#to cope with the fact I don't have the space technology or people to have one irl

[theforestknowsmydreams]

you know, until literally less than a minute ago I was entirely convinced and on board with the idea that all of the internet had suddenly become infatuated with Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror from 1922

was no one gonna tell me there was a new movie? show? whatever it is? imagine if someone had asked my opinion and I'd gone "Oh yeah I found it really interesting how they said they changed the name because it was a German movie for German viewers and German names would be more familiar - and then named the vampire Orlok, which is just about one of the most uncomfortable names to pronounce in German-"

I would have been HUMILIATED

[wrotelovelytears]

Pluto might be in Aquarius

But that's only half the story.

Now I'm not one to believe only the planets inspire change in people but the environment they live in, their disposition and their current state of being impacts them just as much. Astrology without the consideration of culture and context is just astronomy. It has the body but not the soul.

I start with that because of all the current global happenings. I understand the importance of spiritual and religious practices, and they don't exist in a bubble of their own. It is highly related to the cultural movements and ethnic practices of a region. If we are going to be honest religions/spirituality would not exist with out those cultural foundations. Literally there would be nothing if ethnic and cultural differences didn't play a role.

Hoodoo wouldn't exist if African Americans didn't. The Greek Pantheon wouldn't be a thing if the ancient Greeks didn't interact with the Egyptians, Nubians and Macedonians. And it should be very well known the Romans stole their whole flow and rebranded. The same Romans who took Christianity and set the foundation for the many versions we see today.

I say all that because I've noticed a lack of connecting between the social/political climate, traditions and belief systems. We can't pretend that Vedic astrology isn't an actual part of Hinduism because it wouldn't exist if Hinduism wasn't here. And Hinduism is the result of two very different populations interacting with one getting colonized and pushed south and the other needing a system/ belief to justify it. We can't pretend that tropical astrology isn't a more Eurocentric method because the signs, planets and their meanings are not the same outside of Western/Eurocentric ideology. In fact it's heavily based off of Roman and Greek interpretations, the base of Western Society as a whole.

I'm not going to pretend that Pluto moving into Aquarius is the only reason why we suddenly "see" more social changes, more standoffish behavior, more coldness to our fellow human. All Aquarius is doing is putting it on the internet. It sent a tweet out and we all saw it. These issues aren't a magical happening, they are the result of centuries of bs pilling up. Of cultures merging in ways that weren't possible before modern technology. Of colonization. Imperialism. Chattel Slavery. The Arab Slave trade. Ethnic cleansings.

People weren't passive before the shift into Aquarius, people were ignoring it. It's really easy to do when you have no personal reason to care, in fact it's probably something all humans can relate to on one topic or another. Trust me I was heavily into activism spaces a decade ago, everything being talked about in media now was talking about then. It was talkes about when my parents were growing up in the 60s. My grandparents in the 20s/30s and so on. Aquarius just put it in our faces (again, and will continue to do so) and said "now what? ".

I want people to not just lean in to spiritual/religious practices because they are popular but to look into the actual meanings they have. I want people to understand that yes you can be spiritual/religious and your ethnic background does impact how you practice. I want people to understand these changes we see in France (they lost their standing in Africa, literally all their former colonies told it to cope, and that's leading to their collapse), South Korea (this is not the first, and sadly won't be the last time, power has been abused under the name of "anti communism", in fact ask South East Asians how they treated there and you'll see this was going to happen), the United States (a country founded on genocide and racism isn't going to magically be less of those because a Black woman got to run for office) etc aren't solely a shift in the Star positions.

I see people point out the French Revolution happened the last time Pluto was in Aquarius (but they also had lost all the land in the US and Haiti told them to fuck off, so it wasn't just not eating cake, it was the lack of slave labor to fund their empire). Or America getting it's freedom (Britain was getting close to abolishing chattel slavery (again free labor, people hate to lose their free labor), the Irish and Scottish were also giving the English a hard time, they had to pick between the people next door or the ones over the Ocean). At that time it was the lack of free labor that pushed those movements, yeah everyone didn't have slaves but they all benefited from that system.

So many astrologers say don't let the stars determine your life but literally turn around and do that. Astrology is a tool at the end of the day. That's it, because if someone doesn't believe in it that doesn't change what happens. Conformation bias would have us believe differently but that's just part of our nature to lean towards that which supports us, not questions us. It's a practice that spans the globe and millennia because we can all look up and see the same stars at night. Maybe not as bright because light pollution, not the same positions because stars go supernova and the solar system moves, but it's still up for everyone on the planet. It's something that regardless of where you go, there's some meaning to it, maybe not always spiritual but a reason nonetheless. And it's never the same, obviously or else this would be a very boring plane of existence, and there's overlap because humans gonna human no matter where we are.

I implore you to think on your upbringing. Think on your ethnic group(s). Think on your current country of residence. Think on what you were taught in school. Think on your family. Because that's what's impacting you. That's what makes you make the decisions you do. Not just Mars moving through your third house (this is just an example, if that's happening for you good for you or I hope it gets better idk) .

