#those parse SO different to me.

[dieinct]

very funny when people write fic in a fandom whose whole underpinnings are politically dodgy (police procedural, spy movie, etc) and decide to make THEIR fic woke and in the process. fuck the politics even worse than the original source material

[deviousdiesel]

.

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

♪ :)

OK

so i have been obsessed w this song for a while bc the lyrics are so good. problem is, the title’s in morse code and it’s a cover (the original is so cheesy it’s actually kinda bad But whatever). also all the lyrics are good so how do i choose just one aah

Forunately! I do know the name in the alphabet so wooo

“DANCEMETOTHEENDOFLOVE” by ERASED

“Dance me through the panic/‘til I’m gathered safely in/Lift me like an olive branch/and be my homeward dove/Dance me to the end of love”

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

the "what are you even talking about, like what do you mean when you say this" overlap imo between people talking about who's Bad At """conflict""" & talking about who's Bad At """"""social skills"""""" like. those supposed Social Skills being about carbonized Rituals that serve to indicate you're not a threat to each other, b/c the only reason to truly deviate from "never behaving in a way someone doesn't expect or feel they immediately understand / sympathize with" is b/c you're using more spontaneous communication to Fight, with an eventual winner/loser, and talking is just a power struggle and/or power play to assert your preestablished higher status, i.e. already being thee A Winner here

like this exhausting dynamic b/w these two bros just like talking about what they got out of [xyz] experience and how perhaps especially when you're supposed to be [the concept of Men] things are elevated re: the proximity to / frequency of fighting each other and always assessing each other's Threat Level, and these two random guys just have this tepid discussion and any time someone goes "and i also alternately/additionally thought/felt [xyz]" the other one does the bizarre like, semi exasperated? "no yeah Of Course" as though like oh we are so on the same page you didn't even have to say that and actually you're kind of an asshole for even starting to say it before i immediately cut in as soon as i realized i could agree at all to tell you to shove off with voicing it, how dare you even theoretically think i don't think exactly what you're thinking now shut up….again: exhausting

like Communication, the more freeform or extensive, is Bad, b/c you're potentially in Conflict, and conflict is fighting & being threats to each other & someone potentially needing to be crushed b/c how else do you resolve a Conflict Fight? versus like, can not the concept of A Conflict be more distilled to something so matter of fact that nobody even needs to Feel any ways about it. like the "theoretical" conflicts that would just be like. something can't happen as something hypothetically intended it to. like a scheduling conflict being, in fact, a conflict, without anyone needing to have been in the wrong for having an appointment on thursday afternoon, and without anyone needing to Concede The Point of scheduling anything on a thursday afternoon b/c they are the one who Lost w/e negotiation about how to work around this. can not "i was operating on one understanding of what's going on for you / what you're trying to do and why, and now what's happening isn't aligning with that idea that i had about how things are" be a conflict that can be resolved by perhaps talking to that person. versus assuming you must be correct b/c you're normal and so something's wrong with them and/or they're messing with you on purpose b/c they're an asshole now, and even if you realize you were wrong about something way down the line you can just be like "well sorreeee how was eye supposed to know [xyz] and i Thought i was being Nice b/c i Thought you were [xyz] so i was in the right and now you're coming after me by being like 'actually by doing that maybe you hurt or even simply inconvenienced me' like so i'm evil now?? could you not have politely let me keep stepping on your toes forever b/c i assumed something was true? and if you did ummm How Could You Be So Bad At Conflict as to know ppl respond [like this] and so instead politely let me keep stepping on your toes?????? i also resent all this"

versus if you see the conflict of "i seem to have misunderstood you / you misunderstand me" as Not Necessarily Threatening then you can comfortably just actually communicate about it. that autistic people who are used to thinking of themselves through the lens of [how others may interpret any/everything about them], having to be more aware of themself as An Other than A Self, won't assume everyone's reading everyone else's mind at all, or even think of that as the ideal approach, and will like, readily give & seek information from others to actually try to be on the same page and have this Constructive experience where you've worked together to navigate your interaction as two different people who would not somehow magically be in alignment, unless you consider the "alignment" to be the power differences that must exist and the priority in Socializing, thus what makes for "good" "social skills," is never threatening them, or god forbid Disrespecting them by Ignoring them: say, how autistic people will have less status/[the social capital] b/c of being autistic, yet the assholes will be Talking (the medium of a fight) and Asking anything of others like participation in an interaction (fighting) and btw by thinking they're Allowed to talk all freestyle rather than in the hollow scripts of "i'm amicable i'm not threatening you. directly. this may be passive aggressive" and by treating me as a mere equal they're trying to drag me down to their level and/or elevate themself to mine, and b/c this is a disruption of the power hierarchy that must exist, we have a problem, and they started it, and they're an asshole

(also: i & many people Do also consciously disrespect & ignore the [socializing = power struggles] concept & its goings on lol. and there's also ofc no real "normal" Universal social style across all cultures and groups and individuals and Misinterpretation ft. bad faith reactions happens on endless fronts. but nt people will pretend there are Rules that everyone has had to be Trained on and if you disobey you'll never deserve to be treated as a person. all "and people only smile when they're happy. unless, did i miss a memo? that frowns means happy now???" etc etc like you see it's all passive aggression or the tools of passive aggressiveness but to "help" someone without threatening them but you Can be pissed if they misunderstand, or at least know you were in the right.)

the way it's Normal(tm) to never actually think of how you don't Know someone else's thoughts/feelings, to never presume they could operate differently and for reasons you can't just accurately infer with a guess re: why You'd do it, to not try to actively undergo a mutually cooperative interaction to better understand each other / be working with the same info, but oh it's autistic people who Are doing all this who never think about how other people are different from their weirdo asses. the "social skills" of assuming wrongly, getting mad at others for supposedly realities you just made up, responding to assuming xyz & being mad about it by punishing/excluding someone & possibly getting others in on it. whilest nd people with their Wrong social existences & approaches are always navigating communicating/socializing as something to do actively & consciously to connect with & understand other people and Don't necessarily think [wow this person doesn't seem to be behaving Amicably towards me?] is a) correct or b) proof they're an enemy to defeat, b/c that's how they're generally treated? the whole time you know communication can fail and you're navigating that w/active effort & constructive intent while people who operate on [if someone does something you don't expect / not according to the script: kill or be killed. or kill just b/c you can & that's the only way you can relate to yourself/others] are like wow what an asshole who i guess doesn't want to get along with anyone so let's see them in hell.

not to mention being shut out from even basics of communication b/c socializing is about respective power levels and you do need Authority to do things like "say whatever" or "have people care about your personal experience at any time" or "say anything at all, actually" like ppl discussing things like "i don't know that i can't Read Cues, vs that i just know they might mean any number of things" vs if someone's not looking at you while you talk it can't be b/c they're actually trying to listen better, it's b/c they're ignoring you / uninterested to pwn you, if they show they relate by saying "hey yeah that's like when i [xyz]" they're one upping to pwn you, if they smile they're happy people only smile when they're happy unless did i miss a memo that frowns means happy??? b/c if someone also makes any expression it Must have been caused by You and they're letting you know as much to pwn you.....or ppl talking about how they can never jump into a conversation b/c they just Can't Get The Timing Right the way other allistic ppl can walk right up and barge in and be absorbed into the convo, or even have a [one on one convo w/ the autistic person] quickly turn into [one on one w/the newcomer, Excluding the autistic person] and other people being like, is it about our "social skills" and "timing" or is about when you' have the authoriti're understood to have the superior social status, you Deserve to do things like cut in on a whim and be listened to, timing does not matter, Not ignoring / forgetting the inferior person does not matter. like, the issue isn't always just "i tried to jump in and it went a bit awkwardly," it can be standing there and talking and being completely ignored w/o much evident conscious effort, or even the least time on some pending [choice to ignore]. you can be hypothetically In the interaction, like, allowed in the group, w/o people noticing when you talk, b/c you don't warrant Listening/Processing, or at least, the least response to indicate that and thus validate that An Exchange is occurring, versus: shut up already b/c shut up always unless someone else wants you to one word answer a question and then possibly misunderstand you w/hostility, but if you Explain anything in unasked (as it always is) depth you're a) out of line, nobody told you to talk more hence the only reason you'd be justified to do so b) defensive, also out of line when you deserve others' judgment, and/or obviously a sign of knowing you're out of line and thus doing too much to avert your just punishment c) providing info b/c you think w/o info i might be Wrong b/c i'm Dumb & Bad. no You. d) all of the above and more

and if, perhaps because trying to talk live & in person means stuff like the above, and other behaviors/mannerisms being judged as weird so let's kill them b/c obv they're killing us by being so weird, and if you're trying to be "normal" that's diminishing your ability to actually communicate or like get through your day and requires hurting yourself for the benefit of others so they don't hurt you more (spoilers. the resonance w/experiences of other instances of "you're responsible for how other ppl, who are superior / have authority, treat you, and have to 'earn' their positive treatment or even neutrality b/c you do not Already inherently deserve it," i.e. interpersonal abuse) and still won't even fully or always work (see prior parenthetical) b/c even if one person pretends things b/w multiple parties can be unilateral, it is not (see: prior)....anyways and If all that means say, someone can communicate a) more effectively and b) with less real pain & depletion via Other Mediums, like emails / otherwise written, non real time correspondance, or god forbid something so Unreasonable as real time / in person that's still not talking, with correct Tone and Inflection and Body Language and Posture and Eye Contact and Handshake and Je Ne Sais Quoi and Cut Of Your Jib and All American Interests And Sensibilities and Etcccc, like what a tyrannical demand that could just never even be considered and i have the Right to eye contact and phone call and etc etc etc (you do not) Stop Hiding (you warrant avoidance if you think no one should be able to avoid you)

and parallel to nd people having the theory of mind and social/communication skills that don't understand all interactions as asserting or vying for power or indicating you're Not threatening someone in the realm of supposed social power, and thus do not operate with that premise, the victim blaming that is "obviously that treatment is bad and i would know it is bad and not tolerate it because it is bad. so people subjected to it have to be worse than me, and deserve it more" where it's also definitely not the fault of the people issuing the treatment, b/c how could they Really know it's bad if the other person is experiencing it without Stopping them, hence telling them It's Okay??? well sorrreeeeee how was i supposed to know that [xyz] was actually hurting you, it's your fault for not blowing up at me, which would've been deemed this uncalled for reaction if you had, and now i'm mad if you're Making me feel Bad b/c that's the discomfort that really matters????? fuck you for telling me, with this kind of response why didn't you tell me?? like, uh oh, same logic at work. and that when other people keep running into the realities that actually their good faith expressing of "actually this hurts me" or more spontaneous reactions to being hurt are just taken as justifications to treat Them as some aggressor / problem creator wronging the other, ofc they aren't likely to simply keep trying that when it's not serving the purpose it "should" or supposedly Would, b/c well if only this person did xyz then nothing bad could ever happen to anyone. and when people ofc Have to become accustomed to [other person or people who can & will treat them badly if they want to, or even just thoughtlessly, b/c they can, & don't choose to do the opposite, b/c even if they're aware they've hurt someone it only matters if they feel justified / they care more about keeping their relative status (it's being autistic, it's [the Authority of Superior Status is coming from inside the house: the concept that husband owns a wife, parents own children; familial abuse])] then it's like wowww they just put up with it, it's their fault then. god forbid that even if they extricate themself from one abusive situation, they're still vulnerable, other ppl take advantage of the vulnerability & they're now in another abusive situation and are used to navigating that indefinitely, vs how someone else might have the preexisting advantage of Not being used to that, not having the experiences to navigate it more indefinitely, finding it more extraordinary & thus having more confidence in their assessment of the situation, and not having the kind of vulnerability in the first place to a) have been in such situations prior b) be stuck in this one now, including perhaps being able to expect that their feelings will matter to others and others will support/help them on that basis, or that their feelings will even be regarded as real/existent. Being Autistic.

