alien franchise]

Going into Romulus I was leery of how video game-y the trailer felt and the choice of a director best known for 'subverted expectations' home invasion horror, but those were the two aspects of it I ended up really liking. The premise is that a group of 20-somethings are stuck in an intergalactic mining town where the amount of missions they must fly hours they must work to gain an emigration permit is raised by a few years each time they reach their goal. Our protagonist, Rain, is told by a friend that he and his crew have discovered the wreck of the Nostromo floating above them and plan to break in and steal its cryochambers; the last thing they need for their own ship to make an escape into deep space. The crew welcomes her, but admit that what they really need is her adoptive brother Andy, an ill-liked synthetic who can access the Nostromo's controls. So far so good, I love this premise! It's a little YA dystopia, we've got a ragtag group of mining orphans that look like TikTok influencers and don't have personalities, but that's okay- acceptable and even expected for an Alien movie. I'm also not here to clutch pearls over the sanctity of the original; everything that follows plot-wise is good stuff! Reminiscent of video games, yes, but that means lots of clever little item pickups and interactions, and the tension-building is excellent. An early example: while collecting cryofuel half the team is trapped in a room full of slowly thawing, unseen facehuggers. The other half must retrieve a master-key computer chip from Ash's body (left over from the original mission) to pass to Andy, who is then stuck in reboot mode and unable to help until a critical moment, and this all filmed brilliantly with great effects. There are several standout scenes like it; the movie feels connected to the rest of franchise while contributing new ideas- playing with gravity and temperature and electricity as both weapons and stumbling blocks. It looks good, I like individual plot beats (including the contentious climax), I love the multiple dead rat puppets that are here for some reason, but this is also the only movie I've considered walking out of.

No one barring David Jonsson (Andy) can act, and chemistry is nonexistent. We're told that the crew is composed of friends, siblings, cousins, and love interests, but never actually see it, and no matter how good the plot and pacing are on paper that really makes things drag in places. I like the aliens and love the androids in these movies, but at the end of the day I've always ended up rooting for the humans because of the empathy on display. Many of the Aliens are objectively worse than Romulus from a filmmaking perspective, but this is the first one where I wanted the bad guys to win.

The main villain of this movie isn't the aliens, it's Ash. I was spoiled on CGI Deepfaked* Ian Holm going in, so when they boarded the Nostromo and saw his body I rolled my eyes and braced myself for a scene where he comes to life like a haunted house prop and then they kill him or whatever, but no, he sticks around and drives the entire plot. It's awful; I don't even hate this one from a writing perspective it just feels insanely disrespectful (and is distractingly bad to look at.)

3. The Green Mile is one of my most hated movies of all time. I revisited it early this year when the podcast Just King Things discussed the book within the context of Stephen King's larger body of work, which stresses the character of John Coffey not as an aberration but a trope King keeps coming back to: a black or disabled person who is a holy innocent. Physical prowess and/or magic powers are coupled with the disposition of a character like Of Mice and Men's Lennie or Flowers for Algernon's Charlie to create someone who looks scary but is actually worthy of love because, hey guys, he's nice and sympathetic in a way that appeals to an imagined white American audience. Months after listening to that episode I accidentally walked into an even broader literary context, discovering the character of Jean in E.E. Cummings's The Enormous Room (a nearly 1:1 blueprint for Coffey), and Pip in Moby-Dick, a child traumatized to a point of babbling incoherence that allows him to act as a holy conduit, a prophet, and a comfort to his captain. These characters aren't meant to be racist but rather to teach about antiblack racism, which makes for interesting reading, but a terrible Alien movie.

Andy is the only black character in this film. Andy is referred to as Rain's brother at most twice, then revealed to be her servant (literally programmed by her father to do two things- protect her and make dad jokes.) Andy is cognitively and physically disabled from being rebooted so many times over the years, and faces extra abuse and discrimination because of this. I cannot begin to describe how it felt to have spent the year bumping into saintly black characters in media who are dehumanized in order to teach some vague platitude about humanity, only to run into it again here. It gets worse and more muddled when Andy is rebooted using Ash's chip, which makes him "normal," which makes him evil. Ash uses him to further the interests of Weyland rather than his sister/master Rain and it makes him start saying scary inhuman stuff like 'the solution to the trolley problem is to kill as few people as possible.' (Again, go bad guys.)

