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tinystepsforward · 9 months ago

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autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

#tony muses #tumblr meta #again just bc that's my tag for all this #automattic #wordpress #this is probably really incoherent i apologise lmao #i may edit it

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are-we-art-yet · 2 months ago

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Is AWAY using it's own program or is this just a voluntary list of guidelines for people using programs like DALL-E? How does AWAY address the environmental concerns of how the companies making those AI programs conduct themselves (energy consumption, exploiting impoverished areas for cheap electricity, destruction of the environment to rapidly build and get the components for data centers etc.)? Are members of AWAY encouraged to contact their gov representatives about IP theft by AI apps?

What is AWAY and how does it work?

AWAY does not "use its own program" in the software sense—rather, we're a diverse collective of ~1000 members that each have their own varying workflows and approaches to art. While some members do use AI as one tool among many, most of the people in the server are actually traditional artists who don't use AI at all, yet are still interested in ethical approaches to new technologies.

Our code of ethics is a set of voluntary guidelines that members agree to follow upon joining. These emphasize ethical AI approaches, (preferably open-source models that can run locally), respecting artists who oppose AI by not training styles on their art, and refusing to use AI to undercut other artists or work for corporations that similarly exploit creative labor.

Environmental Impact in Context

It's important to place environmental concerns about AI in the context of our broader extractive, industrialized society, where there are virtually no "clean" solutions:

The water usage figures for AI data centers (200-740 million liters annually) represent roughly 0.00013% of total U.S. water usage. This is a small fraction compared to industrial agriculture or manufacturing—for example, golf course irrigation alone in the U.S. consumes approximately 2.08 billion gallons of water per day, or about 7.87 trillion liters annually. This makes AI's water usage about 0.01%��of just golf course irrigation.

Looking into individual usage, the average American consumes about 26.8 kg of beef annually, which takes around 1,608 megajoules (MJ) of energy to produce. Making 10 ChatGPT queries daily for an entire year (3,650 queries) consumes just 38.1 MJ—about 42 times less energy than eating beef. In fact, a single quarter-pound beef patty takes 651 times more energy to produce than a single AI query.

Overall, power usage specific to AI represents just 4% of total data center power consumption, which itself is a small fraction of global energy usage. Current annual energy usage for data centers is roughly 9-15 TWh globally—comparable to producing a relatively small number of vehicles.

The consumer environmentalism narrative around technology often ignores how imperial exploitation pushes environmental costs onto the Global South. The rare earth minerals needed for computing hardware, the cheap labor for manufacturing, and the toxic waste from electronics disposal disproportionately burden developing nations, while the benefits flow largely to wealthy countries.

While this pattern isn't unique to AI, it is fundamental to our global economic structure. The focus on individual consumer choices (like whether or not one should use AI, for art or otherwise,) distracts from the much larger systemic issues of imperialism, extractive capitalism, and global inequality that drive environmental degradation at a massive scale.

They are not going to stop building the data centers, and they weren't going to even if AI never got invented.

Creative Tools and Environmental Impact

In actuality, all creative practices have some sort of environmental impact in an industrialized society:

Digital art software (such as Photoshop, Blender, etc) generally uses 60-300 watts per hour depending on your computer's specifications. This is typically more energy than dozens, if not hundreds, of AI image generations (maybe even thousands if you are using a particularly low-quality one).

Traditional art supplies rely on similar if not worse scales of resource extraction, chemical processing, and global supply chains, all of which come with their own environmental impact.

Paint production requires roughly thirteen gallons of water to manufacture one gallon of paint.

Many oil paints contain toxic heavy metals and solvents, which have the potential to contaminate ground water.

Synthetic brushes are made from petroleum-based plastics that take centuries to decompose.

That being said, the point of this section isn't to deflect criticism of AI by criticizing other art forms. Rather, it's important to recognize that we live in a society where virtually all artistic avenues have environmental costs. Focusing exclusively on the newest technologies while ignoring the environmental costs of pre-existing tools and practices doesn't help to solve any of the issues with our current or future waste.

The largest environmental problems come not from individual creative choices, but rather from industrial-scale systems, such as:

Industrial manufacturing (responsible for roughly 22% of global emissions)

Industrial agriculture (responsible for roughly 24% of global emissions)

Transportation and logistics networks (responsible for roughly 14% of global emissions)

Making changes on an individual scale, while meaningful on a personal level, can't address systemic issues without broader policy changes and overall restructuring of global economic systems.

Intellectual Property Considerations

AWAY doesn't encourage members to contact government representatives about "IP theft" for multiple reasons:

We acknowledge that copyright law overwhelmingly serves corporate interests rather than individual creators

Creating new "learning rights" or "style rights" would further empower large corporations while harming individual artists and fan creators

Many AWAY members live outside the United States, many of which having been directly damaged by the US, and thus understand that intellectual property regimes are often tools of imperial control that benefit wealthy nations

Instead, we emphasize respect for artists who are protective of their work and style. Our guidelines explicitly prohibit imitating the style of artists who have voiced their distaste for AI, working on an opt-in model that encourages traditional artists to give and subsequently revoke permissions if they see fit. This approach is about respect, not legal enforcement. We are not a pro-copyright group.

In Conclusion

AWAY aims to cultivate thoughtful, ethical engagement with new technologies, while also holding respect for creative communities outside of itself. As a collective, we recognize that real environmental solutions require addressing concepts such as imperial exploitation, extractive capitalism, and corporate power—not just focusing on individual consumer choices, which do little to change the current state of the world we live in.

When discussing environmental impacts, it's important to keep perspective on a relative scale, and to avoid ignoring major issues in favor of smaller ones. We promote balanced discussions based in concrete fact, with the belief that they can lead to meaningful solutions, rather than misplaced outrage that ultimately serves to maintain the status quo.

If this resonates with you, please feel free to join our discord. :)

Works Cited:

USGS Water Use Data: https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/water-use-united-states

Golf Course Superintendents Association of America water usage report: https://www.gcsaa.org/resources/research/golf-course-environmental-profile

Equinix data center water sustainability report: https://www.equinix.com/resources/infopapers/corporate-sustainability-report

Environmental Working Group's Meat Eater's Guide (beef energy calculations): https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/

Hugging Face AI energy consumption study: https://huggingface.co/blog/carbon-footprint

International Energy Agency report on data centers: https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks

Goldman Sachs "Generational Growth" report on AI power demand: https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/generational-growth-ai-data-centers-and-the-coming-us-power-surge/report.pdf

Artists Network's guide to eco-friendly art practices: https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-business/how-to-be-an-eco-friendly-artist/

The Earth Chronicles' analysis of art materials: https://earthchronicles.org/artists-ironically-paint-nature-with-harmful-materials/

Natural Earth Paint's environmental impact report: https://naturalearthpaint.com/pages/environmental-impact

Our World in Data's global emissions by sector: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

"The High Cost of High Tech" report on electronics manufacturing: https://goodelectronics.org/the-high-cost-of-high-tech/

"Unearthing the Dirty Secrets of the Clean Energy Transition" (on rare earth mineral mining): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/18/clean-energy-dirty-mining-indigenous-communities-climate-crisis

Electronic Frontier Foundation's position paper on AI and copyright: https://www.eff.org/wp/ai-and-copyright

Creative Commons research on enabling better sharing: https://creativecommons.org/2023/04/24/ai-and-creativity/

#ai art #ai art discourse #discourse #ai discourse

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yomeiu · 10 days ago

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My list of open source for art reference

Blender 3D - with the sketchfab addon for free 3D downloadable models. Large library, pretty much anything you need, versatile export formats. i use this the most out of all.

DAZ3D Studio for detailed figure posing/anatomy studies. free model bases included.

Internet Archive for books on various art studies such as anatomy, clothing and more, to read for free.

VUE by e-onsoftware for environmental world building. Something to fiddle around with to create some powerful, in depth background scenery. (very high CPU usage)

Style3D Atelier, a clothing simulation software with posable models to see how clothing folds form and interact with the body. Free trial exists, how much of the Programm is usable after free trial expires is still unclear to me. Will update later if it stays a viable source (for the real time cloth simulation, this requires a good CPU, too.)

MOSH (lite), for effects such as VHS filters, glitches, distortion etc. 27 effects for free. Both in static form and as .gif if i recall correctly.

Sketchuptextureclub, for seamless textures. Free to download for a limited amount each day.

On my Saved for later list:

Stocksnap.io

Pixivision.net

Cosmos.so

Unsplash.com

Pixabay.com

i've definitely hit slumps before. but i'm always on the search for bettering myself, finding new and or different ways to expand my art and experiment. i hope this will help.

#personal

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commodorez · 8 months ago

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VIC-20 Dual Serial Cart Mk I

It's finished! And guess what, I've decided to release it free and open source, available to build for yourself under CC-BY-SA 4.0. So if you want to make one for your VIC-20, go for it!

