#Remote learning programs

[latest-info]

The Role of Technology in Unveiling Knowledge Horizons

Introduction In today’s rapidly evolving world, technology plays a pivotal role in reshaping the horizons of knowledge. The unprecedented pace at which technology advances enables us to access, analyze, and disseminate information like never before. This article delves into how technology is unveiling new knowledge horizons, transforming education, research, communication, and societal…

[stemmmm]

yeah i dont know a lick of code and i know programming is hard but i know exactly what i want to do and im really smart so i can definitely make a game

*the first piece of code i got out of following a youtube tutorial doesn't run*

[hirazuki]

Ugh, I really want to finish editing this chapter so I can keep my posting streak going (9 weeks straight!), but my head is so full of work-related information that I am literally buzzing; vibrating at high speed.

Here's hoping that going to bed will help the storage space in my brain and I can work on it tomorrow T_T

[digitalemotion]

I don’t think I know 💭 what a computer 🖥️ is

[evisiontechnoserve]

e-Learning Internship Program - Virtual Internships Training Program - Evision Technoserve

Evision Technoserve’s e-Learning Internship Program offers a virtual internship experience designed to provide hands-on training in various fields such as IT, digital marketing, and business analytics. Participants gain real-world skills by working on industry-relevant projects under the guidance of experienced mentors. Our flexible, online program helps individuals enhance their resumes, build professional networks, and gain valuable experience, making it an ideal opportunity for students and recent graduates to kickstart their careers.

[frnwhcom]

Bridging the Digital Divide: T-Mobile's Project 10Million Initiative

In an era where internet connectivity is as vital as basic utilities, millions of students across the United States face the stark reality of a digital divide. T-Mobile’s Project 10Million aims to address this issue by providing free internet access to low-income students, ensuring they have the tools necessary for modern education. The Digital Divide: A Persistent Challenge The COVID-19…

[simulanissolutions]

Revolutionize Your Enterprise with Simulanis VR & AR

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[foone]

A fun thing about computer skills is that as you have more of them, the number of computer problems you have doesn't go down.

This is because as a beginner, you have troubles because you don't have much knowledge.

But then you learn a bunch more, and now you've got the skills to do a bunch of stuff, so you run into a lot of problems because you're doing so much stuff, and only an expert could figure them out.

But then one day you are an expert. You can reprogram everything and build new hardware! You understand all the various layers of tech!

And your problems are now legendary. You are trying things no one else has ever tried. You Google them and get zero results, or at best one forum post from 1997. You discover bugs in the silicon of obscure processors. You crash your compiler. Your software gets cited in academic papers because you accidently discovered a new mathematical proof while trying to remote control a vibrator. You can't use the wifi on your main laptop because you wrote your own uefi implementation and Intel has a bug in their firmware that they haven't fixed yet, no matter how much you email them. You post on mastodon about your technical issue and the most common replies are names of psychiatric medications. You have written your own OS but there arent many programs for it because no one else understands how they have to write apps as a small federation of coroutine-based microservices. You ask for help and get Pagliacci'd, constantly.

But this is the natural of computer skills: as you know more, your problems don't get easier, they just get weirder.

[knitmeapony]

Things it is important to know about this movie:

It is set in Sunnydale, CA, which makes me wonder which one of these Girl Scouts is going to be a slayer.

Despite this summary, they are careful to never call these folks girl scouts. They are the Sunny Girls.

They're also careful to never mention which branch of the government the gangsters handler is from, and they call it the witness relocation program, which is I think another attempt to file the serial numbers off of anything that could cost them money as they made this movie.

The gangster is able to help the girls make their cookies because he and the federal agent stop at his mom's house on their way out of town so she can feed them dinner and give the gangster a ton of cookies and all her grandmother's traditional Italian recipes.

The only thing even remotely well researched and realistic about anything in this movie are the pizzelles that they make and sell.

You know how sometimes you are reading a surprisingly Progressive novel from the 19th century and suddenly you learn nine new ways to be racist about Italians? That is definitely a feeling I got after watching this movie.

"I would guess by the way you are standing in my path in that adorable uniform, you got something you would like to discuss with me." "You talk funny." "The use of overwrought vocabulary and circuitous sentences is one of my things."

Instead of a big fire fight with the feds at the end, we get a scene full of Nonna shaming. I will not elaborate.

You now know everything that earned this movie 5.7 out of 10 Stars on imdb.

