#that was my benchmark for 'it's not going to run on this but imagine if it does'

[amadeusgame]

Thanks to my own tendency to hoard hardware, and a little help from some friends, I have confirmed that the Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee demo runs smoothly on:

A Win7 Dell laptop from 2011 with 4GB RAM

Win10 Desktop PC with dedicated GPU that was a really solid build in 2016 and is still quite serviceable for most needs

MacOS Mojave on a MacBook Pro Intel 2015

MacOS Big Sur on a MacBook Air M1 2020

every other MacOS/Windows computer people have tested on so far

I'm currently working on a Linux build to have another friend test that, but from that Win7 laptop alone I think it's pretty safe to say that this should run on just about anything. The application window is fully resizeable for any screen size, and the game will always render the 4:3 gameplay correctly with black bars on the side as needed. It can also be expanded to fullscreen.

I'm very excited about this. I love the thought of people playing this game on the same old computers that have been used to play the early-mid 2000s VN's that inspired it!

[kings-highway]

Sneaking into the advice corner: how do you write non-serious but also non-crack conversations? How do you balance the mundane friendship-building levity bits with the need for purpose and capturing the themes or progression you need without jumping directly into the heavy stuff?

Thank you!

so so so sorry it took me so long to answer this one! just busy and wanted to make sure I could give it the attention it deserves

now, obviously, the master key to this kind of question is just to understand people very very very well, because all questions of dialogue sort of eventually become questions of psyche, but thats a lot of work so Im gonna run through some things I use to address a few of the points mentioned above: non-serious but non-crack; balance between levity and seriousness; and how to avoid jumping into the hard stuff.

1. Non-Serious but Non-Crack

this answer might not gel with everyone but the truth is... just write the crack conversations. based on some comments ive seen on my own stories recently, fandom has turned the word "crack" into anything that isnt intended to be emotionally enlightening or significant. you might be looking at perfectly normal conversations as crack conversations. Or, you might be VASTLY overestimating the average intelligence of the conversations between friends. People are WEIRD. As long as you play it straight and dont make a joke out of your own writing, you can pass off pretty much anything as non-crack if its meant to be characters goofing around and being silly. How the fuck else do you think I pulled off daichi straight up biting a pencil in half in TETRIA or the Peace Sign in In The Woods? Crack content played straight is just regular funny.

2. Balance

im gonna say one piece real quick and then go more in depth.

**Your funny ha-ha jokes have to come before your serious Oh-Nos**

If you finish a serious conversation with a stupid joke, you've ruined the serious conversation. If you finish a joke by having the characters somber up, you've heightened the intensity with the contrast of humour. You know that scene in Mulan where they transition from "A Girl Worth Fighting For" into gazing into a razed village? Imagine how fucking annoying the scene would be if they found that village, and then when marching off to continue on their way broke into that song exactly as it was performed? Terrible. [TBH this mostly applies to scenes that flow into each other, not so much if they are separated by chapters, scene breaks or time skips.]

A much more challenging piece of advice is to try and have a good mental map of how all your characters feel about certain topics/emotions. for example, if you want your character to be avoidant of feelings, theres no reason to make them bad at avoiding feelings, you can use genuinely funny jokes to break up serious conversations and distract the reader (and other characters) exactly as the avoidant character intends to. This just requires some awareness of your scene and will carry more of a weight on the other characters who may realize (or come to realize) what that character is doing. etc, etc. For all types. This sort of transitions into the last one...

3. When to Get Serious (And How to Make It Natural)

now you've probably heard the classic writing advice "people will say everything except what they want to say" and I have a LOT of issues with that for various reasons, but its a good benchmark for understanding the timing on these things. Saying what you Want can be almost impossible. If youve ever had to break bad news to someone - and I mean really bad news, "someone passed away" bad news - youll know how paralyzing doing so can be. You end up doing everything BUT saying that. You pick up a glass sitting on the table and make a joke about how, from the corner of your eye, you thought there was a spider in it. This isnt true, youre making it up you need to tell them something important. You both laugh about how gross that would be. you need to tell them. You think it'll kill you if you say the words out loud but you need to say something so you joke about what would have happened if youd poured yourself some water and there was a spider inside. This is supposed to be a conversation about their father passing away. And now youre talking about drinking spiders. Everyone is laughing. (crack conversation amirite?)

Look, I have severe anxiety about expressing my wants and this bullshit happens to everyone. Do you know how many days I spent telling my roommate about the plotlines of haikyuu before finally suggesting we should watch it together? SO MANY. Because I was just terrified of rejection. This works for everything. People HATE feeling bad. People hate feeling bad so much they'll do the weirdest shit to avoid it. And honestly that's when you get your best humour.

Of course, similarly, since people hate that feeling, they're often likely to COPE by making quips. Typically, if two characters are fighting each other, I find it better for them to be 100% serious. BUT if two characters are communicating while fighting a 3rd thing, theyre WAY more likely to start making little one liners. Obviously if its the climax of your story, hold off, but the very classic "WATCH OUT!" "NO I WAS JUST PLANNING ON GETTING PUNCHED THANKS FOR THAT." (screamed across a field mid fight) kinda never goes out of style. you just dont want people making jokes WITH the things theyre fighting (in my opinion) - this whole concept can be combined with point 2, where these jokes can be inserted in a climactic conlict only BEFORE the emotional beat hits.

But when it comes to timing, it can be hard. Here are a few quick things to keep in mind:

1. If there is external pressure (man coming to kill you RIGHT NOW) that anxiety disappears. These are the scenes you want to break into 100% seriousness right away.

2. If there is tension to break or potential conflict between characters (are YOU the Killer??) characters will avoid this like the plague. Beat around the bush. Possibly for as many scenes as it takes to turn it into a #1

3. If there is bad news or a message to deliver (Your Mom was Killed by the KILLER.) you can hesitate and beat around the bush but it probably should be passed along in that scene.

4. do NOT try and break the tension with humour AFTER the intensity. Sincerity is a good thing, and allowing your intense scenes to be intense and to be heavy and serious even if theyre not funny is really important.

and finally, of course... all advice to be taken with a grain of salt. If you write a scene that breaks all of this advice, and you love it, and its exactly what you want... then that scene is perfectly written. Do what makes you happy.

thanks again!

[mrhaitch]

Ah, anonymous or non-anonymous? The age old question.

I've got two questions for you, Mr. Haitch. (I keep wanting to get rid of the 'i' for some reason, jeez.)

1) Now that we're aware of your astigmatism (crazy prescription, by the way. And I thought my -2.5L and -1.25R was bad). I was wondering what style your frames are. For reference, mine are clear and cat-eye. The color is known to brighten up my darker skin tone. The frame guides the eyes up from my round face to my eyes.

Do I know everything about color psychology? No. I'll be honest with you, I just searched up 'What do cat-eye frames do for the face?' It was pretty fascinating, but I didn't choose these frames, they chose me. Not to mention the ridiculous price for the lack of options in the store. I think the invoice for my two frames came to 150-ish USD.

2) For some reason, I'm imagining you standing in the middle of the garden, holding a running water hose. You're not directly aiming it at anything but just holding it while you're engrossed in a book or listening to a podcast. Let's say that Mrs. Haitch told you and the boys to go touch some grass or something! I'm also picturing you wearing those white, 2000s dad shoes, like New Balances or, even worse, Reeboks. One of your boys somehow pulls you into a water balloon fight. Now you're standing there, soaked, but with a smile on your face. Please tell me how accurate that was—you give me that sort of vibe, I guess. Soft, loving dad. You'd probably say it's not true, gotta keep up that mysterious, intelligent man front. 😂

Have a wonderful evening! 🐥🐥🐥

1. Two sets, one for home and one for not-home: black thick plastic rectangular frames, and then half rim rectangular frames with metal legs also black.

2. Haitch has some thoughts on this:

Wrong wrong wrong. If you want outfit benchmarks, think either Dean Winchester, or Dream from Sandman. He's either in his thick-soled black Doc Marten boots, or he's stolen my Crocs, which, despite me having big feet, his heels hang out of because his feet are so fucking enormous.

When he's not out there lugging garden foliage around, and getting the enormous mechanical hedge trimmer to cut away and heave away the hedge cuttings, he's throwing small boys around, or he's got one hand in his pocket and the other holding his coffee, glaring at the sun like it owes him money.

He never doesn't have a frown on his face, apart from the occasional soppy look at me or the boys. We'll spend whole long minutes in companionable silence, before he breaks the silence with "I've been thinking about Ray Bradbury--" or something of the sort.