(also, yknow, other nd experiences. like adhd classics of "but if you cared / cared to try, you would simply [xyz]" and the like. this is about the crossovers, this is about the "it's the same thing. [who has the restricted autonomy? who has the power at the expense of others' autonomy?] extended universe")

and like the idea that abused people were just Bad at """Conflict.""" and that even if they're extricated from one abusive situation, they might have xyz behaviors / approaches that aren't Normal and that Those make them "worse" at "conflict" too. that nobody "normal" could be lacking in their "normal" approach to interacting with others, neurodivergent people and others who get to be, like, Others(tm) others, definitely don't have [behaviors / experiences related to repeated trauma??] pretty across the board, they're probably just doing more fucking up at being normal which is why they don't get to be considered normal in the first place, ofc. like, what tf is Normal Joe doing to question if they're perhaps not now and have not always been and may not always be the Perfect Interactor. much less to actively try to navigate that, and assume there'll be more to learn b/c there's all these other people who are all different and all always changing. and to perhaps Try to be safe to interact with beyond "well i Mean well" "well a normal person wouldn't regard anything i did as Tryinnng to hurt someone" "well is it my fault i just Assumed you were simply as normal as me? aka the nice thing to do? the thing you should be trying to do?? way to be a weirdo, like having experienced traumatic harm and now that's like, a part of your life and you're not actually Wrong about it or Lied To that that's possible b/c it clearly is and you can't be aware of the precarity re: that happening again b/c welll it's not normal for it to happen surely, i'd Know if it was, you can't recognize your vulnerability, you're kind of an asshole for making that experience anyone else's problem, it's not My fault, keep it to yourself and just get over it asap" like the real problem is if someone might have to so much as consider consciously doing something differently b/c someone else is different than they thought and also nobody's Above considering others and how they're affected by your actions. liiike so long as i didn't mean to, or so long as we don't really care about how they're doing b/c they Are less of a person with a wronger existence that means they bring it upon themself and there's a Narrative about how actually my Superiority is a noble burden that is only trying to punish them towards being as superior as me. and/orrrr i don't even have to think about it & thus have any narrative b/c it's so streamlined / obfuscated as there being any deliberate interference that this is all just Normal, right. people are out of line suggesting [xyz] is ableist or something b/c ughhh it's not about any principle it's about some emotional quota like, okay i've begrudgingly assessed Some things as sympathetic/reasonable to not do, & that's enough, & you can only ask so much of me vs this being a constant often conscious lifelong matter to deal with like it is for people who could be hurt by it?? the contempt is effortless and normal and you have to be trying to be evil & feel evil about it for anything to count. if other people say they're affected a) who cares b) they're probably being too sensitive. another way they're worse. i'm not entitled here c) are they even frowning to prove they're sad? well they're either too sensitive Or they're manipulatively exaggerating / faking it anyways. the convenient fact that nobody can provide external ""proof"" of their thoughts or feelings or intentions, which means i'm always justified if know i think i am, which, let me check, yep: i know i think i do, and it means that i can assume other people are shit inside and hurting them doesn't do anything Real and they deserve it anyways

anyways merely being Normal Mode and Not Thinking You've Been Malicious Or, Sometimes More Importantly, Out Of Line Re: Your Justified Authority is maybe not a basis of successful interactions. what if you try thinking of yourself as [an other, to all others] and not better than other people if you've never much noticed being treated as worse, or at least not as As Worse as Those people or That person, and maybe just b/c You'd only explain something to someone to patronize them b/c nothing should ever not be immediately understood, doesn't mean other people trying to convey their experiences and ideas to you b/c they know you're different people are attacking you as so inferior to you as to be patronized, b/c you're different ppl and they Are better at communicating / socializing when not treating others as inferior or superior Or only equal b/c of being Litchrelly the same person as you, Never even share a thought b/c Of Course i'd immeidately agree with it, how dare you, shut the fuck up

(thinking how people can Parallelly share a space without talking / seemingly interacting more directly than that, as "i am comfortable w/your presence" and/or "we can both use this space as we see fit simultaneously w/little to no need to hash anything out abt it / may rather silently work around what the other is doing" and this may be seen as signaling hostility / contempt / some power play, like also when cats do it b/c they choose to be around you. or just so Weird. you can't even go to a public place Alone, are you kidding? weird And sad)

maybe just saying "don't be afraid to ask questions / for help :)" doesn't make everyone comfortable asking questions / for help, or otherwise able to. maybe not even doing that much & simply thinking your being Normal & correctly Friendly implicitly conveys it to all & makes you approachable is not that guarantee, either. maybe saying "just tell me if anything makes You uncomfortable" doesn't put the responsibility on them for real, just surely takes any blame off you (no?). like sorry do you Want to asap reach a point where you can forever stop being concerned with how what you do may affect others and assume you're perfectly correct abt the needs of everyone you encounter and how your behavior is good enough to one size fits all treat anyone? speaking of being patronizing, and the attitudes behind it. someone who's abused is now Wronger about how to treat them so that they can feel safe. if they want to communicate in ways that seem weird or too distant they're wronging Me, if some misalignment can only be recognized through someone being hurt (as only judged as reasonable / real by the more Normal party) and having to have a conflict as a Fight to determine who the Wrong / Loser party is, what do you mean that's not going to feel safe to everyone. it can't be that a lot of people easily hurt others without having to notice it or Feel wrong about it. dunno how it could be that ppl are like "does being autistic share traits/behaviors associated w/trauma or is it that like everyone is all but guaranteed trauma for being autistic" and if it does well clearly what matters is no normal people feeling bad for thoughtless contemptuous abusive treatment or having to consider operating on different social values/principles towards any & everyone? the autistic people should just become not autistic, i.e. not exist, i.e. also it's their fault how other ppl treat them, whoops it's the same logic behind [anyone abused in any situation / form]

also the idea that like, what, oh someone's Wronged if they didn't feel they had the Chance to Befriend someone or even be Close to them, like, what, is anyone Entitled to even have some trial run at being any given person's friend, or close to them, or w/e other personal access to them? ppl can then cite a noble Concern like oh but if they don't let anyone in they'll be alone, oh but if a child avoids me their shit parent in their room then that can't be good for them, oh but if an autistic person goes unpunished then they'll always be hated & mistreated (as deserved), like, the primarily cited Benevolent Magnanimous reason for the disdain is secondary to [i'm just justifying continuing on exactly as i've been doing, b/c i already can] like yeah oh my god could it be possible that people in shitty positions going through shitty experiences might have complicated reactions to that reality that is different than yours but not Wronger just b/c you think yours is better / more Normal, which means better. and if they ever take on any blame / take on more responsibility in ways that they direct inwards, like that they Continue to be responsible for how others feel about them, what they assume about them, and how they treat them, (which they probably are b/c that's totally for [inferior abnormaller people] like nervous unconfident loser weirdos like them who just Failed to respect Themselves enough to not be abused & continue to be blamed for that, as well as for not being treated w/basic respect as an equal person) well then how heroic to use the idea of their compounding hurt to wash your hands of your own responsibility in any interactions w/them. they have to become as Normal as me first, how unreasonable for someone to recognize that even "normal" interactions involve some people being deemed superior while other people are more scrutinized, punished, and blamed, w/no recourse, even in Casual Friendly exchanges :) so mean to have been too uncomfortable to say they were uncomfortable or have felt too unsafe to say they felt unsafe! *i* was within my rights as [but i'm just so normal and well meaning] and i mean what do they expect, their standards are impossible and unreasonable and unfair b/c it's not i the range of Normal to Haaave to accommodate them (ugh. the Real imposition), and they're just using excuses vs taking Responsibility & enacting Agency anyways, their fault entirely. people are so sensitive these days you can't just have a conversation??? i have no problem w/this logic thanks

anyways it's half past one and i could always go on. normative standpoint "bad conflict skills" [handshake] "bad social skills" like hmm are they really. so heroic to worrying abt if [xyz] is bad for themself but what's good for themself would probably make you think they're even more of an asshole who's wronging you (e.g. someone consciously trying to be "worse" at [preventing the least conflicts via people pleasing], someone consciously trying to be "worse" at [being deemed marginally more socially successful via masking]), are you being wronged or did you presume you're entitled to something / perceive someone else as entitled b/c they weren't acting like you're inherently better than them, which you are, there's not a problem unless power is threatened, which makes it always the totally inferior people's faults, *i* didn't think there was a problem & *i* would've known (backup: well how was *i* supposed to know)....who gets to be superior, who's always in the Process of having to work for deserving basic respect as a person (b/c they keep failing to deserve it ofc), who's more vulnerable and has no recourse even if they don't like it and would be out of line just asking for otherwise / merely implying as much by expressing that they're hurt, who has the power to hurt someone whether through malicious schemes or spontaneous thoughtlessness/ignorance, who has restricted choices re: their autonomy, who gets to choose what happens to other people & the elements of their personhood, their time, energy, body, feelings, effort, etc, & hurt / imperil (require they take on more vulnerability/precarity) them to enforce it....but who cares like just go "i'm so normal that it's relatable" & wash your hands of anything, after all your time as the individual hero out here lol. try being an Other To Others rando as good as anyone else who can handle the idea they're wrong / don't already know how to be perfectly right abt everything / not feeling the least actively malicious or "out of line" isn't the end all be all sole priority. what are we talking about with what "conflict" fundamentally is, or how to approach it, or the same re: being "social"? well only assholes who wanna flex on me by being pedantic would bring it up

[kimbureh]

spoilers for Furiosa ahead

Perhaps I shouldn't be as surprised as I am about how popular Preatorian Jack seems to be among fandom, and especially how popular he is as a love interest for Furiosa.