Everything you need to know to make and use one is is public. This includes schematics, KiCAD files, Gerber files to send off to a PCB manufacturer, demonstration programs, and a full user manual on how to configure and use it with your own software.

https://www.commodorez.com/vicserial.html

#vic-20 #commodore vic-20 #commodore #dual serial cart #i probably should not have queued this for halloween #im so damned proud of this one

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justforbooks · 7 days ago

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Pentagon’s Pizza Index has accurately predicted 21 global crises since 1983

As tensions rise in the Middle East, a curious, crowd-driven theory known as the “Pentagon Pizza Index” has caught fire online.

On June 12 and 13, users on X (formerly Twitter) reported a sudden spike in pizza deliveries near the Pentagon and Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., sparking speculation that the United States may be quietly entering crisis mode behind closed doors.

The timing? Just hours before Israel reportedly struck targets in Iran in response to Tehran’s earlier drone and missile attacks. And once again, pizza orders were booming.

Cold war roots of the pizza theory. What began as a Soviet spy trick is now a digital-age meme

The idea isn’t new. During the Cold War, Soviet operatives observed pizza delivery activity in Washington, believing it signalled crisis preparation inside U.S. intelligence circles. They coined it “Pizzint” — short for pizza intelligence.

This tactic entered public lore on 1 August 1990, when Frank Meeks, a Domino’s franchisee in Washington, noticed a sudden surge in deliveries to CIA buildings. The next day, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Meeks later told the Los Angeles Times he saw a similar pattern in December 1998 during the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton.

As former CNN Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer once joked in 1990, “Bottom line for journalists: Always monitor the pizzas.”

WWIII warning: What is the Pentagon Pizza Index today? A meme, an OSINT tool, or a symptom of digital-age paranoia?

The modern Pentagon Pizza Index is tracked through open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools. These include Google Maps, which shows real-time restaurant activity, and social media observations. Pages like @PenPizzaReport on X have dedicated themselves to watching for abnormal patterns.

On 1 June 2025, the account posted, “With less than an hour to go before closing time, the Domino’s closest to the Pentagon is experiencing unusually high footfall.”

A few hours later, reports emerged of a fresh escalation between Israel and Iran. For believers in the theory, it was yet another sign that something bigger was underway.

The April 2024 pizza spike. A recent example that reignited interest

The most notable recent instance occurred on 13 April 2024, the night Iran launched a massive drone and missile strike against Israel. That same evening, screenshots from delivery platforms showed pizzerias around the Pentagon, White House, and Department of Defense tagged as “busier than usual.”

Multiple Papa John’s and Domino’s branches reported increased orders. The correlation prompted viral memes and renewed interest in the theory.

According to Euro News, a user on X posted on 13 June 2025, “The Pentagon Pizza Index is hiking.”

Inside the logic: Why pizza? Food, fatigue and national security

The concept is deceptively simple. When military staff face a national emergency, they work longer shifts and can’t leave their posts. They need quick, filling food — and pizza fits the bill.

Studies in behavioural psychology show that under stress, people prefer calorie-dense, familiar comfort foods. During high-alert operations, officials may work 16–20 hour days. That creates a visible consumption spike that outsiders can track.

And because platforms like Google and Uber Eats share real-time data on restaurant activity, amateur analysts can monitor these patterns — no hacking required.

World War III: Pizza as a proxy for preparedness. It’s not perfect, but it’s consistent

The Pentagon Pizza Index isn’t a foolproof system. It could easily be triggered by something mundane: a long staff meeting, a software glitch, or a nearby college football game.

That’s why modern OSINT analysts often cross-reference pizza spikes with other indicators — like unusual aircraft movements, ride-hailing activity, or power usage near government buildings. When multiple signs align, it suggests more than coincidence.

As a senior analyst put it: “You can’t bank a war call on a pizza. But if the Pentagon’s burning the midnight oil and feeding everyone, it’s worth a second look.”

Official silence, public curiosity. What the US government says — and doesn’t say

Despite the chatter online, the US government has made no mention of pizza deliveries as indicators of crisis.

Responding to speculation about American involvement in Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said:

“We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defence.”

Still, the Pentagon’s silence on the pizza theory hasn’t stopped internet users from speculating.

Humour meets anxiety in the age of digital vigilance

In an age where open-source tools let ordinary people track the movement of jets, ships, and even pizzas, the Pentagon Pizza Index sits at the bizarre intersection of humour and fear. It turns snack food into a warning system.

It’s also a reminder: not all intelligence requires a badge. Sometimes, the clue might be just down the road — in a Domino’s queue.

Whether you see it as absurd or insightful, one thing is clear: when the pizzas fly, people pay attention.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Pentagon Pizza Index

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wlw-multi-fandom-imagines · 3 months ago

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Hmmm well… part 2 for vigilante!reader x Lena Luthor could start with them being in National City and in Lena’s territory. Reader paid Lena a visit but because of her hectic sched it didn’t happen and reader was photographed and in the tabloids being the Gotham’s bachelorette visiting the bar of NC (Jealous!Lena). Unbeknown to Lena, Reader was there to investigate on Cadmus as Lilian has been kidnapping innocent people and scientists in Gotham but bringing them to NC. Snooping around as her vigilante persona. Because of her Vigilante status, Supergirl doesn’t like reader and may have harm her in which enrage Lena because before she became NC’s hero she was a vigilante herself (very hypocritical for SG). This kinda triggered Lena to confront her feelings for Reader and well reader too. Angst with almost critical injury but hey it’s Lena Luthor after all. Happy ending maybe? Hmmm idk if this is enough but yeah😅

Thanks again for humouring me

-🐎

A/N: Apologies for the wait, but hope you enjoy and thank you for the request!

Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/wlw-multi-fandom-imagines/773772069970313216/im-not-sure-if-your-requests-are-open-but-uhmmm?source=share

I'm so sorry, but something came up at work and I'm going to have shareholders breathing down my neck for the next quarter if I don't get it handled tonight...any chance I can get a rain check for tomorrow night?

You stood in the middle of the sidewalk outside of the L-Corp building, staring at the text from Lena that had come through several minutes ago, and frowned. Sure, you had somewhat expected her to get cold feet about your visit at some point in the week leading up to it, but by the time you had settled into your seat on the plane it seemed like you were in the clear.

"Whatever," you muttered to yourself, shoving your phone in your pocket and turning around just in time to hail yourself a passing cab back to the hotel you had just checked into. Since your run-in turned hookup with Lena back in Gotham, you and the Luthor heiress had remained in contact almost daily through a serious of playful texts that had eventually built up to her suggesting you swing by National City the next time you found yourself free for a few days.

And thanks to that suggestion, you were now alone on a Friday night in a city you didn't particularly care for to begin with. Even worse, you were going to have to make up an excuse for why you couldn't meet Lena the next night. Despite her assistance in helping you to finally get a disguise in order for your nighttime hobby, Lena hadn't pried too extensively into what exactly it was that you did. In all honesty, she didn't exactly need to since the press was following your every move and every citizen in Gotham had a cellphone that they were quick to whip out and start filming on.

This plan, however, was something you were counting on going unreported and under everyone's radar, Lena included. Over the last few weeks, almost coincidently around the time you and Lena had met, a scientist you had interviewed for an assignment from a journalism class back in college went missing, seemingly without a trace. A week later, another Gotham citizen who worked at a nearby testing facility disappeared as well.

Over the next three and a half weeks, six more Gotham citizens went missing, all of whom were involved in either medical or genomic research in some way or another. The police had next to nothing to go off of, and it had taken your own software weeks to finally find a facial recognition match off of CCTV footage from a gas station just outside of National City. With news of Lillian Luthor's escape from prison just under three months ago still fresh in your mind, it wasn't hard to put two and two together. National City only had so many evil geniuses, and the one that had been in maximum security prison for nearly a year would probably be hard pressed to find new (and willing) employees.

You mulled over your plan to infiltrate Lillian's latest lair during the short trip back to your hotel, and continued to do so when you got back to your room and started sorting through your suitcase to unpack a fresh outfit for the night. It wasn't until your phone buzzed again in your pocket that you finally broke out of your thoughts and smiled for the first time since Lena had cancelled on you.

Hey, a little birdy told me you're in town for the weekend...got any plans?

Trevor, an old friend from grad school that had settled in National City, had somehow already gotten word of your arrival. Knowing full well he was probably already planning a club crawl in your honor, you hurried to type a response to let him know you were free & what hotel to pick you up from.

------------------------------------------------------

"Good morning Ms. Luthor!"

Lena looked up from her phone as her assistant appeared at the doorway to her office and set the device aside in a final attempt to stop thinking about the fact you hadn't answered any of her texts last night.

"Here's this morning's copy of the Tribune and your coffee. Anything else I can get you?"

"No thank you. Would you be able to close the door on your way out? I have to make a few phone calls and I don't want any interruptions," Lena replied, using every ounce of self-control she had to keep a smile on her face until her assistant had turned to exit the large office. As soon as she did, the CEO's smile dropped and she forced herself to look back down at the newspaper on her desk despite the way the photo on the bottom half of the front page made her stomach churn.

