#Care(Issue)

[gatoburr0]

One day I am gonna grow wings.

[inkskinned]

i have chronic pain. i am neurodivergent. i understand - deeply - the allure of a "quick fix" like AI. i also just grew up in a different time. we have been warned about this.

15 entire years ago i heard about this. in my forensics class in high school, we watched a documentary about how AI-based "crime solving" software was inevitably biased against people of color.

my teacher stressed that AI is like a book: when someone writes it, some part of the author will remain within the result. the internet existed but not as loudly at that point - we didn't know that AI would be able to teach itself off already-biased Reddit threads. i googled it: yes, this bias is still happening. yes, it's just as bad if not worse.

i can't actually stop you. if you wanna use ChatGPT to slide through your classes, that's on you. it's your money and it's your time. you will spend none of it thinking, you will learn nothing, and, in college, you will piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars. you will stand at the podium having done nothing, accomplished nothing. a cold and bitter pyrrhic victory.

i'm not even sure students actually read the essays or summaries or emails they have ChatGPT pump out. i think it just flows over them and they use the first answer they get. my brother teaches engineering - he recently got fifty-three copies of almost-the-exact-same lab reports. no one had even changed the wording.

and yes: AI itself (as a concept and practice) isn't always evil. there's AI that can help detect cancer, for example. and yet: when i ask my students if they'd be okay with a doctor that learned from AI, many of them balk. it is one thing if they don't read their engineering textbook or if they don't write the critical-thinking essay. it's another when it starts to affect them. they know it's wrong for AI to broad-spectrum deny insurance claims, but they swear their use of AI is different.

there's a strange desire to sort of divorce real-world AI malpractice over "personal use". for example, is it moral to use AI to write your cover letters? cover letters are essentially only templates, and besides: AI is going to be reading your job app, so isn't it kind of fair?

i recently found out that people use AI as a romantic or sexual partner. it seems like teenagers particularly enjoy this connection, and this is one of those "sticky" moments as a teacher. honestly - you can roast me for this - but if it was an actually-safe AI, i think teenagers exploring their sexuality with a fake partner is amazing. it prevents them from making permanent mistakes, it can teach them about their bodies and their desires, and it can help their confidence. but the problem is that it's not safe. there isn't a well-educated, sensitive AI specifically to help teens explore their hormones. it's just internet-fed cycle. who knows what they're learning. who knows what misinformation they're getting.

the most common pushback i get involves therapy. none of us have access to the therapist of our dreams - it's expensive, elusive, and involves an annoying amount of insurance claims. someone once asked me: are you going to be mad when AI saves someone's life?

therapists are not just trained on the book, they're trained on patient management and helping you see things you don't see yourself. part of it will involve discomfort. i don't know that AI is ever going to be able to analyze the words you feed it and answer with a mind towards the "whole person" writing those words. but also - if it keeps/kept you alive, i'm not a purist. i've done terrible things to myself when i was at rock bottom. in an emergency, we kind of forgive the seatbelt for leaving bruises. it's just that chat shouldn't be your only form of self-care and recovery.

and i worry that the influence chat has is expanding. more and more i see people use chat for the smallest, most easily-navigated situations. and i can't like, make you worry about that in your own life. i often think about how easy it was for social media to take over all my time - how i can't have a tiktok because i spend hours on it. i don't want that to happen with chat. i want to enjoy thinking. i want to enjoy writing. i want to be here. i've already really been struggling to put the phone down. this feels like another way to get you to pick the phone up.

the other day, i was frustrated by a book i was reading. it's far in the series and is about a character i resent. i googled if i had to read it, or if it was one of those "in between" books that don't actually affect the plot (you know, one of those ".5" books). someone said something that really stuck with me - theoretically you're reading this series for enjoyment, so while you don't actually have to read it, one would assume you want to read it.

i am watching a generation of people learn they don't have to read the thing in their hand. and it is kind of a strange sort of doom that comes over me: i read because it's genuinely fun. i learn because even though it's hard, it feels good. i try because it makes me happy to try. and i'm watching a generation of people all lay down and say: but i don't want to try.

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[piesafterdark]

I hope riot drops arcane 2, the longer, not cut version of arcane. All deleted scenes, the originals of shortened scenes, extra episodes if need be. It's such an incredible world and it sucks they had to cut things down, especially since this may be the last we ever see of these characters.

[paperplanes134]

You are not responsible for meeting everyone's expectations. Let them be disappointed.

