#either it's a software error

[sofusgirl]

Ugh.

Was actually starting to look forward to playing Dragon Age: the Veilguard.

Bought the physical disc version for my ps5, bc it's cheaper than digital by like 20-30 dollars or so. And even splurged on an ssd unit to increase storage on my ps5.

Installing the ssd: fine, easy peasy.

Playing my new game: problem.

my disc drive is fucked.

It refuses to read any disc. No error or anything, no "unable to read disc". It just takes the disc, I hear it spin a little, then nothing. Nothing happens.

When this happened with a movie (dvd) i tried a few weeks ago I assumed it was bc the dvd was old as heck and really worn down. But this game is brand new. No scratches, no dust.

I tested it with BG3 as well, since I've already played that, so I know that disc is fine, and if that works it's the game disc that is defective, but no. "Insert disc to play" when I try starting BG3, when the disc has already been inserted.

So it's off to get repaired, hopefully. We'll see.

[leieryx]

Hello any technologically inclined mutual. My computer mutual. What do I do if a game says I need to update my graphics drivers but Windows doesn’t offer any updates. Game opens and plays on Home Screen for a bit, then crashes and says the driver needs an update. worried I may have asked computer to bite off more than it can chew but I’m not enough of a computerhead for this

[dkpsyhog]

The special feeling of Visual Studio running into a git error and pissing and shitting and crying about it so you have to break out the command line and say "yes git i know there is a fatal error but it doesn't seem to actually be causing any problems can you just stage the files anyway thanks love you bye"

[reasonsforhope]

"When Ellen Kaphamtengo felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen, she thought she might be in labour. It was the ninth month of her first pregnancy and she wasn’t taking any chances. With the help of her mother, the 18-year-old climbed on to a motorcycle taxi and rushed to a hospital in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, a 20-minute ride away.

At the Area 25 health centre, they told her it was a false alarm and took her to the maternity ward. But things escalated quickly when a routine ultrasound revealed that her baby was much smaller than expected for her pregnancy stage, which can cause asphyxia – a condition that limits blood flow and oxygen to the baby.

In Malawi, about 19 out of 1,000 babies die during delivery or in the first month of life. Birth asphyxia is a leading cause of neonatal mortality in the country, and can mean newborns suffering brain damage, with long-term effects including developmental delays and cerebral palsy.

Doctors reclassified Kaphamtengo, who had been anticipating a normal delivery, as a high-risk patient. Using AI-enabled foetal monitoring software, further testing found that the baby’s heart rate was dropping. A stress test showed that the baby would not survive labour.

The hospital’s head of maternal care, Chikondi Chiweza, knew she had less than 30 minutes to deliver Kaphamtengo’s baby by caesarean section. Having delivered thousands of babies at some of the busiest public hospitals in the city, she was familiar with how quickly a baby’s odds of survival can change during labour.

Chiweza, who delivered Kaphamtengo’s baby in good health, says the foetal monitoring programme has been a gamechanger for deliveries at the hospital.

“[In Kaphamtengo’s case], we would have only discovered what we did either later on, or with the baby as a stillbirth,” she says.

The software, donated by the childbirth safety technology company PeriGen through a partnership with Malawi’s health ministry and Texas children’s hospital, tracks the baby’s vital signs during labour, giving clinicians early warning of any abnormalities. Since they began using it three years ago, the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths at the centre has fallen by 82%. It is the only hospital in the country using the technology.

“The time around delivery is the most dangerous for mother and baby,” says Jeffrey Wilkinson, an obstetrician with Texas children’s hospital, who is leading the programme. “You can prevent most deaths by making sure the baby is safe during the delivery process.”

The AI monitoring system needs less time, equipment and fewer skilled staff than traditional foetal monitoring methods, which is critical in hospitals in low-income countries such as Malawi, which face severe shortages of health workers. Regular foetal observation often relies on doctors performing periodic checks, meaning that critical information can be missed during intervals, while AI-supported programs do continuous, real-time monitoring. Traditional checks also require physicians to interpret raw data from various devices, which can be time consuming and subject to error.

