#there's a job I really really REALLY wanted. and I'm qualified. and everyone who knows me says I'd be perfect for it

[marzipanandminutiae]

days since last had breakdown about the fact that I'm 31 and have only had an INTERVIEW for one (1) full-time job in my field- and it wasn't even in a part of my field that interests me -in seven years of looking: 0

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.

"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.

"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.

"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.

"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"

"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.

"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"

Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"

"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."

He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.

Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.

"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."

Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."

Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!

Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"

"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.

"He will if he knows what's good for him."

"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.

Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"

Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Part 1 Part 3

[azulhood]

Danny and Jazz were almost at the end of their rope.

They've checked almost everyone they knew who would take them in.

Sam's family? Didn't want them living under the same roof as their daughter.

Mr Lancer? He did actually want to take them in but his one bedroom apartment was not a suitable place for kids to live and his teachers salary couldn't afford to support three people.

Tucker's family? Got shut down by Vlad.

Which was the end of the list of who could get custody, well living at least.

There was no way either of them were living with Vlad, and with that in mind, they decided to get creative.

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

When Edward woke up, sitting at an old interrogation table in what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse (don't ask him which one, gothem had too many) and splitting pain in his head from most likely getting knocked out, his first thought was I knew it.

Gotham rogues had been disappearing only to reappear the next day with no memory and often in bad shape, like black mask and Bane.

Some of the rogues, such as penguin and Ivy, believed that they would be safe from the next attack.

Edward was slightly more pessimistic.

And it turned out he was right.

"ahem." Noise brought his attention to the warehouses other occupants.

Two teenagers.

It was strange to think that these two put Bane into a coma, but Edward had spent most of his nights getting the stuffing beaten out of him by a child wearing the colours of a traffic light so he was suitably wary.

"How can I help you?" Being polite was always a good idea when kidnapped by possible meta children (because no normal person could walk away from a fight with Bane, the bats don't qualify as normal.)

"Hi, I'm Jazz and this is Danny." The red head introduced herself and the blue eyed boy next to her. "Nice to meet you Mr Nygma."

"Nice to meet you as well." His mouth responded on autopilot as he panicked over being addressed by name, no one who kidnapped him did that ( which was mostly the bats taking him back to Arkham after another foiled plan) unless they were Amanda Waller.

"Right, now that we all know each other, let's get started." Danny said pulling out a sheet of paper and star themed pen from somewhere.

"Get started on what?" Torture? Edward would really like to know if that was the case.

"The interview." Jazz explained " You just have to answer a few questions then you get to go, after we wipe your memory of course, we have someone who we don't want knowing we're in Gotham."

"Oh, of course." Edward replied faintly as he processed the information given to him.

"And if you get job we'll contact you in a week." Danny added as he twirled his pen. "Got it?"

"Yes." Edward had never been more confused in his life.

[nostalgebraist]

Honestly I'm pretty tired of supporting nostalgebraist-autoresponder. Going to wind down the project some time before the end of this year.

Posting this mainly to get the idea out there, I guess.

This project has taken an immense amount of effort from me over the years, and still does, even when it's just in maintenance mode.

Today some mysterious system update (or something) made the model no longer fit on the GPU I normally use for it, despite all the same code and settings on my end.

This exact kind of thing happened once before this year, and I eventually figured it out, but I haven't figured this one out yet. This problem consumed several hours of what was meant to be a relaxing Sunday. Based on past experience, getting to the bottom of the issue would take many more hours.

My options in the short term are to

A. spend (even) more money per unit time, by renting a more powerful GPU to do the same damn thing I know the less powerful one can do (it was doing it this morning!), or

B. silently reduce the context window length by a large amount (and thus the "smartness" of the output, to some degree) to allow the model to fit on the old GPU.

Things like this happen all the time, behind the scenes.

I don't want to be doing this for another year, much less several years. I don't want to be doing it at all.

----

In 2019 and 2020, it was fun to make a GPT-2 autoresponder bot.

[EDIT: I've seen several people misread the previous line and infer that nostalgebraist-autoresponder is still using GPT-2. She isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Her latest model is a finetuned LLaMA-13B.]

Hardly anyone else was doing anything like it. I wasn't the most qualified person in the world to do it, and I didn't do the best possible job, but who cares? I learned a lot, and the really competent tech bros of 2019 were off doing something else.

And it was fun to watch the bot "pretend to be me" while interacting (mostly) with my actual group of tumblr mutuals.

In 2023, everyone and their grandmother is making some kind of "gen AI" app. They are helped along by a dizzying array of tools, cranked out by hyper-competent tech bros with apparently infinite reserves of free time.

There are so many of these tools and demos. Every week it seems like there are a hundred more; it feels like every day I wake up and am expected to be familiar with a hundred more vaguely nostalgebraist-autoresponder-shaped things.

And every one of them is vastly better-engineered than my own hacky efforts. They build on each other, and reap the accelerating returns.

I've tended to do everything first, ahead of the curve, in my own way. This is what I like doing. Going out into unexplored wilderness, not really knowing what I'm doing, without any maps.

Later, hundreds of others with go to the same place. They'll make maps, and share them. They'll go there again and again, learning to make the expeditions systematically. They'll make an optimized industrial process of it. Meanwhile, I'll be locked in to my own cottage-industry mode of production.

Being the first to do something means you end up eventually being the worst.

----

I had a GPT chatbot in 2019, before GPT-3 existed. I don't think Huggingface Transformers existed, either. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

I had a denoising diffusion image generator in 2021, before DALLE-2 or Stable Diffusion or Huggingface Diffusers. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

Earlier this year, I was (probably) one the first people to finetune LLaMA. I manually strapped LoRA and 8-bit quantization onto the original codebase, figuring out everything the hard way. It was fun.

Just a few months later, and your grandmother is probably running LLaMA on her toaster as we speak. My homegrown methods look hopelessly antiquated. I think everyone's doing 4-bit quantization now?

(Are they? I can't keep track anymore -- the hyper-competent tech bros are too damn fast. A few months from now the thing will be probably be quantized to -1 bits, somehow. It'll be running in your phone's browser. And it'll be using RLHF, except no, it'll be using some successor to RLHF that everyone's hyping up at the time...)

"You have a GPT chatbot?" someone will ask me. "I assume you're using AutoLangGPTLayerPrompt?"

No, no, I'm not. I'm trying to debug obscure CUDA issues on a Sunday so my bot can carry on talking to a thousand strangers, every one of whom is asking it something like "PENIS PENIS PENIS."

Only I am capable of unplugging the blockage and giving the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" askers the responses they crave. ("Which is ... what, exactly?", one might justly wonder.) No one else would fully understand the nature of the bug. It is special to my own bizarre, antiquated, homegrown system.

I must have one of the longest-running GPT chatbots in existence, by now. Possibly the longest-running one?

I like doing new things. I like hacking through uncharted wilderness. The world of GPT chatbots has long since ceased to provide this kind of value to me.

I want to cede this ground to the LLaMA techbros and the prompt engineers. It is not my wilderness anymore.

I miss wilderness. Maybe I will find a new patch of it, in some new place, that no one cares about yet.

----

Even in 2023, there isn't really anything else out there quite like Frank. But there could be.

If you want to develop some sort of Frank-like thing, there has never been a better time than now. Everyone and their grandmother is doing it.

"But -- but how, exactly?"

Don't ask me. I don't know. This isn't my area anymore.

There has never been a better time to make a GPT chatbot -- for everyone except me, that is.

Ask the techbros, the prompt engineers, the grandmas running OpenChatGPT on their ironing boards. They are doing what I did, faster and easier and better, in their sleep. Ask them.

[ronearoundblindly]

would you ever write an invisible reader? Like let’s say she’s an agent or a scientist. Quiet and stuff right? She always keeps to herself has the biggest crush on Steve but because she’s thinks she’s invisible she doesn’t ever think he might be interested too. There’s a mission she goes on and things go awry and she actually turns invisible. Something akin to how in the Fantastic Four movies they get their powers she gets this one? But it takes time to get under control. Steve thinks it’s his fault so he tries to help out. And through the the process of helping her gain back visibility she realizes Steve has seen her all along. Lol this really just came to my head when I was thinking about Steve using paint on someone’s body as a way to show them he thinks they’re art.

This. Is. Spectacular. I'm gonna fudge it a bit. Headcanon/stream of consciousness format. No warnings just canon-level "action." gif credit: @meidui

Erasure (Steve Rogers x junior agent!Reader)

My first instinct is to make it an ability to alter someone perception--i.e. you're constantly a little embarrassed of your input, so you tell people to 'forget you said that'--and let's say that constant hope that you won't be remembered badly is the innate trigger for your ability.

Probably a science experiment of Tony's gone wrong. He and the team are arguing about something that needs to be recovered before a damaged thing reaches critical mass. You sneak in to just grab what he wants and not waste time arguing. Tony doesn't know you're in there and locks the lab down until the dangerous pulse dissipates. (Steve doesn't know you're in there either because you popped in while he was facing and yelling at Tony, fwiw.) Maybe Tony saunters in once the doors open, finds you there with the part in your hand and knocked on your ass.

