#who GOT DEVELOPMENT in this hypothetical

[puhpandas]

I keep thinking about how on earth they would canonize ggy bc like. at this point if they have to sacrifice Gregory screentime of just him to make something we already know actually canon, I would rather just take the screentime, but on the other hand they have to canonize it if they want to do anything at all with that plotline, and that makes me wonder if theyll stick with it as canon in the games at all or just leave it as background knowledge if u read the book 😭

[peachlit]

i’m talking to a new guy. on another note….. ethics of dating your mom’s employee??

[darlingdaisyfarm]

texting Stan and Ford headcanons

smut version

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Stan Pines

✧ Stan is the kinda guy who thinks emojis are a scam, but somehow, he figured out how to use the "thumbs up" and "money bag" emoji. so, expect a lot of those in your chats.

✧ his text tone is rough, a little misspelled, typed like he's yelling even when he isn’t. Half of his texts are in all caps, and he absolutely does not care about grammar. but he gets the point across, always.

✧ you’re getting messages at 3 am about some ‘brilliant’ scheme to make a quick buck. he’ll send, “LISTEN, doll, what if we made... GIANT… glitter-filled eggs for easter? Tourists'll go NUTS." you reply, half-asleep, with “Stan, ily but go to bed." and all you get back is a “🤬 YOU GOTTA THINK BIGGER!”

✧ Stan sends those weird chain messages he swears are from some “hotshot businessman” that’ll make you rich in a week. and when you don’t respond immediately, you get a: “Fine, Miss Doubtful, see you when I’m rolling in gold.”

✧ there are whole days where he just floods your phone with random, blurry photos of some new Mystery Shack "artifact" he found. It’s usually junk he picked up at a garage sale, like a “haunted” ashtray or some knock-off painting that’s “probably ancient.”

✧ If he’s feeling sappy (and tipsy): you might get a rare “thinking bout you, sweet thing” at 2 am. but if you try to call him on it the next day, he’ll just be like “Didn’t say that. You’re makin’ stuff up.”

✧ when he’s really riled up about something, though? then his messages are just. . . a stream of caps-lock curses, mixed with misspelled attempts to describe whatever nonsense he just got himself into. you just sit back and let him rant; he’ll cool off eventually.

✧ and the voice messages are something else. they sound like he’s talking through a fan half the time. one minute, he’s rambling about how tourists are “the dumbest suckers on the planet” and the next, he’s ranting about how “bigfoot definitely broke into the shack last night!"

types of messages Stan texts: 

"So… whatcha wearin’? 😏"

“Hey doll, I just found a penny on the ground! Maybe today’s my lucky day… hint hint ;)"

"I’d say somethin’ romantic, but I think my brain just shorted out. You’re a little too cute for a guy like me."

"Just tried that new café downtown. Ordered coffee… tastes like they filtered it through someone’s laundry. You’d hate it. Wanna come mock it with me?"

"Not gonna lie, I miss that face of yours. So what’re we doin’ about it, huh?"

“Again missin’ that cute little smile of yours… maybe you could send me a pic to remind me?”

"Wanna help me scam the tourists today? I’ll split the loot with ya… maybe ;)”

"You wouldn’t believe what I caught Ford muttering in his sleep. Man’s like a walking encyclopedia, even when he’s unconscious."

“Got any plans later? Thought maybe we could… y’know… not have plans together."

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Ford Pines 

✧ hehehehe he’s like an old-school emailer who’s just now getting the hang of messaging apps. texts in complete sentences, full punctuation, like he’s drafting a dissertation.

✧ He sends you whole paragraphs at random hours, talking about some discovery he’s made, like he’s reporting directly to NASA. you’re like, “Ford, it's just a weird-looking squirrel." and he's already typing another essay about its "possible interdimensional origins."

✧ once in a while, he’ll send you a message that says, “Are you awake?” at, like 3 am followed by a string of thoughtful yet completely bonkers hypotheses. you find it cute, though, his mind never stops, not even for a second.

✧ If he’s feeling bold, you might even get a “hypothetical” confession out of him: “Hypothetically, if one were to develop... strong emotional attachment to a certain person... how would one proceed?" You tease him about it the next day, and he gets flustered, “It was purely scientific curiosity."

✧ Ford isn’t big on emojis, but he likes the brain and alien ones, using them poetically. he’ll sign off texts with a single brain emoji, like it’s his version of a little goodbye wave.

✧ on really rare occasions, he’ll send a voice message. they’re always way too long, and it’s usually him whispering so he doesn’t wake Stan up. he goes on about cosmic rays or “gravity anomalies,” his voice dropping lower when he gets excited. you live for those moments

✧ and if he ever texts you a “good night,” you just know he’s been up thinking about it for hours, trying to figure out if it’s “appropriate.”

types of messages Ford texts: 

“It’s been approximately 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 23 seconds since our last conversation… not that I’m counting or anything. Just… miss you."

sends a meme about science nerds “Us. But mostly me.”

“My hands ache from writing… though perhaps if it were writing about you, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you think about me too, or am I the only one utterly ruined by this… whatever this is?”

“I’ve been thinking about that book you lent me... 🤔 It’s honestly so much more interesting than I expected, thank you for recommending it."

"I don’t know how to work this... But I managed to send a meme! It’s not the worst thing I’ve done, I suppose? 

“I did it. I fixed the telescope. Finally. Now we can actually look at the stars like we’ve talked about. :)"

"I hope you’re feeling okay today. I noticed you seemed a little stressed the other day. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. :) It’s important."

"If I could rearrange the periodic table, I’d put U and I together. :( Sorry, nerdy joke... :’D)”

ps - I CANT THEYRE SO CUTE BOTH I WANT TO SMASH THEM AGAINST THE WALL

lmao if someone wants, i can write some spicy types of chatting with them :)))

[brucewaynehater101]

Okay so, saw you wonder “How does Space Emperor Tim handle war with his morals?” And I think that Tim doesn’t

More specifically I think he is able to accept that this is where he fails. He’s a master diplomat and great organization leader, and although he is great at tactics as a Robin, he’s not willing to lead a war. He’s not willing to sacrifice his moral compass in this way

And I think the empire respects this because, in spite of his personal objections to leading a war effort, he does not leave the planets stranded and defenseless…

He assigns Cassie as the many armies prime military commander

Each of the planets likely has their own military structure and command, as a mostly decentralized empire. But I think we also have a centralized mixed cultures/peoples/planets military to promote cross cultural exchange as well as the exchange of tactical knowledge

Cassie serves as the head of the military council responsible for overseeing both the centralized and decentralized military forces

