#but there's an additional problem there

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

It's so bizarre that across every handheld system that Nintendo has ever produced from the original gray brick Game Boy all the way up to the present day with the Switch OLED, literally the only one that didn't have a headphone jack was the GBA SP. Why did they leave it out of that one and only that one specifically.

It's doubly annoying because the SP is otherwise the definitive Game Boy - it's the only device that can play original GB and GBC carts that also has a rechargeable battery and a backlit screen (aside from third-party hardware like the Analogue Pocket), so the omission of such a basic feature that literally everything else has is mind-boggling lmao

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[weirdmageddon]

Ok smart guy, let's see YOU take a crack at it.

[cpericardium]

[swaps55]

How to Play a Video Game Correctly:

Are you having fun?

Congratulations, you're playing it correctly!

[bonefall]

For everyone hearing about StormClan and doesn't mind Ivypool's Heart spoilers, here's the details I've heard so far;

(Remember to take this with a grain of salt, as always, because this is third hand information I've collected from various spoiler threads)

This is not a major plot thread in Ivypool's Heart. It's actually quite secondary.

StormClan was created at some point after DOTC, when Galestar of WindClan and Stripestar of ThunderClan fell in love.

They combined their Clans into one and left the territory.

At some point, Galestar, Whitebreeze, Rosebush (or Shadebush) and some other guy betrayed Stripestar.

Some cats came back to reform ThunderClan and WindClan.

But not all of them came back; these remnants stayed as StormClan.

Ngl StormClan's traditions are UNIRONICALLY very cool. Instead of contacting a centric StarClan, each one has a "Spirit Guide" (a lot like my Patrons and Demons, but more personal!)

Spirit Guides give their chosen disciple a full name, and can be channeled directly when needed. VERY cool.

Sisters are a breakaway group from StormClan. Less cool, imo, I wanted them to be closer to the Tribe.

StormClan cats also tend to be aggressive, and have actually been several of the unnamed rogues across the series.

Ivypool is going to have several flashes to the StormClan founding drama, or spiritual visions, or something. Basically she's going to give us a window into the history of StormClan.

We get confirmation that fading is connected to forgetting, BUT a faded spirit can be brought back if they're remembered.

There's a big soul river thing that connects all the afterlives.

So, overall, imo this seems fun. I'm actually glad that the Erins are being a bit more creative with the afterlife systems, and this is a nice way to riff on the structure of Clans. While I am still (rightly, imo) wary of the team's ability to juggle all of these new groups, I think StormClan is an interesting addition to canon.

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

gee i wonder if the issue could be at all related to the fact that the current treatment plan for his chronic pain consists solely of FUCKING IBUPROFEN

[leslieiswriting]

vampires? Pirates? Vampirates!

*Queer* vampirates!!!

Coming to shores near you in a *month* !!!

Add it on Goodreads!

[moeblob]

No, I don't think I will recover from the VA's growl after Gallagher says he used to bite people. Thanks for checking. (but seriously, was that just a VA choice or is that a direction he was given? Does he rawr in other languages? I've only heard the English line).

[personishfive]

in which his life is like a video game

[journey-to-the-attic]

(有点晚的) 新年快乐!

happy (a little belated) lunar new year!! sorry i haven't been answering asks, been a busy week - i'll try to get to that tomorrow ^^

[wouldntyoulichentoknow]

she is a) aware of the echatere bite scar, b) very detail-oriented, and c) not always fantastic at timing

finished this one up for @tes-summer-fest free day :'D

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

I actually could support public education in a different day and age. A quality education for lesser-privileged kids is one huge key to success for any community that wishes to flourish. I do understand Thomas Jefferson's passion for it.

The problems with it arose when it became 1. compulsory, 2. industrialized, and 3. federalized.

And the reasons it won't work today as in the past are because 1. kids can get a higher quality, cheaper education at home, 2. communities today are so diverse in values that the taxpayers would never be able to vote on good curricula, and 3. teacher education consists mainly of classroom management, not actual doctrine or pedagogy (and they aren't even permitted to manage their classrooms).

[songfell-ut]

The High Priest

So you know how @iamjoekurose asked me about if Frisk met an opposite-gender version of herself? The idea high-key got its hooks in me and I procured a little something from the sublime @skyworkartzzz and this is male Frisk.