If one of the boys unexpectedly soaks him (and it happens often) they can expect to be bench-pressed while he roars at them, until they're screaming (with laughter). Or, roundly told off, which also happens often.

You've written him as this soft dad, and while yes, he is, he's also profoundly cool. He doesn't think it, of course. The mysterious, intelligent man is no front. He's soft for me and our babies, and that's about it.

[furryprovocateur]

my cup cumeth over

what is there to say about kinship's bond, one of my favorite defend chapters in the series? it was absolute agony to do this chapter because while you don't HAVE to kill eubans, you absolutely want to because a. he drops a knight crest b. boss kill experience c. the chapter ends the second he dies d. the chapter turn requirement is the max amount of turns spent defending, so basically as long as you kill him before turn 10 enemy phase, you'll be saving at least one turn, if not multiple. the problem is that he's basically in the asshole of the chapter, being surrounded by forest squares and being in the very corner of the map whereas you start near nearly the opposite side. still, getting to him isn't hard if you overextend with marcus/any other non-isadora paladin you might have by this point and just haul ass with a javelin, hand axe, and iron axe equipped at various points. if anything, the hardest part is surviving with everyone up to that point.

LMAO JK did you think i was serious? the hardest part is the dicerolling for killing eubans because i cannot tell you how many times i got to the end only to see "sain is attacking eubans. he has a 70%-80% hit rate and he only has to hit once and is doubling. OOPS he missed both hits" or even better the classic "both hits missed on the enemy phase and now you can't kill him because the forest square he attacked you from is preventing a 1RKO LOL haha". i swear to god it's not even HHM or the ranked run that's making my blood fucking boil, it's the fucking probability always swinging against me in the most fucking improbable circumstances. i had like 2 80%s miss then a 30% to kill hit me. i just. i know it gets exhausting to see me complain about RNG in this game but holy fucking CUNT FUCK does it incense me. like i cannot overstate how mad it makes me because i'm literally not making any mistakes and still losing because of it. i'm trying so so so hard not to mald harder but whatever.

heath got a level and change and got good stats. the plan is to use the shit out of him next chapter by prepping him with a barrier and letting him go to town on as many of the magic units that he can. iirc he's not gonna be doubling but if i give him the short spear, he might be 1HKOing until he either can 1HKO with the javelin or double. isadora meanwhile did 2 things for me this chapter: she used a nearly broken iron sword to kill an annoying mage and then she hauled ass to the secret shop to buy a bunch of shit with the silver card (another physic, two torch staves, two barriers, and a 5 use chest key (i'm going to need this for BBD and NOF i imagine)). the best part about buying a bunch of shit with the silver card is that it doesn't cost any money due to how the game calculates funds, so even if i am overbuying, i'm just making my liquid gold solid.

last thing to note: we're in red alert territory because my collective lord levels are only at 46 right now and FFO is right around the corner. i need to average getting 2 level in living legend and genesis. i THINK this is fairly doable considering there's two berserker bosses next turn and i think i can at least get lyn to kill one of them, ideally eliwood would be able to tank out the other one. the biggest problem is living legend has a short turn count so i have to be quick, but i also need to make sure i'm hitting the experience benchmark. i'll burn turns if i HAVE to, but i want to avoid that at all costs. at the same time, i absolutely refuse to do lloyd's FFO, so the conflicting desires there are gonna come to a head soon.

[longroadstonowhere]

i was gonna make a little more of a shitpost about something in zelda, but hey i’m enjoying doing these little debriefs into the void, let’s talk about what i did today

i’m gonna say lategame totk spoilers below

so like, this morning i woke up and was like ‘okay, it’s final boss time, let’s do this thing’ because, like, i got the mission to go into hyrule castle! it’s time to track down the fake zelda and figure out what’s really going on there! and, well, i did figure that out, but uh, it wasn’t the final boss

so after getting over being flabbergasted at the rug being pulled out from under me (which, to be clear, i absolutely loved that i didn’t see this coming), i ran around doing some chasm exploration (hehehe), did some random side questy things like updating the purah pad (which, i like how they put the dlc stuff from botw into the regular part of this game - makes me wonder if there’s any dlc planned for totk down the line), and then finally remembered the ring ruins in kakariko existed so was able to continue the main quest

had some difficulties getting to the thunderhead isles (thought i would be cool and land in the pond on the first island, instead i smashed my head against a pillar), but adventuring through those was fun, and now i’m in the depths with mineru trying to put her body together - got the left leg to her on the first attempt, but the right leg took me like four or five tries to get over to her, so i started wondering if she really needs both legs that badly, hahaha (this was what the shitpost was gonna be about by the by)

that’s where i’ve stopped for the night, because redoing something several times only to fail at the end is frustrating, and since i need to sleep anyway that was a good point to stop

i’m glad the fake zelda didn’t end up being mineru, and that she’s got her own temple (either this factory or another whole dungeon beyond it), and that we get to hang out! because you know she’s my fave new npc based on nothing but pure imagination, can’t wait to see what she’s actually like to decide if she’s actually going to be my fave, hahaha

i also really loved the whole riddle getting the ancient thunder outfit put together, and exploring the whole dracozu lake area, because i know i wandered around there in botw, and it’s really cool how the environment can completely change when you have a slightly new context

so tomorrow i’ve got a dentist thing, which means i probably won’t start playing until the afternoon, but i’ve got high hopes for finishing the main story by friday, since, like... there can’t be that much more, right? like we’re approaching skyward sword levels of ‘oh i didn’t realize you could put this much in a zelda game’, which is extremely awesome! but at some point i gotta take down ganondorf, and maybe bring zelda back from being a dragon??? like.... some part of me still can’t believe they’ll leave her like that, i’m really hoping mineru can pull some spirit shenanigans

oh! also because i was curious, i looked up where the ancient shirt is (or archaic shirt or whatever it’s called), and it’s in a cave, so like obviously i wasn’t gonna find it because like hell i was doing anything on tutorial island that wasn’t the main quest stuff with how few hearts i had

oh, and also i like how they had another vitality check during the thunderhead isles stuff, but they had a shrine and a goddess statue right there, so you could easily warp back if you needed to run off and do some shrine hunting (but uh, it only needed ten hearts and i’m at seventeen now, so, you know, we good - although it’s hard for me to tell because the hearts aren’t going onto a second line, so i have to walk up to my tv and count carefully to figure out how many i have)

i find it interesting that, if you do all the main story stuff, they expect you to have at least ten hearts and two rings of stamina, it’s an interesting benchmark and i kinda wonder if there was any purpose to it or if it was just a random choice

i also wonder if there’ll be any more vitality checks along the way - i will probably be fine, but it’ll be interesting to find out

[wolfliving]

AI Habitat

https://aihabitat.org 

What is Embodied AI?

“AI is … the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” - John McCarthy

Embodied AI is the science and engineering of intelligent machines with a physical or virtual embodiment (typically, robots and egocentric personal assistants). The embodiment hypothesis is the idea that “intelligence emerges in the interaction of an agent with an environment and as a result of sensorimotor activity”.

What is AI Habitat?

Habitat is a simulation platform for research in Embodied AI.

Our goal is to advance the science and engineering of Embodied AI. Imagine walking up to a home robot and asking“Hey robot – can you go check if my laptop is on my desk? And if so, bring it to me”. Or asking an egocentric AI assistant (sitting on your smart glasses): “Hey – where did I last see my keys?”.

AI Habitat enables training of such embodied AI agents (virtual robots and egocentric assistants) in a highly photorealistic & efficient 3D simulator, before transferring the learned skills to reality.

This empowers a paradigm shift from ‘internet AI’ based on static datasets (e.g. ImageNet, COCO, VQA) to embodied AI where agents act within realistic environments, bringing to the fore active perception, long-term planning, learning from interaction, and holding a dialog grounded in an environment.

Why Simulation?

Training/testing embodied AI agents in the real world is

Slow: the real world runs no faster than real time and cannot be parallelized,

Dangerous: poorly-trained agents can unwittingly injure themselves or the human wearing the egocentric device, the environment, or others,

Expensive: both the agent and the environment(s) in which they execute are expensive,

Difficult to control/reproduce: replicating conditions (particularly corner-cases) or experiments is often difficult.

Simulations can run orders of magnitude faster than real-time and can be parallelized over a cluster; training/testing in simulation is safe, cheap, and enables fair systematic benchmarking of progress. Once a promising approach has been developed and tested in simulation, it can be transferred to physical platforms.