GOTHAM BACHELORETTE SCOPES OUT NATIONAL CITY'S FINEST

The headline was almost just as bad as the picture of you appearing to be having the time of your life at a downtown club, surrounded by what looked to be "National City's Finest". Many of them had been captured with their eyes on you in the snapshot that accompanied the short article. Almost as if on cue, Lena's phone began to buzz on the desk beside the newspaper and the brunette's head snapped towards it immediately. Your name appeared across the screen as the device vibrated rhthmically, which Lena allowed it to do for several seconds before sending you to voicemail.

------------------------------------------------------

Lena spent the next five hours throwing herself into the work of cleaning up the rest of the mess that had caused her and a majority of her department heads to work until almost midnight the night before. Then, she gathered her things and exited her office to thank the employees she had called in for working on a Saturday before releasing them to enjoy what was left of their weekends.

As Lena returned to her desk to retrieve her jacket and phone, she noticed yet another notification with your name on it waiting for her on her lockscreen. You hadn't tried calling or texting again after leaving a voicemail that Lena had decided not to listen to until she got home, but the brunette didn't have the luxury of work to distract herself now. So, she quickened her pace just enough to reach her desk in time to catch you on the last ring.

"Y/N."

"Lena, hi-"

You sounded surprised (and also maybe a little scared), and the corners of Lena's mouth twitched upwards into the hint of a smirk.

"-sorry if I'm interrupting work. I just wanted to apologize for not getting back to you last night. Hope you didn't end up working too late."

"Oh, how kind of you to worry. I don't think I was out nearly as late as you, so I should be the one calling on you I suppose."

The line went silent for a few tense moments and Lena pulled her phone back to make sure she hadn't dropped your call.

"Lena, you should know as well as anyone how the press makes mountains out of mole hills. I can assure you I did nothing more than catch up with an old friend from college. Who is married by the way. And a man."

Lena felt her bristling demeanor soften as she considered the possibility that you were telling the truth. You were right about one thing without a doubt - she knew how the press could twist one well-timed photo into a front page article.

"So, you weren't scoping out National City's finest and I'm coming across as an insecure bitch?"

"Just the first part. Any chance you'd be free for brunch tomorrow before I head home? My buddy is in trouble with his wife for being out so late with me and I promised to attend dinner at their place to help with his apology tonight."

Lena crossed her arms and bit her lip in a failed attempt to hide the smile forming, despite the fact that you weren't even there to see it. She felt foolish for being so quick to assume the worst, and for how quickly she was smitten with you again now that it was clear your transgressions from the previous night had only occurred in her head.

"Brunch sounds great. I'll text you the address to a good spot when I get home."

--------------------------------------------------

"Can't wait. See you tomorrow, Lena."

Relief washed over you as you hung up the call and you let out a long sigh as you tossed the device onto the bed beside the suitcase that held your supplies. Now that the first harrowing ordeal of the day involving a Luthor was over, it was time to move on to the next one.

The mission for tonight was simple enough - get in, get the proof you needed that CADMUS was kidnapping Gotham residents, and then get back to Gotham and disperse it to the journalists at your disposal as quickly as possible.

Once the media picked up the story, you were counting on Supergirl and her team to handle the takedown and rescue mission. Admittedly, even breaking into CADMUS was a fair bit riskier than the typical vigilante work you kept yourself busy with in Gotham. You were just hoping that you could get in and out with the proof that you needed without anyone noticing.

As the afternoon ticked by and the sun slowly began descending towards the western skyline of National City, you rehearsed scenario after scenario in your head as you changed into your disguise and armed yourself to the teeth with weapons, sensory-enhancing technology, and a few smoke grenades in case things went south. Thankful that it was winter, you pulled a long coat on to hide your outfit for the walk out of the hotel to the car you had rented. A bundle of nerves wound itself up and settled in your gut like a lead brick as you stuffed your phone in your pocket and left to make your way down to the lobby.

----------------------------------------------------------

Well, fuck.

That's all you could think to yourself as you watched the blonde in the fluttering red cape creep silently down the dark hallway ahead of you. Everything had gone according to plan since you had managed to slip past the easily-distracted guards that had manned the gates to the makeshift CADMUS compound. At least, until a few minutes ago when you had realized Supergirl was also sneaking around the building with you.

Aware that the superhero would hear you breathing if you got too close, you hung back until she had reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner to resume your slow, silent journey. If your footsteps or breathing didn't give you away, the way your heart was hammering in your chest was sure to attract the Kryptonian's attention. You weren't necessarily sure what she'd do if she realized you were there, but something told you she wouldn't find it entirely helpful.

"And who do we have here?"

A sudden and chillingly familiar voice pulled you out of your racing thoughts and you whirled around in a crouched position to see none other than Lillian Luthor standing at the other end of the hallway with a handgun trained on you. Based on the way her eyes didn't leave yours, you wagered she hadn't seen Supergirl round the corner ahead of you.

"You'll have to forgive me, it's a little tough to keep up with all of the so-called heros nowaways. Though I must say, I'm a bit impressed that someone who hasn't even made it into my radar was able to sneak their way in here," she continued, walking closer to where you knelt on the floor.

"Lillian!"

Supergirl's voice echoed down the hall from behind you and you thanked your lucky stars that she had still been close enough to hear the conversation.

"Drop the gun."

"Supergirl? You're here too? Is this your new little sidekick?" Lillian asked, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the sight of the Kryptonian. Much to your disappointment, she did not lower the weapon in her hands.

"I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea who this is. But I'd still prefer you not shoot them," Supergirl replied, her voice growing louder as she neared the two of you. As cheesy as you found the whole "Super" schtick at times, you sure were glad she had crashed your mission now.

The sense of security you felt from her intervention was about to be short-lived, unfortunately.

"I'm sure they'd prefer that too," Lillian chuckled, returning her gaze to you. "Too bad."

The sound of the gun going off and the impact from the bullet happened so quickly that you didn't even have time to brace yourself before you slammed backwards into a crumpled position.

-------------------------------------

10:15

Lena watched the clock on her phone as another minute ticked by without any sign of you. Blinking back tears as soon as she felt them starting to sting in her eyes, the brunette pulled a few bills out of her wallet and placed them on the table as she rose to leave the crowded restaurant she now felt foolish for showing up to. As soon as she got outside, Lena tapped your name from her contact list and raised the phone to her ear.

As the CEO paced up and down the sidewalk outside of the restaurant, she felt herself grow angrier and angrier as your phone continued to ring and ring before inevitably inviting her to leave a message. She was just about to give up after her third attempt when the ringing cut off and an unexpected, but familiar voice filled her ear.

"Lena?"

"Kara?" Lena's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as her brain struggled to come up with a logical explanation for Kara answering your phone. "Why do you have Y/N's phone?"

"I, um, do you remember that story I was working on at the beginning of last month about that Gotham city vigilante?"

"Yes, Kara, I already know about all of that, and I am sorry for not telling you when I found out but I'm sure you can understand someone keeping a secret about someone else's identity. Is Y/N okay?"

"Oh! Well, that saves me some explaining. In the interest of keeping this short, Y/N crashed a DEO mission to re-capture your mother last night and unfortunately, she ran into Lillian. She shot her as a distraction to make her escape, and it was pretty bad."

"What do you mean, 'pretty bad'?"

Lena knew she should also be asking about her mother's whereabouts, considering she was certainly on the top of Lillian's shit list. The brunette broke into a jog as she made her way down the sidewalk to where her driver had managed to find a parking spot earlier.

"It was...touch and go there for a minute. She was in surgery for most of the night, but Alex says she's stabilized and will probably wake up soon. It'll be a while before she's on her feet again, but the medical team seemed optimistic in the long run."

"I'm on my way down," Lena told Kara firmly, before briefly holding the phone to her shoulder as she slid into the back of her town car and gave her driver the address to the DEO.

"Okay, I'll come to the front and meet you."

Lena hung up without bothering to respond to Kara's confirmation and settled in for what was sure to be an unbearably long ride across town. A wave of guilt rolled over the businesswoman as she recalled how angry she had been with you just minutes ago for not showing up. Lena had spent more time thinking about you since her trip to Gotham than she cared to admit, even to herself. Seeing your name on her phone had quickly become one of the highlights of her day, so much so that she had to silence your notifications during work because she became so distracted.

Lena spent the majority of the 40 minute drive trying unsuccessfully to fight off her brain's steady attempts to help her come to terms with the feelings that had been brewing since your first encounter with her. By the time her town car pulled up in front of the DEO's National City headquarters, the brunette felt like her was about to explode.

-------------------------------------------------------

Kara was in the process of checking her phone for the sixth time in less than 10 minutes when her ears picked up the faint sounds of your sheets rustling. The blonde was quick to slip her phone into the hidden pocket in the latest Super suit Lena had made for her before your eyes fluttered open, unaware that Lena had hidden an identical one in the outfit that the DEO's medical team had cut off of your the night before.

"Hey, you're awake. Perfect timing," she said, watching as your eyes scanned the room in sleepy confusion before they finally met her own. "Any chance you remember why you were sneaking around Lillian's lair last night?"