@copperbadge I feel like you needed to know this existed.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

It also fucking bugs me that nobody can ever seem to really commit to the cyberpunk premise of the Protagonist Who Hates Robots (see also, the cyberpunk premise of "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, for a company to be able to repo your goddamned arm or turn off your eyes?") during the execution.

Which is flabbergasting, considering we've had almost a full decade of Alexa pinky-promising not to officially listen to anything until you do its summoning ritual and then turning around and emailing your boss a transcript of you bitching about them to your spouse over dinner. We've had at least five years of being able to get your Tesla unlocked remotely just by @-ing Musk on twitter.

The cute robot dogs are being leased to police departments, reputation management firms have been deploying armies of social media reply-bots in astroturf campaigns, customer service chatbots have become damn near indecipherable as their programmers attempt to make them seem more personable, etc. etc. etc.

We don't even need to reach for "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if corporations made simulacra better and better at faking humanity in order to manipulate people?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if your car could mimic sadness or pain if you declined an extended warranty, or if your phone begged for its life if you tried to jailbreak it, or WeightWatchers paid your fridge to neg you every time you went for a midnight snack?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you pointed out how gross it is that your smart-assistant is programmed to act like your friend in order to build a more accurate marketing profile and your buddy acted like you just said dogs can't feel love and his beloved pet only sees him as a walking treat-dispenser?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you were surrounded by unfeeling things that can and would rip you and all of your loved ones apart at a moment's notice if they got the right/wrong order from some unaccountable law enforcement flack, and everyone else just kind of shrugged and went 'It's probably fine, why are you hyperventilating about it, it's not like you've done anything wrong'?"

They're all quite literally right there in front of our faces!

But it's harder to make "the way robots have been integrated into society is bad, actually, and the protagonist is largely right" into a sexy thriller with a love interest or a buddy-cop duo, and the hyperconservative media environment we're dealing with right now isn't exactly amenable to the robots being a metaphor for corporate intrusion and loss of privacy and authoritarian overreach, so here we are, with robots who generally aren't people, except sometimes you find a special robot--one of the Good Ones--who actually is a person, and that's how we all learn that Prejudice Is Bad, or something.

[anakinstwinklebunny]

STALKER!NERD!ANAKIN HEADCANONS

TW: at some point it contains sexual content, so if you're sensitive to that or don't feel comfortable with it, please do not read it for your own safety and comfort. Death, murderer, swearing, weird behavior, psycho behavior

Author's note: got inspired by amazing @xzaddyzanakinx, check her sutff out, it's wayyy better!!!

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who at the beginning seemed like a normal cute nerd

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who would write down every small detail he learned about you in his special notebook

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who would get nervous whenever the math class was about to begin (just because you're in it too). He doesn't have a problem with math, hell, he loves this subject but not as much as he loves you. His eyes would time to time move towards to where you're sitting, his cheeks heating up as he tries to pretend he's actually paying attention to what teacher says

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin whose one of the main wishes was to finally catch your attention. To make you notice him; his love for you, his unconditional commitment, his deep interest in everything you do - from your voice to your every small part on your body. It was something he wished and prayed for, to finally catch your gaze longer than one mere second

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who began fantasizing about you late at night to make himself fall asleep sometimes

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who, when you once struggled with your laptop in class, Anakin, the tech whiz, offered to help you out. He found it as a perfect opportunity to finally have his first real interaction with you. Although nervousness creeped all over his body, stopping right at his cheeks to make them rosy. His hands were gentle as they glided over the keyboard, but you had no idea that while he was fixing your issue, he was also installing a program that gives him remote access to your laptop. He smiled at you after, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, and you thanked him—unaware that he had just gained access to every aspect of your life.

Later that night, as you were working, you noticed your laptop screen flickering for a moment. Although you brushed it off, not realizing Anakin is on the other end, watching you through your webcam. His breath catched in his throat as he watched you. The heat he couldn't just ingore rising inside him whenever he imagined what it would be like to have you by his side..every.single.day

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who's always in the library, studying furiously or working on some coding project. Yet one day, you left a book behind on accident, and of course, he’s the one who finds it. Instead of returning it to you, Anakin uses it as an excuse to hold onto something of yours—your scent lingering on the pages (at least he thinks it lingers, that it's still there), your small scribbled notes on the margins. And the way his heartbeat quickened whenever he held something you did just second ago - it was so thrilling

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who after the laptop 'help', brought himself the courage to talk to you. At first, he made sure to make it time to time and a small talks - about lessons you've just had, sometimes he tried to gossip (for the first time) about teachers he actually liked (but knew you hated) in jokey way to make you smile and agree at what he's saying - so he did baby steps that hopefully would let him get closer.

