#i do not have enough data on the subject lol

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Honestly, I can't imagine the whiplash for a first-time watcher going from Blazar to Mebius. Like, who the heck is a "Father of Ultra", and why do they have such a bitchin' cape? Brothers? He can turn into some (very cute) dude???? lmao

Its a little wild, but also such a delight! Good for little Mebius having an Ultra support system. I'm grateful that the show is very gentle with it's references to previous series.

What strikes me the most is in one show i'm watching a nice young (Ultra)man, and the other is a feral Creature.

[thelaurenshippen]

finally taking the time to read through the SAG agreement summary and oof, I hope they have an AI town hall soon because...well, there are things to discuss!

so, in case folks are curious, here are my immediate takeaways from the deal as a SAG actor, a SAG producer, and person who is not any kind of expert but spends a lot of time being skeptical of contracts I sign. this is a summation/commentary, not a holistic breakdown of every point, nor even an in-depth discussion of the points I do talk about. and it is, of course, in no way legal advice or voting advice.

this post is already maybe the longest post I've ever written on tumblr (lol) and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. to be clear, nothing I'm saying here represents how I'm going to vote, how I think other actors should vote, or my be-all-end-all stance on a particular issue. this is me reading through, flagging what concerns me, and asking myself questions. and I'm here to take your questions too! though of course my expertise is limited.

(what?? something I wrote got annoying long?? in my tumblr? it's more likely, etc. huge write-up after the cut)

the good

self-tape stuff: this is one of the more niche/the thing that the general public will find least interesting, but they've put in a lot of provisions to make sure self-tape auditions have limits (# of pages, no stunts, no nudity, doesn't have to be professionally shot, etc.) which is amazing because these types of auditions have gotten out of control since the pandemic. this feels like a great gain

data transparency: in no world did I think the streamers were ever going to agree to any data sharing with either the wga or sag so even though the data is limited, this still feels huge to me.

folks who sing and dance will be paid for both of those things now, which is great

they've added MLK day and Juneteenth as holidays (about time)

a performer cannot be required to translate their own lines

principal performers are required to be given hair and makeup consultation or reimbursed for obtaining their own services - this seems like a small thing, but it's being put in here pretty much entirely because HMU services have generally been appalling when it comes to textured hair/a variety of skin tones. there's also stuff in here about working to hire more diverse HMU artists

it looks like it's going to be easier/provide a path for folks getting IMDb credits even if they're not credited on screen

miscellany: there's a bunch of gains in wage increases, P&H increases, relocation fees, franchise language etc. that all seem good to me, though my limited knowledge on those subjects prevents me from going in depth on them.

this is not important, but it tickled me, there's a term to replace all instances of "telegraph" in the contract with "email & text" which like...why has it taken us thirty years to do that lol.

the "...hm..."

intimacy coordinators: oof. when I watched the press conference SAG gave, I was fucking thrilled when they said that the new agreement required folks to hire intimacy coordinators for nudity and simulated sex scenes. that was almost reason enough for me to vote for it tbh - not requiring it is the exact reason I voted no on our last contract. however, reading the contract summary now, the exact language is: "Producer must use best efforts to engage an Intimacy Coordinator for scenes involving nudity or simulated sex and will consider in good faith any request by a performer to engage an Intimacy Coordinator for other scenes. Producer shall not retaliate against a performer for requesting an Intimacy Coordinator." this....sucks. "best efforts" and "good faith" are not the same as "required". IMO, an intimacy coordinator is the same thing as having a stunt coordinator or, like, any number of health and safety requirements. OSHA doesn't say you must "in good faith" put your "best effort" to providing fire exits. it's great that performers can request coordinators for any kind of scene, and this is still the strongest language we've ever had in a contract but....c'mon guys.

residuals: look, I can't speak to these new terms in any concrete way. there are increases, there are bonuses for streaming success, there's a whole thing about a fund regarding those successes that I need explained to me more in depth, but overall, it looks like we made some in-roads here. as someone who employs actors under digital distribution contracts that has no residuals (podcasts), I know how genuinely cumbersome the unholy trifecta of "views-success-profit" can be (as in views do not equal success, success does not equal profit, etc.). I also have no sympathy when the majority of companies dealing with that cumbersome trifecta are massive media conglomerates. anyway, long story short, idk if this is good enough, I'm hoping to attend the next info meeting sag has.

the bad

the new hair/makeup provisions are explicitly for principal actors. while I hope it leads to better, more inclusive HMU services all around I haaaate that this implies supporting or background actors (who oftentimes also have to sit in HMU) don't deserve the consideration. (then again, background actors are usually required to do their own HMU/bring their own costumes, but for productions where that's not the case, the same HMU provisions should apply IMO)

as with every contract, there's language that could be stronger, clarity that needs to exist, and important things missing - but this isn't the final contract and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm gonna leave that stuff to the experts.

but, "lauren", you say, "what about all the AI stuff? where does that go?" well, reader, I was planning on including that in the above but it's the hot-button issue right now and I think it's wickedly complicated, so I wanted to break it down separately, after I had a chance to point out all the good-bad-in-between stuff that's not getting talked about.

a note: in my career, I've learned there's two big things to keep in mind when reading a contract you might sign:

what is the worst case interpretation of this language (thank you to my lawyer, prince among men, for teaching me how to do this in practice (that said, anything I say here is not legal advice, he'd also want me to say that lol))

what are you willing to lose/compromise on/what are the limits of your pragmatism? contracts are not about a company giving you everything you want out of the goodness of their heart - it is always a compromise. pragmatism has to be a part of the equation.

so, with that said, I'm going to play a little devil's advocate here, and a) try to find the good/the pragmatic and b) catastrophize the worst case scenario. but first, it might be handy to look at this SAG infographic for some basic definitions. let's go.

the AI good

a ton of stuff here requires consent. that is not a small thing, and the consent continues even after your death (whether it was a yes or no; though this can be complicated by your estate/your union)

the language does establish that the consent must be a separate signing from the employment contract, even if its in the contract, which is great (but more on that below - timing matters)

actors often do get paid for use of their digital replicas, though it's different based on the use/type of replica.

the actor must be provided with a "reasonably specific description of the intended use". this language is vaguer than I would like, because it allows producers to decide what "reasonably specific" and "intended" means - there's always going to be some vagueness when it comes to this specific thing, but a good start would be for producers to require not blanket consent, but conditional consent for each significant use of digital replicas.

if the replicas are being used in other mediums, that must also be consented to, thank god.

replicas cannot be used in place of background actor counts on a given day - if I'm understanding this correctly, this means a production can't just have a bunch of fake background actors by themselves, they have to engage real people up to a certain number first (which in this new contract is 25 for TV and 85 for movies). we're already filling in background with digital people or copy-pasting of the same crowd over and over and have been doing so since at least the late 90s, so it's good we're continuing to put up boundaries around that.

the AI "...hm..."

it's unclear (to me) when an actor can be asked to consent. IMO, everything is meaningless if the consent is happening as part of regular contract negotiations. these things have to happen when - and only when - the actor has already been engaged in a role and feels empowered to say no

the use of independently created replicas (replicas pulled from existing footage, not created by the actor) being allowed without consent under first amendment reasoning - this is obviously concerning a lot of people bc first amendment arguments are so broad. that said, there's a pragmatism part of me that understands this is already happening/has been happening for a while and used in ways I think are perfectly fine - I was just watching the new episode of For All Mankind (one of the best TV shows right now!) and it's an alternate history, which meant that in the opening scenes of this season they had some bonkers good deep fakes of Al Gore saying stuff he never said. I think that's okay to do in a fiction show that imagines a different US history! "but Lauren", you might be saying, "Al Gore isn't a member of SAG!" are you sure? are you positive? because I'm pretty certain he is - he was in several episodes of 30 Rock, way more people are in SAG than you think (every NPR reporter for instance), and the two worst presidents we've had in the last 50 years (yes, those ones), are both definitely members of SAG (even if one is dead). now, the other side of this is that public figures like politicians are under a different social contract than actors, and if they wanted to sue, they could, unlike the average SAG actor who might have their image abused. this is why this is in the "hm" column - deep fakes and parody/satire/commentary use of replicas is already here and there's always going to be a 1st amendment argument to make, so we need to figure out how best to limit those and protect the most vulnerable.

alteration: with this language, a project can digitally alter without consent if the script and performance stays "substantially" the same. again, this language is too mealy-mouthed. I don't know that I have a huge problem with a line of dialogue getting replaced with a digital version of that actors voice if, for instance, a word was mispronounced, or wind garbled the sound or whatever - yes, it would eliminate the need for ADR, but if we put some limit on it like..."if there are more than 5 lines in a given episode/movie that require digital alteration in the service of clarity, the actor must be engaged for an ADR session or paid for the digital replacement" then I could see this being workable. I'm also personally okay with things like costumes being digitally altered but, again, we need limitations on that. digital altering cannot replace the art of costuming but, for instance, if a costume needs to be altered to include a hate symbol or something, I think that's fine (example: I have friends who worked at the VFX house for an alternate history TV show that involved a lot of Nazi costuming and set design - a huge part of that VFX house's job was to put swastikas in places, rather than props making nazi flags. I'm okay with that!) but again, these fringe cases do not a compelling arugment make, and this contract language can be interpreted too broadly for my comfort! like everything else in this "hm" category, I need to see the final contract language to decide.