Area 25’s maternity ward handles about 8,000 deliveries a year with a team of around 80 midwives and doctors. While only about 10% are trained to perform traditional electronic monitoring, most can use the AI software to detect anomalies, so doctors are aware of any riskier or more complex births. Hospital staff also say that using AI has standardised important aspects of maternity care at the clinic, such as interpretations on foetal wellbeing and decisions on when to intervene.

Kaphamtengo, who is excited to be a new mother, believes the doctor’s interventions may have saved her baby’s life. “They were able to discover that my baby was distressed early enough to act,” she says, holding her son, Justice.

Doctors at the hospital hope to see the technology introduced in other hospitals in Malawi, and across Africa.

“AI technology is being used in many fields, and saving babies’ lives should not be an exception,” says Chiweza. “It can really bridge the gap in the quality of care that underserved populations can access.”"

-via The Guardian, December 6, 2024

[literaticat]

Is it ethical to use Chat GPT or Grammarly for line editing purposes? I have a finished book, 100% written by me and line edited by me already--and I do hope to get it traditionally published. But I think it could benefit from a line edit from someone who isn't me, obviously, before querying. But line editing services run $3-4k for a 75k book, which is beyond my budget.

I was chatting with someone recently who self-publishes. They said they use Chat GPT Plus to actually train a model for their projects to line edit using instructions like (do not rewrite or rephrase for content /edit only for rhythm, clarity, tone, and pacing /preserve my voice, sentence structure, and story intent with precision). Those are a few inputs she used and she said it actually worked really well.

So in that case, is AI viewed in the same way you'd collaborate with a human editor? Or does that cross ethical boundaries in traditional publishing? Like say for instance AI rewords your sentence and maybe switches out for a stronger verb or adjective or a stronger metaphor--is using that crossing a line? And if I were to use it for that purpose, would I need to disclose that? I know AI is practically a swear word among authors and publishers right now, so I think even having to say "I used AI tools" might raise eyebrows and make an agent hesitant during the querying process. But obviously, I wouldn't lie if it needs to be disclosed... just not sure I even want to go there and risk having to worry about that. Thoughts? Am I fine? Overthinking it?

Thanks!

I gotta be honest, this question made me flinch so hard I'm surprised my face didn't turn inside out.

Feeding your original work into ChatGPT or a similar generative AI large language model -- which are WELL KNOWN FOR STEALING EVERYTHING THAT GETS PUT INTO THEM AND SPITTING OUT STOLEN MATERIAL-- feels like, idk, just a terrible idea. Letting that AI have ANY kind of control over your words and steal them feels like a terrible idea. Using any words that a literal plagiarism-bot might come up with for you feels like a terrible idea.

And ethical questions aside: AI is simply not good at writing fiction. It doesn't KNOW anything. You want to take its "advice" on your book? Come on. Get it together.

Better idea: Get a good critique group that can tell you if there are major plot holes, characters whose motivations are unclear, anything like that -- those are things that AI can't help you with, anyway. Then read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers -- that info combined with a bit of patience should stand you in good stead.

Finally, I do think that using spell-check/grammarly, either as you work or to check your work, is fine. It's not rewriting your work for you, it's just pointing out typos/mistakes/potential issues, and YOU, PERSONALLY, are going through each and every one to make the decision of how to fix any actual errors that might have snuck in there, and you, personally, are making the decision about when to use a "stronger" word or phrase or recast a sentence that it thinks might be unclear or when to stet for voice, etc. Yes, get rid of typos and real mistakes, by all means!

(And no, I don't think use of that kind of "spell-check/grammar-check" tool is a problem or anything that you need to "disclose" or feel weird about -- spell-check is like, integrated into most word processing software as a rule, it's ubiquitous and helpful, and it's different from feeding your work into some third-party AI thing!)

[pascalislove]

Error 404: Your clothes not found: Hacker!Gong Yoo x F!Reader

Summary: Your hacker boyfriend has been distant lately, so you decide to take matters into your own hands to get his attention back.

Warnings: (18+), graphic smut, unprotected sex (wrap him before you touch him!), creampie, piv, cunnilingus.

Gong Yoo has always been meticulous, serious, and organized, but lately he’s been so wrapped up in his work that he’s barely paid you any attention.

