#source: me and a simpsons reference

[profoundbondfanfic]

Corner House of Horror

Corner House of Horror by FriendofCarlotta || @friendofcarlotta Rating: Teen and Up Word Count: 6.4k

Dean is doing fine. Sure, the safety record at his place of employment, the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, is pretty bad. Also, he’s starting to suspect his baby daughter is a homicidal maniac. But at least he’s got an amazing, sexy husband, a smart-as-a-whip kid brother and an older daughter whose pranks are pretty damn good. (That time she turned Cas’ hair blue while he slept was hilarious.) But then people start hearing strange noises inside the corner house on Evergreen Terrace. Soon, it falls to Dean and his family to reveal a dastardly plot by evil power plant owner Dick Roman.

The crossover you didn't know you wanted, and yet the crossover you needed. The Simpsons and Supernatural somehow mesh in the best, funniest way.

Dean is a competent Homer Simpson, stuck navigating the poorly run, Dick Roman-owned power plant. Cas is the Marge to his Homer, in the funniest yet most loveable way. They have fun parent/domestic vibes that embiggen us all.

There are plenty of references to both source materials (though it's definitely delightful even if you are unfamiliar with the Simpsons). There are so many clever, fun, playful moments that had me giggling throughout.

This one is definitely going to be a comfort fic.

[fanbun]

This quote from Variety's new Dan Harmon interview is concerning to me as a Rick and Morty fan… but it also explains a lot of the problems I have with the show’s writing...

“I think a reset is a good way of looking at it. We had so much behind the scenes drama that I think we didn't need a lot of irony and challenge on the screen narratively. I think the experiment became, can we accomplish the show moving forward? Can the fans not lose their favorite show, not be distracted by any of the turbulence? There was also another important reason to reset, which is we're anticipating doing a lot more of these. This was always designed to be a show that could last thousands of episodes. And you can't last thousands of episodes if you're simply going to tell a serialized story about how your protagonist stops being the protagonist. I've always been obsessively focused on maintaining modularity, so that the more popular your show gets, the more accessible it is to a hopefully increasing freeway of traffic.” (source)

I really don’t like this business-minded approach that sacrifices story in exchange for an endless stream of content.

You could argue the show was always supposed to last forever, but the problem is that the writers set up major overarching storylines and focused their attention on Rick’s development as a character. Things in the show are changing and therefore a reset comes across as a forced decision to keep the show from coming to an end.

It seemed like in season 6 the younger writers in the room were allowed to experiment with larger narratives, but from this quote I think it’s clear that Harmon’s stubbornness really prevents Rick and Morty from evolving naturally and reaching its full potential.

What I find most concerning though is that he admits that they are playing it safe with the narrative because of all their behind the scenes drama. That sounds like the final nail in the coffin to me. Why expect anything truly interesting to come out of these characters when the goal is to be unchanging and marketable? Why hope for writing that is reflective of real life when the people working on it are trying to hide the chaos that spawned it?

Unlike Solar Opposites, the Rick and Morty showrunners said they wouldn’t even be referencing the behind the scenes drama for jokes. And it’s not like Rick and Morty hasn’t done those sort of meta references before either. They did it in season 3, a time where the writing felt like it had way more effort put into it.

So not only is the writing itself disjointed and detached from reality but the jokes also tend to feel forced and generic when there are topics that are off-limits to them. And yeah, this kind of downfall is par for the course when a cartoon has been running for a long time. But Rick and Morty didn’t need to become that kind of cartoon. It didn’t need to be a Simpsons or a SpongeBob.

Honestly this is why I vastly prefer what I have read fans come up with for the show. The creatively engaged fans like to dig deep and talk seriously about character development, make theories about the show's world-building, and create art from a place of emotion. There's something really engaging there that the show occasionally touches on, but whatever hopes we have as those type of fans are sure to be dashed. At the end of the day, the showrunners would rather make some casual viewers chuckle with a half-assed pun or movie reference than risk the death of their cash cow.

[forthosebefore]

Photograph of the regular monthly hands on the George Ranch. Five cowboys on horseback - four of them African-American cowboys - watch over a calf nestled in the grass in front of them. The rest of the herd of cattle can be seen in the background. The top of a windmill is visible near the center background. Bottom of photograph in border printed in black: "The Harper Leiper Company Photographers". Back of photograph written in black identifies cowboys: "Left to right Johnny Hudgins, Henry Klazer, Buster Jackson (Joe B. Forman), Frank Simpson - cook, Joe Bingum, Regular monthly hands". Also on back stamped in blue: "KE - 1293 The Harper Leiper Company Photographers (Photographers stamp) 1009 Isabella at Main Houston, Texas Refer to Neg. No 5734 [circled and written in blue ink] 3" Source: University of North Texas Libraries [Photograph of five cowboys on horseback - four of them African-American], photograph, [1940..1955]; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth7805/: accessed February 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting George Ranch Historical Park.

“Most cowboys in Fort Bend County were African American from the late 1800’s into the mid 1900’s. Buster was said to be the finest horseman anyone had ever seen.” Source: Rosenberg Today

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[just-antithings]

I saw people talking about True Crime, and... Okay, obviously whoever is relaying True Crime facts to others should be respectful of the victims and their families. That's a bare minimum, and I can understand outrage against those without respect. I share the sentiment.

But just reporting on True Crime at all? Should not be considered a morbid, freak, white woman (you gotta put "white" so it's not sexist) thing. Anything reported in these podcasts or other mediums are the same facts reported to the public at the time of the crime. It's no different than an average Joe reading about the case in a newspaper as it happened. And we don't condemn that. In the same way everyone followed the OJ Simpson case (for example) as it unfolded. Yes, respect and sympathy should be given to the victim and her family, but it was human nature at the time to be informed of the case and curious about the facts. Should I remain completely ignorant of a great cultural phenomenon simply because I was a young child when it happened? I'm never allowed to learn about it after the fact? Any references must forever go over my head because someone decided I'm not allowed to learn?