What's that, you say? Mr. Frisk isn't enough? Well too bad, I definitely didn't spend almost a week one-finger typing a la George RR Martin and this totally isn't a scene taking place the morning of All Souls Day in chapter 6. If it was, I'd clarify that this Frisk doesn't need help putting earrings on...it's a little more involved.

You also won't find a casual version of his outfit at the end of it beneath the cut. Nope nope.

Frisk half closed the bathroom door, eyes squeezed shut as he flicked on the witchlight. He slumped against the sink, groped around for the left handle, and ran the water at full blast, yawning mightily as the steam rose. First step, wet his face: grab a washcloth from the pile he knew was beside the tap, shake it out, and reach down to...jerk his hand back, his stupid brain catching up just in time to avoid being scalded. He forced his eyes open and adjusted the water temperature to a less damaging heat, muttering under his breath. He needed to hurry up and finish shaving, couldn't be late to tea with—

To his surprise, the door opened and Sans ducked inside, slumping onto the floor behind him. The skeleton gave him a little salute in the mirror and yawned wide enough to make Frisk wince a little. “Mornin', chief. Gettin’ dolled up already?”

Frisk didn’t dignify that with an answer—Sans had initially believed that “dolled up” applied to all humans dressing nicely, and when Frisk tried to explain that it mostly meant a woman putting on makeup, Sans insisted that all humans were the exact same, and Frisk was a human, and it was therefore a correct thing to say and he now said it almost every morning. Unfortunately, that happened to be how often he came in as Frisk was trying to shave, sitting far too close in the narrow space to pester him with smart remarks.

Well, Frisk had heard much, much worse, and on mornings when he wasn't tired and cranky, he generally didn't mind if Sans wanted to amuse himself observing human grooming rituals. At least he wasn't saying "Okay, I'll shave it for later" and making Frisk laugh too hard to get a blade near his face safely; he had had to order the giant skeleton out of the room and shut the door at least twice now.

Luckily, Sans remained silent as he watched this morning's routine unfold. Once Frisk had dunked the washcloth in the basin and scrubbed his face in a still-too-hot attempt to wake up, he tapped the vanity's middle drawer to remove the barrier. Therein lay a spotless straight razor, a large silver case of shaving soap, and an immaculate brush, kept locked up out of habit from the days at the monastery where everyone stole everyone else's bath items. The priest checked the soap and made a face at how thin it was getting, which amused Sans, judging by his smirk as their eyes met in the mirror; Frisk ignored him and wetted the brush down, swishing it across the soap till he worked up a good lather, and dabbed along the lines of his beard and mustache, tilting his head to slather it thickly beneath his jaw. Then he checked the mirror one more time to see if Sans thought that was funny, too - no, he just seemed mildly interested - and picked up the razor. It was time-consuming but not too difficult, just quick, careful movements to scrape the stuff off a few little strokes at a time—

Except Frisk was so tired and squinty that it wasn't long before he gave one little stroke too hard and flinched. “Dirt on a frigging—”

“Atta boy. Cuss away,” Sans said cheerfully, and gave another huge yawn, ignoring Frisk’s glare in the mirror. “Yer face is leakin’," he added. "Need some help?”

Frisk stared at the tiny trickle of blood that was indeed starting its way down his cheek, then sighed in defeat, wiping the blade on a hand towel. “If you could, please.” However smirky Sans was, there really was some benefit to having company with the power to heal stupid inju—

The razor was suddenly enveloped in red mist. "All righty, one sec." Frisk jumped as the blade tugged itself out of his grip and settled on the counter. “There we go. Now hol' still.” The priest watched Sans raise a bony finger and rest the very tip on Frisk's sleep-ruffled hair; a flick of green later, Frisk's cheek tingled as the cut vanished. "Done."

“Thank you,” Frisk said, scrubbing the blood away and steeling himself - ha, steel - to get back to work. Tired as he was, he couldn't walk out of here with only one side of his face done. But he’d probably be fine now that he was more awake, right? He wouldn’t be more nervous and likely to make another mistake in front of Sans, right? Ha ha, of course not. His hands weren't shaky at all from nerves or exhaustion...

Sans broke into his thoughts with a thoughtful sound. “Ya know what? Just lemme do it. Hold real still, okay?” He sat up, his finger curling very gently to rest over the crown of Frisk's head and keep him in place. “Seriously, don' even breathe wrong," he added, lifting the razor on another wisp of magic.