the AI bad

there's a bunch of circumstances in which actors don't get paid for creating their replica/use of it and those circumstances are too broad for my taste.

synthetic performers - this is just awful. no. no, we should not be allowing AI to generate entire actors. just............no. there's some language about the producers having to talk to the union if the synthetic performer is "used in place of a performer who would have been engaged under this Agreement in a human role" but this doesn't apply to non-human characters so....wouldn't that be all roles?? leaving the producers room to be like "this role has to be synthetic, we never would've cast a human!" is bullshit. also, even if we're having AI create a magical talking unicorn whole cloth (which, like, also no, we have artists for this), that unicorn still needs to be voiced by a human person. this whole section is a disaster.

the exceptions to consent for digital alteration are bad-bad. I talked about the potential ADR replacement above and that has a whole host of issues with it that I didn't even get into, but I can see the argument. the rest are very troubling:

there is an exception under "any circumstance when dubbing or use of a double is permitted under the Codified Basic Agreement or Television Agreement" - okay, so does this mean we can replace dubbing artists and stunt performers entirely? this section is about digital alteration, but who's to say alteration couldn't turn an actor broadly miming a fight into an entirely digital, expertly performed fight that usually a stunt double would have done? with AI translation technology, does this mean we're replacing VO artists for dubs entirely? bad!

similarly, "Adjusting lip and/or other facial or body movement and/or the voice of the performer to a foreign language, or for purposes of changes to dialogue or photography necessary for license or sale to a particular market" - Justine Bateman has a great twitter thread on the terrible puppetry potential of this but I want to draw attention to the particular market bit - we all know that selling to china is such a huge part of studios' strategies that they'll remove entire scenes or lines around queer stuff. to me, this clause makes all of that so much easier. I know the argument here is going to be "we can replace swear words and license it for kids!" which.......sure? fine? but, uh, we already have ways to deal with that? and the potential for abuse here is terrifying to me. with all the digital alteration stuff too, there's just so much icky implication for the beauty/body standard to get so much worse.

if a background actor’s digital replica is used in the role of a principal performer, they'll be paid as if they actually performed the days for that role, which, sure, but uhhhh why are we saying it's okay for a digital replica of a background actor to suddenly be a leading role!?!?! I can't think of anything more demoralizing than going to set to act in background (a job I've done! an important job! a fun job a lot of the time! but creatively limited) and then getting a much bigger role (the dream!) and.....not being able to, you know, act that role or be in scenes with other principal actors or do the thing that you've dedicated your life to doing. nightmare stuff.

woof. there's so much more to say but I'm going to leave it there. these are the concerns I'm going to go into SAG's meetings with, and the concerns I'll be considering as I decide how to vote. I know there are things I didn't address and very possibly things I misinterpreted or misrepresented - if you're an actor, I highly recommend a) reading that Justine Bateman thread and b) attending SAG's meetings to ask questions and express your concerns. and I'd love to hear what y'all think! my ask box is open.

[curio-queries]

ARE YOU SURE?!

Episode 4 production Notes

Again, I genuinely didn't think I'd have anything to say at this point about this episode. I had such a good time the first time I watched it, just smiling the whole way through. There is one thing that did stick in my brain a little bit though so here I am again with another post.

Episode Break Points

We honestly can't be making any final conclusions at this point but there is starting to emerge a picture of how the production team approached the development of this show as an episodic release. The question that was rattling around my brain after watching episode 4 was how they are choosing their cut points between episodes. We really only have three data points right now which is not enough to definitively identify their intent but it does start to paint the picture a little bit. Sometimes, the break point is beyond obvious, like cutting ep.2 at the end of the USA trip. But when there's not a definitive line, a choice has to be made when to bring one episode to a close and start another.

Some shows use the changing of the day as a break point but that's not necessarily always the best choice to make for the narrative of the show. For example, the break between eps 1 and 2 is in the morning after JK has his coffee and makes the stone tower. This better served the momentum of the episode and wrapped up the story beat of JM's rough night. Ep 2 then starts on a high note with JK's motorbike ride. In my opinion, this was an excellent choice as we close ep.1 feeling all cozy and ep.2 begins with a little bit of excitement.

A Look Back

So why am I bringing this up now? It's because I was so confused as the choice of when to break these two episodes. I don't know if I've decided if it was good/bad/somewhere-in-between but I absolutely was not expecting Episode 4 to start the way it did. Ep 3 ends at the Go Karts and feels like a complete story beat. While ep 4 starts with the drive to the Omakase.

To me, it feels like we're picking up on the last remains of the previous episode and not starting a new section. Which is honestly, kind of counterintuitive. Why would it feel like that? They're literally on their way to the next activity. I suspect it has more to do with the tonal momentum. The guys are still coming down from all of the energy they expended from Rock Climbing and racing and are having a well-deserved relaxing drive. Even the brief moments we see of JK on the motorbike are quite chill. (mostly because there's not really a great way to get action footage on a bike in the dark lol).

So...to see if I could support my suspicion, or if I was just bringing something else into my viewing experience, I decided to rewatch the whole series so far and rank every story beat on a scale for how energetic/intense I felt the narrative was supporting.

A couple of notes before you judge my rankings:

This data is the very definition of subjective. if I redid this same exercise even the next day, I'm sure I would disagree with myself on certain rankings so you certainly don't have to agree with my rankings.

If a storybeat had a noticeable tonal shift, I entered it twice and included both rankings. If it just varied a bit, I entered a ranking more representative of the scene as a whole.

This won't be reflective of the time occupied by each story beat. Some sections are longer than others but with sustained energy so it doesn't translate in this visual representation how much of an impact on the overall tone of the episode any one of these are.

I also added a star at the end of each episode of my median scores. I feel that this was a better representation of the overall tone of each episode rather than an average but that's just my personal view on this teeny dataset. Please don't come for me analytics folks! This is just a post for funzies, not proper analysis!

So What?

The point was curious about is in the gap between eps 3 & 4. Everywhere else there's a pretty clear shift in the start and end of the energy but that gap looks like it was just a step that was missed in what could have been a continual episode.

Here are the runtimes of each episode so far:

USA: 56 min

USA: 72 Min

Jeju: 56 min

Jeju: 70 min

I don't have any conclusions about why it was done this way other than they felt the tonal break was the sacrifice for keeping the Omakase story line in tact. Which honestly, I agree. There would have been time to include the drive in the previous episode but it would have left us on an unfinished storybeat. This is one of the reasons that we never get footage of the members return trip from their travel shows. Bon Voyage ends every episode with the members remarking on the trip overall. Even though we know they have to return home, we don't see it because that would start to build energy for whatever they're doing next and not the story of their trip.

Even in ITS1 when the members do return home in the middle, we see them packing up and getting in the cars but the episode ends before they really start traveling. (Actually it ends before they even let Jin in the car so they're definitely not on their way yet!)

Commercials?

I have a question for anyone that's watching this with ads. I don't really watch streaming content so I'm curious, do the ad breaks just randomly occur? Or does it seem like they're intentionally scheduled? Building story breaks for commercials was a huge focus of legacy tv and I'd be interested to learn more about how streaming services are incorporating it (not enough to not have commercials though, I get insta-rage when the content I'm consuming is interrupted lol). I vaguely remember getting frustrated when I was attempting to watch something at my parent's over the holidays but I don't recall if it seemed structured or not.

That's it. That's all I've got to say right now. We're definitely getting a lot more to the story of this show and I'm absolutely loving it. I'm going to be away for a bit next week and I honestly don't know when I'll fit in watching episode 5 but I'm very much looking forward to it!

If you've seen this post and are interested in some more of my thoughts on Are You Sure, here's a link to my AYS MasterList. Still can't believe I've rambled so much about this show but it's been fun! Thanks to everyone that's been rambling with me!

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I realise you're HE, but any thoughts on how high school level education should be run/changed/etc? I'd love to know your views!

Oh sure, plenty, but they're not particularly informed lol

Well; Wales is actually massively and fundamentally changing secondary education atm, but we won't be getting students from it until the year after next, I think, so no real comment on effectiveness yet - but it's very interesting. They're getting rid of isolated subjects in favour of broad umbrella areas, as I understand it? So there's now Science and Technology (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computing, and all the various DT subjects like Woodwork, Electronics, Cookery, etc), Maths and Numeracy, Humanities (History, Geography, Ethics, Religion), Languages Literacy and Communication, and Health and Wellbeing (actually maybe Cookery comes under this one now? Dunno.) And there's a sixth to do with arts but I can't remember what it's called. But it includes Art, Drama, Media Studies, etc.

And then the idea is that a class will learn about a given topic at a time (I don't know for how long, so let's say six weeks), and this will be taught in each of those six umbrellas but via their own methods. So like... I dunno, let's say the Tudors:

That's fairly straightforward for Humanities, but in addition to giving you the historical facts you'd also explore historic trade routes and natural resources of the time and how they related to the politics (geography), the religious make up of the country and how THAT related to the politics (religion), etc.

Maths and Numeracy might explore how to use statistics to analyse Tudor era population or trade data.