Your skin touches his as he reaches for you and the part. You jokingly tell him there's nothing to worry about, nothing to see here. You're surprised that he listens and walks off immediately, chatting and leading the team away down the hall to show them something else he's working on in the hangar bay.

Overall, once you catch your breath, you're fine. You don't want to go to the infirmary and tell them you did something so dumb.

Life continues.

Through a lot of trial and error, you realize what you can do--forcibly--by erasing people's memory of you being around. The head count for meetings is off. Several teammates you know you spoke to see security footage of you at the time and curiously remark that they don't recall you being there. Things like that. It works on everybody, or so you think.

There's a brainstorming session about how to infiltrate a possibly corrupt corporation's facility to gain intel. Everyone agrees to this elaborate rouse where two ripped agent dudes pose as janitors and blah blah blah. It's a little absurd.

You check the companies job listings, and knowing you qualify for one, submit an application the next day. The woman in HR who hires you doesn't work on the same floor as where you are technically snooping, and you can handle the work they actually want you to do in just a few hours a day, giving you a bunch of time to access nearly everywhere and nudge everyone to forget you were there.

The attempted break-in of fake janitors is the talk of the office on your last day, the one where you find the info Stark wanted to begin with, and then you quit, still quietly, returning to the Avengers the next morning.

You drop off the intel to Tony's office when he's not there, but just as you get situated back at your little desk, Steve comes up.

He looks concerned, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the flimsy cubicle wall.

"Feeling better?"

You're so confused.

"You were out for over a week. Did you need to go to the hospital? Was a family member with you at least? You could have called in for help."

On impulse, you grab his arm and tell him not to worry about you, yet he...doesn't move. After a flawless use of the power hundreds of times in a row, you don't understand.

Blinking up at Steve, you blurt, "I should be erased. Why are you still noticing me?"

He's bewildered, sure, but Steve tucks his head and smiles shyly.

"Can't erase you, doll," he chuckles, so soft only you can hear. "I draw you in pen--" Steve taps his temple "--up here..."

He bends down, his hand gently gripping your arm and his cheek touching yours.

"...now where you been for a week?"

And then, yes, some beautiful closeness and Steve paints on you to highlight what parts he drew so permanently on his mind!

🤗

a/n: Thank you for sending in this lovely idea, nonnie! I'm sorry everything I'm writing has been short and convoluted the last...while, but this is such a sweet premise. (Also, my apologies if you really, really wanted straight invisibility as the power. Just send in another ask, and I'll try to come up with an alternate version!)

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[hms-no-fun]

Hi! I just read your post about your opinion on "AI" and I really liked it. If it's no bother, what's your opinion on people who use it for studying? Like writing essays, solving problems and stuff like that?

I haven't been a fan of AI from the beginning and I've heard that you shouldn't ask it for anything because then you help it develop. But I don't know how to explain that to friends and classmates or even if it's true anymore. Because I've seen some of the prompts it can come up with and they're not bad and I've heard people say that the summaries AI makes are really good and I just... I dunno. I'm at a loss

Sorry if this is a lot or something you simply don't want to reply to. You made really good points when talking about AI and I really liked it and this has been weighing on me for a while :)

on a base level, i don't really have a strongly articulated opinion on the subject because i don't use AI, and i'm 35 so i'm not in school anymore and i don't have a ton of college-aged friends either. i have little exposure to the people who use AI in this way nor to the people who have to deal with AI being used in this way, so my perspective here is totally hypothetical and unscientific.

what i was getting at in my original AI post was a general macroeconomic point about how all of the supposed efficiency gains of AI are an extension of the tech CEO's dislike of paying and/or giving credit to anyone they deem less skilled or intelligent than them. that it's conspicuous how AI conveniently falls into place after many decades of devaluing and deskilling creative/artistic labor industries. historically, for a lot of artists the most frequently available & highest paying gigs were in advertising. i can't speak to the specifics when it comes to visual art or written copy, but i *can* say that when i worked in the oklahoma film industry, the most coveted jobs were always the commercials. great pay for relatively less work, with none of the complications that often arise working on amateur productions. not to mention they were union gigs, a rare enough thing in a right to work state, so anyone trying to make a career out of film work wanting to bank their union hours to qualify for IATSE membership always had their ears to the ground for an opening. which didn't come often because, as you might expect, anyone who *got* one of those jobs aimed to keep it as long as possible. who could blame em, either? one person i met who managed to get consistent ad work said they could afford to work all of two or three months a year, so they could spend the rest of their time doing low-budget productions and (occasionally) student films.

there was a time when this was the standard for the film industry, even in LA; you expected to work 3 to 5 shows a year (exact number's hard to estimate because production schedules vary wildly between ads, films, and tv shows) for six to eight months if not less, so you'd have your bills well covered through the lean periods and be able to recover from what is an enormously taxing job both physically and emotionally. this was never true for EVERYONE, film work's always been a hustle and making a career of it is often a luck-based crapshoot, but generally that was the model and for a lot of folks it worked. it meant more time to practice their skills on the job, sustainably building expertise and domain knowledge that they could then pass down to future newcomers. anything that removes such opportunities decreases the amount of practice workers get, and any increased demand on their time makes them significantly more likely to burn out of the industry early. lower pay, shorter shoots, busier schedules, these aren't just bad for individual workers but for the entire industry, and that includes the robust and well-funded advertising industry.

well, anyway, this year's coca-cola christmas ad was made with AI. they had maybe one person on quality control using an adobe aftereffects mask to add in the coke branding. this is the ultimate intended use-case for AI. it required the expertise of zero unionized labor, and worst of all the end result is largely indistinguishable from the alternative. you'll often see folks despair at this verisimilitude, particularly when a study comes out that shows (for instance) people can't tell the difference between real poetry and chat gpt generated poetry. i despair as well, but for different reasons. i despair that production of ads is a better source of income and experience for film workers than traditional movies or television. i despair that this technology is fulfilling an age-old promise about the disposability of artistic labor. poetry is not particularly valued by our society, is rarely taught to people beyond a beginner's gloss on meter and rhyme. "my name is sarah zedig and i'm here to say, i'm sick of this AI in a major way" type shit. end a post with the line "i so just wish that it would go away and never come back again!" and then the haiku bot swoops in and says, oh, 5/7/5 you say? that is technically a haiku! and then you put a haiku-making minigame in your crowd-pleasing japanese nationalist open world chanbara simulator, because making a haiku is basically a matter of selecting one from 27 possible phrase combinations. wait, what do you mean the actual rules of haiku are more elastic and subjective than that? that's not what my english teacher said in sixth grade!

AI is able to slip in and surprise us with its ability to mimic human-produced art because we already treat most human-produced art like mechanical surplus of little to no value. ours is a culture of wikipedia-level knowledge, where you have every incentive to learn a lot of facts about something so that you can sufficiently pretend to have actually experienced it. but this is not to say that humans would be better able to tell the difference between human produced and AI produced poetry if they were more educated about poetry! the primary disconnect here is economic. Poets already couldn't make a fucking living making poetry, and now any old schmuck can plug a prompt into chatgpt and say they wrote a sonnet. even though they always had the ability to sit down and write a sonnet!

boosters love to make hay about "deskilling" and "democratizing" and "making accessible" these supposedly gatekept realms of supposedly bourgeois expression, but what they're really saying (whether they know it or not) is that skill and training have no value anymore. and they have been saying this since long before AI as we know it now existed! creative labor is the backbone of so much of our world, and yet it is commonly accepted as a poverty profession. i grew up reading books and watching movies based on books and hearing endless conversation about books and yet when i told my family "i want to be a writer" they said "that's a great way to die homeless." like, this is where the conversation about AI's impact starts. we already have a culture that simultaneously NEEDS the products of artistic labor, yet vilifies and denigrates the workers who perform that labor. folks see a comic panel or a corporate logo or a modern art piece and say "my kid could do that," because they don't perceive the decades of training, practice, networking, and experimentation that resulted in the finished product. these folks do not understand that just because the labor of art is often invisible doesn't mean it isn't work.

i think this entire conversation is backwards. in an ideal world, none of this matters. human labor should not be valued over machine labor because it inherently possesses an aura of human-ness. art made by humans isn't better than AI generated art on qualitative grounds. art is subjective. you're not wrong to find beauty in an AI image if the image is beautiful. to my mind, the value of human artistic labor comes down to the simple fact that the world is better when human beings make art. the world is better when we have the time and freedom to experiment, to play, to practice, to develop and refine our skills to no particular end except whatever arbitrary goal we set for ourselves. the world is better when people collaborate on a film set to solve problems that arise organically out of the conditions of shooting on a live location. what i see AI being used for is removing as many opportunities for human creativity as possible and replacing them with statistical averages of prior human creativity. this passes muster because art is a product that exists to turn a profit. because publicly traded companies have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to take every opportunity to turn a profit regardless of how obviously bad for people those opportunities might be.