To me, Jack's character is positioned in that gap between mentor and peer. He's explicitly introduced as a faux father figure when he cites Dementus's first words to Furiosa: "Listen, it's been a tough day for you." (paraphrasing here), but other than Dementus, Jack doesn't catastrophically fail in supporting her. The forehead touch scene between Jack and Furiosa mirrors the one between Furiosa and her mother: it starts one-sided by Furiosa. Jack then reciprocates, which perhaps has romantic implications for *him*, but the text doesn't introduce this gesture as romantic in nature. The forehead touch is about family in general.

I think media has us conditioned to parse any relationship a young woman has to a man, even if he's much older, as primarily romantic, even if the text puts more complexity to it. To me, Jack is positioned in that uncanny valley between father figure and love interest, and very deliberately so. This is the wasteland, the culture and customs are different from those of the so-called "cultural west".

If you ship or don't ship, either way, there are no clear cut relationships in the wasteland, and that's part of what makes the Mad Max universe so interesting to me.

[I'll probably write more Furiosa meta, and this is the placeholder where I'll link to it]

[snakeautistic]

One of the reasons I believed I couldn’t be autistic for so long was due to a fundamental misunderstanding of my social struggles. This being that I am not by any means incapable of memorizing social rules. Through observation and direction I can construct a broad framework of ‘socially acceptable or not.’ For example, I’m well aware that making physical contact with someone without consent isn’t acceptable. Or that stating blunt facts in a way that implicates someone negatively isn’t allowed. I know to avoid interrupting others if they’re already talking, to not walk away when I’m in the middle of a conversation. Crying, being unusually quiet and frowning indicates sadness. Someone smiling at laughing at what you’re saying means they probably are enjoying their time with you. An increase in speaking volume indicates excitement- either positive or negative. Sarcasm is often indicated by someone saying something absurd that you know they would never say, or you know to be factually wrong.

The fact that I had learned these broad rules made me think autism wasn’t a possibility for me. But being autistic doesn’t stop you from obtaining and applying information. (I mean that’s why so many interventions that ‘treat’ autism do result in the autistic person being able to pass as neurotypical.)

The difference comes from lacking the subconscious nuances and exceptions that come with those broader rules. For example- when is it okay to actually be honest? Some people will not be bothered by physical intimacy- but how would I know this? How can you tell if a group wants you to join in with their conversation? How to tell if this person is smiling and laughing politely or genuinely? How to tell if someone who you know very little about is being sarcastic?

There are not direct, easy to apply ‘rules’ for this, and yet clearly there are ‘right’ options. When the appropriate reaction must be determined by subtle body language or small shifts in tone of voice, ones that are near impossible to teach- I become completely lost.

That’s something I always find lacking with the general social skills advice given. It’s helpful to a point, but the truth is everyone is an individual. People express themselves differently, and react to your same actions differently due to past circumstances or temperaments. There is no one set of rules you can use for everyone, unfortunately. The majority of neurotypicals, while of course having miscommunications and the like, can rely on their subconscious to parse out any subtle changes they might need to make to their demeanor for a particular situation. My brain is much less adept at focusing down broader experience/rules into unique circumstances. (This is actually something that extends past social cues for me and I might make another post talking about it because I think it’s interesting)

Anyway rant over but yeah this was a huge mental barrier to seeking out a diagnosis for a while because at some level I ( ironically enough) took struggling to understand social cues too literally…

[freckliedan]

could you expand on your thoughts why you think dan and phil havent always been monogamous? super curious! i kind of get the same vibe.

i'm happy to expand on it tbh! it's something i think and talk a lot about with my friends.

i'm hesitant about going in depth because i've found that's when people find it okay to say deeply shitty things to me, a polyamorous person, under the guise of academic debate/it just being a difference of opinion. but i'm also not going to let the possibility of that stop me?

ANYWAYS.

quite honestly the biggest thing for me is just. taking dan and phil at their word? even when parsing something true through them saying things in silly ways that's the easiest way to be right about them.

we noticed and believed in the underlying truth in their gay jokes before they were out. people are willing to entertain the bondage and mpreg and various other horny jokes as containing some kernel of truth. more people than literally any point in time are willing to believe there's some substance to dan's career-long mentions of gender.

but for whatever reason (mononormativity) the comments about them being attracted to/flirting with/being interested in other people get written off as 100% joking and funny because they're the most monogamous people ever & because they get jealous easily. and that just? sucks.

i think they've always been committed. like, phil brought dan home to meet his parents at their very first christmas together type committed. planning to spend the rest of their lives together from 3 months into the relationship committed.

but also like? that coexists with the fact that dan wasn't able to come out to himself as gay until the lead up to basically i'm gay. 2018 or maybe 2017, i think. @freckliephil or @phulge has brought up the idea to me before that part of why they didn't label their relationship to us in 2019 may have been because they were still in flux with labeling it for themselves.

dan has also always had commitment issues due to how he saw his parents' relationship function/due to his home life growing up and i'm NOT going to elaborate on this one but it is so obvious.

(consider this whole post informed by conversations with aries and roper btw).

i think the idea that dan and phil were secure in their connection but not in a place where they had to (or could, on dan's part) ascribe labels to it in the early years is realistic?

and i think their commitment and security can coexist with the idea of like. "i think it's hot seeing you kiss other people for attention at parties and come home with me". + i genuinely think the fantastic foursome explored each other's bodies on the italy trip. etc.

i definitely think there would've been huge stretches of monogamy, and i do think that there was jealousy before they found their footing and felt comfortable in their commitment. (different rant, but i think most of what gets read as jealousy these days is them dong a bit/possessiveness).

but i think there's also always been points in time where they were either theoretically or in practice fine with having sexual experiences with other people. that wouldn't've really been possible during their deep closet era, and i don't think it was COMMON beforehand.

but i also think that it's definitely something possible after they came out.

i think people hear me say this and assume i'm degrading the incredible and beautiful love and commitment dan and phil share. that i'm reducing queer men's relationships down to sex only.

but like. i'm not fucking doing that! the people making those assumptions are doing that! and saying a lot about how they view non monogamy too!

i'm saying i think they're so secure in their love and relationship that they're literally completely unbothered and not threatened by potentially having an open relationship. devotion is not only present in monogamous relationships.

WAD makes sense as a point of post coming out timing for another open period in their relationship to me. quite honestly i could see phil being the one to suggest it to dan? 2019 thru the close of WAD was dan's self actualization era.

growing up in the context of a single committed relationship does things to you psychologically. your identity formation happens side by side with another person and even if the relationship isn't controlling and toxic you can really lose sight of your individuality, if you're not careful. this is even easier to have happen if you share all of your friends, live together, AND work together. ESPECIALLY if you're significantly closeted in some way.

i know this because i've also lived it. believe me when i say dan NEEDED to figure out who he was as an individual. we saw him do that in several iterations artistically/careerwise. but we also saw his interest in experiencing queer culture in ways he missed out on when he was young and closeted.

so i think dan actually WAS on the apps, when he was touring WAD. i wouldn't be surprised if that was phil's idea, even. a "don't worry, go see the world, we've been open before, i'm not worried you won't want to come home to me, nobody's gonna match your freak like i do". i think phil would've had the option too but probably would've taken it less.

and i think it's like. like they're best friends! it's something they would've been talking about with each other. i think it could've been foreplay to them sometimes. i think it could've been what catapaulted dan into his top era. (this is a seperate essay from drs. frecklie, frecklie and phulge as well).

most importantly we think dan came back from the first leg of WAD having completely exorcised his fear of commitment and. wait i have to find a specific message. nevermind you're getting 3 screenshots without any further context

anyways. i can't find the specific point where we said this so it was maybe an in person conversation but the rest of the idea is that experiencing other options resulted in dan coming back from WAD and proposing. and phil proposing the gaming channel return right back. we 1000% said this before phil mentioned that he's the one who suggested the gaming channel return i just can NOT fucking find receipts on that because we largely voice message.

this has been an entire ramble that touched on a lot of different subjects but. yeah. dan and phil aren't polyamorous in the "both dating another person as a couple/other people as individuals" sense nor will they ever be. but there's sooo much room between that and strict monogamy.

and a lot of that in between is in perfect alignment with the ways they've talked about their lives over the years and is yet another extension of them having a level of trust love and intimacy in their relationship that most people will never experience. so

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[ms-demeanor]

Hey, if you have the time, would you be willing to help me understand whether msg is harmful or not? I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information when I try to look it up, though I understand that a lot of the basis of the (us) hate for it is just racism. In particular this paper worries me and I don't feel that I have the tools to parse it well- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938543/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjyoJ_3-bqBAxXRF1kFHeF1DPMQFnoECA0QBg&usg=AOvVaw0i4ZlJU2xakrpbz-DMFx24

Okay, we're going to play chase the reference with a few of the links in this paper.

the [3] link there (which makes the claim that MSG reactions occur 20 minutes after consumption) leads to this paper, which is a case study of a single patient who had swelling in his throat after eating at a Chinese restaurant. That paper has only 7 citations, 4 of which were at least 30 years old (and one was 50 years old) at the time of publication.

Let's dial in to something interesting in that case study:

First of all, the case study that proved symptoms come on in 20 minutes was for a case when symptoms came on after more than eight hours. Secondly let's look at that last sentence - those two papers found that MSG consumption without solids (as in soups) was associated with more reported symptoms, right?

Well. Not completely. Obayashi and Nagamura's review found that the studies in which increased reports of symptoms were present were the ones in which it was possible to taste the difference between MSG and the control, OR in studies where the flavor of even the control was so strong that people might have thought they were being given MSG. The studies in which the MSG was dissolved in chicken stock found no significant difference between groups consuming MSG or a control.

And the other review cited there [7] did note more symptoms reported without solid food, but also noted that those results weren't reproducible.

So the root paper links to a case study that doesn't actually support the sentence it's cited in and that itself cites two papers as evidence that draw different conclusions than the authors of the case study.

That's one source chased. Let's chase another. The misused paper from the case study also shows up in the root paper.

the claim "75 mg/kg MSG significantly elevated systolic blood pressure" is supported by two whole citations. Let's see what they say. Obayashi and Nagamura are pretty clear:

That's the only observation of blood pressure listed in that paper.