Cassie has already been shown to be a capable leader with YJ and I think her Amazonian training has specifically well prepared her for commanding military forces (Idk her lore perfectly so correct me if wrong)

There’s obviously a lot of training and research needed to adjust Earth based tactics to space wars, but the JL and Batman likely already had some resources prepped for that. And as one of the Great Baby Emperors Glorious Consorts, the many leaders under her command are happy to assist in her training

Kon and Bart likely also help her, providing emotional support and serving as sound boards for her ideas, but she’s the military commander right now. And she’s gonna kick whatever alien equivalent of asses these attackers got

Tim probably also continues to help in his own way, managing logistics and supplies (really important for armies). He’s also probably assisting with developing new technologies to help in the battle given his skills in R&D (maybe it’s only medical advancements or maybe he feels okay developing ships or weapons, or maybe that’s where Bart gets to go to town making his fantastical sci-fi space lasers) Tim is not going to abandon his empire, they have stood by him through thick and thin, and he’ll give whatever he knows he is able to give them

So yeah, Tim might not be an Emperor who leads armies, but he doesn’t leave his worlds defenseless and gives Cassie the perfect opportunity to show the Timpire, and really the whole galaxy, just how badass she is !!!

Oh my gods, you are brilliant. Cassie would 100000% be the military commander (I don't know enough about her lore either, but that checks out).

Hmm... The only issue I can see is whether or not Cassie needs Tim's approval to go to war. She won't just do it for the hell of it, but Tim won't really approve of it either. Then again, maybe they should spend hours upon hours upon hours arguing about the necessity of going to war, considering how likely it will lead to casualties.

While Tim won't lead into war, I can see him going over "hypothetical" plans with Cassie. Maybe not in the middle of a war, but I could see Tim stealing GL/JL space war files and going over it with Cassie.

For angst reasons, YJ at first doesn't take going to war seriously. They're kids when this starts. Yeah, they've been through shit, but leading an empire to kill other people for whatever reason they deem is necessary? Probably not.

Instead, they train on space war strategy by making games out of it. Tim and Bart create a hallographic board game that incorporates various space war variables. It's a fun pass time of theirs with the excuse of "training" (not that they ever believe they'll need that kind of training).

After their first war, they never pick that game up again. They do provide it the generals of each planet, though, and have the planets compete against each other for friendly bonding.

Tim does help with the logistics and defense of the planets. None of it is lethal, but he does have extreme measures (I'm thinking about that one panel where he threatens to permanently deafen people).

Bart collaborates with the planets for space travel, war machines, and weapons for the military.

Kon may not lead, but he helps develop creative strategies and plans to assist Cassie.

Tim may be the emperor, but Cassie becomes the name feared among all enemy planets.

[heathersdesk]

When I was investigating the Church, I told the people around me I wanted to get baptized after I'd only been to services a few times. I hadn't read much of the Book of Mormon. There were many things I didn't know or understand. But I had felt the Spirit of God and knew that this was the place where I would find God. I knew I was supposed to be baptized.

What was the response?

"You can't do that."

They didn't have missionaries. They didn't have anyone to teach me the discussions. I was coming to Church in a different place from where I lived because of where my friends, who were members and who had invited me, were living.

It got bad enough that I set a date for myself to get baptized and told them they had that long to figure it out and deal with their scruples. And they did.

Then I found out about patriarchal blessings in one of the lessons I had in Young Women. I wanted mine. I went to my branch president and told him that.

"You can't do that."

I hadn't been to church long enough. Could I wait a year? Six months?

But that's not what the lesson I was taught said. It said that if I felt like I was ready, then I could have one. So I showed up outside of my branch president's office every week for over a month to ask again. Finally, he talked to the stake president, who told him there was no rule or timeline mandated in the Handbook of Instruction that prevented me from receiving my patriarchal blessing. I finally received it 4 months after I was baptized.

Then I went to BYU. I was in one of my favorite wards I've ever attended. Everyone around me was so kind and supportive. They helped me deepen my knowledge of the restored gospel and the scriptures. And when all the young men in my classes started receiving mission calls, I wanted to as well. I felt "called to the work," and the Doctrine and Covenants said that was enough.

"You can't do that."

They didn't let women serve at 19 at the time. I had to wait. Why? Because I might get married instead. The hypothetical possibility of reserving me for a man was more important than the calling I had received from God.

I had the opportunity to serve in the temple regularly for the first time in my life. I was from an area where the temple was two hours away, which meant I got to go only a couple times a year, at most. As the only member in my family, I had many names to do. And as the endowments started piling up, I could feel the weight of my responsibility to get the names done weighing on me. I didn't have a ward full of endowed people to rely on in my student wards. It was just me. And the more I went to the temple, the more I craved that divine closeness, the spiritual support for how much harder it was for me to be a member of the Church than it was for everyone else. I was totally on my own, no support from large extended families like they had. I needed more support to come from somewhere. So I started asking to receive my endowment.

"You can't do that."

I needed to be getting married (preferably, in their minds) or serving a mission to get endowed. That was the rule at the time. It didn't matter that I already wanted to serve a mission. It would be so much more special if I could go with my husband! Didn't I see that? My life was just supposed to stay on hold for him, whoever he was. The idea that I would have a spiritual development and progression separate from his was a totally foreign idea at the time, and wasn't reason enough for me to receive my own endowment. Meanwhile, as the ordinances in my own family backed up higher and higher because I was in student wards with no access to the endowment or other endowed people, I was just stuck and alone.

Then the identity of the mysterious young man I would eventually marry was revealed to me. Hurray! And we both went on missions. We were planning our wedding. And after years of alienating my family with all the milestones of my adult life they didn't get to witness because I was *IN UTAH* thousands of miles away, I wanted to have a ring ceremony so they could at least watch me get married.

"You can't do that."

And every reason I was given, especially the one that it took away from the validity and the sacredness of my temple sealing, was later disavowed when they did away with this rule.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY, I've been in the Church for almost 18 years. I have seen so many changes come into the Church and its culture in that time. The things that were impediments to me as a young believer and convert are no longer there, in part because I left so many bloody knuckle prints on heaven's door, pleading for these things to change. Heaven bore witness to how many times I was told "You can't do that" by my own community—with shallow, indefensible reasons for why my journey needed to be so much harder and lonelier than it needed to be.

Changes like these do not come about simply by waiting. They come because the faithful, especially those who are most affected by the lack of change, keep praying and pleading with heaven for change. The hurt goes on the altar because it never should've been mine to carry. Let God witness it. Let him see, feel, and know the burdens I bore in his name, solely at the behest of my community whose reasoning for it was poor and indefensible, because it all came down to a single failure: they couldn't begin to imagine the impacts their choices were having on me. And until they could begin to understand it, they could never conceive of why their status quo needed to change. Their ignorance and desire to remain in what was familiar and comfortable was a form of bondage to me. That was true.