And I use OJ as an example, but that's how all True Crime feels to me. Dahmer, Black Dahlia, Ed Gein, Burke and Hare, etc. I am learning facts just like everyone else obsessively did, only decades (or centuries) after they occurred. If someone profits (through money or clout) for organizing the facts for people in modern True Crime, how is that any different than a news source selling papers (or ad space on television) when it was first reported?

I dunno. To me, this feels like just another unnecessary crusade for some people because they personally don't like it and those that primarily do (women) are an easy target. Much like a lot of virtue signaling outrage, it feels like a war on information more than anything. Be ignorant and you will be pure.

.

[thepowerisyouth]

Eh mental health is annoying. Buying & cooking cheap low-FODMAP diet is annoying. My best top note for now is I'm using this blog to practice writing. I need more practice in it. I only know business, accounting & economics stuff. Its stupid stuff. Theres too much actual fraud everywhere that its annoying

Also I use mobile so formatting sucks cause Nvidia GPUs, or Arch dont like tumblr site. Or tumblr site dont like tumbkr site

Also also I 100,000% support all my fellow ones-and-zeros and their identity. Everyone is welcome here.

Except transphobes/zionist/long list of others but you get it. I'll help harrass any of those types endlessly if someone wants to tag me, and bring me in on an argument like that friend you call for backup with fights

Im unhinged so who's to say exactly what will end up here but this is also a completely public blog to me friends, family, hell, even acquaintances i dont give a fuc.

Blog should be expected to be roughly as child-friendly as simpsons or bobs burgers. But also boring like a civics/economics lesson sometimes. Yay

--------

I (and my husband) am ex mormon. Its a weird thing. Look into it if you havent recently. Realllllyyyy look into. Takes time to figure it all out in this fuckin fucked up world.

I just moved a year ago. Didnt watch the US stock market as much as I normally do. Had my first snowstorm 10 weeks ago, that was.. fun to handle while ill prepared. About 6 weeks ago I was hopping back on the market and notice its a huge tech bubble about to pop and all the conditions Ive been warned about my whole career imply this is not good. Just took a little more thinking & digging and I'm a little too confident to stop talking about it now.

(Oh I'm also care-free as fuc so I dont really read or desire to change past posts more than lil-nitpicks. More informative for the reader & myself-in-the-future-reading that way)

And I'm not kidding I do love feedback & questions. Its a very public blog tho so I get that part for sure.

If you search "life story" in my tags I had that pinned for a min Im just moving shit around rn

Being poor sucks. Will write more on that later.

---------------

First of all-- the exact timeline of an "economic shock" is literal insanity. Dont worry about the exact timing of any of this-- just know its doomed to happen soon.

Here are some effects I predict of this upcoming economic downturn

If anyone comes across any sources for these events that support my arguments please feel free to add in comments, reblogs, etc.

This concise list is mainly for my own reference, but it would be great to add to it if any one has something to add!

0.5. US Stock market collapse-- I have no desire to try and predict this one exactly. Too many conspiracies are actually correct about this big guy. Lets just say 7 US Tech stocks are worth 25% of the entire worlds market, roughly. "Too big to fail"-- I believe is the phrase

1. Corporate (slightly later will be residential by extension) real estate crisis: currently way too overvalued. Most of the houses, land, & urban corporate property we see could stand to decrease by about 60-90% from its current price.

2. Bankruptcy crisis: similar to the after-effects of the 70s inflation-- we can expect to see a huge wave of bankruptcies affecting a variety of business: from the micro-self employed; to the small business with leased buildings; to the largest corporations who commit massive accounting fraud & hope to escape accountability in time

3. Bank runs-- there is an extremely high overreliance on the Federal Reserve, who does not have good control over this situation. Once it becomes clear that there is a crisis (we call this a catalyst event)-- bank runs for physical cash are a surety. Hard to say how long a crisis like this might last. I should ask my siblings who lived near the SVB bank crisis hotspot (but those were rich fucks they do their "bank runs" over the phone)

3.5. Global currency collapse, which takes effect in every single local, state, & national economy at slightly different times. This means prices lower. Much lower. But takes time

4. Whatever the fuck the geopolitics is gonna do???. Its weird. You got Russia wanting to invade Europe? (Look at global economic forum 2024) Trump wants to let them. Biden wants to be an establishment corporate ass. North Korea has changed its #1 public enemy to South Korea (dont remember my source but it was a couple months ago). USA is stationing more troops in Taiwan, but probably only because of semiconductor technology?

The scope of our global financial woes are larger than can be explained in any of our lifetimes. Its much, much closer to pre-revolution France or the late 1920s. Big change is coming. Itll be soon

5. More to come

[deadbeandrop]

is lumpus a city boy

y'know i really love asking in that way (there's something cute yet almost mocking about the phrase) but you get me, see, i already have a list of this stuff i've been trying to figure out for everyone

for the record, at the same time i've also been trying to nail down the other factors that come with a family situation there, like, work statuses of the household, wealth, what time frame i'm working from (it's such a nightmare trying to get a job and own a house in comparison rn...) so i'll talk about that a bit too... and there is also the ever present "do you guys know how fucking Expensive it actually is to stay at a summer camp this long???" thing that unfortunately my very specific brain has me thinking about even though it doesn't matter in Cartoon Land and i simply have a Prablem

(i'm also still learning about some of these terms i use because i have no life experience but i hope this still paints a picture here even if it might not be fully correct...?)

so for lumpus specifically we're looking at

- two parents who aren't particularly young when he's born (my friends not too much older than me talk about their 50+ parents and i'm like What???)