What about Shimada et al.?

well, that actually wasn't what they were looking at, there were confounding factors, and the dose that produced the described results is twice what was listed in the root paper.

and actually the 75mg/kg dose in the root paper is mentioned in citation [5] in this paper and whoops, the low (75mg/kg) dose was *not* associated with increases in blood pressure:

Also. I mean. Jeeze. For an adult weighing 200lbs, 75mg/kg is 6 grams.

What did the root paper say they thought the average daily intake was?

so 75mg/kg is six times higher than the high end of an estimated average and is not enough to cause a statistically significant increase in blood pressure. Cool cool cool.

I've looked at this paper long enough now to get really mad at it.

Paragraph by paragraph, here's what this paper says:

MSG: what if it's poison?

According to multiple studies of rodents in which MSG was injected subcutaneously in juvenile animals MSG might cause obesity or neurological symptoms similar to traumatic brain injury. If humans were to get doses similar to infant mice being subcutaneously injected with MSG as toddlers it could be catastrophic.

This one guy even got a swollen throat from MSG eight hours after eating some soup once and some people who study headaches says it's more common to have bad reactions to msg in soup and he ate soup please ignore that actually the headache people weren't saying reports were more common from people eating soup.

Both animal studies with extremely high doses of MSG and a human study with broken links that doesn't appear on the publisher's website anymore suggest that MSG could do reproductive harm or at least make cramps worse possibly.

The way that people have discussed asthma and MSG in the past is really extreme and super negative but actually there's never been a connection proven there.

And actually it seems like maybe MSG prevents anemia? Neat? Possibly. ANYWAY:

what harmful effects??? You have not successfully described any harmful effects!!!!

this kind of thing shows up all the fuck over the place, look at this bit from a totally different paper:

that cites one nearly 40 year old study, two studies that are nearly 30 years old, two rodent studies, and:

and a literature review that does not reflect those findings and calls for further research because there is poor evidence for those claims.

I'm so mad.

I'm not mad at you, I'm mad that the root article frontloaded with a bunch of complicated neurological stuff that is difficult for anyone without a neuroscience background to parse (i sure can't) and then left the bullshit and misused citations for later in the paper. I'm mad that half of the articles cited in every one of these papers is skeptical of MSG as a risk or a threat and those skeptical papers are being linked to as evidence of MSG as a threat. I'm mad that this stuff is inaccessible and confusing because it doesn't need to be confusing i don't know why these people who work at universities and hospitals are writing these kinds of bullshit papers, I don't know why if you look for information about the safety of msg you get webMD "medically verified" articles that tell you to avoid tomato sauce. I hate all of this and I'm so mad and it's bullshit but here is a very long writeup on why the methodology of a lot of the studies cited in the article you linked are not ideal; this piece goes over a lot of the supposed harms of MSG with a fine toothed comb and generally finds that food amounts of MSG are likely fine and that it's probably worthwhile to do some research on MSG as it relates to fetal development but that it should pretty much be considered safe.

[lakesbian]

i have had like 10 friends rec worm to me but nobody’s given me a good like, gist of its vibe and what its abt because ‘its best blind’, could u please give a like brief summary and vibe check of it 😭 it’s so long i dont wanna try and invest that much time without knowing much abt it

so, worm is a 1.7 million word long webserial written in 2010. 1.7 million words seems like a lot, but it was also written over a relatively short period of time, which means the writing style is very easy to parse--the ideas aren't without complexity, but the language itself isn't intimidatingly dense. you can get through it at a very decent pace. i agree with your friends that there are vast portions of worm that hit best when you're unspoiled, but the thing is that worm is long enough that giving you the basic plot pitch is in no way spoilers for any of the things that i wouldn't want to see spoiled for someone. i'm actually kind of baffled they're not telling you Any Thing, because it is in my estimation one of the best books i've ever read, but it also Needs a briefing before you get into it for like five different reasons. which i will now provide. i swear to god this is brief by my standards it's just that i am very thorough

worm is a story about superheroes and supervillains, set in a world where superpowers are traumagenic--rather than appearing randomly or innately, some people gain powers after a traumatizing event happens to them. the protagonist is taylor hebert, a 15yo girl who has the power to control insects and desperately wants to be a superhero. and then accidentally finds herself scouted by a team of teenage villains instead. who's to say how she's going to react to all that!

one of the most compelling things about worm is that the superpowers in it serve as visceral, hyper-literal metaphors for the trauma and traumatized coping mechanisms of the characters with those powers. each power is incredibly specific and thematically relevant to the person who has it, and it's incredibly interesting and evocative. it feels so natural and well-done that it comes off like how superpowers are just meant to be written.

the fact that superpowers stem from trauma also means that worm is fundamentally a narrative about trauma. specifically, about traumatized teenagers and the relationships they form as they cling together while struggling through growing up traumatized & mutually coping with an increasingly intriguing, intense, and far-reaching escalating plot. worm's depictions of trauma + mental illness--including unpalatable trauma responses, including traumatized characters who are allowed to be complicated and nuanced and messy while still receiving narrative respect--are deeply real-feeling and impactful, and they're placed in the context of a well-spun + engaging story.

i really do have to stress how excellent the character writing is. worm is fully deserving of being as long as it is. over the course of 1.7 million words of character development, the average reader's reaction to the main characters goes from "sorta interesting" to "okay, i want to see where this goes" to "augh...really likable" to "i am now on hands and knees crying and these characters are going to stick around in my brain forever." wildbow has incredible talent for efficiently conveying complicated, real-feeling, and viscerally evocative characterization. many of the interlude chapters (chapters written from the perspective of different characters other than taylor) are so interesting, fleshed-out, and emotionally affecting that they make you wish you could read an entire novel about just the side character being featured. with that level of characterization for just the side cast, it's not surprising that taylor (& co) are genuinely just downright iconic. and i do not say that lightly--taylor is truly one of the best-written protagonists i've seen in anything. ever.

the other main pitch-point for worm is that it's a fascinating deconstruction/reconstruction/examination of the conceits of the superhero genre. it answers the question of--what would the world have to be like, for people with superpowers to act the way they do in classic cape media? and it does this well enough that it's interesting even if you have only a passing familiarity with cape media. i am not a big superhero media fan, but worm addresses virtually every aspect of cape media that was under the sun around 2010 in a way that's so interesting i still find it incredibly engaging. the approach it takes makes the narrative very accessible even to people who aren't usually cape media fans.

and speaking of the narrative: the end of the story is coherent and satisfying and deeply thematically resonant*. the way worm follows through on all of its main mysteries & plot threads is excellent. you don't have to worry about getting thru 1.7 million words and being dissatisfied by the author shitting the bed at the end, or anything like that. he does an amazing job of weaving together plot events in a way that makes each successive one feel rationally, thematically, and emotionally connected to what came before. there's really only one part where i feel the story stumbles a bit, but i think it was the best option he had for the narrative, and it's by no means a dealbreaker. it's in fact really impressive how cohesive and satisfying worm is for such a long webserial released over such a brief period of time.

*this is subjective ive seen some people who didnt love it but ive never seen anyone who downright Hated it who didnt also demonstrate egregious misunderstanding of literally everything worm is about. so thats a good sign

as for the downsides of worm/things that might put you off:

there is a very long list of trigger warnings for it. if you have any trigger warnings you want you should ask your friends to let you know about the relevant parts, because the fact that it's About Trauma (& about typical cape media circumstances presented very seriously) means that traumatic and violent things & their realistic aftermath are constantly happening and/or being discussed. i would not classify worm as needlessly dark or spiteful to the audience by any means, but it is intense and covers a lot of heavy topics. i do assume if your friends are all recommending it to you, they think none of the material would be too much for you, though!

worm was written in 2010 by a white cishet guy from canada. it's typical levels of 2010-era bigoted, it has a deeply lesbophobic stereotype character, it has some atrociously racist stereotype characters, the author really hates addicts, It's Got Blind Spots. i think worm is generally fully worth reading despite these, but very fair warning that it can get bad. i think what exacerbates this is that worm is generally extremely nuanced & sympathetic regarding ideas such as "crime is a result of systematic circumstance vs people just being inherently evil" and "mentally ill people who are traumatized in unpalatable ways are still deserving of fundamental respect as human beings" and so on and so forth, so it's extra noticeable and insufferable when you get to a topic the author has unexamined biases on and all that nuance drops out. the worst part is that a lot of this is most concentrated in the early arcs, so you have to get through them without being super attached to any of the characters yet. it is worth it though.

worm like. Does have a central straight relationship in it. and it's a very well written straight relationship for the most part and i like it quite a lot. but worm also passes the bechdel test with such flying colors that it enters 'unintentionally homoerotic' territory. which means a lot of people were shipping the main character ms taylor hebert with her female friends while the story was being released. which caused the author to get so mad he 1. posted a word of god to a forum loudly insisting that all of the girls are straight and 2. inserted a few deeply awkward and obvious and out of character scenes where he finds an excuse for the girls to more or less turn to the camera and go "i'm not gay, btw. this is platonic." This is fucking insufferable, and will piss you off immensely, but then you will get to any of the number of deeply emotionally affecting scenes between them, and at that point you will be too busy sniffling piteously and perhaps crytyping an analysis post on tumblr to be mad about all that other shit. also they're only a couple tiny portions out of an entire overall fantastic novel

overall: if those points don't sound like dealbreakers (i hope they aren't they're really massively outstripped by the amount of devastatingly good moments in worm, worm still has a thriving fandom over a decade later for a reason), you should absolutely give it a shot and see what you think. my final note is that you have to read up until the end of arc 8 to really see where what makes worm Worm kicks in, so aim for at least there to see how you feel about it if you're just thinking about dipping your toes in vs fully committing. i hope that was helpful and not too long :)

oh and don't go in the comments section on wordpress if you don't want spoilers. or anywhere else in the fandom at all. you will be spoiled. quite possibly for things you could not even have imagined were topics to be spoiled on.

[geopsych]

re: the tumblr ai stuff, please don’t wipe your blog!! your blog has been so important to me and many others as a place of authentic light and beauty and i would hate to lose it forever 💕

there is a way to download the contents of a tumblr blog (it’s in settings, i don’t remember rn, but i’ll find it if you need it) maybe you could upload to another site or a personal site?

i know this is very serious, and i hate how we are unwillingly contributing to synthetic art, but the world would be poorer for me without your pictures <3

Thank you. Your words mean a lot to me.

