#AP process comparison

[aconsultancyblogs]

Accounts Payable: Is Outsourcing a Better Option Than In-House Teams?

For many businesses, deciding between accounts payable outsourcing and in-house processing is a key financial decision. Both methods have their pros and cons, but when it comes to efficiency, cost, and scalability, outsourcing often takes the lead.

Let’s start with the AP process comparison. In-house processing requires a dedicated team, regular training, and constant oversight. It can be effective for small volumes, but as businesses grow, the process often becomes inefficient. On the other hand, accounts payable outsourcing provides access to experts and advanced systems that streamline operations and reduce the need for internal oversight.

One major advantage of outsourcing is cost efficiency. Maintaining an in-house AP department involves fixed expenses such as salaries, software licenses, and hardware. In contrast, outsourcing offers flexible pricing based on usage, which can lead to significant savings—especially for growing businesses.

The outsourcing benefits also include reduced risk of late payments, improved compliance, and faster invoice processing. Service providers often have robust systems in place for tracking, verifying, and paying invoices, leading to better accuracy and fewer vendor issues.

Speaking of vendor management, outsourcing partners are equipped to handle communications and disputes efficiently. They ensure vendors are paid on time, which helps maintain strong supplier relationships and may open the door to early-payment discounts.

Ultimately, for companies seeking scalability, improved performance, and long-term savings, accounts payable outsourcing is a clear winner. While in-house teams may work for some, outsourcing offers professional-grade solutions that adapt to your needs and free up resources for core business activities.

[txttletale]

Now I'm curious about the 2cp thing on overwatch. Please talk about it I love reading your takes on those

2cp was an awful gamemode for a bunch of reasons that primarily boil down to stuff about how spawn points work. so in 2cp you've got two points, point a and point b. defenders spawn right by point b, attackers spawn closer to a. if attackers take a, then attacker spawns move forward and they can try to take point b

the practical effect of this is that holding point a is extremely difficult -- you spawn a good map distance away if you die on defense, so if the attackers can get a pick they can almost always take it (overwatch is an incredibly team-dependent game, numbers advantages in teamfights are enormous and trump nearly everything else unless there's major ult or skill disparities).

now the thing is that the winners of a fight probably did more damage and healed more during that fight, so it's very common for the attacking team to then simply be have an ult advantage and be able to run over to point b and roll over the newly respawning defending team. this is a brutal snowball effect that is really oppressive and miserable to play against as defenders.

& now the absolute worst thing that can happen here--especially common at lower levels of play--is for one defender to be 'staggered' (ie, die a while after the others) during or immediately after point a being captured. this means that on top of a probable ult advantage, the attackers have a numbers advantage. very frustratingly this is very likely to happen when one of your teammates decides they are going to heroically go and 1v6 the enemy team while the point is 99% captured--unless you're communicating and coordinating there is no way to stop someone from dooming your team with a play like that. even in higher level play where nobody would do something so silly there's ways for attackers to deliberately stagger enemies (a very famous one is popping dvas mech and slowly meleeing baby dva to death)

HOWEVER, if this snowball doesn't happen, the fact that point b spawns are right next to the point leads to another very obnoxious play pattern--stalling. it is nearly impossible unless you get off ap erfect 6-man ult combo to wipe the whole defending team in such a way that you can take point before one of them respawns and jumps on it. there's no point capture progress at all as long as one defender is still on the point, so (and this was true at higher levels, where people were better at stalling, and at lower levels, where people were worse at killing stallers) the defending team will all swap onto heroes with strong defensive or mobility-heavy kits and just run around the point like headless chickens trying to stall capture until more teammates respawned--and because the attacker spawns are so far from the point by comparison, getting even one kill during the staling process can swing a decisively won fight back around into a loss. i've seen games where the attackers win a fight on point b with 2+ minutes to spare and then the defending team stalls until overtime. just truly mind-numbing tedious toxic play patterns encouraged by the map design

and to top it all off, point capture progress only 'counts' for tiebreaking if you get more than 33%--which means that if you, as the first attackers during the first or any tiebreaker rounds, don't manage to get to 33% capture progress on point A, you can be left in a situation where it's impossible to win and you're playing for a draw--truly the most demoralizing experience imaginable, some of the least fun i've ever had playing video games. im so glad they blew it up

[heavenlymorals]

Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2: Realism Vs Romantacism

(Warning: Spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1 and that this is a long post.)

But first, let's get a better idea on what these genres and philosophies actually entailed.

During 19th century America, there were two famous genres of literature that became wildly popular- Romantacism and Realism. These genres shaped many philosophies and are interwoven into so many famous stories that it is kinda insane, but today, for this retrospective, I want to speak on how these two genres shaped both RDR1 and RDR2.

Romantacism came as a sort of critique of the Enlightment Era. The Enlightment Era was a period of reason and rejection of spirituality. It focused a lot on what was real and in front of a person rather than the experience and interpretation of an event or thing. Dutch represents this idea in this line to John where he says:

"Real. Oh how I detest that word. So devoid of imagination."

And to Arthur:

"We are dreamers in an ever duller world of fact, I'll give you that."

Romantacism is such a broad subject but there were generally three aspects of it that was generally consistent- the relationship between man and himself, man and nature, man and god, and how those experiences create the essence of life. The idea of the oversoul in Romantacism is a deep understanding of nature and spirituality that makes someone as equal to God himself, or that's the simplest way that I can explain it. Romantacism is also about the experience between man and man and ideas of hope, dreams, new beginnings, friendships, life, and love. (Dark Romanticism is way more gloomy, but many of the characteristics are still the same. For this post, though, we'll focus on just Romantacism.)

But what romantacism is about overall is the authentic experience of life and the personal interpretation of it- no matter how imaginative it is. This is where romanticisation occurs. Of war, of historical periods, of certain types of living, etc. etc.

Since that is romantacism, what is realism? Well, I'm sure you already know, but realism is supposed to be a representation of what life actually is and usually in a negative way. Realism isn't concerned with the imagination of an event as it is more concerned with what life is actually like and how it affects people. There really isn't much more to say then that. Realism is about real life and usually in a negative way. For context, realism became popular in the US after the Civil War as for the first time, a lot of people saw such intense pain and death and debauchery.

Like, If "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen is a romantacised story of a woman's love life during a historical time period, then Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a story soaked in the constructs of realism. This is just one comparison of the two genres.

So what does this have to do with Red Dead Redemption? Simple. Each game represents one of the genres as its main focal point for story telling.

RDR2 is a game that is all about romantacism, especially if you play it as it should be played as high honor Arthur Morgan.

Arthur's main storyline is about finding redemption, sure, but he finds that redemption through the authentic experience of life and his interpretation of it. Prior to his tuberculosis, Arthur saw himself as only a cog in the bad machine that was their life. He robbed, intimidated, and killed without much thought to what it actually meant for him because well, this is the way it is and how it always has been.

However, when he gets tuberculosis, his attitude changes. With the limited time he has left, he brings himself to ponder life itself and interprets it in a way that contrasts his previous thought process that the world is dark and gloomy and that he's just another part of it. In his limited time, he begins to see good. If not in him, than in others. In the love people have for others, in the strength that people have for others, in the passion that people have for others.

Arthur begins to appreciate life itself and that's also why the stranger missions in chapter 6 are so much more personal as a whole- Arthur's interpretation of life becoming better in the short time he has left makes him much more heartfelt and sentimental- a key component of romantacism. He helps a widow who could've died out there for no reason other than wanting her to live and live well. He becomes friends with a veteran and helps him out even though he knows that death is around the corner for him and his time with the man would be short. And of course, the debt missions and the helping of Edith. Arthur forgives the debts, gives money, and sees human life as far more valuable than the debt.

And in the end? Arthur saves John and dies knowing that he tried his best to not just survive but to live. That's his experience and his interpretation of it- becoming a better man and valuing people more than things. And then there is the epilogue- there is hope and happiness and a sense of accomplishment. All the pain feels over and a new light has been cast onto life.

In fact, this archetype in Romanticism, which is about finding redemption through the larger human experience, is quite famous overall. It's not unique to just Arthur Morgan. One of the most famous romantic stories of the era was Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and Victor Frankenstein undergoes a similar journey, albeit more subdued than Arthur's.