- a span of years where it's still easier to make enough money to own a house and be alright on one good source of income (his father works but i'm not sure what his job is yet... maybe he should go work at the nuclear power plant all homer simpson-style and die ☺️ idk)

- a flashback that i'm working off of where things look pretty average over there (i do still have the idea that the house is a hand-me-down from one of their parents on the table though... in general my brain still tilts to working class in a different era but this is subject to change a bit)

- me having already placed a general area in the state that i've been playing in (i've been eyeing sort of the southwest here but i do need to think about it more and the distance from camp further north)

- at least enough money to be sent to camp for the summer (even if he has to scrounge it up over the year, but i've also been thinking of camp kidney already being a bit different/weird on this front)

- and a character where camp being something of an "escape" for him is actually pretty important

so i don't think he's a country boy, but i also definitely haven't been imagining things directly in the city, so i placed him in the middle zone, which means they're either somewhere in suburbs or a little bit outside of that... not overwhelmingly urban but still not too far. i'm only learning today what i might be thinking is usually called the exurbs, maybe...? i don't have a strong sense of reference for a lot of things so a lot of my thinking is based in places where i've lived... and he very likely may not have a super accessible woods to go and frolic in but maybe the issue is just that he has no one to do it with cus he's an only child with no friends growing up LOL

the Main part of the Escape aspect is still on other factors, i.e. he's lonely at home, his parents fight a lot and his dad's an alcoholic and he has a very complicated relationship with them (you know how it goes), he's not the best in school and gets picked on and in trouble a lot there as well, etc.

and i think it's almost helpful to describe everything in contrast to slinkman's family, which in comparison is a bit easier to pin down. his family is more on the side of upper middle class (?) and they have a good sized house with passive income (father's a landlord) to be comfortable with and are actively involved in their community. they do live in the suburbs just because a mix of the of the type of people they are (his father's a city boy but his mother's on the country end) and cus they do have the privilege to do so. they're able to pay for slinkman to go to college/uni and for lumpus to fuck around over there but for slinkman to still feel like he's leeching off of their support too much... and it's almost that feeling to me when i visit an older relative who's got an actual House, and it's a decent size, its always clean, and there's a spare bedroom or two, and they're always busy or off doing something, and it still feels like they have the money to spare on whatever even if they don't really... to me that's still almost the feeling lumpus gets when he stays with slinkman and his parents for a while LOL

so the difference between their situations at least in translation to today is something like this to me:

To me middle class is staying afloat - you make enough money, can save up for a minor goal like a vacation or even a medium goal like a car down payment but you’d probably finance the car rather than purchase it in cash. A minor emergency or car issue won’t break you but it’ll delay other priorities (like vacation would get delayed by a year)

Upper middle class is making enough to support your day to day life and having a decent amount of excess income to where you can save quite a bit while taking a family vacation a couple of times a year (maybe overseas for a couple of weeks a year). You may be working towards saving for a rental property and investing in a 401k, IRA, and maybe even taxable brokerage account. Rainy day fund is fully funded so you won’t have an issue with regular maintenance on your car or needing braces for the kids.

lumpus' family still struggles at times, is probably in debt in some areas, they don't always have the money for what they want and something like camp becomes an exception (there is definitely still the threat of lumpus worrying he won't be able to go to camp if too much comes up...) and slinkman's family is over here with assets and money to spare even if they can't go crazy... but everything also sort of feeds into slinkman's "it's easier to just follow someone else's lead" thing too, like, his dad is like ''son why don't you go to college for (XYZ)'' and slinkman's like ''ok'' because he literally had his only sense of self aspiration crushed barely a couple of years ago and he has no idea what to do with himself and they'll have the money to do so and so he just sort of goes along with it

anyway. yeah. i have a lot of shit locked and loaded at any given time thank you for the quastion 😁

[doom-nerdo-666]

Something people heard is "all wads are canon" and i wonder if this line from the 2016 Slayer's testaments is why:

(Source is this video by howaboutbecause686, i just wanted some quick reference)

It's something that is either rarely sourced or just carried over from someone's interpretation of a lore bit that could mean something else.

Because the idea of Doom wads being canon reminded me of some points:

The new lore/direction is more likely to be made with new fans in mind

2016 technically being a reboot with its own direction/stuff seems clear, specially since the original games still have a long lasting modding scene.

Even if the Doomslayer as a concept does have some interesting fanservice-y origin and there's some easter eggs, these games also attracted a lot of new fans.

One can also say that a "more faithfull/closer to classic" Doom universe already exists in some mods, which leads me to the second point:

How people view Doom mods/wads to begin with

To some, Doom modding is like a main pillar of the community, from not just the quality stuff but also with how important and beneficial it is to the series.

But then there's always some sort of "line" that divides those "deeper into the rabbit hole/iceberg/whatever" and those that approach things in a more basic way.

As in, Brutal Doom, HDoom, MyHouse and typical meme/pop culture based wads.

It's why some people think "all wads are canon" think of goofy stuff like Homer Simpsons and anime girls, since goofy wads are more likely to be thought out than the "genuine" stuff like well made maps, creative gameplay mods or assets that could "expand the original setting".

Or even stuff like original characters and fanservice based mods.

One can see this as "you just want me to worship/idolize some random guy, don't you" or as an attempt to make the community revolve around a specific group.

And i can see why, as someone who thinks the Cacowards aren't enough to showcase the best works in the community.

Because you want the community to look diverse and huge, which is part of why people didn't like BD being too popular: It casted a shadow on the other stuff that shows how far Doom modding went and still goes.

Another thing is id themselves, since we do have stuff like the Unity addons and some other collaborations.

How wads can (If ever) affect the series

Remember when people thought Brutal Doom inspired D2016?

I still occasionally wonder if the Baron's design in Eternal was inspired by the fire Baron idea that is present in some mods/wads.

(Even made a post about concepts for demons that exist in both mods and the series)

Because one can probably wonder if "all wads are canon" can lead to "id can do what they want with fan projects".

Because one thing is referencing memes or inside jokes or even how the Doomslayer can be traced to the "rip and tear" comic and maybe Death Battle or some copypastas.