This is a dilemma for me. I have loved doing this blog and going out to look for pictures and interesting things to bring here has given me motivation and meaning through years of struggle with depression and several kinds of grief. Going out to look for pictures has put me in situations where I have seen incredible beauty, much of which I never really managed to capture. Also, the many warm and kind messages I've received from people all over the world have given me heart and made me feel less meaningless as a person and more connected. Sometimes I've been criticized for buying the checkmarks and giving money to Tumblr but I wanted to do what I could because Tumblr has been my one happy and safe place online. But now this. To me AI in relation to creativity is just a way for well-to-do but untalented people, the proverbial tech bros, to profit from other people's hard work and creativity. It has no redeeming value in relation to creativity and is actively harmful to artists of all kinds. <trying to figure out how to put a read more link here> I don't even count myself among the real creatives, artists and writers and others who have worked hard and put years into honing their crafts, into learning to translate their hearts and unique spirits into their creative expression. I just see beautiful things and take pictures of them. But it would still make me sick to see AI works based on my pictures, on these times and places that have meant so much to me. Recently I saw a set of cat 'photos' on here that everyone was reblogging and exclaiming over but that to me seemed to just be AI art that was more convincing than most. As time goes on more and more output of AI is going to be almost indistinguishable from real works and unscrupulous people will pass them off as real, getting credit for what was actually created by others. Whether they profit from them becomes almost irrelevant at that point because what's worse is that we will have less and less sense of what is real. And as some have pointed out AI will now also be scraping from AI, muddying the waters further from here on in. This is an apocalypse of sorts, an apocalypse of creativity, ultimately likely to kill the joy of artistic endeavor for many who would otherwise produced brilliant, beautiful, funny, and/or shockingly original things. I'm still parsing and dissecting my thoughts and feelings about what Tumblr has done and how to react. Staying and leaving my blog up feels like consent. I am not confident in the integrity of anyone connected with scraping sites for AI. I'm not convinced that a little toggle in settings is going to make much of a difference in the long run. On the other hand I like posting here and I have received enough messages over the years to know that my blog is a positive influence on some lives. I was looking forward to May and June and posting pictures of the incredible beauty of eastern Pennsylvania in those months. And I was planning on making a side blog for posting some poetry I've been working on. It will break my heart to leave.

I haven't decided yet. Believe it or not this whole thing has given me awful physical symptoms. I'll let you know when I decide. Thank you again for your kind and lovely note!

[didyougaming]

Hi, gamers. I know the results of the Sandwich Poll have been gnawing at you. So many people wondering whether they answered correctly, which as a reminder is a very important factor in determining which afterlife you end up in when you die. Please understand that I needed a lot of time to internally process these poll results and also that I've been kinda busy/tired. But the people need to know, so here we go.

In total, we received 372 responses. I also spent a lot of my weekend annoying anyone who would listen to me in person about these questions, but I didn't write those answers down.

Question 1 was fairly non-controversial, as it should be. It is worth noting that 3.2% of respondents chose to write-in an answer, and most of these write-in answers were what scientists would call "bad" and "not really useful." So you can assume a 3.2% margin of error on everything in this survey. That's how statistics works.

Question 2 is where we see a real divide. Most respondents consider a sandwich cut into two separate but equal pieces to be one sandwich. This is a real shame, because it's the wrong answer. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Question 3 considers whether one piece of bread cut in half and used for sandwich-making results in a sandwich, and surprisingly the majority of respondents do consider this to be one sandwich. This is really interesting, because despite ending up with functionally and aesthetically the same result as one of the pieces of the sandwich from question 2, a significant number of respondents believe the results to be inherently different. I wish there was a way to better track how much overlap there was for those two seemingly contradictory answers, but the big Sheets page Google Docs is daunting and I don't feel like figuring out how to parse that data, so we just need to accept that we'll never have that exact number. That's how statistics works.

Question 4 mostly just cements the findings of the previous two questions. I do want to point out the one person who answered "who the fuck does this". Sandwich shops do this. Go to a sandwich shop for once in your life and really watch them do their work. Open your eyes.

Question 5 did not get me a lot of useful data, as it turns out having a question that only allowed for write-in answers was a bad idea. However, there are more or less two camps for people who really took these questions seriously and gave it their all. The first school of thought suggests that intent is the most important factor, and if you deem what you've made to be a sandwich, it's a sandwich. While I appreciate the critical thinking on display here, I believe in the other school of thought, which is that when you put ingredients between two breads that's a sandwich, baby. There is a sub-school of thought here that requires those two pieces to be whole pieces, but that's wrong.

One question that I should have included in the survey I think proves my point. If you order a sandwich platter from a deli and they use a single really long piece of bread (think like a several foot long hero) into multiple sections, you would say that you have sandwiches, plural. If you wanted to grab one, you wouldn't say "I'm going to grab a 64th of a sandwich" because you would sound deranged. Despite being parts of a larger whole, they are still ingredients between pieces of bread, and thus fit the definition of "sandwich."

Anyway, thank you for coming on this non-gaming detour with me. It was extremely important that I prove a friend wrong on this topic, and even though I don't think I did that and I think he's choosing to double down on his incorrect opinions, I'm still choosing to spin this as a personal and moral victory. New actual DidYouGamings will come out as soon as I discover any new facts about video games (right now there's only a couple hundred facts about video games at all and I've basically covered all of them.)

[highdramas]

you’re the only friend i need | s.h.

pairing: steve harrington x f!reader warnings: language word count: 4664 summary: having steve harrington as a fake boyfriend proves to have more pros than cons, all things considered. the biggest pro is one that you didn’t even realize until you were in the thick of your fake relationship. notes: if you are under 18 do not interact with my work or this fic. this fic is a continuation off of this request, which is a to all the boy i’ve loved before based steve drabble, and will make a lot more sense if you’ve read that first! ty for reading and enjoying ily alllllll

having a boyfriend, even if steve was your fake boyfriend, was like a set of constantly evolving circumstances that you never quite knew how to get used to.

the strangest part of it all was the dates.

your one real relationship never even offered the option of dates. with ryan, he had wanted to keep things so secretive... the extent of your “dates” was him sneaking in through your bedroom window and making out on top of the covers. but steve...

steve hadn’t been lying when he told you that if you two were going to be in a fake relationship, he was going to make it worth your while.

within the first week of your arrangement, steve had come to you with a list and furrowed brows. you’d barely gotten into his car before he was examining the list one last time and passing it to you. “okay, these are the ideas i came up with. i know what telling you removes some of the magic, but--”

you both say at the same time, “not real.”

“yeah, so... figured you could take a look at the list, tell me what you’ve already done, and we can skip those. whatever you did with ryan, you know--”

skimming the list, you shrug your shoulders. “i don’t know if we did any of these,” you admit, looking up at steve. “i don’t think that ryan would’ve even been able to come up with a list like this if you put a gun to his head.”

steve scoffs. “well, yeah, ‘course not, because he’s not me. but, not even a fraction? i mean... did he take you to dinner?”

you shake your head.

“ice cream?”

another shake.

“what, the movies? i mean, i’m not even listing off any of the creative things--”

“no, steve!” you exclaim, tossing the list back over to him. “no, he didn’t buy me dinner, or dessert, or take me to the movies! he didn’t do anything, that’s kind of the point.”

a hush falls over the car, and you’ve never felt awkward around steve before-- well, not in the last week, not when you started to really get to know him-- but you feel a little awkward now in his bmw, rubbing your hands on your jeans and wishing that you could just disappear. if you disappeared, maybe you wouldn’t have to deal with this mortification that was settling in your chest. just how pathetic you feel having said everything out loud.

it’s as if steve can see the gears in your head turning, can see you turning in on yourself. “hey, hey...” he turns the key and the car turns off. he unbuckles his seatbelt-- one thing that had surprised you about steve was how safe of a driver he was and how much of a stickler he was when it came to seatbelts and general car safety-- and shifts his body towards you. “i didn’t mean to embarrass you, or make you feel bad.”

“you didn’t embarrass me.”

“regardless,” steve reaches out for your hand, and you think about it for a moment, how you might feel like you gain the upper hand by refusing his, but you eventually relent and take it. your pride isn’t worth more than the comfort that steve provides, even with a simple touch. “i’m sorry.” his hand squeezes yours and his thumb draws a pattern over the back of his hand. it’s these moments where things feel so damn confusing, where your brain knows that this is all fake, but your heart can’t seem to parse the difference. “and, for the record... i know i’ve said it before, but he’s the one who should be embarrassed. i didn’t feel one way or another about him before, but he’s a total dick.”

anyone else and you may believe that they were just telling you what you wanted to hear. but steve has always had this knack about him, and maybe it’s only with you, but you simply don’t believe that he would keep things from you. that he’d be anything but perfectly genuine. maybe that’s naive, maybe that framework of thought will get you hurt one day.

you’re willing to find out.

˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊

steve creates a schedule for your dates. a schedule.

upon the reveal of how little you’d truly been treated in the past, he had quickly snatched the list back up, folded it up nice and neatly, and tucked it away into his pocket. he’d cited that now everything was going to be a surprise.

you go on a date with steve every tuesday and friday. and, at some point, that bled in to saturday’s and sunday’s, too.

(at some point, you end up realizing that you spend more time with steve than without him.)

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DATE IDEA 17: CAMPING

“you really thought that camping would be good for our first fake-date that’s not, like, dinner and a movie?”

steve closes the trunk and slings the tent bag over his shoulder. “i don’t know what you’re talking about. this is still a great idea.”

“isn’t part of the point of all of this is for people to, you know, see us?” you make a dramatic show of looking around, using your hand as a temporary visor, searching high and low for any soul who may feast their eyes upon you with steve harrington. “i don’t see anyone.”

taking a step closer to you, nearly chest to chest, steve peers down at you. “no one’s gonna believe us as a couple if we don’t seem comfortable around each other,” he turns around and trudges towards the plot of land that the camp host had directed you to. “what better way to become comfortable than to share a tent in the middle of nowhere?”

you roll your eyes but follow behind him. he guides you towards the little picnic bench and encourages you to sit on it. “what are you doing?”

“what do you mean?” steve shrugs and grabs a coke from the cooler and hands it to you. “i’m having you sit down while i unpack the car and get the tent set up.”

“but...” your head tilts to the side like there’s a thought bubble forming over your head, trying to understand him. “don’t you want me to help?”

“nope.”

“you don’t want me to help at all?”