Why the name Habitat? Because that’s where AI agents live 🙂.

Overall, Habitat consists of Habitat-Sim, Habitat-Lab, and Habitat Challenge.

Habitat-Sim

A high-performance physics-enabled 3D simulator with support for:

3D scans of indoor/outdoor spaces (e.g. HM3D, MatterPort3D, Gibson, Replica)

CAD models of spaces and piecewise-rigid objects (e.g. ReplicaCAD, YCB, Google Scanned Objects),

Configurable sensors (RGB-D cameras, egomotion sensing)

Robots described via URDF (mobile manipulators like Fetch, fixed-base arms like Franka, quadrupeds like AlienGo),

Rigid-body mechanics (via Bullet).

The design philosophy of Habitat is to prioritize simulation speed over the breadth of simulation capabilities. When rendering a scene from the Matterport3D dataset, Habitat-Sim achieves several thousand frames per second (FPS) running single-threaded and reaches over 10,000 FPS multi-process on a single GPU. Habitat-Sim simulates a Fetch robot interacting in ReplicaCAD scenes at over 8,000 steps per second (SPS), where each ‘step’ involves rendering 1 RGBD observation (128×128 pixels) and rigid-body dynamics for 1/30sec.

Github repository: facebookresearch/habitat-sim

Habitat-Lab

Habitat-Lab is a modular high-level library for end-to-end development in embodied AI — defining embodied AI tasks (e.g. navigation, interaction, instruction following, question answering), configuring embodied agents (physical form, sensors, capabilities), training these agents (via imitation or reinforcement learning, or no learning at all as in classical SensePlanAct pipelines), and benchmarking their performance on the defined tasks using standard metrics.

Github repository: facebookresearch/habitat-lab ...

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Bro the colored baby tabieita…I cannot I just need to squish them rn

Also YOU DID NOT JUST CHURN OUT PART ONE OF AN OTOYA SERIES LMAOOOOOO (I’m abt to run to read it after this) full conversion….this truly has been miraeita guys (also full angst??? Im usually not strong enough for sad endings but im reading this anyways no one can stop me)

Karasu hating sea creatures so real…I can imagine him having a debate with Bachira where Bachira’s like “I like dolphins! They look fun” (canon) and karasus like “bro dolphins are EVIL have you heard of the crimes they commit against each other?? Yer being FOOLED by their faces” LMFAOOO

And fr I cannot wait to reread all of the nel together once it’s finished waiting each week has me dying LOL I am curious about how it’s gonna go after nel though because as much as I cope something tells me we’re a little over halfway through the entirety of BLLK which kinda makes me sad

I accidentally started lurking on Reddit when I was trying to find chapter links LMAOO unfortunate series of events truly….

Ah yes the wattpad pipeline…classic coming of age kind of benchmark event LMAOO

-Karasu anon

THEY’RE SO SQUISHY CUTE I LOVEEE THEM I NEED TO EAT KARASU AND PUNT OTOYA

HELP MEE dude he won me over 😭😭😭 this truly was our miraeita…the strangers to enemies lovers arc we went through was insane 😔 and yes i do fear we’re in for a mostly angsty ride but i hope you enjoy anyways 😏 there will be sass and humor interspersed throughout though dw it won’t just be grimdark!!

HAHAHA karasu found out about dolphins being assaulters and he gets so mad about it that he cannot let anyone enjoy them in peace 😓 he ruins bachira’s innocence by detailing how evil dolphins are (kurona’s cheering him on though because he’s team shark)

i’m so worried abt what comes after nel too 😫 what am i going to do once bllk is finished 😰 i feel like nel has felt like such a final arc (maybe because it’s lasted so long) so it’s hard to imagine what’s going to happen next

omg that reminds me of how i joined a discord server solely to get jjk leaks…pretty sure i’m one of the only women on there based on how misogynistic everyone is lowkey but what can you do 😔 i don’t even use discord tbh HAHA i’ve had it for a couple of years but besides using it to check leaks it’s dead on my phone

wattpad is a canon event for many…what determines its merit is whether you stay on wp or move on from it!! i’ve heard a lot of people on social media say that THOSE booktok readers (iykyk) are just adults who never had wattpad phases and honestly i could not agree more. a lot of stuff being published now feels much more wp quality than ao3 (for the sake of the analogy) which sucks imo 😵‍💫 the tropification/badly-written-smutification of literature 💔 (obv not every modern book is like this there’s a LOT that are excellent it’s just a trend in what i’ve noticed is being aggressively marketed even by companies like barnes and noble)

[rainbowgothdisaster]

For the artist asks, 2, 11 & 18 :3

2. 5 favourites of your own work?

in no particular order:

pokesona, the stars are falling (not posted, will be posted with this years redraw), jewel's house, sleeping jewel, jewel's bedroom (also an extra bcuz i really like it but couldn't find the compressed file to put here: be back soon screen)

i have a lot of fun drawing my pokesona, it was drawn completely using vector lines which was unbelievably enlightening

the stars are falling was first drawn back in 2020 and has become a way for me to compare how my art has developed over the years. 2020 only featured Jason (he/him), 2021 only had Zero (ey/em), and 2022 includes the former two plus Cleo (she/her, but shes bigender and also goes by Liam he/him), 2023 will include Jason and Ambe (she/her). its a way for me to basically do a benchmark test on my composition and anatomy and colours and shading. i always have a lot of fun drawing it and sometimes making whole new brushes. important note: this one was actually submitted to an art contest, sadly i lost but it was actually my first time since elementary putting my art out with the intent to be judged.

jewel's house was my first time drawing and designing a house and finding different places to incorporate hearts was literally so much fun.

sleeping jewel is just super cute and jewel's bunny hoodie is my favourite thing ever. i have it on my phone and could stare at it for hours.

jewel's bedroom is ALSO a redraw. i enjoyed trying to fit so many things in it, i enjoyed sketching, i enjoyed lining, i enjoyed colouring. though this is actually my least fav of the 5 bcuz i fully believe the idea that your art is only as good as its weakest point. that's not to say its bad or that everyone will approach it as critically as possible. not even to say that everything needs to be perfect. but when i was rendering it, i didn't want to shade. so i took a funky brush and just rushed thru shading. in fact you can see that when watching the speedpaint, i just kinda scribbled the shading. HOWEVER that doesnt take away from the fact i think the rest of it is really well done. i think i did well on the bed in particular and the fact that i stylized a real bed that we own and my actual childhood bed that i would die to get back (we owned two, mine was lost when mum and dad had to abandon my childhood home bcuz of shitty roommates and a shitty landlord) i enjoyed drawing my actual stuffed animals and my actual lolita dress. it like actually has sentimental value bcuz of all of that i just wish i did it better.

11. favourite comment you've ever received on your work?

uhhhh so like i dont usually recieve comments on my work aside from my family's "wow i could never do that" soooo well go with the comment you left on my bunny hoodie design bcuz as far as i can remember iirc it was the first time id gotten a nice comment about my fashion designs and i was really happy someone liked it bcuz im like super nervous about my silly fashion doodles :)

18. do you have any larger projects you'd like to pursue? like comics, shortfilm, a series, etc?

yes! id like House Of Misfits to be a cartoon, tho the show would probably be lighter than the short stories bcuz i don't imagine i could explore Amber's backstory on screen. im making a proof-of-concept website which is technically online and more than 70% unfinished.

i also have a coming-of-age novel i need to do research for called Saftey Blanket about a hijabi girl named Aminah in her senior year of highschool (if i made it a series wed get to see her twin siblings realize they're trans which would be fun but rn they are but lil babbies), id like to make a children's cartoon and a visual novel but i don't currently have any ideas for either.

btw despite the fact that i am an animator, i don't want to animate a show. i want to run a show. i don't actually enjoy animations longer than maybe 10 seconds.

i have a side project based around the album A Constant State Of Ohio by Lincoln that would be a very personal project around self image while having multiple personality disorders (and other problems), but i cannot for the life of me make an animatic. there's lots of ideas like this jostling in my brain, like a stop-motion animation of Through The Roof n Underground by Gogol Bordello, where i just simply cannot which i am fine with.

then theres the fact i do actually want to sew my fashion designs, at least that bunny hoodie if nothing else, and i cannot get my hands on any fabric despite owning a sewing machine

[bitsandbobsandstuff]

The Midnight Coconuts

Summary: Bucky and his girl take a trip to the grocery store. Several things are involved, including coconuts, a 25cent gum-ball machine, Avengers branded Jell-O, chocolate milk straight from the jug, and tampons.  Characters: Bucky x Reader Words: 3k Warnings: Some swearing. Insane levels of fluff. Dangerously adorable Bucky. One (1) random reference to Not Another Teen Movie. 