But another is a concept from a fanmade playable work made for the original Doom games being used somewhat in an official Doom title.

It'd be like "canonizing someone's interactive fanfiction" but also have some negative side effects/meanings in regards to creativity, ethics, how it can affect a fanbase etc.

It's also worth noting that "canon" in media is usually more relevant if it's from something that is published and owned by the company.

It's an issue with "lore" that only exists in interviews or streams but also means that Final Doom is "more canon" than Romero's Sigil because id technically owns one but not the other.

At the same time, one can see Doom having a lot of "HIRE THIS MAN" projects, so if id were to collaborate with some people to make something cool (And be fair with fans over it), it could be cool.

After all, D64's official new port can be traced to its fan port history and there's the contribution of a dev who worked on D64 EX.

[simplydnp]

okay there were lots of references/quotes/allusions dan made in the new dapg video, but one struck me and it took me two days to figure out what it was from. but upon looking it up, there may be 2 sources

[shpadoinkle-day]

Annoying Trey Parker

If you don't know who Trey Parker is, might I suggest that that huge, dark object over your head is a rock you've been under for three years and you should come out from under it? I've been a fan of Trey Parker and Matt Stone since seeing Alferd Packer: The Musical about four years ago. I missed out on South Park at first, but when I finally did start watching it, I had no idea it was also by Trey and Matt. It did make a lot of sense when someone finally told me...anywho, how did I get ahold of Trey Parker to ask him these questions? Well, back when I first started the old website, I had a bunch of South Park stuff up, and one of the things was a series of questions I'd ask Matt and Trey...but not really. They were mostly stupid things that were just jokes. Well, somehow, Trey found the site and answered all the questions. This is why he got out of my standard Bad Taste and Simpsons questions. Yes, I feel stupid, but since I am so good at looking like an ass, anyway, what's a little help from one of the world's best satirists?

Me: In the song ''Blame Canada,'' Terrance and Phillip are referred to as cartoons, yet they interact with the people of South Park. Does this mean that the people are all cartoons and aware of that fact, or was ''cartoon'' just a better word in the song than ''movie?''

Trey: Shiela said they are actors, but Cartman said they were animated, but the movie IS a cartoon, dude.

M: In the South Park movie, was Big Gay Al cast in an anti-Canadian role as a testimony to the fact that ANYONE can succumb to biases, or was it just a cheap way to bring back a popular character?

T: It's just funny that they like him because it's a gay guy at a USO Show, gay and army usually don't mix.

M: Since it hurts to do Cartman's voice, do you find yourself sometimes conciously reducing his part or writing him out all together?

T: No, Cartman is the one who says the politically incorrect stuff that nobody else has the balls to say.

M: Does it bother you that people are always curious if you're gay even though it has absolutely NO baring whatsoever on your work and is a completely meaningless, stupid thing to wonder?

T: They do?

M: So...are you gay?

T: No, you seem like a big fan, ever heard of Lianne or Toddy?

(Lianne is the horse in Alferd Packer, but I don't know who Toddy is...)

M: How come the South Park home videos are still censored?

T: The people at Rhino are dicks sometimes.

M: Was the re-use of the stage name ''Juan Schwartz'' on the Mr. Hankey CD a signal to long time fans that there will be a Cannibal 2, or was it just a way to try and hide the fact that you two do all the voices?

T: We have long time fans?

M: Why the fuck was Orgazmo NC-17? Was it the dog humping scene? Was that scene fun to shoot? If you had to shoot that scene again, would you pick a different breed?

T: There is an unrated version out there somewhere too.

M: Was South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut always going to be an attack on the biased, idiotic MPAA, or did that just evovle because they really suck?

T: Both, just another group we hadn't offended enough yet

M: Tell me, if a group is an ''advisory'' board for parents, giving out ''suggestions,'' how is it that NO ONE under 17 was allowed into South Park without an adult, when surely a suggestion implies that parents should not allow their children to see it, not that the theatres should become some sort of police state just to keep underagers from YOUR film?

T: Ask the wangs who sell the tickets.

M: Whenever Hitler appears, he is always speaking gibberish. Is this a statement that people will follow along with anything if it's said well, or merely an indication of your lack of German skills?

T: That is all Matt's fault!!

M: How annoying is it when fans spot ''goofs'' that are actually jokes and make a big deal about how you fucked up? Like if someone said that Mr. Garrison's history lessons are very inaccurate or something.

T: Some people are complete retards.

M: DVDA should release an EP or something. You've already got at least 3 songs down.

T: In our spare time, right?

M: I hope you didn't try to answer that last one, as it wasn't a question.

T: I hate you now.

M: Nor was that.

T: I want to hit you.

M: If you two could be any type of fish, would you prefer Scooby Doo or erasable pens?

T: I want to bitchslap you and shoot frozen paintballs at you.

[sickkie]

"I'm a very private person, much like my ex-boyfriend. But this past week, for the first time, I have felt compelled to share a few things. Leo and I dated for four years. I met him casually through friends when I was 19 years old and we started dating when we were both 21.

It was a different time back then. We could go places and not be followed by the paparazzi. It was 1995 and he was making a movie called Marvin's Room. I remember vividly while visiting him on the set, watching the O.J. Simpson verdict while in Meryl Streep's trailer. It was a surreal moment for a Michigan country bumpkin like myself.

We were kids. My friends knew his friends and Hollywood back then was like a big high school. It was, dare I say, an innocent time. We were nerds. Good looking nerds with glamorous jobs, but still nerds. We went to amusement parks, concerts, museums and the movies. I was with him when he made Romeo & Juliet, Titanic, and The Beach.

I visited Leo for long periods of time on various sets in different countries. I loved his friends and he loved mine. We were like one big happy family. Leo was a very sweet and thoughtful boyfriend. We also had some hard times like all couples do, and broke up for a bit in 1997 and then got back together. Then, about 4 months after my 25th birthday (ha, I know what you're thinking) it was over for good.

