#Looking for Cleaning Company

[glowsticcc]

general fandom consensus over the past couple days

[kissdeficiency]

“You no longer have any obligation to see me, to touch me, to bed me, you are . . . you are free of me!”

“Let me hold you, keep you close to me, I long to hear your voice . . .”

[astragatwo]

The new W Corp besties

[angiestown]

[awkward-teabag]

I have to wonder how many people celebrating AI translation also complain about "broken English" and how obvious it is something was Google translated from another language without a fluent English speaker involved to properly clean up the translation/grammar.

Because I bet it's a lot.

I know why execs are all for it—AI is the new buzzword and it lets them cut jobs thus "save" money and not have to worry about pesky labour laws when one employs humans—but everyone else?

There was some outcry when Crunchyroll fired many of their translators in favour of AI translation (with some people to "clean up the AI's work") but I can't help but think that was in part because it was Japanese-to-English and personally affected them. Same when Duolingo fired many of their translators in favour of LLM translation. Meanwhile companies are firing staff when it's English to another language and there's this idea that that's fine or not as big a deal because English is "easy" to translate and/or because people don't think of how it will impact people in non-English countries.

Also it doesn't affect native English speakers so it doesn't get much headway in the news cycle or online anyway because so much of the dominant media is from English-speaking countries and English-speakers dominate social media.

But different languages have different grammar structures that LLMs don't do, and I grew up on "jokes" about people speaking in "broken English" and mocking people who use the wrong word when it was clearly a literal translation but the meaning was obvious long before LLMs were a thing, too. In fact, the specific way a character spoke broken English has been a way to denote their native tongue for decades, usually in a racist way.

Then Google translate came out and "Google-translated English" became an insult for people and criticism of companies because it was clearly wonky to native speakers. Even now, LLMs—which are heavily trained on English compared to other languages—don't have a natural output so native English speakers can clock LLM-generated text if it's longer than a sentence or two.

But, for whatever reason, it's not seen as a problem when it goes the other way because fuck non-English readers or people who want to read in their native tongue I guess.

[oneatlatime]

The Chase part 2

Apologies for the technical problems. Battery power must be conserved for necessities, which unfortunately does not include Avatar. But the power's back on now, so!

Picking up from Toph treating a senior citizen like a snooker ball...

I do like how Mai's not shy about participating in Ty Lee's nonsense.

The way Zuko Jr. says "I'll follow this trail" is very menacing.

We're continuing last week's cowboy theme.

This village has the same menacing single windchime as the village in the Spirit World Part One did.

This was may more satisfying than I was expecting! It was completely unfair how easily the Fire Nation ladies defeated Sokka & Katara so getting Appa'd was a nice payoff.

No disability unmocked this episode. Also nice stance from the lizard.

This whole scene with Toph and Iroh has the most beautiful backgrounds. I sense phone wallpapers in my future.

Forget about the visuals, every line of this exchange was golden. Two towering pillars of wisdom and emotional maturity meet for tea and not a soul goes untouched. Also a nice moment of calm in an otherwise frantic episode.

Can this PLEASE be the rock bottom for Zuko. I can only take so much more second hand embarrassment.

Fully-provisioned princess of the fire nation v. sleep-deprived half trained avatar v. starving outlaw who seems to have forgotten to bring his swords, the only weapon he's good at. Place your bets, folks!

Zuko in a nutshell.

Ok so we're getting the whole gang back together.

The whole whole gang.

The whole whole whole gang.

How the hell did they mess up six on one?!?!

A princess can't surrender with honour when she doesn't have any!

That was kind of Katara to offer to help. I didn't expect that.

Final Thoughts

This episode doesn't let up once. Even the break with Toph and Iroh having tea doesn't do much to dispell the rising tension from the chase. The musical stinger that plays over the title card was a surprise bit of foreshadowing in that way.

That tank thing was neat. Shame about what it contained, but that's a really cool design.

Poor Appa was once again the MVP this episode. It was uncomfortable watching him get so exhausted.