A/N: Listen, I will never be over silly domestic Bucky! I originally started this story before TFATWS came out and when I imagined Sam had a niece, so just go with it. Part of me wrote this, because I needed to convince myself that I love grocery shopping (one can only eat takeaway and Trader Joe’s Orange Chicken for so long) and the other part wrote this because I firmly believe domestic routines can be the most romantic adventures out there.

When the doors to the grocery store whoosh open with a gust of stale manufactured air, Bucky skids to an abrupt and dramatic stop.  

“WAIT!”

Behind him, you stumble in panic, fumbling with an armful of reusable grocery bags. Instantly you’re imagining spilled blood and stab wounds and clean ups on aisle three and god dammit, how can there be a problem? This is a grocery store at midnight on a Wednesday. Shouldn’t the forces of evil be sleeping? Why is it so impossible to get a day off work? Don’t they know you need rest? And peanut butter? And that you’re dangerously low on toilet paper?

The forces of evil are the worst.

Raising weary fists, you huff.

“What? Where is it?”

Bucky sidesteps toward a row of small red and green machines beside the entrance, falling to his knees and smushing his nose eagerly against the glass. Reaching a hand behind him, there are several impatient grabby motions, before he glances back.

“Babe, can you give me a quarter? I need a gum-ball.”

Planting a sneaker clad foot on his ass, you shove. Hard.  

“Bucky, we talked about this. Remember how you agreed to lower the drama and keep things in perspective? I thought we were under attack.”

“If I don’t get a green gum-ball,” he declares dramatically, “there will be an attack.”

Throwing the cloth bags at his face, you stomp off to retrieve a shopping cart, plunking your purse in the front and hunching over the handlebars.  

“I thought you said you were a millionaire now. Buy your own gum-ball.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Like I carry loose change,” he scoffs. “C’mon, just one quarter. Please?”

This time, he gives you the Look. That patented Bucky Barnes stare, with the wide eyes and full pouty lips and faux innocent expression, and if this man wasn’t the love of your life you’d quite happily stab him in the heart.

Instead, you open your purse and fish out a quarter, flinging it at his frustratingly pretty face. It bounces off his forehead and he scoops it up with a grin.

“So just to clarify. You came to the grocery store covered in knives, but you forgot to bring money?”

Giving you an indulgent smile, he jams the quarter into the slot. With a twist and shake, a gum-ball rattles free, and Bucky crows with delight when he sees the green candy. He pops it in his mouth. 

“I didn’t forget. I made a conscious decision to remove the temptation. If I bring cash, I’ll spend it. You know I ain’t great with that whole self control thing.”

“How encouraging to hear, from the man with knives pouring out his ass.”  

Jumping to his feet, he throws an arm around your shoulders. 

“Ass knives sound painful.”

“Depends on how sharp they are,” you mumble, pulling a carefully folded sheet of paper from your jacket.

“Excuse you? My knives are always perfectly sharpened, thank you very much. What kind of expert assassin runs around with dull knives? Damn baby, it’s like you don’t even know me.”

Ignoring him, you flatten out the paper and smooth the edges, sighing happily at the block letters and structured diagrams drawn in deep blue ink. 

Here it is, your masterpiece. A monument to productivity. The gold standard by which all optimization models should be benchmarked. This isn’t just any list, this is The List.

Everything is grouped, first by aisle, then by product location within the aisle, and then from top to bottom shelf order, to maximize efficiency. This is the dream list. The kind that inspires jealousy. The kind people hold up at TED talks when they talk about time management techniques. Marie Kondo wishes she had this list. 

Bucky snorts when he sees the carefully printed boxes.  

“God, you’re such a square,” he says adoringly. He plants a sugary wet kiss on your temple and you grind an elbow into his ribs.

“We discussed this, Bucky. Don’t mock my lists.” 

“Sorry babe, I ain’t mocking. Your lists are beautiful, they always get me all hot and bothered,” he agrees, dipping lower to lick behind your ear. “And I really love that list you keep with all those dirty, filthy, sex things you wanna do to me.”

“I don’t have a list like that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky sighs, “and I don’t know how many more hints I can drop here.”

Reaching under his shirt, you rub his belly consolingly. “Okay then. This weekend I’ll sit down and make you a special list. One so disgusting and dirty and depraved, it would make Wade Wilson cry.”

Bucky laughs and squeezes you tighter. 

“About damn time honey. I’m equally parts terrified and horny. So where’re we headed first?”

“Produce,” you answer promptly, plowing forward, Bucky still chuckling beside you.

The whole scenario was ironic, actually. There was no need to grocery shop - automatic ordering mechanisms  across the Avengers tower rendered the task meaningless - but sometimes it was a welcome relief to partake in such an ordinary thing. Unable to sleep after one particularly terrible mission, you found yourself wandering the aisles of your 24-hour supermarket, dressed in pineapple adorned pajama pants and one of Bucky’s rattier sweatshirts, searching for ice cream. The unexpected symmetry of products arranged along the shelves, the rainbow hued produce, the hint of baking bread wafting from the ovens, all those everyday trappings of normality, they washed over like a soothing balm. Soon enough, the boiling bad thoughts simmered to nothing more than a cache of blurry memories.

When you got home, sleep came fast, deep and dreamless.

One month later, the idea struck again.

After 36 hours of Bucky tossing and turning, dark shadows bruising beneath weary blue eyes, you took his hand and led him down the dark street for a midnight adventure. He was skeptical, disbelieving that something so simple could chase away the insomnia. But he dutifully followed you, strolling aimlessly through the aisles, throwing odds and ends into the cart. 

The tension gradually eased, he began to relax, and suddenly? 

He was hooked.

An hour later, after arguing the health benefits of frosted Cheerios over oatmeal, poking each hunk of cheese in the display, and loading the cart with every single flavor of spaghetti sauce on the shelf, the heavy weight of remembering began to ease. When he collapsed into bed, he slept for eight hours straight.

I don’t know what that was, he swore the next morning, munching through his third bowl of frosted Cheerios, but it was magic.

And with that, a midnight ritual was born. Sometimes you make the trek alone, sometimes Bucky does the same, but whenever life permits you go together. This small slice of domesticity brings a warm comfort to this strange life.   

There is no doubt, this is your favorite area of the entire store.

Barrels filled with tart oranges and smooth red apples. Tables piled high with bananas, some just shy of yellow, others sunshine perfect, and a few with speckles of black (which are the best). Shelves lining the walls, overflowing with bundles of herbs and lettuce, all coated in a fine layer of mist. 

Bliss. 

Heading straight for the apples, you plunge into the Gala pile, rummaging until you come up with ten perfect ones. Peaches follow, fingers rubbing along the delicate pinky-orange fuzz. Squeeze, smell, squeeze, smell. Five are chosen for a pie (Sam pleaded shamelessly until you agreed to make him one), and in the cart they go. Heading toward the wall of herbs, you’re reaching for the basil when a metallic bang makes you jump. Spinning around, you find Bucky lobbing coconuts into the cart.

“We need these.”

“We really don’t, Buck. I hate coconut, it tastes like suntan lotion.”

“They’re not for eating,” he grabs an apple, wipes it on his shirt, and takes a juicy bite. “They’re for security.”

Sticky juice drips from his lip, catching in his beard. When you reach over to swipe it away, he nips your finger with a grin.

“Explain please.”

“See it’s like this. We’re just here shopping, doin’ our thang -”

“Don’t say thang.”

“- when someone attacks. What happens? BAM. One of these furry beauties breaks their face. Problem solved.”

Giving him a slow perusal, you raise an eyebrow.

“Were the 47 knives you’re carrying not enough to deflect this attack?”

Finishing off the apple in three sloppy bites, he carefully tucks the price sticker in his pocket so he can scan it before leaving and sets the mangled core beside your purse.

“Babe, these are my back-up plan. A good soldier always has a back-up plan.”

While you grab a bottle of extra-pulpy orange juice, Bucky picks two jugs of chocolate milk, snaps one open and takes a swing. Ever the thrifty shopper, he pulls a familiar bag from his back pocket, fishes out a crumpled piece of newspaper, and dangles it before you.

“Found a coupon for this,” he says gleefully. “Buy one, get one free. It’s called a BOGO. A BOGO. Hilarious, right? Fuck me, I love the future.”