But what was equally true was that there was nothing wrong or evil in pushing back against all of that, with all the strength I possessed. I would live to see so many of these stumbling blocks I encountered change for those who came behind me. Young people in my church community today don't have to make many of the same choices I did anymore—and thank God for that! I called down the powers of heaven to me to witness these burdens so no one else would ever have to carry them again! I have been witness to the power that these prayers—my prayers—have had to build the kingdom of God on the earth by affecting these changes.

And we're not done. There are many more such changes that need to come to fruition , including (but not limited to) making the Church fully accessible to everyone in our community. Our LGBTQIA+ and disabled people, our women and single Saints, our marginalized, abused, and forgotten in communities of color all over this world.

The kingdom of Heaven is not built, our work is not finished, until ALL are safely gathered in. That is, until they all CAN be safely gathered in. Until all that resists unity, diversity, equity, and inclusion that will define Heaven are removed by the Saints, whose job it is to build that kingdom. To never say again to someone who is trying to come to Christ "You can't do that."

Because with enough time, and effort from the Saints, you'll find they can, in fact, do that.

[lobautumny]

Alright, guess this toy's gonna talk about Palworld, because it's seen Discourse™️ start to crop up about how "supporting the game is immoral because it's stealing designs from Pokemon!"

Now look, this toy's not about to sit here and tell you that all of the monster designs in Palworld are completely original and the game isn't, on some level, a bootleg. Obviously a lot of the designs are bootleg pokemon. That's not the point it wants to get at. The point is that it doesn't really matter.

First of all, nobody is being hurt by Palworld having knockoff pokemon among the ranks of its monsters. Game Freak is not some tiny indie developer struggling to make ends meet having their work unfairly co-opted by a big, bad corporation. Pokemon is, in fact, the largest, most profitable media franchise of all time, and Palworld is an indie game. The reason that something like this would hypothetically be scummy/shitty is if someone were taking someone else's work, changing it slightly, claiming it as their own, and thus depriving the original creator of credit/visibility that they should've had. But that literally can't happen here, because everyone already knows what Pokemon is. So unless it gets found that they're stealing designs from fakemon artists or something (there was one alleged instance, but it seems to have just been a coincidence of two different people having the idea of "what if Chimecho but with big, bulky arms?"), Palworld is hurting nobody through having bootleg designs, so the moral argument against the game falls flat.

With that out of the way, there's a much more interesting topic to discuss here: Why is it that when someone's fangame gets C&D'd, everyone immediately jumps to the creator's support, accurately assessing that our copyright system is broken and primarily serves to hurt independent artists, but the moment a developer makes the changes necessary to make sure their fangame doesn't get hit with a C&D (and to allow them to make money off of it), it's suddenly bad and cringe and unoriginal?

The argument that "Palworld is lazy and unoriginal and therefore bad because the monster designs are too similar to Pokemon's designs" is something that this toy would be willing to hear out if Palworld were a turn-based singles-format RPG with similar systems/overall structure to those found in Pokemon games, but, uh. It isn't. It's a third-person shooter with monster-catching mechanics and, like, Factorio-ass automation and base-building, from what this toy can tell. And it doesn't know if the game is good, as someone who has not played it (or even really seen gameplay of it), but it can absolutely tell you that the game's not lazy.

Sure, they could have done more to make the monster designs feel more unique, and that's absolutely a valid criticism for the game. This toy doesn't want to come across like it's saying otherwise. It just wants people to recognize that that's kind of a nitpick when the game is, on a mechanical and genre level, something completely different from anything any Pokemon game ever has been or ever will be, and that nobody would be complaining about laziness or a lack of originality if this came out as a fangame literally just using actual pokemon. In that reality, people would've been popping off at how high-effort it is, actually. And like, even putting money aside, this game literally could not exist as a fangame. A while back, someone uploaded some videos on Youtube showcasing a fangame they were developing that was an FPS where the enemies were pokemon. They got hit with a C&D and their Youtube account was terminated within a couple days of the videos being uploaded. The game was not monetized, and in fact, never even had a download link, to this toy's recollection. Palworld would have suffered the same exact fate if it wasn't its own IP.

[hms-no-fun]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[oklotea]

I was rewatching eah season one, and I got to the Maddie-in-chief episode. And OH MY GOD did this single episode hold so much potential as a full-fledged special.

Just imagine with me for a second, before EAH asks huge questions about autonomy, the true reality of Ever Afterian society, or what secrets lie in Milton Grimm's head, they make a point to truly bring your attention to the underlying classism and favoritism in ever after.

It could have been the first crack that would eventually lead to them questioning Milton Grimm even further, and finding Giles, and eventually finding out the storybook of legends had been a fake.

AND OTHER SUCH IDEAS, I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!

We could have gotten the chance to develop Maddie's character further. They had strongly implied that Maddie was much more smarter than what you may first assume, what is it with that? How do those skills properly show themselves? Not just in debate, but on a daily basis? How is Maddie intellectual in a way only the wonderlandians can see? And better yet, how has the people in ever after high chose to neglect her and her skills?

THIS HYPOTHETICAL SPECIAL COULD HAVE BEEN AN AMAZING TIME TO ESTABLISH THE WONDERLAND CURSE AND HOW KITTY, MADDIE, AND LIZZIE HAVE BEEN DISPLACED FOR A GOOD HALF OF THEIR LIFE!!!!!!!

It could have been such a great moment to make the audience care about Maddie, and possibly the wonderlandians, even further.

We could have gotten Apple's first bit of character development, found in her earnestly looking at the non-royal characters as people equal to her, because let's be real, if we looked at the way she saw non-royals/commoners in the first book as something to build off of, it obviously comes off as disingenuous.

Maybe at the first half of the story, Apple is very sweetly and discreetly underestimating Maddie. Maybe going on behind her back about how, even though she admires Maddie's bravery, she doubts there'll even be any competition.

