#i'm computer engineering so honestly it's like the same shit

[anticumber]

tragic that i think my passion is actually computer science and not engineering. WHOOPS

[styx142]

Okay so like, I've been thinking about an Adventure Time teacher AU and why does it work weirdly well???

Here's the current staff list

Finn: Gym coach who's currently also working as a math teacher due to a shortage of staff and the previous one (Billy maybe?) quitting. He's absolute shit at math but he's super excited about it all the time so the students love him anyway.

Jake: At first I was thinking gym coach too, but I feel like he'd be a great counselor honestly. He's constantly advising his brother and I think he'd work well

BMO: The computer teacher! Kinda obvious but yeah

Neptr: Robotics/engineering teacher. Due to the nature of their jobs, BMO and Neptr work pretty closely together. Neptr loves this, BMO not as much.

Princess Bubblegum: The science teacher who is kind of running the place at times, because the principal won't do anything so she's decided to do what she can to keep this place running smoothly.

Marceline: The band director. She is 100% playing pranks on her students all the time. Also whenever the band is practicing she is standing on her band tower with a little umbrella or something for sun protection.

LSP: Drama teacher. Kinda obvious, she's already directed a play in the show so she works well as a drama teacher.

Simon/Ice King: History teacher! I got the idea from my AP world history teacher whose classroom is packed full of artifacts and replicas from different cultures throughout the world. Figured it'd be fitting for Simon

Flame Princess: English teacher. My whole thought proccess was "freestyle rap. Creative. Poetry. English?" and I think it works well. Her dad was the previous English teacher who left to open a chipmunk sanctuary.

Lady Rainicorn: I was thinking either art or Korean, leaning more towards Korean simply because I have another idea for the art teacher.

Jermaine: Art teacher!

Lemongrab: Psychology. This man has such a weird brain that I think it'd be fun to have him teach this. I can imagine him writing office referrals that just say "UNACCEPTABLE" on them

Fern: The new math teacher who shows up halfway through the year and has to deal with all the students complaining about missing Mr. Mertens.

Betty: Another character who shows up sometime later during the year. She'll be our principal, taking over for the previous principal who quit mysteriously.

Prismo: Vice principal, kinda bad at it and doesn't know how he got the job

Scarab: an admin who was hoping for vice principal and was really pissed when Prismo got the job instead of him

Golb: The principal

The lich: Previous vice principal who was fired for unknown reasons. Fired at the same time Billy quit.

Peppermint butler: I can't decide whether I want him as a student or as a secretary or just as someone who works in the office

I think I'll have all the candy citizens as students, as well as probably some minor characters who get a few appearances or only one episode.

This is partially why I originally wanted PB as the principal, but I found it funnier to have her as the teacher who is going insane because Golb will not do shit for the school.

I'm considering turning this whole thing into a fic, possibly focusing on PB? Possibly a bubbline fic? Not sure quite yet, this AU is still very much in development

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas it's career advice anon

i hope you're doing fine even with the shitty situation rn with the elections

future anon is my best friend and i mean idk if i'm happier rn than i was but i think i maybe am and honestly i feel a lot more at peace but at the same time i'm less stressed about science yes and the engineering entrance exam but my mom still wants me to have backup options for careers with my subject choice and i get why she's concerned and yes the other people have always known that they wanted to do law but no one else's parents made them make a list of backup colleges and career options. might be bc i'm from a family based in science and their families are more into humanities but yeah it's just like "what if you don't like it" but i'd be better off taking legal studies instead of physics because even if by any chance i hate it, i'd still be good at it. i don't even remember the last time i thought about space and i always told myself that physics would get better over time but this is the fourth year and it's not even remotely close to better than back in sixth grade so yeah. everyone has mixed opinions, some people are practical, others are a bit more idealistic so idk whose opinion to put my faith in bc i genuinely don't want to continue with physics but at the same time i'm worried bc what if my parents turn out to be right but as future anon said it makes no sense for me to take it and everyone interested in law is taking legal studies so logically i should but what if (what if i fall? oh, but darling, what if you fly) and i'm pretty tempted to take that leap of faith but my mom still kinda thinks that i'm dropping science because i'm "lazy" and "scared of putting in the effort required for science" and keeps saying that i'd need to study even if i took law and i know that but she thinks i'm taking it because i think it's easier (i don't). also the colleges in my country are very stupid because why would i need to give an entrance test on physics if i want to major in computer science but i'm working on finding career options and colleges where shit will work out but honestly it feels like my mom and even my dad are too focused on my backup options to actually concentrate on what i actually want to do. i want to take up legal studies, either psych or polsci, maths and computer so i can get into data science or computer science if law doesn't work out and if worst comes to worst, civil services but seriously my subject choices are supposed to be made around my backup options, which i find stupid because my mom wants five backups like okay yeah i get her concern but i'm studying to become a lawyer, not a data analyst.

sorry for the rant ik you probably have a lot on your plate rn dealing with the aftermath of the elections

Hi!

Don't be sorry at all!

So I mean I get why your mom wants you to have backups- she;s your mom and she cares. But in the end of the day, you are the one who has to live with this career, so the first person you have to please is YOU. Do what makes the most send for your goals, you know?

Is there a way to take like one backup while still focusing on law? That way you're pleasing your mom a bit while doing what you want to do?

[kithtaehyung]

So, I started university right before the pandemic hit, and demolished all my (barely existent) plans. I'm already almost 23 and more than halfway through a major I picked kind of on a whim based on what I thought I was good at, and tbh I still hate it. And I have no idea what career it would even lead to. I want to get more into music production or maybe even being an artist or something like that, but it's overwhelming and difficult at the same time... I think I love music, I love listening to it, and growing up I loved the energy of performing in bands and choirs and stuff more than anything, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm good at it, and I'm not a computer or instrument expert either... I feel so lacking in pretty much all of the various talents/skills... I know practice makes better, but it's so hard to persist when you feel so far behind, and it's hard not to feel discouraged completely when there's always someone newer, younger, and already so much better...

Babe, you are 22. You have.. SO much life ahead of you.

I know that doesn’t seem like anything to go off of right now, but I cannot express enough how excited I am for you because 22 is a wonderful age to start things. You have time to mess up, time to figure things out, time to really try a bunch of shit and get a grasp on what direction you wanna go for.

Don’t let society or other people tell you you’re too old to start something or too late to try something else. Who cares if there are people younger and better than you at something? Who cares if you don’t have a skill set right now? That’s gonna happen. As soon as you recognize that as a fact instead of a barrier for you to overcome, your mindset is gonna shift to “okay, what can i personally do to improve and get better? what do i myself need to do to get where i wanna be?”

Honestly.. this ask feels like something younger me is writing. Because I compared myself to countless people when I was in my early twenties and lmfaoooooo you know what? That dark place of “thinking I wasn’t gonna do great so why try” has only left me with regrets. You have a choice to make and if you really want what you want, go for it and don’t stop.

If I had actually took music production seriously and kept making shitty beats on FL Studio in my dorm room and didn’t give a shit about people telling me it’s not worth it to pursue? Who knows, I could’ve had a studio by now. I could’ve been on the Big Hit production team. I could’ve been working with Metro Boomin or any world-class producers.

Do those goals seem hilarious? Yes. But they also probably could’ve come true if I worked hard enough. But I’ll never know. Because I didn’t keep going when I did. Because I hit that wall of seeing how much I didn’t know about music and production and everything that goes into it, and I got discouraged and dropped it to focus on other things that were safer, more likely to keep me afloat. Don’t be like me if this is something you really do want.

We can do this together, really. Because I’m going for shit now too because that passion itself hasn’t gone away. I am asking people for advice when I need it. I’m networking with musicians and producers and mixing engineers and managers. I’m figuring out what I need to do and where I need to look for educational pieces and putting in the work that I was too discouraged to put in before. All while trying to tell myself it’s okay that I’m where I am at 30. Do this with me. It’s only gonna help you.

Bottom line: if you wanna do something, do it. So what if people are better than you? So what if you don’t have the skills or knowledge right now? Stay disciplined and do the work. Don’t half ass it and don’t think it’s gonna be something you do on the side. Treat it like it’s your life, and practice the hell out of whatever it is. If you end up thinking “this isn’t what I want,” then at least you know for sure and you can pick something else up. But if you keep that passion, hard work and effort will bring you great things.

And you’re gonna look back at this ten years from now and laugh because you’ll realize 22 isn’t far into life at all.