In the beginning of the book, Victor starts out as a representation of realism. He's obsessed with science and doesn't really care about his family and friends. He goes on for long periods of time just thinking about science because of his own hubris and desire to become famous and accomplished. He rejects art, love, and all the things that constitute the human experience for the sake of science, which represents realism. As he begins to see the faults in his actions and the mistake of creating his monster, things begin to change. He becomes more interested in his friends, his fiancée, and life itself as a concept rather than what it is in front of him.

Yes, Mary Shelley wrote the book as a criticism of the unregulated pursuit of science, but if you dig deeper, it's not just about that. It's about keeping romance, ideals, and the human experience in your heart, because without them, things will be worse than they already are. Many ideas and philosophies aren't realistic, but we keep them to enrich the human experience. That is what Romanticism is about, and that is what Arthur Morgan's story is about. Like Victor, his story could be boiled down to a rejection of realism and an embrace of Romanticism.

And besides just the story being a love letter to Romantacism, there is the scenery too. As stated, one big part of Romantacism is nature and RDR2's nature is just gorgeous. It's bright and scenic and beautiful like a lot of romantic paintings. Arthur connects to nature by living in it and drawing it and experiencing it. Even the ambiance of the landscape is calm and relaxing, adding to the beautiful experience of the American wilderness.

So what about Red Dead Redemption 1? Red Dead Redemption 1 is all about realism. It doesn't care about ideals or hopes. Its story is one of realism, portraying the realistic end of an outlaw. Where Red Dead Redemption 2 ends with John and his family finally getting the life they've always wanted and possibly starting over again, Red Dead Redemption 1 rejects that. The Pinkertons find John, and he is set out to kill his brothers-in-arms. He can't escape his old life, even if he wants to—it will always come back to haunt him. John has killed and robbed and done so many terrible things that the dream of him being able to settle down and just be a farmer in the end is just that, a dream. Even when John does what Edgar Ross wants him to do, he gets shot down like a dog in the end anyway. He has to pay for his sins, and in a sick way, this is justice for all the men he has killed before in his outlaw life. There is no other end for John realistically than to be put down like a dog. It is his tragedy, his fate, and a realistic fate for an outlaw.

John's path is lonely. Most of the people he meets are people that he does not want to be associated with. Seth is a creepy grave robber, Irish is a drunk bastard, and West Dickens is just a scamming piece of s*** who doesn't scam the rich and people who already have too much, but he scams the poor, the working man, the person who is uneducated. They are all very realistic criminals, and John has to deal with it because all he wants is his family and the men that the Pinkertons sent him to capture. The people that he does respect, like Leigh Johnson and Bonnie McFarland, are professional relationships at best. John has to rely on himself and only himself, which is a very popular theme in realism. Unlike in Red Dead 2, he has no one to turn to, no one to watch his back. He has no family and no friends. He is alone, and he has to deal with his sins because the world will not forget, as he mentions time and time again.

Romanticism is dead. Ideals are dead. A young woman's pursuit of God leaves her dead in the desert, and John can do nothing to help her. The idea of the noble West is torn apart by violent gangs that do nothing but rape, kill, and steal. Men come to exploit the pain of colonialism. Eugenics is a thriving science. The most apparent example that ideals are dead is the Mexican revolution. Abraham Reyes makes the people believe that he will be better, that he will be the Messiah for these peasants, but the reality is that he turns out to be just as bad or even worse than the already established dictatorship in the country. And John doesn't care. He's not there to be a hero for the people; he's simply there to grab Javier and Bill and then go. That's why he is just as comfortable working for the dictatorship as he is working with the rebels. He does not care. All he cares about is his family, and anything bad that happens to others pains him, but it is not his problem. That is what realism is about. It's not the interpretation of life, but what life actually is, and a lot of times, life is cruel and bitter and terrible. Things are unfair, and sometimes people have to pay with their life and identity.

John dies in the end, and like a lot of children and wives of these outlaws and criminals, Abigail and Jack suffer. Abigail does not last long, as she dies just a couple of years later, and Jack has to bear the sins of his father on his back, like many children of outlaws and criminals did. Even when Jack kills Ross, there is no sense of triumph, no happiness or joy; it's just an empty feeling of "what now?" Where revenge in Red Dead Redemption 2 is idealized and romantic, even beautiful in a sense, revenge in Red Dead Redemption is empty and grotesque, leaving the player with nothing but emptiness. There's nothing left; everything is gone.

And just look at the scenery of Red Dead Redemption. Yes, it's beautiful, sure, but it's dull and dark. There isn't a lot of color, there aren't a lot of people or animals; it's drab. If RDR2 is a field with a pretty Instagram filter on it, then RDR1 is the field without the filter. The ambience of the game is also dark and weary, putting the player on edge as John cannot relax like Arthur can. John needs to find his family as he has to pay for the sins of his outlaw life.

Although Romantacism isn't a very popular genre today, often overshadowed by realism, both genres of literature and philosophy are paraded in these games.

Arthur is the romantic hero- someone who finds his own meaning of life and turns hopeful and idealistic because of it. RDR2 is a romantic game.

John is the realistic hero- someone who deals with the cards that life gives him and is exhausted from it as he knows his singular efforts won't cause an end to his pain. RDR1 is a realistic game.

And I just think that's very cool. Understanding those two genres of American literature allows the player to understand the games on a deeper level.

(I ain't reading allat)

[scaradooche]

Lovesick

Buzzing, buzzing is what you wake up to. More specifically buzzing from your phone. You pick up your phone all drowsy to see someone calling you. “Hm?” you say waiting for the other person on the line to speak.

“Y/n where the fuck are you right now? Lumine says hastily.

“At my house.” You mumble

“Y/n it’s 7:58 am school starts at 8.”

You immediately hang up without saying another word. You rush out of bed dreading the outcome of the day already.

It’s 8:20 am when you get to school. You walk slow trying to delay your arrival to your first class which is Ap physics with one of the worst teachers. Ms. Cordez. Great. You take the time to actually look at the outfit you’re wearing. You’re wearing black sweats with a gray sweater and a white shirt. The outfit you picked out wasn’t that bad for picking random stuff you saw in your room but it wasn’t exactly something you would normally wear. You stopped, you didn’t know why. It was like your mind wasn’t processing anything your body was doing. You pick up your head from looking at the ground to realize that you’re in front of your class. You take a deep breath and enter the classroom.

You’re not even one step in before you here a “Ah, look who decided to show up.”

“Hello..” you mutter trying to make your way to your seat.

“Not so fast young lady, why are you late?” You hear Ms. Cordick Cordez say.

“Overslept..”

“Give me a full sentence.”

“I overslept.” you state clearly getting annoyed of her. Sometimes you wonder to yourself if she actually has a life outside of school. You could never imagine that. There is reason why she’s a Ms. and not a Mrs.

“Do you think that is a full sentence?” she says in a irritated voice. When looking at her face you notice that she looks as red as a lobster. You find the comparison quite funny. If you really think about it she does have facial features that do resemble one.

“Yes.”

“Oh, so you want to give me attitude now?” She says in the most obnoxious way ever. At this point you just think she’s trying to get under your skin.

“What the hell? I’m not-“ you try to speak before Ms. Cordez interrupts you.

“We do not use this kind of language in this classroom.” She speaks with a pissy tone.

‘You’re being dramatic, you need to actually chill it’s not a big deal.”

“You do not tell me to chill. I am not your friend. I am your teacher. You need to learn some manners young lady. Detention after school.”

You give her a blank stare before walking to your seat. What a pleasant start to your day you think.

3:00 pm, school finally ended and you can see people heading out of there classes. Some heading out with their friends most likely having plans since it’s a Friday others just going home. You pull out your phone to text your friends.

You close your phone heading to Ms. Cordicks classroom to spend two hours of your life doing absolutely nothing. When you get there the first thing she has you do is check in and hand her your phone.

“You’ll get this back after you serve your time.”

You nod your head and find a table to sit at. Once you find a desk you bring out a notebook planning to just doodle instead of doing any actual work. Around 5 minutes later you see more students coming in you hope that none of them sit next to you. You never really liked the fact that she had table with chairs instead of just desks. Another 5 minutes later Ms. Cordez decides to speak.