that common sense says writing poetry, writing prose, writing anything is primarily about reaching the end of the line, about having written something, IS the problem. i've been going through the many unfinished novels i wrote in high school lately, literally hundreds of thousands of words that i shared with maybe a dozen people and probably never will again. what value do those words have? was writing them a waste of time since i never posted them, never finished them, never turned a profit off them? no! what i've learned going back through those old drafts is that i'm only the writer i am today BECAUSE i put so many hours into writing generic grimdark fantasy stories and bizarrely complicated werewolf mythologies.

you know i used to do open mics? we had a poetry group that met once a month at a local cafe in college. each night we'd start by asking five words from the audience, then inviting everyone to compose a poem using those words in 10 to 15 minutes. whoever wanted to could read their poem, and whoever got the most applause won a free drink from the cafe. then we'd spend the rest of the night having folks sign up to come and read whatever. sometimes you'd get heartfelt poems about personal experiences, sometimes you'd get ambitious soundcloud rappers, sometimes you'd get a frat guy taking the piss, sometimes you'd get a mousy autist just doing their best. i don't know that any of the poetry i wrote back then has particular value today, but i don't really care. the point of it was the experience in that moment. the experience of composing something on the fly, or having something you wrote a couple days ago, then standing up and reading it. the value was in the performance itself, in the momentary synthesis between me and the audience. i found out then that i was pretty good at making people cry, and i could not have had that experience in any other venue. i could not have felt it so viscerally had i just posted it online. and i cannot wrap up that experience and give it to you, because it only existed then.

i think more people would write poetry if they had more hours in a day to spare for frivolities, if there existed more spaces where small groups could organize open mics, if transit made those spaces more widely accessible, if everyone made enough money that they weren't burned the fuck out and not in the mood to go to an open mic tonight, if we saw poetry as a mode of personal reflection which was as much about the experience of having written it as anything else. this is the case for all the arts. right now, the only people who can afford to make a living doing art are already wealthy, because art doesn't pay well. this leads to brain drain and overall lowering quality standards, because the suburban petty bouge middle class largely do not experience the world as it materially exists for the rest of us. i often feel that many tech CEOs want to be remembered the way andy warhol is remembered. they want to be loved and worshipped not just for business acumen but for aesthetic value, they want to get the kind of credit that artists get-- because despite the fact that artists don't get paid shit, they also frequently get told by people "your work changed my life." how is it that a working class person with little to no education can write a story that isn't just liked but celebrated, that hundreds or thousands of people imprint on, that leaves a mark on culture you can't quantify or predict or recreate? this is AI's primary use-case, to "democratize" art in such a way that hacks no longer have to work as hard to pretend to be good at what they do. i mean, hell, i have to imagine every rich person with an autobiography in the works is absolutely THRILLED that they no longer have to pay a ghost writer!

so, circling back around to the meat of your question. as far as telling people not to use AI because "you're just helping to train it," that ship has long since sailed. getting mad at individuals for using AI right now is about as futile as getting mad at individuals for not masking-- yes, obviously they should wear a mask and write their own essays, but to say this is simply a matter of millions of individuals making the same bad but unrelated choice over and over is neoliberal hogwash. people stopped masking because they were told to stop masking by a government in league with corporate interests which had every incentive to break every avenue of solidarity that emerged in 2020. they politicized masks, calling them "the scarlet letter of [the] pandemic". biden himself insisted this was "a pandemic of the unvaccinated", helpfully communicating to the public that if you're vaccinated, you don't need to mask. all those high case numbers and death counts? those only happen to the bad people.

now you have CEOs and politicians and credulous media outlets and droves of grift-hungry influencers hard selling the benefits of AI in everything everywhere all the time. companies have bent over backwards to incorporate AI despite ethics and security worries because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, and everyone with money is calling this the next big thing. in short, companies are following the money, because that's what companies do. they, in turn, are telling their customers what tools to use and how. so of course lots of people are using AI for things they probably shouldn't. why wouldn't they? "the high school/college essay" as such has been quantized and stripmined by an education system dominated by test scores over comprehension. it is SUPPOSED to be an exercise in articulating ideas, to teach the student how to argue persuasively. the final work has little to no value, because the point is the process. but when you've got a system that lives and dies by its grades, within which teachers are given increasingly more work to do, less time to do it in, and a much worse paycheck for their trouble, the essay increasingly becomes a simple pass/fail gauntlet to match the expected pace set by the simple, clean, readily gradable multiple choice quiz. in an education system where the stakes for students are higher than they've ever been, within which you are increasingly expected to do more work in less time with lower-quality guidance from your overworked teachers, there is every incentive to get chatgpt to write your essay for you.

do you see what i'm saying? we can argue all day about the shoulds here. of course i think it's better when people write their own essays, do their own research, personally read the assigned readings. but cheating has always been a problem. a lot of these same fears were aired over the rising popularity of cliffs notes in the 90s and 2000s! the real problem here is systemic. it's economic. i would have very little issue with the output of AI if existing conditions were not already so precarious. but then, if the conditions were different, AI as we know it likely would not exist. it emerges today as the last gasp of a tech industry that has been floundering for a reason to exist ever since the smart phone dominated the market. they tried crypto. they tried the metaverse. now they're going all-in on AI because it's a perfect storm of shareholder-friendly buzzwords and the unscientific technomythology that's been sold to laymen by credulous press sycophants for decades. It slots right into this niche where the last of our vestigial respect for "the artist" once existed. it is the ultimate expression of capitalist realism, finally at long last doing away with the notion that the suits at disney could never in their wildest dreams come up with something half as cool as the average queer fanfic writer. now they've got a program that can plagiarize that fanfic (along with a dozen others) for them, laundering the theft through a layer of transformation which perhaps mirrors how the tech industry often exploits open source software to the detriment of the open source community. the catastrophe of AI is that it's the fulfillment of a promise that certainly predates computers at the very least.

so, i don't really know what to tell someone who uses AI for their work. if i was talking to a student, i'd say that relying chatgpt is really gonna screw you over when it comes time take the SAT or ACT, and you have to write an essay from scratch by hand in a monitored environment-- but like, i also think the ACT and SAT and probably all the other standardized tests shouldn't exist? or at the very least ought to be severely devalued, since prep for those tests often sabotages the integrity of actual classroom education. although, i guess at this point the only way forward for education (that isn't getting on both knees and deep-throating big tech) is more real-time in-class monitored essay writing, which honestly might be better for all parties anyway. of course that does nothing to address research essays you can't write in a single class session. to someone who uses AI for research, i'd probably say the same thing as i would to someone who uses wikipedia: it's a fine enough place to start, but don't cite it. click through links, find sources, make sure what you're reading is real, don't rely on someone else's generalization. know that chatgpt is likely not pulling information from a discrete database of individual files that it compartmentalizes the way you might expect, but rather is a statistical average of a broad dataset about which it cannot have an opinion or interpretation. sometimes it will link you to real information, but just as often it will invent information from whole cloth. honestly, the more i talk it out, the more i realize all this advice is basically identical to the advice adults were giving me in the early 2000s.

which really does cement for me that the crisis AI is causing in education isn't new and did not come from nowhere. before chatgpt, students were hiring freelancers on fiverr. i already mentioned cliffs notes. i never used any of these in college, but i'll also freely admit that i rarely did all my assigned reading. i was the "always raises her hand" bitch, and every once in a while i'd get other students who were always dead silent in class asking me how i found the time to get the reading done. i'd tell them, i don't. i read the beginning, i read the ending, and then i skim the middle. whenever a word or phrase jumps out at me, i make a note of it. that way, when the professor asks a question in class, i have exactly enough specific pieces of information at hand to give the impression of having done the reading. and then i told them that i learned how to do this from the very same professor that was teaching that class. the thing is, it's not like i learned nothing from this process. i retained quite a lot of information from those readings! this is, broadly, a skill that emerges from years of writing and reading essays. but then you take a step back and remember that for most college students (who are not pursuing any kind of arts degree), this skillset is relevant to an astonishingly minimal proportion of their overall course load. college as it exists right now is treated as a jobs training program, within which "the essay" is a relic of an outdated institution that highly valued a generalist liberal education where today absolute specialization seems more the norm. so AI comes in as the coup de gras to that old institution. artists like myself may not have the constitution for the kind of work that colleges now exist to funnel you into, but those folks who've never put a day's thought into the work of making art can now have a computer generate something at least as good at a glance as basically anything i could make. as far as the market is concerned, that's all that matters. the contents of an artwork, what it means to its creator, the historic currents it emerges out of, these are all technicalities that the broad public has been well trained not to give a shit about most of the time. what matters is the commodity and the economic activity it exists to generate.