Still laughing, he takes another long drink of chocolate milk and smacks his lips.

It was a lazy Sunday morning when you discovered this particular habit. Walking into the living room, you found Bucky buried in a sea of Sunday newspaper, tongue between his teeth and scissors in hand while he clipped coupons. He wasn’t picky, if it was remotely interesting, it went into the YES pile. It was one of those random things that brought him inordinate levels of joy, so of course you encouraged it. On his last birthday, you gifted him with a green zippered bag decorated with angry looking owls and official looking letters stitched across the front:

Bucky’s Coupon Bag  Thriftn’ Machine Since 1917

He laughed for five straight minutes and then stuffed it full. The bag accompanies you on every trip and the sight of Bucky excitedly rifling through his wad of coupons still makes your heart swell.  

Setting aside his BOGO, Bucky continues down the aisle, leaving you to pause in front of the yogurt. While you contemplate the merits of blackberry vs strawberry, Bucky slides over holding three cans of Reddi-Whip. 

“Are you actually planning to eat that? I thought you said whipped air is for, and I quote, ‘spineless, tasteless trash heathens’?”

Bucky shakes the can of spray whipped cream and wiggles his eyebrows, leveling you with a sultry stare. 

“Hell no I’m not eating it. This is for the bedroom. Last week I watched this god-awful movie where some blond guy - who looked exactly like Steve, by the way - made himself a whipped cream bikini for his girl. Decided I’m gonna do that for you. You’re welcome.”

“That sounds gross and unsanitary.” 

“If by gross and unsanitary you mean spicy and sexy, then yes. Yes it does.”

Whistling what sounds like the theme music from a bad porn, he adds two tubs of honey swirled Greek yogurt, pats your butt, and strolls ahead, throwing a roughish wink over his shoulder. Imagining the melted whipped cream soaking into your bedsheets, you mentally add more laundry detergent to the list.

“Hang on, turn here.”

Tugging the cart behind him, Bucky stalks toward the feminine hygiene display. It takes him a minute to scan the products before squatting down to the bottom shelf. Grabbing two jumbo boxes of tampons, oddly enough the brand you prefer, he pops back to his feet.  

“Dare I ask why you need these?”

A faint pink flush crawls up his neck.  

“Well, you know, two reasons. They’re really great for stopping bloody noses, you know? Just poke ‘em up there and they soak it all up.”

 He mimes the execution and adds a thumbs up.

“And the second reason?”

Squinting at his boots, he shuffles his feet a bit. The pink flush deepens. 

“Um, you know - I know you’re out, since I stuck the last one up Steve’s nose last week, and yeah. Anyway. It’s about that time. Of the month. For you.”

Clearing his throat, he reaches for his chocolate milk, but you grab his wrist.  

“You know when my period’s going to start?”

He shrugs self-consciously and fiddles with a loose thread on his shirt.  

“Well yeah. You think it’s just a coincidence when all your favorite candy shows up every month?” Looking up, he shoots you a crooked smile and leans over the cart to kiss your forehead. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt, you haul him in for a real kiss instead and his startled laughter tickles your lips. When you break away, those bright blue eyes are shining. 

“Thank you, Bucky,” you murmur.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” he whispers. 

This is the aisle where the cart officially explodes.

Lasagna noodles.

Egg noodles.

Spaghetti noodles.

Penne.

Linguine. 

Fettuccine.

Literally one of every noodle is selected, because Bucky Barnes is a self-proclaimed noodle slut. 

As you organize the boxes and search for orzo, you see him furtively add an extra bag of elbow macaroni. A quiet cough hides your laughter.

The last time Sam’s four-year-old niece came to the tower, she and Bucky spent hours making glittery elbow macaroni necklaces, which they ceremoniously gifted to everyone. When Sam casually mentioned her enthusiastically telling everyone at pre-school about her friend Bucky and how much fun she had visiting him, Bucky ran to a craft store and bulk bought supplies of glue, string, paint, and glitter, just in case she comes over again.

Months later and the entire team are still finding puddles of glitter all over the tower, but the delight on Bucky’s face anytime someone mentions that arts and crafts afternoon? 

It’s worth the mess.     

Gathering up brown sugar, instant oats, and chocolate chips, you turn to drop them in the cart when Bucky makes a strangled noise. Glancing over, you find him bouncing on his toes, vibrating with excitement.

“Babe. Babe. Are you making monster cookies?”

Adding a can of raisins, you search for the good vanilla. The kind that actually tastes like vanilla, not a cheap car wash air freshener. 

“I promised I would,” you remind him. Bucky plasters himself against your back, wrapping you in an enthusiastic hug and nuzzling his face against your neck.

“I love those fucking cookies,” he declares. “They’re my favorite thing ever. Next to you I mean.”

Finding the vanilla, you spin in his arms and return the squeeze.  

“I know you do. But you have to share them this time, okay? You can’t just eat them all yourself like the last two times. Agree?”

“Agree…to disagree. They’re wasted on other people, no one else loves as much. It’s for the best when I eat them all, it’s proof how much I love you. I’m doing it for you. I’m supporting you. Because I love you.”

“You’re completely full of shit,” you reply.

“I swear I’m not! Just listen!”

The excuses grow longer and wilder as Bucky outlines his rationale against sharing, walking backward and dragging the cart with him as he pleads his case. He’s diving into the science of super soldier metabolism levels and caloric requirements and the fact that his sister never shared anything with him, when he bumps into a tall display. 

He pulls up short, eyes narrowing. Plunking his fists on his hips, he growls a disgruntled sigh and glares at the rows of packaging. 

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

Lined up in neat rows, you see boxes of Jell-O organized by color and flavor. On the cover of each are an assortment of familiar images.  

“Are these Avengers themed Jell-O?” you ask, picking up a box with Sam’s image and the words Wild Berry Wilson. The rows extend further, filled with Lime Green Hulk and Blue Raspberry Rogers and Black Cherry Widow and Strawberry Lemon Stark. Exasperated, Bucky grabs the Sparkling Orange Spider flavor. 

“Is this for real? The kid gets one and I didn’t? Someone in PR is getting fired.”

“Well there’re only so many flavors, Buck,” you point out practically, but Bucky’s not in the mood for logic. Instead, he swipes an entire shelf of Jell-O flavors into the cart.  

“I swear to god, I have to do everything around here. Fine then. I’ll make my own flavor, Blackberry Kiwi Soldier or Winter Watermelon Rainbow, or something.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Anyway, I’ll work on the name. But I’m bringing it to dinner tomorrow night and everyone is gonna eat it.”

He dumps in a bag of mini-marshmallows and grabs sprinkles for topping, before marching down the aisle. Cringing at the volume of sugar in the cart, you make another mental note to schedule a dentist appointment.

“Go do your manly duty and find the meat. We need two 5lb rump roasts.”

“I like your rump roast,” he instantly responds and reaches over to smack your butt again. Anticipating the move, you catch his arm and twist it behind his back. He barks out a breathless laugh and you slap his ass in return.

“Your innuendos are tragic.”

Releasing him with a gentle shove, Bucky snatches up his three coconuts and ambles away, laughing while he juggles them. When he returns, he has the requested rump roasts, several packages of bacon, and a bundle of cocktail shrimp.

“If my innuendos get better, then can I touch your butt?”

“Maybe. But they better be real good.”

An added benefit to shopping at midnight? Not a soul in line.

Loading everything onto the conveyer belt, you automatically organize for bagging. Boxes together, produce together, meat together. Bucky adds a pack of batteries, a tin of mints, and some trashy magazines.

The last three items in the cart are his coconuts. They rattle around until you toss them at him, motioning back to the produce department. 

“We made it out alive. Go put them back.”

Still chomping his tasteless green gum-ball, he shakes his head and plops them down. 

“Nah, I have another idea for them. Got all those craft supplies at home, I’m gonna make you something.”

“Should I even ask?”

Bucky blows a huge, wet bubble and looks you up and down.

“Have you every worn one of those coconut bras? Like on TV, with the ladies in grass skirts? I’m gonna make you one. I already have string and glue. And glitter.”

“I think you may be overestimating your crafting abilities.” Digging out your credit card, you wait for the final tally. 

“Well, if it’s terrible then you’ll just be naked. Either way, I win.”

Shaking out your grocery sacks, he packs everything with Tetris-like efficiency and slides all of them up the vibranium arm.   

“How about I make you a deal. I’ll wear a coconut bra, if you’ll make yourself something to wear as well.”

