#human machine interactions

[flechettestorm]

I want to fuck Titan TV, yes, but I also want to just... care for them and look after them. I actually do wish I was one of their mechanics! There's something so amazingly intimate about the idea of an immensely powerful being that is reliant on its crew of little engineers and mechanics to service it and keep it in working order.

An excerpt from one of my fics:

How can you explain it? The Titan is so colossal and magnificent and could obliterate you in an instant… but it noticed you and spoke kindly to you and handled you gently. You interacted only as work colleagues, really, but the two of you still shared an intimacy - one of a kind that you'd never experienced before. The Titan, mighty Titan, handled you safely from harm, and permitted you to stand within its core (simultaneously the source and the sink of its power) - and in return you repaired its mechanism. You fully trusted the Titan not to destroy you and the Titan fully trusted you to probe within it and not to hurt it from the inside. With what other entity could you have an interaction like that? Could you ever?

That's the mood. Such a vast construct that you can climb inside it, stand inside it. Pulling off its plating and crawling among all its servos and cables, checking everything is oiled and lubricated and harmonious, while it holds still and keeps me safe from its own strength. Then I get to crawl out and close its plating and praise the Titan and tell it how brave it was (and it thinks the same about me). By that point, our interactions have been so intimate that fucking is almost redundant. (But it's going to happen anyway. I want to grind on its hand until I'm a hot aching mess.)

[flechettestorm]

Your robot pal thinks it's amazing that you can sweat, because you're manufacturing your own coolant on the fly.

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[flechettestorm]

SCREAMING AND CRYING

[sponfawn]

MTH: The Rowdyruff Boys and the Power of Friendship?

Ok, so we know that the Boys have slowly changed over the course of the fic so far, and we know that the Girls have had a lot to do with that. But something I think people (including me) have overlooked in the past is the influence of their friends/acquaintances.

Brick doesn't have many people he would likely consider "friends", but he's been softening towards acquaintances quite a bit over the past year. Aside from Blossom's obvious influence, I think it started with Bubbles.

Then Julie followed Bubbles' lead and didn't take his shit.

After awhile, people just got used to him. Yeah, he's an ass with a short temper and a loud bark, but that's generally as far as he goes, at least as far as other students see. He doesn't necessarily consider anyone a friend but he has acquaintances with shared interests and he has time for his art and photography. He's in a normal high school, where things aren't nearly as cutthroat and political as JS (other than Mrs. Morbucks, of course). My best analogy is that he's like an irritable, poorly socialized dog who has been sent to doggy daycare to hang out with the calmer, elderly dogs and given enrichment. Except replace elderly dogs with nice, normal kids his age. Nevermind that he thinks he's better than everyone else. It's not exactly friendship, but I suspect it's still a lot more pleasant and straightforward than his relationships with other peers he's had. And that's a big change for a reserved, standoffish boy who takes himself very seriously.

Butch on the other hand, has Buttercup and the guys. His most vulnerable friendship is with Buttercup by far, but he genuinely values his little group of stoners. This latest chapter has made that clearer than ever. Seriously I almost cried

In some ways, Butch is actually the best socially adjusted of the Boys in their new environment, which... says a lot about Brick and Boomer. He has a close-knit group of friends and while they mostly bust each other's balls and goof around, they pretty much see uncensored Butch because (except with some interactions with BC) he says and does what he wants, when he wants. He wants people to like him, but not enough to shut up or stop pushing people's buttons. He isn't the calculating type unlike Brick and Boomer. And despite the fact that Butch isn't as friendly and (seemingly) nonthreatening as Boomer or smart and talented as Brick, the guys truly enjoy and appreciate his company. Look at 'em, caring about his well-being:

Boomer is the least changed of the Boys. He tries to do what he thinks Bubbles would want him to most of the time. But as we saw in this latest chapter, when the temptation is strong enough and he has an opportunity, he slips back into old behaviors. We never really see him spend time with anyone other than Bubbles since they've gotten together. Except for his brothers, the Girls, and people at parties, where he mostly hangs around Bubbles. As much as Boomer's circle has "expanded", those connections don't likely run deep. And there's nothing wrong with having less deep friendships, except I think a contributing factor to his relatively stunted growth is this lack of connection to others.