You decide it’s time to remind him that you’re a part of his world, too, so you slip into his work area wearing only one of his t-shirts, loose enough to cover you… but not so loose that it hides your intentions. You sit on his lap with a mischievous smile and whisper in his ear:

—“Still busy, love?”

He barely looks up from the screen, giving you a slight smile before continuing with his software. It’s not the reaction you were expecting, but you’re not going to give up either. You lean down and begin to slowly kiss his neck, pressing your lips against his warm skin.

—“You haven’t been paying attention to me lately…” you murmur, sliding your hands down his chest.

Gong Yoo closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying your touch, but he continues to try to concentrate. Seeing that he still resists, you decide to take more drastic measures: you take off his shirt in one movement, revealing the red lingerie you chose especially for him.

When he looks back at you, his eyes scan your body with apparent indifference, though the slight darkening in his gaze gives it away. Frustrated, you frown and blurt out:

—“Pay attention to me, dammit!”

He calmly sets down the keyboard and flashes a lopsided smile.

—“You shouldn’t have touched my computer,” he says in a deep voice.

—“I did it to buy this,” you reply, pointing to your lingerie.

His gaze slowly slides down your body before you take the liberty of straddling him. This time, he doesn’t hold back. Gong Yoo calmly takes off his glasses and sets them on the desk before wrapping you in his arms. With a firm movement, he picks you up, and instinctively, you wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you into the bedroom. His lips find their way to your collarbone, leaving a trail of warm kisses on your skin.

With eager hands, you slide his shirt down his torso, feeling every line of his well-defined muscles beneath your fingers. He responds with another deep kiss before undoing his pants, leaving him in just his boxers.

You can’t help but run soft caresses over his toned abdomen, enjoying the feel of his warm skin against your fingertips. Slowly, you unhook your bra, letting it fall to the floor, and his gaze darkens with desire. He’s quick to lean down to capture one of your breasts in his mouth, playing with his tongue as a moan escapes your lips.

He then slides down to the other, sending shivers down your spine. His mouth travels lower, placing kisses on your belly before removing the last piece of clothing and dipping between your legs.

The first brush of his tongue makes you arch your back and let out a ragged gasp. Still looking at you, he slides a finger inside you, exploring with precision until he finds that spot that makes you shudder.

A second finger joins in, moving in perfect sync with his mouth that never stops playing with your clit. Your hands clutch at his hair, holding him tighter to you, and between muffled whispers, you beg him not to stop.

Pleasure consumes you suddenly, leaving you trembling under his expert touch. With a satisfied smile, Gong Yoo sits up and undoes his boxers, revealing his erection. You roll over on the bed, lying face down, and feel him align himself with you before slowly entering, stretching every fiber of your body with his size.

His thrusts start slow, torturously deep, until his grip on your waist becomes more demanding. With one hand, he grabs a fistful of your hair, tilting your head to the side to whisper in a deep voice:

—“You can’t last even a few hours without my attention, can you? Small and needy…” A shudder runs through your body as you gasp between moans.

—“No… I can’t be without you…” you confess, lost in the feeling of him inside you.

His response is a firm spank that makes you arch even further against him, followed by three more that only intensify your desire.

He pulls out of you suddenly and drops onto the bed, giving you an expectant look. Understanding his invitation, you straddle him and take control, aligning yourself with him before slowly sinking into his hardness.

His hands grip your hips as you begin to move, the rhythm of your hips matching his perfectly. His gaze is lost in the way your breasts move with each swing and, unable to resist, he captures one with his mouth.

—“Tell me about your computer…” you murmur between moans, enjoying the friction between your bodies.

Gong Yoo lets out a laugh between gasps and, without stopping moving inside you, begins to explain about settings and systems, his deep voice making you tremble even more. You feel an intense heat build up in your belly.

He senses it too, and in a quick movement, he pushes you onto the bed and settles between your legs, taking control again. His rhythm intensifies, his skin hitting against yours in an increasingly frantic swing.

You wrap your legs around his waist, clinging to him as your nails leave marks on his back.

Your climax hits you again with overwhelming force, making you moan his name as you cling to him desperately.