Pluto in Aquarius isn't bring change. It's humans and our individual motives that are and always have.

Aquarius is a sign that puts the spot light on things already in motion. It makes you think because if you don't you can't understand. It makes you detached because if you feel it too much you might get hurt. It makes you remember because this isn't the first, nor the last time it will happen. Aquarius is the personal motive made public part of human nature. The selfish desires that push for survival. The seeking of like mindedness. The drive for community, but only if it's the same as you. Aquarius is the when of the story.

[littledeathh]

"Landmine" is a perversion of consumerism

I adore jiraikei and slutpop. Despite originating in two opposing cultures and ideas, namely the USA's focus on sexual freedom and individualism, and Japanese cuteness and agreeableness, both express the human reaction to isolation, technology and consumerism. But what I love more is how perfectly they encapsulate "leftist" self-mutilation.

At first glance, both styles appear to be a standard pandering of common tropes -- "sex sells, beauty is good" -- backed by massive corporations putting out constant advertising. In fact, jirai and slutpop often employ commercial techniques, such as radio style song intros, flashy thought bubbles, glossy magazine covers, price tags, photoshoot poses, 1980's-2000's nostalgia for tech progress, corporate logos etc., in order to both satirise and perversely validate marketing brainwashing as a desperate attempt for approval, arrogance and self-harm.

Part of the aim of this art is to mimic advertising, as acceptance of the status quo. The "characters" in question are genuinely proud to resemble celebrities, posing with money, jewelry, bags and gadgets to an extreme. We often see collections bordering on hoarding of accessories, perfumes, sex toys, phones and cosmetics, strewn about an empty or messy apartment, full of garbage bags, sometimes splattered in human matter. The styles often make reference to late bills, tax evasion, unemployment, as well as emotional instability, often leading to prostitution and substance abuse as a method to make money and cope with life.

The second aim is to emphasize that this is a person who isn't and never will be part of the "elite". Their attempts to appear wealthy leave them destitute. Trying to portray beauty leaves them so frustrated they cover their walls in grime. No matter how many accessories they buy, they will never fill the void in their soul. Often we see these characters escaping into a fantasy world, where they can slip into their alter egos online, searching for virtual friendship to heal their real world isolation.

Despite being such a common theme, sex is actually understood as a method of revenge against expectations, manipulation or self-harm. The characters don't embrace sexuality because they do not understand love. A sense of cynicism pervades, that no matter how beautiful or wealthy, that person is corrupt and wishes that corruption was acknowledged.

References to recklessness, drugs, manipulation, madness etc. are actually considered first the person's direct fault, due to their rotten character, as well as an unfortunate adaptation to society, through phrases such as "sex sells", "rich live, poor die" and dehumanization into a piece of meat. This thinking leads the person to blame themselves more, rather than become angry at society, due to the fact that they are directly responsible for ruining their own life, while simultaneously trying their hardest to follow society's path to security.

My projection is that media messaging is particularly likely to lead to self-mutilation due to lacking a physical body to attribute disagreement to. Our human brains are built to sort an issue out with a direct entity, be it an animal, object or other human, which often leads to a discharge of energy. If the source of our misery has no physical source (mass media), that energy will be discharged into our own bodies through self-harming behaviours, our environment or people around us. For those isolated, their body and space are more accessible to destroy.

As long as such a person will continue to blame themselves and mutilate themselves due to nonconformity, they will redirect their true human emotions, which have a source -- conglomerates making up society's core -- into their own self-hate.

[female-malice]

I'm still a hobbit truther by the way

I don't know anything.

But we know many hominids evolved before us. And there's missing links in the fossil record.

Imagine, hypothetically, we have an older hominid sibling who is as technically oriented as we are. The main difference between us and them is they are small. As small hominids evolving during the megafauna era, their entire psychology relied on hiding.

They would've had a head start on developing technology. 50,000 years here or there isn't very significant on an evolutionary biology scale. But it's extremely significant on a technical evolution scale.

At the start of the holocene 12,000 years ago, humans began to experiment with agriculture. And maybe, at that time, our small older siblings began experimenting with propulsion technology.

When humans created intensive agriculture 5,000 years ago, our population went from 6 million to 30 million to 100 million. As humans took up more and more space, hobbits were constantly having to find new hidden spots to live. Maybe there were some awkward moments of contact between humans and hobbits at that time.

All we have is the oral history of some of those awkward encounters 5,000 years ago. We have no bones or fossils of them. They would've studied and archived the remains of their ancient ancestors long before we thought to do that.

Intensive agriculture turned humans into warlord colonizers. By the time we got to aerospace technology in the 20th century, our technology revolved around those warfare tendencies.