Science and Tech could look at disease outbreaks and virology, or technological advancements and how they worked and get students to build one, or get students to construct a Tudor-era town using computer software

Languages can study plays from the era (Shakespeare), look at linguistic development, or use historical events as talking points to practice using vocab in conversations

Health and Wellbeing can explore stressors and challenges of the average Medieval peasant and how they overcame them, or play some popular Tudor sport or game, or make food to Tudor recipes, etc

The Arts one (god I cannot remember the name) can look at art history of the period, fashions, perform plays, etc

So everyone is still teaching the skills and knowledge of their subject areas, they're just united by one big case study. It apparently allows for far more integrated teaching, too, where two previously discrete subjects can join forces on a project.

All of which seems pretty good, on the whole, but also rife with issues if everyone isn't careful, so we'll see how it shakes out over the next few years.

From my own experiences of school though. Jesus. Something definitely needed to happen, fuck me.

What I should have learned in Textiles:

How to use a sewing machine

How to sew by hand to mend a tear

How to darn a hole

How to hem, dart, take in, and let out clothes

How to sew from a pattern

What I actually learned in Textiles:

How to use a sewing machine on its most basic setting

How to phone in creating a hand puppet out of felt because gluing was easier than sewing

How to badly sew an extremely makeshift and shit bag out of scrap fabric that you in no way want to then use

How to lose all interest in Textiles because it was useless and uninteresting

Like that is a VITAL skillset-imparting subject, and they fucked it, lads, they completely fucked it. Why did they never set us the task of buying a cheap shirt from a charity shop that we then amended in class? That would have been so useful.

Games and PE! Fucking hell! Here's what I should have learned:

How to stretch my body safely to target specific muscle groups, and in particular, how to cultivate a daily stretching routine I enjoyed and wanted to do

How to find a physical activity active enough to get me out of breath that I genuinely enjoyed, so that I wanted to continue it, e.g. salsa dancing or rope climbing or ice skating or hill climbing or assault courses or fucking anything at all

How to build my body up to doing particular activities safely and sustainably

How to find a physical activity to do on wet, cold, rainy days that would still be fun and I would still enjoy

Here's what I actually learned:

Physical activity is always uncomfortable and miserable and sometimes even painful

If you aren't enjoying running around in the wind and rain instead of the indoor gym The Problem Is You. Start Enjoying It.

Wanting to stay warm and dry and comfortable is a punishable choice.

You are only permitted to do physical activity in clothes that make you feel profoundly exposed and uncomfortable (a gym skirt and gym knickers in my school. Cycling shorts got you detention. Don't get me started on jogging bottoms.) Again, if you do not enjoy this, The Problem Is You. Start Enjoying It.

There are only three activity options. If you don't enjoy any of them, physical activity is not for you.

You should be able to Just Do physical exercise, without any training to build you up to it. If you can't and it hurts, this is because you're Bad At PE.

You will only be shown Once

Physical activity is only ever a team sport that you aren't good enough to be willingly picked for

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK

And you know what, LET'S round off with Food Technology/Cookery. Because I remember the things I was asked to make in FT. As a little baby Year 7, I still vividly remember two of the things we made.

Angel Delight. Easy, you might say! A simple treat, you might think! Easing the children into food prep, I hear you cry! But no, because the theme of the year was healthy eating, and so we were to add fruit to our Angel Delight. Any flavour Angel Delight, any fruit. Off you go. I don't know if any of you have encountered fruit, Tumblrs, but it famously has faintly acidic juice. This will prevent the Angel Delight from setting within the one hour lesson, no matter how well you mixed the pudding, or how quickly you got it into the fridge. It will result in soggy gross lumps of oxidising fruit in sloppy liquid pudding. Lesson learned: fruit makes food worse.

Cake. Easyish, you might say! A little harder than the Angel Delight but good training, you might think! A fairly straightforward process with a child-friendly food at the end, I hear you cry! But no, because the theme of the year was still healthy eating, so the teachers made it into an experiment; make four small cakes. One with sugar, one with sweetener, one with apple, and one with carrot. Then taste them and rank them in order. Off you go. I don't know if any of you have ever tried eating sugarless carrot cake, Tumblrs, but I have, and I can tell you categorically that it really puts the "Did you know" into the phrase "Did you know that fructose and sucrose are not actually equivalents of each other in a culinary setting?" It was rancid. It was disgusting. It was vile. It made me hate carrot cake for the next 12 years, in case my mouth had to go through that ordeal again. I'm still highly suspicious of the stuff even now. To (I assume) the surprise of fuck-damned no one, we unanimously put them in the order of sugar, sweetener, apple, carrot. Lesson learned: FRUIT MAKES FOOD WORSE AND CARROTS ARE ACTIVELY DISGUSTING

What possessed them?! No idea. Fucking hell.

Anyway this is getting long and I am still ill-informed. Peace out.

[sysakiddo]

Daniel is an overworked scientist who needs litres of coffee to function properly. He likes doing the research and he is acclaimed enough to be treated like a popstar in the community. He likes the attention that comes with it, likes being invited to symposiums where they ask him about his work. 

One day, he gets an email from the head of the association he is part of. The subject of the mail says kid has balls. Daniel chuckles and opens it, finds out it's a research paper that's been printed out two days ago. His own work is referenced multiple times. He scrolls down to the first mention. 

Ricciardo et al. (2024) conclude that this effect is caused by the failure of humanitarian interventions in Africa so far. This can be, of course, easily debunked. The success or failure of humanitarian intervention can be measured by at least sixteen different variables (Schmidt 2022). Ricciardo et al. (2024) use three variables. One must therefore doubt the validity and accuracy of these conclusions. 

Daniel scoffs. He doesn't read the paper, only shoots a quick reply email with nothing but lol. 

He forgets about it soon enough. Ain't nobody dissing Daniel in his own research field. But a similar email comes again in a month, and Daniel's mood is sour. This time, it's a reaction to a speech he had at a random symposium. 

Ricciardo (2024) steers clear of defining this geopolitical concept in a definitive matter. He reconstructed the operationalisation of the concept numerous times. This ambiguity is unfortunate and detracts from the validity of the whole research. 

Daniel yells at Josh across his office. “Come and look at this shit, mate!” Josh doesn't have the reaction Daniel hoped for. He reads the passage and cackles evilly at his sour look. “Is it the same guy as the last time? You got your ass handed to you,” 

Daniel reaches his limit the third time it happens. He looks up the author of the paper. Verstappen, Max Emillian, PhD., Associate Professor with Tenure. Yale University. Daniel's frown deepens. He reads the offensive passage again. 

Numerous researchers claimed the same. For example, Ricciardo (2022) used a survey to collect data from citizens of the contented districts and concluded the same thing. A survey is hardly a good choice for this type of research question, as it is highly reductionist and cannot be duplicated with high validity. 

Daniel has enough. He is going to confront this guy when he attends the same work thingy as him. He won't let an Ivy League freak diss his research. 

And he is truly ready the next time he is at a black tie event. Josh knows about the plan and it's him who finds that dick first. He points a finger at a man standing just a few feet away from Daniel, his back turned to him. Daniel nods to himself and strides to the group where his nemesis stands. Luckily, he sees Alex in the group, who waves at him to come over. “Hey, Alex!” Daniel exclaims loudly enough that everyone looks over, even the man Daniel has his hate speech prepared for. 

He is SO not prepared for the gaze that lands on him, the steely blue eyes and wide shoulders and thick, thick tights that are on full display in his dress pants. Daniel's mouth is suddenly very dry. He tries to swallow. It doesn't help. Max is looking at him with a slight smirk on his face. Alex is saying something, and Daniel nods even though he has no idea what was said. 

“You must be Daniel,” Daniel says nonsensically, then chokes. “Or, no! Oh my god. I am Daniel. You are, of course, doctor Verstappen. Gosh, it's so hot in here, isn't it?” 

The smirk on Max's face grows more prominent. He still doesn't say anything. Daniel thinks he hears Alex trying to hold back his giggles. He brings the wine glass to his mouth but doesn't drink from it, petrified he is going to spill it all over himself. Don't look at his tits, don't look at his tits, he chants at himself but doesn't really succeed. His cheeks are way too warm to look naturally flushed.

“So, yeah. That was embarrassing. I got some new funding. Would you be interested in being a part of my new project?”

[qqueenofhades]

I’m in undergrad but I keep hearing and seeing people talking about using chatgpt for their schoolwork and it makes me want to rip my hair out lol. Like even the “radical” anti-chatgpt ones are like “Oh yea it’s only good for outlines I’d never use it for my actual essay.” You’re using it for OUTLINES????? That’s the easy part!! I can’t wait to get to grad school and hopefully be surrounded by people who actually want to be there 😭😭😭

Not to sound COMPLETELY like a grumpy old codger (although lbr, I am), but I think this whole AI craze is the obvious result of an education system that prizes "teaching for the test" as the most important thing, wherein there are Obvious Correct Answers that if you select them, pass the standardized test and etc etc mean you are now Educated. So if there's a machine that can theoretically pick the correct answers for you by recombining existing data without the hard part of going through and individually assessing and compiling it yourself, Win!