A few thrusts later, he follows, burying himself deep as his own pleasure consumes him. You’re both left panting, sweaty, tangled up in each other. His face hides in the crook of your neck before he leaves a soft kiss on your skin.

—“That was amazing…” you whisper with a satisfied smile.

Gong Yoo props himself up on one elbow and looks at you with that confident expression that turns you on even more.

—“Who said this is over?” he murmurs before leaning over you again.

And without waiting for an answer, he claims you for himself again.

What do you think of this approach by Gong Yoo?🫦

I put the saleman labels and others characters so that they appear to you.🫦

[vaspider]

Oh, I finally found out what caused the phone call where a person from a radiology office told me that my insurance "wanted me to change my gender" because it was the wrong gender for me to be getting a uterine ultrasound.

Medicaid knows what the proper gender for me is (it's X. That's what's on my license) and doesn't want me to change it.

The actual problem is that the radiologist's office uses older medical software, and that electronic submission software doesn't have a setting for non-binary people. (In Oregon??? but apparently not.) So the error that it gave in the system is 'you have the wrong gender for this kind of procedure,' even though the actual error is 'our software literally cannot handle your legal information because it doesn't match the gender options in your state.'

I am really good at fighting with insurance companies. It's a fucking shitty thing to have to be good at, but after the past ten years of my life? I'm really good at fighting medical systems. I'm really good at advocating for myself. I'm really good at knowing my rights and knowing when someone is blowing smoke up my ass.

On top of that, I have a case manager who helped me untangle this.

But if I didn't have that? I'd have ended up either paying a bill that I shouldn't have had to pay, or just letting it go to collections and fuck up my credit.

And I shouldn't have to do this. I really shouldn't. I shouldn't have to spend hours patiently saying, "Asking me to change my information to something that is legally false in order to have a bill paid by insurance is the literal definition of insurance fraud, and I will not do it. How else can we get this fixed, in a way that doesn't require me to commit a crime or you to advise me to commit a crime?"

[primreaperstuff]

Trying to figure out what's under the Jhesselbraum crossed out text in the Book of Bill

EDIT: Somebody figured it out! Thank you @kitcatia (and @angst-estefany for helping them out)!!! This makes a lot of what's in the post outdated or wrong here but I'll keep it for archival purposes. :D

Dunno if anybody's done this before but I figured I'd give it a shot. This is the original image.

I first went and found the font used for this. I think it's DIN Condensed Bold. This font unfortunately costs money to get onto your computer, but it is included with Adobe Suite software so if you have Photoshop or are silly like me and used Illustrator, you can access it (I know Illustrator isn't great for this stuff but I generally use GIMP and didn't feel like installing Photoshop for this one thing).

And this is the image with the letters I can figure out.

If I got this right, there are a couple of things in here that are huge.

Bill thinks (or at least thought) very highly of Jhess. He describes her as the smartest Henchmaniac. Depending on how you interpret that comment about the eyes, he either let her into the group despite not liking how many eyes she has or has sour grapes about her leaving.

Jhess did a ton of the heavy lifting for the portal project. Bill is often presumed to simply have the multiversal know-how for a lot of the physics and stuff behind the portal, but this implies that Jhess was actually the first one to figure much of this stuff out and Bill went off of what she told him.

I also want to draw your attention to a tiny detail I noticed in the name Bill gives her. It's so small that it might just be me just seeing a pattern where none exists, but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.

My first thought was, obviously, that the name given was "JESS." The first two letters are clearly J and E and the character is called Jheselbraum so that would track. But then I noticed this tiny squarish region that does not line up with how the red pen's stroke normally tapers off and is slightly whiter than the pen. It is exactly where another letter would be... and it does not line up with DIN's capital S! The capital letters in DIN that it lines up with are B, D, E, F, H, I, L, M, N, P, R, and T. The name looks like it cannot exceed 5 characters given the position of the pen stroke.

In terms of plausible names in there, these are the options:

Jeb

Jed/Jedi

Jet/Jett/Jete

Jeff

Jerry

Jerk (lol)

Jelly

Jem

Jen/Jenn

The majority of the plausible names, as you can tell, are either masculine or ungendered. Which makes me wonder-- is Jheselbraum the Unswerving trans??