The hobbits aerospace technology developed 5000 years earlier and revolved around their tendency to hide and explore quietly. They had to develop silent propulsion. So they went in the antigravity direction rather than the chemical combustion direction.

At some point in the holocene, hobbits made an asymptotal aerospace technology leap. They began manipulating space time. And this changed their whole society and psychology and understanding of the universe. They may even have had to genetically engineer themselves so they could physically cope with the technology they developed. There are still some remnants of their primordial instinct to hide from humans. But they see themselves as something different than what they once were. And now that we've joined them in the sky, they interact with our planes and jets.

Who knows? That's just a story. But I find it more plausible than some other stories about interstellar travel and interdimensional travel and time travel. We already know for a fact that Earth can evolve hominids that develop aerospace technology. And we know for a fact that there are two distinct aerospace technologies in Earth's atmosphere. One belongs to us homo sapiens. And the other belongs to somebody else.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary142

2/3-4/2024

my weekend begins #now.

i started it with a damon packard movie, foxfur, a friend sent me it and i was like, entranced by it. really great movie, feels like it gets at the precarity/nightmarishness of the world atm and all ways people cope, especially w/ new age weirdo stuff. so oddly on with that, all the way back in 2012.

otherwise, my day was okay, my work note:

stuck there too long, one kid tried to scam me and it was so obvious and bad, insanely stupid attempt. the rides are scary, someone almost lost their phone, but mostly, dull. i didn't get to take a break.

i did work on music but i'm too exhausted/spaced out to get to the next song, i've just been fiddling with the last one, the issue w/ it is that in order to get it more disgusting sounding in the distortion/how it distorts, i need to figure something out, and the fiddling/ solutions i've come up with are a bit flabby sounding i guess, coming back to them. the flab is in the lack of sharpness. something weird needs to happen or whatever. might need to go back to the guitar fixing thing for the right channel sound, i've started messing with some octave effects, but there may be something else i need to try too, maybe a re-done effects chain in parts. idk. i'll see how this export comes out where i boost some of the highs in each separate track.

did something where i went and eq-ed out the ugliest signals solo, seems to have worked in a first pass but i forgot to turn some stuff back on. i also decided to change something in the master. it's impressive to me how much stuff regarding guitar sounds/tones online is so useless and how boring most people want to be.

having thoughts now, about ai, that's how you know i've been up too late. here's my new whacko theory about it, or i guess i can't present it from there, immediately, here's the source of the thought, seeing the cover art for zazen boys ii, and the illegibility of it, basically, its failure to say zazen boys ii in a way that's immediately readable. it's willfully against being read, it's a mess, it's beautiful, it's a typographic explosion, it looks like several different languages slammed together, congealed. i don't think it's important it was done by a human or whatever but i think what it is, is something that fails at what you'd expect, and what you'd want from what is basically an advertisement to get people to blindly buy something, or that's what cover art is when viewed from the perspective of not caring about the music. many times, they are related, but it's positive also with the selling/potential to get someone to loo, i think maybe this is is only worth thinking about because zazen boys are a japanese band and cd sales are still hugely important over there, because piracy is so scary for them. for anyone who steals the vast majority of music, it's more freely interrelated to the music/meaning of the music, it's something that is liked and connected with in that way. this is an aside. basically the other thing is it reminded me of what those neural nets or whatever they are now, do when they try to write something in an image. signs, anything. it bugs me when people act like ai is novel, is what i think i'm feeling lately. it's a lot of futurists basically taking up a fetishistic desire to point at something as new, a new method, a new field of potentiality, a new capability for people to adopt, maybe flatly, it increases our ability, for them, and so this novelty in technology revitalizes art, but these things only scrape and congeal, they do it at a scale that people cannot, because they can remember more, with their monologic weighting and construction of meanings as largely singular and not fluid. people may bring the nature of ai writing which does get rather figurative and strange, but so does any good writer, it rarely produces sentences i think nothing else could produce, it just feels like a lot of excitement over the fact that capital has now moved into the territory of the illegible, it creates nonsense information, it absorbs centuries of ways of writing and sequences them, somehow, this is enough to some people to seem better than all fiction currently produced. a strangely eugenic approach to art, we seem to have arrived at in recent times, where people are quick to say, this is the end of everything, this makes anyone doing the same thing unnecessary, there is not vitality in (x), there is no hope for anything new in (x). a sickness over novelty, it is so purely and psychotically spectacular, it should be seen as special i guess how even people who act outside/above this get very wrapped in it, or act like it is real. i can never see or feel how it's real. i don't know why. is that wrong of me?