It was a choice I made. I don't how to explain it exactly, I just felt like I was ready for our relationship to be done. It was like I had outgrown that version of myself, the Hollywood high school girl. I wanted to figure out who I was and what I wanted.

Now over 20 years later when I read the headlines and online comments with his most recent ex girlfriend being referred to as having "aged out" or being "too old for Leo at 25," puh-lease (insert dramatic eye roll). I think we can and should do better. What kind of message is this sending to young people?

Back when I was a young model, we were told that our careers would be over at 21. I'm happy to see things are slowly changing for people in that industry now but in the '90s that wasn't the case. Looking back, at 21 or 25 I had no clue who I was or what I wanted. I ended up modeling, and did some acting and a few commercials. But it wasn't until about 30 that I found my true passion, dog nutrition of all things, and I started my own company when I was 33.

I met the love of my life when I was 38 and got married when I was 40. So you youngins out there, listen up. Life gets so much better after 25. Yes, you get more wrinkles but you also get more confidence and more love for yourself.

As far as Leo and his latest breakup, who knows what happened. Maybe she really cared for him but was just ready for the next chapter, perhaps it's temporary, or maybe it's none of our business but can we stop with the ageist headlines and comments? But let's keep the funny memes coming, they're stellar. Truly.

As for me, I'm 48 years old now, (ancient indeed). I live in the countryside of Oregon with my hot husband, Shea, who's a builder and also happens to be younger than me (joke's on you, Leo ), my really cute rescue mutt, Harley Dee, and I own a locally-sourced dog food company www.emmalouskitchen.com. Turns out, I was barely scratching the surface of life at 25."

x

[naamahdarling]

So, the other night in an effort to show a friend that LLMs can produce very credible fiction and relatively inventive ideas, I played with ChatGPT for about 10 minutes I was able to make my point flawlessly. Don't get up my ass about this, that's juvenile.

ChatGPT has watched enough Dropout to be able to reasonably (and genuinely amusingly) impersonate Brennan Lee Mulligan and, to a lesser extent, Sam Reich. It's successfully produced a script for Game Changer where the show was entirely about cats and Brennan couldn't win, and parts of it were actually funny. It also produced an AITA post from the point of view of Brennan Lee Mulligan AS DM OF DIMENSION 20 that was in places absolutely hilarious.

It is able to very successfully postulate a set of G1 my little ponies that do not actually exist, complete with colors, cutie marks, and back card stories. It had a little trouble with G1 versus G4 due to the sheer glut of content, but its ideas were genuinely appealing because the source material it was drawing on was designed to be appealing.

It generated a list of birthday party themes that would terrify an arachnophobe, two or three of which were really good. A request for it to generate a list of queer pride birthday ideas didn't produce anything particularly original, but it was all appropriate and convincing.

It produced a short script where Johnny Sims from the Magnus archives receives birthday gifts from his coworkers, and one of those was a knife-wielding tentacle. This script was in places a little less sharp than the actual writing, but it absolutely nailed the speech patterns, and each gift was appropriate to the character giving it. It was genuinely funny. In places it was clever. It actually made me laugh.

I have most of these saved if anybody wants to see them instead of playing with it themselves.

It really isn't a question of what has been dumped into the data set. We can just assume it has been dumped in there somehow.

We can't undo what has been done and we're never going to be able to name all of the people whose work has been used to train these datasets.

I have both positive and negative feelings, strong ones on both sides, about this technology. If someone wants to use this technology to create a script for a movie in the Predator franchise, or a sequel to their favorite book, or whatever, that is a neutral act. Profiting from that is highly questionable, passing it off as the real thing is completely indefensible, using this technology to replace writers and artists and real people doing ANY work where there is no benefit to humans (like identifying cancer cells -- "AI" does that) is the second worst thing that can be done with it.

That's what worries me about this. It could produce infinite Simpsons episodes without the need for a single writer. Eventually it will be able to animate them so accurately you could ask it to make it look like it had been recorded on a video cassette and it would be completely convincing. It would be able to imitate the voice actors perfectly.

We do not want corporations to have that power. Worker protections are critical. It isn't that AI produces art that is bad or soulless or whatever. Those are completely spurious arguments and irrelevant to any true discussion of whether or not it is ethical.

What matter is is that we keep this shit out of the hands people who want to delete us from the workforce. They aren't going to delete the data. We need to protect workers.

P.S. Artists, Disney and Adobe do not have your best interests at heart. Copyright issues are more complicated than they are being presented, and if you find yourself on the side of one of these companies in any capacity, re-examine literally everything you think immediately. Unions. You want unions.

For reference, because I think it's really important to bring this up as often as possible, the worst application of this technology I can think of would be deliberately or accidentally misapplying data that could be used to affect things like a person's medical care, criminal record, and credit score, all of which are actually currently things that a single company can do, APPRISS, now owned by Equifax, yes that Equifax, and fucking nobody, none of y'all, are freaking out about that even though it's the single most frightening thing I have seen in 20 years. I cannot overstate its potential to utterly destroy the lives of literally anyone who comes into contact with the system that uses it, and those are unbelievably common. They are currently selling their product to law enforcement so that cops and businesses can use it to predict who will engage in criminal behavior, I'm literally not kidding about that, they come right out and say it. It is being trained on existing data and refined constantly.

Enjoy breaking your leg and needing painkillers, which get you flagged in a medical database that will try to prevent you from accessing them in the future (already happening), and also entering you into a law enforcement database that knows you have taken them. Then add in whatever eldritch fuckery bringing credit bureaus into it would cause.

We aren't fucked, I'm not a doomer who insists that all people are terrible and that we have no future and we might as well let things burn, I do actually care about the world we live in and the people who populate it and I consider humans a delight rather than a plague, but we need to start seriously resisting the use of this shit by entities more powerful than us. They are already way ahead.