Because that implies a lot. For one, I have to question why Bill is deadnaming her in that case. Is it to be hurtful or did he just legitimately never figure it out? She went on the run from him so it's likely she never updated him on her live-name. (And I mean, let's face it, "Jheselbraum" is not that far off from some of the live-names trans people choose for themselves. You guys are reviving antiquated names one transition at a time. \pos)

He also speaks rather admiringly of her, which would be odd if he was trying to insult her with her deadname, so I think it's really highlighting how little Bill actually knows-- and might underlie the real reason he crossed it out. He literally just found out she transitioned and he doesn't even know her live-name. Really undermines the whole "unlimited being with knowledge and answers" thing he claims about himself.

It would also explain what drew her to Bill in the first place. Bill already believes in 14 million genders, and he was offering to smash all the norms and rules. What have norms and rules ever done for the trans community? Seldom anything good is my impression.

Hell, maybe she wound up doing her own sex change surgery, because nobody else would do it for her, and that's why she has the skills to install a metal plate in Ford's head. (Pure speculation of course)

Or maybe I'm just overthinking a print error or false pattern or something! Who knows?

Anyway, I thought this was interesting enough to share. Not important my tailbone lol.

[alexanderwales]

When I was a teenager I thought we were going to have robots everywhere, like the future was going to be the Jetsons, tiny robots and big robots that would just do everything. Most of this was not reading scifi, it was reading Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil.

And robots do have their place, but it's mostly as highly specialized machines doing jobs that are either highly repetitive or very bespoke but programmable. Everything else?

The dream is to have something that can replace a human, a humaniform robot that can just slot right into the spot a human once occupied, serving drinks or caring for the elderly, and I just have so much trouble taking the idea seriously now. Maybe it's because I've spent time in the software industry and have seen how errors and issues accumulate, and how many damned corner case you need to account for even if you're in a walled garden. But the idea of actually being able to get to the point where these things are fulfilling the promises made about them still seems laughable, and we're closer than we've ever been.

Last year Amazon began doing a trial of Digit, one of these vaguely human robots, and I cannot tell how much this is a stunt and how much this is actually useful and cost-effective. Knowing how companies work, there is every incentive for the robot-makers to "trial" their product in very limited capacity at very unsustainable costs, maybe even free, which is then used for "exposure" in order to hype the market and ideally get some funding to make the thing actually work, or work within costs, or give the devs and engineers some time to work out the bugs. I don't think any robot company owes me a look at their finances or the parameters of their deals, but it sure would be nice if every single article about this weren't a puff piece written exactly how I would expect both companies want it written.

And Boston Dynamics has Spot deployed, but reading their press releases makes me cringe from the corpospeak, and I'm still left questioning how much this is "real" and how much it's a gimmick meant to fund future investment. It's entirely possible I'm just a curmudgeon, but it feels like everyone has something to sell, and the market for someone saying "this is actually just non-viable at these costs" is very small.

The early 2000s optimism has turned me into such a cynic where technology is concerned. I need to go crack my copy of The Singularity is Near and see what, at 18, I thought the future was going to be like. My stance, until I actually see something that's not a carefully staged press demonstration, is that this particular bit of "the future" has more catches, costs, and problems than it wants to show the public.

[meanbossart]

Oh boy, VaM is kind of a trial and error experience LOL I couldn't really show you how to use the interface and stuff without a whole video or something, but it's not THAT difficult to get a hang of if you just give yourself a day or two to play around, not to mention the number of tutorials you find out there. Luckily, if you only want to use it as a reference software that makes the process far easier (to this day I have no idea how to animate on that thing, since that's not what I use it for)

As for how I use it, it's pretty self explanatory - if there's a complicated pose I want to draw but I'm either having trouble with it, or just want to double-check angles/anatomy, I will use it as a resource! I use for most of my "proper" pieces (y'know, the nicer looking ones) and every once in a while for my silly comics if I'm having trouble with a pose.