... but of course, that's not the way it works at all, because AI is shown to create misleading, nonsensical, or flat-out dangerously incorrect information in every field it's applied to, and the errors are spotted as soon as an actual human subject expert takes the time to read it closely. Not to go completely KIDS THESE DAYS ARE JUST LAZY AND DONT WANT TO WORK, since finding a clever way to cheat on your schoolwork is one of those human instincts likewise old as time and has evolved according to tools, technology, and educational philosophy just like everything else, but I think there's an especial fear of Being Wrong that drives the recourse to AI (and this is likewise a result of an educational system that only prioritizes passing standardized tests as the sole measure of competence). It's hard to sort through competing sources and form a judgment and write it up in a comprehensive way, and if you do it wrong, you might get a Bad Grade! (The irony being, of course, that AI will *not* get you a good grade and will be marked even lower if your teachers catch it, which they will, whether by recognizing that it's nonsense or running it through a software platform like Turnitin, which is adding AI detection tools to its usual plagiarism checkers.)

We obviously see this mindset on social media, where Being Wrong can get you dogpiled and/or excluded from your peer groups, so it's even more important in the minds of anxious undergrads that they aren't Wrong. But yeah, AI produces nonsense, it is an open waste of your tuition dollars that are supposed to help you develop these independent college-level analytical and critical thinking skills that are very different from just checking exam boxes, and relying on it is not going to help anyone build those skills in the long term (and is frankly a big reason that we're in this mess with an entire generation being raised with zero critical thinking skills at the exact moment it's more crucial than ever that they have them). I am mildly hopeful that the AI craze will go bust just like crypto as soon as the main platforms either run out of startup funding or get sued into oblivion for plagiarism, but frankly, not soon enough, there will be some replacement for it, and that doesn't mean we will stop having to deal with fake news and fake information generated by a machine and/or people who can't be arsed to actually learn the skills and abilities they are paying good money to acquire. Which doesn't make sense to me, but hey.

So: Yes. This. I feel you and you have my deepest sympathies. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to sit on the porch in my quilt-draped rocking chair and shout at kids to get off my lawn.

[tonkatsubowl]

blind. ii

dan heng x fem!reader

it's a series now! ⛧ part one. ⛧ part three.

➽ inspired by satoru gojo! what if the reader had a special ability with her eyes and often wore a blindfold?

➽ reader is a flirt!

≫ requested tags: @truesimp

after successfully infiltrating the astral express and downloading a bit of data from dan heng's computer, you returned to elios' office to deliver the flash drive where you were praised for your work.

...in truth though, the flash drive you gave to elios was a fraud. should he open it, it would only be a security error with corrupted data. you executed this flawlessly, too, due to the sake of your curiosity and admiration for dan heng.

as a result, you were given a few days off, considering you didn't exactly have any missions to do since kafka, blade and silver wolf were assigned to those missions.

elios really did fall for it, huh? after all, you had a plan for dan heng.

the moment you entered your own room, you pulled your blindfold off, looking into the mirror with those strange, stellaron-infused eyes of yours.

right... you were a test subject to a project of another world. the scientists that practically had your life in their hands had these experiments where they'd force a stellaron into someone's body to see if it was compatible. but alas, you were somehow compatible with a stellaron forced into your eyes, deeming you a successful experiment, and forced you to become a powerful soldier for the worldly military. unfortunately (?) for you... your world was... well, destroyed for whatever reason. you didn't have any memories besides you were being tortured constantly by those scientists. kafka had retrieved you and took you prisoner at first, where elios had given you the opportunity to work for him.

and now here you were, one of the best performing members of the stellaron hunters.

... and really, here you were, seated at a café in belobog. you were a regular here in belobog on your days off.

in public, you wore a pair of sunglasses that kafka specifically made for your eyes. your eyes weren't always visible, but you always had the hearts of the baristas.

you always ordered a sweet, white mocha latte, and the baristas in the café who practically had a crush on you basically memorized your order. they always created cute little foam art on your coffee that represented a cat, or a bunny... sometimes random animals whenever you paid them a visit.

while you were relaxing on your day off, you hear your phone go off, a gentle buzz and your peculiar notification ping that rang through your very ears.

".. hm?"

➽ unknown: hey, it's me.

ooh, oh my. he really did text you...

➽ ???: oh, you really did text me, dan-dan. let me add you.

➽ dan heng: your name isn't even displayed through your contacts...?

➽ ???: oh, not at all. i like to keep my identity a secret.

➽ dan heng: i see.

➽ ???: so, what brought you to text me, cutie pie? did you miss me? ♡︎ i missed you too you know.

➽ dan heng: i'm texting you because i want to know why you downloaded the information of my entire database into that flash drive... and you didn't even bother erasing everything on my computer.

➽ ???: it should be obvious to you that i stole some info from you lol ♡︎ it's for my boss.

➽ dan heng: boss? you're a stellaron hunter then?

➽ ???: was it not obvious enough, babe? why, cmere, let's talk more in person. i prefer talking to you than text.

➽ dan heng: okat.

➽ dan heng: ojay.

➽ dan heng: okay**.

➽ ???: lmao. you're so cute... but i doubt you can come here right now. you're still on xianzhou luofu aren't you?

➽ dan heng: ?? how did you know i was just there... well, i guess it makes sense considering kafka was there too. but i'm on my way to belobog right now to visit a library. we can meet up later.

➽ ???: oh, well lucky day for the both of us. i'm at the café in belobog.

➽ dan heng: alright. well, i'll be there soon.

➽ ???: see u soon cutie

there was a sly smile across your face as you placed your phone upside down on the table. you were quite excited to see dan heng again since that fateful day. it wouldn't be long until dan heng would show himself.

the café had bells attached to the door, and the moment you heard the bells jingle, you took one final sip of the latte before moving the empty mug to the side of the table, recognizing your little boy toy from a bit of a distance.

catching the glimpse of your h/c hair and the lack of visibility of your eyes, he made his way towards your table, seating himself across from you. you could hear the quiet gossiping of the baristas as they wondered if you were truly single.

"hey, baby." you cooed at dan heng, who had a serious expression on your face. "oh, you didn't bring anyone. i was half expecting you to bring your trail blazing team for a moment."

"were you worried?" dan heng raised a brow as he looked down at the menu.

"ufufu. no, not exactly. you didn't seem to bring a friend on... the first date."

you see him flinch a bit, a tint of red painting his cheeks as he coughed awkwardly.

"this is not a date." he stammered.

"yes it is.~" you cooed before tapping the table. "order anything you'd like. it's on me."

"i don't want to order anything. i'm here purely for business purposes." dan heng said, as he looked straight towards your sunglasses.

"... the flash drive. you already submitted it to your boss, no? for what purpose do you have with the information in my database?"

there was a look of amusement. he could read it too, despite being unable to see your sunglasses.

"oh, who knows? my boss was just telling me to do things. i get paid very well whenever i'm tasked with what to do, y'know. that's the work of a stellaron hunter." you tilt your head, staring at him amusingly. "oh, right..."

reaching into your pocket, you pull out the flash drive. the same one you used to infiltrate his computer.

"i still have it. i gave my boss a fake one."

dan heng froze at the sight of the flash drive, almost ready to reach out to steal from your grasp. but you were... well, faster than him, especially when you had knocked him on his ass the other night.

"...what? why do you have that? look— just," dan heng shook his head, "i doubt anything i say will sway your mind to giving me that flash drive."

"ah, ah, ah." you mused, shaking your head at him. "hold up there, dragon boy. you're rushing into conclusions too fast. do the others know about this, actually? did you tell them?"

dan heng shook his head. you read his body language — he wasn't lying.

"...i see. perfect. let's have a deal, then."

dan heng blinked, raising a brow. "a deal?"

"you heard me, cutie." you said, looking back to the menu. you might order another latte or something else in a bit...

"...what's the deal?"

"hehe. curious, are you? well..." you stuffed the flash drive away, adjusting your sunglasses. "be my boyfriend."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..." you were smiling innocently at him.

".. wh— gh-..? huh!?"

"did i stutter, babe?"

dan heng choked for a moment, coughing into his fist as he turned red. "what—? why? are you... a-are you sane right now?"

"guess i'll turn in the info." you mused.

"wait—wait. fine."

your smile widened. "oh, geez, dearie me. does this mean you're my boyfriend?"

dan heng exhaled, looking to the side. "... i don't even know your name. if i'm going to be your boyfriend, i at least need to know your name. you already know mine."

"oh, for sure. as a reward for being so obedient, i'll tell you my name.

...it's y/n. ♡"

[that1-storyteller]

Every Little Experience <3

BLLK Boys (mainly Karasu) x ???? reader (Fem!)

Warnings: Foul language, uhm I’m not sure yet I’ll just figure it out along the way. Gory descriptions, heavily traumatized reader, biases against guys, sarcasm lol.

Blue lock. Two words. Two little words, and behind them was an opportunity of a life time. Uncle Ego Was hired by a woman he called Anri-Chan, to make the world’ s best striker. You may not know much about the sport, but you knew this was huge.

Ego always included you any anything he did, in some way or another. Though this was by far the furthest he’d ever gone to involve you.

You were going to work in blue lock with him. As his assistant. As great as it was to build up experience as a sixteen year old getting into tech and psychology, Ego was…less than ideal to work with. He was demanding to an absurd degree, great, right? In the end, he is your uncle and provides great experience and opportunities. It, in the long run, was worth it.

But you pissed him off, so your first day in the eerie ass building, you were stuck doing maintenance checks and cleaning. Fuck. All you did was rig his noodles…wasn’t that serious, damn… and karma was pretty instant with that prank, you tripped on the rug and face planted immediately after the trap was set. Your poor eye. Bruised on your first day of work.

