#and it doesn't have the predict grade function so i just have no idea

[saprosappho]

finished spring term yippee now abt two weeks til i start summer term.... which is a math class. and im so bad at math it's actually tragic

[metanarrates]

there are a LOT of things you can speculate about regarding what twsa was actually like as a novel but what's most interesting to me is that you can make the argument that twsa was an "unpolished" version of what orv is. it's a version of a similar novel that likely dealt with a lot of similar themes but was seemingly bogged down by poor structure, pacing, expository handling, and focus. (all of which are things that orv is shockingly excellent at.)

and of course, han sooyoung's novel, sssss-grade infinite regressor, is the "polished" version of the idea. it's well-written, probably well-plotted, and was successful enough to make han sooyoung rich and famous. we don't know what sssss-grade infinite regressor is like as a novel either, but we sort of get the impression that it's not very emotionally rich even if it is good on a technical level. han sooyoung herself doesn't seem intensely attached to it despite being proud of her work, and kim dokja of course doesn't hold it in high regard. (though of course he's a gigantic unreliable narrator and also a hater.)

what's interesting is that despite orv very strongly emphasizing the ways these works are flawed from the outset, orv itself functions as an argument in these works' favor. both twsa and infinite regressor are stand-ins for the "mass-produced" genre of webnovels. they are popular fiction, relying on a very familiar pool of tropes and clichés in order to deliver on a relatively predictable story to appeal to a wide audience. it's not a coincidence that they are so similar - both literally and in a meta sense, they are drawing on the same exact story-building and genre material. twsa is just the unsuccessful version, and infinite regressor is the successful one.

orv is what I would consider the most "impressive" version of the genre. it's well-structured, thrillingly plotted, interestingly written, has fascinating ideas and characters, and is even "literary" - that is, it has deeply considered themes and is often drawing from the realm of literary, postmodern fiction in order to express its ideas. a less sincere story would disavow itself from its pop-fiction origins and claim to be the best version of its genre. nothing else could be like it, so the worst versions of its genre wouldn't be worth considering.

but orv, while technically functioning as an argument that the genre can be "good" simply because it's a great novel that is deeply rooted in its genre, goes much further. it argues in-text that any sort of story, even those that are bad on a technical level or those that were somewhat cynically produced for a mass audience, are worth finding value in, simply because stories have meaning to their readers. the most uncritical reproduction of a genre's conventions can still mean something to someone who likes it. twsa, if it existed in our reality, would still probably be considered a very bad novel, but it wouldn't need to be polished up and turned into infinite regressor or orv in order to have value. orv itself is telling you that you should find value in twsa as it is, and by extension, every badly-done work of fiction that twsa could be a stand-in for!

[do-you-have-a-flag]

just read that article from new york magazine, "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College - ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project."

didn't reveal anything new to me about the use and functioning of the plagiarism-grown, glorified auto-predict, language models that were rolled out so irresponsibly it means now anyone can waste water instead of their own time and effort. but was still fascinating to read, in a bleak way.

it's so interesting because cheating and corner cutting will always exist in education, whether out of desperation or laziness, it will always be there. but by university it truly is wild how many people are not actually there to learn, because at that point if you have a program do all your work for you you are fully not there to learn so why waste your time and money playing pretend at a degree. a degree you aren't qualified for because you did not do enough.

we aren't in a post-capitalist universal basic income world where the idea of a few individuals lightly supervising automation is feasible. the technology is not there and the culture and economic stability is not there. so when a professor in the article reasons to students “you’re not actually anything different than a human assistant to an artificial-intelligence engine, and that makes you very easily replaceable. Why would anyone keep you around?” that is not hypothetical. and in terms of the degrees just because the on paper grade says you passed doesn't mean you passed it means you curated automated responses that pass with no actual guarantee of comprehension or retention of information on your part.

and there are tools and templates and minor automations that can be used to supplement your own efforts! they take longer but not that significantly, and more importantly they are less likely to impede the actual practice of learning to implementation.