Only for as the special goes on, Apple watches how Maddie is actually a very talented, formidable and driven opponent

How will they show this?????? UHHHHH I HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT OUT YET

BUT COMPETENT, AND GENUINELY DEPENDABLE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT CANDIDATE MADDIE IS A CONCEPT THAT COULD BE SOOOO SO JUICY

Like.... She's the kind of person who could be handed over an entire pile of student council work, the likes of which even sends a shiver down Apple White's spine, but thanks to the effects of wonderland, and wonderlandian photographic memory (I have no idea if that's a thing that only Lizzie has in wonderlandiful world but...... BUT LET ME COOK!!!! AGRHEGRGSVD) MADDIE IS DEPENDABLE, SHE HAS SKILLS THAT SHOW HER POTENTIAL AS A STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT!!!!! And not only that, she's got a big heart, and she cares about her friends and fellow non-royals very deeply, and just, having a non-royal as a student council president would be a huge step forward before all the crazy shit that would eventually happen in the future webisodes and specials.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE OG WEBISODE WOULD HAPPEN ONLY WITH THE STAKES MUCH MORE HIGHER, AND A MUCH MORE SERIOUS TONE

And Maddie decides herself that she wants to work alongside Apple, because she can see just how genuinely dedicated and talented Apple is, and with that, Apple's character development for the special is wrapped into a neat bow, and from then on her and Maddie being student council presidents is an IMPORTANT THING that gets BROUGHT UP

Like in Dragon Games, we could have hypothetically gotten Maddie walking up to Apple, sadly asking her how she could allow the dragon games to happen, and better yet how her mom can allow the evil queen to walk free!

Maddie requests that, since she doesn't have as much leverage over Snow White, how about Apple takes some action to stop the games and convince her mom to take the evil queen hostage once again?

Only for Apple to visibly be racking her brain, and snapping at Maddie, telling her she can't do that, and the games must go on.

It would have really sucked and it would have hurt and it would have been amazing.

That's just ONE example I've got on Apple and Maddie being co-presidents being acknowledged.

Apple and Maddie could have had a more defined dynamic.... It would have been interesting seeing two characters who are so drastically different in how they function being in such close proximity to one another, and having to work closely with each other!

Alright, my final point in proving to you maddie-in-chief should have been it's own special issss.......

JUST IMAGINE THE DOLLS

Here's what I have in mind,

Pin striped suit Madeline Hatter

Pillbox hat, pencil skirt Apple White

VERY MUCH PRESIDENT ELECTION CODED

I jotted down some scrappy sketches to show you what I mean

It's not the best, I spent like, 5 minutes on it, but YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYINH

YOU DO

I TRUST THAT YOU DO

THEY'RE BOTH WEARING SASHES THAT HAVE EACH OF THEIR SLOGANS ON

Maddie obviously wearing a sash that says, "Hats over Crowns" Cause that's iconic

And Apple wears something more, idk royally conservative???!???? Something with the sentiment that, the Royal way is the better way, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. YOU GET IT.

And we're not stopping with just Maddie and Apple! Even though they are both the crown jewels of this student council president election doll line (someone come up with a better name, god bless), the rest of the line consists of a handful of Apple supporters, and a hatful of Maddie supporters. Their groupies, per se.

All of them in dresses or suits, whatever it is, very much business formal, or business casual, they all look quite prim!

That's all I got so far on the maddie-in-chief special concepts.

If anyone wants to build upon them, by all means do so!!!! I would love to see what you people come up with!!! :D

Alrighth, take care everyone. Thanks for making it this far

[windvexer]

Using Tarot to Identify: a Person From a Large Group [2/2]

This post is part 2 of a series. Read part 1 here.

As opposed to identifying someone in a small group of people, trying to identify someone out of a huge group makes it a heck of a lot harder to choose which meanings to discard.

Here is where you've got to let your questions and spreads do more of the work.

Try framing the identification through a series of readings, each one applying a filter over the nebulous figure until one defined person appears.

Since we have to cut through vast swaths of information, spreads can help us by providing more complex logical arguments to parse that information.

A simple 1 or 3 card spread is just defining is: the person is this way. Consider other options:

Is: This is true of them; they are like this; they are with this

Not: The person is not like this; they are inverse to this; they are without this

And: Two or more things must be true in order for any of them to be true

But: This is only true if it defies expectations in a specific way

If, Then, Else: If this is true, then something else will necessarily be true; otherwise only the third thing will be true

Someone would like to know how to identify their future husband. If you just drew a 3-card is spread, you'd end up with something that could doubtless apply to thousands of people in a 100 mile radius.

"He's responsible and take-charge at work, and very ambitious. He enjoys a comfortable home and emotional connections." A bit pointless, isn't it?

Develop spreads with specific logical arguments that define how the cards exist in relation to the truth. He's ambitious, not cutthroat. He's kind, and a pushover. He's generous, but only with emotional support. If he marries you, then he already has children; else this is not your match.

We might arrive at the following to help identify the potential spouse:

2-card and spread: He will always think he's right (King/Swords) and views his own intelligence as a heavy burden (10/Wands).

Above, if only one of these things is true of a person, then they are not the potential husband-to-be; both things must be true.

2-card but spread: He will love animals and creatures (Page/Pentacles), but only super creepy ones that give you anxiety (9/Swords).

Below, the if-then-else spread can be utilized to address specific questions. "Will he be rich?"

3-card is spread: His financial future is not set in stone (Wheel of Fortune), he has a stable career (8/Pentacles), he is closed-fisted when it comes to money (6/Pentacles Reversed). 2-card if, then, else spread: If he is rich, then it will be new money from a lucky break (9/Cups), or else he will be a bit of a miser who is always trying to get a lucky break (4/Pentacles).

Combining these two spreads together, we may perhaps surmise that this man could be self-employed or involved in contracts or speculation that could provide large windfalls.

The point is that these small spreads are not standalone, but should be stacked together to observe the commonalities between all of them, and to see how they affect and influence each other.

Linking spreads together in this fashion can make successive readings easier, as later spreads must cleave to standards already established by earlier spreads. This allows you to cut out more irrelevant meanings.

Practically speaking, your goal in identifying a person is not necessarily to paint a complete portrait of them, but rather to define a few specific circumstances or traits that makes them easily identifiable once you get there.

Our top-down view is identifying an individual out of perhaps thousands. But, in reality, your querent isn't going to be interviewing thousands of potential partners.

In reality, the pool of people your querent has to sort through is going to be limited to the people they meet. They don't have to compare their hypothetical spouse to everybody, just to other people they have met.

Hypothetically, out there around us, there could be hundreds of egotistical self-employed atheists who love snakes and spiders. But we don't need to identify only one of them as compared to the others.

We need to only identify egotistical self-employed snake atheists to, say, the single dad who volunteers at his church, the homesteader who raises donkeys, and the listless student who just wants to go backpacking for a while after college.

So when identifying people, ask yourself what kind of unique traits will be necessary to separate this person from the background noise.

Are you trying to identify one person in the entire tristate area herpetology society? Well, then we're back to the concepts of part 1 - drop meanings that apply to everyone in your target group, and focus on indicators that can only apply to some.