“Seeing that everyone is here, I would like to say that I’m not going to be in the same room with you while you serve your time here. Instead I’ll be in another room with Mrs. Smith grading work together. I assume you won’t leave this room without your phones. I except you all to be doing work for the next two hours.” She’s says hastily before she walks out.

Once she leaves you see friends that were split up start getting up and sitting together. The news that she’s not going to be in this room doesn’t affect you at all. While you’re doodling you hear someone getting up. It doesn’t bother you since a lot of people are getting up right now and changing their seats. It doesn’t bother you until this person sits next to you. You stop doodling and look up at this person to only realize it was him. The kids older brother. Your “boyfriend”. Childe.

Prev||Masterlist||Next 2.5: Fuck you Ms. Cordick

Fun Facts:

Idk how to write accurate detention scenes since I’ve never gotten detention 😝😝😍😍

Idk how to write so don’t mind my bad writing

Ms. Cordez is my irl teacher I hate her sm praying on her downfall everyday 😍

Next chapter will probably be uploaded today and it’s gonna be majority writing 😝 be prepared for more of my bad writing 😍😍🔥🔥

No character fun facts this chapter 😔😞😣 the first half wants to be bold for some reason pls don’t mind it 😓😓

[lifeissimssnapshots]

Going Ape

*shout out to @dalekofchaos for the prompt*

His mind was filled with fleeting thoughts that morning as he walked to the girl’s dormitory. The Newberg drive-in was having a Planet of the Apes showing this week and he had already bought two tickets. His only issue was inviting the person he bought the second ticket for: Max. He wanted to ask her in the parking lot on Monday when she brought him his flash drive, but then that asshole Nathan Prescott entered the scene and tried threatening Max, giving him a black eye in the process. It didn’t seem like the right time to ask her then, but now he wanted to catch her early before anymore crazy shit happened.

Warren had fallen for her almost immediately when she arrived at Blackwell just a few weeks ago. Sure, there were a lot of girls at school who were cool or smart enough, and there was Brooke too (who he suspected might have a crush on him). But they paled in comparison to Max Caulfield. She was not only beautiful and talented, she was also kind, funny and had great taste in music and movies. She had surprised him when she mentioned that she had enjoyed watching Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, one of Warren’s favorite selections from his flash drive. She was the first person he thought of when the drive-in announced the showing of the Apes movie.

As she walked down the steps of the dorm entrance, he tried his best to play it cool, fidgeting with his phone. Her footsteps neared him and he looked up to meet her eyes.

“Warren! What’re you doing here?” She asked

“Oh, nothing-waiting. For a call? I mean, I already took the call..” Real smooth, idiot, he thought to himself. “Anyway, I wanted to rap about that action yesterday.”

“By the way, thank you for stepping in. You were pretty badass, Warren. I owe you”

“Oh yes, you do. I got knocked on my ass by that dick. I’m some personal superhero”

They continued to talk about Chloe and how she rescued Max from the chaos in the parking lot, leaving Warren to take the blow from Nathan. He was curious about the connection between Nathan and Max, but she was hesitant to disclose the reason for Prescott’s aggression, only that it wasn’t safe for Warren to get involved. The irony of the statement throbbed in Warren’s right eye.

“Weird fucking week. Like that bizarro snowfall yesterday. Speaking of dystopia, that drive-in is having a 70’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ marathon. Let’s ’Go Ape’!” He waited in anticipation for her response. Part of him was expectant of her turning the offer down given the situation in the parking lot and any other chaos that ensued from that interaction. The other part of him was hoping she would say yes, especially since he bought the tickets with her in mind.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I need. I love those old-school ape films” her answer eliciting his eyebrows to arch in excitement.

“Well, that was easier than I thought. Cool. I’ll text you the info” the words came out smoother than he had anticipated.

As she waved goodbye, he beamed with joy. He was excited at the prospect of being alone with her at the drive in. Would this be considered a date?

___________________________________________

The days before their outing went on as usual, classes beginning and ending, only now he had the excitement of going to the drive-in with Max. Right before science class on Thursday started, Max walked in and briefly talked to Ms. Grant about signing her surveillance petition. He admired the way she took the time to try and make a difference for others. She walked over to Warren’s lab table and he moved his things to make room for her.

“Hey Dr. Graham, did I miss anything?” He looked up in admiration at her beautiful freckled cheeks.

“Not a thing, just me and my bromies. Get it? We’re using Bromine today” his toothy grin shining up at her. They shared a laugh and started preparing materials for the lesson.

As Ms. Grant went on about electron configuration, Warren couldn’t help but give quick glances at his lab partner, taking note of how she bit her lip when she concentrated on the worksheet that was in front of her.

“So, for this problem, you just have to know the atomic mass and number of the element and subtract them” he moved his stool closer to her, nearly touching her hand while he wrote numbers on her paper. From the corner of his eye he could see the beginning of a blush spread across her face. He smiled in return and they continued listening to Ms. Grant, not wavering from their close proximity to each other. When class ended, he asked “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Of course, I’m still all in to go ape with you” her smile widening.

“Did you, erm, wanna have dinner before we get to the drive-in?” I should’ve waited to ask that, I’m so stu- , his thoughts interrupted

“Sure! But only if we can get some cheeseburgers. I’ve been wanting some since I saw someone order it at the Two Whales last week.”

“Your wish is my command, fair maiden. We should probably leave around 4 tomorrow if we wanna have enough time for dinner and to find a decent spot” audible excitement oozing from his words.

“I’ll be ready by then. It’s a date!” At the sound of her last sentence, Warren’s body froze, ignoring her wave as she left to her next class.

It’s a date. She said that it’s a date. I have to make sure everything is perfect for tomorrow. His thoughts scrambled as he gathered his belongings from the table, accidentally walking into the wrong class.

When he arrived to his room later that day, he noticed some new writing on his slate. He figured it was Nathan or Zachary writing something offensive and was pulling his sleeve down in preparation to erase it. To his surprise, it said “Are you made of Copper and Tellurium? Because you’re CuTe” written in the familiar handwriting that he looked at in Science class. A wide grin spread across his face as he pulled his phone out and entered his room.

Thanks for the writing on my slate, I’m never erasing it.

You can’t, it’s in permanent marker.

Kek :p Wanna meet in the parking lot tomorrow at 4?

Sounds good! ^_^ see you then xomaxo

___________________________________________

Friday morning came quick and since he didn’t have class until 11, Warren stayed in his dorm and finished all of his assignments for the day. He wanted as much time as possible to get ready for their date. He laid his outfit on his desk chair and looked for the directions to the cheeseburger joint near the drive-in.

4 o’clock rolled around and he pulled his phone out:

Hey Dr. Ape, I’m walking over to your new wheels in the parking lot. Be there in 5. xomaxo

My chariot awaits you, madam.

He leaned up against his blue coupe and watched as she approached across the lot. She was sporting a black t-shirt with a grey butterfly across the front paired with her usual denim.

“You look sharp, Warren G.!” She said, glancing at his 3D chicken t-shirt and jeans.

“Speak for yourself, Supermax! You look..great!” His voice slightly quaking. She always looked great in his eyes.

He opened her door and waited until she was inside before closing it. On their way, they talked about school, their families, and other movies and shows to add on Warren’s flash drive including the first season of Twin Peaks.

They pulled up to the restaurant and ordered before taking a seat at the booth.

“So..” he began

“So…are you excited for the showing?” she asked as she folded her hands on the table.

“Oh yeah! It’s a classic. The special effects makeup isn’t as impressive as it is in newer films, but it’s still way ahead of its time.”

“Let me guess, you’re a big Romero fan?”

“You have me pegged. He’s made some classics besides the Dawn of the Dead. We really should have a marathon in my room-“ he stopped himself. The implication of Max being in his room alone with him made him suddenly blush, on full display for her to witness.

They exchanged a long glance, neither stirring their fixed stare.

“I’m really glad you invited me to come with you Warren. I really needed to get out, but I also.. I want to spend more time with you.” Her words caused him to sit straight in his seat.

“You do?”

“Yeah, I really do. I owe you for saving me when Nathan tried attacking me. Sorry again for the eye.”

“As your personal bodyguard, it’s my job after all!” He said with his hands on his hips in superhero form.