Lets use this drawing for example (the character on top of DU drow belongs to @namespara )

I don't draw a lot of mud-wrestling (shocking, I know) but I had an idea of the kind of pose I wanted them to be in. So the very first thing I did was make a rough sketch of what I was envisioning:

I often do a rough sketch first, even If I know I'm going to be pulling the program up because A) It's less tedious than adjusting the models over and over again until I pick a pose and B) because sometimes I'll decide I don't need the reference, after all, and so that's 30 minutes I'll have spared myself of playing around on the software.

Now, this is a pretty complicated pose! It's in a weird angle and the bodies are making contact in ways I'm not used to depicting, so I did choose to whip out VaM for this one. I went into the program and after some messing around, I flopped my little dolls together like this:

Now something really cool about VaM is that you can completely customize your models, and if you have the patience, I would definitely encourage you to do so! Obviously, you don't have to make picture perfect replicas of every single character you have, but as you can see here I have made a DU drow "decoy" to help me better understand some of his features when I draw him: he has a strong brow, a short nose, a square jawline - these are all going to look a very specific way from certain angles, and I might not always be sure of how to draw it right! So it's useful to have models that bear SOME semblance to the character so you can better understand how different viewpoints will affect their bone structure and mass.

Also thank fucking god for the elf-ear slider. Figuring out how to draw those shits from certain angles was a huge pain in the ass when I started drawing DnD races.

So, with the reference in hand, I go over the sketch again:

Now you may notice that I don't stick to the reference 100%. There's three reasons for this:

posing on VaM is tedious as hell. You can get something incredibly natural looking and picture-perfect to reference from if you wish, but it's going to take you hours to do. So, for the most part I just slap guys together until the results are "close enough" and use that.

In my opinion, you should always aim to ENHANCE your reference material, not replicate it exactly!

While VaM is a PRETTY DANG GOOD source of anatomical reference, it isn't perfect, I often supplement it with further reference from real life resources or make tweaks based on my own knowledge where I catch it falling short (and, antithetical to what I just said, I sometimes fuck the anatomy up further on purpose if I think it looks better that way LOL it's all jazz baby).

Then lines, color, yada yada. I don't have a tutorial on that and I don't think I could make one, because my process is chaotic as hell, but I do at times use Virt-a-mate as loose reference for lighting too when coloring - waaaaayyyy less so however, because that process is even more tedious and I feel like I often get better results by just winging it. It is a feature of the program though, and I'm sure it would be helpful for someone who has a difficult time visualizing lights and shadows. I only started using this program a few months ago, so I happened to already have a pretty good understanding of that kind of thing and just don't personally feel like I get much out of that particular mechanic.

Here's a few other examples of pieces that I made reference for (WARNING: Suggestive)

Now, for the question many of you may want to ask:

"Can I trace this junk?"

And to that, I say: Buddy, you can do whatever the hell you want with the reference material you created.

However,

If your goal is to learn and improve your art, and to recreate realistic proportions and anatomy from memory, tracing won't help you.

Developing your own style, your muscle memory, and personal technique will all be hindered by choosing to trace instead of drawing from observation, so I would encourage against it. Hell - even when tracing is employed as a technique, it's usually by high-skill realism & concept artists who are looking to either cut some corners, save time, or just double-check their own proportions in order to improve further - if you try tracing as a beginner, you will most definitely find the result to still look stiff and "off".

So trust me, there is so much more to be gained from drawing from observation. Make note of tangents, compare proportions, use all the elements of the picture to dictate where and how things should go - it will be a far more rewarding experience.

Hopefully this has been helpful! VaM is a really cheap program (you get it on the guys' patreon for I think 8 dollars, just google it!) and it's definitely been worth my money as an artist since I found it. Learning to use it can be a little intimidating at first glance, but as I said above you only really need a day plus one or two tutorials to get a hang of the interface.

A fair warning though, IT IS A SOFTWARE MADE FOR VIRTUAL SEX/ADULT ANIMATION So when looking it up expect to see a some spicy content.

[sleekervae]

Solo Mode [1] jackson wang x fem!oc

Masterlist

A/N: I've had this idea knocking around in my brain for a while, never had the push to write it until Jackson started releasing music again. It's my little birthday gift for myself ☺️ Lemme know what you think!