"I could ask you the same thing," you responded hoarsely, and the Kryptonian's eyes narrowed enough for you to continue with an actual answer. "I was following some leads on missing Gotham scientists. Lillian was having them kidnapped to work on something for her. Not sure what. I was hoping if I got some proof and ran a few stories through my journalists, someone like you might take it from there and get them out."

The superhero looked taken aback by your answer, clearly unaware that Lillian had been sourcing unwitting participants into her latest CADMUS plot.

"That's good to know, thanks," she nodded curtly, somewhat embarrassed for having assumed you were just brazenly planning on trying to take down Lillian by yourself as an amateur vigilante. "I guess it's a little late to be asking, but how're you feeling?"

"I've been better, but I suppose I'm probably lucky to be alive, so I won't complain. Where are we, by the way? If this is your secret lair, consider me impressed it has it's own medical wing."

"More like the government's secret lair," Kara responded, her bristling demeanor fading. "Unfortunately, that's about all I can say about that without getting you several levels of clearances. Speaking of, you have a visitor on the way that should be here any second, so I'm going to have to go escort her down here."

A visitor? You frowned in confusion, struggling against the painkillers in your system to figure out who she meant as the Kryptonian made her way towards the door to your room.

"Lena?" you finally blurted out, just as she was about to leave. Kara turned around and nodded, a curious look on her face.

"Uh huh. You had three missed calls from her, and Lena's become a good friend of mine so I figured it was better to pick up than to leave her hanging."

The panic that had surged in your chest at the thought of Lena assuming you had stood her up began to settle and you breathed out a sigh of relief.

"I appreciate that, thank you. You didn't happen to mention where we were last night, did you?"

Suddenly, the superhero's expression dropped and her eyes once again narrowed on you suspiciously. The brief feeling of relief from seconds earlier slipped away as she took several steps back towards your bed.

"You know, as one of Lena's close friends, I'd sure hate to think someone was getting close to her for information about her family."

"What? No!" you shook your head earnestly at the accusation. "Listen, I didn't even know about Lillian targeting Gotham scientists until weeks after Lena and I first...met."

"Just seems like a coincidental time for you to enter her life, that's all. Considering I've never heard her mention you-"

The blonde's skeptical response was cut short by the sound of her phone going off and she huffed in frustration, clearly having wanted to continue her interrogation.

"We'll pick this conversation up again later."

Before you could protest again, the Kryptonian had disappeared in a blur of red and blue out of the room. Despite the insulted feeling her accusations had left you with, you couldn't exactly blame her for pointing out the obvious connection. Your stomach churned as you wondered if she would fill Lena in on her theory before you got the chance to speak to her yourself.

----------------------------------------

Your anxiety was well-deserved, because Kara barely let Lena get past the DEO's security check-in before she mentioned how suspicious it was that someone new in her life coincidentally happened to be investigating CADMUS.

"What are you trying to say here? That Y/N has been sniffing around me for information I don't have about my mother?"

"Listen, Lena, I think you should just consider the possibility that your new little vigilante friend might have had ulterior motive-"

"I'm going to stop you right there, because the way you said vigilante was completely uncalled for, especially when you yourself started out as exactly that," Lena interrupted, careful to keep her voice low as the two of them made their way towards the DEO's medical area.

"Okay, that's fair. I'm sorry," Kara admitted, her own voice softening as she considered the truth of Lena's statement.

"And, for the record, Y/N's never asked about my mother or CADMUS, and she's not my friend. I met her at the beginning of last month when I went to that conference in Gotham and we...well, I don't know what exactly we are, but it's certainly not 'friends'."

Lena crossed her arms and stared at the ground as she and Kara came to a stop outside the entrance to your room. Her burning need to defend you from Kara's accusations had brought more out than she planned on revealing.

"Oh! Well, that is certainly new information..." Kara stammered, her suspicions now long forgotten. Although she and Lena were close, it wasn't often that the CEO spoke about her love life and Kara had always just kind of assumed that thanks to her family, Lena was too closed off to have one. "I'm sorry for making this more stressful on you. I'm gonna go find Alex and give you two some privacy."

"Thanks," Lena nodded, "and it's okay. I know you're just trying to look out for me and I'll always appreciate that."

Kara smiled and gave her friend's shoulder a gentle squeeze before turning to speed down the hall. Lena stared in the direction she had headed for several moments, now somewhat hesitant to see you despite how excruciatingly long the drive across town had felt. The brunette took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact that her hands were trembling before forcing herself to step into your room.

Sorry to end it there but I kind of wanted to leave potential for a part 3! :)

#lena luthor x you #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor imagine #supergirl imagine #supergirl x reader #lena luthor

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mudwerks · 10 months ago

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(via Tumblr will move all of its blogs to WordPress — and you won’t even notice a difference - The Verge)

Soon, all of the blogs on Tumblr will be hosted on WordPress. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, announced on Wednesday that it will start to move the site’s half a billion blogs to the new WordPress-based backend.

This update shouldn’t affect the way Tumblr works for users, whom Automattic promises won’t notice any difference after the migration. Automattic says the change will make it easier to ship new features across both platforms and let Tumblr run on the stable infrastructure of WordPress.com. (WordPress.com is a private hosting service built on the open-source WordPress content management software.)

“We can build something once and bring it to both WordPress and Tumblr,” the post reads. “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project.” However, Automattic acknowledges that the move “won’t be easy.” It also doesn’t say when the migration will be complete.

#tumblr moves to wordpress

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dawnfelagund · 6 months ago

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My Open-Source Tolkien Studies Data Sets

One of the best parts of being an independent scholar is that I get to be generous with my research. I am not counting on it for a job, and frankly, between teaching at a small rural school and running the Silmarillion Writers' Guild, I will likely never be able to do all that I want to do with the data that I collect and so love the idea that someone might do something with it.

Because I do love making sets of data. Everything from the mind-numbing copy/paste data entry to learning new spreadsheet formulas is enjoyable to me. I'm an introvert in a very extraverted profession, and after a day of being all on for my students, turning everything into numbers is like a cup of tea under a warm blanket with a Golden Retriever at my feet.

So please use these data sets if they interest you. Play with them. Write about and share what you notice. Expand and build on them. Publish using them. If you use my data or work, credit Dawn Walls-Thumma and link to my website, dawnfelagund.com, if possible. I'd also love if you'd let me know if you share anything using them.

Consolidated Timelines. I made this back in 2013. I was trying to arrange all of Tolkien's timelines side by side. I did some weird things with numbers that I'm not sure I fully understand now, but maybe you can make sense of this or maybe you just want everything Tolkien said about timelines in one handy document. (Make a copy of the Consolidated Timelines.)

Fanfiction Archive Timeline. Made for the 2023 Fan Studies Network North America conference, this timeline-on-a-spreadsheet shows archives in the Tolkien and Harry Potter fandoms, multifandom archives, and social networks and when they came online, were active, became inactive, and went offline, along with data about affiliated communities, software, and rescue efforts. I update this timeline annually with that year's data and will continue to add new archives when I have enough data to do so. (Make a copy of the Fanfiction Archive Timeline spreadsheet.)

References to Sources in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In this document, I record each time a narrator's source is mentioned or alluded to. Ideally, this will one day include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as well! For now, it is just The Silmarillion for the selfish reason that I'm predominantly a Silmarillion researcher. (Make a copy of the References to Sources.)

Silmarillion Characters. A list of all of the characters in The Silmarillion, demographic data about them, the number of times they are mentioned, various aliases, and which "books" of The Silmarillion they appear in. The latter part is a work-in-progress. (Make a copy of Silmarillion Characters.)

Silmarillion Death Scenes (spreadsheet | document). For last year's Tolkien at UVM and Oxonmoot conferences, I collected every death scene in the Quenta Silmarillion and recorded various details about character demographics, cause of death, and grief and mourning rituals. (Make a copy of the spreadsheet. Make a copy of the document.)

The Silmarillion: Who Speaks? This is my newest project, which I hope to complete by the end of the year, documenting which characters get to speak actual words, the number of words they speak, and demographics about the speaking characters. Eventually, I would like to include as well characters who are mentioned as having spoken without being given actual dialogue, but one step at a time. Again, this is a work-in-progress. I have just started working on it. Come back in 2025 and, hopefully, there will be interesting stuff to see.

#tolkien #silmarillion #tolkien meta week

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wumblr · 8 months ago

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irresponsible, baseless allegation wednesday: i think those incorrect quotes blogs you always see on the trending page even though they never break 1k are matt mullenweg sideblogs. i know it sounds preposterous but hear me out: he has no taste, he can't write, and he doesn't know what's funny, but he desperately wants to be well-liked, so he has to copy and paste jokes and hamhandle them into being related to some fandom thing. it may sound like a lot of effort, perhaps a prohibitive amount of effort, to build out a whole second dash for "popular" posts just to put your own posts on it -- except that's basically the exact thing he just did singlehandedly pushing a news update to the wordpress dash to slander a so-called competitor who won't pay him licensing fees to use an untrademarked phrase in an open source software community. stealing jokes is somewhat reminiscent of stealing overtime hours from his mom's personal assistant by misclassifying her as a contractor and then lying to her about salary vs hourly. and also call of duty REALLY fucking sucks. if it was n64 goldeneye or tomb raider or doom or something i wouldn't have said anything

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morlock-holmes · 1 year ago

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What objections would you actually accept to AI?