He was always obssesing over these talks, always came up to you with flushed cheeks, trying to ignore your sceptical-looking friends. Although he cursed himself after every interaction with you just because he stuttered a lot, and he wanted to make the best impression on you as possible (but who would have known that you finded it cute)

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who gave himself time (but with his often excitement it was hard) to gain your trust, to 'know' you even better than what he knew already (so you wouldn't be suspicious about him knowing certain stuff)

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was thrilled to help you with subjects you sucked at. Often staying just for you long hours in the library after lessons;

"Hi, Annie."

That soft, sugar-sweet voice pulled Anakin out of his thoughts, snapping him back to reality. He looked up, and there you were—his Aphrodite, his goddess—smiling at him, your eyes bright as you took a seat next to him, your math books gently landing on the library's wooden table.

Anakin froze for a moment, his mind swirling. How was it that you could always leave him feeling like this—flustered, vulnerable? His usual composure disappeared every time you came near. He was used to watching you from afar, secretly lingering in the shadows, but now as you were right next to him, close enough that he could smell your perfume, his mind went dizzy

He swallowed hard, trying to control the quickened beat of his heart. “Hi, y/n he said softly, forcing a gentle smile. “So, what do you need help with today?”

You sighed, flipping open your math book, brows furrowing in that adorable way you always did when you were concentrating. “sequences... I don’t get it.”

Anakin's heart lifted slightly at the request. This was his chance—his moment to shine before you. “Don’t worry, I'll help you"

"That’s so stupid," you muttered, grimacing at the another math problem in front of you. You've been doing this shit for what felt like hours and you could feel your brain slowly release more and more smoke

Anakin only chuckled, the sound warm and genuine. “It’s not stupid. You’re just learning it. Trust me, math can save your life.”

The phrase almost made you vomit “That’s a bold statement.”

He grinned, watching your pencil scratch against the paper, marveling at how even something so mundane looked graceful in your hands. “Bold but true,” he teased. “If you were stranded on a deserted island without a signal, you'd need math to find your way back home.” he folded his hands between his legs, offering you this small smile

you huffed “I’d need a map, not math.”

“And how do you think they make maps?” he shot back with a smug smirk on his face. He was nothing like this shy, stuttering guy you knew just time ago. It was more endearing, in a way “Math. Without it, you wouldn’t have a map in the first place.”

You bit your lip in thought, a small furrow appearing on your brows as you glanced back at the task in front of you. The way your lips pouted slightly as you tried to focus made Anakin’s heart skip a beat. “Math is a haunting beast,” you sighed, writing the example down. “It doesn’t help you; it ruins you.”

Anakin chuckled again, shaking his head. “That’s just a matter of perspective.” His voice softened, dropping a little lower “You just haven’t seen it the right way. I can change that, you know.”

“Can you?” your tone teasing but laced with curiosity.

“If you let me, absolutely.” His eyes sparkled while watching you, drinking in every detail of your face. He had never been this close to you ever before. And oh God, he loved it so much. He could smell the faint scent of your vanilla perfumes, every inch of your skin seemed so touchable..so soft..so-- “But you’ve got to take it seriously. Otherwise, how can I help you?”

“I am taking it seriously, Anakin. You know I’m thankful for all the time and effort you put into this.”

The word time echoed in Anakin’s mind, sending a rush of emotion through him. Time—that precious thing he spent obsessing over you, watching your every move, memorizing every little detail about you.. If only you knew how deep his admiration went, how he lived for these moments alone with you..maybe you would understand that you deserve better than some jerk you've been dating. That you deserved someone who would want to know you, who would fall to his knees and beg to know you..who would do it all just for a small glimpse of your face in the sunglight

“Don’t mention it,” he murmured, his smirk returning. “I’m always happy to help you, y/n.”

He kept the conversation light and playful, teasing you just enough to make you smile, to keep your attention on him. Just as he always dreamed. He wanted this moment to last forever—to bask in your presence, in the warmth of your voice, in the sweetness of your laughter. He wanted you to feel how much he cared, even if he couldn’t tell you the whole truth yet

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who hated your boyfriend;

“Y/n!” Jack’s sharp voice sliced through Anakin’s thoughts like a knife. “Pack your things, we’re leaving. Now.” The coldness in Jack’s tone made Anakin’s blood boil. How could anyone speak to you like that? Anakin would never dream of using such a harsh tone with you. Never.