They both laughed, and then he stared more intently before asking “But I do I have to ask you Max. Did you agree to come because you felt bad? Or because you wanted to spend time with me?” His heart was racing so fast in his chest, he could hear its beat in his eardrums. The question was risky. It’s what he wondered since she’d agreed to go with him earlier in the week.

“Warren, I-“ her words were interrupted by the waitress bringing their food. They paused their conversation to eat. When they were done, he stood to pay the bill. She interjected, trying to hand him money for her share.

“You said this was a date, so dinner’s on me” he said.

“I did say it was a date” recalling her own words. They walked to the car where they continued their previous conversation

“So as I was saying” she continued “I agreed to come tonight because I feel the same way you do”

He understood what she meant, but couldn’t believe it himself.

“You do?” He fought back a smile just in case she was mistaken.

“I..sort of, really like you Warren. That’s why I said yes, and why I wrote that note on your slate” now she was the one blushing.

“Wowzers Max, I guess I’m pretty dense. I didn’t know for sure how you felt, but I’m glad now we both know.”

As they started driving away, she placed her left hand into his right, locking fingers the rest of the way to the drive-in.

After gathering snacks from the concession stand, they moved their seats back and settled in for the movie. Warren tuned the car stereo to the radio station for the audio of the movie.

When the movie started, their hands found each other again. He could feel her eyes on him as she snuck glances in the dark. He met her gaze and smiled. Before he could process what to say, their faces inched closer and before long, the space between them was closed by their lips meeting. Their kiss was hesitant and gentle. They paused to look into each other’s eyes before their lips met again, this time achieving a deeper kiss.

The rest of the night consisted of periods of watching the film, gentle kisses, and caressing hands.

[arielaguire]

2024 - KNULL sketch card process! 😊 My favorite new Marvel villain from recent years, this was my very first time drawing him!

The Knull AP card I shared previously (from the Spider-man Renditions set) was actually my second attempt, where I tweaked a few things compared to this first one (see pics below for side-by-side comparisons)!

[erraticrandomficwriter]

While Ginny and the gang are hanging out in Brodie's basement, Alex finds herself in a situation she’s less than thrilled about. Hunter has been recruited into tutoring her, thanks to her so-called abysmal grades and nonexistent math participation. A little background to the following excerpt from Episode 2.

Alex repeatedly told her math teacher and guidance counselor that she didn't need tutoring, but they just pointed at her assignments and insisted. They even threatened to call her mother, Georgia, for a chat about next steps. Alex knew that bringing Georgia into this would lead to a lecture about her school performance and yet another comparison to Ginny. Though she doubted her mom even realized she was doing it, so she begrudgingly agreed to the tutoring. Again, it’s not like she needed it.

Alex plopped herself at a table by the window at Joe's Cafe, waiting for her tutor. She audibly groaned when she saw Hunter walking in. Sure, she knew that Hunter and Press were friends, but since Hunter dated Ginny, she figured Ginny would hear all about this.

"Hey, Alex," Hunter greeted with a friendly smile, setting his bag on the floor and sitting across from her. "I brought some practice pages for you to do so I can get a sense of your starting point, and we can go from there." He placed the papers and a pencil in front of her. "Do you have any questions before we get started?"

"Yeah, can we just pretend we did this whole tutoring thing so we can leave? I don't need tutoring, so you're just wasting your time." Alex’s annoyance was palpable.

Hunter looked at her supportively. "It's okay, Alex. Not everyone gets this, and if you're worried about me telling anyone, I won't."

Seeing the determination in Hunter’s eyes, Alex knew he wasn’t going to back down, so she begrudgingly started working on the sheets while he talked.

Hunter, thinking she was ignoring him and doodling, said, "I give you my word, I won't tell anyone you need tutoring." He added, "Could you at least try to be respectful and not doodle on the papers?"

"I'm not doodling," Alex retorted defensively. "I'm a horrible artist, so I don't doodle. And like I said, I don't need tutoring. It's not that I can't do it; I just don’t care to. If the teacher paid attention, she’d see that I deliberately do just enough to pass. Why put effort into something I don't care about? And before you start lecturing me on respect, that goes both ways. How about you respect me enough to, oh, I don’t know, believe me when I say I don't need this?" She didn’t even look up from the papers as she spoke, and when she finished, she slapped the practice sheets down in front of Hunter— all completed.

Hunter looked shocked, his eyes wide as he saw that every single answer was correct. He flipped through the pages, checking to make sure the answer key wasn’t mixed in. "How...what..." he stammered.

"I told you I didn't need tutoring," Alex said, smugly.

"You sure don't," he laughed. "But I don't get it—why don't you do the work if you can clearly do it? Why aren't you in AP Math, too?"

Alex sighed with an elaborate hand gesture. "Were you not listening? I don't care about Math or any other subject. I do just enough to not get held back and focus on what I like. No point in wasting time on the other stuff. Besides, Ginny's the brilliant one; I don’t need more comparisons." Her tone was high-pitched, dramatic, and a bit southern when she referred to Ginny.

Hunter was still processing everything. "You could literally get into any college..."

Alex practically leaped out of her chair to lean over the table and cover his mouth with her hand. "I've heard it all before—no intention of hearing it again. If you promise to hush and never bring it up again, I'll show gradual improvement or whatever. Deal?"

When Hunter nodded, she removed her hand, returned to her seat, and sighed. "So, now what? We can go, right?"

Hunter, needing to collect his hours, said, "Actually...could we work on something? Anything? Joe needs to sign off that I've been here tutoring, and I’m counting on these hours to..."

Alex held up her hand. "Say no more. Homework it is."

Hunter was surprised she agreed. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

Alex shrugged. "You don't annoy me as much as I thought you would, so no biggie."

Hunter looked amused and confused. "Thanks, I guess."

Alex set her homework down. "I don't particularly care for Ginny's friends, and you're part of that group, so I assumed you'd be as nail-on-a-chalkboard-esque as them."

"Press is friends with them, too," Hunter countered.

"His so-called friends called him a psycho sociopath and told me I could do better. You may be friends with them and Press may be friends with you, but those ladies are so not his friends," Alex said without hesitation.

Hunter took that into consideration. "Noted." He then spotted some music notes and lyrics on one of Alex's notebook pages. "You're a songwriter?"

Alex flipped the page and went back to her History assignment. "We're not friends enough to get into that."

Hunter held his hands up in a playful, dramatic 'I surrender' manner. He could definitely see why Press was so into Alex and hoped it’d work out for them.

[oheck-trainwreck]

Late breaking update on my AP art portfolio (which I decided to work on right before the QSMP exploded in fire), I got a 5! (Which, for any non-americans, is the highest score you can get)

The theme of my portfolio was 'The process of creating an animation,' and it explored character design, lipsyncing, and various methods that I used to tell a story through animation.

The characters and story I used was the events of Badboyhalo's egg streams, and specifically Dapper and Pomme, set to 'Will the Sun Ever Shine Again' from Home on the Range.

I never finished the animation, since i got very burnt out with the sheer volume of projects I was working on (I was in theater and also robotics, and several other AP classes), plus all the QSMP drama at the time. I think i'd like to finish it at some point, as a tribute to a phenomenal arc and the incredible acting from Lumi and Shade, but now is not the time. For now, please enjoy all of the pieces gathered together:

Storyboard

This is a scene-by-scene breakdown of the song, focusing on compositions, with little notes for movement and stuff.

2. Character Sketches

This was me figuring out the style I wanted to go for. I decided on something more cartoony than I'd normally use, so I needed to figure out how elements of their designs would translate.

3. Pomme's Reference Sheet

4. Dapper's Reference Sheet

5. Expressions Practice

Practice with the expressions that the babies would have throughout the animation (so they're all sad), + some poses to show the size comparison

6. Color Palette Experiments

Various possible color palletes, including monocromatic, dicromatic, and a fully colored version

7. Thumbnail

'Lineless style, vignette. Portrays isolation and mourning. Characters only have each other.' (-The description that I sent to the AP people for this piece)

8. Thumbnail sketches of all backgrounds

9. Lineart and Coloring Experiments

I couldn't submit gifs, so the AP people just got a png. L.

10. Lipsync tests

For a part of the song when Pomme would say the song lyrics out loud.

11. 3d House to help me draw backgrounds

This was technically a 2d portfolio, but backgrounds are hard so i made a version of the house to help me.