i know people who find ai to be very exciting, but when i see what they think of it, all i feel is that really what they want is to be the manager of creative work, and ai is finally a worker they can have. it's not about freeing up who can make things, the novelty is the fantasy it sells, the fantasy of not having to communicate with others in the creation of something, and the feeling that you are communing with some vast well of meaning. in short, you are enabled to be a creative director, you direct an image making, text spewing machine, a machine which has absorbed meaning/constructs meaning in a way that snuffs out the negative, there is never lack, it is a system of pure success, it is eugenically improving itself always, at least this is my read on it, creating memories / facts / linkages that are essentially a kind of super-infrastructure for information. this is totally opposite to the waste-products created in our mind, which we trip over, and months of not considering them, surface, corpses in rivers, eggs which never spawned, and now gleaming and bobbing, they seem pearls you may fashion into something terrible, and carry it for the rest of your life, with a special sort of love. the value of failure, and waste, is in that, spoken more i guess, directly, it is that when you are shut up in yourself, mute, and when you cannot find the words, something else comes to you, and when you cannot explain yourself, you are something else, you are fallen between words. a.i cannot fall between, it cannot be anything but the sun, not as solar anus, not as the life-expelling force bataille describes, but the implement of measurement via shadows cast, a ruler set to earth, set to voice and thought to collect data and surveil, a system perfected, something that can encapsulate some of the world.

our next cybernetic apparatus of agitation and gentle discomforts. it will not think for us, it will make us think we think as it does, and thus we will chase the capability, ability to conclude, be read, and to read, falling for the novelty, and whatever.

this isn't to say though, it's utterly useless. ai should probably be used in pointless clerical data entry work, and i don't especially care if some people steal pokemon with it. the palworld thing is so weird because people should be wigged out that people are just getting super into something that seems like ark or whatever. that awful game with the dinosaurs. survival game slop, you do not need anything other than minecraft.

okay i think i got the problem song pretty good. right guitar needs something though... idk what. maybe it's missing some frequency from something i notched.

re-exporting now.

i think it sounds really good now, i hope i feel that way tomorrow. i also just made a new guitar sound thing. i am up too late but at least i'm having fun.

this has too much white noise in it but idk, it's kind of cool, also.

anyway i need to sleep now, or soon, at least, so

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!

[antiochean]

Ok here are my Weirdly Specific Vanderwood headcanons

Was hesitant to post this cuz it kind of spoils my writing, but I'm still constantly debating posting my writing, and making a list is light and fun

TW for drug use, trauma. The vibes get kinda bad after the read more. But then they pick back up a little.

Alright check this out:

Could be very good with technology if they were interested

But as it is they aren't. Computers and smartphones are things they have to deal with for work.

The more analog the better. In fact, they somehow have a tape player in their car, and they keep tapes around. They love the feeling of their music taking up physical space.

Because they're very affected by their environment. Cozy environment equals a cozy Vanderwood. If their space is disorganized they can't focus on anything else.

What they enjoy listening to is mostly old metal and rock. Think Queen, Mötley Crüe. Music that drips glitter and gold.

I mean where do you think they got their haircut and leopard print from if not glam metal

They were raised in the UK and exposure to glam metal androginy was their gender awakening

I headcanon them as bigender and bisexual. Totally not because I'm projecting my gender and sexuality onto them. Nuh-uh. He/they lol

They love beautiful things. Gold, specially. Silk. But they don't allow themselves to wear it. (Yet?)

They own many scarves

Contrary to popular belief I don't think they blush very easily at all. They're very good at keeping their cool. They do, however, avoid eye contact when flustered, sometimes swallow dryly. And if you pay close attention, you'll notice they hold their breath, too.

I see them as a trauma kid. Probably had an absent mother figure and shitty father figure. Very low income childhood household.

Tried to be a good kid for most of their childhood. Realized in high school that that wasn't working, and became a delinquent shithead.

An incident while playing with fire/homemade explosives seriously injured a kid their age and put them in juvie

They got picked up by the agency six months later. They were 16. Kids with nothing to lose make for excellent killers.

Having injured that kid actually fucked them up pretty bad. Their personality did a full 180 after that. Ego death.

They're now completely desensitized to gore. Still find it unhygienic, but not disturbing.

Watch slasher movies as a coping mechanism. Specially shitty old slashers with practical effects.

They're only ever not ashamed of laughing out loud when they're watching slashers or spy movies.

Or if they're doing it sarcastically, I guess

They have OCD. They obsess with cleanliness and numbers.

They're always counting. Very good with quick math cuz they're always doing it. Sometimes a number pops up and they have to tap a joint (wrist, knee) that number of times to avert some grotesque catastrophe.

No one can see the tapping. If anyone sees it, grotesque catastrophe.

Sometimes it's like their sanity relies on everything being perfectly under control. And they're actually pretty good at keeping things under control and preparing for every situation, so you rarely get to see them having to deal with what is, to them, the catastrophe scenario.

They have a lot of practice at analyzing people/psychological and personality profiling. They're also always doing it out of habit. And it is a lot like math. They can't allow themselves to have interactions that aren't transactional, anyways, so socializing ends up being math.

The way they allow themselves to understand value is very practical - they're good if they're useful. That means they enjoy shooting a lot, cause they're good at it.