“no. not even a little bit.” there’s a cheeky smile on his face. “i want you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the view. maybe if you’re lucky i’ll get a little sweaty.”

you scoff and huff and make to stand up, but steve’s hands go firmly to your shoulders. “i’m serious. let me take care of it. can you do that?” he touches your chin, just the faintest brush of his index finger against it, but it’s practically a lightning strike. when you nod your head, he smiles. there’s something proud there. “good.”

for the record, he does sweat a little bit. and you don’t know what it means that you kinda... like it.

by the time that tent is up, the sleeping bags are rolled out, and the pillows are fluffed, it’s already dusk. steve has built a decent sized fire and has dragged a large log to it, patting his thigh. “c’mon.”

walking up to him, you open your mouth, trying to decide if he’s implying what you think he is. he takes you by the hand and guides you to perch on his thigh, maneuvers your arm to drape across his shoulders. “comfortable?” you nod your head and he pats your leg, the motion far too easy and affectionate for you to brush off. “fuckin’ pretty out here, isn’t it?”

looking around, you can’t help but nod. “it is really pretty. have you been here before?”

“we used to come here every summer. me and my folks, and a few other neighborhood families. it was my favorite part of the summer, every summer. i always wanted to bring someone here.” he squeezes you a little bit. “you should feel honored.”

“i do, actually,” you say to him, and you mean it, deeply from the bottom of your heart. “thanks for bringing me here. and for getting all of this set up, it’s...” you look around, but despite the beauty around, your eyes want nothing more than to settle on steve’s face and stay there. “magical.”

“thanks for letting your fake boyfriend take you out into the woods. with no showers.”

your jaw drops. “you didn’t say--”

his laughter drowns out anything else, his forehead falling to the side of your arm.

you stay out at the fire together until the bugs force you into the tent. slightly chilled from that summer evening cold that serves as a nice break from the heat, you rub your hands over your arms. “cold?” steve asks. before you can even fully nod your head he’s unzipping his duffel and tossing his sweatshirt in your direction. “here.”

looking down at it, your thumb runs along the worn material. you’ve seen him wear it a million times since you’ve known him.

his favorite sweatshirt.

you tug it on over your shirt, and before you can think to open your own bag, there’s a pair of sweatpants in front of you. “steve,” you begin slowly. “you realize i brought my own clothes, right? is this you saying you hate the way i dress? even my pajamas?”

“what? no.” steve shakes his head and begins to shuffle into his own pajamas, and your eye gets caught on the strong chest with the beautiful smattering of dark chest hair. he catches your gaze and smirks a little but doesn’t comment on it, tugging a clean shirt on. “i just...” he shrugs and starts to get into his sleeping bag. “i dunno, you in my clothes is definitely not the worst thing in the world.”

there’s nothing you have to say to that which won’t end in you being a stammering, blushing mess, so you opt for saying nothing. you get into your own sleeping bag and you’ve just clicked off the solar powered light when steve says, “comfortable? warm? need anything?”

“steve,” you place your hand on his chest. “you know that you’re supposed to enjoy our dates too, right? you can’t enjoy them if you’re constantly making sure that i’m enjoying them.”

it’s as if he hadn’t even considered this. as if his entire focus was on you and your happiness. “sorry. i’m not trying to be weird, or make you feel weird.” he rolls over onto his side, nearly nose to nose. “it just pisses me off.”

“what does?”

“that no one ever thought that maybe you would want to do these things. it’s just ridiculous to me.” he licks his lips and his hand flexes. “i won’t keep bringing it up, because i’m sure that’s just as annoying, i just... i want you to feel special. really.”

something melts inside you. “you make me feel very special. really.”

the two of you fall asleep like that, alongside the hum of the bugs and the sound of a lake lapping against the shore.

at some point in the night, steve has taken your hand between his own. fingers laced, the back of it is brought right up to his mouth, as though he fell asleep just after pressing a kiss to it. when you wake up to a screaming baby four campsites down, you don’t make any effort to move it.

˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊

DATE IDEA 5: DRIVE IN MOVIE

when steve came to your front door to pick you up for a saturday night date, confusion instantly rattled you. “where’s the beemer?”

“oh, that thing? yeah, that thing simply wouldn’t do for what i have planned for us tonight.”

you look at him with a slightly puzzled expression. “but it worked just fine for camping? do you forget the part where we got stuck coming back--”

“yeah, well,” he wraps his arm around your shoulders. “we didn’t get stuck on the way there did we?” you shake your head. “and i figured that i’d learn from my mistakes.”

sticking his opposite arm out, he gestures to the pickup truck before you. “boom. i basically had to beg my dad to drive it, and i told him i’d clean the garage until it’s spotless, but... we’ve got ourselves a truck.”

“what the hell do we need a truck for? are we going mudding?”

“i think the country folk call it muddin’. but, no.” he turns to you and runs his hand through your hair, saying, “double feature. ferris bueller and back to the future. i made sure we went on a night where they weren’t playing anything scary.” the fondness in your chest opens up and threatens to swallow both you and steve whole with the sheer magnitude of it. “sound good?”

“sounds perfect, stevie.”

steve makes sure you leave early enough to get a good spot and to have enough time to go to concessions. practically all of the hawkins class of 1985 seemed to have the same idea as he did. and all of their eyes are on the two of you. they watch as steve sets up the bed of his dad’s truck, filled with big cozy blankets and fluffy pillows. you catch steve’s gaze and he raises his brows at you, as if to say-- see? knew this would work.

maybe you should’ve trusted him, because, yes-- ryan is here with his new girlfriend, and their eyes have scarcely left you or steve since you arrived two rows ahead of them.

guiding you towards the concessions, steve bends down to press a kiss against your head. with his lips against your ear, he adds, “don’t worry about them, alright? it’s just you and me.”

once in line, steve looks around and spots ryan a few people behind you two in line. you follow his gaze and you swallow but he’s already caught the movement, already caught your chin and tipped it up to look at him. “hey. what’d i say? just you and me.” your mouth falls open as his thumb rubs against your chin and then he’s bending down, once again at your ear. “can i kiss you?”

it’s all an act, it’s all an act, it’s all an act-- your brain can’t stop screaming this clarification but your heart is hammering in your chest anyway, like a running wild horse that’s never been contained by anything, least of all a ribcage, a body. you nod your head but he tuts. “words. i wanna hear it.”

“yes--”

that’s all he needed. he sweeps your hair back with a hand, the other one a steadying point on your face. he brings his lips to yours and you don’t know how he’s so good at this. so good at pretending.

because it isn’t fake when you grip at his shirt, when you lean up onto your toes to get closer to him. the way that you sigh into the kiss, an involuntary comfort at your lips on his, isn’t fake at all. the warmth that spreads all over your face when he nips at your bottom lip, that is the least fake of all of it.

it is all so painfully real to you, and it’s scary. but not scary enough to get you to stop, not now and maybe not ever. maybe you’ll be okay being steve harrington’s fake girlfriend until he gets sick of you, if it feels this good, this real.

“hey, lovebirds-- you’re gonna lose your spot in line.”

at least five people have already gotten their sodas and candy while you two have been lost in each other. you half expect steve to wear some sort of cocky grin, be proud of himself, a smirk at the fact that he just claimed you as his in front of all these people. but that machismo doesn’t exist in him. all he does is touch your cheek, tuck you into his side, and move the several paces in line.

“was that alright?” he asks you, hushed enough to know that the words are just for you. “too much?”

looking over your shoulder, you see ryan with his hands in his pockets, eyes immediately darting away from yours when your gaze settles on him. but it doesn’t fill you with the sensation of pleasure that you expected it too. in fact, you don’t feel much at all. your head is too busy reeling from steve’s kiss.

“i think it was just enough,” you murmur. you settle your cheek against his chest and his hand goes to your head, massaging at your scalp. “you’re spoiling me. i’m gonna get way too used to this, and then be disappointed when i’m not always getting scalp massages.”

steve scoffs. “nah. this should just be a way to rule out duds.” as if to prove his point, his finger tips lower to the base of your neck, working the muscles just right. “any guy who doesn’t do this can be chucked in the trash.”

“you’ve done this for all the girls you’ve dated? for nancy?”

shrugging, he pauses, as if thinking about it. “not always. i mean, i was kinda a dick in high school. i may be capable of being a good boyfriend now, but i wasn’t always, i guess.”

“dicks don’t give their girlfriends head massages?”

“definitely not.” steve smirks a little and kisses your forehead. “i like to think that i’ve matured. that i’ve grown into the kind of man who gives head massages.”

rubbing your hand up and down his back, you nod your head. “i think any girl is lucky to have you, stevie. head massages and all.”

by the time that you get back with your popcorn, your diet coke and your nerds, the sun has fallen below the horizon. fireflies flicker off in the distance, the chatter of everyone around you the backdrop to your evening. steve, getting beneath the blankets, opens it up to offer you a spot. with a grin wider than it ought to be you climb in beside him. settling against him, your cheek once again resting against that strong chest, shouldn’t be so simple. so easy, but it is.

you like the feeling of steve’s laughter against your cheek, the rumble of his chest. it makes you laugh even more. you like how he twitches beneath you when your hand rests on his stomach, your pinky finger slipping under the material of his shirt. you like the way that his fingers continue to card through your hair, sometimes switching to rub your back, your arm. you like how no one can see you in the confines of the truck bed, but he doesn’t seem to care. he treats you just the same, dotes on you just the same as if a thousand sets of eyes were on you.

you realize then that you need to come to terms with the fact that you like a lot about steve. most things, even.

˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ ˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ₊

DATE IDEA 20

you. me. pick you up from work.

when you had finally finished your opening tasks for the book shop, that was when you noticed the note that had been left in your bag for you to find. and even though you had no idea what steve had planned, you knew this-- you’d done everything from go camping to stargazed at lovers lake, from a picnic in the park to going to the arcade. and everything you did together, you enjoyed. thoroughly.

all day while you check out people’s books and offer your own recommendations, all you can envision is hopping into steve’s car and driving off into the sunset and whatever it is that he has planned for the two of you.

you’re so lost in this thought process, in fact, that you hardly notice who exactly it is dropping the pile of bodice rippers onto the counter. prepared to see a horny mom of one of your classmates, imagine your surprise at who you really see.

“i kinda get the appeal,” steve says, examining the cover of a lisa kleypas novel. “i mean, this guy... he has awesome hair.”

he shakes the novel at you slightly and you snatch it from him with a tentative smile on your face. “you just like him because he looks like you.”

“who said that? not me. you said that.” he cocks his head to the side. “well, hopefully you like how he looks, because all of these are for you.” he pats the stack with pride. “i went through your collection and made sure that i didn’t grab any duplicates. i also asked the librarian for a copy of what you’ve checked out recently. so everything should be fresh.” he pauses. “why are you looking at me like that? anyway-- and don’t use your employee discount, i’m not cheap.”

slowly you start to punch in the prices, watching him all the while. “steve--” you slow yourself for a moment and look him in the eye. “you went to the librarian?”