“I can now say with absolute confidence that many AI systems have been trained on TV and film writers’ work. Not just on The Godfather and Alf, but on more than 53,000 other movies and 85,000 other TV episodes: Dialogue from all of it is included in an AI-training data set that has been used by Apple, Anthropic, Meta, Nvidia, Salesforce, Bloomberg, and other companies. I recently downloaded this data set, which I saw referenced in papers about the development of various large language models (or LLMs). It includes writing from every film nominated for Best Picture from 1950 to 2016, at least 616 episodes of The Simpsons, 170 episodes of Seinfeld, 45 episodes of Twin Peaks, and every episode of The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad.”

😡

[incorrect-pjo-quotes]

10 year old Nico: And I don’t have the super rare cards but like there’s Zeus who has like 6000 attack points and-

Percy: Mhm yeah, kid. Sounds cool.

*5 minutes later*

Percy: Wait wait wait, Poseidon has how many attack points? And he can attack with what? Give me the cards.

*later at camp*

Percy: And then I use a hurricane against your-

Thalia: Are you seriously playing that game with that kid?

Percy: ...I just think it’s neat.

[saltydkdan]

https://saltydkdan.tumblr.com/post/690687556294246400/salty-im-a-16-year-old-trans-girl-living-in-new

hey salty, i have no idea if you could tell but this was me who wrote that ask, i was scared to send it normally as i feel like i send to many things to your ask box, (sorry if i do) , that you, so so much, for your kind words, it means a lot to me, i, unfortunately live in like the most red part of new jersey, there are 5 neighbors in my street that have confederate flags up, it sucks, but i wanted to say a few things,

1. WHAT YOU LIVE UN NEW JERSEY TOO THATS SO FUCKING COOL

i live in sussex county which, isn’t the worst place in nj but they don’t usually do pride stuff and it’s where most red people live,

2. i have really been enjoying your recent content, the mario party video was legit your best yet,keep it up, also when’s mario in sonic generations becoming a video??

3. If you join or return to Pokémon GO using my referral code 7FBFGDVY2, you’ll instantly get 100 Poké Balls, be able to earn special bonus items, and more. https://pokemongolive.com/refer?code=7FBFGDVY2&source=INVITE_PAGE

i have no idea if you still play go but i do and it has helped me lose weight over the past 5 years i’ve played it and it would be funny to have salty dk daniel on mommy friends list

4. i actually owned squinkies when i was younger, i had power ranges, spongebob, simpsons, and a cars 2, bassicly theyre these rubber things that you can stick on the end of your pencil, so the recent video on the games gave me a nostalgia trip, also i have squinqies 2, idk why

5. thank you for the advice about taking a break from social media, i probably will aside from the notifications i have for stuff like pokémon and sonic news sites and you, my girlfriend has also been telling me i should take a break and yeah, i doomscroll without knowing it a lot

thank you salty

Oh cool!!

I really hope the message helped.

Don’t worry about me, I already have a shit ton of Pokemon GO items lol (I’ve taken advantage of people sending me gifts in the game).

But yeah; a social media cleanse is good for the soul! Def try it out. And just indulge in the stuff you like for a while.

Sonic Generations Mario stuff is in the works. I’m taking my time and grinding through editing a bunch of stuff but I’ll get to it eventually.

I wish you luck on your journey! o7

[ask-lock-shock-and-barrel]

What was your inspiration when creating your version of LSB in reboot mode? *I LOVE your take on them, please keep it up! You're an amazing artist :)*

((Ahh gosh thank you! I'm so glad that my takes on the trio have been so well recieved. I know 'modernizing' nostalgia can sometimes come with a mixed response, but so far nobody has send flaming lawn darts to my house for giving Lock a smartphone, so I call that a success.

My inspiration came from a LOT of sources. When it came to a 'reboot' mode, I took a look at what things I liked from modern reboots of older cartoons. For example, Ducktales 2017 and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One thing about both of those properties was their use of a group cast where the 'main' characters were created in the past as a unit. And as a unit, they are fun and engaging, but you can only go so long before it's just four turtles going "haha pizza, cowabunga" or three ducks with different colored hats, and you kinda want to see them become characters who can work just as good as individual people as they do in a group. And both those reboots did that in an amazing way! And the humor tends to feel a little 'smarter', or doesn't treat the audience like they're dumb, and doesn't have to rely super heavily on pop culture references (but in all fairness, I think those can be funny when it comes to puns, like Tick Tock or Eye Phone), or feel super dated.

For Lock Shock and Barrel, I kind of wanted to flesh them out into characters who act like kids, and not constantly obsessed with resurrecting Oogie Boogie or being clones of each other. They're still chaotic and enjoy causing trouble and being a pain in the ass for Jack, but it's because they like to have fun in the context of their world, where death and maiming are way more socially accepted than in our world. They're not amoral brainless robots set out to destroy that world either, they have their own moral codes, flawed and still developing, but they've got 'em. And kids can be bratty! But even bratty kids have interests, quirks, likes, dislikes, etc, and they can grow out of that brattiness over time. I know some may think that my characterization of the three puts them in a bit too much of a 'good' light, but I don't really see them as set 'heroes' or 'villains' on this blog, moreso little rotten kids who are going through their everyday lives, and having their own sets of challenges to face.

Now onto their personalities individually, Lock was heavily inspired by Dewey Duck from the reboot of Ducktales, down to me headcanoning his voice actor for Lock's voice. They both are hyperactive, Gen-Z adjacent, into 'theatrics' and trends, and being the entertainer. But Lock's not as set on being 'heroic' as Dewey is, and he's not as morally adjusted either. He loves to be the center of attention, and it comes off as irritating arrogance a lot, and he's something of a hypocrite. He has poor self-esteem which he masks by inflating his ego whenever possible, and he's a big crybaby. He likes to be leader because he wants the attention and clout, but deep down, he just wants the security of knowing he won't be alone, and that his friends will be there for him whenever he needs them.