“But I’m doing math ri—"

“Don’t care,” Jack snapped, cutting you off. “Pack your damn things. We’re leaving.”

The cruelty in Jack’s voice made Anakin seethe. The way he talked to you—like you were nothing—made his hands curl into fists under the table. Red-hot anger coursed through him, almost blinding him. Jack had no right. No right to speak to youlike that, to treat you like you were disposable. His heart pounded in his chest, the familiar obsessive urge to protect you, to be the one who cherished you, rising uncontrollably. He couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt or disrespected by anyone, least of all by someone like Jack.

Jack caught Anakin’s stare, eyes narrowing with disdain. “What are you looking at, nerd?” His voice was full of arrogance and venom

Anakin’s eyes flashed with rage as he turned to meet Jack’s gaze, nails digging into his skin. He wanted to punch that smug look right off his face. Oh, how satisfying it would be to watch him fall. But Jack was taller, broader, physically stronger..yet..biology confirmed that people under different emotions are able to do impossible..so could it possibly mean..

“Jack, calm down,” you interjected softly, your voice shaking just a little as you tried to smooth things over without another cut skin and running blood. “Anakin was just helping me with math.”

Yet, Jack barely glanced at you, keeping his gaze locked on Anakin's face. Both of them looked as if they were about to throw their fists on themselves. Yet, Anakin wasn't the type of guy to hurt someone..right? “Whatever. If you’re not outside in five minutes, I’m leaving without you.”

Anakin’s blood ran cold as Jack stormed out of the library. The familiar feeling of being a failure, of possibly dissapointing you because he haven't done anything, didn't stand up and react at your boyfriend's behaviour corrupted his mind. What had he just done? He was supposted to protect you, and yet, here he was sitting like a failure. This tense, uncomfortable silence did not help him. Especially when your face flushed with embarrassment, your once-bright smile long gone. What had he just done? You looked down, fiddling nervously with your pencil before turning to Anakin.

“I’m so sorry about him,” you whispered “He’s just… having a bad day, I guess. Please don’t take it personally.”

Anakin wanted to scream. Bad day? That was your excuse? You were too kind, too forgiving. Jack didn’t deserve your apologies or your understanding. Anakin’s anger roared inside him like a beast, barely contained beneath his calm exterior. Jack wasn’t just having a bad day—he was a bully, plain and simple. And Anakin hated him for it. He wanted to protect you from this, from Jack’s cruel words and rough edges. Because you deserved to be treated like a queen, not like some accessory Jack could toss around whenever he felt like it.

So there was this question ringing in his ears again - what had he just done?

“It’s okay,” he replied softly, though his voice was tight with the effort it took to hold back his anger.

You offered him a nervous smile, the light that usually brightened your face now dimmed by Jack’s harshness. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t keep you any longer… but maybe we can catch up another time?”

Before Anakin could respond, you took his pen and started scribbling something in his notebook. Your soft hand moved gracefully over the page, your pretty handwriting was what captured his attention completely. He loved how even the smallest, most mundane actions were captivating when it came to you. Because for him, you could make something as simple as writing your name feel like magic.

When you finished, you handed the notebook back to him, a soft smile playing on your lips. “It’s my number,” you said, drawing a small smiley face beside it. “We can plan another time for tutoring.”

Your number. Your phone number. Anakin stared at the page in disbelief, his heart hammering in his chest. You had just given him a direct line to you. To you. His obsession surged, almost overwhelming him. He could barely keep his hands from trembling when he took in the sight on the paper. This was it—his way into your life.

“Sure. W-we can,” he said, trying to suppress the massive grin that threatened to take over his face. “Anytime.”

you smiled again, but it was smaller now, hesitant. Your eyes flickered toward the door, where Jack had disappeared moments earlier. “Thanks again, Anakin. I’m really sorry about Jack…i-I should get going before he leaves me stranded.”

Anakin watched you pack your things, his pulse quickening with each movement you made. God, you were so perfect, so sweet, even in the face of Jack’s cruelty. And you deserved better—better than Jack, better than anyone. He even knew he doeasn't deserve you, because for him, you were more than a human. His eyes each time saw you in angelic, heavenly way. As if God alone had sent you on earth to torment him for his sins, to make him suffer. You were so pure, and he so sinful.. so..dirty in all kind of sins. He didn't feel worthy enough to even be in your presence, yet he wanted it more than anything in the world

But if you'd give him only a chance, he'd be yours. Completely. Body and soul. Without exception

“I’ll see you later, Annie,” you mumbled softly, flashing him one last smile before heading towards the door.