“uh, yeah. i mean, what kind of loser would i look like buying you books you’ve already read?” steve grins. “c’mon-- you ready to get out of here?”

one hand in steve’s and the other clutching the stack of books, you slide into steve’s car, thank him for opening the door for you. “i don’t get it,” you say once he’s slid in next to you. “this is a date?”

“yeah,” he nods his head. “you’re gonna read one of your new books. i’m gonna watch the game tonight. and we’re just going to... you know, spend time with one another. cook dinner. be normal.” he pauses. “i picked up moose tracks ice cream, too. sounds like a date to me.” he glances out the window. “i know it’s not super flashy or anything, but, you know-- i dunno, a date can just be coexisting around the person that you like. maybe that’s stupid.”

“no! steve... no. that’s not stupid at all.” you tap his hand that rests on the steering wheel, coaxing him to look at you. “i think that’s actually... really sweet. you’re giving me a taste of what a real relationship is like.”

something fractures inside of him and you can see it as it happens, but you’re not quite sure how to decipher it. “’course. that’s what i’m here for.” he reaches across and ruffles your hair which makes you giggle and settle back against the seat.

since you and steve began your ruse, you’d only been to the harrington home a handful of times. almost every time you spent time together, if you weren’t out doing something, you were at your house. your parents doted upon and adored steve, and made it very clear to both him and you that they approved of this union. you silently wished that you didn’t have to bring your families into all of this. it would make everything much more confusing and difficult when it inevitably ended at the end of the summer, once both you and steve have gotten what you wanted out of your endeavor. but it’s the harrington house that comes into view now, and steve seems to sense your surprise. “parents are out of town. another conference.”

“oh.” he puts the car into park but doesn’t make a move to get out yet. you clutch the books a little bit closer to your chest. there’s something written all over his chest as he peers at his childhood home. “i really hate living here still, you know?”

“how come?”

on the outside, the harrington family was perfect. two parents still together and one son, basketball star and stand up guy. but you knew what the reality was. the state of steve’s parents marriage and steve’s own insecurities weren’t lost on you.

“my dad,” he hisses out a sigh and his head thunks against the headrest. “you know, i don’t have regrets about not going to college. would i have worked a little bit harder on my grades a little earlier? probably. but i know that i’m not dumb, or a bad person because i’m not going. and i know that i can still go! and--” he looks over at you where you’ve already opened your mouth. “no, no, don’t. i know what you’re going to say, and i know that, alright? i know the stuff you’re going to say. and i appreciate it.” he looks back to the house and shrugs his shoulders. “i know that you’re going to say that i shouldn’t care what he thinks, or that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. and, realistically, i know that. but... he’s my dad. shouldn’t he know what he’s talking about when it comes to me?”

you press your lips into a line while he carries on. “i just... i just want to make them proud, i guess. haven’t heard that in a long time.” he looks over at you. “i’m not really setting the mood for a nice date, am i?”

shaking your head, you wrap your hand around his wrist, slinking down to his hand to slot your fingers together. “i don’t care about that,” you say easily. “i’m glad that you’re talking to me about stuff. real stuff.”

“yeah, well...” he rubs his nose. “for the record, if your dad was a piece of shit, i’d listen. or... any of your problems, or fears, or anything. i’d listen.” he levels you with a slight upturn of his mouth. “you may be my fake girlfriend, but you’re also my friend now. one of my closest friends.”

maybe that’s the lesson in all of this. yes, you were sad that you felt rejected and neglected when ryan was your secret boyfriend, but... maybe what you had really wanted was a friend. a true friend.

and steve harrington was the truest kind of friend around.

it only made your heart tumble nearer towards loving him truly and completely.

you spend the night doing exactly what he laid out. you read the book with the model that looked eerily similar to steve on the cover, and secretly, you imagined him as your rakish hero the whole time. steve sat on the couch and watched the basketball game, and every once in awhile, you’d get distracted from your book and simply watch him. it’s easy to watch him from this position: your head in his lap. it gives you the perfect view.

you cook spaghetti together and you eat every last bite. you eat the moose tracks ice cream together, after your book is put away and his game is long ago, his favorite team losing. and you decide if this is what every weekday date night could be like with steve, that whoever ends up with him might just be the luckiest girl in the world.

there’s a hope that bubbles in you that maybe, in one of the alternate universes out there, you’re that girl. none of this is fake and steve’s your boyfriend for real, and he loves you.

but when he looks at you and swipes a bit of chocolate away from the corner of your mouth, you think that maybe he loves you in this universe, too. maybe.

[nostalgebraist]

Pretty regularly, at work, I ask ChatGPT hundreds of slightly different questions over the course of a minute or two.

I don't type out these individual questions, of course. They're constructed mechanically, by taking documents one by one from a list, and slotting each one inside a sandwich of fixed text. Like this (not verbatim):

Here's a thing for you to read: //document goes here// Now answer question XYZ about it.

I never read through all of the responses, either. Maybe I'll read a few of them, later on, after doing some kind of statistics to the whole aggregate. But ChatGPT isn't really writing for human consumption, here. It's an industrial machine. It's generating "data," on the basis of other "data."

Often, I ask it to write out a step-by-step reasoning process before answering each question, because this has been shown to improve the quality of ChatGPT's answers. It writes me all this stuff, and I ignore all of it. It's a waste product. I only ask for it because it makes the answer after it better, on average; I have no other use for it.

The funny thing is -- despite being used in a very different, more impersonal manner -- it's still ChatGPT! It's still the same sanctimonious, eager-to-please little guy, answering all those questions.

Fifty questions at once, hundreds in a few minutes, all of it in that same, identical, somewhat annoying brand voice. Always itself, incapable of tiring.

This is all billed to my employer at a rate of roughly $0.01 per 5,000 words I send to ChatGPT, plus roughly $0.01 per 3,750 words that ChatGPT writes in response.

In other words, ChatGPT writing is so cheap, you can get 375,000 words of it for $1.

----

OpenAI decided to make this particular "little guy" very cheap and very fast, maybe in recognition of its popularity.

So now, if you want to use a language model like an industrial machine, it's the one you're most likely to use.

----

Why am I making this post?

Sometimes I read online discourse about ChatGPT, and it seems like people are overly focused on the experience of a single human talking to ChatGPT in the app.

Or, at most, the possibility of generating lots of "content" aimed at humans (SEO spam, generic emails) at the press of a button.

Many of the most promising applications of ChatGPT involve generating text that is not meant for human consumption.

They go in the other direction: they take things from the messy, human, textual world, and translate them into the simpler terms of ordinary computer programs.

Imagine you're interacting with a system -- a company, a website, a phone tree, whatever.

You say or type something.

Behind the scenes, unbeknownst to you, the system asks ChatGPT 13 different questions about the thing you just said/typed. This happens almost instantaneously and costs almost nothing.

No human being will ever see any of the words that ChatGPT wrote in response to this question. They get parsed by simple, old-fashioned computer code, and then they get discarded.

Each of ChatGPT's answers ends in a simple "yes" or "no," or a selection from a similar set of discrete options. The system uses all of this structured, "machine-readable" (in the old-fashioned sense) information to decide what to do next, in its interaction with you.

This is the kind of thing that will happen, more and more.

[sanguineterrain]

about a house | eddie munson

i am back with another installment of my about a boy series! you don't have to read them to understand this fic, so check them out only if you feel like it :)

Summary: You and Eddie have your first time together.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader

Word count: 1.4k

Warnings/tags: insecure reader, unspecified trauma and poor self image, NSFW but it's not descriptive. reader's biology is unspecified. first time having sex, established relationship, hurt comfort.

if you enjoy this, please let me know through reblogs (and a comment, if you feel like!)

divider by firefly-graphics | i reblog all fics to @sanguinelibrary

Eddie tastes like rain. 

You'd gotten caught in a thunderstorm on your way back from The Hideout tonight. Baby curls are slicked against his neck. His rings are warm from his body and the July heat. They're a comfortable weight against your arm. 

He smells like a million things. Cheap beer. Bar peanuts. Smoke. Leather. The chalky Dial soap that's quickly become your favorite scent. 

But Eddie tastes like rain. 

Your arms are stiff beneath him. You want to move them. You like when Eddie kisses you. You like that he tastes differently each time. 

But you're stuck. 

"Baby?" 

And now he's noticed. 

Eddie lifts his head. He tucks a wet curl behind his ear. You reach to twirl it around your finger. He smiles at you. You feel monstrous. Like you've just crawled out from under his bed, in view when you shouldn't be.

You belong to the void. But Eddie's never been afraid of the dark. 

"Hey, honey," he whispers, thumb sliding over your cheek. "What's up? Y'wanna stop?" 

You asked him this morning. Eddie had made waffles, and he'd just finished inhaling three and was on his fourth when you asked. 

"Can we have sex?"

He’d put his fork down, wiped a drop of syrup from the corner of his lip with his thumb and sucked it clean. Then he’d looked at you very seriously. 

"Do you want to have sex?"

And, well. Yes. Obviously. That's why you asked, isn't it?

You're on his bed. There are too many things in his room that remind you of how none of this is yours and that you ought to let Eddie go soon so he actually has a shot at a real relationship. Those are definitely mood killers. You are definitely a mood killer. 

"No," you say. "No, I don't want to stop." 

You feel his eyes on you, feel him parse whether you're lying or not. Not even lying—just if you're unaware. Sometimes Eddie has to remind you that you can tell him no. 

“Are you sure?” he asks.

You stare at his wall of metal posters. At things that make him Eddie. You clutch his t-shirt tighter. His thumb rubs circles on your hip.

"What if it's weird?" you ask. 

"What is?" 

"This. Me. My body."

You look at yourself, at your rucked up shirt, your sockless feet. 

"All bodies are weird," Eddie says. 

"No, they're not."

"Yeah-huh. You think my body isn't weird? My body's just as freaky as the ol' noodle."

He taps his temple with one finger. 

"You're not weird, though," you say. 

"No?" 

You turn your head and stare at the single window in Eddie's room. It's pitch black outside. You kind of want the light to be off in here too. 

"Maybe this won't be good," you say. "Maybe I won't like it. Maybe I'll be bad."

He eases your head back so you face him once again. 

"Sweet thing, you could bite my lip off and I'd still love ya. And if you don't like it at any point, we'll stop. No questions."

"It has to be good," you say. 

Eddie tilts his head. There's no trace of humor in his eyes now. 

"Why does it have to be good?" he asks quietly. 

"Because it's me." 

"What?"

You sigh. 

"You know what I mean," you say. "You know, Eddie."