The human’s eyes widened, hands rising in protest as his brain caught up. "No, no, no thank you," he almost whispered, and cleared his throat, pulling enough of himself together to say louder, "Don't worry about that." He ducked out from beneath Sans' finger, smoothing his ruffled hair. "You're a bodyguard and a diplomat, not a valet."

"Dunno what that is. I'm guessin' somebody who shaves rich people?" Sans waggled the razor in midair. "Ya hired me to protect you from gettin' cut up, an' now you want me t'just sit here and watch ya play with sharp objects in your goddamn sleep? Dunno if I'm good enough ta heal you if ya take yer ear off."

That gave Frisk far too much pause before he could answer, "I'm not going to cut my ear off," with very patient dignity, trying to ignore a bit of lather dripping off his neck.

The boss monster snorted. Up came the shaving brush, but before Frisk could tell him to put it down or at least be careful with it, Sans' magic dipped it into the case almost daintily and worked up more soap. "Look, kiddo, lemme try it. If I fuck it up, I'll heal you an' I won't ever mention it again." The brush rose and drifted close enough to dab Frisk lightly on the neck, which tickled enough to make him crack a smile. "See?" Sans said gleefully. "We're good. Just hold still." And his forefinger settled again on the priest's rumpled head.

Frisk opened his mouth to order him out of the bathroom. But…after a long moment of panic warring with irritation and self-doubt, and hearty embarrassment...he swallowed, and, against his better judgment, said, “All right.” He allowed the razor to approach, and watched in the mirror as it drifted close enough for the lightest experimental scrp, scrp on his cheek. It paused, Sans meeting his eye for an inquiring stare; Frisk started to nod, and was stopped by a growl. He tried a smile instead, but that made his cheeks bunch up; he rolled his eyes instead, gesturing to keep going.

Sans chuckled. It seemed he had been watching the morning routine closer than Frisk thought, because there was no need to tell him to pull the skin taut for a closer shave: a speck of magic pressed just hard enough to help the blade pass over the stubble just so. A few swipes, a wipe on the towel, and Frisk let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "I lied. You can breathe," Sans deadpanned, but when Frisk tried to smile, he got another reproving tap.

It was easier to mock-glare at Sans in the mirror than watch as the blade moved a little faster, with increasing surety, though the skeleton was intent on his work. Difficult as it was shaving oneself for the first time, never mind someone else, the razor made absolutely no nicks, no missed bits; Sans did pause frequently, forefinger tilting the priest’s head this way and that to check his work in the mirror— “Screw this,” the skeleton said presently. “Just turn around.”

With all the cool indifference of a boy letting his mother spit on her hand to fix his hair, Frisk shuffled around in a half circle and waited for more, only for Sans to chuckle again. “Don't give me that look, pal,” he said, sounding…exasperated, but something else, too.

That was it: the High Priest gave up any remaining dignity and sat down cross-legged on the bathroom floor. Sans shifted onto his side, jaw propped up on on hand, then took a sideways one-fingered hold on Frisk’s head and began scraping away again, much quicker and more confident than he ever was.

Well, dirt. The priest wanted desperately to say something, but his skin would be in peril if he moved his mouth; he opted to keep his eyes closed, allowing Sans to turn his head this way and that to get each side, gentle as always. He never touched him with any more force than necessary, Frisk thought, at least after that first encounter in his prison cell; even when the assassin was after him and Sans was physically maneuvering him to safety, he had been careful not to hurt him. Having much more direct proof of the monster's determination to protect him, trusting Sans with a literal blade at his neck? It was incredibly endearing.

Actually, given Frisk's thoughts of skeleton parts and pondering conjugal relations, it was better – worse? – than that. Definitely more confusing; all these years of struggling to muster interest in any of the women chasing him, of ignoring accusations of preferring men because if he did like them, he surely would have noticed it in all those years at the monastery—Frisk had started to think he was just...broken in that respect. Why in every circle of Hell was he feeling so strange about exposing his throat to a gigantic monster in total security that Sans wasn't going to hurt him? It wasn't fear that made his skin tingle like that, or at least not more than a tiny bit. It definitely felt nice, except that that wasn't the word for it.

When the process was finished, Sans gave a satisfied grunt. “Ha. See?” He nudged Frisk’s shoulder, and the High Priest shook himself, then obediently shuffled around in another half circle, then remembered to open his eyes and pull himself to his feet for an inspection in the mirror. “Beautiful,” the skeleton said triumphantly, setting the razor on the sink.