Stack readings to whittle down possibilities until you get to a set of unique circumstances or indicators that can only apply to a few people in that group.

[pianokantzart]

Do you think Mario's portrayal in the movie was a little too different from the games? I understand that they needed him to have a more well rounded personality, but I just can't help but wonder why they didn't make him more of a soul who is defined by having this sort of contagious positivity with a skip in every step. Think characters like Joy (Inside Out), Pinkie Pie (MLP), Steven Universe, Star Butterfly, Mabel Pines, Rapunzel (Tangled) and so on.

Mario of course still has a can-do determinator attitude about life, and he does still have his moments of excitement, but it's a lot more subdued. He spends a lot of the movie being rather irritable, somewhat impatient, and burnt out. Of course this can still happen to characters that are defined by being consistently upbeat and positive, but that's only when they hit very serious rock bottom moments.

Do you think the sequel should try and make Mario's personality a little more like his portrayal in the games or should they just stick with what they did for the first one?

I think a more happy-go-lucky Mario could work, hypothetically, but not with the backstory he was given in the movie, which leans pretty hard on him being an underdog in every sense.

The difference between Mario and all the characters you listed is Mario was neither sheltered, nor put in any position where he was encouraged to continually exhibit a bubbly, positive attitude.

Mario is a Brooklyn man who has just recently managed to work his way up from hard labor to blue collar, and has spent most of his life having his dreams and ambitions dismissed and put down.

He's by no means disillusioned with the world, but he's built up defenses to make sure everyone knows that neither he nor his brother are easy targets to be bullied or walked all over. He is optimistic, but he's swimming against the current, and it's worn him down. (Heck, judging by the concept art, it looks like there were plans to make him even more exhausted and despondent than he was in the final product.)

But now that Mario's in an environment that values his ambition and optimism, he's got room to develop into something closer to the Super Mario we're all familiar with. As much as I hope for some slight change in character between movies, I can't say I'd be too disappointed if he stays the same on account of how much I really really love Hothead Stressball McDaddyIssues Mario. But I'm banking on him being at least a good deal happier now that he's living in The Mushroom Kingdom.

It's a nice little mini-arc to give him in what was essentially Mario's origin story.

[cairavende]

My wonderful girlfriend got me Gideon the Ninth for Christmas and I realized why should I just give Worm recaps? Let's read some Locked Tomb! (We'll see how this format works, maybe I'll adjust it. Specifically might break stuff down into smaller segments instead of full acts, but I didn't think of doing this until after I had read all of act 1.)

Gideon the Ninth Act 1 (chapter 1 through 8) thoughts:

This book is so gay oh my god

Like, it's gay in ways I can't even explain. I love it.

Harrow beats the shit out of Gideon in chapter 2 and I don't know if I've ever seen someone get beat up in a more gay way.

"Oh Griddle! But I don't even remember about you most of the time." ROLL A FUCKING DECEPTION CHECK HARROW! You are saying this standing in the middle of the field you spent all night burying bones in just to foil her escape in the most dramatic way. You can't stop remembering her.

Gideon is the most herbo of herbos. I fucking love her. I love reading her PoV. She just knows punch and stab with sword and if those don't work than she'll just do them harder.

Also Gideon is SO fucking gay. Dear god. Dulcinea faints and Gideon turns off all though. HELP PRETTY GIRL. Nothing else.

Ok I could just make this whole thing "EVERYTHING IS GAY" but there is technically more than that.

I love how weird everything is and how little explanation is given. I don't want pages of exposition, I want to learn the world as it comes at me! This is perfect.

And just the very nature of things that seem weird not being given more than a passing thought in the book is information. Something may seem wild to the reader but it's so normalized to the characters that they wouldn't even think about the idea of it being different.

Lack of explanation also helps really show how much of a meathead Gideon is. Do the readers get to learn details about this thing? Only if it is a weapon, has tits, or Gideon is forced to listen while Harrow explains it. Otherwise no, why the fuck would Gideon spend her precious few brain cells on thinking?

And even if Gideon is forced to listen as Harrow explains it, the readers might not learn much cause Gideon might stop listening. I love her.

Aiglamene is wonderful. Crux is fine but I like her more.

Poor Gideon just wants a big sword that she can swing hard. It's not like she can't use a rapier. But why when she can go big sword?

SO MUCH CATHOLICISM

As someone who once was Catholic and then realized I was actually not a straight man, but instead a lesbian, I am in deep.

And the fucking slang used! Or whatever would be the right term. The shit they say! I love it. Just the weird sci-fi far future space necromancer universe and then suddenly "Are you asking me to . . . throw her a bone?", "Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.", "Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again, it never does any good.", "Lo! A destructed ass.", "Well we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.", "Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone."

House of the First appears to be Earth. I kinda assume the House of the Ninth is Pluto, even though things obviously aren't in order given that the Seventh and Sixth are closer to the sun. Of course, I'm kinda expecting this to not technically be this solar system at all.

Undying Emperor, King of Resurrection, I Have Ten-Thousand Titles, Boss First, etc etc hasn't been on "Earth" in over nine thousand years. I wanna know MORE.

And the fucking Ninth House has their own prayer! Everyone else has one that the Ninth didn't know and then the Ninth had one that no one else knows! GIMME MORE!!!!

Also again, so many Catholicism metaphors or comparisons or whatever!

I could go on forever but gonna end this one with OH MY GOD SHE FOUND SUNGLASSES I LOVE HER. Fucking "I came prepared, my sweet." and "But then you couldn't have admired . . . these!" as she whips on the sunglasses. God. I nearly died.

[tangledbea]

Do you think that HYPOTHETICALLY, if given the option (again as a hypothetical question to Rapunzel), she would rather never have had magic hair, never gotten kidnapped, and grew up in the home she was supposed to…but never met eugene

Absolutely not.

There's actually an episode that Ricky Roxburgh pitched that was ultimately rejected (for being "too good" (Chris' words, according to him), where Rapunzel gets sent to an alternate timeline where she grew up in the palace (with magic hair, mind you), and that Gothel had gotten herself hired as her governess, to be close to the magic flower.

So she grew up a princess and kind of a brat at that, because not only was she their miracle child, she was also magical and it got to her head. Because she hadn't been in the tower, Eugene never reformed, and the two of them were kind of... rivals. He was more hardened against the world, and resented the princess who everyone loved, and she hated the man who committed so much crime in her kingdom.

Except now, the alternate timeline Rapunzel has been replaced by our Rapunzel, and she doesn't know any of this. She calls him Eugene and he panics, because no one but him knows that name. They get closer, something something, and at the big climax of the episode, he gives up his life for her.