but i think at the end of the day, folks largely want to pay for art made by human beings. that it's so hard for a human being to make a living creating and selling art is a question far older than AI, and whose answer hasn't changed. pay workers more. drastically lower rents. build more affordable housing. make healthcare free. make education free. massively expand public transit. it is simply impossible to overstate how much these things alone would change the conversation about AI, because it would change the conversation about everything. SO MUCH of the dominance of capital in our lives comes down to our reliance on cars for transit (time to get a loan and pay for insurance), our reliance on jobs for health insurance (can't quit for moral reasons if it's paying for your insulin), etc etc etc. many of AI's uses are borne out of economic precarity and a ruling class desperate to vacuum up every loose penny they can find. all those billionaires running around making awful choices for the rest of us? they stole those billions. that is where our security went. that is why everything is falling apart, because the only option remaining to *every* institutional element of society is to go all-in on the profit motive. tax these motherfuckers and re-institute public arts funding. hey, did you know the us government used to give out grants to artists? did you know we used to have public broadcast networks where you could make programs that were shown to your local community? why the hell aren't there public youtube clones? why aren't there public transit apps? why aren't we CONSTANTLY talking about nationalizing these abusive fucking industries that are falling over themselves to integrate AI because their entire modus operandi is increasing profits regardless of product quality?

these are the questions i ask myself when i think about solutions to the AI problem. tech needs to be regulated, the monopolies need breaking up, but that's not enough. AI is a symptom of a much deeper illness whose treatment requires systemic solutions. and while i'm frustrated when i see people rely on AI for their work, or otherwise denigrate artists who feel AI has devalued their field, on some level i can't blame them. they are only doing what they've been told to do. all of which merely strengthens my belief in the necessity of an equitable socialist future (itself barely step zero in the long path towards a communist future, and even that would only be a few steps on the even longer path to a properly anarchist future). improve the material conditions and you weaken the dominance of capitalist realism, however minutely. and while there are plenty of reasons to despair at the likelihood of such a future given a second trump presidency, i always try to remember that socialist policies are very popular and a *lot* of that popularity emerged during the first trump administration. the only wrong answer here is to assume that losing an election is the same thing as losing a war, that our inability to put the genie back in its bottle means we can't see our own wishes granted.

i dunno if i answered your question but i sure did say a lot of stuff, didn't i?

[vanishingcherry]

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

pairings: f1 grid x leclerc!driver reader, charles leclerc x sister!reader

warnings: sexism, hugging, talk about the possibility of a car crash, 2021 f1 grid

authors note: i was thinking of making this a series, so let me know if thats something you would be interested in! (like leclerc driver in different situations throughout the seasons after her debut in 2021)

masterlist

๑ ⋆˚₊⋆────ʚ˚ɞ────⋆˚₊⋆ ๑

Sitting on a flight to Bahrain, it would be an understatement to say that Y/N was nervous. She sat next to her brother, Charles, with Arthur sitting across from her, fast asleep against the headrest of the plane seat.

Charles was going into his 4th season in Formula 1, his third with Ferrari. Y/N, however, was going into her first, following her older brother's footsteps as she started out her rookie season with Sauber, or Alfa Romeo as it was now called.

Looking out the window, she watched in amazement as the city lights sparkled in the night. She had been to Bahrain before, during her time in F3 and F2 with Prema, but landing as a Formula 1 driver was a different feeling altogether.

Y/N was confident in the car. 3 days of preseason testing allowed her to get accustomed to all the differences from the F2 cars. While it definitely wasn't at the level of Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull, she was sure that she would be able to get at least a few points over the course of the season.

She was also extremely lucky to be paired with Kimi for her rookie season. The seasoned driver was known to be extremely less talkative, but she was sure she would pick up a few tips by just being in his presence. They had even had a short conversation during the pre-season testing during which Kimi told her that he was glad to have her as a teammate. Y/N never really realised just how much that statement meant to her until now, easing some of the nerves.

After landing, she and Charles walk through customs and head outside together, Arthur and Lorenzo following not too far behind. Immediately met by thousands of fans, she watches an unfazed Charles make his way towards them, smiling and signing posters and caps. She watches in awe for a second before a voice calling her name catches Y/N's attention.

"Y/N! Can you sign my cap please!"

She looks over to see a young girl amongst the crown and makes her way to the barrier. Kneeling over, she grabs the pen and signs the cap with a big smile.

"Are you going to watch the race?" Y/N smile turns even bigger when the girl nods.

"We've got seats at turn 3. I hope you get points! I love you!"

She laughs at the response, giving the girl a quick hug before making her way down the fans lined up.

There were dozens of people there, waving flags and notebooks for her to sign. Others just wanted a quick hug or a picture, which Y/N quickly obliged to. While she couldn't interact with everybody there, she made sure to as many people as possible.

Almost all of them were shouting words of encouragement and support, compliments hitting her from all sides. Surprised by how many people wanted her to sign things and take pictures, it was almost half an hour later when she finally sat down in the car, slumping against the seat as it made its way to the hotel. Her hand hurting from the number of autographs she had given out.

"There were so many people who wanted me to sign stuff" She said to Charles. "I didn't think there would be that many. All the girls were so excited."

"You're the first female driver Y/N, of course they were excited. I'm so proud of you, everyone is." Charles smiles as he replies, knowing just how hard it was to make it to F1, even more so as a girl. "Papa and Jules would be so, so happy."

"Thats P12 Y/N! Great job!"

The engineer's voice comes through the radio, conveying to Y/N her qualifying results.

"Oh my god! 12th is crazy, thank you! Where did Charles place? And Kimi?" Happy that Charles qualified 4th she celebrated, although she was slightly confused as to how she qualified ahead of Kimi who was 14th.

"There was an issue with his car." Her engineer explains, before telling her to switch off the engine and prepare for strategy discussion.

Y/N was just a few tenths off from making Q3 in her debut. Nonetheless, P12 was an amazing standing for the start of the race, and she was overjoyed at the prospect of getting points at her first ever F1 race.

As she makes her way to the driver rooms, Charles catches up to her, giving her a quick hug. "Xavi told me you qualified 12th! Congratulations! Get points tomorrow okay?"

She nods in response, congratulating him for qualifying P4 before once again making her way to the driver's room. She received many pats on the back on her way there, some from drivers and others from reporters and general people around the paddock.

Walking into the motorhome, Kimi is quick to congratulate her. Y/N expresses her sympathy for his qualifying position, but Kimi is quick to brush it aside. Having been in the sport this long, he knew that a bad qualifying doesn't mean a bad race.

After the discussions with the team for the next day's strategy had been closed, Y/N heads out, wanting to get a good nights rest before her first race.

The only goal for the next day was to race well and hopefully get a few points. Y/N knew that Alfa Romeo was feeling the pressure just as much as she was, being the team that signed the first female driver. All she wanted was to learn as much as possible while proving herself to the world.

"Just learn", is what the team principle had said not an hour ago. "Learn as much as you can, enjoy, and try not to crash the car."

Just as the rookie opens the taxi door, a voice calling out her name makes her turn around. At the sight of Sebastian, she pulls out her earphones.

The driver had just made the switch to Aston Martin, being Charles's teammate the year before. "I heard you qualified 12th! Thats amazing!"

Shyly she laughs. "Yeah, thank you so much!"

"Is anyone giving you a hard time?" he asks, fully prepared to defend Y/N. Sebastian had been an advocate for women in this sport for a long time, and was truly delighted that the step had finally be taken. Truth be told, he was honoured that he would be getting the opportunity to race against Y/N, even though she would insist it was the other way round.

"Not really," she replies. "Just a few fans on social media and stuff, saying it's a 'mans' sport."

"Ah, I think Hanna showed me a few of those posts." Sebastian mutters, thinking back to a weekend ago when his wife showed him the latest news, courtesy to the driver not having any social media accounts of his own. "Ignore them, we all know that you're amazing and believe me, you absolutely deserve to be here."

The 4 time world champion was speaking from experience. He had kept an eye on her the previous year. Although they hadn't talked much, other than when she was in the garage to visit Charles, Sebastian was ecstatic when he heard that the young girl had won the F2 Championship.

"I bet you'll get points tomorrow, you're just that good."

"Ah thanks Seb!" Y/N is close to blushing at that comment, overwhelmed with the number of compliments she had been receiving over the course of the day.

After another few moments of chatting, Sebastian walks away to his own car, leaving Y/N to get in hers and get back to the hotel. Popping her earphones back in, she relaxes against the seat, ready for what the race would bring.

"It's lights out and away we go for the first time in the 2021 season!"

The voice of David Croft is heard all around the world, thousands having tuned in to watch the start of the new season. Y/N gets a good start, overtaking Perez and moving up to P11 by turn 1.

Ahead of her now was Stroll in the Aston Martin. Staying close to him for the next few laps, she manages to overtake him on the straight when DRS opens.

"You're in the points! Push!" Her engineers voice comes through. Behind him the team was watching the screen in suspense, hoping that she would be able to keep the position. They jumped out of their seats nearly every time she got close to another car, worried out of their mind for the driver but excited nonetheless.

