#i don't own anything

[creative-creatures]

The rain is kinda gay, ngl.

Happy pride!

[iamunavailable]

Bronya Zaychik: Herrscher of Truth

[sunshine-gumdrop]

3am oc x character one shots: dicking around in video games

Ellie and Leon settled on the couch, controllers in hand, ready to tackle the co-op campaign of the latest action-packed video game. The screen's glow filled the room, casting dramatic shadows around them. Focused and determined, Ellie was all in for a serious gaming session. At the same time, Leon, with his usual carefree attitude, was more interested in having fun and less concerned about making progress.

"Okay, let's do this. Focus on the mission objectives," Ellie instructed, her eyes never leaving the screen as they started the first level.

Leon nodded, but his mischievous grin suggested he had other plans. They began when Leon's character started doing everything but the mission. He was jumping around aimlessly, accidentally throwing grenades at their own feet, and even finding ways to make his character dance instead of taking cover.

"Seriously?" Ellie's voice was a mix of annoyance and disbelief. "We're never going to get past this level if you keep screwing around."

Leon laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Come on, Ellie, lighten up! It's just a game. Look at this: I found a glitch where you can make your character do the moonwalk. Michael Jackson would be proud!"

Ellie couldn't help but let out a frustrated sigh, though the corner of her mouth twitched in amusement at Leon's antics. "That's great, but we're supposed to save the world here, not auditioning for a dance-off."

As they continued, Ellie's character moved with precision and skill, dispatching enemies and completing objectives. In contrast, Leon's character lagged, occasionally contributing to the chaos in the most unhelpful ways. Every time they failed the level because of Leon's distractions, Ellie's patience thinned a little more.

After the umpteenth restart, Ellie paused the game and turned to Leon, her expression stern. "Okay, new rule: you try to play the game properly, or I'm switching you for an AI partner. At least they know how to aim."

Leon raised his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll behave. But only because you asked so nicely," he said, giving her a cheeky wink.

True to his word, Leon started to focus, and much to Ellie's surprise, he was pretty good when he put his mind to it. Together, they finally managed to get past the first level, their characters standing victorious amid digital chaos.

As they progressed to the next level, Ellie couldn't help but smile, shaking her head at the ordeal. "You know, we make a pretty good team when you're not trying to be the class clown of video gaming."

"Yeah, but admit it, it wouldn't have been half as fun without my dicking around," Leon retorted, nudging her back as they prepared to dive into the next level, ready for whatever challenges and shenanigans lay ahead.

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[greyphitus]

Hey guys

There's a post going around about something called the "Invertebrate Studies Institute" needing help. A few comments made on the post made me curious, so I checked it out and it seems sketchy to me. (ETA: the post's OP is now aware of the situation and is trying to rectify things on their end, and are ok with my post getting more exposure. Read the notes for more info too!)

The institute is a startup and the owner has displayed misogynistic behavior. He made a company and received "$1.3 million in research grants from the USDA and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" in 2011, but there aren't any research papers listed on the ISI website more recent than 2012 (sources: ISI website, People Behind the Science podcast transcript, All Things Bugs LLC webpage). It's possible his research is still a work in progress, but I would expect to see some genome sequencing work at the least since that seems to be a major focus.

Also, it's possible to ship frozen specimens in dry ice and have them be fine. Even stuff for molecular work and genome sequencing. So the inability to get help from other research groups, to where they're asking for a local freezer plug-in, is a bit weird to me.

Some screenshots below the cut, didn't screenshot everything since it's mostly just text, but I did cite the sources if you wanna read them yourself.

Not sure what the overall point is of this post is besides "seems sketch to me" but I saw a lot of people worrying on the initial post so I wanted to at least mention this stuff.

Comments from the tumblr post which sparked my initial concerns.

Screenshots from the LinkedIn link, with the initial contact and follow-up legal threat.

Screenshot from the ISI website talking about their facility and "initiative" (I noticed a lot of the wording on the website sounded like they hadn't done significant research, which also gave me pause).

And, for fun, the CDC guide on shipping frozen specimens.

[canisalbus]

I love the duo, both the historical setting and modern AU. Does Vasco ever go to confession while Machete is running it, just to 'confess' to something they did before as a way to tease?

[egophiliac]

Please elaborate on your twst Pokémon headcannons I’m very interested

I had planned on drawing everyone for this (I made a LIST!) but it. hasn't been going well. 💀 soooo here's what I have so far!