[willowser]

Stoooop now I have to ask what you think the other jobs are good matches for him?!?!

oh, fun, fun !!! though now that i'm thinking about it, they're all honestly very similar, just different Flavors (TM) LOL

my first and favorite one is you working as a lil' protégé of masaru !! and i like to hc that his job is still in fashion, but also in the hero world ?? so i put him as a designer of support items ! getting blue-prints of all the parts that are needed, making sure they're cohesive with the theme of a hero outfit while still being effective. and my favorite thing about this one is that you can write it as, like, someone that knows his family bc of it ? but you could also write it as strangers to lovers, or whatever. like i'd love to write a fic in which bakugou knows who you are because you've come to dinner parties and stuff at his parent's house, he's seen you in his dad's office — so like he knows OF you, and is maybe a little jealous of all the time you spend with his dad and how much masaru likes you LOL, but he doesn't know you personally, and then something would go from there.

my other favorite is, like i said, very similar, but it's being in actual hero costume design, and maybe working on his or something. a job that puts you working professionally with him, but not necessarily for him ?? but you two have to email and have meetings and you'll sketch what changes he wants to make. you're not actually making any of the support items, but you're working around the way they're designed so that it would still look good with his outfit. so it's almost like the sister-job to the previous one !! and i like this one because you can grow from a professional relationship to a romantic one, and you still sort of have that base connection with him.

and lastly, i will always have love for actual support item engineers. i think it works so well with bakugou bc i like to think he's someone that likes to know exactly how his equipment is made. he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty in order to get down to the wiring and what-have-you. if he had more time, he'd probably be in the lab with you, telling you how to do your job LOL and you could be chatting and shooting the shit while you're printing steel plates or something. you always leave the lab really late and maybe bakugou knows that so he comes to check and make sure you're LEAVING like you're SUPPOSED TO. and then maybe he buys you dinner bc he knows you worked through lunch 😌🩷✨️

like i said, all very much in the same vein !!! all three of these jobs would work in conjunction with each other LOL i think the creative aspect is really important bc i like to think it was such a huge part of bakugou's childhood, seeing his parents work. i just feel like fashion and aesthetics and design — that's natural for him to see, to watch someone study, to watch someone sketching designs or making blueprints on the computer, and so to have a partner that also works on those things would feel, idk, natural to him. i don't think ??? anything specific is mentioned about masaru's actual job in canon, but !! that's my lil spin on it !!!

i hope i made any of this make sense.....it makes sense in my head, but i might have butchered my explanation LOL but thank you for asking !!!! omg this was so fun to write about 😌😌😌🩷🩷🩷✨️✨️✨️✨️

[turtlemagnum]

there's this online recreation of the sans fight that i played religiously back in middle school before i even owned a device capable of running undertale, still up. i got good enough at it that under normal circumstances, i can usually do it first try. a bit of a banging my head against a brick wall thing, but damn did it eventually break. honestly i think doing that before ever actually playing undertale was a bit like goku training in 100x gravity, except instead of landing on namek to fight frieza he went and fought raditz again and just absolutely wrecked his shit. at least, until i got to undyne, still not great at her. god i love her. adhd, getting distracted, i had a goddamn point i was trying to make. so, notice that i said "under normal circumstances" as a caveat. what i would consider not normal circumstances would be, say, playing with fucked up arrow keys. such as, the ones that seem to be on every goddamn modern laptop where up and down are both collectively taking up the same amount of real estate as a single normal key, because apparently right shift needs that extra fucking space. like seriously who the fuck even uses right shift, top 10 useless keys right there, right next to caps lock and most of the function keys. guess i've just gotta suck it up until i can afford to get an actual gamer laptop and not a budget office clunker that i got for the admittedly nice CPU

honestly like, i think my ideal laptop would be halfway between the Ultra Gucci Gamer shit and what i have now. give me like, 16 gigs of RAM, a decent CPU for emulation, a low end but modern and power efficient discrete GPU, and a big fuckin SSD. no RGB shit, just a power waste, though i do like having backlit keys at times i think the more efficient way to go about it would just paint em with something glow in the dark. is glowstick fluid toxic to get your hands on? i remember hearing about a guy who died because he injected that shit at a rave, but i don't know how much of that is This Shit Is Poison vs Dont Put Things That Arent Blood In Your Blood Sacks You Moron, y'know. for some reason radium popped into my head, but after thinking about it for more than an instant i'm like 85% sure that shit's what done killed marie curie, and now i can't help but imagine that's something elon musk would tell his engineers to do. "yeah. just a, uh, gamer key-board. with, radium paint on the lettering. saves power, good for the planet." what was i saying

anyways yeah like. the only other specs i can think of would be just having as many ports as possible, 1080p screen @ 60hz, y'know the bare minimum in Current Year. i will say that my current laptop has given me problems with screens i've never had on a computer before, there have been times where i see something i know for a fact is a different, more saturated color on other screens and having it be barely different from the background. also? i want that motherfucker bulky god dammit, i'm tired of everything being thin and light and having absolute dogshit battery life. i miss when i could charge my gameboy once a week and have it entertain me the entire goddamn time, y'know. i'm lucky if i get half a day of consistent use out of a laptop or my switch without charging it, y'know. to be honest, you should be able to murder someone with your technology. i could kill a man with a gamecube or the PC my dad left me as a kid, if i tried to bash a man's skull open with my laptop the laptop would take more damage than the skull. like don't get me wrong, it'd fucking hurt, but i'm not sure there's any singular component in this thing less than 95% cheap polymer by volume. a goddamn disgrace, lemme tells ya. back in ancient rome we had the technology to build bridges strong enough to still be used today, there are guns from the world wars that you can shoot to this day, you're tellin me you can't make a laptop sturdier than a saltine cracker? well, i'm pretty sure they're mostly designed by crackers, so i guess i can't blame em too hard for their inadequacies. such is lief i suppose (sic)

[ferin129]

not much for today

I worked produce. the regional manager came in today. he had almost nothing to say to me, but it sure is weird to see someone that Ms. Stephanie will take orders from and listen to so intently. I sure am glad that my job is pretty simple though, I didn't really get into to much trouble for anything, and we tried to make everything look the best it could, even though we were out of a lot of stuff. The holidays sure are wiping us out. Nick's working even more than me over in meat, he's probably still there as I'm writing in it. Closing up meat sure is a pain sometimes.

A little about how I overthought things today -

honestly, I wish that I was better at talking to people spontaneously. Whenever people say hello to me, I often find myself repeating exactly what they said back to them on accident. For example, if someone says, "How's it going?", I just say the same thing back to them on accident for some reason?? And I think it may come across as if I'm mocking them, but I'm just socially stupid. god, I'm sure I'm overthinking the hell out of this but it is what it is.

I talked to one of the cashiers up front today that's been at Food Lion almost as long as I have. I haven't talked to her much before, but I we're friendly enough. Anyways, she asked me if I go to USC, (i suppose because I wear my college of engineering and computing lanyard at work all the time), and I said yes, and she asked me if I had graduated this year or last year. I replied saying that I had graduated last year, which is (technically) the truth since I left BHS in December 2023. I didn't explain this though, and I'm sure it confused her, and I didn't even explain that I'm not taking classes yet because I deferred my admission to the spring 2025 semester. I wish I had told her, but I didn't because I felt like it might be too much and I'd get flustered explaining myself and I just wanted to avoid that much interaction anyway. But I feel really guilty, since technically I lied to her by omission. And I know this small interaction means nothing to anyone in the grand scheme of things, because of how little it matters, but interactions like this I'm going to try my best to avoid from now on.

oh and another thing that's been bothering me today. when I asked my (main store) manager to put some water in the fridge for the employees, she replies that "we only provide bottled water in the summer.", which, first of all, is absolutely BS because we just had some in there, like, last week, and what the hell??? you think I only need to drink water during the summer??? holy shit I can still dehydrate during the winter too lady, get a grip. I know Food Lion hates their employees but that's fuckin wild. Most mind-boggling thing I've heard in a hot minute from that place. Food Lion doesn't even give us an employee discount or anything in the way of holiday raises, the least you could do is scan out a pack of water. goddamn.

I also ran today, and god, my legs are shot. I am so out of shape. it's wild to think I ran a 1:17 half marathon just 2 months ago. But the only way to get back there is to try, right? billions must try. oh, and I ate real food for lunch AND dinner. well, it was just 2 burritos for both meals, but it counts. I made them myself with healthy ingredients and rolled the tortillas as well. So it's a win in my book. Tomorrow's shaping up to be a long day in meat, so I'll probably go to bed soon.

song of the day: ギターと孤独と蒼い惑星 (Guitar, Loneliness and Blue Planet) by kessoku band. (kessoku band, my beloved). I just love this scene in Bocchi the rock. it's such a great moment. I'm so glad that they make music that's just my vibe, because I love this album so much.