Now, like the soon-to-be candidates of Blue Lock, you were stuck living there. You were allowed to have your phone, you had your own room, bathroom, etc. It was fairly nice compared to what you observed what the candidates were being treated with. You also, depending on how many tasks you did and how well the job was done, got to pick your meals. Courtesy of your uncle. You got to come in a few days prior to decorate your space as you wished, go over the rules, learn the layout, etc. It was an uncomfortably large building, to say the least.

The biggest rule, or at least the one Uncle Ego and Anri-Chan emphasized the most was,

Limit your contact with the players.

Easy enough. You had no interest in a bunch of (most likely) stuck up, narcissistic jocks who only care about soccer. To be fair, here they were literally fighting for their futures that revolved around soccer, it would be understandable to be desperate and focused, no? Like rats in a cage, attached to a man’s face with one side lit ablaze. Desperate, scared, and tearing into each other just to survive. A raw instinctual thing, really. Always enjoyable to observe…

Well, anywho, not people you’d want to interact with.

So here you were, setting each and every room to be perfect, all because Ego was petty over a prank.

Last quarters, team Z’s. Each sleeping bag was perfectly laid out, the bathrooms organized, towels folded. What a shame it would be, hard work waisted on slobbish boys… sigh. They’d be here tomorrow, and the experiment would begin. Hurray!

…

Your alarm blared in your ears, the sun rising, though you couldn’t see it. No windows, how unfortunate. You sluggishly dressed, very casual clothing for today, you decided. You threw on leggings and a large hoodie, putting on a smidge bit of make-up as well. It fit the occasion. Today you’d be greeting the candidates and handing them their…uniforms? Outfits? You weren’t sure exactly what to call those uncomfortably skin tight data collectors. The word would come to you later, you were sure.

This was the only time you were allowed to purposely converse with the subjects- er hmm, “diamonds in the rough”, as Uncle Ego called them. In your eyes, they were kind of like lab rats. Soccer gods in the making, was a nice way to put it. Poor boys didn’t know what was coming, you felt….only slightly guilty to be apart of their torment. Only slightly.

…

Through the doors they charged, a large herd of brawny, muscle-headed, boys.

“Anri-Chan, I don’t particularly wan’t to be the one to take their phones. It’s like taking crack from an addicted drug dealer, bad news. I fear they’ll bite me, males my age are a bit peculiar, no?”

Anri laughed, finding your bias against guys hilarious. As well as the way you spoke, so odd for a sixteen year old. So amusing to her.

“Y/N! They won’t bite! God, what, do you think they’re wild animals?”

“They may as well be,”

She snorted.

Guy after guy retrieved his suit and info. Many grumbling about the rules, some refusing to giving up their addiction device. After some fierce battles and trickery, they gave it up. Willingly or not. Then navigated their way to their rooms. A sweet looking boy walked up, eyes wide with …maybe it was anxiety, or just uncertainty? You couldn’t tell, maybe a mixture of both.

“Hello Miss, I’m sorry but I don’t know where I’m going, I’m not great with direction. Could you help me? Oh god, am I being a bother? I shouldn’t have asked, I’m so sorry!” He was so quick to panic…

“Hey, hey, don’t fret, you aren’t a bother dear. It’s my job to help, let me guide you,” You baby talked him a bit, it oddly felt necessary with his anxious, meek demeanor.

You waved to Anri, letting her know you’d be gone, and walked with the anxious boy. He was muscular, obviously so. You found humor in how anxious he was for someone who could’ve easily beat the ever-loving crap out of anyone. He had short brown hair and eye-catching forest green iris’s. You found them lovely. They were large and noticeable, very cute. If only he’d stand straight, with correct posture he’d be tall, definitely would help him in the long run. More attractive, even…

“What team are you assigned to, dear?”

“Team A, I-I’m Tokimitsu, by the way…” He stumbled over his words, his nerves messing with him oh so obviously. He fidgeted around with his fingers. Poor guy probably needed therapy and meds.

“I’m Y/N, nice to make your acquaintance, Tokimitsu-sama. What led you to be here? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

He ranted a bit, he seemed to loosen up after you gave a conversation starter. He kept spewing soccer facts like it was his job, very cute. His love of soccer was impressive, but so would be everyone else’s. It would have to be, to end up in Blue Lock. You listened to him ramble as you showed him to his team’s room, adding your thoughts here and there.

…

Every so often people would catch your eye, their hairstyles, accents, outfits, posture, etc. Many unique and out there, those of which you loved to observe. Though, the comments from the tall, tan, blonde guy with pink ends were definitely not necessary…soccer perv.

Someone who really caught your eye, was a purple haired boy. He had a cute mole by his eye, hmm. You couldn’t find a perfect word to match it with. Made you feel weird, in a pleasant way. He was tall, as were many of the participants here, an air of confidence clung to him. Though, you had a feeling… mmm… maybe you were overthinking him. Over analyzing. When he spoke, oh when he spoke…sharp, intellectual, pleasant, hell it soothed a part of your brain you didn’t know needed soothed. Oddly everything about him tugged at your heart. What the fuck. He wasn’t even really polite, his gaze seemed judging. The same gaze you laid upon other people. The people you often deemed boring and a waist of time. Now on you. The look, about to title someone mediocre. You knew it, so similar to your own… He was so….interesting. Made your brain buzz with thought mere moments after laying eyes on him. If you were to struggle to not converse with any candidates, it would be him. Your brain wandered to the wonderful conversations you could have and analyze. Oh, and his eye’s fought yours as well. You thought Tokimitsu’s were nice, but this boy’s took lovely to a whole new level. Breath taking. Enchanting, if you dared. His hair reminded you of something, you just couldn’t think of it at the moment…a certain animal. Hmmm.

“Hey Miss, why should I hand over my phone to you, you don’t look particularly responsible. What if you lose it, or damage my property? Hm?”

You blinked and snapped out of it.

“I’m only following orders. If harm were to come to your addiction device of devil, then you’d be fully repaid. You’d receive a new device as well as money.” You gave a slightly irritated smile. Though he was charming, he’d be a pain in the ass. Much like how you imagined how doing his hair in the morning was. “Please hand it over, sir-“

“Tabito Karasu,” He interrupted.

“Mr. Karasu, then.”

He handed it over and you gently placed it in the bag, so he was reassured it was fine. Though, you suspected he didn’t actually care all that much.

“You certain you’re qualified to work here?” You’re sure he’s referring to your casual outfit, sure it wasn’t fancy like Anri’s but why would you get dressed up to greet a bunch of lab rats? Hm?

“Very.”

Oh, what an interesting experience this was going to be.

Pt.1 |Pt.2 Coming soon!|

[thatmexisaurusrex]

Ridiculous BuckTommy prompt

Tommy has been secretly working to get information not for Gerrard but his uncle Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Send Me Ridiculous BuckTommy Prompts

Lol the way that I've never watched a full episode of Phineas & Ferb but I feel like I know enough about Doofenshmirtz from Milo Murphy's Law 😂 Let's gooooooooo.

The Unpaid Intern

When Tommy's Uncle, notorious villain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, had dubbed Tommy his "Unpaid College Intern" (despite Tommy not being in college) and tasked him to do research on the "Hot Firefighter-inator", Tommy knew that he would have to go deep undercover.

He joined the army.

He got discharged from the army early.

He got his pilot license but then finally hit step two - becoming a firefighter.

He silently worked his way to Harbor Station and built essentially an almost twenty-year-long fake career as a firefighter pilot.

And then.

Tommy found him.

The perfect research subject for his uncle's "Hot Firefighter-inator".

Evan Buckley.

Not to say that Tommy hadn't accrued research on other hot firefighters over the years. Howie Han, Hen Wilson, Bobby Nash, Lucy Donato, and Metlon had all been prime research subjects for Tommy's mission. Even newer faces like Eddie Diaz and Ravi Panikkar were now vital to Tommy's "Hot Firefighter-inator" data.

But Evan Buckley?

There was something different about Evan Buckley.

It totally wasn't because Tommy was in love with the guy. It totally wasn't because every time Tommy's eyes locked with Evan's, his heart skipped a beat. It totally wasn't because every time Evan's eyes flittered from Tommy's eyes to his lips, Tommy wanted to kiss him. It totally wasn't because every time Evan gave him a TEDTalk about the evolution of ants or the history of the paperclip, all Tommy wanted to do was listen to Evan forever.

However, Tommy didn't expect his heart to break when he saw that Evan had found his dastardly plans - had walked into the guest bedroom marked "TOTALLY NOT SECRET PEPE SILVIA ROOM" and found all the data Tommy had gotten over the years for the "Hot Firefighter-inator" tactfully organized on the walls with red string.

With Evan at the center of it all.

"You're... trying to make a ray gun that turns everyone into hot firefighters?" asked Evan, confused.

"Yes. Well. No. Not me. My uncle is. But it's true. I've been lying this whole time," said Tommy, "I'm not a hot firefighter pilot. I'm an intern. An unpaid intern for an evil mastermind hellbent on turning everyone into a hot firefighter. And I'm here to spy on you all."

"But - you have a pilot license."

"I do."

"You've been a firefighter for almost twenty years."

"As a ruse for my nefarious schemes."

"And - and you think I'm the hottest firefighter?" asked Evan, waggling his eyebrows.

And.

Okay, Tommy thought Evan would be a little more upset over this.