that's what a lot of people who cheat or use these tools in this way seem to miss.

let me pull out three paraphrased statements of possible justifications from this article:

The education system is flawed

These exercises are irrelevant

I'm bad at organisation

these are all experientially true to my experience of education at various points. and the first point exacerbates issues with 2 and 3 to where students can feel overwhelmed or underprepared or frustrated for various reasons. however where i differ personally from the choice making of these students, is that while i never had access to such a powerful tool i still never chose to cheat or cut corners with things like chapter summaries instead of reading a book, or getting someone else to write for me, or any other obvious forms of cheating/plagiarism.

and the reason for this is not lack of frustration or feelings of antagonism towards the system or confusion over content or lack of organisation skills (all issues i had). it's that throughout my education, i am talking back to primary school, i always tried to figure out WHY we were doing the work assigned to us. what in our studies is it trying to get us to engage with, what methods does it force us to put into use to communicate that knowledge, and how much of the information have we comprehended and retained. some assignments are bad at the execution of these goals but if you can see what the goals are you can still benefit from attempting to achieve them while meeting the requirements enough to pass. IMPORTANTLY the process of doing this frustrating and often inefficient process helps not just critical thinking skills but also is how you actually learn things.

no one else can know stuff for you. it makes sense to outsource a basic sum to a calculator app on your phone, but this means you are not a mathematician. if you use a chapter by chapter summary to write a book report you have not read that book. if you read the wikipedia article for a movie you have not watched that movie. all of these are more verifiable sources of information than language models.

if you get a transcript of a lecture you did not attend and use a chatbot to make notes for you then you did not attend that class- if you read the transcript and take notes and then use the chatbot and compare the difference at least then you used your capacity for thought to process the information and assess it through comparison.... but it would be better to find a classmate and compare notes with a peer so you both have the opportunity to not only check how well you understood the lecture/refresh the information covered, but also a much lower stakes chance to try out communication skills than the group assignments and oral presentations often assigned for this purpose. and on top of that you get to socialise and network with someone in your field of study in a way that benefits both of you.

i'm not even against the use of machine learning models generally, i think they are useful in a repetitive task automation and data scanning context. but why are we delegating things like Knowing Stuff and Human Connection to the 1 and 0 machine that might as easily sell our info as have it leaked to hackers. what kind of cyberpunk surveillance dystopia are we shrugging lazily into? you do not have to pay all that money to pretend to be a competent professional. and if that sounds harsh it's because it is. there are enough scammers and barely qualified people succeeding in this world.

you do not have to dedicate your life to labours that you are not capable of, at the very least be honest with yourself of your own capacity for thought and action. genuinely try to figure out if you are using this technology because of a 'can't' or a 'won't'

it's not a tool if it knows more than you- it's a tool if you could do the job without it.

[absolutely-esme]

My ghost biology head canon

I've found that sharing my head canons is a lot of fun, so I thought I would share more of my thoughts on ghosts.

First off, I imagine the particulars of how ghosts work being something that varies widely. There are some things that are relevant for everyone, but a lot of things that you would expect to be species-wide constants vary based on the individual.

Each person's experience as a ghost is shaped by their particular mind and what works for them, with some minor influence from their ideas about ghosts. While their assumptions/beliefs about ghosts can influence how they function as a ghost, it will never override their own nature and cause them to develop into something antithetical to their own self.

Do ghosts need to eat? Some do. Some don't.

Do ghosts need to sleep? Some do. Some don't.

Are ghosts bound to a place or object? Some are. Some aren't.

I imagine that some ghosts have cores that function like a brain/heart/whatever, are their one vulnerability, and injuries to them are serious business, like the fandom likes to imagine. I don't personally think this would be true across the board. Some would have cores that operate differently and others would have a system that doesn't have anything similar to cores at all.

Some ghosts might have something that could be called a core, but rather than a delicate vital organ, it's more like a combination of a lifeboat and the black box from an airplane. It's small and not especially powerful but virtually indestructible. If their body gets messed up too badly they can jettison themselves as a core and hide away somewhere safe until they manage to rebuild their body.