She gets sent to a kind of void where she can choose to either stay in a world where she was never kidnapped or abused, or go back to the one she knows, and she chooses to go back because it would mean having Eugene in her life.

And I 100% agree with the characterization in this hypothetical episode that I'm so sad was never developed further.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Alenoah AU, where Noah says this in London instead:

Owen: "Why don't you like Al? He's great!"

Noah: "I like Alejandro and I agree that he's great, but I still don't trust the guy."

Owen: "Why?"

Noah: "I have my personal reasons... One of them being that I don't like how he treats you, Owen... So, please be careful from now on..."

Owen: "Okay, Noah... You do have a point."

How would Alejandro react to Noah liking him, but not truly trusting him? 😲

See your first mistake is assuming Noah would ever give up an oppertunity to shit-talk someone. /j

But for real, if Noah did clarify that he doesn't dislike Alejandro but does distrust him, I can't see things playing out too differently from canon - save for Alejandro being a bit less openly hostile towards him post-challenge. Noah would still be eliminated, because having a teammate who distrusts him doesn't align with Alejandro's game plan.

Especially if Noah divulges why he doesn't trust Alejandro. If Noah tries to out the fact that Alejandro isn't as altruistic as he wants to appear, that makes Noah himself a direct threat to Alejandro's plans and schemes. Again, he'd be eliminated as soon as possible.

Regardless of any potential feelings between the two, Alejandro can and would always prioritise the competition over any budding relationship he has with Noah... at least in London. Further on in the competition, if/when the two of them have gotten to know each other better (and when mutual feelings have had time to grow and develop) it's a different story.

It would, however, mean there's a lot less bad blood between the two post series. At least on Alejandro's end. If anything, he'd probably have a smidge of respect for Noah, since he's one of the few people who had caught on to Alejandro's false geniality pre-merge and/or pre-elimination.

Meanwhile Noah would still be justifyably salty that Alejandro got him eliminated, but I imagine he'd pin most of the blame on himself. After all, it was his big mouth that once again dropped him into hot water with his team. Plus, in this scenario, Noah admits that he does like Alejandro, so even considering his elimination I doubt Noah would be too upset with Alejandro himself.

So, in the case of this hypothetical AU, I'd suggest that the main meat of the story here would be post-World Tour, which plays out canonically (or as close to canonically as you'd like). Alejandro gets Drama Machine'd, and Noah - as one of the few people in the cast who doesn't actively hate Alejandro - questions his whereabouts when he fails to show up on the cruise boat the Gen 1 cast are seen on at the beginning of RotI.

He's likely the only person to do so since, barring Heather, Noah's one of the select few who Alejandro didn't royally fuck over. Not directly, at least. And Heather's too preoccupied with the loss of her million to think about Alejandro's wellbeing. And Chris tells him straight; the robot on the cruise ship? Alejandro's chilling in there, healing from the lava burns in almost complete isolation.

Noah is understandably horrified. He's even more horrified when Chris reveals that the Burromuertos signed over custodial rights for Alejandro and disowned him, so Chris is full within his legal rights to keep Alejandro in the Drama Machine for however long he deems fit. Unfortunately, he's also sworn to secrecy about the whole deal; Chris can't have Alejandro's situation reaching the press, it'd be bad for the show's publicity. (Add some legal jargon here, or something about non-disclosure agreements being in the casts' contracts, or whatever.)

But he can't just leave alejandro to suffer in an indefinite mechanical imprisonment. So Noah bargains his way back into his old position as a PA, if only to keep tabs on Alejandro's wellbeing.

Something something you end up with one of those Assistant Noah x Drama Machine Alejandro AUs, which eventually evolves into a "Noah works as an assistant on All-stars" AU, or whatever.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Editor’s note: This hypothetically open letter was originally posted by its anonymous author on Medium and was rapidly removed as “hate speech.” We found it to be a refreshing dose of honesty, a charming and relatable open letter from one parent to other parents (not to the child, obviously!) about dealing with a challenging and dangerous moment in raising children, especially “weird” adolescents who search for their identities harder than others and risk making life-damaging mistakes in a way never before possible. We are reposting it here on New Discourses with the permission of the author.

--

By: Donna M.

Published: Mar 5, 2021

My dear, sweet, son,

I’ve got to break it to you: you’re not trans, you’re just weird.

This seems like a cruel thing to point out right now. Clearly, you are struggling and feeling pretty awful about things. I can see that you are in a rough patch, and one of the first rules of parenting is to not pile on. The world is pretty heavy on your shoulders. You’re fifteen. There’s a pandemic going on. But here I come anyway. I’m about to throw more on you.

When you were two ­– a happy, chubby, little tyke in pull-ups, you watched the world with wary eyes behind the thumb in your mouth. You leapt with joy in the rhythm of the toddle music classes. You chattered and shared stories about your stuffed animals. You loved your little sister. Enjoyed cookies and finger painting. That was all pretty normal.

But you also started to count to one thousand on our walks. And you started to call out the store names as we drove around. And you preferred reading books rather than playing with the other two-year-olds at preschool. And you hated sitting in the circle when instructed. And you hated the feel of blue jeans. And you threw big tantrums when you lost any kind of game. In other words, you started to show signs that you were… weird.

The grandparents were the first to notice. They said gentle things like “You oughta keep an eye on that one,” and sent us links to Wall Street Journal articles about child prodigies. And then the other parents in the play groups started to comment; “He’s pretty intense, huh?” And the teachers were on to it pretty quickly. They started to use fancy terms like “asynchronous development.”

By third grade, we realized you were different, but we still didn’t realize you were weird. Truthfully, we’re used to people like you. Our family is full of engineers, artists, musicians, computer programmers, and a lot of “free-thinkers.” Family gatherings always have chess, political debates, and quartets around the piano. That’s just us.

And besides, you had a small but solid group of friends. There was Pokémon, then Minecraft, then Magic, then Dungeons and Dragons, then Catan. You were never in the center of things, but you weren’t alone.

But then, in middle school, things started to change. By 7th grade, school finally started to require some effort, and it turned out you were pretty disorganized. People kept calling you smart, but the teachers were annoyed at your humor, and frustrated that you wouldn’t or couldn’t follow the guidelines for assignments. Classmates didn’t appreciate your frank (if accurate) descriptions of their efforts. I’ll admit, we got pretty frustrated with you, too.