"I mean, yeah. You're always smiling. You can talk for hours about monarch butterflies and the creation of butter and it's always fascinating. You're sweet. You're kind. You're thoughtful. You've got muscles and a nice tummy. Not all hot people are abs on abs on abs. Who doesn't like a bit of a stomach? It's healthy. And all I want to do is spend time with you. Of course you're the hottest of the firefighters I've spied on."

"Oh, of course. Definitely just because I'm hot. Only ulterior motives with that answer," said Evan as he walked over and draped his arms loosely over Tommy's shoulders, "Want to make out? For science?"

"I mean, if it's for science," said Tommy as Evan backed Tommy up into his Pepe Silvia board of hot firefighters; as Evan dove into a deep kiss that made Tommy forget his name.

And okay.

Maybe this wasn't just about science.

Fuck, Tommy was a bad spy.

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

Notes on “do you think we’re together in every universe?” (skulmerayer multiverse post):

Putting pain aside for a moment, this was a really neat mini project to make! I put some thought into what kinds of universes I wanted to have a peek into. There are just so many to choose from! This ain’t even the tip of the iceberg, I’m sure. But I hope the ones I did choose were interesting enough to think about and/or familiar to some of y’all :)

On an artistic note: I love using grayscale every now and then! I have some experience with charcoal and ink wash drawings so the style here is lightly inspired by that (even though I used pencil and gouache brushes 😅)

Composition-wise: Allow me to introduce you to the multiverse rubix cube lol!! The placements of each universe are meant to parallel each other. Universe A and C are branches off of union cross canon, so they’re across from each other. D and F are branches off of missing link. G and I are branches off of the era between. And B and H are about childhood innocence.

Here are each of their descriptions, in order:

Main Universe [in the context of the art]

The ataraxia universe, where Skuld, Ephemer and Player get together and stay together (my khux/skulmerayer copium universe)

Universe A

In which Darkness says “We could take over one of you here and now.” and actually commits to it, choosing Ephemer as its vessel.

Universe B

A universe in which Skuld is not Subject χ. After she and Ephemer awaken in Daybreak Town’s rubble, they found Scala and raise a family together.

Universe C

AU where the lifeboat roles were switched. Ven, Ephemer, Skuld, and Player escape the data world first, while Brain, Lauriam and Elrena stay behind. But it was never supposed to be this way.

Universe D

@corishadowfang’s Fallen Stars universe, in which Skuld arrives in Scala during Missing Link’s era.

Universe E

The current presumed canon universe, unless Skuld being Subject χ is proven otherwise.

Universe F

A universe where Brain and Player2 become close friends (perhaps more?) in Scala. Also known as the plain universe, because what’s a multiverse post without mentioning a bagel or two? 😄🥯

Universe G

I had my fic A Light That Never Goes Out in mind, but this is pretty much any universe in which the whole gang gets to stay together, and Ephemer and Player have the chance to properly build on their relationship. lots of copium in this one

Universe H

High school/modern/real life AU. (Special shoutout to @rosie-kairi’s idea of giving Ephemer braces!)

Universe I

Ephemer lives his life. Open to interpretation!

and finally, a Bonus (Everything Everywhere All At Once reference):

[altin-studies]

Hey there! I want to go into statistical analysis and comms/data analysis, and I have a pretty good plan in place already and know what I'm doing, but was wondering if there are any tips you could give as I see in your bio you're studying data science?

Anything I should do for prep/classes to take to get me a leg up would be amazing, thank you in advance!

Hey there! Thanks for the ask!

If you're going into stat, the first thing I'd suggest is get a good grip on your maths.(Rhyme not intended lol) You should take courses on Derivatives, Integrals, Linear Algebra. We are also taught Real analysis pretty intensively.

For programming languages, I'd say Python is more than enough. But R, SQL are good to have on your CV. Open up a kaggle account and start doing some work there. It will take you a long way.

The best tip I can give you is to take care of your health. It's a pretty taxing subject once you get into it. But prioritise yourself first. Our coursework is intense and while it might not be the same for you, doing mathematics all day is always difficult.

Good luck on your journey. Hope I was of help.

[dissociativediscourse]

Understanding the difference between systemic oppression and social stigma: Why endogenic systems aren't oppressed for being plural, and why that doesn't mean that their struggles are unimportant

Time for the newest syscourse topic, one that I’ve actually been thinking about quite a bit lately. I had a conversation with my very pro-endo friend about it a while back, and it caused me to realize that the entire issue is really that we don’t understand the distinction between oppression and social stigma, and why exactly endogenic plurals are stigmatized, but not oppressed. And why this doesn’t mean that struggles that they do face are “invalid” (boy, do I hate that whole concept. I hate the whole valid thing. It doesn’t do anything any justice.) 

To start off with, it's important to clarify each of these terms. Oppression refers to the systematic mistreatment, subjugation, and denial of rights by those in power against a specific group. On the other hand, social stigma involves societal disapproval or mistreatment directed at individuals who possess certain characteristics or identities. While the two concepts may intersect, they are not synonymous. 

Endogenic plurals, despite facing challenges in the form of social stigma, do not experience systemic oppression in the same way as historically marginalized groups. The comparison I drew in my conversation with the previously mentioned friend was to communities like furries and therians, who similarly encounter varying degrees of societal rejection. While they may be subjected to ridicule, bullying, or social ostracization, these experiences are not the same as being actively oppressed by institutions and systemic structures.

I would also like to highlight that the challenges endogenic plurals face are largely only present within the Western context. Outside of that, they not only ‘would be’ but are very easily accepted, sometimes for religious/spiritual reasons. I had someone from the Middle East (not going to specify which country because I don’t know if anyone knows who this is and would prefer to not dox them lol) describe to me that they once thought that they were endogenic – they were open to their family and community about this, and were very widely accepted for it. It was seen as creative, and a beautiful thing! But once they discovered that they had formed their system through trauma, and that they had DID, it became different. Suddenly it was something to be shunned – this is largely because it isn’t the system that’s the issue. It isn’t the concept of plurality that is an issue, by and large, it’s the trauma. It’s the fact that this is a disabling condition. It’s the fact that when you have DID, you have a rare mental illness. It’s the fact that you are experiencing trauma responses that are unpalatable to those who don’t understand them. 

That’s far from the only story I’ve heard of that type, and I’ve particularly seen a LOT of Asian systems speaking about acceptance of endogenic plurality vs. rejection of DID in their cultures. This is a very West-centric argument, and also goes to show how narrow of a perspective many of the current larger syscoursers pushing endo oppression as a concept have on the subject of oppression. 

You may say, “But, there’s a potential for systemic oppression and violence against endogenic plurals! We just don’t have enough data, because they’re not “out” yet.” My friend said this! I appreciated the point, because it allowed me to highlight my above argument about endogenic plurality outside of the west and also the fact that historical patterns of systemic oppression and the reasoning for such and the examination of parallels with other marginalized groups and their histories with oppression reveal that such concerns are really just… Not warranted. Genuinely, the struggles that endogenic plurals face are much closer to that of the furry community, or that of the therian community. These groups also have to deal with with societal misunderstandings and negative perceptions. Just as with endogenic plurals, the issues they face stem from a lack of understanding rather than a deliberate effort to oppress. If either of those groups were to be open about their identities, they’d face similar struggles – and they do. It’s not exactly the wisest thing to talk to your boss about being a furry or a therian, and it’s liable to get you some hate/bullying/mistreatment directed towards you at some point. It’s stigma.

While endogenic plurals may experience interpersonal mistreatment and possibly even limited job opportunities due to being open about their identities, these challenges are primarily driven by social stigma and negative perceptions. It's worth noting that any systemic violence or marginalization they encounter often stems from an intersection with already marginalized groups, such as the queer or neurodiverse communities. Sure, many endogenic plurals are queer or otherwise neurodiverse, but that intersection and further the violence directed towards it can’t exist without the existence of those other identities. A cishet, white, NT and otherwise non-marginalized endogenic plural isn’t oppressed. A trans, ND, POC who is an endogenic plural is, but not because of their plurality, though it does create a different (and notable) intersection with a few of these aspects. 

It's really important to recognize that conflating social stigma with systemic oppression oversimplifies the experiences of truly systemically oppressed groups, while at the same time not even doing any justice to the issues endogenic plurals themselves DO face. If we can just… Understand that these are two very separate issues, the distinct challenges that endogenic plurals DO face can be more accurately and effectively addressed and advocated for. If we can just ACKNOWLEDGE this, that’s already contributing to a broader, more informed discourse that fosters so much more inclusivity and empathy than what we’ve got right now.

[doberbutts]

Jfc the transmasc vs transfem privelege disk horse is just like... so divorced from reality.

Let me break it down for the folks coming at you wanting to play oppression olympics: In situations where *everyone is respectful of trans people and affirming* on a macro scale trans men hold power over trans women. On a micro scale the power people hold over each other varies wildly due to the fact that a) there is no monoculture and b) intersectionality exists. This is also true of gender politics for cis people. Individual women can have power and privilege over individual men. The broad sociological statements of men having privilege over women - all men, cis and trans - were *always* meant to be interpreted in a macro (and often theoretical) context. This privilege can absolutely manifest on a micro level but it is far more complicated because intersectionality fundamentally alters the state if the status being observed. E.g. Black manhood is fundamentally different from white manhood in a way where the blackness or whiteness cannot be separately from gender. Effectively, 'black man' is a different gender from 'white man'.