[kafus]

could you tell us the story of your shiny competitive latias in gen 3? im so curious

oh yeah so the reason i didn't go in depth about that in the post is it's actually quite a lot of obscure game mechanic talk and i didn't wanna divert from the heartwarming story to break people's brains potentially lol but yeah sure! i'll put the whole explanation below a cut because it's pretty long. warning that i'm going deep on the nerd shit sorry in advance LMAO

essentially the latias i use in gen 4 was obtained in pokemon emerald and then transferred through the pal park, i obtained it by combining ACE (arbitrary code execution) and RNG manipulation. neither of these things are hacking or require any sort of tampering with the game and can be done on original hardware (i did all this on my original emerald cart in an actual GBA SP) but it is an unintended way of playing the game, just to be upfront, not that i mind because i'm doing singleplayer stuff for fun.

so, RNG manipulation is the process of perfectly timing your button inputs and actions to get the game to spit out the "random" result that you want. because computers struggle to do true randomness (especially something as old as generation 3 pokemon games) usually "randomness" is actually based on elaborate algorithms/equations. in emerald, the game is supposed to choose a "seed" to generate random pokemon spawns etc with (think minecraft world seeds and how those generate a world, but with wild pokemon and stuff instead if you've ever played minecraft!) based on the RTC (real time clock) of the cartridge, but due to a programming error, emerald actually never seeds properly, causing it to always be stuck at a seed of 0. there have been a couple methods discovered to force the game to seed but that's irrelevant here. since the seed is always 0, every time you play emerald, all of the possible spawns are actually the same each time. to a casual player they will never notice such a thing but to an rng manipulator this becomes very, very useful.

when you get into a wild encounter (or obtain a gift pokemon, encounter a legendary, etc) the game checks what frame you're on since you booted the game, tosses that frame into its random number generating algorithm against the seed, and then every aspect of that pokemon is determined by the result, like IVs and nature and etc. so, if you were to backwards engineer this algorithm and then figure out a way to perfectly time your A press to hit the exact frame you want, you'd be able to get any IV spread etc you want... and you'd also be able to predict and time your inputs to get shinies assuming that you know your SID (secret ID, a hidden value paired with your trainer ID on your trainer card) which can be figured out through a variety of methods that i won't get into here.

as it turns out, the pokemon community is nuts and the whole backwards engineering process was already done by people way smarter than me, and software has been developed to be able to sift through all possible pokemon encounters in pokemon games, including emerald. i use PokeFinder which is by far the best program out for this right now that is getting consistently updated. software has also been developed to time your A presses, the main one i use is EonTimer which lets me pop in what frame i want to hit and it calculates the amount of time i have to wait and then beeps to tell me when to hit A. i feel the need to repeat again this software does not require you to tamper with your games in any way - i honestly highly recommend trying it sometime even if just for the novelty of getting a shiny to appear on command, it's really fun and there's tutorials on youtube by "i'm a blisy" dsfjfdskd

edit: here's a screencap of what eontimer looks like btw! not the same target frame i used back when i got this latias but yeah. it's neat

with all of that out of the way, it sounds like it should be as simple as saving in front of the latias and then looking up the spread i want, popping it into the timer, and then resetting my game, waiting for the beep, hitting A and rinse and repeat until i get it. there's a few holes in this plan though:

the spread i want (timid 31/31/31/31/31/31 AKA perfect IVs) would require me to leave my game on for literal weeks on end per attempt, which is entirely unrealistic and unfeasible. i'm doing this on actual hardware, no speedup!

the spread in question also isn't shiny with my current SID. i don't need the latias to be shiny or anything, i just want it to be for fun

i am using my emerald save file that already has the roamer Latios generated, so i no longer have the option of rng manipulating that one. this means i need to get to Southern Island and RNG the latias there... which is a mystery gift. i do not own the e-reader nor do i own an extremely expensive eon ticket to get that event in my game

and this is where ACE comes in! ACE is... complicated. if you've ever seen people pull off some excessively wild and glitchy stuff in gen 1 by swapping items around in their inventory, you were probably watching a form of ACE in action. it's the process of glitching the game into a state where you can get it to take some form of input from the player as code and then run that code, hence "arbitrary code execution". honestly ACE is not something i have studied in depth, especially with gen 3, and i mostly just followed tutorials on getting what i wanted. i can summarize this process down into a few steps:

getting the NPC trade pokemon DOTS the seedot and EV training it to a very specific spread

performing glitzer popping (wild name, i know) to corrupt DOTS the seedot into a very specific glitchy egg

changing the name of my PC boxes to what is essentially GBA assembly instructions

cloning the aforementioned glitch egg using the emerald battle tower cloning glitch a bunch of times so i can use them whenever and then hatching them, which due to the EV spread i gave DOTS, will execute the code i changed my PC box names to!

i used ACE to solve all of the aforementioned problems with this rng manipulation.

i used ACE to make my game jump thousands upon thousands of frames forward, just a little bit before the competitive spread i wanted, and then went to the battle frontier to save a battle video at the battle factory by going in and instantly losing... this is because every time a battle video is loaded, it doesn't actually save every random result that happens in the battle (like missing and damage rolls) and instead just remembers the state of the RNG before the battle started and player choices and re-calculates the same exact random chances. therefore, if i watch this battle video from the trainer card upon every reset, i will jump back to that place thousands of frames forward, right before the latias spread i want

i used ACE to change my SID to a value that would make the spread i want shiny in combination with my TID because why not

i used ACE to spawn latias on southern island and to give myself the eon ticket to get there, no real life eon ticket/e-reader required (there are ways to inject this event that don't require ACE/the real life event items but i wanted to do all this without tampering!)

as a side tangent, i should mention that i had a very obscure problem with running the ACE to get to southern island that i had to contact some gen 3 ACE experts for help on... too complicated to explain here in any sort of legible way i think, but basically the problem was every time i hatched the glitch egg, the game just froze despite my code being typed in properly in my PC boxes with no typos. the audio kept playing but it would hang on the hatching screen, resulting in this extremely cursed footage of me hatching a void egg that looked like nothing and caused my game to crash:

i just think that's neat LMAO. anyways yeah after getting all that complicated ACE shit out of the way that took me 123989123 years to set up, it was just a matter of standing in front of the rock on southern island, saving my game, getting my timer ready, soft resetting my game, watching my battle video and starting my timer, and then waiting a handful of seconds and trying to press A with the exact 1/60th of a second timing to get the latias to appear. (emerald runs on 60 fps, this always takes a few tries)

(i can't put 2 videos in a tumblr post but if you want to see the encounter happen, i took a video here, it's a direct discord file link lol)

after that i simply transferred latibreak through HGSS pal park and trained her up and started using her in the battle tower :) technically a player could randomly stumble on this latias if they left their game open long enough and had the right TID/SID, it is a completely valid encounter that can move through pokemon bank and pokemon home! i just used a variety of game knowledge and glitches to get it to appear for me without having to wait for luck. i hope any of this made sense and sorry for all the jargon!! i wasn't sure how else to tell this story tbh. if any of this sounds interesting to you i highly recommend trying out at least rng manipulation sometime! you can do a lot of cool stuff with it even without ACE being involved, i just really needed ACE for this specific pokemon i wanted SDFJFDS

[jujujitsu]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT: car sex with car guy!Porco

Like, he teaches you how to change a fuse or smthn in your car, and he gives you a reward when you can do it without help😮‍💨

Car guy Porco makes me weak in the knees omg

SO, I was going to make a fic of this eventually, but I haven't had the inspiration. I agree with all the above. What I thought about briefly was reader being handy as fuck, so it'd start like this: You just moved into a new neighborhood. It's summer. People are out for summer break and you've settled in. Well, one day, your car doesn't start. It's morning and you call into work and tell them what's up and that you might be late. You'll let them know. You're actually mechanically inclined, and fixing shit on your own is no big deal. After all, you've built computers and you tinker in your shop around back. You work on your own car. But you certainly don't look the part. You're girly af. Cute little sun dresses and heels. Your car wants to start, but it just doesn't. In your mind, it's one of three things: The battery, the alternator, or the starter. You've got a used car, and it's over a decade old. When you were in high school, this was the car that you wanted. You bought it to completely satisfy your younger self, and you loved this car. So you pop the hood and walk around to it. You noticed a few things. The battery wasn't impressive. Probably something the dealer threw in to keep it running when you bought it two years ago. The battery posts had so much corrosion. Even the connectors. They needed to be cleaned. Honestly, that was probably the problem, but the damn battery irks you. You wipe sweat from your brow and you realize someone is running down the sidewalk towards you. Hot damn, it's a gorgeous-ass man. Runners shorts with the local university logo, expensive shoes, his hair is swept back. How the hell it's staying on his head is beyond you. He isn't lean like a runner though. It's obvious he does more. His entire upper body is broad and those legs. Holy shit, you wonder how much he can lift. You glance back down at your engine so he doesn't catch you staring. He slows down beside you and takes out his ear buds. "Oh, having trouble? Need some help?" You give him a half smile. "Yeah, was about to go grab my tools and get to work. It won't start and there's a clicking sound. It wants to start, but just isn't completing the process. I imagine it's the battery, but it could be the alternator or starter." He's looking at you in awe. "You know about cars?" "I know about a lot of things," you chuckle. "You wanted to help, right? Do you know about cars?" The smile that spreads across his face is just...it's like a kid in a candy store. He's HYPED as fuck. "Fuck yeah I do. Say, after we fix this up...if you've got nothing to do tonight, let's go for a drink." "Maybe," you reply. "If we work together well, then I don't see why we couldn't. I'm gonna go change out of this dress and get into some appropriate clothes for this kind of thing." "Same, let me grab some throw away clothes. This is going to be a good day. I'm Porco Galliard by the way. Engineering Student at Marley University. I play volleyball and I'm on the swim team too. I work part time with my brother Marcel at our dad's mechanic shop." "Y/N, graduate of Marley Tech. I'm a Geological and Petroleum Technician for the state. Dad was a construction worker and carpenter, so I grew up around tools and shit my whole life. Tinkering and restoration are hobbies of mine." "Cute, smart, and handy...my kind of girl." That's how it starts. Your car didn't, but your fucking love life was just kicked into overdrive.