12. Practice using the reference in #11

This piece actually has a title: 'The Last Good Day' (okay im gonna go throw up now-)

13. 1 type of animation (Zoom Out)

14. 1 type of animation (Full body movement)

15. 1 type of animation (Smaller expressive movement)

...

I miss this project. I hope I can finish it someday.

[goldenpinof]

For the editing comparison, one example for me is the Incoherent video (edited by Kris) vs. pre-hiatus Santa Banter video.

Both are turn-based card games where they read stuff and think for the answer, but in the incoherent video, there’s a lot more jump cuts, zooms, edits etc. while they’re thinking whereas in santa banter, it was mostly just one extended clip from pre-reading card banter to post-answering banter. The incoherent video also cuts out a lot more of the parts where they’re pulling a card or switching an answered card for a new one. While those bits might not add much comedic value, I feel like they go a long way to make the video seem more chill and coherent in its entirety.

Also (this might just be my personal opinion) both dnp seem to talk in a more excited/exaggerated tone and cadence now? Especially in the shorter videos. They also tend to use more upbeat and prominent background music now for those, so with that and the editing combined a lot of the post hiatus videos end up feeling too quick-paced yet scattered to me :/

Cal @calvinahobbes this might be interesting to you :)

yeah, anon, i get what you mean. and thank you so much for giving an example and explaining it. content-wise Incohearent is the S tier video, editing-wise? not so much. that's what i meant when i said in tags "idc what they do now, old editing will always be there for me". post-hiatus ideas and content can be excellent, but if i feel like i have to chase the video because of the editing? bye. i'm not gonna return to it unless i need to (to take notes or gif). i have no desire to rewatch the majority of the new videos for the sake of rewatching. and i want to rewatch old videos quite frequently. maybe nostalgia plays into it as well, but also the knowledge that i won't see 100500 unnecessary jump cuts and will see the process of playing the games. even if it's slow sometimes, idc, i like the process.

and yeah, i also agree that they exaggerate more (tone and reactions). mostly Dan. i don't think i noticed Phil doing it (maybe because he does the same on the ap channel, and i just stopped pointing it out to myself). idk if Dan genuinely thinks that loud = funny, but unfortunately it doesn't usually work like that. and if he's trying to show sarcasm by exaggerating his reaction, it also doesn't always land. sometimes this loudness is on point, so i'm not saying "shut the fuck up". i'm just saying that i noticed the shift as well. he is acting on camera a little bit more, giving the people what they want. but sweetie, i don't want that. i want boring shit, i want him to yap about politics and injustice and his interests, watch the games load and pull cards.

genuinely praying for more streaming content, because that is unedited yapping and fuckups <3

[o-craven-canto]

An interesting census of the human genome (Domazet-Loso, T., & Tautz, D. (2008). An Ancient Evolutionary Origin of Genes Associated with Human Genetic Diseases): of about 22,800 genes in our genomes, apparently we share...

22,800 (100%) with apes, monkeys, and lemurs;

21,200 (93%) with other placentate mammals;

20,400 (89%) with marsupials and platypodes;

20,100 (88%) with birds and reptiles;

19,900 (87%) with amphibians;

19,800 (87%) with bony fish;

19,200 (84%) with sharks, rays, and lampreys;

18,500 (81%) with lancelets and sea squirts;

18,300 (80%) with starfish and sea urchins;

18,200 (80%) with mollusks and arthropods;

17,300 (76%) with corals and jellyfish;

15,300 (67%) with sponges;

14,600 (64%) with slime molds and mushrooms;

14,000 (61%) with plants and protozoans;

8000 (35%) with bacteria, and therefore all cellular life.

Note that this is only gene-level comparisons; the sequence of each gene also differs, and therefore nucleotide-level differences are much higher.

From what I find, there doesn't seem to be any whole gene unique to humans, though there are plenty of human-unique sequences.

Figure 2 shows the origin of 22,845 human genes plotted onto the 19 phylostrata (ps). Approximately 60% of them trace back to the origin of life and the emergence of eukaryotic cells (ps1 and ps2). These genes usually represent basic cellular functions, such as metabolic processes and transcriptional regulation. Another peak of gene emergence is associated with the evolution of multicellularity, shortly before the Cambrian explosion (ps6). Signaling processes such as G-protein–based signaling date back to this time. Smaller peaks are evident around the emergence of bony fish/tetrapoda (ps11 and ps12) and eutherian mammals (ps16). These peaks are mainly associated with the emergence of immunity-related genes. Finally, there is an additional peak around the emergence of primates (ps19), where genes involved in spermatogenesis and keratinization are enriched. About 13% of all genes in humans have emerged in the mammalian lineage (ps15 and later) and can therefore be considered to be orphans for this taxonomic group.

[schismusic]

THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 4: Coil, or: Better Git It in Your Soul

As I'm writing this piece, everyone who knows their shit is spasmodically waiting for the physical repress of Moon's Milk (In Four Phases) to hit store shelves, assuming they haven't bought it off the site. All the people who have been knowing their shit since before it was cool to do so already had the FLACs on their hard disk drives. Not to brag, but I'm part of that second group. I love gay people, I love Creative Commons licenses, I love what happens when you rub them together (in case you're wondering, you have a phenomenon called teenage lightning).

[As you're going to see throughout the piece, the remaster did come out, and it's glorious]

If you ask anyone they will probably tell you Horse Rotorvator is Coil's best, and it's not like they're wrong, but it may be a bit limiting. It goes about the same as Incunabula; refer back to the Autechre post for more clarification, but in short it's an incredibly good record that takes some extra work done in the present time because some of its sound palette choices end up making it sound a bit uncanny, if not dated. I'd rather not go with "dated" for this specific record simply because Scatology exists, and it doesn't get anymore '80s than that, not necessarily in a positive way. If we take out The Anal Staircase (by the way, great title, guys!) the rest of the tracks on Horse Rotorvator have some actually quite futureproof stuff going on, on average - sometimes bordering on prescient, like on Penetralia, just barely removed from 2010s brostep aggression, and sometimes I wish they had the hardware to process that stuff. But the big-ass reverb on the snare and percussion, the sheer nudity of the production, the way the orchestral bits and samples are integrated into the arrangements kind of make it sound like the record is striving really hard for a sound that simply could not be attained at the time of realization.

The great part is that literally nothing I said in this paragraph is a negative at all.

Compare Penetralia to, for instance, Restless Day from Scatology; or maybe even compare Ostia to Tenderness of Wolves. Both are great, sure, but while the Rotorvator just don't check out at times, the Scatology ones seem to have an expiration date written on them. Only one exception to this rule: At the Heart of It All. If I had to draw another comparison, this would probably link up to The First Five Minutes After Death, and this time it's the latter paling in comparison to the former. It sounds sickly and isolated in a special unique way, unable to fight back, devoid of any possible bite: it sounds like it saw the actual horse rotorvator, the Four Horsemen slitting the horses' throats and meshing the jawbones into a gigantic, earthshattering plough. Nothing exists beyond At the Heart of It All. Nothing survives.

Coil, after all, always flirted with a sense of profound despair, even at their funniest and most tongue-in-cheek. This is relevant: not many other bands of their era display, or even have, that same sense of humor about not just themselves but the whole world; consequently, not many have reached the same scope of intent, and the same successful realization of said intents, as Coil. Partially unrelated: one of my favourite stories about them is that one time in the early 2000s when the rest of the band couldn't find Jhonn Balance after a gig in Greece — I think at least, I'm going off the top of my head here — so on the following morning they were forced to board their plane to their next gig in mainland Europe without him. So as they're about to play the gig without him, seeing as he simply isn't there, magically he shows up, and nobody could even imagine how he'd managed to get there on time. At the time Jhonn was already having big trouble with alcohol, had already broken up with Peter Christopherson. Many of these things I came to know through some tried-and-true Coil obsessives, and there's apparently a lot of them around: people who exchanged correspondence, cassette tapes, memories with some of the collaborators in the band or even Balance and Christopherson themselves. There's basically an army of unauthorized Coil biographers out there. But staying more strictly on the point, it's impossible to separate Coil and the lives of those who made up Coil; therefore it is impossible to separate Coil and life itself.