Roughly in order of urgency, at least in my opinion:

Problem 1: Curation

The large tech monopolies have essentially abandoned curation and are raking in the dough by monetizing the process of showing you crap you don't want.

The YouTube content farm; the Steam asset flip; SEO spam; drop-shipped crap on Etsy and Amazon.

AI makes these pernicious, user hostile practices even easier.

Problem 2: Economic disruption

This has a bunch of aspects, but key to me is that *all* automation threatens people who have built a living on doing work. If previously difficult, high skill work suddenly becomes low skill, this is economically threatening to the high skill workers. Key to me is that this is true of *all* work, independent of whether the work is drudgery or deeply fulfilling. Go automate an Amazon fulfillment center and the employees will not be thanking you.

There's also just the general threat of existing relationships not accounting for AI, in terms of, like, residuals or whatever.

Problem 3: Opacity

Basically all these AI products are extremely opaque. The companies building them are not at all transparent about the source of their data, how it is used, or how their tools work. Because they view the tools as things they own whose outputs reflect on their company, they mess with the outputs in order to attempt to ensure that the outputs don't reflect badly on their company.

These processes are opaque and not communicated clearly or accurately to end users; in fact, because AI text tools hallucinate, they will happily give you *fake* error messages if you ask why they returned an error.

There's been allegations that Mid journey and Open AI don't comply with European data protection laws, as well.

There is something that does bother me, too, about the use of big data as a profit center. I don't think it's a copyright or theft issue, but it is a fact that these companies are using public data to make a lot of money while being extremely closed off about how exactly they do that. I'm not a huge fan of the closed source model for this stuff when it is so heavily dependent on public data.

Problem 4: Environmental maybe? Related to problem 3, it's just not too clear what kind of impact all this AI stuff is having in terms of power costs. Honestly it all kind of does something, so I'm not hugely concerned, but I do kind of privately think that in the not too distant future a lot of these companies will stop spending money on enormous server farms just so that internet randos can try to get Chat-GPT to write porn.

Problem 5: They kind of don't work

Text programs frequently make stuff up. Actually, a friend pointed out to me that, in pulp scifi, robots will often say something like, "There is an 80% chance the guards will spot you!"

If you point one of those AI assistants at something, and ask them what it is, a lot of times they just confidently say the wrong thing. This same friend pointed out that, under the hood, the image recognition software is working with probabilities. But I saw lots of videos of the Rabbit AI assistant thing confidently being completely wrong about what it was looking at.

Chat-GPT hallucinates. Image generators are unable to consistently produce the same character and it's actually pretty difficult and unintuitive to produce a specific image, rather than a generic one.

This may be fixed in the near future or it might not, I have no idea.

Problem 6: Kinetic sameness.

One of the subtle changes of the last century is that more and more of what we do in life is look at a screen, while either sitting or standing, and making a series of small hand gestures. The process of writing, of producing an image, of getting from place to place are converging on a single physical act. As Marshall Macluhan pointed out, driving a car is very similar to watching TV, and making a movie is now very similar, as a set of physical movements, to watching one.

There is something vaguely unsatisfying about this.

Related, perhaps only in the sense of being extremely vague, is a sense that we may soon be mediating all, or at least many, of our conversations through AI tools. Have it punch up that email when you're too tired to write clearly. There is something I find disturbing about the idea of communication being constantly edited and punched up by a series of unrelated middlemen, *especially* in the current climate, where said middlemen are large impersonal monopolies who are dedicated to opaque, user hostile practices.

Given all of the above, it is baffling and sometimes infuriating to me that the two most popular arguments against AI boil down to "Transformative works are theft and we need to restrict fair use even more!" and "It's bad to use technology to make art, technology is only for boring things!"

#ai

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ms-demeanor · 1 year ago

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I've been poking around your website, I really like it.

I'm inspired to put together my own silly site, you've made a lot of posts about that. I know how to get started with a website builder or whatever, but that's kind of boring.

I'd like to imitate the look of Ao3's log in page.

I have several specific Ao3 searches that the 'favorite tag' section just can't manage. I have all of those links in a google docs but it's boring and clumsy. I want buttons to press.

Your website mimics wiki, so... can you point me in the direction to get started mimicing Ao3?

My website doesn't just mimic wikipedia, it is a MediaWiki site, which means that from the ground up the software it's running on is the same software as Wikipedia. When I write pages, I'm using wiki markdown ==Like This== for section subheads and [[like this]] to direct to other pages on the site, etc.

The reason that I chose to do this is because it's relatively easy to set up a site this way; I don't know enough about CSS to get a site to look like Wikipedia without running it on mediawiki software, and I don't know enough about CSS to get something to look like Ao3 without running it on OTW software.

Like MediaWiki, the OTW archive software is also open source, so you theoretically could set up a literal archive of your own, but it is not *easy.*

Walter from Squidge.org has created documentation for implementing OTW's software and has talked about helping others to set it up as well, so that is one option.

If that's not the kind of labor you're looking for (and it won't be for a lot of people! it certainly wasn't for me!) you could try something like using a site like wordpress and building a custom template. That would *also* be a lot of work (in terms of learning CSS) but might be easier than figuring out the whole backend as well as getting the visuals you want.

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geneeste · 1 year ago

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Creating a personal fanfic archive using Calibre, various Calibre plugins, Firefox Reader View, and an e-Reader / BookFusion / Calibre-Web

A few years ago I started getting serious about saving my favorite fic (or just any fic I enjoyed), since the Internet is sadly not actually always forever when it comes to fanfiction. Plus, I wanted a way to access fanfic offline when wifi wasn't available. Enter a personal fanfic archive!

There are lots of ways you can do this, but I thought I'd share my particular workflow in case it helps others get started. Often it's easier to build off someone else's workflow than to create your own!

Please note that this is for building an archive for private use -- always remember that it's bad form to publicly archive someone else's work without their explicit permission.

This is going to be long, so let's add a read more!

How to Build Your Own Personal Fanfic Archive

Step One: Install Calibre

Calibre is an incredibly powerful ebook management software that allows you to do a whole lot of stuff having to do with ebooks, such as convert almost any text-based file into an ebook and (often) vice-versa. It also allows you to easily side-load ebooks onto your personal e-reader of choice and manage the collection of ebooks on the device.

And because it's open source, developers have created a bunch of incredibly useful plugins to use with Calibre (including several we're going to talk about in the next step), which make saving and reading fanfiction super easy and fun.

But before we can do that, you need to download and install it. It's available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and in a portable version.

Step Two: Download These Plugins

This guide would be about 100 pages long if I went into all of the plugins I love and use with Calibre, so we're just going to focus on the ones I use for saving and reading fanfiction. And since I'm trying to keep this from becoming a novel (lolsob), I'll just link to the documentation for most of these plugins, but if you run into trouble using them, just tag me in the notes or a comment and I'll be happy to write up some steps for using them.

Anyway, now that you've downloaded and installed Calibre, it's time to get some plugins! To do that, go to Preferences > Get plugins to enhance Calibre.

You'll see a pop-up with a table of a huge number of plugins. You can use the Filter by name: field in the upper right to search for the plugins below, one at a time.

Click on each plugin, then click Install. You'll be asked which toolbars to add the plugins to; for these, I keep the suggested locations (in the main toolbar & when a device is connected).

FanFicFare (here's also a great tutorial for using this plugin) EpubMerge (for creating anthologies from fic series) EbubSplit (for if you ever need to break up fic anthologies) Generate Cover (for creating simple artwork for downloaded fic) Manage Series (for managing fic series)

You'll have to restart Calibre for the plugins to run, so I usually wait to restart until I've installed the last plugin I want.

Take some time here to configure these plugins, especially FanFicFare. In the next step, I'll demonstrate a few of its features, but you might be confused if you haven't set it up yet! (Again, highly recommend that linked tutorial!)

Step Three: Get to Know FanFicFare (and to a lesser extent, Generate Cover)

FanFicFare is a free Calibre plugin that allows you to download fic in bulk, including all stories in a series as one work, adding them directly to Calibre so that that you can convert them to other formats or transfer them to your e-reader.

As with Calibre, FanFicFare has a lot of really cool features, but we're just going to focus on a few, since the docs above will show you most of them.

The features I use most often are: Download from URLs, Get Story URLs from Email, and Get Story URLs from Web Page.

Download from URLs let's you add a running list of URLs that you'd like FanFicFare to download and turn into ebooks for you. So, say, you have a bunch of fic from fanfic.net that you want to download. You can do that!

Now, in this case, I've already downloaded these (which FanFicFare detected), so I didn't update my library with the fic.

But I do have some updates to do from email, so let's try getting story URLs from email!

Woohoo, new fic! Calibre will detect when cover art is included in the downloaded file and use that, but at least one of these fic doesn't have cover art (which is the case for most of the fic I download). This is where Generate Cover comes in.