They have psychosis when on drugs, but didn't make the link between the drugs and the psychosis for a while, and abused drugs for years.

Became obsessed with divine geometry during those, felt that the patterns that they found in numbers were messages from a higher being.

Swore off drugs after an extremely bad paranoia bender. It made them realize how much they really, really didn't want to die.

Dropped the God stuff by that point. Wanting to survive was enough for them.

Mostly abused drugs with huge crashes.

Because they're a total emotional masochist

The type of person to Relish in an unrequited crush, as it confirms their bias that they're unworthy of love.

Torture themselves by keeping track of where they could be in life if they had actually gone to college

They feel like they're hardening themselves when they do it. That they're turning themselves more and more into a cold, indestructible weapon.

Cope by completely emptying themselves. And they feel safe when they're empty. Emotions equal danger

Because if they care about something, it will be taken from them, and absolutely destroy them

While working for the agency, they have plenty of excuses to be bad at relationships. Plus, they're scared you'll be terrified when you realize what a monster they've been their whole life, and they're terrified they'll lose control and do something horrible. But leaving the agency adds a whole new layer of "What if I let myself hope for a normal life and all of my hopes get crushed"

So yeah trying to get close to them will involve a lot of them avoiding you to keep themselves and you safe. Expect many unanswered texts and "Oh yeah I'm actually on the other side of the continent right now sorry I didn't tell you anything beforehand"

When a person with an avoidant attachment style is in love or in a relationship, it starts building up pressure. It builds up stress - a primal urge to run for your life. There are outbursts, fights.

They're usually capable of apologizing if they're unreasonable, though, after they cool down. They really don't want to lose you.

The urge to run is there in other places, too. They usually leave the room immediately after waking up from a PTSD nightmare.

By default, they're allergic to expressing positive emotions

But damn. When they start warming up to you and taking breaks from fighting the positive feelings more and more frequently. They care about you so much

You just have to know/learn how to read the signs

They'll easily get attached to someone who understands them and understands their boundaries and not to cross them. They're working so hard on being better about emotions!! Give them time. Don't make them too uncomfortable, or they'll shut down and pull away.

They value nonverbal communication because of how hard it is for them to be honest and upfront about things that matter to them. Sometimes a conversation will approach one of their boundaries and you two will look at each other and just know. Without having to say anything. You know the things they can't say yet are already there.

This wreck of a human being wants to be understood so bad. They CRAVE the mortifying ordeal of being known. Demonstrate insight into their personality and you'll live in their head rent free forever and ever. Same for remembering like, their favorite ice cream flavor or some offhand comment they made. They don't expect you to be interested enough to do these things.

He has so many scars. Try to avoid touching the one on his back from when a bullet punctured his lung. On a bad day, it'll knock him out of breath all over again.

Emotions are intimate and therefore dangerous and scary. Sex is easy though. They're bad at emotions and good at sex.

I imagine that in the beginning of a relationship they'd use sex as a love language a lot, cuz physical intimacy is the only type of intimacy they have any experience in.

Also. Acts of service. They will NOT let you drive. They will NOT let you cook. How else will you know they love you. They need this. Put the car keys down slowly and nobody gets hurt

Will also show they care by giving any hobby you have a serious try.

Stark comes from Game of Thrones, not Iron Man. They watched the first season when it came out and never recovered. Read all the books. They're a total geek about it.

GOD that got long. Can you tell I think about this character a normal amount. Anyways thanks for reading this far. Will you marry me

[chokemewanda]

Misunderstanding

Part (1/6)

Warnings: swearing, men

Captain Rogers continues to interrupt your meetings.

"If you turn to page sixteen you'll find the plans for Stark Tower's entirely recycled paper plan for the coming year, introducing the act of actually making the paper here in the tower." You spoke to the board room, pointing to your presentation behind you. "It would be another step on the ladder to becoming entirely self sustainable and save the company millions of dollars annually on paper waste and purchasing of supplies."

You looked up when the door of the meeting space opened and Captain America paused in place, a stack of files balanced in one hand and his phone in the other. He frowned when he found the room full and looked to the number on the door and then back again.

"Sorry, I thought I had reserved this room." He apologised lamely and you looked around, eyebrows raised. "Clearly I'm mistaken."

"Clearly." You grinned before closing your laptop. "Lunch break, reconvene in forty five minutes?"

The tired lawyers and board members jumped at the chance and scattered from the room while chatting about where to go for food. You gathered up some of your loose sheets of paper and looked up when you felt eyes.

"You're still here." You pointed out and the blonde man flushed, juggling his files so he could extend his hand to you.

"I'm Steve, Steve Rogers." You shook his hand with a grin, raising your eyebrows when he held on longer than was strictly necessary.

"I'm more than aware of that fact, Mr. Rogers." You told him. "That doesn't mean I'll give you my board room. If I don't secure this deal today Pepper will have my head."

"You work for Ms. Potts?" He asked, almost eager to have information about you.