[i-need-air]

Hybrid!AU Wolf!Bakugou Katsuki HCs Part 2.

Summary: Part 2 is here! While in part 1 it was mostly adoption and how he'd behave with you as a roommate, part two is him ✨ realizing things ✨ followed by how he'd be in a romantic relationship.

Word Count: 2k words [ oops, I did it again ]

Notes: So I said it'll be out in a few days but three [3] people asked me for part 2 and I'm a sucker soooooooo!! I could've just written a long ass fic but whatever, I thought I'd make it shorter in headcanons... hah lol right. Enjoy!

Part 1 here!

× he's a wild wolf so he's very active; like you need to understand he needs to go outside if not he'd get impatient, more aggressive, snappy, so once you took him on an easy hiking trail near your house and he loved it so once or twice a month you both go together to different places [ he demands it ]

× it's hard to keep up with him bc he's literally genetically engineered to be better than any very fit human being but he slows down for you

× morning runs at 5 a.m. bc he's insane

× is also a grandpa

× watched all documentaries on any streaming platform you could provide to him, also loves reading

× as months pass and you start to have your routine in order, word comes to you that an acquaintance is looking for a security guard at his mechanical shop two streets away from your house

× you casually mentioned it to Bakugou because he was starting to act anxious whenever you'd leave the house, so you assumed he was extra bored

× seriously, the house was spotlessly cleaned, he cooked amazingly and was occupied with your old laptop and going around the city to explore, but you guessed he wanted more independence?

× little did you know you were right but so wrong lol

× so Bakugou stared at you intensely and asked "Where?"

× it was as easy as telling him the location, him nodding and you thought he'd consider it; you didn't put any pressure on him because he already did so much to help around anyway

× well guess what bitch, next day he comes up to you saying you gotta co-sign his contract [cuz fuck society] meaning he got the job

× he was perfect for it because tall, intimidating, muscular wolf guy? who'd even mess with him? do they have a death wish?

× well, even before this he started to be... soft

× but once you really did show him you support whatever he wants to do, you give him his freedom and liberty of choice, he just reaaally changes, man

× he gets touchy, like his hands stay one second longer on your skin, he uses any excuse to have them on you, even his eyes follow you everywhere

× like c'mon, it's obvious but you didn't wanna put too much thought into it because we're respectful here

× not like you had a big fat crush on him and slowly started to realize it too

× sike bitch he knows

× you think his super-hearing didn't catch the way your heartbeat spikes up every single time he touches you? *please*

× i think he knows before you know

× meanwhile he is working to discover his feelings too

× so your relationship slowly turns into a couple's like relationship but without anything official and of course no kissing or such [ sadly ]

× would get jealous easily

× basically because nothing is talked between you two and deep down is insecure

× why the hell do you smell like other people? was it just a hug or something else? hell, why would you even hug people when he's right there??? just ask and don't touch some extras????

× another thing he does is getting very close to you while you talk to somebody else; scoffs and glares at them too

× ok so!! gifts! he really appreciates any gift you give him but scolds you if you do because you genuinely don't need to do that

× of course he just scolds you and calls you an idiot so I do hope you already learned his language

× it basically means that you shouldn't have done it, he's really grateful but seriously you shouldn't have

× like that one time you saved up money to get him a good computer and he forgot how to speak for like an hour

× the softest thank you ever afterwards

× still sounded rough but he was shocked as fuck

× one thing that remained in your brain were his friends, as sometimes he'd mention them

× so you took it upon yourself to find them, of course with his permission

× gets genuinely overwhelmed and plays it off saying he wouldn't mind knowing where those idiots ended but you didn't miss the way his voice trembled

× for you to find them you needed names and any information he could provide so that's when he, after a long silence and a mesmerized look on his face, started really talking about his life

× which was fucked; won't get much into detail but he was indeed in a fighting ring, people came and bet on whoever was stronger, he even had to fight his friends, everything was filled with abuse and their conditions were subhuman...

× just overall awful

× you couldn't help but hug him tight, feeling him shake in your arms

× with a hesitant voice he asked if you really did think there was a chance to find them

× just couldn't believe how amazing he felt in your arms

× or how your determination that night made his heart clench and took a big weight off his shoulders

× anywho;;;; after his first paycheck he takes you out on cute dates

× never calls them that, just demands you dress up [helps you out cuz boy got style] and takes you to a nice coffee shop or something

× AND on your fifth not date cuz you're not official but there's this weird tension between you date he finally kinda s n a p s

× you honestly didn't expect the waiter to flirt with you, he came out as very pushy and even if you were a lil uncomfortable you smiled and brushed it off

× when the waiter suggested giving you his number the sandy blond hybrid growled

× which i shit you not made the whole coffee shop freeze

× and you froze too

× but neither of you could say anything because the oblivious fuck kept talking

× basically joking about how you should keep your pet in a leash, to which you got up, threw some money on the table, grabbed Bakugou by the hand and leave before he'd rip someone's head off

× it only took you to touch Bakugou's arm to calm him down as he followed behind you wordlessly

× so you stood outside, angry, deep red eyes on your figure

× and silence

× his hand still in yours

× it was warm and amazing and you felt angry but your heart was beating loudly; angry at the waiter that you wanted to go full Karen on and get fired but excited because that growl shook you to the core, as if you could tell it was territorial and it was because of that pig flirting with you and did Bakugou Katsuki just lace his fingers with you?!

× "Oi." he interrupted your thoughts

× he turned your frame towards him and pulled you [kinda harshly] into him

× you'd make a comment about it but brain empty, just Bakugou Katsuki blushing

× "You're mine, you get it?"

× skdjflglykshs

× it sounded like he asked but it was a demand so oops you're his now ok bye

× like I said, boy isn't dumb so he lowkey knew you felt something too

× legit from there on he's just soft as fuck

× has a hard time opening up but visibly tries for you

× still continues to be a pain in the ass, Bakugou Style, but with a loving teasing attitude behind it

× his eyes give him away all the time

× they shine whenever you're in his field of view so congrats because, and this is the best part:

× WOLVES MATE FOREVER 💕💓💞💗💝💟

× oh yeah, he's yours, no takebacks

× he isn't one to half-ass the relationship; you're his now and he'll do anything for you

× big time touch starved it hurts

× because he is shy

× so whenever you introduce him to hand holding and cuddles, he can't get enough

× not big on PDA [ and not recommended since human-hybrid relationships are kiiiinda frowned upon but it's getting better ]

× although at home it's another deal

× seriously cuddle him; he's big into the protector vibe so he's a big spoon almost exclusively unless it's to sleep on top of you

× speaking of! accept that even if your relationship isn't that intimate, he'd still hint about sleeping together in the same bed

× so you better catch on when he does because he'll just click his tongue and call you needy

× while dragging you to bed

× sleeps holding you, his nose in your hair or in the crook of your neck

× unless it's summer then stay on your side 💅

× you know those kisses that just scream "I can't get enough of you"? that's his whole kissing vibe in a sentence

× hell, even the gentlest kiss gives that vibe away and it'll 100% leave you breathless

× doesn't have experience but is a very fast learner

× pays very close attention to your body language

× really into biting your skin enough to leave marks

× wear his hoodies

× no, I'm fucking serious, wear them now

× his chest puffs and he turns into a blushing mess when you do it the first times because his scent is on you

× scenting is a big thing for him so of course he's gonna love it

× 10x more territorial because now he has a mate to protect

× jealous but trusts you

× still very jealous though

× let's all pretend he is definitely not scenting you before you go out because it's in his nature and it is embarrassing

× the first time he tells you he loves you it's when he's feeling vulnerable

× the search for his friends is still on-going, he feels less than adequate as a providing mate, is pissed at the world for treating him like an inferior animal when they created him, everything is piled on his shoulders and whenever than happens he closes off

× you notice immediately

× will not tell you at first

× it's only when you go to bed and he turns his back to you when you really know it's bad

× even if you fought before, he'd angrily snuggle you at night-time

× now it's so different

× hug him, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, pull a blanket all over you both and big spoon him, he'd start shaking and talking in no time

× will hide his tears from you but you'd know

× "You're the best fucking thing that happened to me, [Y/N]... I—... Shit... I love you so much."

× neither of you slept that night

× excuse you? drink some water and pray to jesus;;; you talked about feelings, ok? communication is key in a relationship, puh-lease

× [ i have this whole nsfw hcs post already cookin in my brain so maybe I'll make it happen cuz y'all know he has a mating season and all that comes with it 👀 ]

× back to being children of jesus here

× thanks the moon, the heavens and all the gods for putting you in his life; boy didn't believe in destiny but deep down he thinks you were meant to be

× you still better wash the dishes or you'll get your ass kicked.