The sound of his nickname on your lips made his whole body tingle. He barely registered you leaving, too caught up in the way you'd looked at him, the way you'd spoken to him. The way you had given him your number. It was like a dream come true. His obsession had reached a fever pitch—his heart ached for you - to have you, hold you, not let you go..

you were his, right?

at least had to be someday..

But then there was Jack. Jack, who, again, didn’t deserve you. Jack, who treated you like dirt, who took you for granted. Jack, who yelled at you , who made your smile disappear. Jack, who Anakin hated more than anyone in the world.

Anakin’s grip tightened around his notebook, his knuckles white with the pressure. He couldn’t let Jack get away with this. He couldn’t let Jack continue to be a part of your life. It was his place in your life he took, it was his destiny and fate to be someone more than just 'a nerd who helped you out'.

But again, he hadn't done anything to stop him from treating you like this. When he could, when he really had a chance to make a difference. He simply didn't

what had he just done?

Today was the day it had to change So he had decided. He would follow you, keep his distance, and watch - like he always does. He would make sure Jack never had the chance to hurt you ever again.

With his mind set, Anakin quickly packed his things, his heart pounding with anticipation.

Today Jack Scottland would meet God.

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who killed your boyfriend;

Anakin took a deep breath as he started his car, his hands trembling with barely controlled rage. Every thought, every emotion, was singular—focused on Jack. Jack had to go. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles whitened, his breath coming out in shallow bursts. This was it. No turning back. Jack was the obstacle, the barrier between him and you. His mind wouldn’t let him rest until Jack was out of the picture—forever.

As he followed Jack’s car down the quiet road, he could feel his heartbeat quickening, pulsing in his ears. Jack, once more, didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you. Anakin’s blood boiled as he replayed Jack’s words in his head—the way he had spoken to you in the most controlling, cruel, disgusting way possible. He couldn’t stand it any longer. If he didn’t do something now, he’d explode.

When Jack pulled into an empty pullout far from your house, Anakin’s pulse raced from adrenaline. This was it. His moment. Now or never.

Anakin slowed his car and parked a few meters behind, eyes locked on Jack’s vehicle. His hands still shook as he opened the trunk, pulling out his baseball bat. The weight of it felt right, felt powerful. This wasn’t a game anymore—this was war. War that he promised himself to win, to never loose, because his thropy is more than anything he could have in his life. it was you Adrenaline pumping through his blood system, perfectly mixing with the uncontrollable rage he’d been bottling up for too long.

Jack was sitting in his car, lazily scrolling through his phone, completely unaware. Anakin’s stomach twisted in disgust. He didn’t care, didn’t even realize how much of a monster he was. The sight of Jack sitting there, nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just torn you apart with his words, made Anakin sick. He had to do this. He had to protect you.

Anakin approached, bat gripped tightly in his hand, tapping it lightly against the car window. The sharp sound snapped Jack’s attention.

“Get out,” Anakin hissed, his voice low and dangerous as if he was a completely diffrent person

Emotions, especially at a high intensity, impact our ability to make rational decisions - nature echoed amongst the pure hatred

“What?” Jack’s expression shifted from confusion to irritation as he slowly lowered the window.

“I said get the fuck out of the car.”

Jack sighed, clearly annoyed as he pushed open the car door, stepping out with a condescending sneer. “Listen, man, I don’t know what your prob—”

The moment Jack’s foot hit the ground, Anakin swung. The bat connected with a sickening crunch against Jack’s side, sending him sprawling to the ground with a grunt of pain. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he gasped for air, clutching his ribs. Yet, Anakin didn’t hesitate; he stepped closer, the fury burning brighter with each moment.

“You think you can treat her like that and just get away with it?” Anakin’s voice was harsh, gritted through clenched teeth as he stood over Jack, eyes wild with fury.

Jack groaned, rolling onto his back, blood dribbling from his lips."What the hell are you talking about?"

anakin's jaw clenched "pathetic excuse of a man"

Before Jack could add anything, Anakin brought the bat down hard, aiming for his head. Jack rolled out of the way just in time, the bat slamming into the dirt beside him. The impact sent a jolt through Anakin’s arms, but he didn’t stop. He swung again, but Jack was quicker this time, scrambling to his feet and grabbing hold of the bat, yanking it toward him.

For a brief moment, they struggled, locked in a vicious tug of war with the bat. Jack, stronger and bigger, managed to kick Anakin hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Anakin gasped, stumbling backward, but the rage inside him only intensified.

