#Programming and metaphor

[unclevertitle]

You could look at it like the third wife of a dying oil baron discovering his of-age son born out of wedlock.

You could look at it like a wizard conjuring forth daemons to do his bidding.

You could look at it like a high king of an empire run on the backs of slaves ruled by masters, sometimes one owning one, often times one owning many.

You could look at it like an all-encompassing, inscrutable god twisting the very landscape of the world, and calling forth simple forms of life to perform wonders and miracles upon the land that are leagues beyond its inhabitants ability to even begin to fathom.

Programming is a strange, abstract frontier where we paint the dreams of sleeping machines. Machines that think with speed of geniuses but with the comprehension of a block of wood. It is rife with metaphorical language, where we grasp at any and all words to try and foment a transferable understanding of just what the hell we are doing. We do so for ourselves to help us accomplish our work, to train newcomers to the field, and for others to know and value what we do... at least enough to still get paid.

coding got me saying shit like “target the child” “assign its class” “override its inheritance” like the third wife of a dying oil baron discovering his of-age son born out of wedlock

[serotonin-dose]

iii. high priestess

"O souls of the Kings, give me strength!"

[uwudonoodle]

[gretagator]

What if the Joker was blue and orange

[akabaka-dev]

how it feels to run a Merchant build in metaphor ReFantazio

[cottonfeltgembira]

louis post dump because uhm. yeah

[crescentmp3]

i feel like as a programmer i should be allowed to virtually enter my programs and fix them by physical force

[cryptid-stimming]

🐒 Code Monkey - Jonathan Coulton 💻 Stimboard

x x x / x x x / x x x

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 209 - The Demon King and The Puppet

Get in losers we’re going to Outo!

We’re back in the sequence of revisiting family bonding moments in the previous arcs, and to my surprise and great delight this one isn’t a Syaoran and Sakura one but Syaoran and Kurogane! I thought these were a recap montage of the Syaoran/Sakura relationship over the journey, but maybe it’s a recap of Syaoran himself? Our son the clone Syaoran and all the nice moments he’s had on over the arcs we spent together? 

And why would they do that unless they wanted us to hurt us very badly with it? 

They’re either being very sentimental or someone might die, so time to turn up the Suspicion dial for the survivability of all our characters!

Either way, the splash text reads: In order to avoid losing everything, I wanted to become strong, like that person…

IN WHICH WE HAVE A CLEAR THROUGH-LINE BETWEEN KUROGANE AND SYAORAN? BOTH GAINING STRENGTH FOR THE SAME REASON? AND IT GOING OUT OF CONTROL FOR BOTH OF THEM?

For Kurogane his trauma led him down a path of increasing violence where he didn’t value life as much and just wanted to kill people to get stronger. For Syaoran his soul broke so he was forced to follow his clone programming and killed presumably WAY MORE people than even Kurogane could ever have dreamed of, leaving countless worlds devastated in the name of “protecting Sakura” and retrieving the feathers. 

Dark parallels dark parallels!

But eventual misuse of power besides, the splash text sounds like it’s from Syaoran’s POV as he remembers admiring Kurogane’s strength and how he wanted to protect people like Kurogane does. And it’s the past tense that makes it so interesting - as if his soul is awake after all, and he’s thinking back on his memories with the Tsubasa family through this final confrontation. 

Which is only fanning my hopes that he’s planning a ruse and whispered to Lava Lamp to play along. And even more tragic that to sell the ruse he had to MASSIVELY STAB Lava Lamp, absolutely wreck Fai and Kurogane until they were too injured to stand, and kill countless clones. 

So, like. A convincing ruse to say the least!

And we haven’t even talked about the image! Kurogane and Syaoran back to back in Outo! Kurogane holding his sword and Syaoran mirroring his pose but holding wet clothing instead! The matching white top and black pants of their different outfits! Kurogane smiling as he explains and Syaoran listening attentively!

While they stand under a Sakura tree. 

Which (like in the Hanshin cover) is an accurate detail to the setting they were in! The park this training took place in had a Sakura tree in it, but here a branch of the tree is visibly cutting them off from each other. Which makes me want to scream in how appropriate that is - because even here, in Syaoran’s memory, the presence of ‘Sakura’ (and the clone programming that makes him focus on the feathers) is cutting him off from the connection he remembers forming. Despite their bond the Sakura tree is in his way from actually reaching Kurogane - just like his missing soul would have wrenched any feelings for his family away from him, and here in the final battle his need to follow Evil Wolverine’s orders keeps him from even speaking to his family, even if he DOES remember their bond. 

WHICH IT SEEMS LIKE HE MIGHT. 

[the-smeagol-system]

I just woke up so I’m not sure if this makes any sense but I think a good way of explaining fragments is that “normal” systems break like regular glass and polyfrag systems break like safety glass with all the little bits.