Some of you may remember me mentioning the aborted Autechre/Coil collab back in episode one of this series. In that very same conversation, we had a really deep dive into how Coil's attraction to — mostly Western — esotericism, even the most downright evil and uncomfortable parts of it (how could we ever forget the iconic "the industrial use of semen will revolutionise the human race" shirt?), stemmed from a more general interest in the fullness of life; and the more I think about that, the more understandable Coil's visual fascination with nature is. Four EPs, one for each of the major sun-related astronomical events introducing the four seasons; the luscious woods on the covers of the two Musick to Play in the Dark records; the rocky cliffs and the goats being a perfect aesthetic fold to The Remote Viewer's abrasive/ascetic hurdy-gurdy drones. All of this accompanied to music that seems to strive for the most eldritch effect possible — in one way or another, Coil's sound design is like looking very, very, very deep into the bottom of an abyss of your choice simply for the fun of it, or rather for the curiosity, the doubt that something of incalculable value might lie down there. We as humans really enjoy getting to know stuff much more than we enjoy actually knowing stuff, the progress of process is much more enticing to us than the staticity of completion. Coil still sound, twenty years after Balance's death and almost fifteen years after after Christopherson's death, like they are disciples. They listen just as much as we do.

And this predisposition to listen is specifically what makes them particularly apt at speaking, too. Coil express depth because they feel deeply, ultimately, and they don't fear emotion — any emotion. Which means they are just at ease analysing the diffusion of gossip and its subsequent deformation and bloating as they are discussing alcoholism and the search for oblivion, and what's better: these topics are discussed in two sister tracks (namely Red Queen and Ether). Both tracks, alienated from the context of their respective records, sound like relatively soothing jazzy piano ballads with some lunatic saying the most out-of-pocket shit possible on top of them, and some pretty fucked up background noises going on, Red Queen being the easiest possible application of this concept. But the effect gets somehow creepier when Jhonn Balance actually introduces a recognizable melody into the mix. This is probably the best moment to talk about Jhonn Balance's voice.

If I'd talked to Dog about this piece, they probably would once again link me to Drew Schorno's piece about "vestigial shamans" (you can find it here). Balance's singing is not about technique, but at the same time it's not as simple as the boomer-like concept of mojo, either. Balance could barely carry a melody through most of the time, to a point where some Coil tracks sound like they'd benefit heavily from a guest vocalist; early on, I believe, Coil — perhaps Balance himself — must have been convinced that was the case too, and for proof just look at the plethora of external one-off collaborators brought in the fold (among many notable names, one stands tall: the legendary JG Thirlwell). Then you try to actually substitute Balance, or maybe even sing your own version of the track, and it doesn't work anymore*. It simply stops being compelling in a way that is very hard to quantify. Yet another name popping up from the Autechre piece, i.e. that of Tom Waits: it's that lived-life element mixed with the more strictly performance-related aspects of vocal interpretation that makes the difference, sure, but it's about how you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. Tom Waits achieves this by virtue of his life-long effort to turn into his own character, i.e. by way of sheer commitment to the bit if you're so inclined; Jhonn Balance — ironic that, of these two, he should be the one using an actual pseudonym — does that by simply being a vestigial shaman, a person so profoundly wired for jumping in and out of some other world that he seemed, for better or for worse, to be unable to stop doing that.

*There is, of course, only one exception to this rule, and that is Rose McDowall, i.e. most likely a vestigial shaman herself, at least judging by her Facebook. I am lucky enough to be her virtual friend on there, and she seems like an incredibly endearing person — speaking frankly, I'd love to buy her a drink and have a conversation at one point…

The shamanicity (is that even a word?) of Coil is stunningly matched by the sound design and production: so materic it's tangible, so abstract it forces you to wonder what's on the other side of the door. You don't always want to know. In the summer of 2016 I was listening to Batwings in a dark room, for some reason, and there was a crucifix in this room; I shone a flashlight on it and the crucifix projected its shadow on the wall and at that point I very distinctly felt something powerfully trying to make its way through my ribs, into my chest. I immediately left the room. To this day this remains the sole thing in my entire life that made me firmly and unequivocally grasp possibilities beyond what we see normally. And as much as I love waxing poetic over Balance's lyrics and vocals, in this case I believe it was mostly the repetitive, simple keyboard figure — it's almost as if they'd managed to shrink down a church organ and you could now play it, volume obviously adjusted for size, within your breast pocket. But the whole array of clicks and pops, or the insanely advanced vocal processing, displayed throughout the Musick to Play in the Dark/Moon's Milk era really elevates the composition and arrangements to new heights, making them a true spectacle to listen to even on the most low-specs sound systems.

The beautiful thing is that Coil doesn't necessarily need the extra bells and whistles and, more importantly, that they know when and where to use them. This is on display throughout most of their discography, but nowhere is it clearer than on The Ape of Naples, a posthumous record that is entirely built to represent Balance's aural eulogy. One of the most overlooked tracks on the record, I'd argue, is Tattooed Man, basically a simple pop song revolving around laid-back percussion and a simple accordion melody — until, of course, Balance himself intervenes almost shouting a tale of dead lookalikes, of love and hate, of self-image and acceptance (or lack thereof) of finality. It's hard to explain why this track would be more touching to me than the more openly emotional Fire of the Mind (link) (which has one of the best opening verses in the history of recorded music, if you ask me) or Going Up (my main issue with this one is that it comes after Teenage Lightning and Amber Rain, both incredible tracks that scarred me for life — in a positive way, but I do realize its necessity in the economy of the full record of course. It just is). I guess it's touching to find that at the end of the line, even resolute spiritworld straddlers get a bit scared of their own powers. But after all, the main requisite for being a shaman is feeling more than the others — being, maybe, more human than the others.

[sweet-symphony0]

1, 4, 10, and 15 for any of your fics you want to talk about!

1. What is a piece of symbolism in your fic?

Oh, this is a good one! I had to go back and reread all my fics to find something but-

In Dance Me to the End of Love, it’s definitely Joe’s ballet shoes. He keeps them with him even after he quits, he brings them everywhere he goes, because to him, it’s a (physical) symbol of something he lost, but something he’s also loved and desperately clinging onto in the hopes that he can get back to. And while he doesn’t ever throw those shoes out, or ever wear them again, they’re a keepsake of his old life, a reminder of what was, and what could have been.

4. What's something you've researched but haven't incorporated into your fic?

So much for Legacy, I can’t even list it all, though most of it was incorporated. The research I did for that story pales in comparison to anything I’d done prior.

-I researched directors and what films they’d done before, because I wanted to make sure the (real) director I chose in the end would be good for a teacher biopic, even though I ultimately went with Sam Esmail, selfishly.

-I looked at the studios and their execs, to make sure I had the names and job positions right.

-I already knew how to make a budget, so everything in chapter three and four is fairly accurate, but researched what the process would be once the budget was made and how films get made and funded.

-I looked at Hamlet again since the first time in over a decade, to make sure I knew it well enough to explain Rami being able to teach it; I looked at which monologues I wanted and what I felt would be the one to include in the end. For him to teach it, I had to teach it myself, and I looked at curriculum for 10th and 11th grade AP English courses.

-The Belasco theatre is a real theatre in LA, and it’s where the wrap party for Raising Ambition is held. I can’t tell you how many tabs I had open to research venues, how big the capacity was for each place, and if they allowed kids (this story is fictional, I know).

10. What is your favourite au? Have you written anything for it?

It’s the same as the one I listed above: I would say my dance AU, where Joe is a professional ballet dancer to leave it behind to go into acting, really is one of my favorites. I’ll never finish that fic, but damn is it good, and boy am I proud of it. You can find that here.

15. Tell us a fun fact about your fic/wip!

I’ve talked about this before, but in all my twin Tuesday fics, at some point in the story, those twins share a moment where one of them squeezes the other’s wrist, in a silent gesture of affection. It’s an “I got you,” gesture, and I love writing it in and seeing if anyone picks up on it.

Similarly, in all my mazlek fics, the first article of clothing Joe almost always removes from what Rami is wearing, is his bow tie. That one isn’t planned, but I love the image of it every time, it’s very sexy and sensual and intimate.

Lastly- I wrote Home is with You, because I had awful, awful period cramps one time, and decided my way of dealing with it was Joe being miserable with nearly the same agony, and had Rami come to his rescue 😂

———

Sorry this is so long, but this was a treat! Thank you for asking!!