When it comes to being trans the bulk of society views us as *gender failures* regardless of our asab. Our (perceived) asab determines *how* society at a macro scale treats us as gender failures. We are simultaneously viewed as failing the gender assigned to us at birth, and the one we adopted - but the way in which we are perceived to be failing depends on if we are talking about agab or our actual genders. That is: we are viewed as failures of our "real" genders (agab) by failing to enact them, and failures of our trans genders by failing to be cis. The primary failure that most cis people are concerned with is the failure of our agab.

Thus trans women do not gain male privilege (since they are viewed as failing at manhood), but trans men can be subjected to misogyny (since they are viewed as failing at womanhood). Because of the way cis manhood and cis womanhood are regulated trans women are viewed as "irredeemable" (they have tainted themselves with womanhood and thus may not return to manhood), but trans men are viewed as "redeemable" provided they have not gained enough masculine features to one day return as a sex/reproductive object (that is, a feminine cis woman).

Tl;dr: being trans alters your gender irrevocably. Trans men are men but they are not *cis* men and to assume the functions of male privelege work the same for trans men as they do cis men is frankly divorced from reality. The reality is our cissexist, misogynistic society taken at a macro scale is interested in teans people inasmuch as we can be sex objects, and in the case of afab teans people, reproductive objects. If we cannot provide an adequate level of 'use' (existing as a sex object for trans women, availability to detransition into a sex/reproductive object for trans men) then they want to kill us allllll lmaaaoo.

P.s. it is widely accepted that applying privilege as a sociological/gender theory concept is insanely complicated and requires a lot of thought, care, and an eye toward intersectionality. These concepts were created primarily to be applied at a macro level - largely to instigate data driven policy and social change.

Source: listening to PoC and having a master's degree in sociology. I worked primarily in microsociology doing theory and ethnography in sociology of play. The gender stuff I've gone over here is either a) pretty grad student 101 type stuff, or me fitting the widely accepted facts about trans people (e.g. large chunks of the population want to kill us) into that framework.

For the record I am white, nonbinary (sorta bigendered - bothneither) and consider myself currently transmasc.

P.p.s. I've been following Jaz for years and years. Anyone who thinks he is transmisogynistic based on a rigid and narrow application of theory well divorced from its source... well if you think that, you're high lol.

Apologies for misspellings and typos - wrote this shit on my phone and I am Old.

Mystery anon DM me I wanna hug you so bad I think everyone needs to read this and then read it again

Also wanted to add: trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people are not all direct opposites of each other!!! We share more than we don't!!! Saying "trans people in this direction experience X" does not mean that any other trans person inherently does not!!! Many times we do all experience the same fucking shit and the biggest difference is how it looks from the outside rather than whether or not it actually fucking happens!!! "Trans men are subjected to misogyny unless they are perfectly stealth and passing, and honestly sometimes even then" does not mean "so other trans people aren't"!!! It was a complete sentence from the start and other folks just tacked on the extra words!!!

[airasora]

Oooh I want the last anon but I’d LOVE to hear more about your thoughts on AI. I currently consider myself pretty neutral but positive leaning with it and am curious as to what the pros are in your opinion! I’ve only really learned about it through chat bots and the medical technology so far!

Thank you for asking and wanting to learn more about it! I will try not to ramble on for too long, but there is A LOT to talk about when it comes to such an expansive subject as AI, so this post is gonna be a little long.

I have made a little index here so anyone can read about the exact part about AI they might be interested in without having to go through the whole thing, so here goes:

How does AI work?

A few current types of AI (ex. chatgpt, suno, leonardo.)

AI that has existed for ages, but no one calls it AI or don't even know it's AI (ex. Customer Service chat bots)

Future types of AI (ex. Sora)

Copyright, theft and controversy

What I have been using AI for

Final personal thoughts

1. How does AI work?

AI works by learning from data. Think of it like teaching a child to recognize patterns.

Training: AI is given a lot of examples (data) to learn from. For example, if you're teaching an AI to recognize cats, you show it many pictures of cats and say, "This is a cat."

Learning Patterns: The AI analyzes the data and looks for patterns or features that make something a "cat," like fur, whiskers, or pointy ears.

Improving: With enough examples, the AI gets better at recognizing cats (or whatever it's being trained for) and can start making decisions or predictions on new data it hasn't seen before.

Training Never Stops: The more data AI is exposed to, the more it can learn and improve.

In short: AI "works" by being trained with lots of examples, learning patterns, and then applying that knowledge to new situations.

Remember this for point 5 about copyright, theft and controversy later!

2. Current types of AI

The most notable current examples include:

ChatGPT: A large language model (LLM) that can generate human-like text, assist with creative writing, answer questions, and even act as a personal assistant

ChatGPT has completely replaced Google for me because chatGPT can Google stuff for you. When you have to research something on Google, you have to look through multiple links and sites usually, but chatGPT can do that for you, which saves you time and makes it far more organized.

ChatGPT has multiple different chats that other people have "trained" for you and that you can use freely. Those chat include chats meant for traveling, for generating images, for math, for law help, help creating gaming codes, read handwritten letters for you, and so much more.

Perplexity is a "side tool" you can use to fact check pretty much anything. For example, if chatGPT happens to say something you're unsure is actually factually true or where you feel the AI is being biased, you can ask perplexity for help and it will fact check it for you!

Suno: This AI specializes in generating music and audio, offering tools that allow users to create soundscapes with minimal input

This, along with chatGPT, is the AI I have been using the most. In short, suno makes music for you - with or without vocals. Essentially, you can write some lyrics for it (or not, if you want instrumental music), tell it what genre you want and the title and then bam, it will generate you two songs based on the information you've given it. You can generate 10 songs per day for free if you aren't subscribed.

I will talk more about Suno during point 6. Just as a little teaser; I made a song inspired by Hollina lol.

Leonardo AI: A creative tool focused on generating digital art, designs, and assets for games, movies, and other visual media

Now THIS is one of the first examples of controversial AIs. You see, while chatGPT can also generate images for you, it will not generate an image for you if there is copyright issues with it. For example, if you were to ask chatGPT to generate a picture of Donald Trump or Ariel from The Little Mermaid, it will tell you that it can't generate a picture of them due to them being a public figure or a copyrighted character. It will, however, give a suggestion for how you can create a similar image.

Leonardo.AI is a bit more... lenient here. Which is where a lot of controversial issues come in because it can, if you know how to use it, make very convincing images.

ChatGPT's answers:

Leonardo.AI's answers:

I will talk more about the copyright, theft and audio issues during point 5.

3. AI that has existed for ages, but that no one calls AI

While the latest wave of AI tools often steals the spotlight, the truth is that AI has been embedded in our technology for years, albeit under different names. Here are a few examples:

Customer Service Chatbots

Professional Editing Softwares

Spam filters

Virtual assistance

Recommendation systems

Credit Card Fraud Detection

Smart home devices

Autocorrect and predictive text

Navigation systems

Photo tagging on social media

Search engines

Personalized ads

The quiet presence of AI in such areas shows that AI isn't just a future-forward trend but has long been shaping our everyday experiences, often behind the scenes.

4. Future types of AI

One of the most anticipated types of AI that has yet to be released is Sora, a video AI tool that is an artificial intelligence system created by Google DeepMind. It’s designed to help computers better understand and generate human language. Think of it like a super-smart computer assistant that can read, write, and even understand complex sentences. Sora AI can answer questions, translate languages, summarize information, and even help with tasks like writing or solving problems.

Unlike traditional AI systems that mostly focus on text or images, Sora AI can create short videos from text descriptions or prompts. This involves combining several technologies like natural language understanding, image generation, and video processing.

In simple terms, it can take an idea or description (like "a cat playing in a garden") and generate a video that matches that idea. It's a big leap in AI technology because creating videos requires understanding motion, scenes, and how things change over time, which is much more complex than generating a single image or text.

The thing about Sora AI is that it's already ready to be released, but Google DeepMind will not release it until the presidential election in America is finished. This is because the developers are rightfully worried that people could use Sora AI to generate fake videos that could portray the presidential candidates doing or saying something that is absolutely fake - and because Sora is as good as it is, regular people will not be capable of seeing that it is AI.

This is obviously both incredible and absolutely terrifying. Once Sora is released, the topic of AI will be brought up even more and it'll take time before the common non-AI user will be able to tell when something is AI or real.

Just to mention two other future AIs:

Medical AI: The healthcare industry is investing heavily in AI to assist with diagnostics, predictive analytics, and personalized treatment plans. AI will soon be an indispensable tool for doctors, capable of analyzing complex medical data faster and more accurately than ever before.

AI in Autonomous Systems: Whether it’s in self-driving cars or AI-powered drones, we are on the cusp of a new era where machines can make autonomous decisions with little to no human intervention.

5. Copyright, art theft and controversies

While AI opens up a world of opportunities, it has also sparked heated debates and legal battles, particularly in the realm of intellectual property:

Copyright Concerns: AI tools like image generators and music composition software often rely on large datasets of pre-existing work. This raises questions about who owns the final product: the creator of the tool, the user of the AI, or the original artist whose work was used as input?

Art Theft: Some artists have accused AI platforms of "stealing" their style by training on their publicly available art without permission. This has led to protests and discussions about fair use in the digital age.