I know the movie doesn't see itself as racist. Andy is by far the most interesting character and has a lot of complexity to him; Rain's whole arc is learning that no one should have seen him as expendable or treated him as an inferior, and tells him his new prime directive is to live for himself (as well as her. Can't leave that on the table.) Alverez clearly had the best of intentions, but the movie can't get away from the fact that Andy being cognitively impaired and using his strength and powers to the benefit of some random white girl, choosing family over work but also the individual over the collective, was actually what made him human.

Okay rant over. I liked the part where they threw a flair and the facehuggers scurried after it like a pack of dogs because they hunt by body heat and movement instead of by smell and vision. Yay :-)

*Holm was deepfaked 'respectfully' with the consent of his family using a combination of animatronic and a new actor... and the company literally responsible for deepfakes (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/alien-romulus-ian-holm-rook-ash-ai-1235982350.) I cannot stress enough how bad this is to look at for almost 2 hours like i needed to talk about Andy but jesus christ.

[canmom]

Animation Night 184: Mars Express

Animation Night is baaaaaack from Annecy break!

And yeah, the last couple weeks of this blog have been pretty Annecy focused here on the canmom entertainment sphere. And tonight that will continue! For tonight we shall right a wrong! And that wrong is...

...that wrong is that I didn't get to see Mars Express at Annecy last year. @mendely did and I was super jelly, OK!

For real though, this was among the hottest tickets at Annecy last year, and despite queuing a bunch of hours, I didn't stand a chance to get in without a reservation. But what is it? Well, it's a scifi movie directed by Jérémie Périn. Who's Jérémie Périn?

Well, the true veterans may recall Animation Night 1, when I showed you a certain music video for a song called Fantasy by DyE...

...that's not gonna embed, is it? But if you know, you know. (If you don't know, it's the one where the teens break into the swimming pool to make out and such and then a bunch of them turn into tentacle monsters.)

So Jérémie Périn is the guy who directed that! He's also well known for directing Lastman, a crowdfunded action series in which a boxer battles a bunch of superpowered agents to try to protect a psychic girl, not that you'd gather any of that from this trailer...

and writing for Crisis Jung by Bobbypills - don't blink or you might miss the boob-growing henshin and the guy with a chainsaw dick...

And while Crisis Jung isn't primarily his project, we can still definitely trust that when Périn is at the wheel, we'll seem some incredibly stylish, anime-inflected drama and also some proper freaky imagery now and again.

Mars Express, however, is Périn's first foray into film rather than TV animation, building on the big success of Lastman - and a pretty high-effort foray at that, taking some five years to make. And by all accounts it kicks total ass.

But what's it about? Classic cyberpunk noir material: a detective and the android replica of her partner return to their home planet Mars after apprehending a robot hacker. But the hacker is released, and they're given a new mission - to work with this hacker and go down to a colony where, ostensibly, humans and androids live in harmony, and track down a guy who jailbreaks the androids from their artificial constraints. That sounds pretty shady already, right? But the dirty secrets are only beginning.

Mars Express definitely pays its homages to those classic 90s anime films and OVAs like Ghost in the Shell and Armitage III, as well as games like Another World for the Amiga, but by all accounts gives it a fresh approach, with grounded characters - protagonist Aline struggling with alcoholism, her reconstructed partner Carlos with his floating holographic head carrying the whole identity issue of being a robot clone who's been rejected by his original's wife - which anchors plenty of juicy scifi concepts like renting out your brain as a computer, or something called 'resonance' which is how robots do it. What does that mean? The review I'm reading left it at that! Guess we'll find out.

Like most European productions it brought together a long list of production companies and it's a little tricky to figure out which ones are actual animation houses, but the main company seems to be 'Everybody on Deck'. They previously worked with Périn on Lastman, but otherwise largely seem to have worked on live action films. However, the animation was split among a variety of studios.

We can at least say that it brought in French animators from across the shop, some even on this very website. (At least I seem to recall seeing people having posted about having worked on it, though if I search now I mostly find peoples' reviews of the film). It's animation leans realist, with naturalistic motion taking advantage of anime-style 3s and 2s to give it a weighty feeling, embedding its characters in detailed environments with strong colour design...