I imagine Skulker working like this. The "real Skulker" is not a tiny blob sitting in a cockpit, piloting a giant robot. When he's all suited up, he's experiencing things as the man-sized being he appears to be. That said, if he gets roughed up to the point where it makes more sense to just cut his losses, he can go tiny-blob-mode and bail before rebuilding himself.

Some ghosts exist split among multiple bodies because some parts of themselves work better separately. I imagine Johnny 13 and his Shadow are actually one ghost, but there were parts of himself he didn't understand and wasn't managing well that he was better equipped to understand and accommodate as a separate being. Johnny probably fought a lot with shadow when he was newly formed before stepping back and finally managing to view him with a sort of empathy that is often easier to offer to others than to oneself.

The particulars of Danny's ghost half were largely shaped by the dance of give and take between his human and ghost half adapting together. A lot of it either follows the lines of his human half or fills in the gaps, but it also follows Danny's nature in ways that always would have been part of his ghostly self even if he hadn't been a halfa. Being the child of ghost hunters actually left Danny with less of an idea of what ghosts were than the average person because he actively avoided thinking about it as much as he could, so a lot of his ideas about ghosts stem from his own personal experiences. His ghostly nature is fluid and highly adaptable, as well as eager to learn and explore.

Sometimes he develops abilities similar to things he's seen other ghosts do because "that's something ghosts can do." Sometimes he develops abilities as a response to whatever stress he's under (Danny will never admit he developed accelerated language acquisition because he was so stressed out about his grades that his ghost half interpreted the need to better understand purple-backed gorillas as a life or death emergency). Some just happen just because he grew that way.

Ghosts in general are not static. They learn and grow and change over time. The particulars of how they change over time are a bit less predictable than for humans, but it happens. They can have children (like Box Lunch) but the development of those children may not follow the same patterns as a human child's development.

I don't tend to imagine ghosts having "obsessions," exactly. The term "obsession" implies that it is unhealthy, overpowering, and impeding one's ability to function. Instead, I imagine them having something I'm calling "focal points" until I come up with a better name.

Focal points are things that are important, grounding, and central to a ghost's experience of the world. They may be activities or subjects of interest, but ghosts need to engage with at least some of their focal points with relative frequency for their health. Ghosts generally have more than one focal point and engage with different ones at different times.

Being denied access to one focal point in the short run will be disappointing but not dangerous, so long as they can still engage with others. Long-term, lack of access to one of their focal points can cause restlessness, anxiety, irritiability, and depression.

In some cases, a long-term inability to engage with a specific focal point may result in a focal shift, in which the focal point changed to something more reachable. This happens most frequently with a focal point centered on a person who is not willing to cooperate. While the focal shift is ongoing, the ghost will be atypically sensitive and prone to mood swings and experience an amount of discomfort proportional to how major of a focal point they are shifting. After the focal shift is over, the ghost should be able to function normally with no lingering ill-effects.

Not every focal point can be shifted and ghosts are highly recommended to seek council from a professional in ghost-medicine on any focal point related difficulties before making any decisions on how to proceed.

If not managed in a healthy way, it is possible for a ghost's relationship with one or more of their focal points to start bridging into obsessive territory, but this is the result of a problem, not normal functioning.

[parksunghoonification]

Top Ten reasons why I hate You

synopsis. tenacity and spite aren’t really a great combination and Jake Sim knows it well.

word count. around 1800

pairings. jake x afab!reader

genre. kind of enemies to lovers??

warnings. i cursed and i also got bitchy

authors notes. hi everyone! this is the first time I’m posting on this site, hope you’ll like it!! English is not my first language, so let me know kindly if there are some mistakes. 

(also i do NOT hate Jake, I actually love him too much, this was just for fun!!!)

Hi, I guess?

Sorry Diary, I haven't done this since third grade, I lost all my magic.

if it was up to me you wouldn't exist, this is all Jungwon's idea.