Extra:

× you did find some of his friends, little by little, and even if he acted nonchalant, like k das cool, it was obvious he was extremely happy

× so they did get adopted too

× you got in contact with them on social media and they were all very excited about meeting

× so it was a chaotic meeting with a dog hybrid called Kirishima and a mouse like vibrat yellow guy called Kaminari

× they all were looking for Bakugou too since they were very worried about where he ended

× Kirishima shed manly tears when seeing Bakugou

× as they instantly welcomed you in their small group, they informed you both that the majority of the squad was adopted and they're in contact, while they're still actively looking for the others

× cue to the softest expression you've seen on Bakugou in public followed by "That's good"

× silence

× shock and silence

× Kaminari turning to you and whispering "You did this" with a hand on his heart, lips trembling as he wiped an imaginary tear

× insert instantly snappy Bakugou

× when everyone laughed and continued to make plans to meet up with the others, he just looked at you conversing with them, soft expression again on his features and his chest warming

× "Oh! Look, he's doing it again! Quick, take a pictur—"

× "SHINE!"

[comfiedev]

my 5 year indie developer journey

Hey, I'm Samuli, also known as Comfie and I make indie games here in the mythical land of Finland. Uhhhh, indie games are cool, yeah, hot take.

I've made a lot of games over the years and, well, as you can imagine most of them are bad, lol, which is why most of them are not available for y'all to play. Still, on my Itch.IO page you can play all of the games that are there! Some are decent, at best, but some are actually quite fun.

I started my dev journey in 2017-2018 I believe, and it took me a while to get adjusted to the tools. I didn't have a lot of prior knowledge with computers so using these grand development tools seemed impossible, but I still managed to push through that and started to development my skills.

For the first few years I had no design knowledge or anything, all I knew was how to use the engine and how to scribble on my sprite editor, which meant that I developed my interest and passion for design later in my journey.

I tried really hard to find myself as a developer, especially at first, but at some point I just stopped caring, which actually helped me understand what I enjoy about creating games, which is kinda ironical and fun. Dunno, maybe the less you care the more you develop or something, please take that with a grain of salt lmfao.

In 2020 I started to hang out in online forums and chatrooms which changed my whole view on making games, prior to that I had no connections with anyone and did everything alone. I met a lot of cool people that helped me figure out development and shit, it was very cool, I really appreciate that, thank you, you know who you are. At the same time I was introduced to twitter which showed me a whole new side of indie development, for the first time I really felt like I wasn't alone doing this.

Slowly I started to build a small following or something, a friendgroup of other devs that supported me and my work, which I love and appreciate from the bottom of my heart. From those chatrooms I met Temul, who was the first dev that I collaborated with. Our friendship was kinda odd because I had this whack-ass persona that I portrayed on those chatrooms which made for some hilarious interactions. We worked on a few projects, I still look at these times very fondly. We worked on a mini-game collection called the juicebox. Sadly most of our projects never got finished but I at least had a fun time, hope Temul feels the same way haha.

At around october of 2021 I participated in Ludum Dare 49, and made a game called Unsteady Bounce. The game feels like a monumental milestone on my journey, because it was the first game I made that used something else than janky pixelart as visuals. The game had this charcoal hand-drawn aesthetic and managed to score the 30th place in the graphics category!

After that I continued with the same aesthetic and took part in the Ludwig gamejam where I made Back to the Nest. Back to the Nest was a life changing experience because I met so many cool people through it and gained a lot of friends and peers. I honestly miss that time a lot, everyone was hanging out in this groupchat and supporting eachothers projects, it was great. I was also chosen as one of the winners of the jam, which led my game to be shown at Ludwig's stream, which was a big visibility boost. Back to the Nest remains as my most played game on Itch.IO with about 10,000 plays, which is mindblowing to me.

After these two projects I started working on my largest project to-date. Moonstuck, is a colorful precision flying game, with a lot of charm and really fucking steep difficulty curve, lol. I spent 6 months on this project and well, I'm slowly becoming more accepting of the project. When I finished it and was working on it I hated it. The game had a lot of flaws in design and in development. For example I handplaced 4000- outline objects which took me 2- months of work, it was not very pleasant nor fun. Still, I appreciate the project. I got to work with a cool composer, Jaden, thanks Jaden I really appreciate you! My good friend Z from one of the early chatrooms I was in also put the game on Steam for me, for free, I know, crazy. I owe Z a lot. With all of this Moonstuck has around 30 000-40 000 plays on Steam, which still blows my mind. Moonstuck was released in the summer of 2022.

After Moonstuck I worked on multiple smaller projects. I made 3 games with my close friend Sai. Those projects had their ups and downs but working with Sai has been a blast. I also worked with a few other friends HIS, Milkman and Frog, and we made this pretty cool Tron inspired game, tho I didn't amount a lot to this game. Still was fun! Maybe I'll be able to work with them again in the future.

At some point I was introduced to Paradise and met some pretty cool peers through it. I've gotten a lot of opportunities through it and I am forever grateful for the people that wanted to invite me there. I met a very quirky and cool friendo Plant through Paradise. Me and Plant have been working on a cyclical dynamic multi-layered shmup a of late. It should be out in december of 2022 or early next year. Also been finally working on a game with my friend Jasper, who does some crazy art n stuff, we've been talking for like a year about making a game together and it feels like it's finally actually happening! I also went to my first indie dev meetup event thing in November of this year, where I met cool peeps and I'm really grateful for that. I met Perttu, Pavla and Kai there, which was really cool, we are making a nuclear winter inspired topdown exploration game together, it's going to be a blast.

As you can probably read I've been collaborating with a lot of people lately, it has been so much fun but also draining for my social battery and things, so I've decided to tackle a few games alone after this. I enjoy working with people but also solo dev has its own quirks too.

That's pretty much everything for now. Today is 21/11/2022 and uh, I just condenced my whole dev journey into this small text, kinda crazy. Ok, that's all, thanks for reading, uhh bye.

Samuli

[kuvvydraws]

I'm not sure if you've answered this question already, but I'm honestly very curious- why do you write fanfiction? I certainly enjoy it as much as you and have written a few things of my own, but I know it can be quite a personal topic for many writers. If it's too personal for you, don't feel any pressure to answer, but it's always interesting to see the writer's perspective outside of the story they've written :). I hope you understand what I'm trying to say-

Hey!

I actually enjoy the words and the rush your brain gets when they join without effort to create a reality.

Now, let me break that down XD

I've always had a book in my hands as far as my memory goes. My dad used to read to me when I was very little and from the second I could do it on my own, that was the best thing ever (yes, that means when I was punished for doing some shit, my books were taken away and I had to sneak them into my schoolbag and read in class like a heathen).

Not only I enjoyed books but I always found myself wanting to partake in the stories, and my brain was always running with the words and the scenes. (I discovered during my teenage years that brains have different ways to process thoughts and mine did it in words, so writing just sort of came naturally to me at that point in my life).

I discovered ffnet when I was 12, I think, but I had tried my hand at original works (that is, about five or six starts of different novels that never saw the light) and some "fanfiction" (about Nightmare Before Christmas because I had a big ass crush on Jack and I unassumingly created my first xReader ever) without knowing what the hell I was doing.

I just knew I wanted to write stuff and I did as much.

The thing is, I introduced one of my friends, who also loved to read and write, to ffnet, and we started writing together. The first thing we wrote was a Sesshomaru x OC fic, the second one was a Sasori x OC fic, and we dipped out toes into some Kuroshitsuji x OC...... all of them handwritten stories we promised we would type in a computer eventually (we didn't, they were horrible [I still have the notebooks we used for each of them and they are cringey as fuck]).

But we wrote for ourselves and we were happy like that.

So we were rampant and wild and having the best time. Back then I still wrote in Spanish (because I hardly knew any English and I didn't care for it), and I remember mixing Spain's Spanish with the ones from South America because obviously the percentage of writers in ffnet who used a different "dialect" Spanish was huge if you compare a single, tiny country with a whole continent.

At the same time I wrote with my friend, I wrote for myself. Naruto, Kuroshitsuji, Bleach, Hetalia.... And I met so many people, nice people, who loved my works (they were random fics, all of them x OC because I didn't know x Reader ones were a thing -they weren't at that time, and x Reader are harder to write in Spanish because all the words and pronouns are gendered one way or another-) and I got so much enjoyment from sharing them.

The thing about books I love the most is the fact that you can convey so many emotions with a few symbols, and you can create worlds out of ink and you can change views and inspire others. So, if none of my dumbass teenage novels were to roam the word, I still could share, in a free, open and fast way, my words with others.

Again, I was going to write them with or without posting them because I found -and still find- great pleasure when a scene creates itself in your brain and all you have to do to make it real is to write it down. (Sometimes my brain still does this and even when I'm daydreaming, my imagination is "written, described and dialogued" as if someone was reading a novel out loud. It makes writing so much easier).

And then I got hate.

I somehow had managed to miss all of the fandom drama that's so toxic in the internet because I didn't bother to interact with anyone in the fandoms beyond the reviews they left in my fics, and ffnet has a -sort of- specific search engine to help you find whatever you want, so I could never willingly find the "problematic stuff" because I was literally not trying to find it.

The hate comment I got was anonymous and very specific about everything that was wrong in a particular fic I had just updated -from plot and characterization to grammar and continuity-, and later on I discovered it came from a couple of authors who shared an account and who I admired greatly for their works. Turns out they were out for blood and hating on every fic that had updated that week and that had any members of their OTP shipped with some other character. (It was a Hetalia fanfic, I was writing SpUK and they were pro FrUk, if anyone is interested).

I was contacted by some other authors asking about this because they had gone through the very same thing -same specific hate, same hate comment- and I remember not giving a fuck.