And if we want to know more than that, we're in luck, since there's a pretty substantial 16-part making-of series partly available on Catsuka's youtube, starting with episode 1 showing the development of the script, with Périn and co-writer Laurent Sarfati bouncing ideas off each other. Only two other episodes are available: episode 11 shows some of the voice recording, and episode 16, which talks about the actual animation, interviewing various animators and showing some shot breakdowns. The last of these is probably the most interesting (to animators), talking about how the film went about realising Périn's 'precise, clinical' realist style.

The team were evidently very conscious of this being, for France, a first of its kind - a French-animated thriller targeting adults, with big ambitions to become a landmark film in French animation, able to stand up against the best anime. I'm not sure it's actually the first - for example, Summit of the Gods is also a tense, French-animated thriller with a realist art style! - but it's definitely a genre where there are very few examples to compare, and the team's ambition comes across as absolutely genuine.

That's probably enough to go on! We'll definitely also check out some of Périn's other work tonight, but Mars Express is our main feature! Starting in about an hour and a half at 8pm UK time, at our usual place, twitch.tv/canmom! Hope to see you there!

[muriels-brainrot]

(Modern) Muriel 💚 Headcanon:

He hated being the first one to text until he watched you fumbled a text in person

He never liked to text when he needed someone for anything. Sometimes he needed them to ask a question or he needed an item for a project.

Sometimes he misses people and wants to text them first.

Even though it's limited to Asra, Inanna (yes she texts), Faust (and her too), Nadia, and you. Sometimes, very rarely, does he ever text Julian. Portia is not a problem, they have a meme relationship where they only text each other cat or gardening memes (very, very rarely)

But the moment he types out a text, he cringes. "How are you?" No. His thumb hovers over the backspace. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. It sounds too forward. "Wyd?" sounds rude. "I miss you." Hell no. He's reserved that for you. And that one time he accidentally sent that to Asra - the thought heats his cheeks with embarrassment. At least Asra was a good sport about it.

That changed when he saw you text. You wanted to reach out, to say hello, to say you missed them.

"No that sounds too simple." you say.

"Maybe try how are you, or a picture of something?" he says

"We're not close like that."

"Do you need to be close to say those things?"

"Well, it depends. I dunno! Maybe... Maybe I just have cold feet?"

Your fingers furiously tap your phone. Each sentence you write is never finished, obliterated by your thumb aggressively hammering the back space.

You give up. You drop your phone to your nose. A phone facepalm that masks the frustrated embarrassment rising to your cheeks.

When you're not watching, Muriel softens at you. You text just like him.

Or perhaps, does everyone struggle with this too?

He knows the feeling too well, so much that his heart might rip out of his chest to hug you tight. Poor you.

But that doesn't happen. Instead, he places a gentle hand on your back. His weight is a familiar comfort. You lean into his side, half-cuddling him.

"Maybe I just won't text for now." you sigh.

He frowns.

If that were him on the other line, he would want you to text him.

His face lights up, it dawns on him. Is this what it's like to be on the other line too?

Eventually, you figure it out. It wouldn't be for a few days that Muriel catches a glimpse of this when you left your phone open in the bathroom.

'Pssst. Long time no talk. Wanna hang? :3c ' you texted.

The exchange between you and this person is warm, even though it took a week for them to reply. They chirp back a hello, a meeting is made, and a distant friendship is rekindled.

Perhaps, he could have the same thing happen to him too?

Later, you borrow Muriel's phone to search something up. His 2015 android phone doesn't have anything besides the bare essentials, a browser, a stock phone video game, and a calculator. His contacts are labeled with the person's last name unless they are close to him

Suddenly, 'Devorak' pops up.

'Gotcha, wanna head out with me and Asra to pick it up?'

Muriel comes out of the bathroom.

"Hey, Julian's asking if you want to meet up with him and Asra for something?"

"Oh." he looks surprised. He didn't think Julian would reply, or even invite him for anything, "Yeah, sure. Tell him I'll go."

You bite back a smile. Muriel sees your attempt. He deadpans, betrayed by a small smile and pink cheeks. Don't tease. Just let him have this, just once.

And you do. You text Julian back as Muriel with your heart full. You can't help but feel happy for him.