Wha— Frisk couldn’t help staring at him in the mirror, eyes wide, feeling and seeing his nicely shorn cheeks redden further. “Once again, you have the wrong word,” he said as coolly as possible, and tore his gaze away to busy himself rinsing and drying the brush and razor.

“Wha?” Sans blinked at him, sockets also going wide, and Frisk watched his cheekbones suddenly change color. “Not you, goddammit! Beautiful work,” snapped the boss monster. “As in, I told ya you needed help, an’ then I did it totally perfect. Not like I was gonna cut yer…” He gave a fake cough, evidently remembering that Frisk might not like to hear any hyperbole about having his throat cut.

“Yes, well done. Thank you,” Frisk said hastily, reaching for the towel and barely remembering to run cool water to splash his cheeks first. He needed something cool right now.

...

...

...

(His more everyday garb:)

[brotrustmeicanwrite]

I fucking hate AI but heavens would it be useful if it wasn't such an unethical shit show

First, just to be clear, I'm talking about actually using AI as a tool to support your writing process, not to generate soulless texts made from stolen data instead of writing yourself.

Back when ChatGPT first became available it was still pretty useless so I had a lot of time to learn about how it's made, how it works and the ethics of it before ever touching the technology. I decided pretty quickly to never use it to generate text (or images) for actual writing and art but I still wanted to experiment with what else it could do (because I'm a nosy bitch that needs to know and poke everything).

And HEAVENS was it a blessing for writing with adhd

The last time I wrote more than 200 words in a day (outside of school work obviously) was 7th grade. I wrote over 8k just in notes the day Google's "Gemini" (formerly "Bard") became available to the public.

In order to not jeopardize my existing work I decided to make a completely new story with Bard's help that wasn't linked in any way to anything I had made before. So I started with a prompt along the lines of "I need help writing a story". At first, it immediately started generating a completely random story about a green tiger but after some trial and error, I got it to instead start asking questions.

What do you want the theme of your story to be?

What genre do you want to write in?

What time period do you want your story to take place in?

Is there magic?

Are there other sentient creatures besides humans?

And so on and so forth. Until the questions became extremely specific after covering all the bases. I could tell that all I was doing was essentially talking to an amalgamation of every "how to write" blog and website you've ever seen and telling it which part I wanted to work on next but it still felt great because the AI didn't actually contribute anything besides a few suggestions of common tropes and themes here and some synonyms and related words there; I was doing all the work.

And that's the point.

Nothing in that exchange was something I couldn't easily do on my own. But what happened was that I had turned what is usually a chaotic mess of a railway network of thoughts into a clear and most importantly recorded conversation. I can sit down and answer all those questions on my own but what usually happens when I do, is that every thought I have branches out into 4-7 new ones which I then attempt to record all at once (which obviously doesn't work, yay adhd) only to end up lost in thought with maybe 20 lines of notes in total after 6 hours at the table. Alternatively, either because I get bored or just because, I get distracted by something or my own thoughts about a different unrelated topic and end up with even less.

Working within the boundaries of a conversation forces you to focus on one specific question at a time and answer it to progress. And the engagement from the back and forth is just enough entertainment to not get bored. The six hours I mentioned before is the time I spent chatting with what is essentially a glorified chatbot that day, way less time than what I spent on any other project, and yet I have more notes and a clearer image of the story than I do about any of my real work. I have a recorded train of thought.

In theory, this would also work with a real human in a real conversation but realistically only very few people have someone who would be willing to do that; I certainly don't have a someone like that. Not to mention that someone doesn't always have time. Besides that, a real human conversation involves two minds with their own ideas, both of which are trying to contribute their own thoughts and opinions equally. The type of AI chat that I experimented with, on the other hand, is essentially just the conversation you have with yourself when answering those questions, only with part of it outsourced to a computer and no one else butting into your train of thought.

On that note, I also tried to get it to critique my writing but besides fixing grammatical errors all that thing did was sing praises as if I was God. That's where you'll 100000% need humans.

tl;dr writing with AI as an assistant has basically the same effect as body doubling but it’s an unethical shit show so I’m not doing it again. Also I forgot to mention I did repeat the experiment for accuracy with different amount of spoons and it makes me extra bitter that is was very consistent

[skiptoyuri]

i've had enough of these guys