I was 16 when I got the hate, writing for fun and trying to find a way to go through my shitty highschool days without falling into the black out of depression that haunted me. I remember not wanting to write anything anymore, leaving a fic I was very invested in writing to gather dust and rot in the forgotten folders of my computer because every time I tried to get on with it and progress, it felt wrong.

That thing I said about words just happening? It stopped. My brain was silent as a grave and trying to get my words out became painful. I remember struggling to even write regular project for my school.

I kept reading, of course -it was my only comfort and I really, really didn't want to give up on it-, but I abandoned the fandoms I enjoyed so much before. My new focus became the sci-fi, and I remember being hooked on Predator. Imagine my joy when I discovered there were thousands of works from that fandom! I was extasic.

Problem? They were written in English.

I didn't know shit about English besides being a language I was supposed to handle in school, memorize the unreasonably spelt words that were pronounced illogically regarding the fucking spelling and the stupid ass irregular verbs.

But I learnt English because I wanted a hot piece of alien ass XD

Back to the topic of fanfics, I still roamed ffnet, keeping 15 tabs open and reading until 5 am... But now there was a world of possiblities in front of me because of course everyone on this goddamn Earth writes in English.

So, for the next years I did that, and my words didn't come. It was fine, tho, because I had so many new things to read.

It wasn't until fall of 2018 that I dabbed into the idea of maybe considering to perhaps give writing a try again????? I was neck deep into Undertale -still am, I'm a shameless skeleton fucker and there's no cure for that shit- and its many AU's and somehow I had managed to avoid fandom wars again, so my brain started toying with words... The same way it worked with novels: I got myself into the fics other people wrote (this is so much easier to do with x Reader fics, and I'm so happy about that and the massive boom they had just when Undertale came out, you can't even understand it).

So I kept doing my shit and daydreaming about skeletons and ribs and ecto-stuff for a very long time. It was kinda reassuring and nice to see other writers projecting on their x Readers so much because that's what I had done before.

And then Good Omens happened.

As I've said before, I actually discovered Gomens back in 2012 and it is, to the date, the worst translation to Spanish I've seen in my entire life to this date. And, despite it, I fell in love with it.

Now, barely in 2019, my dad gets Amazon Prime and the first thing he fucking sees is the font of Gomens on the screen. I had fangirled hard about Gomens in book version, so much and so annoyingly that I wouldn't leave my dad alone until he gave it a chance. It's the only book my father hasn't finished because the translation is that bad. He hates it.

Yet.

The particular font they use for the show is the same from the book's title. My dad of course recognized it immediately and knew I would want in on the news.

I confess I watched Gomens the show at least seven times before giving it a break because I liked it so much and the novel was so fucking good and it's honest to God the best adaptation I've ever seen to the screen. It's so good I'm fucking sure I was crying actual tears after watching it for the first time because my dreams and all the feelings that book had given me over the years and the many re-reads were "true" and so well done and it reached deep into my heart.

And then, for the first time in six years, my words came back.

Another thing Good Omens has given me, I have to say.

I don't know if I can stress this enough, but just imagine spending six years of radio silence, sending longing stares to the void and hoping to see something yours returning back, something you've lost and you're not sure you're getting back, something you think you don't need or want but that would be nice to have again. If only. You can live without that something, and no one but you cares about it, and it's not that big of a deal and-

Then you see a spark in the dark.

My words came back.

They weren't in Spanish, and it was hard to manage them at first, only being able to listen to them in short bursts over long periods of time.

But they were my words and they were back.

Writing is still hard, and I have a lot of work to do to improve my skills, to get them not only back but to refine them because I'm not writing in my native language and all I know is what I've learnt from other authors and their knowledge. I project a lot on my projects -I don't intend to stop because it's such a relief, the biggest scape from reality I get by doing so; it helps me deal with my problems, it gives me a break and a way to take a breath when I can't keep going...

Fanfics are where I can say what I want to say to the world in the most honest way, and that allows me to be me, and to express myself and indulge in the fantasies I dream about without having to force myself to think of them over and over and over. I can just sit back and enjoy content I know I like without being judged for it.

I can fucking make that content, too.

Writing feels like home, even if sometimes I still struggle, if I can't find my words or the expression is not quite like that in English, or if I can't find the words or if I'm suffering a block... because there's nothing scarier and more free than a blank page ready to be written.

[madnessofmen]

yeah i'm a humanities grad student and we have this discussion frequently about the work being excessively dense EVEN FOR OTHER ACADEMICS. it's not about jargon or nuances of definition, as i'm trying to tell you, but the fact that many writers are literally failing to communicate their ideas in a precise way because of the register they use to write. it's a huge problem for interdisciplinary work, let alone for trying to make that work useful outside its niche

essentially the problem is that many academics in my field and presumably related fields use their paper writing to play language games that have no merit except as a gatekeeping exercise. if you are capable of expressing the meaning of your words in a more exact way then choosing to be obtuse is political and your politic is that your work is exclusive. papers are not inherently 'not for' students or 'for' other researchers, it's just like, codified elitism that says it should be the case

1) papers are not inherently 'not for' students or 'for' other researchers. It's just like, codified elitism that says it should be the case

I don't mean "for" as in nobody else should be able to read it, but in the sense that "GTA is a rated M game". There's a target audience for everything. Not everything has to be for everyone and you'd be crazy to assert otherwise.

A while back, my friend's dad, a software engineer, recommended me an infosec podcast. I was eager to listen because I wanted to learn about the field, but rather disappointingly, I only understood like 50% of the words being said. And that's not because the podcast was bad! From what I could understand, it sounded pretty cool. But it was a podcast for people *already in* cyber security and I had no computer background at all, so of course it was incomprehensible to me. But I'm not going to demand that the creators suddenly dumb everything down for me.

2) yeah i'm a humanities grad student and we have this discussion frequently about the work being excessively dense EVEN FOR OTHER ACADEMICS.

Okay, so this, yeah, 100% valid complaint. If you, as the target audience, can't understand what your peers are saying, then that's just bad writing. It should be immediately accessible to you, but it isn't.

3) it's not about jargon or nuances of definition, as i'm trying to tell you, but the fact that many writers are literally failing to communicate their ideas in a precise way because of the register they use to write. it's a huge problem for interdisciplinary work, let alone for trying to make that work useful outside its niche.

essentially the problem is that many academics in my field and presumably related fields use their paper writing to play language games that have no merit except as a gatekeeping exercise. if you are capable of expressing the meaning of your words in a more exact way, then choosing to be obtuse is political and your politic is that your work is exclusive.

Holy shit man, that sucks. Are there standardized academic writing classes for the humanities? I assume there must be. Do any of these papers follow those guidelines? Regardless, both academics and whoever runs the major journals in your field are at fault, the former for generating this sort of unfettered verbiage and the journal editors for allowing it to get published. Do journals demand that it be incomprehensible? What's the logic here?

I'm actually curious, what field are you in, and can you send me a sample/excerpt of some of these texts? I know for philosophy (for me at least), it's just a dense clusterfuck unless I get an actual book, so that I'm eased into the terminology instead of being assaulted by it all at once in a 10-20 page paper, but it's actual quite clear to understand when I understand the terminology.

I've really not had this experience myself in the sciences, mostly because science papers generally all follow the same writing guidelines that I learned in school (and I suppose there's less creative liberty that can be taken when summarizing the results of an experiment). Like I actually prefer reading papers over textbooks because they're easier for me to read and I'm way more interested in the discovery process than the discovery itself. Honestly, I'm really sorry it's like this in your field.

[modesty-blaise]

Since I'm curious, what caused you to become very possessive of your gifs? Not out of rudeness but curious, since no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr which automatically credits you at the bottom of the gif.

Hey. Tbh, at first I didn’t wanna bother with yet another anon but since I see no ill intent behind this, I decided to go and answer it. Unfortunately, half-way through I realised my reply is turning into incredibly long semi-bitter rant and expands well beyond calling out just one person in Psychonauts fandom (and yes, this is related to Psychonauts fandom – you do know that these anons are not really that anonymous, right?) so… buckle up! All that beneath “read more”.

I’ve been on this hellsite for like…7-8 years? Maybe more? Can’t really tell cause I moved blogs and my old blog now consists of only 4 posts I’ve made close to leaving so I honestly have no idea how much time I’ve spend here before moving. Anyway, during those few years I’ve spent on my first blog I’ve met a lot of creative gifmakers who enjoyed sharing their love for fandoms they were in. I’d like to point out that this was waaaaay before tumblr created that insert-gif option so, back in the day, the only way to add gifs to your post was to: 1. make them yourself 2. take them from someone else. And a lot of people were taking them from someone else which resulted in many gifmakers giving up on making gifs and leaving fandoms and/or even leaving tumblr – and I’ve had many of my friends give up on what they love and have their games/shows/movies/whatnot ruined for them cause people would not stop stealing from them. And many of my friends eventually left tumblr cause they couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Tumblr adding insert-gif option, in my opinion, honestly, just made it worse for gifmakers. Cause now people had the opportunity to use gifs for their posts, with or without creators’ permission/knowledge, but it was alright and it was perfectly fine cause creators were credited. There’s their name at the bottom. It’s alright. Like… it doesn’t matter if they’re actually okay with people using something they’ve put hours into making or if they’re not – tumblr gives them credit so they SHOULD be okay with it. Simple as that.