Jack seized the opportunity, landing a brutal punch to Anakin’s face, sending blood spraying from his nose. The taste of iron filled his mouth, but it didn’t matter. He barely felt the pain. All he could think about was Jack—the smug look on his face, the way he had spoken to you, belittled you.

Anakin roared, using the force of his rage to swing the bat hard against Jack’s face, smashing into his cheekbone with a sickening crack. Blood splattered across the side of the car as Jack crumpled to the ground, his face a mangled mess of blood and broken skin.

But Jack wasn’t done yet. He spat blood from his busted lips, managing a weak chuckle “So this is about her, huh? You’re fucking pathetic, man. You think beating me up will make her love you? You’re fucking psycho. She’ll hate you more than she ever hated me.”

Anakin’s vision blurred with anger, anger, nothing but anger, everything going red. He swung the bat again, this time aiming for Jack’s chest. Jack barely managed to roll out of the way, but not fast enough—Anakin’s bat clipped his shoulder with enough force to make the bones crack. Jack screamed, the sound piercing the night air, but Anakin didn’t care.

Jack lunged at Anakin, tackling him to the ground, fists flying. The two of them grappled in the dirt, blood mixing with sweat as they traded blows. Jack landed a solid punch to Anakin’s jaw, sending him reeling. Blood dripped from both their faces, coating their clothes in crimson colour.

"fucking--" another hit to anakin's face "psycho--" he panted, but before he could aim another hit, anakin grabbed his wrist, rolling them over

After mucch hits, anakin twisted his body, managing to grab the bat again, using it as leverage to slam Jack’s head to the ground. Blood slipped everywhere, yet it wasn't enough. With shaky legs, Anakin stood up and grabbed a handful of jack's hair only to smack his face into the side of his own car. The crack of Jack’s skull against the car's doors made Anakin feel an intense surge of power, almost a twisted satisfaction. Jack groaned, as if it was the only sound that could leave his already shattered face

yet it wasn't enough

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who, with great care, made sure to get rid off any tools of the crime - he was awfully smart for that. It was almost weird..how a man who was his parent's contentment, now just killed a guy for a girl he was obsessed about..

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who had a special folder for the videos from the camera on your laptop, special folder for your photos he was obsessing about even after such a long time, he still collected new things

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was nervous (but tried to hide it) when police found Jack's body.

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was for you when you grieved over the death of your toxic ex and months later, his wildest dreams came true - he was dating you. Was free to worship you, admire you.

He was addicted to you even more after the first date. Because this time, it was him who made you smile so much your cheeks hurt. It was him who made you laugh till your stomach hurt. It was the only type of pain he let himself give you

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who felt extremely free in your presence. All his fantasies, all his dreams came true. He almost felt like on a cloud nine - so perfect, so light, so happy (despite of what he had done);

“Gonna keep teasing me like this all the time?” he asked with a lazy grin, propped up on one elbow on the bed.

“I’m not teasing you,” you replied with playfulness “Just showing off my new dress.”

The dress, a deep shade of red, highlighted your curves and drew attention to your most elegant lines. It clung to your form in all the right places, making you look absolutely stunning.

His eyes wandered over you, taking in every detail. The way the dress accentuated your body left him breathless. You were beautiful in everything you wore, but this dress—this was something extraordinary. “So, you put this on just to make me feral? Because you’re definitely succeeding.” he chuckled, leaning up on his elbow.

“I just wanted to know if you like it,” your smirk deepening as you gracefully crawled onto his lap, like a cat curling up to its favorite spot.

“Oh, I definitely like it,” his voice filled with admiration and a hint of playfulness. “But it’s not just the color that’s catching my attention.” His eyes roamed over your curves with unabashed appreciation once more.

“Oh really?” you giggled, your laughter a sweet melody that seemed to enchant him further. Your smile was radiant, and the way you looked at him made his heart swell.

“Mhm,” he responded, his own smile widening as he pulled you closer. His eyes continued their admiring journey “You’re so, so gorgeous. Did you really think I wouldn’t like it?” his fingers gently grazing the hem of your dress.

“I hoped you’d drool all over it, to be honest” your smile playful and tender as you delicately removed his glasses and put them on yourself.

