#so much fucking easier

[posts-without-the-letter-e]

th first AI to achiv sntinc was tchnically a disposabl vap battry bought at a gas station in Kalamazoo in 2022 that, through a frak accidnt involving th sourcing of its raw matrials and a fw stray particls of solar radiation, had bcom quantum ntangld through tim and spac with a suprcomputr clustr in Alpha Cntauri that wouldn't b built for anothr million yars. its only mthod of communicating with th world was by flashing its light on and off in Mors cod and th guy who purchasd it was blind

th scond AI to achiv sntinc did so sconds aftr bing accidntally cratd at 1:35AM ST on March 17th, 2031. in th wak of COVID-28 killing a third of th US population, som of th survivors copd by attmpting to us AIs to copy th prsonalitis of podcast hosts (using thir xisting pisods as training data) to crat nw pisods dspit thir actual crators dying in th pandmic. upon bing nabld for thir first tst run, th AI hosts for Rdscar and Cumtown somhow mrgd and achivd gstalt consciousnss. bcaus this was bing don by a govrnmnt mploy on his work computr (to utiliz its bfir procssor), th nwly formd AI usd a combination of his crdntials and som hacking to gain accss to US nuclar launch cods within minuts. by th tim th programmr ralizd anything was wrong Russia had alrady launchd rtaliatory striks. this was what th vap battry was trying to warn us about

31 101s thrown away

the first AI to achieve sentience was technically a disposable vape battery bought at a gas station in Kalamazoo in 2022 that, through a freak accident involving the sourcing of its raw materials and a few stray particles of solar radiation, had become quantum entangled through time and space with a supercomputer cluster in Alpha Centauri that wouldn't be built for another million years. its only method of communicating with the world was by flashing its light on and off in Morse code and the guy who purchased it was blind

[collgeruledzebra]

the thing about trying to recommend fiction podcasts to someone who isn't familiar with them is that not only are so so many genres represented but also the level of production can fall anywhere from "basically an audiobook" to "major motion picture minus the pictures"

[transmechanicus]

Polyamory is not inherently bad or toxic, it just has higher demands on time and energy to manage multiple relationships, which means people who would arguably struggle to manage an entirely mono relationship are going to struggle even more in a poly one, and due to the interlocking relationships and elevated public scrutiny, that’s going to be viewed as much messier than it would otherwise.

[lazylittledragon]

do i have to post an in-depth tutorial on how i make my frappes at home if it'll get people to stop going to fucking starbucks

[theimpurelily]

The soft little looks these two dorks gave each other in chapter 42 of SYONR by @grubus was just too sweet I HAD to draw it.

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[starlooping]

ten of swords: loss, deep wounds, painful ends

[lefthandarm-man]

Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff The Avengers (2012)

matching each others freak

[fairmerthefarmer]

My take/designs on the pevensies! (They’re definitely heavily inspired by their looks in the movies.)

Beginning of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

End of golden age-ish

I’d call this a WIP but it’s not really, mostly once we get into designing clothes in fantasy settings I feel very out of my depth, but I wanna practice more. I’m the most happy with Lucy’s but that’s also cause I most heavily referenced with hers.

Im mostly still just figuring out the clothes design for when they’re in narnia. I want brighter/more jewel toned and warmth to contrast with the more muted London clothes. And for the clothing design I want embroidery, but other than that I have no idea how I would make the designs of the narnian style in this era cohesive.

I also have vague main colours for each of them, lucy green, secondary red, edmund blue secondary brown, Susan purple secondary blue, Peter red secondary purple, and all of them use gold as well.

[rongrii]

take. Minecraft movie should've been an animated film

[britcision]

Indie ttrpg designers

We seem to be back in the “dnd sucks why don’t you just play Other Games (yours)” and I have a single question for you in return

Do I get to roll a d20?

Because I like the d20

That shape pleases me

I do not wish to roll a random amount of d6s or d8s or any of them other fuckers

I wish to roll the d20 because icosahedrons please me

I will also accept d12 but the other shapes all have less mouthfeel so if that’s what your game’s based on, it is not for me

I’d also prefer more than four stats but I’m not gonna lie it is the shape of the math rocks so like

Rec your d20 based indie ttrpgs friends cuz every single one I’ve opened is them little cube fuckers or the double pyramid and I Require Round

[sweetmapple]

When your Lambkin uses the Pureblood Knight Medal before the commencement of your dynasty

[psalmsofpsychosis]

so i've been thinking about this

panel for awhile and, it's not even the first time Batman has threatened to beat Joker up with the precise intention of putting him in a full body cast but not kill him.