He said and I quote: "Maybe writing about it will give you some sort of inner piece, or maybe it will help you cope or process. It will do more good than harm, just try it". But then I refused, he clapped back and things got desperate really quickly (he knows exactly what to say and how to act to make me give in). Plus, I'm taking psychology this semester, saying no wouldn't have given me any credibility whatsoever.

So here I am, writing in a hate journal about a stupid frat boy (derogatory) for the sake of my friends' mental health (and also because they all have frequent headaches, pretty sure we are the cause of it).

I would like to start off by saying I am not a “fiery beast escaped from the flaming chambers of Hell”, even if I quite like the epithet (it’s giving Dante’s Inferno).  If Jake (the stupid frat boy) was writing these pages, he would have kept that supernatural narrative, going on about how monstrously evil I am. I have a message for that troglodyte: my diary, my money, my story, and I will tell it how I like it (the girlbossification of y/n, we love to see it).

Contrarily to what he thinks (and fuck what he thinks), many say I am a good person, a really good person even.

I always stall Mr Kim when that sleepyhead of Sunoo is late to class (after several years of observing and refining my theory, I finally came to the conclusion that the closer you live to the school, the later you'll arrive), I always patiently help that senior citizen of Heeseung with his electronics (even if I really want to hit him with the TV's remote, because really Heeseung it's not that hard, most buttons have the function written on them, you just have to press them), I always make sure that hot tempered mess of Riki doesn't get himself killed (task that costed me a black eye once), I always end up forgiving every one of my unhinged friends (I can't really stay mad at them for long anyway, how could I? At the end of the day, they're pretty cute).

Unfortunately, like every other human being (except for Taylor Swift, the queen herself) I have a few, totally forgettable, little flaws.

Jay often tells me I might have a teeny, tiny, almost invisible controlling problem (which is actually hot if you ask me), remark I really can't take seriously considering it comes from someone who can't stand being wrong. Heeseung has pointed out a few times that I may not be the most tolerable person when drunk, but I would like to point out to him that I, at least, am extremely predictable (unlike him) since I follow a precise scale of drunkenness that goes from silly dances to uncontrolled and unjustified giggles (I think I am adorable when drunk, Heeseung is a loser for not agreeing with me). Sunghoon never forgets to scold me for being "the biggest bitch ever" to his beloved, Sim Jake (I can't defend myself on this one, he is absolutely right but I will never say this to his face).

The thing is, my friend group still hasn't had the opportunity to grasp on the fact that I am extremely bad at letting grudges go, I hold on to them for as long as I can. I have to admit, it happened to me on several occasions to forget the reasons behind them, but what can I do? Give up? Suddenly change my behaviour? I don’t want people to think I am a crazy, moody bitch, I prefer they think of me as a bitch without any other attribute, I don't really need all that decoration.

I guess you can add to the mix the fact that I am also pretty stubborn. Tenacity and spite aren't really a great combination and Jake knows it well.

To be honest with you diary, I forgot why I hate him so much but he gives me at least one new reason every day to do so.

First of all, he skipped Lady Gaga on the radio. that alone I could have ignored, but after that heretic act he pronounced these precise words, and I quote, "who even enjoys this kind of music", with the most arrogant tone ever. For your information Jake, I do, you little piece of shit.

He also said that Yeonjun is "just okay", and that I was "blowing this out of proportion" by calling him "the most beautiful creature to ever walk on heart". Jealousy is quite a bitch, I guess.

Petty motives, aren't they? Yes, of course. In all sincerity, I just believe me and him are too different to coexist civilly in the same environment. He is always pushing the wrong buttons, the big red ones with "DO NOT TOUCH" written all over. He does this on purpose, I’m convinced. He must not like me too. 

To further prove my points, I made a contained list for you, my dear Diary, where I picked the top ten things I hate about Jake Sim (so I can antagonize him and explain why I am right at the same time). I know, I know, just like the movie. I had to pick a number, okay? I could have written for infinity but neither of us have all that time.