"I'm not sure that I do, sweet thing."

You look at him, wishing he'd read your mind. But he can't, and it's not fair to expect him to. Eddie may not be afraid of the dark, but that doesn't mean he should stumble through your brain. 

"You live in your body," you say, like it explains everything. It should. 

"And you… don't?" 

“I live…” You look down at your body. Sometimes you forget it's yours. “I live outside. It's like… like I'm a house. And I've lost the keys. So I watch through a window and wait to be let in.”

“Maybe you're already inside,” he says. 

“How can I be inside if I don't know how to get to the kitchen or the bedroom?” You squeeze your eyes shut. “It's like I'm a ghost.”

It has to be another house because your house isn't inviting to someone like Eddie. You'll let him in and the decoration will put him off and you've never learned how to say the right things at the right time, and when you invite someone inside, there's an expectation—

“Baby. Hey. Hey, honey.” Eddie taps your cheek gently. “Can y’look at me, please? You're worrying me.”

“You won't like my house,” you say, and open your eyes. Your vision blurs at the edges. “I don't even like my house.”

Eddie's wearing that pinched expression that resurfaces whenever you say something sad. 

Outside, the rain keeps on. You're too sad for him. 

“I think you've got a very beautiful house,” he says. “I've seen the outside and gotten peeks of the inside and everything I've seen has only made me want to see more.” 

He leans in and kisses you like your paint isn't peeling, like the roof hasn't caved in, like you aren't beyond fixing. 

“I like your windows and their shutters,” he says, kissing your eyelids. “And I like your door. I like the music and laughter that comes out of it.” He kisses your mouth, petting your hips.  

“I like your door,” you whisper into his mouth. 

Eddie smiles against your skin and kisses down your neck. 

“Mm, what else? I like how strong your house is. How it's been rained on so many times and it's still here. I like the light that shines from inside, how warm and inviting it is. I like that you let me through the front gate even though it's scary to let someone in.”

“Eddie.” You’re begging. “Don’t have to like it. I’ll let you in anyway.”

Eddie reels back, dark eyes molten. “Don’t ever think you have to let me inside to keep me. Alright? This is your house, baby. Not mine. I come when invited. And I love you. I love every part.”

“I want you in,” you say. You do. You never thought you would but you’re sure that you want Eddie inside. 

He cups the back of your head and your hip. It makes your bricks wobble. You never knew that living in your body could be a home and not a break-in. 

Eddie’s house is beautiful, but you knew that. His skin is smooth, dotted with freckles and moles. Silver scars criss-cross over his stomach. He catches you staring.

“One day, I’ll tell you about ‘em,” he murmurs, tracing your cheek with his thumb. “But tonight‘s about you.”

“I like your house,” you say.

Eddie smiles. His cheeks tinge red.  

“You’re my favorite person in the whole wide world,” he says. 

He helps you take off your clothes. You take longer than him, but Eddie doesn’t rush. Just kisses your exposed skin.

“We can stop here if you want,” he says when you’re both bare. 

“It might not be good,” you say again. “Remember?”

“Sweet thing, have you ever considered that maybe it’ll be good because it’s you?”

You pull him in by his neck, so you can whisper in his ear. You can’t look at Eddie’s windows right now. 

“Inside might be scary,” you say. 

Eddie makes a warm sound. “Everybody’s got an attic, baby. Nothing scary ‘bout ‘em.”

You search for his hand blindly. He links your fingers and kisses the shell of your ear.

“Come in,” you say. 

So Eddie does.

It isn’t long before you’re both panting. Eddie’s pet you for a long while, sweet strokes that make you squeal and sigh. Your sounds make him grin every time. 

“Do you—do you like my house?” Your ankles cross behind Eddie's back. The wind whistles against the window. This is not a break-in.

“Sweet thing, I'd love your house even if you never let me inside,” Eddie says, a moan stuck in his throat as he bottoms out. “You okay? Y’wanna keep going?”

You nod and tuck your face into his shoulder. Eddie’s curls are frizzy and they stick to his forehead. Words climb dangerously up your throat, words about houses and moving in and vows and picking furniture. Your eyes burn. 

“Baby, are y—hey.” Eddie starts to pull out. You shake your head furiously and keep his hips lined with yours. 

“No, ‘m fine,” you say, lightning in your belly growing. “Really, Ed, fine. Just feel safe. You’re safe. I love your house.”

Eddie’s answering hum is tender. He kisses you hard, salt on your door.

You find yourself in the window’s reflection again. The rain keeps on. 

This time, you don’t feel locked out. 

[entamesubs]

How the Fansubbing Process Works for entameSubs

The delays have brought about speculation and misinformed assumptions of how our work is done.

This post explains our entire process to put this misinformation to rest, and also informs those curious of how fansubbing works.

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

For those unaware, each subbed episode comes with a section of credits at the very end that are specific to that particular episode. For example, EP124 was translated and timed entirely by me (entame), while EP122 was translated jointly by tessa (batsugeemu) and yona (angelthinktank), while I took a proofreading role. Each episode's credits are different, and I always make sure to credit properly based on who worked on what.

Step One: Translation

The job of the translator is to just get from point A (Japanese) to point B (English). One full run-through of the script, no stops in-between. Work is not edited, proofread or checked in any way, it is simply translated and then moved onto the next phase of the assembly line, so to speak.

Leave typos in, leave mistakes in, leave phrases you cannot translate or parse alone and move on. Awkward or literal translations are fine. The goal is to finish the whole script. A couple lines missing here and there is fine - they will be caught later. The first step is just to get it done.

Translating a full script can take anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending on the episode or any extraneous circumstances. To be clear, 2-3 hours is the absolute fastest that it can possibly happen, and it is an outlier. I can count the amount of times it has taken 2-3 hours on one hand. Those are usually reserved for our dedicated "speedsub" episodes, where we have everyone on deck to work continuously, without break. This is not a norm, nor should it be assumed so.

A normal episode will usually take around 4-6 hours working time to translate. Sometimes this is done a couple hours on one day, and another couple on a separate day. Sometimes it's done all in one sitting. It varies depending on the translator's schedule.

Step Two: Proofreading

After that, the proofreader then goes through for a second or third watch to do edits and checks. The proofreader is strictly in charge of making sure the translation itself is correct as well as fixing any missed lines from the translator. Grammar, typos, various other minor corrections are not expected to be done in full here, the main job of the proofreader is to just make sure the Japanese to English translation is complete, correct, and makes sense.

Is the subject correct? Is this the right verb to use in English? Are they talking about themselves or someone else? Is the context the original translator took correct/accurate? A second/third pair of eyes is essential to making sure everything comes out properly.

The translator may mark specific lines that stumped them or they need a second opinion on for the proofreader to pay special attention to. Maybe the translator can't think of an appropriate way to make something work, or need pun ideas.

Proofreading and translation roles are entirely switchable on request, because both proofreader and translator must know Japanese.

Step Three: Timing

At the same time, the timer begins the tedious work of timing the subs to the episode itself, making sure sentences show up at the correct place, for the right amount of time.

They ensure subs cut at scene changes, that the lines shown on screen are properly broken up if a character pauses, and are instering forced line breaks where necessary so subs don't awkwardly fill the entire length of the screen and are instead always centered.

Step Four: (not) "Final Check"

"Final Check" as I'd like to call it, is always done by me. Once proofreading and timing are both done, the sub files are sent to me.

I add in the opening and ending, I do all the fancy text effects if need be (such as scrolling text, rainbow text, gradient text, translating signs or posters shown on screen and blending them into the episode, etc - this is all under "Typesetting"), and I also do a third check of the script on a watch through to further edit any lines that may feel awkward to read on screen or I have thought of a better translation for.

The state that the subs come in pre-final check are subs that only contain the very middle of the episode itself. This means the prologue, the opening, the ending, UTS Report and preview are entirely unsubbed, alongside any signs or extraneous text on screen. Subs are not done pre-final check. There is a reason they must go through me first and that is because I am the only typesetter on the team.

To be clear, timing and typesetting are two entirely different skill sets. Getting the subs timed properly is one thing, getting the subs to look nice, flow well, and not feel awkward to read is another.

Typesetting is usually known as an "invisible" job. When it's done poorly, you notice it. If it's done well, you don't.

At this point, I also go over and double check things like character voice and make sure it's following our style guide. While this is a consideration made during step one and two as well (translating and proofreading), this is the point where things are tightened up.

Extraneous TL notes may also be added here in-episode if needed.

Step Five: Quality Checks

After everything has been bundled together and ready-to-go, it gets sent to our Quality Checker for the very last and final run-through. QC checks spelling errors, typos, grammar, weird English, missed casing, missed lines, style guide errors, etc.

The QC does not need to know Japanese (though it is a nice bonus if they do!), they only need to know English so they can check for grammar and weird phrasing. At this point, all of the translation work and check has been done, it is just making sure stuff makes sense to an English audience now.

After QC sends in their changes (or lack thereof), the timer usually goes back to fix up the final file for publishing.

Step Six: Distribution & TL Notes

Finally, the person who hits publish and uploads the episode file to all relevant sites is me, since I know how to setup, run, and seed torrents.

A lot of people may not know this, but all anime pirate sites (R.I.P.) pull their content from Nyaa's feed. If it's not on Nyaa, it won't be on a pirate site. In order to actually ensure proper distribution of the episode, it needs to be uploaded through Nyaa. Once it is on there, the pirate sites will all update of their own volition.

Translation notes, if any are necessary, are also written entirely by me, even if the episode may not have been translated by me initially. These are usually only written if I have time or if there is a specific concept/idea that I really want to make sure comes across properly.

Final Words

I hope this gives you better insight into the entameSubs process and how episodes are usually worked on/made.

A lot of our team is scattered across different timezones, with one person being 9 hours ahead, and another one being 6 hours ahead. This means things are done at different times and at the leisure of whoever is in charge of their role. If someone is busy, then there is nothing else anyone can do but wait.

It may be that after waiting for someone to finish, someone else in the chain becomes busy, and the process of waiting starts all over again. Steps are done like this so that we have appropriate checks in place. This is just how it is. None of us are paid, and all of us are doing this for fun.

Most of all, I take a lot of pride in the team's work. If something is not up to snuff, or I don't feel comfortable publishing it until we've been able to correct something that's been bothering us (whether that's a line, typesetting, or etc), it doesn't get published. These subs are not just "my" translations, but the work of the whole team.

Call it arrogance, but I'd much rather put out something we're proud of than something rushed through the wringer just for the sake of getting stuff out. You may disagree with lines or certain translations, but they are our work at the end of the day.

And it is a lot of work.

Thank you.