[ifyoucandaniel]

this is so stupid but here’s a little comic i made for a little bingo au me and @twisted-tales-told came up with a few weeks ago. pretty much just the idea that jason needed a cover at some point and stumbled in on bingo night and was quickly adopted by the little old ladies there. now he plays every friday and has beef with dora and gets sent home with banana bread :) clara is trying to set him up with her grandson and all of her problems with her land lord have mysteriously been solved :))

being involved in his community is very important to jason and he loves seeing them host community events bc it feels like his home is healing

bonus: none of the bats have the faintest idea what Jason does in his spare time aside from babs and dick is so butthurt he wasn’t invited (not pictured: nightwing outside the bingo hall window looking in look a kicked puppy while jason flips him off)

(this is my first comic pls be nice it’s just a sketch)

[akanemnon]

Chara knows something that we don't, methinks...

BONUS COMIC

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[magnetic-rose]

thunderbolts fandom only existing for like... four days and already having so much absurd and annoying shipping discourse is just another side-effect of this enshittification of fandom that's been happening since *check notes* voltron and the pandemic imo.

but one of the most annoying recent fandom trends is forcing characters into this nuclear family dynamic and the way it's made shipping discourse unbearable. "alexei's the dad, bob yelena and ava are the big siblings and bob is the little brother," on paper, is a harmless headcanon. the problem is the weaponization of these family headcanons to fuel ship wars.

bob and yelena have a deep bond in thunderbolts. you can interpret it as a sibling dynamic. you can also interpret it as romantic or queerplatonic or literally whatever you want. the problem is the same people who call bob yelena's "little brother" are simultaneously saying that any romantic interpretation of their characters is "incestuous weirdo behavior."

like, can we not?

and while boblena is the ship that's taking the most heat right now, i've been seeing hostility towards any variation of any thunderbolts ships. john/ava, john/bob, bucky/alexei, bob/void (which, lmfao, is SUCH a typical ship to me that people getting up in arms about it just proves we've let too many normies into fandom spaces). even yelena/kate is catching strays right now. and it doesn't have to be this way.

again, can we not? just say you're not into any of the ships and move on with your life.

these are not siblings. these are grown adults who grew to care about each other after experiencing traumatic events. "found family" trope has gotten so out of control it genuinely makes fandom less fun.

[maeo-png]

peter lukas enjoyers how are we feeling tonight

[zaahvi]

GLORY TO THE RISEN GODS

[chongoblog]

Being in America is super fun because you get to see Trump going up against Biden in a presidential election with both of them being dogshit options, mass protests against what should very obviously be seen as an injustice that spits in the face of what you were told your country stands for, except the government disagrees, using the power of the militarized state to brutalize protestors, all the while people spread malicious lies regularly with millions believing their every word(a lot of it being thanks to some rich freak on Twitter). Also, the economy is doing pretty damn poor and you see media sources tell you to sacrifice your well-being all while the ultra rich get richer and richer.

And then after you're done with 2020, you get to do it again four years later

[kettle-bird]

Don’t be Fran-tic… If you're Jones-ing for a good time... Remember to Bea... Joyful!

(This update was so good it finally got me to do fanart for this project I LOVE these guys)

[pvtpunsart]

evil donnie doodle because i gotta

[quarkfancam]

congratulations to voyager for portraying the first gay teenager homophobic parent relationship through 2 middle aged guys played by the same guy at the same time

[nenoname]

he's still so funny for this cos like is this his default way of comforting people?

"yeah shit might suck right now but i might rip apart the universe soon so hey! your problems will seem small in comparison! ...probably!"

[mohntilyet]

still i think the one of the more fun differences drawn between illario and lucanis that was lost would be illario's ability to endear himself to others but serious lack of empathy, vs. lucanis' (self perceived) inability to be charming but how much he cares. it's interesting that the game has gone with the "lucanis' ability vs illario's lack thereof" because i think illario being the dellamorte 'best in show dog' vs. lucanis' attack dog would have made me so unwell.

lucanis is... awkward. he's not unlikable, because he is usually very polite, but he doesn't speak much and only seems to care about the other dellamortes. he once sent viago de riva a knife with no note (who knows what he could have meant by this). he does what caterina asks of him, and by his own admission, cannot say no to her. he is a dramatic and prolific killer, and that makes how untouchable he is even worse.

and the crows like illario, sure, AND he's a good assassin! he's even a good crow! he's so good that he can make lucanis smile, and so he is the charming, sociable one. he's the one that stays in treviso and can be relied upon to care, illario's even the one people prefer over caterina and lucanis!

but illario is decoration. he's the prize poodle, and even if poodles were bred to be working dogs, nobody will ever pick him to protect the house over the german shepherd that regularly mauls intruders. anyways the analogy is getting away from me. the point i'm trying to make is that i want illario to have a different kind of jealousy/hatred that's not just over 'being bad at killing' but also an arrogant loathing for everyone around him that is getting harder to hide, because they've forgotten he can bite and is just itching to rip someone's jugular out. illario is very good at hiding his family resemblance to caterina, while lucanis suffers under his grandmother's, and his own, reputation.