Shock had a lot of different inspirations. I drew a lot of ideas from characters like Lisa Simpson, known for her intelligence and social anxiety, Lena from Ducktales, who is often dry and sarcastic but warmhearted and caring, and Horse from Centaurworld, who's hardened and brash from the war-torn world she's from and has to learn to open herself up to others. There's a few others I drew inspiration from, but those were probably the big three. Shock may not have come from a 'war-torn world' per se but she's seen and experienced enough things in life to give her a deeper maturity and wisdom than the other two. She discovered her thirst for mischief and chaos when she met Lock and Barrel, and thrives on getting to use her intellect and cleverness to cause trouble, and make her forget about her worries. She's still struggling to open up to other people, and allow herself to be vulnerable, as she wants to be the strong one for her found family, and fears she won't be able to do that if she lets her guard down.

Barrel has a lot of inspirations too. I think a big one happened to be myself, as I tend to be a very smiley and cheerful person who loves their friends! I also took a look at characters like Steven Universe and King from the Owl House, who are sweet and childlike characters who develop a deeper maturity over time, and have something of troubled beginnings, but those beginnings do not stop them from being happy with life and their friends and family. Barrel, as I've characterized, had quite a rough beginning, losing their family and home very early in life, and being alone for a period of time before meeting Lock, their true big brother, and best friend. They've found more than enough things in life to make them happy, and so long as they have their family, they are happy with whatever happens. They just wish that Lock and Shock would truly see them for how smart they really are, and not see them as just the baby of the three. And over time, it has caused them to be a bit more blunt and sassy, but not in a mean way. But at the same time, Barrel is reluctant to stray too far from the other two, and as a result, they get roped into a lot of nasty pranks and schemes the other two pull that they almost would never do on their own. They're the most empathetic and moral of the three, and most adults think that when they're by themselves, they're a genuine sweetheart.

Sorry this is a lot of rambling, and honestly I could write a whole essay about the trio and how I characterized them, but that would take me DAYS. So enjoy this salad of words.))

[eswel]

Well, folks. It's been a week since the last post. I was waiting until Crunchyroll retired the advertisement to publish the third part, but it's past the end of september and they haven't took it down yet, so I think I'm just gonna release it now. The phenomenon has calmed down and nothing notorious has happened since october started and I doubt anything else happens until they decide to retire it, which will probably be a tragic day. It was a wild couple of weeks, I hope you had fun reading about this whole rollercoaster. Without further ado, I bring you the last part of the Gojo memorial saga. More under the cut.

Tuesday (continuation)

The whole affair permeated into society. The ladies from the morning show had talked about how parents should get involved with the interests of their children. Passerbys who don't know of the anime (such as older generations) got curious and approached to ask what was all the fuss about. Even a group of little kids were seen in a school trip and visiting the memorial.

Wednesday (september 27)

People also left balloons, teddy bears and a glue bar in the same vein as the tape and band-aids.

(Source)

Metro took advantage of the situation and published a message in Twitter saying that Gojo advises people to follow the security rules of the public transport. This is not unusual. Brands and community managers regularly make anime references, because like half of the chilean population loves anime (including CMs).

People answered the tweet asking for a special Metro card themed after Jujutsu Kaisen. The CM also wrote things like "in our hearts he's still around" and "we refuse to believe he's dead" in the replies. Now they actively encouraged fans to leave their messages in the mural.

Thursday (september 28)

Other messages that fans have written over the days:

"Gege pay my therapy"

"1% chances, 99% faith"

"Alexa play [name of a sad song]"

"You couldn't win against the power of the script"

"Bring the glue"

"Not even Judas dared this much"

"I don't know who you are, but my daughter loves you"

"My mom gave me life, but Gojo the will to live"

"F in the chat"

People from other chilean cities and from all over Latin America sent their messages, including Argentina, México, Brazil, Perú, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, also Spain and even some far away places like a southeast asian country (I think?). Incredible. I'm not part of the JJK fandom, but that's why I can tell you I'm impressed. You guys did this together.

(Source)

In addition to the sticky notes and fanart, people also left memes. A few of them:

Woman Yelling at Cat, but the cat is Gege Akutami

Object or Cake, but with Gojo

Homer Simpson: "If he's so smart, how come he's dead?"

Friday (september 29)

As mentioned before we have a couple of TV channels dedicated to anime. One of those channels, ETC, was the first media outlet that published the news last week and now they visited the memorial (it starts at 10:30). They read some messages and praised the creativity and organizational skills of fans. They also discussed how this went beyond the local anime community, reaching families, the rest of society and international fans.

They interviewed the staff of Metro and some fans. The lady from Metro did this whole corporate talk about how important is for the company to engage with the citizens, because they are a public service. Metro also published an article on their website, saying they were surprised with the whole affair.

Saturday (september 30)

By this point the advertisement has gotten completely covered. I've had noticed that people were avoiding to cover his face, but since the wall had become crowded and there wasn't more space, in the end they left messages on top of the face too. The thing even goes around the wall.

(Source)

(Source)

As a final note, another cultural fun fact. In chilean culture, animitas (from the word anima, which means soul) are set up to honour the deceased and it's believed their spirits roam around the place, so people go and ask favours. In the yellow sticky note someone is asking Gojo to bless this person and help them to find a job. Here's a thread explaining more about it.

(Source)

The Gojo memorial: the whole story

You may already seen that here in Chile people created a shrine in the subway in order to honour Satoru Gojo. I'll try to recreate the entire chain of events as far as I could gather in social media for everyone's convenience, so you can read about the whole thing in just one post. Buckle up, because we're in for a ride, this story is really good. More under the cut.

Thursday (september 21)

There was an advertisement by Crunchyroll promoting the series at some subway stations. A few people decided to bring some flowers and messages as offering to the character.

(Source: https://twitter.com/destinysuede12/status/1704909879717118314)

The thing started to quickly escalate and soon more people started to leave messages, flowers and candles.