Choosing to stay out on track for an extra few laps earns her another two positions as most drivers go in for their pitstop, putting her at P8. Y/N manages to defend her position for majority of the race, keeping the Aston Martins and Red Bull behind her.

Towards the second half of the race, Y/N went in for her pitstop, unfortunately losing a spot in the process. Still, just 13 laps later, Y/N crossed the finish line in P9, having gotten 2 points for the driver standings and the team.

"Thats P9! P9 Y/N! Amazing, amazing job!"

Body in shock, she thanks the team and engineers profusely, jumping out of the car the second she parked it.

"Y/N Leclerc crosses the line in P9, an absolutely stellar performance. The first points scored from a woman in decades, and that too in her first race. I'm sure we can expect nothing short of brilliance from her in the future." Martin Brundle's voice can be heard by all watching.

Still in awe at the moment, all Y/N can think about is the fact that she got points. You did it, you did it, you did it. She runs into the barriers, giving a hug to everyone from Alfa Romeo standing there.

Behind her, Charles comes in for a hug, having heard from his engineer that Y/N placed 9th. "Je t'aime, je suis si fier" i love you, i am so proud

The next few minutes were a blur. Waving to the fans, Y/N can hear them cheer in the background as more and more people come up to her. Lewis pats her helmet on his way to the podium, Max and Valtteri doing the same. Sebastian walks by and offers a hug, widely grinning as he winks and says a quick "Told you so."

It was an out of the world experience. While not everyone may see the importance, everyone on the grid knew exactly how she was feeling. Having worked your entire life to reach F1, the feeling after getting your first points is one that no one would ever forget. One that Y/N would never forget.

"So Y/N, how does it feel having won points in your debut race?" The reporter asks when she enter the media pen. Replays of her crossing the checkered flag in P9 can be seen playing on the television in the background.

"There was a lot of pressure on me to perform well, being the first signed female driver and of course Charles being in Ferrari. People expected a lot. So, I am extremely happy that I was able to deliver."

Her response is short and sweet, as directed by the PR manager, but true nonetheless. There was a lot of controversy when Sauber announced that she would be joining F1 that year, with people on both sides of the spectrum making statements. It meant heaps to her, knowing that she had already started proving the haters wrong.

Toto and Susie Wolff were in support, both mentioning how important it was for more females to enter the sport. The Mercedes Principle having mentioned how "proud" he was, and how her presence would likely "encourage more girls from around the world to enter motorsport."

Susie being having participated in motorsport herself had reached out to Y/N when the news broke, sending her congrats and sharing her enthusiasm. Y/N and her still stay in contact, having just replied to another congratulatory message from Susie before coming out to give interviews.

On the other hand, there were also people who were doubtful of her. "She's entering a sport that has been predominantly male for over 7 decades. The way I see it, I'm not sure she'll be able to handle the needs of this sport. It's a tough sport, and there must be a reason females have never lasted long before." The statement that Red Bull released via their team principle was nothing short of enraging for Y/N, but she knew that she would have to stay calm and prove them wrong on track.

Nonetheless, Y/N knew that she had the support of all the drivers on the grid, all of them having talked to her and shown support during the pre-season testing. It meant a lot to her knowing that world champions like Lewis, Alonso and Sebastian were all rooting for her.

"And how did Charles react to you coming P9?"

"He was very happy," she exclaimed. "A bit jealous I think, because he didn't get points in his debut." Y/N adds, softly chuckling before moving on to the next reporter.

The rest of the media session went well, all the reporters being respectful and truly happy for Y/N. Finally, once the day was over, she went back to the hotel, ready for a night of relaxation.

Not too long after settling down on the couch, she heard a knock and the door handle turning. Charles walks in.

Falling back onto the couch next to her, he says. "The reporter told me what you said to her."

Frowning in response, Y/N pauses the movie. He elaborates. "About me being jealous? Because I didn't get points in my debut?" He gently elbows her in the rib and she laughs in response.

"But its true, no?

๑ ⋆˚₊⋆────ʚ˚ɞ────⋆˚₊⋆ ๑

[matchamida]

kenma’s smashing birthday

the nekoma team thinks you should really watch what you say. [a short kozume kenma x reader]

“Hey Kenma, wanna smash on your birthday?”

A horrid silence settles amongst the boys as they stop in their tracks and swerve their heads to you.

Taketora trips on his laces.

“Listen here,” Kuroo begins dryly. “Because you’re my friend, and I know how your brain works, I understand what you mean.”

“And what exactly could it mean?” Yaku squawks with a reddening face.

“Smash?” you clarify. “It’s a—”

“I know what smashing is!”

Kuroo throws back his head and laughs.

“Shut up! Ugh, I never thought I’d have to say that sentence out loud…”

“Sorry, what’d you say out loud?”

“I’m not falling for that. And you!” Yaku redirects his glare in your direction. “We’re in public! Think before you speak, will you? You’re attracting attention!”

Kai smiles politely. “Yaku-san. I don’t mean any disrespect, but it’s your volume that’s causing people to look at us…”

“…we need to move, now.”

“Wait, I need to tie my shoe.”

“Tora, for the love of god, you have ten seconds.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Lev, you bastard, we just had yakisoba. You had three plates. Gah, you monstrous beanstalks and your appetites.”

“I’m sorry you’re not a part of the beanstalk club,” Kuroo offers somberly. “You see, we only accept qualified members, which you’re clearly not.”

“Wouldn’t wanna be qualified when there’s an old rooster on board. With no taste in protein, I might add.”

Kuroo smiles, but his eyes don’t. “Lev, what do you feel like eating? Your options are either boring meat, or healthy, tasty, good-for-your-brain fish?”

The two impatiently wait for their favored answer.

“…since when did Nekoma have a beanstalk club?” Lev ponders.

“…Fish it is.”

Yaku sighs irritatedly. “Tora, you done?”

“Uh, not yet.”

“What—it’s been five minutes! How are you still tying your shoe?”

“S-sorry! It’s just that g-g-guh-GUHHHH-HUHHH-girl over there keeps staring at me and it’s making me nervous!”

“Are you struggling because she’s staring or is she staring because you’re struggling.”

“Both…” Yamamoto wails pitifully.

“Taketora-senpai, I’ll cover you from her eyesight!” And Lev stands very close to Yamamoto’s head to tower over his kneeling figure.

“Get away from my/his face, you idiot!” Yamamoto and Yaku shriek in mortification, prompting more people to look over.

“We’re not doing anything inappropriate,” Kai informs a staring passerby. “We’re okay,” he adds as Yaku attempts to pull Lev away, only to stumble and knock Lev onto Taketora. “Really, we’re fine,” Kai concludes as all three boys collapse like bowling pins.

Kuroo sighs haggardly, and looks over to you. “Now look at what you’ve done.”

You lay a steely gaze on the rooster enabler. “Like you weren’t a part of it.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who started it.”

“I just asked a question! Oh yeah, hey Kenma—”

“You’re all idiots,” Kenma finally says, emerging from the corner he vanished to earlier. “If everyone wants to treat me on my birthday, the least you all can do is behave and not act like animals.”

“I’m behaving,” you protest. “I'm doing a good job of it.”

Kenma shoots you a sour look. “Not doing a good job of being mindful. Do you ever think about what comes out of your mouth?”

“Huh? All I asked was if you wanted to smash on your birthday. We can have the team join us if you want.”

Kuroo coughs. Kenma looks ready to vanish again. In fact, you think he’s turning transparent as you speak.

“…I’m not asking too much, am I,” he mutters.

“Sooo.” You shuffle in disappointment. “No smash?”

Here, Kenma gains his full opacity back.

“YES, we can PLAY SUPER SMASH BROTHERS! Don’t be so weird about it. Besides, I’d… never say no to you…”

The bowling pins stop their squabbling and look over, understanding finally dawning on their faces.

“You couldn’t have clarified that earlier?” Yaku demands.

And here, Kenma deflates, spent from raising his voice and interacting in general. He slinks back into his corner. Kuroo inhales, and lets out another sigh like the old man he is.

“Now that that’s over with,” he says, grinning faintly, “ready for some birthday smash?”

“Always,” you say warmly.

“Do not,” Yaku warns. “Let’s get out of here already. Lev, Tora, up!”

“Um, Yaku-san.”

“Tora, what now?!”

“I need to tie my other shoe.”

[adventuringblind]

Wish Come True

Landoscar x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Lando and Oscar are there to reassure their favorite person that they matter

Dialouge prompt: "I wished for you."

Warnings: anxiety, panic attacks

Notes: This is part of my 1000 followers celebration. I'm still taking submissions for it!

Masterlist

It's normal for people to get anxious. It's normal for the human mind to overthink and delve into every possibility.

It is not normal, however, to analyze every reason why one's partners should leave them. In the world of Formula 1, everyone is looking and judging all the time. It's hard to escape. The people give her reasons to think about why she deserves such partners.