Bucky blows another sugary bubble, pondering the idea.

“Like a coconut man thong?”

“Exactly like a coconut man thong.”

“Deal. Add it to that special dirty list you’re making me honey. We got loads to do.” 

Outside, the night air smells sweet and cool, the barest hint of a spring rain and fresh grass lingering on the breeze. Already, your eyes are feeling heavy, tonight’s quiet adventure ushering in that sought after peace. 

In your right hand, the three coconuts swing gently in their plastic sack. Humming under his breath, Bucky yawns, reaching for your other hand. His warm, calloused palm squeezes tight, his thumb stroking lightly over your skin.

He turns to you with a sleepy, lopsided smile.

Midnight and coconuts.  

It always does the trick.

***

[organized-chaotic-disaster]

I’d like to comment on this, as someone studying psych for the purposes of pursuing research, and am currently taking an advanced stats class. I’m also someone who doesn’t know how to list my gender in studies, and often just omit to participate because of that 😭

DISCLAIMER: I’m not an expert by any means!! I’m just a student, and I’m still currently taking an advanced stats class, so I’m not done with it yet!! (Also sorry for the super long response, it’s complicated stuff but I also wanna make it easy to understand and to explain everything I see as an issue here!!)

Because, I totally get what you mean. I TOTALLY get it. I feel it when I go to participate in studies and surveys, I think about it when I look at anything that uses umbrella terms for these things

But the thing is, I really don’t know how we’d deal with that with the way things currently are

Because the main issue here is the fact that, for every group you wanna base analysis on, you need a large enough group of people to make any reasonable conclusions. This is because there’s an assumption of normality— in other words, that your groups generally reflect the larger population. For example, with IQ, most people have a score of 85–115 (an average of 100, with an average range of 15 points above or below). People with scores lower than 85, or scores higher than 115, are statistically harder to find. People with scores lower than 70 and higher than 130 are even MORE difficult to find. But if you have a group of 3 people and one has a score of 120, another a score of 135, and another a score of 140, you have a group that isn’t representative of the larger population, so you can’t make generalizations based on this group. If you get more people, you’ll be more likely to have a “normal distribution” of people, and therefore a group that’s more reflective of the larger population . Generally, if you have 30+ people per group, you don’t need to worry about this, BUT that’s a benchmark that often isn’t met

We have ways of dealing with this, but only to a certain extent. If we were to make groups for for every possible gender or racial group, we’d have a bunch of groups that are only 1–3 people per group, and you can’t make any conclusions with such small groups (if you’re analyzing based on these groups, that is)

If we were to make it easier and more accessible to participate in research studies, this might not be a concern. And in my experience, well, I’ve never been informed of or found any research studies to be a participant in outside of school. It’s a huge issue in research, actually, to the point that we’ve cooked the term WEIRD populations (white/western, educated, industrialized, from rich countries, and from democratic countries) as populations the most research has been done on. There are steps being taken to deal with this and do research on other populations, but you still run into the same complications with gender and multiracial people (the current steps are, from my limited knowledge, largely based on studying specific racial and/or ethnic groups, which are relatively easy to deal with, since it’s easier to gather data for these people from specific locations where they tend to be populated)

I really wish I had a simple answer. I often just don’t participate in research studies anymore because I don’t know how to list my gender— I’m genderqueer, but also a woman, so do I say I’m nonbinary, or a woman? Neither feels right. But I also don’t know what they’ll do with my data if I choose the “other” option that includes a text box to elaborate and I have to go on a long-winded explanation— it’s (unfortunately) likely that my data won’t be used or will just be slotted into either nonbinary or woman. And I imagine it’s the same kind of experience for multiracial people

And the thing is, if the study isn’t based on analyzing groups based on these factors, you should, to an extent, be able to do the study without worrying about it too much and just let people have the (relatively) hyper-specific groups they need to completely accurately state who they are

But then you also get issues of making sure each group is similar to one another. If you have groups based on random group assignment, but one group has a disproportionately large group of one type of person compared to the other(s), you can’t be sure that your results aren’t because of that factor. I doubt that would be a big issue with such small groups of people belonging to these (again, relatively) hyper-specific groups, but I’m not entirely sure

It can also get complicated if you let people choose multiple options, because each group should consist of different people— for statistical analysis, one person shouldn’t be in group A and B, they should only be in one group. Otherwise, we violate the assumption of independent observations (which assumes that that every group consists of different people), which is an assumption made in statistical analysis, which can lead to problems during analysis. There could be ways to deal with this, but for that point, I’ll admit that I don’t know how this could be dealt with— in my notes, all my prof has given us is “if this assumption has been violated, you can’t run this test” so I don’t really have much to go off of 🥲 (PLEASE NOTE: I’m still in the process of completing this stats class, so it’s possible we’ll learn of other tests and designs that can combat this, but this is what my knowledge is so far)

It really pains me to see this issue, be affected by this issue, but also know why it exists and not know how to combat it. Again, I am still a student, and still currently taking this stats class, but based on the fact that this is an issue in every goddamn study, I doubt there’s anything I’ll learn in this class that’ll deal with it

I hope something can be worked out for this in the future, because as it is, you still can’t make reasonable conclusions using umbrella terms (just like you said OP, people of different genders and/or races who both fall under “multigender” or “multiracial” won’t have the same experiences, so it’s not a reasonable group to make!!), but we still need to study these people— we can’t just say “oh you’re not monogender and/or monoracial? Sorry, you can’t participate in this study 🙂”. In doing so, we discriminate against these people and lose the opportunity to gather valuable data!!

(Sorry if I was inaccurate in anything— I’ll be the first to admit that this is a hard class, and I’m probably gonna need to retake it, so my knowledge might not be accurate, but this is what I understand of the topic!!)

(And again sorry for the long response lol, I have a very hard time condensing my thoughts, especially when I’m explaining something complicated and wanna make sure my point is understood)

i dont know the most about statistics and shit but like. surely we can figure out a way of collecting demographic data that doesn't force multiracial, multigender, and multi-sexuality people to either choose between their identities or be placed into an "other" category that removes them from all identities at once. like surely there's something we can do here.

[distantlaughter]

"20 centimeters further and shit would have hit the fan"

by Herlinde Koelbl for Die Zeit, 16 June 2016 (x)

Mr. Rosberg, you've been on the podium many times in Formula 1. Do you still remember the first time?

That was in Australia in 2008, a milestone in my career. I'd been watching Formula 1 since I was a kid, with Schumacher and Häkkinen, but that was a long way off. Standing up there myself was pure euphoria. I finished third in that race, it was a great feeling.

In 2010, you switched to Mercedes, and Michael Schumacher became a teammate and rival at the same time. What did you learn from him?

Michael has passion, discipline, fighting spirit, respect, everything you need, and then he also did very, very much right. It's absolutely clear why he's a seven-time world champion. In our sport, the psyche plays an important role, and many people try to take pinpricks there. For example, Michael parked his car on race day in such a way that there was no room for my car next to it. I got really angry and put my car behind his so that he couldn't get out. That was a real energy drain - for me before the race, and for him the trouble that came afterwards.

What's it like with your teammate Lewis Hamilton? Do you sometimes have to be a scumbag on the track?

Without fighting spirit and bite, I wouldn't have won so many races and wouldn't have finished second in the world championship, there's only one who was better. Lewis is the benchmark, my incentive. Hand-eye coordination is very important when driving fast. You can hardly practice that, so I do push-ups and play memory at the same time. In the duels with Lewis, I lost out twice. But something like that is a high art, you dance at the limit. He took it very far when he drove into my tires once. 20 centimeters further and shit would have hit the fan. Privately, though, I strive to be a better person and care for the well-being of the people around me. I want success, but I don't want to lose respect and I don't want to cross any lines to achieve it. You have to skillfully exploit the gray area. And that's where I can always improve, of course.

You are an only child and the son of Formula 1 World Champion Keke Rosberg. Would you rather have grown up in a large family?

Definitely. All my friends are Italian, and I always see the nonna and cousins everywhere. As a grandpa, I'd also like to have a giant gathering like that around me. My mother taught me to value family. That is the most important constant in my life. I will soon be together with my wife for 13 years. We've known each other since I was three, I fell in love when I was ten, and we really got together when I was 18. She showed me that you can give without expecting anything in return. I had a hard time with that before.

You have to be aggressive at the wheel. Is your wife afraid for you?