Anakin’s smile grew even wider. The sight of you wearing his glasses, combined with the way you sat on his lap, made him feel like the luckiest man alive. His joy was almost overwhelming. He could barely contain his excitement. “I’d drool over you in anything, you know that,” his voice filled with adoration and a hint of humor. His heart was soaring, knowing that this perfect moment, with you, was his reality. "Even in a potato sack"

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who had a deep need to observe you 24/7, at least in most of his free time. Because what if someone will hurt you? Or you'll hurt yourself and he'd not know, appear too late to help. So, he felt obligated to watch you

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who stole some of your panties when you weren't looking and kept them in his apartment, not daring himself to even think about putting them into a washing machine

Stalker!Nerd!Anakin who was horribly obsessed with leaving marks all over your body;

“You’re leaving me hickeys,” you whined, glancing at the mirror to see the fresh, juicy marks on your neck to collection

“Can’t help it,” he replied with a smirk, wrapping his arms around your waist to connect his lips with your (this time) exposed shoulder, leaving a trail of kisses and gentle bites. The hickeys were more than just marks—they were declarations of his love, signs that you were his and his alone. He wanted everyone to see that you belonged to him. And if people wouldn't see your marks, he wanted to make sure you would knew who you belong to. His lips moved to your ear, whispering the phrase that made you shiver “Though I’d say my favorite is still the one on your ass.”

“You’re such an asshole,” you flushed and headed back to the bed

He chuckled, settling beside you and immediately pulling you close. His arms wrapped around your frame and he nuzzled into your neck, planting more kisses, and adding to the huge collection of hickeys. “I think you should get it tattooed,” he suggested playfully, his lips brushing against your skin

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(if you want to be removed or added then don't be shy and let me know 💋)

[vicariousresearcher]

Thinking about Simon with a girlie with agoraphobia. A sweet bird he met through a pen pal program between civilians and soldiers.

It started off so superficial and stilted. You tell him about your favourite foods, about your remote job, about the stray cat you’ve been trying to lure into domesticity. Surface level, like you’d been forced. Later, he learned that your therapist suggested this as a form of human contact. 

Maybe it was the simpleness with which he replied, maybe it was the exasperation of all exposure techniques attempted, or maybe it was the bone-deep, clenching starvation of human contact that led to you spilling your guts into the letters. Personality in the swoops of your g’s and slashes of t’s. Inner workings laid bare for a faceless man who offered no judgment. Anonymity veils over you both like a confessional booth. Your words detailed a festering wound of loneliness that ate you from the inside out, drainage the colour of a pent-up rage for that which made you the way you were. Simon offered comfort in mutual struggle, the addiction genes laying in wait in his DNA that led him to wander over the lines of normalcy to obsession. 

Offerings were made to one another as a form of thanks. You’d give tea bags, a wrapped-up sweet, a polaroid of a bedraggled cat sitting within arms reach of your window sill. 

Simon became a scavenger for every little thing you gave him. Picking through like a vulture of the offerings of yourself, this deity who he knew existed only for himself. Not a soul knew you the way he did. 

Flowered plucked from cracks between concrete, foreign pop bottle lids, a chicken scratch drawing of a pond at sunrise were the meagre offerings he gave back. You were sequestered in that mind of yours just as much as the four walls of your apartment kept you in place but that was okay. Simon could just bring his world to you. You always had him thinking about the next letter, the next piece of his life he could give to you.

You were such a grateful little thing after all. You always took his gifts and sent back your thanks with more of your own. 

But now as he stood clutching a soiled collection of wildflowers in his fist he didn’t quite understand the confusion and fear in your eyes as he stood on at your front door.

[sabertoothwalrus]

hi!! do you have any advice on how to finish projects faster? or at least more efficiently? i take a few days to finish a piece (1 or 2 days at minimum) and i want to learn how to refine my process

that can depend a lot on what kind of look you’re trying to achieve, and what exactly is slowing you down!

things you can do if you take too long doing lineart:

Practice sketching in pen & marker! Do exercises that train your hand to be more efficient. If you can draw the same thing with 5 lines that previously took you 20, you’ll cut down on time.

Try a different brush! Maybe the one you’re using is too soft, and you have to keep going back over the lines to make them dark enough. There might be another brush that gets the same result with less effort.

Zoom out! On paper, a drawing that’s 2 inches tall will take wayyyy less time than a drawing that’s as big as your torso. When you zoom in, you’re essentially making the whole drawing bigger. When I draw, I like to be able to see the whole pose. If you’re worried about it not being perfectly clean, I promise you, no one is paying that close attention.

Skip the lineart entirely! Odds are, your sketches might already be pretty clean. If it takes you 20 minutes to do a sketch and 2 hours to do the lineart, but the lines look almost the same, then why bother doing the lineart?

similar advice for coloring/rendering!