It's terrifying how in her head she is able to get. How fast she sinks into her thoughts. The cold floor of the bathroom is the last thing grounding her to the real world. Her hands rake through her hair as her chest labors for oxegyne.

Oscar and Lando. The two boys who stole her heart. With their stupidly fast cars and endearing gazes.

They found her, tucked away in a McLaren office. Her job not normally one that needs their input. The one time she did, they seemed to decide right then they weren't going to let her secluded herself in her office anymore.

They reassure her constantly. Lando with spurattic physical contact and Oscar with a never-ending supply of compliments. They tell her not to listen to the people. A task she fails at constantly.

They have their claws dug into her mind. They tug, and they pull her in direction she doesn't want to go. Which begs the question, is she cut out for this life? In reality, she really just might not have what it takes to date, not one, but two formula 1 drivers.

There is a soft and familiar knock at the door. She knows who it is. Qualifying ended hours ago. She's been closed up in the hotel room for longer.

"Love? Are you in there? Me and Osc are worried about you." Lando's concern breaches her ears, and she doesn't know what to do. It sends her spiraling further.

The door clicks open. Two sets of footsteps hit against the tile floor. There is a softens to their actions she can't fully explain. Like they know how to approach her with the intent of comfort and how to make it known via every movement.

Their bodies slide down the wall on either side of her. Their orange hoodies are a stark contrast to the white colored walls and tile. They smell freshly showered, and it hits her hard that they were probably together all afternoon.

They don't need her. It's a true fact that nobody should be one hundred percent reliant on another person. But the thoughts creep back into her skin that they don't have a reason to want her either.

"What's going on in your head, hm?" Her body is leaned into Oscar's, head now resting on his shoulder. Lando finds her hand and stops her from causing any harm to herself in her state of panic.

"I'm not enough for you two."

"Now who put that idea in your head? Because we're lyng."

"I put it there. I'm not cut out for this, I don't think. You have so many better options that I can't understand why I would be your first choice." It comes out more choked than she would've hoped.

"But we wished for you. Did you know that?"

Shock flood through her veins. "What do you mean? Like on a shooting star or something?"

Oscar snorts. "He's being sappy. What he means is that when we were talking about our feelings for you, turned out we both had very similar preferences."

"Yeah, the criteria was you. I swear it's like the universe knew!" Lando starts talking with his hands in animated motions. It makes the other two chuckle.

"All that to say, you're perfect the way you are. It's an overused statement, but I don't care because it's true."

Lando's mouth falls open in offense. "So you're allowed to be corny, and I'm not? This is a double standard, mate!"

So maybe it took her boyfriends arguing over what is an appropriate amount of sap for these situations. But at least she knows how much they love her.

(If the terrible pick-up lines they were using on her didn't solidify this fact, she doesn't know what would.)

[menaceoffandoms]

Fuck it: collage AUs lego monkie kid

Mk is an art student who worked really hard to get a scholarship into the school. Yin and Jin are both in the same course as him, he corrected them about art theory once and they've never let it go so now they torment him in class, and everyone else for that matter. Wukong is there teacher and he is servery under qualified but he dose his best. Mk still works and lives at Pigsy's noodles, which in this is a hot spot for students cause of its close proximity to the uni. Balancing school and a job is a nightmare but he's trying his best.

Mei is in a business/marketing course, she wanted to do something more fun but her parents wanted her to do it, but she's actually really good at it especially whenever they do social media stuff. Princess Iron Fan is her teacher and the Demon accountant is her class mate. Mei and Red Son are roommates, they start off hating eachother but slowly become friends. When Mei finds out PIF is Red's mum she's begs her for baby photos, much to Red's embarrassment. Red Son is on an engineering course and Sandy is his teacher. Mei is a streamer with a pretty large following and she's currently saving for a new parts for her motorbike, which Red will likely end up replacing for her.

Tang is a history teacher at the school. He never shows up to class without a bowl of noodles. The scorpion demon is in his class and has a crush on him, but for obvious reason he's not at all interested! Tangs one love is noodles and noodle making Pigsy's.

Macaque is like a drama teacher or something like that, Mk likes to sit in on his seminars sometimes, and he's made a name for himself as the schools cryptid. He never seems to leave and always shows up in random places, a lot of people think he secretly lives in his classroom. He likes to scare and mess with Wukong a lot, they hate eachother but it's so over the top everyone either thinks there dating or wants them to kiss already.

Bai He is just a kid so she doesn't attend the collage, but she's seen around there a lot. Her pearents are probbaly teachers there, or maybe Macaque is her dad in this who knows, but for awhile some students thought she was a ghost haunting the school.

LBD and the Major either used to be teachers but got fired, or they both work at the school and are the most hated teachers there. LBD would teach law and the Major would do something similar, maybe criminology? Could throw a curve ball and have him teach psychology, that could be funny.

There's too many characters for me to be bothered to list rn so uhhhhh Nuwa is probably head of the school, any gods or celestial warriors are teachers, most demons are probbaly students unless they served a big part in the show (like syntax is probbaly the IT teacher) anddddd if it's not obvious I've never been to a university so I am very unqualified to do anything with this, I'm just having fun.

That being said if anyone dose want to do more with these concepts, go ahead, could be fun

[littlegaybean1]

Ok ok ok...

It's been almost 18 years since it aired, but who cares I'm talking about it anyway.

I've seen a lot of people hating on Cyberwoman. And yeah, I understand why. That costume choice was, er, quite something. But it's still my favourite episode and yk why? The build up. The plotline. And most of all the acting. Oh my god the acting. My favourite scene has got to be the tourist office, because oh my days have you seen the way Gareth David Lloyd plays Ianto? It gives me chills. After watching it, I rewatched Everything Changes and Ghost Machine because I never actually noticed Ianto in them, unless he's speaking. The only time you ever see him is when he intentionally draws attention to himself, which he rarely does. I watched them again, specifically focusing on Ianto. He's barely in them. He's one of the main 5 characters, but in the first three episodes he has one of the most minor roles. Like, you see him let Gwen into the Hub, delete the stuff she typed to make herself remember and see him introduced. That's it for episode one. And yes, everyone has a minor role in that, but you never actually see him as part of the team. He works alone, always.

Episode three really highlights that for me. He appears every so often with a funny comment. He has less screen time than Rhys. If it wasn't for the fact that I was actively thinking about him, I would have completely forgotten that he was there. One of his rare appearances really got to me - the ending. Jack gives him the ghost machine to put in the secure archives. That's normal, the archives are his area.

Except Jack doesn't even look at him. He just holds it out, like Ianto is a servant, not someone with years of experience dealing with aliens. Ianto worked at Torchwood One. He was the most qualified of anyone on that team when each of them joined. Owen was medically trained, but no experience with aliens. Tosh was a genius, but she had only experienced aliens through wrong blueprints of their technology, plus a charge of treason. Gwen had police training, nothing more. She got a job by being stubborn, and in the right place at the right time. Jack was reckless, dangerous, and did not want to join Torchwood. He only did it because he needed to do something in the 100+ years that he would be waiting for the Doctor.

Ianto had everything taken from him all at once, and nobody bothered to check on him. He looked fine, so they didn't give it any more thought. They of all people should know that that's not how it works. Ianto was repressing his grief, exhausting himself with the amount he worked both at his job and caring for Lisa. He never had any desire to cause anyone any harm. He was blinded by overwhelming grief. When humans experience loss, the automatic reaction is to cling to what you have. For most people, that means reaching out to friends and family, creating a support system. Ianto lost all his friends, all at once. We don't hear about his family until S3 (goddamn S3), but it's implied that they aren't close. I haven't listened to any of the audios, so if there's more to it than that then I don't know it.

Ianto had nothing, except an echo pretending to be Lisa. He did the most natural thing in the world, clung to what he had. Or at least, what he thought he had. Don't blame Ianto for the events of Cyberwoman. His actions correlate with normal reactions to grief. Yes, his actions were extreme. But so was his grief.

[completeoveranalysis]

Remind me - are you an academic of some kind? I’m considering a phd (I’m ahead heavily involved in research) and I’m wondering how you made the career choices you have

I used to be! I worked at university and studied until I had my Master's Degree, but that's as far as I went.

I don't think I'll say anything you don't already know but a PHD is such a huge undertaking that it becomes quite a big decision, and what you decide will depend on quite a lot of factors - like, the field you're studying, the career prospects it will give you, your age, where you are in the world, where you want to be, what else you have going on in your life, your stress levels, how well you adapt to the study, etc etc etc. It ends up being a very personal set of conditions that only you can decide if it's right for you.

I'll put the rest under a read more because it starts to get a little long:

For myself, I decided not to do a PHD for several reasons.

For one, it would have meant having to study abroad. My field only had a few experts in the country, and I had already studied under most of them, so I would have had to go across the globe to actually be eligible of a degree people took seriously - I wasn't ready to leave the country at that stage of my life.