Job Replacement: AI’s ability to perform tasks traditionally done by humans raises concerns about job displacement. For example, freelance writers, graphic designers, and customer service reps could see their roles significantly altered or replaced as AI continues to improve.

Data Privacy: With AI systems often requiring massive amounts of user data to function, privacy advocates have raised alarms about how this data is collected, stored, and used.

People think AI steals art because AI models are often trained on large datasets that include artwork without the artists' permission. This can feel like copying or using their work without credit. There is truth to the concern, as the use of this art can sometimes violate copyright laws or artistic rights, but there's a few things that's important to remember:

Where did artists learn to draw? They learned to draw through tutorials, from art teachers or other artists, etc., right?

If an artist's personal style is then influenced by someone else's art style are they then also copying that person?

Is every artist who has been taught how to draw by a teacher just copying the teacher?

If a literary teacher, or a beta reader, reads through a piece of fiction you wrote and gives you suggestions on how to make your work better, do they then have copyright for your work as well for helping you?

Don't get me wrong, like I showed earlier when I compared chatGPT with leonardo.ai there are absolutely some AIs that are straight up copying and stealing art - but claiming all picture generative AIs are stealing artists' work is like saying

every fashion designer is stealing from fabric makers because they didn't weave the cloth, or

every chef is stealing from farmers because they didn't grow the ingredients themselves, or

every DJ is stealing from musicians because they mix pre-existing sounds

What i'm trying to get at here is that it's not as black and white as people think or want it to be. AI is nuanced and has its flaws, but so does everything else. The best we can do is learn and keep developing and evolving AI so we can shape it into being as positive as possible. And the way to do that is to sit down and learn about it.

6. What I have been using AI for

Little ways chatGPT makes my day easier

I wanted to test how good chatGPT was at reading "bad" handwriting so I posted a picture of my handwriting to it, and it read it perfectly and even gave a cheeky little answer. This means that I can use chatGPT to not only help me read handwritten notes, but can also type out stuff for me I would otherwise have to spend time typing down on my own.

I've also started asking chatGPT to write hashtags for me for when I post on instagram and TikTok. It saves me time and it can think of hashtags I wouldn't have thought of myself.

You might all also be aware that I often receive bodyshaming online for simply existing and being fat. At least three times, I have used chatGPT to help me write a sassy comeback to someone harassing me online. It helped me detach myself from the hateful words being thrown at me and help me stand my ground.

And, as my final example, I also use chatGPT for when I can't remember a word I'm looking for or want an alternative. The amazing thing about chatGPT is that you can just talk to it like a normal person, which makes it easier to convey what it is you need help with.

Custom chatGPTs

I created a custom chatGPT for my mom with knitting recipes where she can upload pictures to the chat and ask it to try and find the actual knitting recipe online or even make one on its on that could look like the vibe she's going for. For example, she had just finished knitting a sweater where the recipe failed to mention to her what size the knitting needles she had to use, which resulted in her doing it wrong the first time and having to start over.

When she uploaded a picture of the sweater along with the recipe she had followed, chatGPT DID tell her what knitting needle she had to use. So, in short, if she had used her customized chatGPT before knitting the sweater, chatGPT would have saved her the annoyance of using the wrong size because chatGPT could SEE what size needle she had to use - despite the recipe not mentioning it anywhere.

I also created a custom chatGPT for my mom about diabetes. I uploaded her information, her blood work results, etc. so it basically knows everything about not just her condition, but about HER body specifically so it can give her the best advice possible for whenever she has a question about something.

And, finally, the thing you might have skipped STRAIGHT to after seeing the index...

My(un)official angsty ballad sung by Holli to Lina created with suno.ai

Let you be my wings

7. Final personal thoughts

While AI is absolutely far from perfect, we cannot deny how useful it has already become. The pros, in my opinion, outweigh the cons - as long as people stay updated and knowledgeable on the subject. People will always be scared of what they don't know or understand, yet humanity has to evolve and keep developing. People were scared and angry during the Industrial Revolution too, where the fear of job loss was at an all time high - ironically ALSO because of machines.

There are some key differences of course, but it was the overall same fears people had back then as people have now with AI. I brought this up with one of my AI teachers, who quoted:

"AI will not replace you, but a person using AI will."

While both eras involve fears of obsolescence, AI poses a broader challenge across various sectors, and adapting may demand more advanced skills than during industrialism. However, like industrialism, AI may lead to innovations that ultimately benefit society. And I, personally, see more pros than cons.

And THAT is my very long explanation to why my bio says "AI positive 🤖"

As a final thing, for anyone wanting to stay updated on AI and how it's progressing overall, I recommend a YouTube channel by Matt Wolfe. He was my AI teacher's recommended YouTube channel for anyone who wants to stay updated on AI:

[clorofolle]

Hello! I just found your post on pirating. I'm relatively experienced and I think most everything you suggested is smart.

I just wanted to ask, in regards to the VPN, do you have in particular gripes about Proton in regards to the privacy aspect?

I was trying to find a good VPN recently and thought that Proton's offers were pretty good, if expensive in comparison to the competition.

(I promise I'm not a shill, I'm actually wondering if I should regret my purchase lol. I also get that the post is dated last year and things may have gotten worse or better with them since)

Hi!! Sorry for the very very late reply, I didn't check tumblr for months.

To be honest, I did write that post a while ago and should I write it now, my position would be different and much milder. While throwing shade at Proton I was thinking of this incident specifically where, facing a court order, Proton was asked to log and provide the IP address of one of its clients, a French climate activist.

I take issue with companies that market themselves as useful tools to keep you safe and protected instead of actually disclosing what their service truly is about and what data they do have about you, as people might fall into a false sense of security and have no idea what they're actually paying for.

I am generally more warm towards Mullvad since they're extremely transparent about what kind of data they have on you and actively try to get as little data from you as possible, even favouring payment methods where they won't have to store any data on you whatsoever. They also allegedly were subject to a search warrant and were simply unable to give any data whatsoever as they truly had none, which if we want to assume good faith that they aren't making that up, is a good look on them as a whole. Though they've recently started to market themselves as some kind of saviours from "mass surveillance and censorship" in a way that seems... to be really alarmist and out of nowhere and might fool more people into thinking they need a vpn than they actually do, and I'm not happy about that direction at all, though their services still seem like some of the best around.

Still - I recognize that this is a big discussion, one I don't have enough knowledge over to completely discuss it either! And that for torrenting... this doesn't matter at all. In fact, Mullvad is not being recommended for torrenting anymore as it dropped support for port forwarding - for some apparently legit concerns - and it makes the torrenting experience much worse for many people. (My internet is slow as shit so I don't notice either way lol!)

All in all, I'm not a very experienced or savvy user at all. I try to learn about things as much as my lil brain allows me to understand, but were I to rewrite that post now, I wouldn't mention things that are still so murky/difficult to understand for me as well. Hope I sent you some interesting links to start some more research from though! Here's to understanding more of how things work as we go on :D

[insecateur]

Hey Mr. Sam! I'm not super acquainted with the fanfic community, so I'd like to ask a question in order to put some thoughts in order. I've seen this recent phenomenon where some readers will try feeding abandoned/hiatus'd fics into some sort of chaptgptesque thingum in order to finish them, and writers are, naturally, upset. My question then is: are they/you *largely* upset because a) said readers are basically saying the writing is boilerplate and predictable enough that it can be ML'd into a coherent continuation; b) there is a legitimate fear of how the data is used or the program is trained on it; c) there is fear that their unique style will be successfully "replicated" by AI; or d) some other reason? Thanks for the info!

heyyy sorry for not answering right away,

i want to give a caveat before i say anything else - i'm markedly more jaded than most fic writers i've seen on this topic, as a primarily visual artist who's used to my work being reposted, reused, sometimes even edited etc without permission. i haven't even bothered to edit my fics on AO3 to make them available to registered users only bc i'm just like, it is how it is. if machine learning algorithms want to put my ott kinky smut in their research data you know what, good for them i guess. maybe it'll make the results less biased toward vanilla straight people lol

but anyway, i think in general it's a mix of not wanting your data to be put into machine learning without your permission or knowledge, and just an overall frustration at how people who read fanfic, look at fanart etc online treat people who make that stuff like they're basically non-existant or just there to provide "content" to be "consumed." which i guess is part of why i'm already way past jaded about it; people have already been doing this to fanartists for years and years and years at this point LOL. i'm actually myself kind of frustrated seeing some writers talk about it as if it's a new phenomenon and proof that writers are treated less well than visual artists in fandom ? when ummm. i guess you just didn't notice until now bc it wasn't threatening you? which is fine but it gets kinda old after a while.

i personally just don't like people doing stuff with what i make without permission, as much as it is a losing battle at this point. so seeing people joyfully basically say like, "i don't care about the people making the things i like, i can just get this ''AI' to do it faster anyway!" is pretty disheartening, especially when it involves feeding works you might have spent months or years on into it. it's kind of an accumulation of negative feelings.

in the grand scheme of things i'm mostly over it tho. to me it's pointless to worry about it just like it's pointless to worry about the people disregarding my wishes regarding my art. all it does is cause me undue anxiety. which isn't to say measures shouldn't be taken against it, and i'm glad there have been moves recently to try and draft laws etc on the subject, but at my level there's not much i can do except say "please don't do that" so really it's whatever.