I remember seeing a picture of someone from the staff of Metro cleaning the offerings with a broom. I tried to search for it now, but I can't find it anymore. It got buried by the flood of tweets.

*Edit* I found the picture. Someone shared it again.

Friday (september 22)

The next day the memorial became huge. You may think that people were being serious about the whole thing of setting a memorial , but most messages and drawings were humourous. A few of them:

"Steal the sky"

"Paradise won an angel"

"The sky is bluer because of your eyes"

"Fly high"

"The moon will be more beautiful with you up there"

"You'll be the brightest star"

"You broke my heart in two"

"Exorcise the sky"

"You gave everything, my king"

"Gojo lives"

There was even drawings making fun of what happened to him. People patched him up with band-aids and tape. Well, that's our kind of humour, we chileans can have a dark sense of humour.

(Source: https://twitter.com/thdiors/status/1705411138073010470)

Even some people in cosplay showed up.

In the late hours of the day, the security guards started to dismantle the shrine, just like the previous day. Then they were assigned to custody the advertisement.

(Source: https://twitter.com/edowoo/status/1705325172817809533)

(Source: https://twitter.com/pucha_tam/status/1705355763604992086)

Saturday (september 23)

The next morning Metro changed their minds and allowed the messages and drawings, but they said that candles were forbidden, because they're dangerous. Understandable.

The event had started to make it to the online versions of the news media, but also in the print version for it appeared on the front page of one of the major newspapers. They dedicated 3 pages surrounding the whole thing. One for the memorial itself, one for the cultural importance of the religious practice known as "animitas" and one for the social impact of anime.

(Source: https://twitter.com/edowoo/status/1705585808697442482)

The shrine continued to grow and people started to leave other offerings like sunglasses and even gummies and chocolates. You see, in our culture when people set up animitas usually they leave things that the person liked. I've never seen this anime and I don't know the character. Does he likes candy? You guys tell me.

(Source: https://twitter.com/Migueo_0/status/1705691688277057565)

Sunday (september 24)

By the time I'm writing this post is sunday. I heard the rumour that Crunchyroll called Metro to retire the advertisement, but I cannot confirm if this is true or not. Also, I have the feeling that the whole situation can even appear on TV, considering that we have 2 TV channels dedicated solely to anime, but that would be on monday. We'll see. If I see any new development in the saga of the Gojo memorial I'll update this post.

[overfedvenison]

So there’s this joke in The Simpsons where Bart finds a record called “Melvin and the Squirrels” and Comic Book Guy is like “Ah yes, party of the Rodent Invasion of the late 60s”

It gets played and the joke is that it’s like this transparent knockoff of Alvin and the Chipmunks But it turns out there actually were a bunch of Chipmunks knockoffs. AND I AM GOING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE, BECAUSE RODENT INVASION REAL Now, take everything here with a gigantic grain of salt because I only just learned about some of these. Like, these are my immediate takes on trying to decipher this, not someone who knows what they are talking about. But these records do exist, at least. The most famous (And probably the most artistically interesting) is The Nutty Squirrels:

Who are fairly well documented, and had a related cartoon. They were offering something more than a mere Chipmunk Knockoff, in that they were doing original “Scat” music. The combination is actually pretty unique sounding, and would have been especially appealing to a novelty-song loving public of the 1960s. They were created by Don Elliott and Alexander "Sascha" Burland; a pair of Jazz Musicians. They are remembered, when at all, for their early albums which were mostly original stuff. One of these even ended up with a derivative song performed by a -human- musician, Stand Kenton: Eager Beaver. Their later albums had them cover pop songs, becoming just a Chipmunks knockoff  

The Nutty Squirrels led emerged in 1960, but were allegedly “Revived” in 1975 by one Bob Milsap. But like... Okay, this is weird? Like, first I can’t actually find references to this being a continuation of Nutty Squirrels that I would consider from a “trustworthy source.” And going by their creator, that’s... Not someone involved in Nutty Squirrels, and doesn’t share the name or characters. And there were apparently some legal difficulties with calling these guys “Squirrels” due to The Nutty Squirrels. And they don’t do jazz, they do convoy/trucker music. ....So I think the idea that these were a revival is just a fake rumor going around. Melvin and Squirrley both are sometimes portrayed with looks and outfits similar to The Nutty Squirrels, so maybe that’s it, but I feel like it’s ripping off multiple sources Regardless, I think it’s really funny that they would have a “Live” album. They were a REALLY blatant knockoff really fast, with the twist of being primarily country-aligned to Alvin’s pop song. But they outright added this squirrel in a M-jacket named “Melvin” which means this might legitimately be what that Simpsons Gag is specifically making fun of To give them some credit, it seems like a running theme of these bands is that they have like, one minor breakout hit that distinguishes them slightly; Alvin and the Chipmunks had the novelty pop songs The Christmas Song and the earlier Witch Doctor, Nutty Squirrels had the Scat-focused Uh Oh, and these guys had the Convoy song Hey Shirly, This Is Squirrly. Looking into this, I saw someone note essentially “There are no covers on this christmas album that Alvin and the Chipmunks did not do better earlier” which is a SCATHING critique if I’ve ever heard one. But, like, in the... Narrow field of chipmunk covers of songs? I mean, they’re serviceable I suppose ...

To go increasingly obscure, Peter Pan Records “The Grasshoppers” What... What is this. I can’t find any information on them, and even in a field of Chipmunks Clones, this is like, especially a chipmunk clone - To the point that it appears their most known song is a cover of the chipmunk song What is going on? Was this produced, or did it just like, spawn? So, near as I can tell, Peter Pan Records was a long-standing children’s record specialty company. So, with all these bands covering more... Questionable songs, I guess I could see a market for an absolutely kid-friendly alternative. But that’s speculation ... Anyways, I’m sure there are more. Heck, even the Chipettes would qualify. But like ...Iunno, it just baffles me this could have even been something you might consider a trend