With Generate Cover, I can set the art, font, dimensions, and info content of the covers so that when I'm looking at the fic on my Kindle, I know right away what fic it is, what fandom it's from, and whether or not it's part of a series.

Okay, last thing from FanFicFare -- say I want to download all of the fic on a page, like in an author's profile on fanfic.net or all of the stories in a series. I can do that too with Get Story URLs from Web Page:

The thing I want to call out here is that I can specify whether the fic at this link are individual works or all part of an anthology, meaning if they're all works in the same series, I can download all stories as a single ebook by choosing For Anthology Epub.

Step Four: Using FireFox Reader View to Download Fic Outside of Archives

This is less common now thanks to AO3, but the elders among us may want to save fanfic that exists outside of archives on personal websites that either still exist or that exist only on the Internet Wayback Machine. FanFicFare is awesome and powerful, but it's not able to download fic from these kinds of sources, so we have to get creative.

I've done this in a couple of ways, none of which are entirely perfect, but the easiest way I've found thus far is by using Firefox's Reader View. Also, I don't think I discovered this -- I think I read about this on Tumblr, actually, although I can longer find the source (if you know it, please tell me so I can credit them!).

At any rate, open the fic in Firefox and then toggle on Reader View:

Toggling on Reader View strips all the HTML formatting from the page and presents the fic in the clean way you see in the preview below, which is more ideal for ebook formats.

To save this, go to the hamburger menu in the upper right of the browser and select Print, then switch to Print to PDF. You'll see the URL and some other stuff at the top and bottom of the pages; to remove that, scroll down until you see something like More settings... and uncheck Print headers and footers.

Click Save to download the resulting PDF, which you can then add to Calibre and convert to whichever format works best for your e-reader or archive method.

Step Five: Archiving (Choose Your Own Adventure)

Here's the really fun part: now that you know how to download your fave fanfics in bulk and hopefully have a nice little cache going, it's time to choose how you want to (privately) archive them!

I'm going to go through each option I've used in order of how easy it is to implement (and whether it costs additional money to use). I won't go too in depth about any of them, but I'm happy to do so in a separate post if anyone is interested.

Option 1: On Your Computer

If you're using Calibre to convert fanfic, then you're basically using your computer as your primary archive. This is a great option, because it carries no additional costs outside the original cost of acquiring your computer. It's also the simplest option, as it really doesn't require any advanced technical knowledge, just a willingness to tinker with Calibre and its plugins or to read how-to docs.

Calibre comes with a built-in e-book viewer that you can use to read the saved fic on your computer (just double-click on the fic in Calibre). You can also import it into your ebook app of choice (in most cases; this can get a little complicated just depending on how many fic you're working with and what OS you're on/app you're using).

If you choose this option, you may want to consider backing the fic up to a secondary location like an external hard drive or cloud storage. This may incur additional expense, but is likely still one of the more affordable options, since storage space is cheap and only getting cheaper, and text files tend to not be that big to begin with, even when there are a lot of them.

Option 2: On Your e-Reader

This is another great option, since this is what Calibre was built for! There are some really great, afforable e-readers out there nowadays, and Calibre supports most of them. Of course, this is a more expensive option because you have to acquire an e-reader in addition to a computer to run Calibre on, but if you already have an e-reader and haven't considered using it to read fanfic, boy are you in for a treat!

Option 3: In BookFusion

This is a really cool option that I discovered while tinkering with Calibre and used for about a year before I moved to a self-hosted option (see Option 4).

BookFusion is a web platform and an app (available on iOS and Android) that allows you to build your own ebook library and access it from anywhere, even when you're offline (it's the offline bit that really sold me). It has a Calibre plugin through which you can manage your ebook library very easily, including sorting your fanfic into easy-to-access bookshelves. You may or may not be able to share ebooks depending on your subscription, but only with family members.

Here's what the iOS app looks like:

The downside to BookFusion is that you'll need a subscription if you want to upload more than 10 ebooks. It's affordable(ish), ranging from $1.99 per month for a decent 5GB storage all the way to $9.99 for 100GB for power users. Yearly subs range from $18.99 to $95.99. (They say this is temporary, early bird pricing, but subscribing now locks you into this pricing forever.)

I would recommend this option if you have some cash to spare and you're really comfortable using Calibre or you're a nerd for making apps like BookFusion work. It works really well and is incredibly convenient once you get it set up (especially when you want to read on your phone or tablet offline), but even I, someone who works in tech support for a living, had some trouble with the initial sync and ended up duplicating every ebook in my BookFusion library, making for a very tedious cleanup session.

Option 4: On a Self-Hosted Server Using Calibre-Web

Do you enjoy unending confusion and frustration? Are you okay with throwing fistfuls of money down a well? Do you like putting in an incredible amount of work for something only you and maybe a few other people will ever actually use? If so, self-hosting Calibre-Web on your own personal server might be a good fit for you!

To be fair, this is likely an experience unique to me, because I am just technical enough to be a danger to myself. I can give a brief summary of how I did this, but I don't know nearly enough to explain to you how to do it.

Calibre-Web is a web app that works on top of Calibre, offering "a clean and intuitive interface for browsing, reading, and downloading eBooks."

I have a network-attached storage (NAS) server on which I run an instance of Calibre and Calibre-Web (through the miracle that is Docker). After the initial work of downloading all the fic I wanted to save and transferring it to the server, I'm now able to download all new fic pretty much via email thanks to FanFicFare, so updating my fic archive is mostly automated at this point.

If you're curious, this is what it looks like:

Pros: The interface is clean and intuitive, the ebook reader is fantastic. The Discover feature, in which you are given random books / fic to read, has turned out to be one feature worth all the irritation of setting up Calibre-Web. I can access, read, and download ebooks on any device, and I can even convert ebooks into another format using this interface. As I mentioned above, updating it with fic (and keeping the Docker container itself up to date) is relatively automated and easy now.

Cons: The server, in whichever form you choose, costs money. It is not cheap. If you're not extremely careful (and sometimes even if you are, like me) and a hard drive goes bad, you could lose data (and then you have to spend more money to replace said hard drive and time replacing said data). It is not easy to set up. You may, at various points in this journey, wish you could launch the server into the sun, Calibre-Web into the sun, or yourself into the sun.

Step Six: Profit!

That's it! I hope this was enough to get you moving towards archiving your favorite fanfic. Again, if there's anything here you'd like me to expand on, let me know! Obviously I'm a huge nerd about this stuff, and love talking about it.

#genie's stuff #calibre #calibre-web #bookfusion #personal fanfic archive #archiving fanfic #saving fanfic

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dewdrops-whammy-bar · 3 months ago

Text

Tenth Drink Free- Chapter 4- Exclamation Point (!)

It's been a while, huh. Burnout and fatigue are the evil twins keeping me from doing the things I like. And yet I stand before you, cupping this chapter in weary hands after laboring over this like a 10 pound baby. I birthed this chapter. And I will birth another. Specifically six more. Lots of emotional turmoil in this one too. Not as much as last time though!!! Dew's getting better!!!

WC: 3923

Warnings: Smoking, addiction, medical emergencies

Read below or on ao3!

Taglist: @skele-bunny @rain-loves-scallops @dewphomet @0-miles-away

It takes three days for Dew to recover.

The first day is spent in bed with a heating pad and snacks that he convinced Rain to deliver to his room. He plays video games, re-strings his guitar, practices for a few hours, and orders takeout for dinner. He and Rain eat together- a rare occurrence for them.

“Okay. New Vegas.” Rain prompts, spearing a shrimp on his fork. “How do you like it?”

“It’s fun. I made my character gay. Didn’t know that was an option.” Dew picks at his ravioli. “I left off at that factory with all the ghouls.”

“Ah, yeah.” Rain nods. “The flamethrower’s pretty effective on the feral ones.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Dew scours his brain for conversation topics- what did people talk about over dinner? He flips through his options and settles on one.

“Uh- how’s class going?” Dew asks after a brief pause in the conversation. Rain heaves a dramatic sigh.

“Hard… Midterms just passed so we get a quick reprieve but I’ve got chem tomorrow and the teacher always gives so much homework…” Rain sighs again. “I don’t even need to know about chemistry. I’m studying fucking software engineering. What am I gonna do, test the pH of a chunk of code?”

Dew smiles slightly and sits back in his chair. He lets Rain complain until he runs out of steam.

After dinner the two of them put on a documentary on octopi (or octopodes, as the narrator makes clear). Rain taps away on his laptop and Dew plays with a fidget toy stolen from Rain.

It’s a nice evening, even with his cramps. Dew dozes off sometime in the middle of the documentary and wakes up draped in a blanket. He wanders back to his room and falls back asleep.

The second day is mostly the same, except for a setting change to the couch. Dew mopes around, naps, complains loudly about his cramps, and watches trashy reality tv. He has to admit, he feels a little better.

The nicotine cravings hit hard around 2 in the afternoon so he drags himself off the couch and trudges outside in his warmest hoodie.