[mwolf0epsilon]

Writing Like Ourselves Tag Game

Tagged by @patchmates , hi there Kit! I think you missed the last Frogma Friday...

---

1. what's your Shire? as in: what's a place you remember fondly and love? (or: some place you hated, some place vivid to you, etc.)

It's... Complicated.

The one thing that comes to mind is my childhood home, a place where I lived for for the great majority of my life, and that I was forced to move out of because of circumstances outside of my control. I remember the 7th floor apartment, I remember crappy elevators, the street I grew up in, the people, and most of all I remember the person who owned this house and loved it more than anyone else.

It's not the place itself I love, but the memories. Because that's really all that's left of it. Memories. My grandmother's house is no more.

The place became a shitty AirBnB last I checked...

2. what is your Hobbit culture? as in: values were you brought up in, culture you grew up with, etc.

I was raised by my grandma, an atheist and hardworking Portuguese lady who, despite her shortcomings, did care a lot about her grandkids and tried to do her best so we could all thrive, with mixed results (none of us are well adjusted but at least one of my sisters is doing pretty well and my brother is a work in progress that I am POURING my everything into as his caretaker). My mom worked a lot (and it kind of destroyed her but she's rebuilding herself) so I never really had much of a bond with her up until recent events forced us to become a little closer.

Overall we were never really a conventional or traditional Portuguese household. My grandma divorced, my mother never married, and both were breadwinners rather than relying on the men in their lives. In comparison with my younger sister's boyfriend's family, we're kind of a circus act. I don't know any other life.

I guess the core values I grew up with are be careful who you trust and working hard doesn't always help you climb the ladder.

3. who is your Tom Bombadil? as in: a character you loved as a child, in existence or from your imagination, a figure that took place in a lot of your play, etc.

This is gonna sound weird but... I don't really remember. I recall having a lot of cartoon characters that I absolutely loved as a kid, and that heavily influenced my aspirations and tastes. But the more I try to think about it, the more of a blank I draw?

Come to think of it, there's a lot about my childhood besides school trauma that I can't remember... Uh...

4. what are your elves and dwarves? as in: something you studied or know a lot about, something you can geek out about, etc.

Animal facts, dinosaurs, monster design, disasters and True Crime.

I was a VERY weird kid with some odd interests, but I liked to learn about stuff like evolution, speculative evolution, why accidents/infrastructural disasters happen and why people sometimes just do horrible things.

I guess it was just my way of trying to understand the world and be less afraid of things. Except people. I am still absolutely terrified of people.

5. what are your middle earth languages? as in: something you have expertise in due to a career, a hobby, something you love, etc.

I guess monster design?

It's the one thing that never fails me in terms of my artistic skills. I get really into the whole process, and it's absolutely a sign of love when I make a specific character I like into a horrifying/deadly monster. Because everyone deserves to go a little ape on occasion and look absolutely cool while doing so.

6. what are your themes? as in: something you've grown up knowing, like loss, something you know intimately, something you know because of your area/history/ time/era, etc.

Grief. I've come to realize a lot of what I do comes down to grief, grieving and accepting daily losses and the death of aspirations. Between every crappy thing that's happened to me and my family, and how much I have had to give up to be able to help keeping everything going steady?

I used to think being so self-sacrificing would make me stronger. Honestly it's only made me weaker and more afraid. Maybe a little disillusioned too (a lot of things I wanted to do, I've given up on because I realize they were just pipe-dreams). But at least I am still relatively nice.

So I guess even if I've been trampled on by life in general, I at least come out on top knowing there's a ton of assholes out there who really just chose to be assholes instead of being kind, and honestly I feel no pity for them.

7. what is your moral of the story? as in: a guiding value, a life motto, faith/spirituality, etc.

Don't be a belligerent asshole just because life hasn't been fair to you. Things have been hard. Racism and bigotry have been on the rise, and it's easy to give in and start nipping and biting at each other over the most trivial of things because it feels good to lash out after being tormented so much.

The world isn't gonna get any better if you're just as mean as the son of a bitch that yelled at you for this or that reason.

Don't give in. Take a few steps back. Take a few deep breaths. Stay level-headed and don't fight fire with fire. Unless you're taking on a neo-nazi, in which case break their goddamn teeth and set an example for the rest of them. Those fuckers can't be reasoned with.

These questions became a little personal, but it feels good to talk about it rather than glossing it over I suppose... Anywho, here come the usual no pressure tags: @gaeasun @milfcutlawquane @stormyblue90 @waterlilyspad @squirrelno2 and @alexeithegoat

[say-duhnelle]

@official-kircheis (and @ot3 if you agree) there is a MAJOR difference between using a calculator to do the arithmetic quickly on a problem where you still have to comprehend the question being asked, set up the solution correctly, and do some of the algebra and simplification yourself so the problem can be entered in a form the calculator can solve, and just dumping your essay prompt into ChatGPT and letting it make the decision about what your opinion even is, as well as what evidence you will use to defend it, what phrasing you will use, and so on. One of these is using the labor-saving device to do the slow tedious stuff so that the assignment can focus on your ability to actually understand the mathematics being taught, and the other is using the labor-saving device to skip out on doing the assignment entirely, do you understand that?

Not to mention - with very few exceptions, any highschool and higher level math exams set by competent instructors will also have a "non-calculator" portion that uses problems with conveniently easy arithmetic so the focus is entirely on the student's ability to do math and not their ability to work a calculator. This includes the SAT and AP exams, at least when I took them.

Anyway - I've never seen ANYTHING out of an LLM that sounded like it was written by someone more advanced than a moderately intelligent highschool sophomore. The sentence structure is always very simple, the vocabulary is pretty limited (as you would expect from a machine that basically functions by choosing the most popular word to come next), and it's more suited to the book-report type "here is what happened in this text" than any sort of actual analysis or synthesis of themes in literature or historical events or philosophical arguments or whatever. So even if having ChatGPT do all the work for you does somehow equate to actually learning the information (it doesn't), it won't get you past the 10th grade (or really past the 8th grade if you want to be a straight-A honors student).

Unfortunately for the mindset of many on Tumblr, sometimes doing something right and in a way that lasts DOES actually take effort from the person trying to do it, and the accompanying discomfort (whether that be physical or mental) just has to be borne. That's just life on Planet Earth, regardless of what you pursue in it. Yes, there are disabilities that make this harder. The proper way to accommodate folks with those disabilities is not letting them skip out on the learning process entirely by outsourcing it to a computer that they won't even take with them all their lives, but to give instruction and assignments that are appropriate for the level where they are and what they can handle (or, in some cases, to give resources that allow them to work on the same level as the abled e.g. assignments in Braille or a reader for a vision-impaired student). Then grade based on how well they learn that rather than in comparison to the abled.

every time i see a post about not using chatgpt or other LLMs for work/school that boils down to 'convenience is morally wrong and desiring it degrades the entire human race' rather than 'these things fabricate details and are not reliable tools for synthesizing information' i lose another year off of my life

[govindhtech]

AMD EPYC 9575F Vs Intel Core i5 14600K Features, Use Cases

Core i5 14600K vs AMD EPYC 9575F

Understanding how and why Intel's Core i5 leads the desktop CPU market and AMD's EPYC leads the server market is crucial. We compare AMD EPYC 9575F vs Intel Core i5-14600K architecture, performance, power, memory, and use case benefits.

Audience and Use Case

AMD EPYC 9575F

Designed for cloud, data centre, and corporate workloads.

For scientific computing, data analytics, virtualisation, high-volume multitasking, and machine learning.

Ideal for multi-socket servers, not PCs.

Core i5-14600K

Targeting home/office users, multimedia creators, and gamers.

Good for productivity tools, web development, gaming, and little content.

DIY PCs and consumer desktops.

Architecture Foundation

AMD EPYC 9575F

Built on TSMC's 5nm node using Zen 4 architecture.

Genoa family member with 128 threads and 64 cores.

An IOD and numerous CCDs make up its chiplet design.

Supports PCIe 5.0, SME/SEV encryption, and AVX-512 on a big I/O system.

Core i5-14600K

Raptor Lake uses Intel 7 (10nm Enhanced SuperFin).