And then puberty arrived, with its triple curse of acne, braces, and bizarre growth. The girls appeared to have it all together (I know they don’t, but they do appear that way). And the popular boys seemed to know exactly what to do. They can talk sports to each other, they brag about their romantic exploits. They never get in trouble for stupid reasons like forgetting an assignment three times in a row. Your anxiety started to kick in, and it seemed like you got smaller. And some of your guy friends moved on.

So you drifted over to the weird-o crowd. Well — I’m not sure what you call yourselves, but that’s what we would have called you back when I was in school. At different schools these are the geeks, or the theater kids, the math team kids, or the artsy-fartsy kids. This used to be where the gay kids ended up, but I think they’re more dispersed now. You get some kids whose parents are going through some rough times. Some girls with anorexia. A few boys who are edgy and angry. Kids with a great sense of humor and big hearts.

And some of these kids are really passionate. Just full of righteous anger about the injustices of the world. And some of them are dramatic. And truthfully, that looks pretty attractive to you. Because you share some of that confusion and anger about the world. And though you may not be sure what you think or what you feel, you are certain you don’t want to be on the bad side. You certainly aren’t like those popular boys with their suave charm and dominating manners. You’re not like them at all.

You’re actually more like those vibrant girls who can speak for hours about their ideas. Well, you would be if you could find the words to speak. And there is something so fascinating about those girls, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You’d never think about talking to those girls anyway, because that’d be weird. Because you are weird. You’ve never been good at chit-chat, or eye contact. Or girls. And besides, you wouldn’t want them to get the wrong impression. You understand that your peers are starting to date, but you really don’t see the point. Sex is still gross and weird to you. It’s better to just call yourself “asexual” or “pansexual.” It’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card that helps you avoid the whole mess. And your group of friends tell you that you are super cool and brave for being able to say that about yourself.

But you’ve fallen into a funk. Anyone can see that. But computer games help. And there’s always trying to beat the speed record for that one game you’re kinda good at. And that one guy on reddit always has good tricks. And the people on that message board seem to get your humor.

So when one of them posts a meme about trans rights, it makes sense that you’d check it out. You’re curious! You’re a free thinker! You’re not like the normies. And the web quiz hits home. You do feel discomfort with your body. You don’t like sports. You do wonder what it would be like to be a girl. You’ve always felt like something was different about you.

You’re right. There is something different about you.

But you’re not trans, you’re just weird.

So we’re right here for you. We’ll always be here for you. But those online folks who urge you to “crack your trans egg” and rush to hormones and surgeries don’t know you at all. They don’t know that gifted kids and ADHD kids and Autism kids and Asperger’s kids are slower to develop emotionally and sexually. They don’t know that sexuality takes time and experience to figure out, and that the majority of trans teens seeking medical treatment haven’t even masturbated or kissed someone yet. They don’t know that 80% of trans children end up becoming comfortable with their birth sex if you just give them time. They don’t know that there are increasing numbers of desisting and de-transitioning people in their twenties. They don’t realize that hormones permanently stunt your growth, decrease your IQ, and can cause sterility. They don’t know that these hormones are prescribed off-label and there’s no research on the long-term outcomes. They don’t even know that the most recent research shows that short-term outcomes are clearly worse.

They don’t realize that you’re weird. But I do. You’re weird, kiddo. You’ll figure that out in a year or two. But that’s okay. We are all weird. And I love you anyway. You’re going to be just fine.

==

You always hear stories and justifications like, "she never liked wearing a dress," or "he always hated having his hair cut." This is post-hoc confirmation bias. Not only does this confirm everything critics say about this being a movement based on gross stereotypes, but they always leave out things like, "she refused to eat anything yellow," and "he was obsessed with elevator and crossing buttons and would cry if he wasn't the one to light it up."

It's okay to be weird.

[necrotic-nephilim]

I’m gonna be honest I didn’t realize the new 52 messed with Kon that much till I read your post and now I can’t get over the potential. I’m a Tim/Kon girly at heart so I would devour anything you write exploring the 52 vs typical Kon. Also Time being in a clone sandwich is 👌.

the new-52 messed Kon up SO bad it's ridiculous. like, to the point i would personally argue he's a completely unrelated character to pre-Flashpoint/Rebirth Kon. his personality, his suit, his origin, all different. the only real similarities are the name and powerset. and even New-52!Kon's powers are slightly different from pre-Flashpoint!Kon. New-52!Kon is a clone of a future version of Jon Lane Kent, cloned by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to provide genetic material to Jon Lane Kent, whose body was not handling being half human/half Kryptonian well, it was a whole thing. New-52!Kon is also where we get the infamous "Kon-El means 'abomination of the house of El' and Kara basically named him a slur in Kryptonian culture" tidbit, because that is the only time that's canon. (originally Kon-El was a name gifted by Clark to accept Kon as his family way back in the 90s) he also never went by Conner Kent. New-52!Kon just straight up didn't have any real human identity or connections, outside of being very close to Tim and some Titans.

the very TLDR of Kon's history is: during post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint, a clone called Superboy is created by CADMUS. at first, he's considered to be a clone of a dude named Paul Westfield and is not Kryptonian whatsoever, he was simply made to look like Superman and only has Tactile Telekinesis as a power. then, it was made canon that actually he was a clone of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent, but Lex hid this fact and slowly, Kon developed more Kryptonian powers. he's given the name Kon-El by Clark, and is taken in by the Kents, getting the name Conner Kent. then Flashpoint happens, we get the New-52, and we're given the above version of Kon-El, who is a clone of Jon Lane Kent, created by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. who has mostly very strong telekinesis powers and some Kryptonian powers. he's with the Titans for a bit, then at the end of the New-52, he kills some aliens and feels bad about it so he decides to fuck off and is never seen again, it's presumed he's dead but never confirmed. then Rebirth happens and DC makes Jon Kent the current Superboy, we get Supersons and all that, and it's assumed that no version of Kon-El exists. just at all. he's not around whatsoever, Jon is our only Superboy. *but* in 2019, we get a new Young Justice run and the pre-Flashpoint Kon-El is back, and we're given the explanation of: Kon got accidentally teleported to this alternate realm called Gemworld and then Flashpoint happened, and since that was a Crisis Event that changed the timeline, the poor lad got *erased* from the timeline, causing most people to *not fucking remember him* and for him to remember a timeline that no longer exists. some of the Young Justice team vaguely remember him, Ma and Pa Kent remember him, but notably, Clark *does not remember him*. it's not an issue of "Clark ignored Kon in favor of Jon" it's an issue of "Kon was erased from the timeline and didn't exist for years bc he was stuck in Gemworld and Clark just doesn't remember Kon or Kon's timeline" which to me, is far more tragic but i digress. since then, Kon has been back and is present in most significant Superfamily runs, with his own recent mini-series, Superboy: Man of Tomorrow. (which was very good btw)

so basically: the New-52 fucked Kon up so bad they wrote him out of comics for years and then brought back the pre-Flashpoint version, but never *explicitly* killed the New-52 version off. so hypothetically, it's possible that there are currently two characters existing in the DC universe named Kon-El who have been Superboy. and like i said above, one of New-52!Kon's only real significant relationships was with Tim, it was the only thing the New-52 managed to get right about Superboy, his closeness to Tim. they have a *lot* of moments that read incredibly queer. and ofc, it's just outright confirmed in Dark Crisis: Young Justice that Tim had a crush on pre-Flashpoint!Kon at some point. so while comics are intent on pretending New-52!Kon doesn't exist, i am intent on putting Tim in a clone sandwich.