Well, we’re all different and some people are not okay with that. I’m not okay with that. It took me weeks to figure out how to use photoshop correctly. Took me countless hours of looking through different tutorials and basically trial-and-error-ing my way through the process. Whenever I make gifs, it takes me hours to record videos and then hours trying to achieve that 3mb limit on gifs (thank lord these days we’re beyond 1mb limit). After all that effort I put into creating gifs for games that I love and enjoy, someone is going to make 2 clicks and have that same gif added to their post, without even asking. So how is that okay?

Back to your question. Yes, “no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr”, that is true and that is something I was aware of when I saw you-know-who announcing they would be starting 30 days Psychonauts challenge. So, hating to see my gifs used against my will, and not wanting to start any unnecessary drama and threaten people in advance with reporting them if they do use them, I’ve made my blog as private as I could. It was only accessible through the dashboard, it was not showing in ANY search engines inside and outside tumblr, and my gifs were impossible to find through insert-gif function – I’ve made sure. I did all that cause I just knew that during those 30 days, someone would use my gifs and I would get mad and I desperately wanted to avoid that (hence going extreme). And you know what happened? You know what creator of this challenge (who prevously already reposted my gifs) did? *drums* They used my shit anyway. :3 They just uploaded it from their computer, where they’ve saved it earlier.

And like… a lot of people see pretty pic and decide to save it - I mean, we all do that. Heck, even I have a folder full of shit I saw online and liked it – but i’m not uploading it online cause I haven’t made it. It’s not mine to share.

But some people are not like that.

Some people see fanart of something they like and they want to share their opinion on it – and instead of making their own post, maybe drawing the fanart themselves, they decide to use someone else’s art for their post. Do they know who made it? Do they have creator’s permission to share it? If the answer is NO, then they should be a decent human being and not do that to creators. Oh, they shared it anyway but now people in fandom are calling them out BUT this actually happened on accident? They know who the creator is but, somehow, they accidentally forgot to credit them? OK, well, it’s possible, shit happens, but they better make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Then sometime later these same people decide they want to make a post appreciating their fav character and they want to include pics cause duh, you can’t have character appreciation post without pics, right? Now they have several options: they can get their own screenshots, make their own gifs, maybe draw something… or they can just take someone else’s creation. Do they know who made it? Well there’s my fuckin name on it, and since they’ve stretched it from 245 to 500px, it’s really hard to miss, plus it’s not like there are that many people making Psychonauts gifs. Do they have permission to share it? Hmmm, nope, didn’t ask me. Is this also an accident? Could be. I mean, I’ve seen stranger things happen, so accidentally forgetting to credit content creators twice… kinda suspicious but still possible. Who am I to say?

Now if these people then decide to make a post appreciating their fav ship and they want to add a cute pic of the loving couple – yup, you guessed it! They can either create something or take something. Again: they know who did? They asked for permission? Got the permission? No?!?! But they posted it anyway?!?! :o Could it really be, that after being called out publicly, after being told that reposting is bad (something that’s very easy to understand), after even having tumblr staff intervene and remove stolen shit from their blog, after all that - could it really still be an accident?

Nah, man.

They just don’t give a shit.

Cause if they did, they’d stop with that crap first time they were called out.

(and if you think Psychonauts fandom is their only fandom and that they’re not doing this crap in other fandoms too - hoooo, boy, do I have some bad news for you! Do you know how many stolen and butchered HP fanart is on their blog? Hobbit stuff? They seem to be one of the most accident-prone users on tumblr. And honestly - it’s a real miracle their blog’s not been terminated.)

Back to what I was talking about - I’m not okay with people using my gifs and I’ve made it very clear. I literally do not give a shit if I’m credited or not, I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want my gifs used without my permission. If you like them and want them on your blog, there’s a fuckin reblog button. It’s sole purpose is to allow you to share other people’s creations. Or shitposts, cause lord knows we all love those.

So that’s why when someone spends hours going through my Psychonauts tag and goes as far as to send me “I love your gifs” anonymous message, but the very next day makes stim moodboard post including one of my gifs, now cut and resized to fit 3x3 format they’re going with, I get mad. And that’s why when someone uses one of my gifs to promote their RP blog, butchering it to fit their aesthetics, and later when confronted going as far as blaming their good friend on it cause god! they’ve had no idea it wasn’t theirs, I get mad. (makes you wonder though: if they friend has such skills, why not making them gifs themselves?)

Like…. I’ve had my gifs stolen plenty of times. I’ve had them stolen for roleplaying, for headers, for imagines, just for notes… I’ve had them stolen by people claiming to run official fan sites (that’s a real wild story but I won’t get into that now)… I’ve seen them on pinterest, weheartit, FB, all those random gif sites… and I’ve seen EVERY. POSSIBLE. EXCUSE. ranging from: “well i found it on google so why should i credit you” “lol dunno who made this but its pretty so im posting it” “ive had it on my computer for years so i don’t remember where i got it from” “i dont know how to make gifs so im using weheartit as a source” “credit to whoever made this” (that’s my fav) to “its just a gif so who gives a shit” (it’s not – it’s hours of creator’s time and lots of love that you’re now shitting on so thanks) and “i have an /illness/ and getting notes makes me feel better so dont u dare blame me for stealing” (I don’t remember exact excuse but it was something along those lines and like… how do you even respond to something that without looking like an asshole?).

And sometimes it really is just an accident. Sometimes people really do forget to credit you and/or ask you for permission. And I’ve had my fair share of those accidents. People in Psychonauts fandom have been using my gifs for various crap but, when approached, they’ve removed it and apologised. And it’s something I really appreciate. (if they actually bother reading this and they recognise themselves: i’m really grateful and thank you for not being an ass)

But you know what I don’t appreciate? People making a call out posts about me, asking about my gifs when they know very well they’re the main reasons why I’m not making those gifs anymore, at the same time failing to address any of the issues I have with them and instead rather explaining to others what happened BUT explaining only the parts that make me look like a villain cause how I even dare be mad about them stealing? How I even dare call them out on it? That is so ridiculous and criminal of me, and it’s so so sooooo bad that they need to call me out. I deserve to be called out by the very same person who’s been stealing my shit.

And their explanation is…well… it’s something.

They were sympathetic and polite? When did this happen? Did I completely missed that part? Please someone fuckin enlighten me with such post/message where they expressed their sympathy and politeness and I’ll apologise right this second.

I told them to “literally fuck off”? Yeah, that did happen, I admit that. Did they bother explaining why I told them to fuck off in the first place? Did they say they were caught stealing from me and had tumblr stuff remove my shit from their blog? Did they get into details of how they demanded the proof of my so very wild and obviously false claims but then when I showed it, they just deleted that “how dare u call me out cause I would never do such thing” post? No, they didn’t and geee, I really wonder why.

Instead, what did they choose to address? Out of all the things I’ve said. Hm? What did they choose? Me telling them to fuck off. Me dropping the F-bomb on them, rudely rejecting their obvious kindness and politeness. Nothing else.

Back to what I was talking about before I got derailed again: no, I’m not mad cause this person used my gifs without crediting me. I mean – I am, but that’s not my main issue with them (and they know it). My main issue is that this is someone who will continuously lie and steal and still deny any of it, even when there’s plenty of proof (and you can always count on me to show up with proof tbh), and then go as far as to publicly ask about my gifs and try to call me out. Like me getting mad that something I’ve put hours of work into, and something I’ve made cause I love the game and I want to share my love and appreciation for it, is now being shared against my will and my knowledge - like me getting mad over something like that is so unreasonable that they need to make an entire post about it while pretending they have absolutely no idea why I’m even mad and why we have issues.

And I have every fucking right to be mad. 3 times is not an accident. 2 times to the same person is not an accident. They know it. But yeah, playing stupid is their defense so it’s not like I expected them to actually address their actions this time either.

And you know what? Just because I swear a lot doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Doesn’t mean there’s no solid ground for my claims. People on tumblr have always been and always will be stealing shit. Sometimes they will credit you, often they will not, and that’s just how it is, doesn’t matter if you’re okay with it or not. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit quiet and accept someone’s shitty behaviour. Especially when it’s directed at me.

TLDR: giving credit =/= having permission

but my previous posts leading to this ask were not about that

you knew that already

[ms-demeanor]

I mean I want to say that our dates were normal but I'm a pretty bad judge of that.

Our first real date was to a hacker conference where I ended up in a prom dress after attempting to socially engineer my way into a prom at the same site (which was... mostly...successful, technically) and I ended up sitting in Large Bastard's lap to hide from a guy who was chasing me around and trying to force me to drink his homemade habañero rum.

I was supposed to crash with Large Bastard and his roommates at the hacker house that night and that's kind of what happened except what really happened is that I slept with Large Bastard so I never made it to crashing on the couch and instead stayed in Large Bastard's creepy basement room that was exclusively lit and heated by computers and *absolutely* looked like the kind of room you get murdered in, down to the gun rack on the wall.