Yes, of course. And that's normal, too. My wife watches most of the races on TV, my mother doesn't watch at all and vacuums the apartment in the meantime. Fear or respect for a situation is important self-protection, especially in such a dangerous sport. Imagine: I'm on the home stretch, there's a wall in front of me, I brake, but there's no brake, the pedal drops, I run into a pile of tires at 250 km/h, and then the lights go out. That really happened to me at Zandvoort in 2005, and there are always situations like that in racing. It all happened very quickly, I got back in the car afterwards and drove two laps, then everything was forgotten. What saved me was the will to carry on, fighting spirit and discipline.

You recently had a child.

There's a legend that racing drivers lose half a second per lap with each child. But my father, for example, set a lap record a month after I was born. And nothing has changed for me on the race track - privately it has, I experience very special moments with my daughter. But when I'm in the car, I don't think about my family. That requires absolute presence.

And when does the thought of family come back?

Just before crossing the finish line, when I know that everything is in the bag.

[formulatrash]

What do you think about this feeder series only for young women being proposed? I feel like it still doesn't address some of the main problems with making motorsport more accessible.

I'm not at the track, so I can't ask people about what's planned to be announced so I'm trying to reserve any judgement to find out what it actually is (the rumour mill, even from good sources, isn't always right) before I go in on anything but. well, that sort of says enough about my opinion.

if it actually is a separate, 15-driver series, then it makes no sense to differentiate it from W Series. W Series' drivers are older (although there had been a conscious push for younger ones and this year's intake were) because the pool of teenage women qualified to drive even a regional F3 car was extremely small and giving them only competition against each other wouldn't have provided development. So people like Alice and Emma, although they were very unlikely to progress up the single seater ladder, were there to balance the field in skills terms and provide a benchmark. It's why, despite the criticism that drivers who win in their second or third season of F2/3 face, it's actually very important to the overall field to have a bunch of long-timers in there like Boschung.

There is a case for an F4 series or for help to get more women into F4 series. F4 is where the gap really starts to show, in experience terms - women drivers tend more towards ending up in regional GT series like Ginetta or other national equivalents, which are cheaper than a single seater run, if they ever get into cars at all. Jess Hawkins never placed lower than third in a karting championship and won three but still only got to do a handful of Formula Ford races before she had to call it, effectively, quits financially - she never got on the F4 ladder.

(Jess is a really interesting example because she was young enough and she absolutely was successful enough)

Clearly, the FIA Women In Motorsport thing is not working. Taking a selection of promising female karters, eliminating them down to one, casting the others aside as deemed not as good as whoever then has to carry the prospects of them all (and might not be the right choice anyway because assessing drivers is an unscientific art) is not only not very good at getting more than one woman a year an F4 drive but actively unhelpful.

But what's confusing to me is that F2/3 know all this. They know there's a problem with progressing W Series (and other female drivers) up to F3, they have been working on it. The all-women test days are as much for the championship as the drivers, assessing whether there is any physical limitation (there isn't, has been the resounding conclusion) and what more preparation the drivers need, where the gaps are. Every time it's track time - there's just no alternative to time working with engineers and being in the car and that's solvable with money, which female drivers are demographically short of.

Has W Series been perfect? No. I don't see how an under-the-thumb F1-backed series is going to buck that, however, especially with the idea that it will have existing F2/3 teams running in it, meaning that drivers will have to pay. So the barriers are as high as ever, without providing opportunities that W Series wasn't. And what was a relatively independent organisation designed to help feed women drivers into the F1 ladder is hung out to dry by the people who very literally could have made it work.

Well. Ok. I did in fact just go off there - but yes. We don't know what it is or any of the details yet, so maybe these are all wrong assumptions. Maybe what's announced won't be an all-female series at all. Maybe it will be something else altogether.

But it's very difficult not to imagine that motorsport would be this totally obtuse, especially on diversity.

[professionaldaydreamer]

After staying up late yesterday to catch up to the last episode of Exandria Unlimited, here's what I think as someone who hasn't watched any Critical Role before.

Overall I would say it hits exactly the right spot between typical D&D shenanigans and some better character and fighting scenes that make the slower paced moments worthwhile. Especially the dynamic between Opal/Ted, and Dorian's personal journey, were the highlights of the sessions for me. The other characters absolutely have their moments too but it's clear that the veteran players (Dariax, Orym, Fearne) are doing whatever they can to make the newcomers (Opal, Dorian, Fyra Rai to a degree) shine.

I think Aabria is surprisingly flexible as a DM (unusual for D&D generally speaking) and her genuine hyped-ness for her players is absolute vibes.

I do get why some viewers are annoyed about the pacing and plot lines of the series but I wonder how much of that is because of preconceived notions of what they think a campaign or story should be. It's interesting to see how often people posit those personal expectations as the benchmark of the quality of the story, instead of looking at what type of story is actually being told and investigate their feelings and criticism from there.

My take is that this campaign was a test of character, that was the story arc; not Poska, not the burning sigil at the mesa, not Myr'atta, not whatever is going on down south. Not even the crown or the spider queen really, they're just the way in which the question was posed to the players; how do you feel about (the duality of) power? And the question that follows in its wake: does power necessarily corrupt those that wield it?

I really value this approach to storytelling as it focuses less on lore and big story moments, and more on what players are experiencing and how that translates to their character's actions. Not that there's a lack of big story elements in ExU, if anything there's an absolute shit ton of things going on, arguably too much, but it's the back drop to what the characters do, not the main attraction. If viewed from that perspective it's hard to imagine an 8-episode run that forces a closed narrative, and I am glad we now get to have these type of stories as so much of mainstream storytelling emphasizes completing the narrative over character exploration.

--

I'm very curious to see if they pick this up again in the future because then I'll be back! I'll leave the 100+ episode runs for those with more stamina to binge watch hours of people fumbling with their dice (I say this with compassion as an eternal dice fumbler).

[leam1983]

Microsoft and Project Pluto

I've been doing some digging around Microsoft's future plans, seeing how more or less astroturfing several manufacturers into releasing TPM 2.0-compliant potatoes that can barely run Windows 11 seems to have gone over well.

Welp, their long-term goal is to lock down AMD and Intel-based compliant systems to be forced to execute and sign on Microsoft code alone. As in, no bootloader, no Linux, no picking the most lightweight option for your server stack if you're in IT professionally - Windows or bust. Installing Linux on machines like this would force hardware devs to issue the proper certs on their own, instead of working like they have for the past twenty or so years and just close their eyes, agree to a standard - usually Microsoft's - and hit Go. There's also talks to tie Windows Update with your system kernel, which means that in practice, the House that Gates Built could steal a page from Ubuntu and find a way to issue kernel revisions while the OS is still running. It's also possible that they could use that to push non-mandatory, but recommended updates onto you, potentially undoing previously-used features or maybe bricking your rig, depending on your hardware setup.

Seeing how Satya Nadella's response to entry-tier hardware barely managing to run Windows 11 as their stock OS was to basically shrug and go "Welp, just go buy a nicer PC! Here's a list of affiliates!", I think we can fear the worst.

If it really falls down to motherboard or chip manufacturers not taking whatever payola M$ might hit them with, we're effectively screwed. We've known for years, now, that Microsoft wants to lock down the PC ecosystem to something closer to Apple's own walled garden. Their stated pretense is usually added security at the corporate level, but I'm really dreading the future of what's both my job and my hobby if it all boils down to me choosing a locked-down box with an apple-shaped logo or a locked-down box with four squares on it.

Windows worming its way into my firmware's microcode.

The very thought makes me queasy. Oh, and all the normies are going to settle with an eye-roll and a sigh, of course. I've heard it all before. "They're making computers easier to use, isn't that a good thing?! Whatever man, you'll whine and bitch and then load up Steam to benchmark things as usual, so why the Hell do you care that much?"

This isn't about ease of use. This is about control. I own every screw, every chip, every via and fan blade in my two rigs. I own them. The data that's on them is also mine, within reason.

If Microsoft has its way, we'll all be subletting our ability to do our damn jobs, as fucking dystopian as it seems. How the fuck do you think sysadmins at the corporate level are going to take to someone at Microsoft pushing a revision on Windows 12 or whatever, and settling with a pithy apology for all the late-in-cycle computer parks and IT budgets they've just ruined? Fuck, my boss practically has a panic attack whenever one of the kids in the call centre fucks up a headset or a mouse pad; I can't imagine how she'll take to repeated wholesale overhauls of our workstations because someone at Redmond decided to shorten the shelf life of a perfectly good product!