because i do think it's fun to play with Tim having genuine feelings and potentially a relationship with both of them. and the fucked up nature of him not fully *remembering* his relationship with pre-Flashpoint!Kon (which is a canon thing, in YJ(2019) Tim has vague memories of Kon he's struggling to piece together and understand why he cares about this guy he doesn't recognize so much) and how frustrating that is for Tim. he knows he loves Kon, but it's all foggy besides that. and so it's even *more* fucked up if Tim dated New-52!Kon before he got emo and ran off into the unknown. obviously in canon no one has told current Kon about New-52!Kon bc comics are doing the good ol' tried and true of "sweep that shit under the rug" but for fanfic, i think it's fun to ask the question of: would anyone *tell* Kon? especially Tim? who now remembers dating both versions of them? would he admit to Kon that briefly, he had another Kon? how would Tim cope with that and move on? personality wise, they could not be more different. they dress and act and look different. they're not the same person, but there's certainly a questionable factor of Tim's dating history including two Kon-Els.

the idea i've had for a while is Tim slowly starting to date pre-Flashpoint!Kon again. it feels familiar and like home. and Tim has grieved and accepted that wherever New-52!Kon is, he doesn't want to come home, he didn't love TIm enough to stay and try. so Tim takes the Kon he has, and genuinely has a happy relationship. like for once, life is good and things almost make sense for Tim. but then, of course, New-52!Kon comes back. he decides he wants to try again and he finds Tim. only to find well. he's been replaced. and technically, he's been replaced with the *original* that he didn't even know *existed*. and if being a clone is bad enough, that just makes it a hundred times worse. because imagine knowing you're actually the second Kon-El your boyfriend who you never *technically* broke up with fell in love with. that's gotta give you some kind of complex.

so i think it's fun if both Kons try to step back and let the other Kon date Tim. both of them have reasons to feel like the "replacement" or "fake" Kon, and it makes them incredibly awkward with each other. do they count as the same person? bc they definitely don't *feel* like the same person to each other, but with weird timeline stuff, who can really say. them settling on an awkward throuple that's really meant to be Tim just dating them both but somehow they end up dating each other too is so fun for me. they both feel like imposters to the Superboy name but are so deeply in love with Tim Drake, it's the one thing truly connecting them. and then of course, Tim feels bad in that somehow, he's betraying both of them for having feelings for the other. but they make it work, with a lot of awkward angst and miscommunication. i just think it'd be fun. very difficult to write to get all the weird timeline nuances down in a way that's understandable in a fanfic (bc you can't just. infodump like i did on this post) but doable. also difficult to tag, because even though i argue these are two different characters, i'm pretty sure Ao3 groups them under the same character tag. so it'd be difficult to convey it's not *really* as selfcest-y as it would imply. comics, man. DC will never acknowledge New-52!Kon again, and he's admittedly a terrible adaptation of Kon-El, but. i think he was sort of neat in his own right and i'd *love* for DC to just inexplicably bring him back and make the current Kon deal with the consequences of all that. and them make Tim kiss them both. obviously.

[hyperactivewhore]

Hey! I hope your having a wonderful day <3

I was curious to see how you feel about those stories where the OC is significantly more powerful than the Mikaelson Family? Like the ones where people just add the OC as a Scarlet Witch. I honestly don’t think any of the Mikaelsons would react very well to having someone significantly more powerful than them in their vicinity. As shown in quite a few episodes. Let alone one of them being romantically involved.

Hi! I'm fine, how about you?

I'm not gonna lie, these kind of stories are hard to read most of the time, especially because the powers these ocs have are practically never executed well. Why do they have that magic, who gave it to them, how do they even manage to live having that much amount of power? If people are so desperate to have their ocs be the next Wanda Maximoff, at least try better. Make their parents a god or goddess, perhaps both, someone like Thor, Loki, Freyja, especially considering the Mikaelson worshipped the Norse deities.

I honestly don't see any of them reacting well at all, especially Klaus and Kol. For a thousand years, they believed themselves to be the most strongest beings on earth and often were proud of it, knowing it meant they were "untouchable" and the few who dared to go after them were easily dealt with (excluding Mikael). We've all seen how they reacted to their parents, Bonnie, Dahlia, Inadu, Lucien, and all the people who came close to killing them, so imagining them having to deal with someone who is in Wanda level, who can warp reality and create life from nothing would be an interesting dynamic.

Trying to kill this kind of ooc would nearly be impossible, but knowing how prideful the Mikaelson are this would not stop them at all. I can see Elijah trying to negotiate some kind of truce should the need arise, and I can easily see as well Klaus and Kol trying to seduce her/him to put themselves in their good side if they've run out of chances, but this would likely be the last option considering how much it would eat them inside to have to "yield" to someone who tried killing them/is more powerful than them.

However, Kol was also absolutely terrified of Silas, to the point where he tried to kill his sister to stop her from waking him up, so it's hard to determine with him. It's very likely in my opinion, that he sided with this ooc if he got something from it, some sort of protection or escape from his family - but this alliance would prove to be very short, as all the Mikaelson are cockroaches who can never be truly away from each other.

Rebekah, on the other hand, is a hard guess for me too, considering how short her time on both shows was. Someone more powerful than her family, than her brother, who often abused her? Depending on which Rebekah we're talking about, I can see her trying to charm her way into this ooc's heart to have a defense against Klaus. But TO Rebekah would without a doubt stand with her family against anyone.

Any Mikaelson falling in love with this person, however, is unlikely to happen in my opinion. As I said before, I can see them - all of them, to be honest - making this person fall in love with them to have her/him "under control" or to have a secret weapon, but love is a very different thing from manipulation or lust. I can easily see them developing a toxic relationship that lasts through centuries if they do happen to fall in love, and being some sort of "frenemies" with the Mikaelson, but all of this is hypothetical, of course.

Thanks for the ask!