It seems like the thin veneer of level-headedness cultivated by Katara over the last season or so is indeed quite thin. It was interesting to see how the different characters reacted to being tired. Sokka was alternatively amped up and completely chilled out, Aang got quiet (until he felt Appa was being insulted), Katara reverted to her early season one characterisation. It's hard to say with Toph, because we've only known her one episode (it feels like more) but I think she just got more Toph-like.

Please let this be the end in Zuko's experiment with independence. He's not good at it. He needs uncle. Points for trying, but he failed, so please bring uncle back.

Sokka low key wins this episode. He's the one with sense, the only one who stays clear-headed when it counts, and it turns out that clear head of his can defeat the pokey thing Ty Lee does.

I don't know how much time is supposed to have passed between picking up Toph and the start of this episode, but I can't help but feel that Toph really got the short end of the stick here. She did give up everything, even if much of what she gave up was not that great for her personally. And in return she got to travel in a way that completely blinds her and get yelled at. Meeting Iroh was a nice consolation prize.

Now I kind of want a story where Toph doesn't come back to the Gaang and instead goes around unleashing bending hell on the earth kingdom.

Was there no b plot or c plot this episode? Everything kind of collided in the final couple of scenes, which I did not see coming.

Frantic is the word I keep coming back to for this episode. Everything fit together nicely. I'll definitely rewatch it when I have the chance to do so in one sitting, without unforseen technical problems.

[werebutch]

My mom getting a new place is kinda making me anxious I think she thinks I’m gonna move in w her instead of my dad 😭 and I’m not sure why I don’t want to. Cuz she’s way better. But I don’t. And I feel responsible I think and plus my sisters will never favor my mom over my dad… so we’d live apart. but I’m 20 years old I can live whatever I want. But. But but but

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[syrenki]

post depressive episode clarity like what the fuck do you mean they'll never disappear, just fade.

[simikae]

sit your ass down. jesus christ man

[mokutone]

late entry for day 6 of @tendaysoftenzo ! the prompt was:

Day 6, November 6th: Global Arts and Culture | What If 

i've been on something of a mild horror/angst kick lately! a "What If" that always plagues me has always been "What if Tenzō didn't make it out of Root before he entered the narrative?"

it's not an AU i ever seriously plan to play with because it warps and breaks the canon narrative so bad, and it's just straight up unfun, but. every once and a while I get curious who "Captain Yamato" would have been, in that case, especially working alongside Sai still!

[luvsavos]

i am once again apologizing for my lack of activity/responsiveness

my childhood cat passed away a few days ago which has just been more stuff on top of everything else for me to deal with to stress me out and upset me

i'll try to get back to stuff. Eventually. as soon as i can</3

[nexus-nebulae]

another childhood bucket list item obtained: i finally have a snuggie

[daisywords]

.

[beetlebongos]

*grinding teeth looking off into the distance biting lip skin not yet rocking back n forth but might be if we sit for too long* we are sooooooo back

[tiredflowercrown]

I wanna scream. How can a restaurant be this fucking filthy and the manager ENABLE AND ENCOURAGE IT

I shouldnt have to come in after days that I don't close and winder what I'm gonna have to clean. I shouldn't have to wipe down dirty tables from the night before. I shouldn't have to spend TWENTY MINUTES sweeping up shit from the day before.

I get it, you switch jobs to somewhere that doesn't have as many cleaning requirements so you lax a little. I do. Hell I've laxed a lil from the standards of one store I've worked at. But there's a difference in not scrubbing the ice bin everyday and not FUCKING SWEEPING OR TAKING OUT THE TRASH.

This is just one shitty thing about this place. I'm not talking about the improper food storage, or the lack of expiration dates, or the lack of food handlers licenses, or food not being kept to correct temperatures or the fact that are cleaning rags aren't being washed. That's a completely different set of issues. I'm talking about the absolute bare minimum in terms of cleaning. Because I know that this place has mopped front of house maybe twice since it opened 2 months ago and both of those were within the first 2 weeks of opening.