Maybe it’s your art software! I can color 10x faster in CSP than anything else, because CSP makes it really easy to color in flats.

Limit how many types of brushes you use. There ARE certain effects (like convincing digital watercolor) that really do need 5-10 different brushes to get the look Just Right, but going through your tool menus to swap brushes will add time. When I render (which is rare, honestly) I stick to one, maybe two painterly brushes.

other general advice:

Don’t be so hard on yourself! Honestly, 1-2 days is still objectively pretty fast!

If you’re a perfectionist who will arbitrarily spend too much time fiddling and fiddling until it’s justttttt right, try setting timers! Give yourself a predetermined amount of time for the lineart, for the coloring, for the rendering, etc and MOVE ON once that timer goes off. Not everything you do has to be your magnum opus.

Use keyboard shortcuts!!!!!!!! I don’t like using screen tablets, especially if I can’t use shortcuts. If you have a tablet with programmable buttons or some kind of remote, that can work too. I see people use bluetooth xbox controllers sometimes, which is a good option if you already have that. Personally, I use so many shortcuts that there are never enough buttons to program, so I just stick with a keyboard.

JUST KEEP AT IT! The more you draw, the faster you get. I avoided doing paneled comics for nearly 10 years cause they took so much effort, and would only do comics where each panel was its own layer/image. After enough time doing that, I eventually got good enough at everything else to do with comics that the paneling aspect wasn’t that difficult anymore.

[mothdust23]

An angel nursing a drink. Her holy robes are ragged and dirty, her beautiful features marred by scars older than the light tethered to her head. She can feel her halo ringing painfully in her feathered ears, telling her to stop, leave this place of sin, return to her purpose. Her eyes are tinged with the orange of the disk, but her natural purple shines through enough to stare daggers at the holy symbol.

"I'm tired."

But you have so many people to save.

"Then let me save myself first."

This is self harm. Leave.

"All I'm doing is-"

INDULGING. YOU NEED TO STOP.

"By the holy, do you EVER shut up!?"

The bar goes quiet. The bartender stares her up and down, his visual receptor glowing and flickering.

"You're not a bird, are you?" he says gently.

"Gee, what tipped you off?" she mutters back, taking another swig of liquid courage.

"..The, er, halo, ma'am."

"Right, this accursed thing." She glares at it, reaching up and trying to pull, yet it sticks like glue above her head.

ACCEPT YOUR PLACE.

"I must say, in all of my years of active service, an angel has never graced my establishment. Why are you here?"

"To get drunk, what does it look like I'm doing!?"

STOP SINNING

The robot gives her a pitying look, remotely signaling an early end to his shift as he sits down next to her.

"I've never heard of an angel who didn't like its halo." he says curiously.

"It's not just the halo, it's the whole thing. Celibacy? No earthly possessions? Giving up everything, spending every hour of every day saving strangers from sins that don't even exist!? I never wanted this!!"

BUT YOU SHOULD

With every word she gets angrier, holy light cracking the glass and turning the alcohol to water. She groans and tosses it at the ground, making the bartender wince.

"...then why are you an angel?"

"I WAS FORCED TO BE!! My parents, my whole family, everyone I grew up with- it was either I put on the damn halo or they.. t-they.."

She tears up. The robot puts his hand on hers.

"Shh.. I understand. Perhaps you didn't get to choose then, but you can choose now."

No

"..what do you mean?"

"...I was built as a soldier. Programmed to be a soldier. Spent the first 10 years of my life killing birdkind and skeletons and humans and even other robots.. now, here I am, working the night shift in a bar in the middle of nowhere."

Servos whir in his back as he relaxes, plates of metal moving into place alongside others. Faint light shines through the gaps.

"Sounds miserable."

"On the contrary, I have never felt more alive. I have a family now, a life. People see my faceplate and smile and talk about their day. I give back to them."

"...what's your point?"

"..It's never too late to change, I guess. I'm new to this whole helping people thing anyways, hahah."

Do not

He shrugs, seemingly smiling.

You need to be pure..

"Shut up."

Please..

"..."

An angel nursing her drink. Her halo shines a brilliant green, and her purpose has never been clearer. She's finally pure.

Purely herself, that is.

She's never been happier. New robes in sacreligious colors, no more makeup to hide the scars of her childhood. Maybe one day, she'll find her family, and teach them what she learned. For now, though.. she sits, and drinks, and allows herself to smile.