A hybrid core architecture with 14 cores and 20 threads (8 efficiency, 6 performance).

Intel's Thread Director improves core-wide job scheduling.

PCIe 5.0/4.0, DDR4/DDR5, and integrated UHD Graphics 770 are supported.

Conclusion: EPYC 9575F is for scale and throughput, whereas i5-14600K is for desktop multitasking and real-time responsiveness.

Comparison of Performance

Performance Multi-Core

The EPYC 9575F excels at thread-intensive tasks. With Cinebench R23, multi-core points exceed 90,000.

Easily manages hundreds of workloads, containers, or virtual machines.

Despite being weaker than EPYC's server processors, the Core i5-14600K scores 26,000 in Cinebench R23 multi-core.

Single-Core Performance

With its 5.3 GHz boost clock, the Core i5-14600K outperforms EPYC in single-threaded jobs

While the EPYC's single-thread performance is great (4.1 GHz boost), it cannot match the i5's high-frequency P-cores in latency-sensitive workloads like gaming.

Conclusion: EPYC excels at parallel workloads, whereas i5 excels in latency-sensitive, real-time applications like desktop programs and gaming.

Memory Capability

AMD EPYC 9575F

DDR5 ECC 12-channel registered memory compatible.

Supports 4TB RAM per socket and offers good bandwidth.

Data integrity is guaranteed by ECC for mission-critical systems.

Core i5-14600K

Motherboards support dual-channel DDR5-5600 or DDR4-3200.

Maximum non-ECC capacity is 128GB, enough for user workloads.

ECC is unsuitable for memory-critical settings since it is not supported.

Conclusion: EPYC has greater memory and integrity, which servers need. Core i5 is useful for desktop apps.

Extension and PCIe Lanes

EPYC 9575F

Network cards, accelerators, multi-GPUs, and high-speed storage arrays benefit from 128 PCIe 5.0 lanes.

Max I/O throughput was the design aim.

Core i5-14600K

20 lanes: 4 NVMe SSD and 16 GPU PCIe 4.0/5.0.

More than enough for most creative and gaming endeavours.

Less extensible than server CPUs.

Conclusion: EPYC allows rapid expansion and connectivity. The Core i5 is sufficient for modern desktops.

Power and cooling needs

EPYC 9575F

High-performance liquid or air cooling is needed for 360W rack-mounted servers.

Processing density and throughput justify high power consumption.

Core i5-14600K

Base power is 125W and maximum turbo power is 181W.

Easy cooling using AIO coolers or consumer air.

Much more power-efficient daily operations.

Final verdict: i5 is the more power-efficient desktop processor. EPYC needs business cooling infrastructure.

Platform/Socket Compatibility

EPYC 9575F

On server-quality motherboards like Genoa, use socket SP5.

Advanced VRMs, ECC memory, and enterprise power supply are needed.

Made for custom blade systems or 1U/2U server chassis.

Core i5-14600K

Compatible with LGA 1700 Z690, B660, and Z790 motherboards.

Plug-and-play for gamers, content creators, and system builders.

Conclusion: end customers will find i5 more approachable. EPYC systems are only for enterprise and OEM manufacturers.

Integrated Graphics, Features

EPYC 9575F

Most servers need standalone graphics or headless mode to leverage an integrated GPU.

Computation requires GPU accelerators like AMD Instinct or NVIDIA A100.

Core i5-14600K

Equipped with Intel UHD Graphics 770.

Allows display output, light operations, and rudimentary graphics acceleration.

Conclusion: EPYC is for compute or GPU-accelerated settings, whereas Core i5 can handle unusual arrangements.

Pricing and Value Proposition

EPYC 9575F

Between $10,000 to $11,000 USD.

Has high computational density, long-term scalability, and top socket performance.

Unsuitable for casual use.

Core i5-14600K

Between $300-$350 USD.

Excellent value, especially for productivity and gaming.

Perfect price, power, and versatility.

Conclusion: i5 offers unmatched value, whereas EPYC gives data centres tremendous ROI.

[anshikaila1811]

Seamless Travel Made Simple: How Travelport API is Revolutionizing Online Bookings

The way we travel has transformed dramatically over the past decade. Long gone are the days of walking into a travel agency and flipping through catalogs to plan a trip. Today, everything is just a few clicks away, and technology is at the heart of this revolution. But have you ever wondered what makes all these seamless bookings and real-time price comparisons possible? The answer lies in API integration, and one of the biggest players in this space is Travelport API.

If you're a travel business looking to level up your services, or a curious traveler interested in how your bookings work behind the scenes, stick around. We're about to dive deep into the world of Travelport API and how it's redefining the way we explore the world!

What is Travelport API?

Think of Travelport API as the magic that happens when different travel services—flights, hotels, car rentals, and more—connect in one place. Travelport, a leading Global Distribution System (GDS), provides this technology, allowing online travel agencies (OTAs), travel startups, and businesses to access a global inventory of travel services in real time.

With Travelport API, travel businesses can integrate flight search engines, hotel booking platforms, and even rental car services seamlessly. This means customers get a faster, smarter, and more convenient booking experience. No more switching between multiple websites—everything is streamlined into a single platform.

Why Travelport API is a Game-Changer for Travel Businesses

So why is Travelport API such a big deal? Here are some key benefits that make it a must-have for travel businesses:

✅ Access to a Massive Inventory: Instantly connect with thousands of airlines, hotels, and car rental services worldwide.

✅ Real-Time Data & Pricing: No more outdated information—everything is updated instantly to provide the best available rates.

✅ Automation & Efficiency: Automates bookings, cancellations, and modifications, saving time and reducing human errors.

✅ Seamless User Experience: Ensures a smooth and fast booking process, keeping travelers happy and engaged.

✅ Competitive Edge: Stay ahead in the travel industry by offering a more advanced, tech-driven booking system.

For travel businesses, this means higher customer retention, improved revenue streams, and a smoother operational workflow.

How Travelport API Works

Let’s break it down in simple terms. Integrating Travelport API into a travel platform involves these key steps:

🔹 Authentication & API Setup – Businesses get access credentials to connect with the Travelport system.

🔹 Search & Booking Engine – Users can browse flights, hotels, and car rentals in real time.

🔹 Payment Integration – Secure transactions allow users to pay online without hassle.

🔹 User-Friendly UI/UX – A well-designed interface ensures a smooth booking experience.

🔹 Testing & Deployment – The system is optimized before going live to provide a seamless customer journey.

In short, the API acts as a bridge between travel suppliers and customers, ensuring a fast, reliable, and automated booking experience.

The Future of Travel Technology with Travelport API

The travel industry is evolving at lightning speed, and Travelport API is at the forefront of this transformation. With artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics being integrated into travel platforms, the future of booking is becoming smarter and more personalized than ever before.

Imagine a world where:

✔️ Your booking platform suggests flights based on your past travel history.

✔️ AI predicts the best time to book flights for the lowest price.

✔️ Voice assistants help you plan an entire trip without lifting a finger.

Sounds futuristic? Well, it’s happening sooner than you think!

Why Travelport API Integration is a Must for Travel Startups & OTAs

If you’re running a travel startup or an online travel agency (OTA), integrating Travelport API isn’t just an option—it’s a necessity. With competition in the travel sector growing rapidly, businesses need to adopt advanced technologies to stay relevant and profitable.

Here’s why startups and OTAs should invest in Travelport API:

🔸 Speed & Efficiency – Get a ready-to-use solution instead of building a booking system from scratch.

🔸 Scalability – Expand your services without the headache of complex technical changes.

🔸 Better Customer Experience – Offer faster bookings, competitive pricing, and real-time availability.

🔸 Increased Revenue – More efficient operations lead to higher conversions and better profit margins.

For any travel business that wants to thrive in the digital world, Travelport API is a gateway to success.

Final Thoughts: The Power of API-Driven Travel

Technology is changing the way we explore the world, and integrations like Travelport API integration are leading the charge. Whether you're a traveler looking for seamless bookings or a business aiming to enhance its services, understanding the power of APIs is key to staying ahead in the modern travel industry.

As more companies adopt AI-driven, real-time, and data-powered travel solutions, the experience of booking trips will only get better. And if you’re a travel business? It’s time to embrace the future and integrate smart travel solutions that take your platform to the next level!