"No, I work adjacent to her. I spend more time in the labs with Tony but he won't do board meetings and she's in Tokyo, so here I am. Pushing old men into bothering about a planet they've all ruined." You shrugged and Steve nodded, absorbing the information.

"So sustainability, that's your thing?" He asked, leaning against the door frame. You shrugged, leaning back against the table, your arms folded.

"I work towards it. It's mostly Tony's baby but where he has studied Physics and Technology I studied Ecology and Sustainability so I help out where I can." You tell him and he nods slowly.

"There's a degree for that?" He asked quietly, his confusion showing.

"Well as I'm sure you've noticed, the population grew significantly in the years you were, indisposed, as it were. We're burning more fossil fuels than ever, tearing down more forests and ruining more habitats to make room for this growth." You told him with a shrug.

"So Tony is making things to fix that?" You wondered how he coped, to come into a new world without having anything explained to him and just pick up on it as he went along.

"Tony just makes things, he's got a team of people invested in finding a use for them. He seen how much we spent on paper, he found a cheaper way to combat that. He could invent a new ink and Stark Industries would find a way to spin it into a miraculous discovery." You laughed. "Probably spout some shit about how the current ink used in the world is poisoning poor orphans."

"I'm an orphan." Steve spoke up and you covered your mouth when you couldn't fight your laugh.

"I'm sorry, it's not funny. So am I." You told him before looking at your watch. "What also isn't funny is that you've used up my break by abusing the fact I like to talk about saving the environment."

"Oh, I'm sorry." He looked like a scolded puppy and you laughed before shrugging.

"It's okay. I have enough time to get a coffee. I'll manage until the end of the meeting. Nice to meet you, Mr. Rogers."

When you returned from fetching a coffee there was a sandwich and a protein bar on the table, 'sorry for holding you up' written on a post-it beside them in sharp precise letters.

You smiled, unwrapping the protein bar and folding the note up, tucking it into your pocket as you opened your laptop and prepared for the rest of the meeting.

///

"We have got to stop meeting like this." You joked, placing your laptop on the table along with your bag.

Steve was sat at the board room table with paperwork fanned out around him. He looked tired. Not in the way normal people looked tired. Captain America didn't get under eye circles or red eyes. No, it was how he held himself, shoulders hunched forward, one hand supporting his head.

"You alright there, Rogers?" He looked up so suddenly that you realised he had been sleeping, supporting himself with the hand against his face.

"Sorry?" He blinked owlishly and you weren't sure if he was excusing his behaviour or asking you to repeat yourself. You only laughed, beginning to set out the documents you had put together for the board members on their way.

"Paperwork getting you down?" You asked casually, sipping from your coffee and opening your laptop. He looked around again, still blinking and you hid your smile behind your coffee cup as you set up your presentation.

"Mission reports are getting longer. I think Fury does it just to test me." He admitted, stretching widely and yawning again. "I'm sorry to be interrupting again."

"Don't worry about it. It's an informal meeting, you can just stay and finish your reports. The men coming in are so unbothered by me being here that I doubt they'll even notice you." You laughed quietly and he nodded, he blinked again and shook his head.

"I won't be much longer and then I'll be out of your hair." He promised, picking up his pen and getting back to his report without another word.

The board members filed in slowly, taking seats and flicking through the papers in front of them, already bored with the meeting. You didn't let it phase you, flipping on the slide show you had prepared.

"After our last meeting I'm sure you've all had time to review the paperwork. Any questions?" You asked then men, reaching for your coffee.

"What time will we break for lunch?" Chuckles followed the stupid question and you rolled your eyes, glaring at the man who bothered.

"Very funny, class clown has been identified. For that, we don't have a lunch. Consider it a detention." You smiled sweetly and tilted your head.

"At least we'll finish sooner." One of the other men muttered. You raised your eyebrows at him. He stared back defiantly and your smile only grew.

"No, we won't. I'm going to go over last week's presentation. It's all going to run over from the look's of things." The men all groaned and you caught Steve's grin from where he was resolutely staring at his report.

Four hours later the men trailed from the room groaning about how you were a bitch and that they wouldn't be coming back for another of these meetings.

You were shutting down your computer when Steve finally rose from his seat, his report all gathered neatly in his hands. He was still yawning every few minutes but he paused by your laptop with a chuckle.

"That was impressive." He told you and you shrugged, looking up at him from your seat. "You should hear some of what they're saying."

"I'm a women in STEM, Steve. I've heard everything they have to say and I'm sick of just letting them say it. So now I punish them for it. Old men are the past. Women are the future." You promised him. "I'm tired of pretending I don't think so."

"Ouch." He chuckled, a hand over his heart and you rolled your eyes with a smile.

"Not you, Capsicle." You promised, standing up. "Aren't you only technically like twenty four?"

"Twenty eight. Technically." He shrugged. "You spend a lot of time with Tony?"