Boomer hides his capacity for cruelty and his lack of empathy behind a mask of behavior he knows will be seen as likeable. He holds everone except Bubbles at arms length, even though he's outgoing and gets along with everyone. He shows a much more edited version of himself compared to his brothers. We thought he had started to change when he fought impulses, even if it started out as just being for Bubbles' sake. In the last few chapters we've had a feeling that his possessiveness and jealousy were likely going to head into some dark places. And now we've started to see how dark, although, according to Brick his "jokes" get much worse. The way he thinks about Mike in this chapter (and others in earlier chapters) is so detached, much like his attitude towards the spider:

And this is a side of himself that his friends probably haven't seen, and that Bubbles hasn't seen in quite a while. This time when he chooses to mess with Mike, he is still careful to appear like he always does. While Brick works out jealousy by showing off (see prom), and Butch gets a little sullen and subdued and tends to isolate from crowds (see BC wearing Mitch's jacket and the concert), Boomer manipulates ppl while framing himself in a good light (see this incident and Will and Bubbles' anniversary).

It's like a subversion of the "I can change him" trope. Certainly, Butch and Brick have genuinely been changing internally. But it's not just because of Blossom and Buttercup. They are significant contributing factors, catalysts even, but it takes a village of genuine friends (and pseudo-friends) to help them grow and change. Brick and Butch get this experience because they don't hide their personalities as much. Unfortunately, Boomer's current approach to other people basically guarantees that he won't get that.

[sendmyresignation]

every time someone mentions the way music-related algorithms work in the best interests of major labels pushing their artists for their own gain and therefore are often embedded with bias and cut off new avenues of discovery everyone comes out of the woodwork to mention "well, anecdotally to my specific circumstance, I've discovered (5) new artists with sub-one thousand regular listeners completely detached from any information or scene or cohesive idea of taste on my weekly currated playlists so therefore algorithms actually work amazing" like what are you talking about. can we be serious please.

[buqbite]

i see you abt welt being bad with technology and raise you. welt squinting at his phone screen in the hsr logout screen because he’s confused about why the new operating system he installed isn’t working fully

SO REAL.. i just think we should consider the fact that he's an engineering genius but ALSO the emanator of autism and could easily get overly ambitious with most projects. stelle asks him to help her optimize her phone to run a game smoothly and he creates the playstation 6 in response

also. hear me out. himewelt mechanics + engineering besties

[ihhfhonao3]

Just a reminder that fanfic authors don’t owe you anything.

We don’t owe you updates. We don’t owe you explanations. We don’t owe you more chapters. We don’t owe you a sequel. We don’t owe you a certain amount of words. We don’t owe you certain tropes or writing styles. And we definitely don’t owe you more fanfiction.

We are not content creators, we are creative writers who do this for free just for fuck’s sake. We do this in what little open time we may have, in lieu of having families and friends and jobs and obligations and of course, burnout.

It’s okay to ask for more. It’s okay to want more. We like it when you’re engaged! But the second you think that we owe you something? The second you start “expecting” something from us? You’ve forgotten one of the very baselines of fanfiction- writing it because it’s fun.

[choslut]

its crazy to see all these people coming out of the woodwork with their real opinions on how they feel about writers. like i’ve seen so many people in support of that one post, but then you go to their blog and its either blank or “i don’t post much”. please don’t speak on it then? i’m sorry but you cannot get mad when you insult the people you follow for content.

i’m not putting myself on a pedestal. if you want something, you need to work for it, whether that be writing and gaining a platform or getting a writer to hear your ideas in a way that inspires them to write it. “i want” will not get you anywhere. calling people sexual predators will not get you anywhere. saying we are butthurt will most certainly not get you anywhere.

all it does is make us less likely to want to create art for others to see. please stop. it’s upsetting.

[bambiraptorx]

new variant of STEM au where I just chuck stem au Stockman into 2003 canon and see what he does there

[flechettestorm]

...OH.

Poor girl's CPU is being worked so hard...

[technicontrastron]

Going to the museum for erotic reasons

[mercyluvsyouuu]

Reblog for bigger sample size!! /nf

Oh, also, even after the poll is over pls feel free to reblog it with ur thoughts !!! I am very curious as always

[schemelin]

every now and then i experience brief moments of self-awareness telling me to make major changes to the fusionsprunt story

[flechettestorm]

OUGHHH OUGHHHHH HNNNNNGHHHHH

invitation.

[goldensunset]

i didn't think i cared much for n's final battle theme bc i'm a sucker for melodically strong pieces aka certified bangers. but i must say it does a good job at making you uncomfortable when you really listen to the details. it's got tritones, clock ticking sounds, heartbeats, fire and lighting sound effects for reshiram and zekrom, up and down flights, ominous choir, plenty of dissonance. i woke up in a cold sweat at like 5am today with it hauntingly stuck in my head for some reason and that makes it deserving of my respect