Dew makes his way down the stairs and around to the back of the building. His lighter clicks uselessly as he thumbs the flint wheel.

“Come on…” He mutters around his unlit cig. A weak flame finally flickers to life and he shields it with his hand as he brings it up to his mouth.

The first drag almost makes him groan with relief. He pockets his lighter and leans back against the wall, his eyes closed.

“Fuck…” Dew mumbles, smoke streaming from his lips and nose. A wad of emotions builds in his throat and he takes a shaky breath. “Fuck…”

A rustling sound nearby pulls him from his spiral of self-loathing. Dew jumps and looks over at the source of the noise.

A fat raccoon ambles out from behind a dumpster, making its way toward a fast food bag on the other side of the alley. Dew watches it pull apart the soggy paper with its little hands and rummage through the trash inside. It finds a lone fry inside and sits up to cram it into its mouth.

Dew reaches slowly into the pocket of his sweats for his phone, only to find he’d left it in his room. He lets out a huff of frustration out of his nose and takes another drag. The raccoon tears open the bag further and finds more food. It shoves its head inside, pushing the bag across the ground.

Dew lets out a little snort of amusement. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this close to a raccoon before. The little bastards are a nuisance, but at least they’re cute.

The raccoon pulls itself out of the bag with a small ice cream cup clutched in its paws. It gleefully laps at the remnants inside. Dew leans back against the wall to watch.

The raccoon removes its head from the cup. Melted ice cream is smeared on the top of its ears. It shakes its head and goes back to rummaging in the bag.

Dew watches the creature until it wanders off around the corner. He raises his cig to his mouth only to realize it’s burned down to the filter in the time he’s been watching the raccoon.

He sighs, stubs it out on the wall, and tosses it into the dumpster. He’s running low and doesn’t feel like lighting up another. The few puffs he’s taken will have to do for now.

It’d be cheaper to quit, his brain offers. $9 a pack, a pack and a half a week, that’s gotta be like $50 a month.

The voice has a point, as much as Dew hates to think it. Money is already tight. He contemplates this as he climbs the stairs back up to the apartment.

The third day is better. Dew decides to attempt some self-care. Real self-care, not just lazily jerking off and falling asleep.

So he follows the advice of some blog post he found. He gets his favorite snacks from the convenience store, puts his phone on do not disturb, steals borrows one of Rain’s face masks, and draws a bath.

As it turns out, Dew is NOT a bath person. The tub is too small for him to submerge and stretch out comfortably and he can’t find a position that doesn’t make his tailbone hurt. He lasts ten minutes before he drags himself out of the tub and dries off. The face mask is starting to feel weird on his face so he peels it off with a grimace.

Plan B, then. Dew makes a nest of pillows and plushies on his bed and settles in with snacks and a tv show he’d been meaning to watch. It’s cozy.

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up it’s dark outside. Wind blows past his window and makes the trees rustle.

“Ouuuuughhh…” Dew groans and stretches. It’s a good stretch, one that leaves him relaxed and feeling like jello for a minute. He closes his eyes and contemplates going back to sleep. He’ll get up in a minute.

He didn’t mean to actually fall back asleep but when he opens his eyes again it’s much darker outside. Oops.

To his surprise, when he gets up he feels better. Not at 100%, but definitely better. Enough to cook something for dinner instead of heating up instant food.

Dinner ends up being scrambled eggs and toast loaded with peanut butter and cinnamon sugar, not bad for a midnight snack. He even washes the dishes afterwards before stepping out for a smoke.

He lights up but hesitates before he brings it to his lips. I should quit.

The itch in the back of his mind grows stronger as he stares at the glowing tip. Dew takes a drag and grits his teeth, blowing the smoke out of his nose like a dragon. He hates being dependent on anything.

He tosses the cigarette on the ground and steps on it before he can overthink it. He twists his boot, splitting the paper wrapping and grinding the tobacco into the dirty pavement.

Regret washes over him. I can’t do this. He reaches for his pack again, fumbles out another cig, and flicks his lighter. The little device clicks uselessly, mockingly even. The empty tank stares back at him. Dew throws it against the wall with a frustrated growl. He stomps on that too.

He takes a few steps back toward the stairs before he pauses, thinking of the raccoon. He backs up, scoops the lighter shards into his hand, and drops them in the dumpster. I’d hate for the little guy to get hurt.

Dew wakes up feeling… refreshed, he realizes. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. His eyes don’t feel dry and tired for once. He still feels that ever-present tightness in his shoulders and neck though and the itch in his spine. Better than nothing.

He lazes around in bed until he has to piss. His cramps are less painful today, thankfully.

He shoots a text to Cirrus while on the toilet-

—

Dew: i’m feeling better do you have a spot for me?

—

He changes his pad and brushes his hair and teeth while he waits for the reply.

—

Boss lady 2: How much sleep did you get?

Dew: what are you, a cop?

Boss lady 2: Answer the question

—

Dew glances at the time- 11 AM- and resigns himself to some basic math. Damn, it’s been a while since high school…

—

Dew: 9 hours

Dew: just woke up

Boss lady 2: Can you come in @ 1? Got a 4 hour shift for you

Dew: Yep

Dew: See you then

—

He eyes the shower and ultimately decides to blast his scalp with dry shampoo instead. The wet box can wait. He throws his hair in a braid and calls it good.

Dew’s breakfast consists of two cheese sticks and a Coke. He leaves a note for Rain requesting a grocery run soon and gets dressed. He forgoes eyeliner today and packs his backpack.

He steps out for a smoke out of habit. He’s halfway down the stairs when he hears a rattling from the alley. Two raccoons emerge from an overturned trash can. Dew remembers his broken lighter. He sighs and looks at his nearly-empty pack.

”Fine.” He mutters, pointing at the creatures below. “You win for now.”

The raccoons don’t seem to care, instead preoccupied by hissing at each other over a chicken bone. Dew trudges up the stairs back to the apartment.

That doesn’t take away the cravings but it gives him reason to ignore them. Why he cares so much about a few critters in the alley he doesn’t know.

He sees the bastards again when he starts walking to work. He gives them a little wave.

”Good to see you, hun.” Cumulus greets him when he walks into the kitchen. “You mind working the ovens and sink today?”

”Not at all.” Dew is relieved that he won’t be subjected to customer service today.

”Thanks. There’s a batch of bagels cooling, could you take them out to the counter when the muffins come out of the oven?” She asks, plopping a bowl of dough out onto the countertop.

”Yes ma’am.” Dew gives her a two-finger salute, which she returns.

He’s happy to get back into the routine of scrubbing pans and moving baked goods around the kitchen. He puts in his earbuds and zones out. He even forgets his cravings for a bit.

He learns from Sunny- looking under the weather but still gleeful- that Aether is here. He brushes her off but that doesn’t stop him from idling behind the counter as he restocks the bagels. He sneaks a glance at Aether- god, he’s gorgeous- and tucks the empty tray against his hip to bring back to the kitchen. He tries to sidestep Aeon at the register but they grab his arm.

“Hey…” Aeon mumbles. They look pale, their fingertips deathly cold against Dew’s skin. “Need…”

Then their eyes flutter closed and they fall forward. Dew yelps and drops his tray to catch them, lowering them to the floor carefully. The metal tray clatters to the linoleum, drawing startled eyes from the cafe’s patrons.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Dew mutters. A worried murmur spreads through the shop as people crane their necks over the counter to investigate.

Cumulus pokes her head out of the kitchen and gasps. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Dew replies a bit louder than he’d meant to. “They just- passed out, I think…” He looks down at Aeon, who thankfully seems to be stirring.

“Let me through!” Aether’s voice rings out over the worried chatter and Dew looks up just in time to see him vault over the counter. He immediately zeroes in on Aeon and kneels next to them. “Did he hit his head?”

Dew takes a moment to realize Aether is talking to him. “No- they fell on me first and I lowered them down.”

“Good. Get some water and something sugary.” Aether tells him. Dew nods and scurries into the kitchen.

When he returns with Aeon’s water bottle and a sucker from Cumulus’s candy stash, Aeon is sitting up against the wall with their eyes closed. Dew awkwardly holds out the water bottle and Aether takes it with a grateful nod.

“Are they okay?” Dew asks cautiously. Aether nods again.

“For now, yeah. I definitely recommend they go to the ER or at least urgent care to get checked out fully. I can only do so much right now.” Aether steadies Aeon’s hands to help them drink.

“I w-wanna go hom-me.” Aeon mumbles. “I’ll be okay, this just hap-pens sometimes-s.”

“How often?” Aether asks, his brow furrowing a little bit more. “If this is a frequent thing, you definitely need to see a doctor.”

“M fine.” Aeon snaps and immediately shrinks back into themself. “S-sorry. I gotta f-finish my shift.”

“Uh-uh.” Cumulus shakes her head, her fluffy ponytail bouncing. “I’ll pay you for the rest of your shift, hun. You go get checked out.”

“I don’t w-wanna.” Aeon mumbles. “I can’t- don’t-nt make me go. Ple-ase.”