For another, I was studying in a field that would have meant that the only job I would be eligible for after I graduated would have been a University Lecturer, and almost nothing else. (And those positions can be hard to get, especially in a field where people cling to their positions for their entire lives if possible). Once I had the PHD I would have been over qualified for anything that wasn't Lecturer or above, and I wasn't sure if I that was a job I would even enjoy.

And lastly, I'll be very honest, the stress was incredible. That won't be the same for everyone, but the various factors I had going for me at the time meant that it took months, if not years, to properly unwind myself from the stress spirals I had molded myself into, and it was a very long time until I learned how to relax again without the constant threat of deadlines hanging over me. Even then, there are huge gaps in that time that I don't remember - friends I don't remember ever talking to (even though I have seen proof that we spoke every day), others who considered me a close friend that I don't remember ever actually befriending, and so on.

In short I was a bit of a mess! I needed a break from study before even considering going back, and once I was away from it I never actually found myself wanting to return to the lifestyle, even though I really loved the study itself.

So! I'm not sure if any of that is helpful, but I hope it can be at least one example of what one other person did in your situation. You might evaluate all the factors and decide that PHD study would be a great fit for you and your goals, or maybe it's not, but I only you will know the details well enough to know for sure. (And life is long, so there's always time to go back if you need more time to decide)

What I can say is that I've made myself very happy in the path I chose to take - unbelievably so, if I really think about it. I don't think I'll ever go back for a PHD at this point, but my life has come together in other ways I never would have been able to dream of back then, and they wouldn't have happened if I had stayed. So, it's very safe to say that happiness is possible down either path!

[calliesmemes]

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (2012)

A SET OF SENTENCE STARTERS PULLED FROM THE DIALOGUE FEATURED IN DREAMWORKS’ ANIMATED FILM RISE OF THE GUARDIANS

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

“   Why I am here and what I am meant to do, that I've never known. A part of me wonders if I ever will. ”

“   Oh, uh, excuse me. Can you tell me where I am? ”

“   How many times have I told you to knock? ”

“   We are going to have company. ”

“   It is our job to watch over the children of the world and keep them safe. ”

“   The children are in danger. ”

“   An enemy we have kept at bay for centuries has finally decided to strike back. ”

“   We alone can stop him. ”

“   I obviously wouldn't have called you all here unless it was serious. ”

“   Look, he's up to something very bad. I feel it in my belly. ”

“   I don't have time for this! ”

“   We have a serious situation. ”

“   It's been a long time, old friend. ”

“   Since when do we need help? ”

“   He doesn't care about children! ”

“   Oh, that looks interesting. Good book? ”

“   Come on! You guys will believe anything. ”

“   Okay, who threw that? ”

“   Did you guys see that? It was amazing! ”

“   What's a guy got to do to get a little attention around here? ”

“   But I can do it this time! ”

“   Straight to bed now, mister. ”

“   If there's something I'm doing wrong, can you just tell me what it is? ”

“   Why, there's only one thing missing. ”

“   Feel your fear. Come on. Come on, that's right. ”

“   Don't look at me like that, old friend. ”

“   You must have known this day would come. ”

“   You're not still mad about that, are you? ”

“   You got to be kidding me. ”

“   Oh, yeah, I love being shoved in a sack and tossed through a magic portal. ”

“  I've heard a lot about you. ”

“   Hey, ho, anyone want to tell me why I'm here? ”

“   I must've done something really bad to get you four together. ”

“   What are you doing? Get off of me! ”

“   What makes you think I want to be a Guardian? ”

“   This is all very flattering, but, uh, you don't want me. ”

“   I don't think you understand what it is we do. ”

“   All the more reason to pick someone more qualified. ”

“   You were chosen! Like we were all chosen. ”

“   You see, you cannot say no. It is destiny. ”

“   No, no. That's not for me! No offense. ”

“   None of them believe in you, do they? ”

“   It's like you don't even exist. ”

“   It's nothing personal. But what you all do, it's just not my thing. ”

“   You must have something very special inside yourself. ”

“   I told you I'm not going with you guys! ”

“   Hold on, everyone! I know a shortcut. ”

“   Oh, thank goodness. One of you is all right. ”

“   I have to say, this is very, very exciting. ”

“   I'm a little starstruck. ”

“   Maybe I want what you have. ”

“   Since when are you all so chummy? ”

“   Oh, good. A neutral party. ”

“   I'm going to ignore you. But you must be used to that by now. ”

“   You shadow-sneaking ratbag, come here! ”

“   Took me a while to perfect this little trick. ”

“   They smell fear, you know. ”

“   Such happy times for me. Oh, the power I wielded. ”

“   Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of. ”

“   They... They don't believe in me anymore. ”

“   There will be nothing but fear and darkness. ”

“   It's your turn not to be believed in. ”

“   You should have seen them. They put up such a fight. ”

“   When someone needs to remember what's important, we help them. ”

“   Are you saying I had a life before that, with a home and a family? ”

“   You really don't remember? ”

“   All these years, the answers were right here. ”

“   No such thing as too late! ”

“   Look, I'd tell you to stay out of my way, but, really, what's the point? ”

“   Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy there, champ. ”

“   Why did I ever stop doing this? ”

“   All right, nobody panic. ”

“   You know, for a neutral party, you spend an awful lot of time with those weirdos. ”

“   This isn’t your fight. ”

“   Remind me not to get on your bad side. ”

“   Don't fight the fear! ”

“   How did you do that? ”

“   Finally! Someone who knows how to have a little fun! ”

“   I just... I wish I could've done something. ”

“   I don't know who you were in your past life. ”

“   How can I know who I am until I find out who I was? ”

“   He's tipped the balance. ”

“   Crikey! Somebody do something. ”

“   When was the last time you guys actually hung out with kids? ”

“   How much time do we have? ”

“   All right, troops, it's time to push back. ”

“   Don't be afraid. I'm not gonna hurt you. ”

“   It's the one thing I always know. People's greatest fears. ”

“   Why were you chosen to be like this? ”

“   They'll never accept you. Not really. ”

“   You make a mess wherever you go. ”

“   You should be happy you still get dreams like that and not nightmares. ”

“   They never really believed in you. ”

“   All those years in the shadows I thought no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong. ”

“   We don’t have to be alone. ”

“   Look at what we can do. ”

“   They'll fear both of us. And that's not what I want. ”

“   You have a bad habit of interfering. ”

“   You can't have fun all the time. ”

“   It's okay. It's okay. Don't look down. Just look at me. ”

“   I promise, I promise. You're gonna be... You're gonna be fine. You have to believe in me. ”

“   You and I are obviously at what they call a crossroads. ”

“   He told me you were real. Just when I started to think that maybe you weren't. ”

“   That little trick doesn't work on me anymore. ”

“   All this fuss over one little boy. ”

“   There are other ways to snuff out a light. ”

“   If you want him, you're gonna have to go through me. ”

“   I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see you all like this. ”

“   I'm just not afraid of you. ”

“   Mate, you are a sight for sore eyes. ”

“   You dare have fun in my presence ”

“   Leaving the party so soon? You didn't even say goodbye. ”

“   You can't get rid of me! Not forever. ”

“   There will always be fear. ”

“   It is time that you take the Oath. ”

[bengiyo]

Don't Care for an Old Man's Underwear! Ep 8 Stray Thoughts

As always, this watch was made possible by @isaksbestpillow

Last time, Kakeru revealed to Mika and Moe that he wants to go to a premier makeup school, and will finish high school to make sure he qualifies. He had a good conversation with Hasegawa after being asked if he was gay, revealing that he sometimes finds either men or women admirable in their own ways but as yet has not felt love. Hasegawa expressed his admiration for Kakeru for never playing along with boy talk that also makes him uncomfortable. Kakeru also managed to form a new friendship with his rival. Makoto is struggling at work to keep his misogynistic senior from pissing off everyone, and it seems like Haranishi suppressed him with his bra for now. Makoto also unfortunately thought Kakeru was seeing two people and put his foot in his mouth again trying to be supportive. However, he did help Daichi by reassuring him that Madoka choosing him is also a valid choice, even as we all worry about Madoka giving up on being a vet to dodge his family's disappointment. Not to be forgotten, Makoto insisted that Mika enjoy the tickets they got for her.

I like how much easier the friendship between Daichi and Makoto feels at this point. Saying they help each other feels genuine.

Oh no. Is Daichi avoiding Madoka?

Looking forward to seeing more rude men at Makoto's job!

I love that Daichi doesn't lie to Kakeru about reaching out at Makoto's request.

Kakeru admitting that he took out his frustrations on his parents feels like an important step for him.

Oh no. Daichi is pulling back from Madoka, and now he's going to think Daichi is trying to get with Kakeru because Kakeru is so cute.

Hold on, I'm suddenly invested in Furuike trying to use the contacts he's built up across his career in a digital age that cuts down on human interactions.