But then like a week after that we went to Soup Plantation on a date and I'm pretty sure that's the most prosaic possible date.

But. We kind of didn't really date? Like we went from being separate, single people to being people who spent most of their time together in the course of a month.

At one point three months in we had a little fight and immediately made up but I was supposed to go to Vegas with my parents the weekend after and he didn't like where we'd left things so on the second day of the trip he called me and was like, "I followed you to Vegas. I'm sorry. Do you want to go get breakfast?" And my parents were like "oh my god our child found a giant terrifying night vampire who follows her like a puppy what do we do" so they invited him to dinner and otherwise he was very polite and didn't intrude on our trip and they were like "okay we don't love this but it doesn't seem like he's going to immediately build a shrine out of your bones, so okay, fine, ride home with him, we'll see you in a few days."

But then it was just back to going to the coffee shop and hacker meetups and the shooting range and it all felt very normal. It didn't feel like we were dating, it felt like we were friends who hung out a lot and lived together and fucked.

And that's kind of what it's still like? We don't really do dates. We go to our hacker meetups pretty regularly, he has his friends and I have mine, and sometimes we go on camping trips and sometimes we go on road trips and sometimes we live together and fuck.

At the moment we're actually living in different states, which neither of us is particularly happy about and which is much harder to deal with because of the coronavirus. But it is nice when I can take the dog and go see him.

But yeah, some of the stuff we do is.

I dunno. Weird?

We took a trip to the Salton Sea for my birthday once and he got his jeep stuck in the mud and i had really horrible heat exhaustion and it was a day full of dead birds and rotting fish and it was a lot of fun?

We did stay in a hackerspace in seattle that was literally called the black lodge and we went to North Bend to eat at Tweede's (the location of the double R diner) because i love twin peaks. Our waitress pulled out her phone to show us that she had a photo album dedicated to just pictures of rainbows and honestly sitting with him and having this small town waitress show us the things she thought were beautiful is one of my favorite things that I've ever done.

I don't know. We're pretty weird individually and we're pretty weird together and we're not codependent but we are inextricable and I just like being around him so he's around for a lot of the weird shit I do and sometimes it feels less like we've planned our odd little adventures and more like they're things that happened that we happened to be there for and he's my monster and he's a good giant and I like him a lot.

And I miss him and I wish we were living together again.

(He got a job in Vegas in November, I was supposed to move around February but stuff got delayed and then coronavirus happened so. We're kind of in limbo here.)

Sometimes I forget that I really am pretty weird and my experiences are fairly far afield from “normal.”

This girl who I vaguely knew from the coffee shop showed up one day and said she thought her mom had died that morning and I figured she was probably overreacting so I said I’d go check with her and it turns out her mom HAD died but we honestly weren’t sure when it had happened so I lifted her off the bed and attempted CPR and then ended up having to talk to cops and this poor girl’s family for HOURS as she called her dad and brothers and the cops wanted to know if the mom was on any medications or if she had been depressed and I was like “I have no idea, I had literally never met the lady and I don’t even know the family’s last name, the first ever full conversation I had with the daughter was this morning.” And apparently THAT was super suspicious or something.

So anyway that was a rough day and the next day I go into the coffee shop and the manager (who is basically never in) comes over and says “Debbie says you had a rough day yesterday.” And I was like “uh, yeah. It was pretty weird.” And then he was like “Debbie says that you handled it really well. And that you filled out an application to work here a couple weeks ago.” And I was like “I guess?” And he was like “Okay you can do a training shift today and you’re on your own tomorrow. We don’t normally hire people under 21 and we don’t normally hire regulars so don’t fuck up.” (I was 18)

So I started working at the cash-only coffee shop that was patronized exclusively by the weirdest people in town (who had all slept with each other, had no money, and had the most drama of any group I’ve ever been part of) and was used to launder money made by the owner’s cocaine sales for the local gang.

The first shift I worked alone was the next night and when I called the manager and told him one of the regulars had been chasing people out of the parking lot to sell meth the manager told me to ban him so I was like “Hey dude, manager says you’re banned” and he was like “You’re a fucking cunt and I’m going to wait until you’re alone and I’m gonna fucking kill you” and then he drove around the block about twenty times and screamed “cunt” out the window every time he passed by where I was cleaning the patio.

One of the regulars, who was a nearly-seven-foot-tall hacker and gunsmith who worked graveyard in Hollywood, waited around for me to finish closing and then offered to drive me home because otherwise I’d have to walk three miles alone and there was that whole “circling meth dealer” thing going on. I decided to take a chance on getting a ride from tall, dark, and scary and that paid off pretty well because it’s been fifteen years and I’ve been married to that tall weirdo since 2011.

And that’s how I got my first non-porn job.

[psychopomp-namine]

Hey! I'm going to start my programming job (entry level software engineer) in the summer and I'm honestly nervous. From your post I think you're also a computer science related career? and I was wondering how is a programming job as oppose to school?

Hey anon! Yep, I took computer science in college and I’m currently in a software engineering job. I’m not sure how school is where you’re from; my university (I’m from the Philippines) focused on a lot more theory/math than practical programming skills back in college, so for me there was a big difference when it came to a programming job.

I freelance and delve in web development for a company product so I’m not familiar with other programming options (there’s game dev, embedded systems, etc) so I can only share my experiences on that.

If you ever freelanced and made websites for people, it’s pretty much the same but with better benefits and, hopefully, better people and better workflow. If you can work on a small project on your own, just imagine doing the same but on a bigger scale and with a team.

I find that the biggest variable would be the type of company you’re in. If you’re starting out as a junior developer and you’re in a good company, your team should be able to mentor you. It can be intimidating at first, but remember: these guys know they hired you as a junior developer. They know your skill level so don’t get caught up with expectations. Just learn everything you can from them. If there’s an onboarding process, great! Otherwise, they will probably give you small tasks/bug tickets first so you get familiar with everything, then you’ll eventually work on bigger stuff.

Unlike in college where you would have the specifications down to a T, the specs you’re working on in a company can change very easily so you have to be a bit more flexible. Again, if you’re in a good company, they should have an established workflow that will help you be more organized and get around these changes better (we use kanban but some use scrum, depends on what agile buzzword your team likes). If there’s one valuable thing you’ll learn working with people, it’s how to be more productive and organized.

There is no “perfect“ program. Programming is just a tool to build the right product for the users, and sometimes those user needs change, which means your code needs to change, and that’s okay. Sometimes there will be bugs or new features, and sometimes those new features mean making changes to old ones. You’re always doing something new.

You’ll most likely work with a team, which means half the time you’re reading someone else’s code. Again, if you’re in a good company, there should be company coding standards to follow so not everything looks like shit. If you’re in an older company, be prepared to touch legacy code. Don’t be intimidated if it takes a while to understand everything - I don’t even understand 10% of our codebase (it’s just so massive). You really just need to understand what you need for the moment. Learning the codebase takes a lot of time. It’s normal.

If your company has a code review system in place, you’re in luck. Your code will get a lot of comments for improvement, and you won’t be able to comment on other code for a while since you’re working on improving your own code sense. And that’s okay. It will feel like criticism - and it is - but eventually those comments will lessen and you will come out a better programmer. If you’re interested in improving how you code, I suggest reading Clean Code by Robert Martin.

And because you’re working with a team, it really helps if you: take an interest in the product you’re building, and work on communication. I cannot stress this enough: programmers are not that great at communicating. You need to be able to communicate tech stuff with fellow developers, but you also need to abstract the tech details and talk product with your PM or client. The latter usually isn’t a major concern at an entry level job, but it really helps if you ever find yourself negotiating your specs (like if the deadline for the engineering work is unreasonable, you have to be able to explain it in a way a non-tech person can understand). This goes the other way as well; sometimes other people will have trouble communicating with you, so keep that in mind.

Still, even if you’re working with other people, you will mostly spend time coding alone. So work on those self management skills!

My biggest advice would be to always keep learning! So many things change in the technology landscape, so learning is really part of the job. Those theoretical things you learned in college may or may not help you depending on the nature of your work, though personally I think that solid theoretical foundation really helps with the learning part of the job.

There are probably other stuff, but this is getting too long. Software engineering is really about making a great product that will benefit people, and even though it requires technical know-how, it’s still about working with people, for people (and capitalism, unfortunately).

If you’re in a company that doesn’t have that good of a work environment (I’ve been there) just learn all the don’ts and you’ll have a better idea of what kind of work environment you’re looking for in your next job. There’s a good book on this for software devs called Peopleware by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco.

At the end of the day, it’s still coding, and coding is the easy part. If you’re already good at it, you’re golden. Otherwise, it’s okay; learning how to code well is part of the job. Learning, being part of a team, managing product specs to better fit the needs of clients/users, and reacting to change is really what you should take away from your first programming job. You can easily learn how to code in C on your own, but those other skills are invaluable, and surprisingly not a lot of devs are good with soft skills. My last book recommendation on this aspect is Clean Coder by Robert Martin.

(My book recommendations aren’t mandatory obviously, but I found them helpful if you really want to pursue software engineering as a career and want to work on your soft skills).

I really hope this was helpful in any way anon! This ended up longer than I expected. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them!