One of the top dogs came up to me a few days back and started joshing around. "But seriously man, why are you making us use Linux, bro? Like, everyone knows Windows!"

I smiled. "You're running off of a reskinned Ubuntu MATE, Steve, because if I asked you to buy me ten thou's worth of Windows 11 licenses and then told you we'll need to add new hardware to make 'em run, you'd rip my badge from my jacket, piss in my trash can and send me home without so much as a please and a thank you. Using my method, all you had to deal with was one afternoon's worth of file migrations and budget enough for eight PowerPoint slides, a twenty-minute break and some extra coffee, to train everyone."

Sometimes, small-to-medium business heads can be absolute idiots.

[queerfables]

Hmm, some of this is... I think "subjective" is the best word. I do not think that Sterek was ever seriously on the table as a potential canon ship. No one outside of fandom would have looked at their dynamic in s1 and thought there was something romantic there. It was a very contemporary slash dynamic, which is to say they were funny and snarky and it was easy to imagine their antagonism was a cover for a different kind of tension. I think Arthur/Eames from Inception hit similar notes (and, similarly, captured the fannish imagination with only a few scenes together). A lot of Marvel ships worked the same way, especially around the time the first Avengers movie came out. It was a popular dynamic, is what I'm saying, a common dynamic between (apparently) straight male characters, and yeah shippers will always find that kind of dynamic compelling but to your average audience member or network executive, it's all just funny banter and watchable interpersonal conflict. The only difference is these big blockbuster movies were absolutely never going to make their heroes queer and fans thought just maybe there was a snowballs chance in hell that a trashy mtv drama might. I'm not sure that belief was supported by anything other than the comparative likelihood of Iron Man and Captain America making out on the big screen of 2012, though.

People hoped that Jeff Davis would push the envelope on how queer the show could get. And he did! Danny didn't have a huge role when the show started, but it grew, and more queer characters were introduced through the show's run. My personal guess is that the deck was stacked against Davis precisely because he was openly gay. The whole "I don't care if you're gay just don't shove it in my face" argument was pretty big in the early 2010s. Even if he wanted to have a queer romance between two members of his main cast, it would have been a really hard sell to the network. In the unlikely case that any of the main characters came out, I suspect they would have ended up paired with an established queer side character or a newly introduced love interest. My money was always on Stiles/Danny above anything else, and even that was a long shot.

I'm not 100% certain on this, but I'm relatively sure that just-turned-19 Derek was always a fanon interpretation of his ambiguous age. When his age was made explicit, he was actually much younger than I'd assumed (and his relationship with Kate was way creepier than the early seasons implied, imo!) Yeah, Stiles says Derek is "a few years" older than he and Scott are, but he also says the fire that killed Derek's family was ten years ago, when later that season it's confirmed to have only been six. He's basically just sharing gossip, with precision being much less important than mystery and intrigue. Maybe I'm forgetting something, please let me know if canon contradicts me on this. It's just... If Derek had been 19 during s1, he would have been 13 when the fire happened, and regardless of how old Kate was - even if she were the same age - it would have been a very bold move for MTV to casually imply they were having sex at that time and skip right over any follow up questions. I'm not saying 13 year olds don't ever have sex, but they don't usually have sex in light-hearted MTV shows aimed at teens.

So, yeah, my initial understanding had been that Derek and Kate were around the same age, both older teenagers/young adults when they dated. Their relationship was explicitly paralleled to Allison and Scott's, so I took that as a rough benchmark. It was later confirmed that Kate was 21 and Derek was 16 when the fire happened, which put a whole different spin on what happened between them. Incidentally, these are roughly the ages of Derek and Stiles at the start of the series. This is another reason I'm skeptical of any age retconning related to whether a Kate/Derek or Derek/Stiles age gap was more uncomfortable. They could easily have leaned harder in one direction or the other if that was their concern.

It's true that Sterek fandom had some weird moments towards the cast and showrunners but in fairness, the show shamelessly exploited Sterek fandom right back. Anyone remember that infamous "we're on a ship" video? The term queerbaiting gets some dubious use these days but if anything qualifies... Listen, I'm not a Sterek fan but that was egregious.

Anyway it probably was the case that you had to be there. It's also true that some of us who were there still ended up shipping Scott/Stiles the most, lol.

bordering on entering s4 of teen wolf and i fully do not understand why sterek is the fandom’s number one ship. they’ve talked like maybe ten times across 3 seasons. stiles absolutely wants to fuck him but stiles wants to fuck anything that moves. and derek needs to be 51/50’d and enrolled in an extensive full-time therapy program for a minimum of 3 months before he’s in a place to be dating ANYONE let alone the human personification of adhd

[phantomato]

Do you think Voldemort was actually the most powerful wizard in the Wizarding World at the height of his power? Do you think that affects his character/storyline in any way? You have so many great insights on his character and I'd love to know what you think!

Thank you! It’s very kind of you to call my comments worthwhile. 💖

Right off, I’m going to give the same disclaimer that I tell my husband every time he gets into “Who would win?” territory with the HP series: we don’t know shit about power levels in this universe. There is neither an internally-consistent logic available to use as a benchmark nor a detailed-enough list of feats from which we could construct our own rules. Some people who care more about this sort of thing will put in the effort anyway, creating headcanons to patch over the truly egregious empty spaces, but I’m not one of those people. I use magic when it’s convenient, and otherwise, I mostly stick to the mundane.

So the point of all that is to say that I have no fucking clue whether Voldemort was the most powerful wizard in the world during the height of his activity.

If we were allowed to know even, like, a tiny bit about the adult world of the HP universe, we might have a better idea. I guess nothing other than becoming a Wizard Cop was relevant to Harry’s journey, though, so we don’t know what knowledge and training looks like to someone who wishes to pursue research, say, or competitive dueling.

I’m going to constrain the problem you’ve posed in order to answer it. I might not be able to say how Voldemort compares to the unnamed wizards in Africa, but I’m willing to talk about Britain and assume that we’ve seen the main power-players in British society. And in that realm, I think Voldemort’s primary competition is Albus, and I’m willing to say that I think Voldemort is more powerful than Albus.

Unfortunately, I don’t care enough about the text to pull out OotP and go line-by-line through the duel at the end to say that V was clearly trouncing Albus. I read it as such. That’s enough. It’s also the only outright duel we see from either of them, and our only on-page evidence of their strength in a fight. We also know that Albus beat Gellert back in 1945 when Gellert held the Elder Wand, but goodness knows what that says about him—maybe he was stronger back then, maybe Gellert threw the match, maybe Gellert was never as magically potent as Albus. The end result for me is the same: in 1996, when they duel in the ministry, Albus is losing to V until the entire auror corps shows up and V decides a retreat is more strategic.

Ultimately, I don’t think it matters that much that V was probably the more powerful wizard, between the two of them, during his wars. He’s feared precisely because of how rarely he comes out to handle something personally—his followers are considered more than enough to handle most issues, leaving V to play boogeyman. Most people probably freeze up or run upon seeing him and don’t even try to shoot off a curse.

And even if he’s more powerful than Albus, that stupid rumor that Albus is the only man he fears pursues him all the same. I cannot imagine how frustrating that must be for Voldemort, being told that you’re afraid of your old schoolteacher. Annoyed by? Feel hatred for? Yes. Fear? …He’s a mortal man, man. V’s fears are pretty clearly wrapped up in deeply-rooted and untreated traumas, he’s afraid of things like death and his natal appearance, not ‘that shitbag who would take points off my assignments and not tell me why.’

Mm, quite frankly, I doubt that Voldemort thought all that much about Albus Dumbledore between his first and second Hogwarts teaching post rejections. I can’t accept that he spent decades seething with active hatred for Albus and still decided to apply for a job under Albus as headmaster. It’s completely nonsensical. I have to believe that V thought a long enough time had passed to put their old enmity to rest (V had been a child, surely Albus was able to judge a middle-aged man separately from his bratty 13-year-old self). If anything, the first war would be a period in which V might gain a grudging respect for Albus as a man clearly well-matched against him, who could marshal his own paramilitary force with equally-devoted followers willing to die in his name. That’s a moment when V might go, oh, I see what Grindelwald was on about when he considered Albus a worthy opponent.

So, really, I can tie everything about the Voldemort persona to his position as the head of a terrorist organization, not particularly to his power level. I won’t write this, but someone could tell a story in which V is just an above-average wizard willing to study some dark shit, but he is an extremely compelling and charismatic leader, and his DEs form entirely as a result of that social skill.