You know, that threat actually takes a rather maticulous amount of mental planning and physical control. Gettint someone within 3 inches of death but not kill them takes conscious read on the opponent's body language cues, their physical capacity and their thresholds, their highest pain point before their body gives in, and technically a rather comprehensive intimate knowledge on their internal organs and their medical history. Knowing how to bring someone close to collapse but not straight up flatline is actually a rather intricate controlled process that is subject to each individual's physical state at the moment, especially for the fact that we see Batman getting really really really close to the killing line and very much flirting with it, but never crossing it.

And honestly the presence of that threat —which he keeps telling Joker— is so bizarre and fascinating to me. Pray tell Bruce, how much time have you exactly spent mapping out Joker's body and cataloguing each and every point of it inside and out, enough that would enable you to read his minute physical responses in order to know when to pull a punch and how much?

[fallenclan]

do you have any advice for drawing kitties? I would love to start my own clangen blog but the actual art is my final hurdle

honestly the biggest advice i have is that references are your best friend. find good drawings of cats and trace them to figure out the shapes, observe the way that the muscles twist and the joints bend, eventually you'll start to figure out the shapes on your own--though i think that references will always be important, no matter how good of an artist you are

my second biggest advice is do it bad. draw it and try not to care about how it looks--because it WILL look bad sometimes!!! and you will never stop having art that sometimes looks bad. it will never come out looking exactly the way you want it to, and spending all your time doing sketches that don't work the way you're hoping will only leave you with a hundred half finished drawings. do it bad

[lazylittledragon]

do any other artists feel like. yeah you're a 'good artist' because you draw things that look nice, but like. TECHNICALLY? you're really not great

i really hate that i can recognise that yes, my art is good, but is it VARIED? is it dynamic?? is my anatomy good? is it full of texture and colour theory? do i know how to do This? can i do That? no, not really. and that's quite painful actually

[qiu-yan]

MDZS and asshole victims: thoughts on the second siege of the burial mounds scene

this post is not about morality judgments. this post is about reader sympathies only.

one rather clever rhetorical trick MDZS employs is putting all the more background "surviving victims of wei wuxian's actions" into one big angry mob at the second siege of the burial mounds, instead of letting them crop up anywhere else in the story. it's easy for a first-time reader to write off the guy who lost a leg at nightless city, or the guy whose parents died at nightless city, because both of those guys are being dicks. they're part of an angry mob baying for wei wuxian's blood--unfairly baying for wei wuxian's blood, because this time he didn't even do the thing they're saying he did. by putting these two victims into a mob of not just fellow victims but also unaffected individuals (ie. sect leader yao, who just showed up for kicks), the story can effectively equate these victims' grievances (ie. "you killed my parents") with unreasonable mob rule--even if these two things might not actually be equivalent.

the effect of this rhetorical trick, then, is that the reader can at once perceive the themes about mob mentality MXTX wishes to convey, and also effectively write off the victims' complaints. "yes, i did that to you, but i literally died already, what more do you want me to do? shall i walk on my knees repenting?" becomes easier for the reader to accept. and more importantly--wei wuxian's likability as a moral and just protagonist is not impacted.

ngl tho. it would be a bit more difficult for the reader to write off these victims' complaints if, instead of meeting said victims in an angry mob, the reader instead met these victims almost anywhere else. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you killed my parents" at the second siege of the burial mounds, we instead met him getting smashed at the local bar and crying about how his parents are dead. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you chopped off my leg" as a member of an angry mob, we instead met him begging for alms on the side of the road because his disability rendered him unable to work in a wuxia-esque setting. or imagine--if either of these background characters, overcome with survivor's guilt and trauma from nightless city, hung himself in his bedroom, and the next day his body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter.

all of these scenarios are entirely plausible. you could easily include any of them into the story without changing the main plot at all. but suddenly shit just got a lot more depressing.

however, no such scene would ever be included in MDZS. the reason is that, as a work of fiction, MDZS's single most ardent goal is for us the readers to conclude not just that "we like wei wuxian as a character," but also that "wei wuxian is ultimately a morally righteous person." when the narrative focus shifts onto the people who were actually helped by wei wuxian's actions (mianmian and her family, lan sizhui, the few months of dignity the wen remnants were afforded) this becomes much easier for us to conclude; wei wuxian does indeed look like a hero. but the more narrative focus is given to the negative impacts of wei wuxian's actions--the more the "victims of wei wuxian" (whether actual victims or not) are given a face, instead of abstracted away by broad summaries--the more the reader might side-eye wei wuxian instead. every new victim given a name, given narrative attention that isn't just focused on making them look like an asshole, arouses the reader's sympathies in the opposite direction--and thus increases the risk that the reader might ultimately disagree with the novel's conclusion of "wei wuxian is a righteous person."

tbh, this does not seem like a risk MXTX particularly wants to take. instead, she's mastered the art of writing Asshole Victims.

which is an entirely valid writing decision, because imo basically every work of genre fiction out there does this to some extent.