Ah, Furuike knows the engineer who designed the copier and is trying to protect his reputation. He's also got little left in his life besides his idea of work and the efforts they made before, so he's trying to validate that their way of doing things wasn't completely wrong. Look at this show giving this unpleasant man recognizable humanity.

Okay, I was touched by the two old guys solving a problem together.

Also feels significant that Kakeru wanted to wait to talk to Makoto.

Aw, they get to bond over having similar troubles navigating human interactions.

"I respect your grit and perseverance. In order for them not to go to waste, would you please change with me?" is basically the plea the show is making to the masculine audience.

Not me crying because this old man made tea.

Kakeru teasing about never hearing his dad complain before also feels like a moment. I wonder if we'll return to Kakeru's comment about not being an adult.

Why do both Okita men blush the same way? Lol

For saying he stumbles constantly, Makoto recognized that Kakeru didn't tell him what he really wanted from that booth.

Oh, Kakeru. Once again this show hitting queer notes left behind in romance all the time. It's easy to resent people for not being able to understand you, but that's just hiding the loneliness and disappointment you feel at not being able to connect with them, too. Kakeru admitting that he's feeling sad that he can't be the son he wanted because his father is actively trying to be a father Kakeru can love and respect got me.

As always, Daichi doesn't tell Kakeru what to think, and reaffirms that Kakeru always has a choice in how to engage with the world.

Dammit, they got me again. Madoka explaining to Makoto how hard it is to tell your parents important things about yourself because of the huge stakes, and then trying to accept being dumped, is making my chest clench.

Oh, Makoto, finally your over sharing tendencies pay off.

Wow, this man is so tall that he could see Daichi over the crowd.

Ugly crying about Kakeru and Makoto talking out the baseball thing at the festival, and then Kakeru asking his dad to teach him how to use the pop gun to get what he wants for himself.

He let his dad put the necklace on him!

Daichi and Madoka are holding hands in public!

Well well well, Kakeru still has to face the boys on the baseball team.

This has quickly become one of my favorite shows of all time. She wasn't in this episode a lot, but Mika continues to be one of my favorites because of her instincts. She could tell that Kakeru wanted to face Makoto properly, so she makes sure to check in with him first before hovering to see that they're okay. She then later insists on sending Makoto to the festival in a yukata with Kakeru because she knows they need to do that together. If she doesn't insist on Makoto going and dressing up, he doesn't have that conversation with Madoka, and he doesn't make progress with Kakeru at the booth. She helped four men with her kindness and determination, and enabled her daughter to support her brother while also receiving validation about her hobby from her dad.

Makoto has come so far. I really loved him supporting his senior through the resolution of that work problem, and still telling him that his attitude was wrong. I also liked that he also got corrected by Shimura afterwards, who insists that he use respectful honorifics for her. He's finally earned the confidence of his team by being the leader they need him to be.

This show is excellent, and I've not cried this much watching a show in a long time.

[umlewis]

lewis hamilton, p3, during the post-race press conference, spain - june 23, 2024 (transcript under the cut)

Interviewer: "Lewis, coming to you now. Many congratulations. Great to see you back on the podium for the first time this year. How much of a boost is this result for you and for the team?" Lewis: "Yeah, it's a big boost to finally get a good result. It's been a minute since I've been up here in the race, so a huge, huge thank you to the team, who have done an amazing job just with all the processes through the race weekend, but particularly everyone back at the factory for working so hard; the extra long hours to bring components to the car. And we're slowly, slowly getting closer. I mean, last year we were very fast here, so you have to take it with a pinch of salt, but obviously the last couple of races we've also been relatively competitive. So I think we have closed the gap a little bit, but we still have a good couple of tenths to try and find, so we just got to have all hands on deck and keep pushing." Interviewer: "Are you still fine-tuning this new package, or do you need more upgrades to close the gap to these two guys?" Lewis: "No. I think that's the maximum it's got, at the moment, and so… But, I mean, we're always fine-tuning it with subtle changes that we make, so we are always fine-tuning it when we continue to tune it through the year. But we need to bolt some stuff on, some extra bits to be able to compete with these guys." Interviewer: "Now, you had to overtake Carlos Sainz twice today. He was unhappy about the first of those moves, saying that you should have given the place back. Can we just get your take on what happened at turn one, there?" Lewis: "I mean, look, it's not a good feeling when you do get overtaken, and I think we had a nice, tight battle into turn one. I left him some room, so I think he was still on the track. But ultimately he left the door open on the inside, didn't fully close it, and so I went for the inside and tried to make the corner. I think he came around. I think we touched wheels equally and nothing major. It was like a small scrub. Gave him some room on the exit, and yeah…" [laughs] Interviewer: "Alright. Let's throw it forward now. Do you feel Mercedes are building some momentum now?" Lewis: "We definitely are. We definitely are. We're definitely getting more consistent, and if I can just get my qualifying to be like this weekend then it makes the Sunday so much easier. Also if you get a good start, but my Saturdays have been so bad for the last, like, fifteen races, so it's good to have a clean weekend, and hopefully this puts us in a good position to challenge in the next few races." Interviewer: "Thank you, Lewis. Thanks to all three of you. Let's open this to the floor. Name and publication, please."

[time jump] NOT SHOWN: Journalist: "Kevin Scheuren, Motorsport-Total.com. A question is to Lewis and Lando: Of course, I don't want to discredit you becoming driver of the day today, but Max is bringing in victory after victory, and there were slight boos at the podium, as well. So would you say that there is a lack of appreciation for the accomplishments that Max has in the general public from time to time?" Lewis: "Well, I mean, honestly, I'm not really a lot on social media or reading the news, so in terms of being, like… [phone pings, journalists laugh, Lewis laughs] Yeah. I don't really… I'm not tapped into that to know, exactly, but on the race weekends, he always has a huge crowd, always, so he's always got amazing support and, at the end of the day, he does a fantastic job. Every weekend he delivers, and he's got a great team and obviously a great car, but you can't fault him."

[time jump] Journalist: "Phil Duncan, PA. Lewis, you've obviously said that Mercedes are building a bit of momentum. Do you think that that victory is on the horizon, and how important is it to you to sign off your Mercedes career with a win before the year's out?" Lewis: "I mean, it's not the… It'd be /nice/, but I think, considering where we've come from, I think… Yeah, I think just having consistency and seeing if we can put the team further up in the points, I think it's got to be the target, but I think right now let's just try and have more consistent weekends like this and then we'll see. But we aren't yet currently in a position to be able to fight them for wins. You would say that maybe Montreal… I mean, George probably should have won that one, but if I'd qualified where I feel I should have, there was potential also there, too. So we'll see in the next few races. I think we've got these high-speed circuits. You know, the McLaren's always been quick and the Red Bull has been quick in A1 Ring. Silverstone… They'll also be very fast there, but I'm hoping that we are able to eek a little bit closer to them and give them a bit more trouble in the next four or five races. And then we’ve just got to keep bringing upgrades. We've got to keep improving the car. There's a clear improvement and there's just clear areas where we need to bolt on performance so that we can be in the fight with them."

Interviewer: "Thank you. Yep! Another one." Journalist: "Don Kennedy, HB Today, New Zealand Herald. Question for Lewis: Great drive today. Obviously you'll be pleased Mercedes is moving closer to the front, but how does that sit with you in terms of your decision to move to Ferrari next year, and does that give you some second thoughts, given that Ferrari now seems to be falling behind the car you're currently driving?" Lewis: "No, not at all. I mean, firstly, I love Mercedes. I've been with Mercedes since I was thirteen and I'll always be a fan and supporter of Mercedes, and my job this year, right now, is to work as hard as I can with the crew that I have, with the people back at the factory, to try and move and develop the car in the right direction. And so ultimately, whatever course and trajectory the team is on… For next year, for example, there are things that I've hopefully been a part of and be proud of being a part of. My job will start next year at the other team, who I think are doing a great job. I think they've had a couple of difficult races, but let's not forget they had a race win in Monaco. I can't tell you what is wrong with their car and why they are in the position they're in today, but they did bring an upgrade here and I think they are definitely progressing, so yeah… But it doesn't make me second-guess my decision at all."

Interviewer: "Thank you. Yes, more, more questions." Journalist: "Pilar from Paddock Magazine. Question for Lewis: You have mentioned that you are struggling a little bit on qualifying. Where do you think is the key to start improving the results? Is because of the set-up, or more about the pace of the car?" Lewis: "I mean, our pace is where we were, basically-third and fourth to this weekend-but I think our car has generally been very… It's quite peaky, and that means that it's often out of balance. It's very rarely that it's in balance and it's nice and smooth through a corner, and so set-up has been… I've obviously experimented a lot with the set-up over the last couple of years, but the car doesn't really like any of the set-ups but one, and it's slowly starting to just become nicer to drive. And then, ultimately, tires. Tires have been a huge issue for me, so I think we got it half-decent this weekend. If I can make some improvements over the course of the next races, I think there's more performance there."