Disclaimer: it gets ugly

1. He is legitimately the worst at pranks but he won't give you the same answer if you ask him. He goes either way too small (he once moved every piece of furniture in my apartment by half a centimetre. Spoiler: I didn't notice and he almost went insane) or way too big (he freed a racoon in said apartment that destroyed most of said pieces of furniture. Also, it had rabies).

2. He is the biggest nerd. He picked maths and physics in college and made that his entire personality. Now I might be a bitch, but I am not a monster. I am all for talking about one's passions, but there is a limit, it being my total lack of interest towards Einstein and his stupid clock tower (with all due respect Mr Einstein). I also have unprocessed trauma from high school (it's the teachers' fault if I can't look at numbers without crying). So, no Jake, I am not bad at those, I just happen to despise them as much as I despise you.

3. He tries so bad to understand literature and refuses to accept that he really doesn't. He is extremely factual and he said himself multiple times that he doesn't believe in anything that isn't supported by objective actualities. Stories aren't always rational because human behaviour isn't always rational. He is convinced he can understand literature by using the same approach he uses for Math!!! How unacceptable is that? And that is why you didn't enjoy Wuthering Heights Jake, you tasteless little bitch! (He insults that masterpiece one more time and he is done for).

4. He is a robber, a criminal, an offender. He always steals Riki from me. And do not get me started on Sunghoon! Every time I happen to be alone with them, he approaches with his callous, grabby hands and takes them elsewhere, leaving me all alone. They like me better anyways Jake, get over it!!!

5. He ruins all the pictures. I can't post a group photo because of him. He's always right in the middle (I can't even crop him out and he gets extremely sensitive when I photoshop a celebrity in his place) with his stupid, constipated face. What's with that expression? Who lied to him? I swear his bottom lip will fall out one day from all the biting (I like to think that the doctors will have to use the skin from his ball sack to reconstruct it so that no one will kiss him ever again).

6. He makes me homesick. Layla this and Layla that, he always makes me think about the dog I left at home on the other side of the globe, the family I left behind. I face my personal dilemmas more than I would like because of him and believe me, realizing daily what a shitty daughter and sibling you are isn't ideal. I can't even cheer myself up with Layla, for some reason he is gatekeeping her from me, I have never even seen a picture of her. Scared she will like pick me over you, Sim?

7. I hate when he calls me "baby", "princess", "sweetheart" and other stomach upsetting pet names, mainly because his flirting (at least that's what Sunoo says it is) is pitiful and it gives me a heart attack every two business days.

8. He never worries. "y/n it's just a little coffee", Jungwon never blinked that day, not even once. "Relax y/n, it's chocolate", Riki was high on sugar. "We're at a party, have fun for once baby" Heeseung ended up in a fountain a neighbourhood away from the feast and almost drowned (we had our own little Titanic that night). For the record, I do have a lot of fun Jake, stop calling me an "uptight little princess".

9. That fucker laughs at his own tiktoks, he watches his page for hours on ends and has the audacity of having the time of his life. I wonder how the fuck he still finds deez nuts jokes funny when he hasn't been twelve in a while. If you're thinking "well, that's tragic" and not "he is hopeless" it's because, Diary, you still don't know that he listens unironically to Drake in 2021. Now that is tragic. To all the girls and boys who simp for Jake I just want to say that no, you can't fix him.

10. He makes me feel sort of funny sometimes. I believe it's due to the stress he gives me while Sunoo, on the other hand, is convinced that my hate for him it's "just a cover" for my "romantic feelings" and "that's what's up with your accelerated heartbeat, dumbass".

Let's focus on our last point. First of all, cardiovascular diseases run in the family, the doctor once told me that I am subjected to episodes of heart insufficiency. So, there's that. Second of all, I will never fall for that cretin of Jake sim. What would I even fall for? His outrageous skinny jeans? His stupid hair? That dumb laugh of his?

Now let’s hypothesize that I like him (which I don’t, ew), why would he like me?  But this is a conversation for another time.

This was sort of fun, maybe I’ll do this again tomorrow,

Bye bye Diary :)