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

silly loop de loop doodles

my gal unfortunately was a half-baked project, the company that made her copied her programming from another source and left out some important details that she had to learn to fill in herself; basically, she's socially inept as a result of a psychological factor. This is also why she was considered an off-brand staffbot by the glamrocks for a lil while until she figured out how to interact to some degree.

[beggars-opera]

Parallels Between My Catholic Elementary School Experience and the Salem Witch Trials That Should Not Have Happened:

My principal was a tyrannical nun and became incensed when she realized that the entire student body did not know their prayers. I cannot for the life of me remember how she came to this apparently stunning but unsurprising realization, considering we were a school and not a convent. However, she decided to rectify this by bringing a toy voice recorder/microphone to my fifth grade classroom and forcing everyone to stand at the front of the room and recite the Lord's Prayer into it, berating the students who didn't get it right. One girl who was definitely not raised Catholic kept messing up because she was intimidated and crying and our teacher had to step in and make the principal stop.

Also one time she almost ran over one of my friends with her car but for some reason I cannot imagine Judge William Stoughton recklessly driving a carriage.

[windydrawallday]

FEEL YOUR SKIN

One-shot comic from the past year about my experiences coping with gender dysphoria and assigned binary roles. Feat my birdsona Maggie and Acantho (early design, changed a bit since then).

… practically I'm baring my heart and brain here; also my views are not facts, I know talking about these themes in public can help others to realize and reflect on their own views. Something I find pleasant and one of my main objectives when sharing my comics!

From my side: I always felt uneasy about my gender because, since my teenage days, I saw how different girls were treated than boys. Because I was a "girl" I needed to look like this or that to be treated like one and UGH.

I felt sad and angry with myself for not falling properly into my assigned label so I practically rejected all of it to the point of hating everything "femme" coded… I was so wrong.

It wasn't the fault of the label, the clothes, aesthetics, colors, etc, or even the roles but of society for imposing them without any flexibility or room to question and reinvent them.

The script for this comic is from October 2022 during a time when I was questioning if I was non-binary and--. I thought: if someday I wish to use that label, first I need to make peace with this other part of me. And in the next months, that's what I tried to do and I found I didn't hate it as I used to do.

That doesn't mean I will go back to it by default just that now I understand and cherish its existence as another option for me to choose when I feel like it! And even… I want to let some traits of it be part of my new gender expression in the future.

And to keep admiring and loving people that surround me and identify with it.

And because I have gotta admit: IT FEELS SO GOOD TO JUST BE SEXY FOR YOURSELF.

Feel your skin: make it yours from the inside out!

[catboybrain]

sniffles sadly. every day im so sad that fnaf didnt go with placing vanny into aftons role.... god forbid women do anything ! ! !

[lightdancer1]

One of the fun bits of In the Company of Witches and Slayers as an AU:

The show essentially sets up that much of Sunnydale's coverups of obviously supernatural shenanigans was a Mayoral conspiracy and then the immortal with the demon pacts who kept all that together dies and this seemingly has no impact on Sunnydale's awareness of supernatural events. Well here, starting with Willow's brief first Dark Willow moment of summoning a category 5 stormcloud over Sunnydale and on through this the censorship field wavers and finally disintegrates in Sunnydale, though its overall factor as a price of the Shadowmen's original spell makes it to Season 7.

This means that just in time for the Initiative and Adam to finally move to center stage in the 2001 timeframe (and as they've been background villains for a while the reign of terror is actually fairly short and ends well before the start of 2002) that Sunnydale's capacity to see and sense the supernatural suddenly and abruptly changes and it realizes it's got vampires, demons, werewolves, witches, and Slayers running around.

And then becomes Metropolis from DC comics but vampires.

"What the fuck, man! That tiny blonde was kicking the shit out of some Andre the Giant with horns!"

"Oh it's just the blonde Slayer. You should see what the brunette does. If it wasn't for the idea that vampires would kill me I'd support a vampire rights thing."

"Wait, I thought witches needed broomsticks to fly."

"Evidently not."

[compacflt]

Have you been to the Nimitz museum in Fredericksburg or know what's there? I'll have an opportunity to go there in the new year and was wondering if you had any recommendations for stuff to read up on before going? I've got some very shallow knowledge about the Pacific War and feel like it'll be a lot more rewarding if I go in more prepared.

you should talk to @misanderousmisfit who visited the Nimitz museum very recently!! i have to admit i have literally never stepped foot in Texas.

i really know very little about the pacific theatre of WWII, shamefully. most of my WWII knowledge is related to the ARMY on the western front 1943-1945. (I know a weirdly large amount about the battle of the Ruhr pocket for instance.) ummm, maybe watch the movie “Midway”? It’s been a long time (5 years ish) since I saw it but i believe “Hacksaw Ridge” is also about the Pacific theatre, though what I really remember from that movie is a lot of weird religious moralizing and andrew Garfield doing a very weird accent etc. Though I was 15 when I watched it so maybe my memories are a little skewed. And I continue to recommend Craig Symonds’ new Nimitz biography, which I read last January (after he signed my copy 😋)