Dew recognizes the look in their eyes. The fear of a cornered animal. He sits down next to them.

“Aeon.” He whispers softly so only they can hear. “If you don’t go talk to a doctor about this, it’ll only get worse. I care about you.”

“It’s-s expensive.” Aeon whispers back. “A-and it sm-mells weird a-and there are n-no wind-w-winds-“ They grit their teeth. “Win-dows. And the nurses m-make fun of my-y stutt-ter.”

“I’ll come with you.” Dew decides on the spot. “I’ll say I’m your brother or something so they’ll let me stay with you.”

“You promise?” Aeon asks. “How’re w-we gonna get the-there?”

“I’ll drive you.” Aether offers. “I don’t have anything to do today. May as well help you out.”

Aeon side-eyes Aether before their eyes flick back to Dew. “You’ll stay?”

“Promise.” Dew nods. “I’ll get your backpack.”

“I’ll be out front when you two are ready.” Aether stands up, giving Dew a chance to glance at his thighs. Damn. “Be careful standing up.”

Dew scampers into the back and retrieves Aeon’s purple backpack. Aeon takes it gratefully, digs through it for a minute, and produces a small plush bat.

“Ready-y.” They clutch the bat to their chest and grab Dew’s hand. With only a bit of struggling, they’re standing.

The walk to the car is mercifully quick, with Aeon hiding their face in Dew’s shoulder to avoid stares. Sure enough, Aether’s car is idling outside- a nondescript gray SUV. Dew pops the back door and helps Aeon inside, then tosses in their backpack and climbs in next to them.

Aether glances at them in the rearview mirror. “The hospital I work at is about fifteen minutes away. There’s probably a bag back there if you need to hurl.”

“Thanks.” Aeon replies weakly and pulls their knees up to their chest after buckling in. They rest their chin on their bat and stare out the window as Aether pulls into the street.

Dew tips his head back against the seat and sighs through his nose. He realizes he’s left his own backpack at Cloudy Skies and grinds his teeth. He just hopes they’ll get out of the ER by closing time. He has his phone and wallet in his pockets. No keys, no jacket, no cigs. In a stranger’s car, taking his friend to the ER. He just wishes he’d brought his earbuds.

Quiet rock music drifts from Aether’s car speaker. Dew wants to ask about his music taste but it doesn’t seem like an appropriate time. It sounds like pop punk, a song Dew hasn’t heard.

He takes the time to look around Aether’s car while they’re driving. There’s a guitar-shaped air freshener and a motel-style keychain hanging from the rearview. A few rubber ducks sit on the dashboard and Dew can spot some textbooks on the passenger seat with Aether’s bag. The car smells faintly of vanilla and lemon.

Dew reaches over the middle seat and offers Aeon his hand. They take it and squeeze hard.

Check-in is quick with Aether’s help. They’re given a wait time of an hour and pointed to the waiting room. Dew lets himself hope that the visit will be quick. This turns out to be a grave miscalculation.

Dew shifts in his chair for the umpteenth time and looks at his phone again. The ER’s waiting room is fairly empty but they’ve been waiting for almost three hours. Aeon is curled up on the seat of a wide chair, presumably trying to nap.

Aether is on Dew’s other side reading a book. From what Dew’s been able to peek at, it seems like some kind of supernatural thriller. Dew doesn’t read much but he stores the title of the book away in his brain for safekeeping. Maybe he can turn it into a conversation if he works up the courage.

By the grace of some merciful deity, Aeon’s name is called. They unfold themself from the chair and clutch their bat to their chest.

“Want me to come with?” Dew asks. Aeon nods. Dew stands, stretches his legs, and slings their bag over his shoulder. A tired-looking nurse guides the two of them to an exam room and leaves them with an assurance that a doctor will be in soon.

“I don’t like-ike it here,” Aeon mumbles. They pull their knees up to their chest and stare at the wall through a curtain of shaggy bangs.

“Me neither.” Dew sighs. He stretches out his legs and sighs again. The fluorescent lights hum above them like a swarm of flies.

It takes too long for another nurse to show up, then a doctor, then a swarm of nurses taking blood and hooking Aeon up to some kind of machine. Dew holds their hand and tries his best to not zone out entirely.

Finally, Aeon is discharged with a stack of papers, a referral to a heart specialist, and an equally exhausted Dew.

“Home.” Aeon signs, chewing on the wing of their bat. Dew sighs and nods.

“Yeah. Let’s go home. Aether said he’d wait for us but I can call an Uber if he left already.” Dew pulls out his phone and checks the time. Six hours since they’d walked into the ER. It feels like double that.

“Mmm!” Aeon mumbles, pointing to Dew’s left. Dew is relieved to see Aether hurrying toward them.

“How’re you two holding up?” Aether asks, his brow furrowed adorably.

“Tired.” Dew replies at the same time that Aeon signs, “Like shit.”

“Hungry?” Aether asks. “I can stop for food if you want.”

Dew is hungry, but he looks to Aeon for an answer. They shake their head no.

“Alright.” Aether twirls his keys around his finger. “Let’s go.”

Aeon and Dew climb into the backseat again. Aeon curls up with their bat, clutching the discharge papers with their free hand. Dew stares out the window absently.

He snaps out of it when Aeon nudges his arm. “Hm? Oh-“ He opens the door and slips out to let Aeon out onto the sidewalk. He waves goodbye and watches Aeon disappear into their apartment building. He hopes they’ll be okay.

“You alright?” Aether asks once he gets back in. Dew looks up to see him looking at him through the rearview mirror.

“Yeah.” Dew’s jaw aches from how he’s been grinding his teeth. I need a smoke.

“Okay.” Aether doesn’t sound convinced. “Are you hungry?” he asks, meeting Dew’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Dew hesitates.

“I don’t have money.” He semi-mumbles, glancing away. He hates letting people know that he’s broke. They always look at him in a pitying, condescending way. It makes him sick.

“You can’t eat money.” Aether taps on the steering wheel with his fingertips. “It’s on me.”

“You don’t have to. You’ve done enough to help me and Aeon today.” Dew crosses his arms and stares down Aether in the mirror.

“Alright.” Aether shrugs, puts the car in gear, and pulls out into the street. “Where should I drop you?”

“Back at Cloudy Skies. I left my backpack there.” Dew uncrosses his arms, pleased that he’d won. “...I appreciate the offer, though.”

“Don’t mention it.” Aether makes a dismissive gesture like shooing away a fly with two fingers. Dew turns his attention back to his phone. It’s almost dead, so he texts the work chat an update and asks to be let into the building.

Cirrus meets him at the back door with his backpack. “Take care, Dew.”

”I will.” He promises. He means it this time.

Dew waves goodbye to Cirrus and drags his weary feet in the direction of home.

“Extra shift?” Rain asks when Dew kicks the front door open. He heaves a tired sigh and shakes his head. Rain is fully occupying the kitchen table with some sort of project involving some kind of helmet, wires, a soldering iron, and various other mechanical bits.

“Aeon fainted. I took ‘em to the ER.” Dew grunts. He tries to untie his boots with freezing fingers. “Ow- fuck-”

“Did you walk them there?” Rain raises a thin eyebrow over his safety glasses. Dew shakes his head and finally gets his boot off.

“Aether- hot guy- drove us.” He picks at the laces of his other boot now. “Drove us back too.”

Rain’s other eyebrow joins the first near his hairline. “You and Aeon got into his car without even knowing him?”

“He’s in nursing school. And he’s really nice. He offered to buy me food.” Dew wriggles his foot out of his remaining boot. “I think you listen to too many true crime podcasts.”

“I’m not paranoid, I’m cautiously aware.” Rain adjusts something with tweezers. “Never go to a second location”

“You are paranoid.” Dew huffs. He plops his backpack down by his boots. “Whatcha working on?”

“Rigging up this LED mask for a friend.” Rain holds up the mask as Dew gets closer to show the inside, covered in a grid of tiny lights. “I’m attaching a little computer so I can program different patterns into it.”

Dew gently takes the mask. From the outside it looks like smooth, black plastic that covers the wearer’s face. “Cool.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty proud of it.” Rain grins. There’s something slightly off about his expression. He’s hiding something. Dew decides it’s not worth poking his nose into.

He microwaves a cup of ramen and retreats to his room with it. As soon as he sits down in his desk chair his body reminds him of just how exhausted he is. He sets his dinner on the desk and lets himself go limp with a groan. This results in him oozing out of his chair like a bag of wet meat. Ugh.

After a minute of laying on the floor, his hunger overpowers his fatigue and Dew is forced to drag himself back up into the chair. The noodles are gone in what seems like seconds.

He yawns and automatically reaches for his cigarettes. Then pauses. He’s tired enough to sleep through the cravings tonight. He can have one in the morning, he promises himself.

Dew buries the cigs in the back of his drawer with the journal pages and crawls into bed. He’s asleep as soon as his eyes close.

(comments and kudos keep me going)

(tip jar)

#tenth drink free #aether ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #nameless ghouls #the band ghost #dewther #dew/aether #aether x dewdrop #trans ghouls

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