Riddle - Roserade (I was going with 'no legendaries', otherwise I would've given him a Shaymin) (and I don't think Togedemaru is actually a hedgehog or I would've given him one of those too) (...they kind of do fit though. hmm.)

Trey - Alcremie (clover/mint cream + strawberry/ruby cream)

Cater - DITTO SQUAD! DITTO SQUAD! DITTO SQUAD!

Ace - Impidimp (I feel like there's probably a better one for him, but I can't think of it)

Deuce - Scraggy (meanwhile I KNOW deep in my heart that this is true)

Leona - Pyroar (but like. a nasty Pyroar. just a grizzly old Pyroar with the shittiest attitude imaginable. they pretend to hate each other but secretly they are a bonded pair, do not separate)

[ariaste]

Me: [sees everyone talking about how Assad Zaman was "literally" coming up with RPF about himself and Eric Bogosian in an interview]

Me: ah, fandom's doing its little "interpret an innocent comment in Some Kind Of Way" thing again, let's go find the video and do our own critical thinking about what was actually said here--

Assad: What would happen if I said-- [words that cannot be interpreted as anything but RPF fanfic]

Me:

Me: ok fandom gets a pass on this one actually

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lazylittledragon]

i refuse to believe that boycotting is hard. my favourite thing in the world is ordering maccies after a late night at work/a concert/getting drunk. yes i do miss it sometimes. but the other night i ordered from a small place near my house instead and it was the most orgasmic burger i've ever had in my life. i very rarely say this but fucking suck it up people are DEAD

[qiinamii]

crown swap

[evilsanlang]

talking to vote blue no matter who americans as a latin american

[uncanny-tranny]

I recall saying this before, but it bears repeating:

There could be a billion trans people in the world and it still wouldn't be a bad thing because being trans is not a bad thing. Even if the rate of people discovering they are trans is "disproportionate" to trends from decades ago, that is not a bad thing. In fact, it's a natural consequence for there being more trans people being able to stay alive, and, overall, being able to live in a slightly more tolerant world. You'd only see that as a bad thing if you actively didn't want trans people to either live or live a life that facilitates wellness.

[sunshine-gumdrop]

Written at 3 in the morning: OTP prompts person A exposes person b being a part of Illuminati

Leon had found a new hobby involving video editing software, a creative mind, and an unsuspecting Ellie. With a mischievous spark in his eye, he set out to create a masterpiece that would amuse him and send ripples of laughter through their circle of friends. The video opens with a grainy, black-and-white shot of Ellie, seemingly unaware of the camera, engaging in everyday activities. The iconic whistle of The X-Files theme plays softly in the background, setting the tone for the conspiracy that Leon is about to unravel. Text flashes across the screen: "Ellie: Ordinary Youtuber or Secret Illuminati Member?" The music intensifies, cueing Leon's dramatic voice-over. "Friends, colleagues, internet strangers," Leon begins, his voice carrying the weight of a thousand secrets. "What if I told you that the person we know as Ellie Svensson is not who she seems? What if I told you she's part of an ancient society controlling the world from the shadows? Yes, I'm talking about the Illuminati." The video cuts to a series of 'evidence' Leon has meticulously compiled. A photo of Ellie holding a triangle-shaped sandwich zoomed in to emphasize its shape, "Clearly, a sign of her allegiance," Leon narrates with mock seriousness. Next is a clip of Ellie using a pen with a small, barely visible eye logo. "And here, the all-seeing eye casually flaunted in public. Coincidence? I think not." Leon overlays Ellie's photos with famous Illuminati symbols as the video progresses, drawing absurd connections. In a scene where Ellie chooses glasses frames, Leon adds a red circle around her, suggesting she's signaling to her fellow Illuminati members. The pièce de résistance is a doctored clip of Ellie speaking. Leon's voice-over translates her ordinary words into a secret message. "When Ellie says, 'I'll see you at the VidCon,' what she's really saying is, 'The New World Order convenes at dawn.'" The video ends with Leon, now in front of the camera, wearing a tin foil hat and looking solemn. "The evidence is undeniable. Stay woke, people. Ellie, if you're watching this, we're onto you. The truth is out there." The screen fades to black, and the iconic X-Files theme plays out, leaving viewers in amusement and bewilderment. Ellie's reaction, recorded in a follow-up video, is a mixture of laughter and mock indignation. "Leon, you're ridiculous! This is what you do in your spare time?" she asks, unable to keep a straight face. Leon, grinning widely, responds, "Just spreading the truth, Ellie. Or should I say, 'IlluminEllie'?"

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

[canisalbus]

✦ Coffee Shop AU ✦