"Yeah." You laughed, looking up at him, your eyebrows furrowed. "Feels like my whole life."

"I wasn't aware anyone else called me Capsicle, is all." He told you and you nodded in understanding. "And I still haven't gotten your name yet."

"Didn't you hear? I'm the heinous bitch from hell." You repeated one of the men's words from earlier. "I'm quite proud of that nickname."

///

Steve couldn't help but linger around your favourite meeting room. Sure it was kind of pathetic but he wasn't really willing to ask anyone about you because he already had Natasha hounding him to get back on the dating scene, strongly encouraged by Tony.

It had been a few weeks since he watched you take all the board members to task. He was still impressed by your smug smile when they all groaned at you, complaining about having to actually do the job they were grossly over paid for.

He had mostly given up on the meeting room after a month of no sightings. He was almost desperate enough to ruin his suit as an excuse to visit Tony's lab and hope to bump into you. That was until he heard your raised voice.

"Do tell me all you know about sustainability. I'm sure the degree you got in business forty years ago will outrank the one I just finished my masters in." You snapped and Steve watched you through the glass door, hands on the table, staring intently at whatever idiot thought they could tear you down.

"Sweetheart, listen, every so often girls like you get inflated ideas of themselves. I've had this conversation more than once and I've never been wrong. It's how I got to where I am now." Steve took pity on the man for a second as the anger drained from your face, replaced by cold indifference.

"You listen here, Sweetheart." You spoke, rising to your full height. "You're where you are now because you stood in front of every woman who worked behind the scenes. You're here because they got pregnant or married and weren't allowed to work anymore. You're here because you're a pig."

"Woah now, I think you need to-"

"What I need to do is expose every email you've sent to your secretary. Every demand you've made of your daughter while every cover up you've made for your son. I could expose how you just happen to have your son's girlfriend's email. I could expose just how repulsive of a little man you are. I could ruin your career that was handed to you with just a click. Now sign. The. Damn. Contract." With every word you spoke you swiped through pictures on your phone.

"How did you-." He didn't get a chance to ask because Steve was knocking on the door, interrupting the meeting yet again.

"Tony needs you up in R&D. Say's it's an emergency." Steve told you with a grimace. "Sorry to interrupt."

"Perfect timing, Captain. I could use a break." You smiled before turning back to the withering men before you. "Sign it and leave it on the table. Make sure not to provide any more reasons for me to ruin your day."

You shut your laptop, gathering up your papers and met Steve outside the door. He listened as you spoke to the floor receptionist, asking her politely to collect the paperwork for you. Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise when the woman thanked you earnestly.

Once in the elevator he found his voice again. "She seems grateful."

"She was that pigs receptionist. I got her a better job." You shrugged, pushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "I really hate him."

"Yeah, I could tell. Uh, Tony doesn't actually want to see you." He told you timidly and you laughed, the lines of frustration leaving your face.

"I guessed as much, Rogers. You want to get lunch?" You asked him quietly and he shrugged, attempting to look unaffected. "That's why you've been hanging around for almost a month, right?"

He couldn't imagine he looked very unaffected while being bright red.

///

"You'll need to gather intel to support the information provided. This is not an abandoned base, more like a seasonal base. We gotta make sure we won't meet any visitors along the way." Steve told his team, gathered for a mission briefing. Everyone looked almost bored with him and his thoughts flickered to you, wondering how you managed.

Like you were summoned by his thoughts the door slammed open and you stood there. Steve pitied the person on your bad side as he took in your glare and swallowed when he wondered if it was him after taking your meeting room again.

But no, your eyes searched the faces until they landed on Tony. Never faltering, unwavering, Tony. Who withered under your look. "Anthony Edward Stark."

Your voice was almost a hiss and Steve looked around at the other members of his team who all looked as confused as he was. Except Tony who looked like he was gearing up to say something stupid when you pointed your finger at him warningly.

"Don't." You warned. "Fix this. Fix it now."

"I've got a mission." He argued and you tilted your head to the side angrily before turning to Steve.

"Can you spare him for an hour?" Honestly, having Stark at the meetings was a waste of time anyway so Steve didn't care if he attended or not. But now he was curious.

"What did he do?" Steve asked.

"Apparently while we shared a womb I stole all the common sense." Steve nearly fell over when reality crashed down. He'd brought you to lunch several times now. Never once did he realise you were Tony's infamous twin sister. "Remember my delightful friend the other week? He reported me to Tony, who suspended my project until we get Board Member approval!"

Steve winced and looked at Tony who shrank in his seat. "You threatened to expose his affairs."

"If he didn't want affairs exposed then he shouldn't have any!" You snapped. "Now get my project back up and running before I expose every member of the board for fun!"

[uncle-fruity]

The unsettling thing about smart appliances is that the companies can control them. Or update the app so older "smart" appliances are no longer supported and will need to be upgraded to new, "smarter" appliances. Not to mention what happens when the internet is down. I mean, the fact that you have to have internet at all! It's hostile towards poor folks who might not want to spend money on something that's free at their local library, but who still need a place to keep their food cold. It's hostile towards anyone who doesn't want to buy a smartphone or download a billion apps. Are they going to pay me for the storage space they're forcing me to use on my device? Definitely not. Or, as we're already seeing with some printers: the "smart" application is to make it impossible to use a competitor's ink once you're low. So if you don't like their ink or if you find ink that's cheaper, well...fuck you! Fuck you, and pay them money to do it. Idk, I'm just saying that adding apps & shit to appliances that demonstratively *do not need them* should either have an alternative not-smart option or should be outright illegal.

I am not anti-technology, either. Like, I don't tend to keep up with the trends, and I super don't *care* about a lot of the technology that comes out (I don't find much of the new stuff to do anything of consequence aside from complicating problems we've already solved (and the stuff that IS of consequence gets so little attention)), but in general I think technology has a place in the world & makes things easier/more convenient in many ways. However, I feel that we are misusing precious fucking resources for the likes of corporate greed and individual comforts that were not asked for and are not needed. I think the people supplying the technology are fucking power-hungry goons who wouldn't hesitate to set their grandmas on fire if it would save them a buck or if her ashes turned to data by the end of it.

In short, it's not that new stuff is bad, it's just that new stuff isn't by default *better* than older models, and tbh we all need to complain as loudly as we can against these corporate chucklefucks. Make everyone involved in the process hate "smart" appliances as much as we do for how ferociously we voice our hatred and how much we complain & demand alternative options. Tbh, we probably need to do a big protest and shut down of a major company to show that the people Do Not Want these "innovations" and the companies had better fucking do something about it.

Please, kids, listen to me: it's not because we hate technology; it's not because we hate you; it's not because we can't cope with the changing times -- it's that we SEE the changes that you never saw because you're growing up in a "smart" world and so it's automatically normalized for you, and that's a dangerous precedent. These appliances are sinister and do not do anything better than the old-ass "dumb" appliances. You are trading your privacy for Nothing. For Whistles and Bells. For things that Do Not Matter.

[cycas]

Idk. When I was 8, nobody taught me to type. What we did spend ages and ages learning was how to do joined-up writing. Handwriting was considered vastly important. That, and getting fast at very basic mental arithmetic were the two things we spent most of our primary school lives on.

Important skills! Vital to all aspects of life in the 1970s! (I was really bad at both of these by the way. Almost got held down a year, because really, how would I cope in the modern world???)

I'm in my 50's. Nobody cares about handwriting or times tables any more. Nobody uses Word Perfect, the 'standard' wordprocessor I learned to use when I was 21. The many 'vital-to-employment' WP keyboard shortcuts I memorised are dust on the wind, as so many other tech skills When I was in my late 20s', I had a job for a bit teaching unemployed dockers who had lost their jobs due to mechanisation how to use computers (a skill nobody had ever taught me). They were slow at it, and they didn't know obvious things, like how to make spaces between words, or capital letters.

But the most difficult thing was convincing them that they could, in fact, noodle around and try stuff out. That it was OK to try different ways, OK to ask questions. Nothing was going to break, and even if it did, we could probably fix it. Or start over, which is also fine.

Centering a heading using spaces IS formatting. It may not be the currently-preferred way of doing it (hey! There's a button for that now! Magic!) but formatting things using spaces does teach you interesting things about fonts and how wide different characters are, maybe also what non-latin-standard characters exist, and how you make them.

Save as PDF is one way to copy a web page, but far from the obvious or most useful one for every possible scenario.

I am the same age as email. It's a funny old technology, and one that was never really designed to do all the things we do with it now. It's... kind of fragile. Kind of buggy. Not surprising really, at our age.

I'm not sure people will still be using email - or at least, email in the sense that we use it now - in 20 years. Or 40.

I mean, I see the concern. It's a problem if children don't have enough keyboards, enough tech to noodle around with. It's definitely a problem if children are being reprimanded for doing things 'wrong' or punished for experimenting. But let's not accidentally teach people that there's One True Formatting or One Right Way. 'Wrong' is 'it caught fire'.

Anything else is a convention, which you can adhere to or break, according to what you are trying to do. Maybe that one kid will even be the one that changes it, one day.

The time to learn the conventions is when you are in your late teens to 20's, when it actually matters because you need to impress big organisations handling tons of people: employers, colleges, the government.

If you are collecting information and need it to conform to a convention, accept that people of any age can't guess what convention you want. (I get that people never read instructions, and this is very frustrating. Still, reviewing your help text yet again is one thing you can do that might actually make a difference)

People are probably going to fuck it up, but that's part of the learning process. Aged 18-20, their learning skills should be at their peak. They can make a mistake, be corrected, and do it the 'Accepted Way' next time. Just, you know. Don't reckon on it staying Accepted for the next 30 years. It won't.

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.