Pairing: jackson wang/fem!oc

Summary: He's an international pop star trying to outrun burnout. She's a sharp-tongued software engineer who doesn't do feelings. What starts as a no-strings arrangement quickly unravels into something messier, softer, and realer than either of them planned. Between chaotic breakfasts, late-night confessions, and breaking every rule they set, Jackson and Heather find themselves in deep — and neither of them knows how to stop it.

Warnings: strong language, alcohol consumption

Word Count: 1.7k

Heather had been staring at her screen so long her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed raw with sandpaper.

A single red error message blinked in the corner of her code editor like a middle finger. She typed something, rewrote it, deleted it, then typed it again with more force—like that would make the compiler less of a bitch.

The fix was so close. She could feel it.

This patent meant everything. Years of development. Her own codebase. Her design. Her algorithm. Her name. She was going to stamp that shit into tech history if it killed her—and given the four hours of sleep she was running on, it might.

Her tea was cold. Again.

She shoved the cup aside and reached for her headphones, already resigned to another night of silence and circuits.

Then came the bass.

A low, rhythmic thump, like a heartbeat made of bad decisions, started pulsing through her wall.

Heather paused, jaw tightening.

She waited. Sometimes it was just a one-song thing—someone testing a speaker. A music cue for a home workout. A tragic attempt at a sex playlist. She could forgive that.

The song ended.

Another one started.

Louder.

This one had more bass. Thicker vocals. A synth loop that could drill straight into her skull.

Heather yanked off her headphones. Waited.

Male voices joined the music—shouting, laughing. Someone belted a high note and knocked straight into a wall. She heard the distinct clatter of something heavy hitting the floor.

Her eye twitched.

She stared at her code like she could will the function to solve itself. She counted to ten. Counted again. Then shoved her headphones back on and turned up her white noise generator until it hissed like static in her skull.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen.

The wall thumped again.

“Fuck me,” she muttered, slamming her laptop shut.

She marched to the wall and slapped it with her palm. “Shut the fuck up!”

A chorus of mocking laughter greeted her back. The music didn’t stop.

Heather turned in a slow, surgical circle, walked to her front door, yanked it open, and stalked barefoot into the hallway like a vengeance demon in a hoodie. The hallway bulb flickered overhead, as always, and the noise spilled clearer from the apartment next to hers.

5D.

Of course it was 5D. The asshole with the luxury vinyl door mat and people shuffling in and out at all hours of the morning. She’d hardly seen his face. She didn’t care to. Whoever he was, he partied too much, wore too much cologne, and had the kind of deep-pocket PR budget that covered noise complaints like napkins on spilled liquor.

She knocked once.

Nothing.

She banged again. Harder.

The music cut mid-drop.

Muffled voices argued. Something about “just open the fucking door, bro, she’s gonna call the super.”

It swung open.

And standing there—shirt undone, chain glinting, black silk clinging to smooth, a jaw line sharp enough to cut glass, inked skin and an expression too drunk to care—was him.

Heather froze. He smiled, lazy and stupid and pretty. One brow quirked like she’d shown up to amuse him.

“Hey,” he said, drawl thick with booze. “You lost?”

“No,” she snapped, arms crossing. “I’m working. Or I was. Until you and your frat house remix session decided 3 a.m. was prime time for a rave.”

He blinked. Then laughed, low and hoarse and a little off-balance.

“You’re the girl next door.”

“And you're my drunken idiot neighbour.”

He leaned against the doorframe like it might start spinning.

“You always this mean?”

“You always this fucking loud?”

“Only when I have a good time.” he shot back. “You should try working during the day like a normal person.”

Heather’s smile went razor-sharp.

“You should try choking on glass.”

He laughed again, like she was a feature not a bug. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”

“You’ve got ten seconds to shut the music off or I make this an HOA issue.”

“Ooh,” he teased, dragging the word. “Miss Murder Eyes wants to file a complaint.”

“Miss Murder Eyes wants to burn your speaker system to ash.”

He looked like he was about to say something else—something smug—but someone inside the apartment yelled his name and he turned halfway, distracted.

Heather didn’t wait.

She turned on her heel and walked back to her apartment, slamming her door so hard the frame shook.

The music didn’t come back on.

But she knew—knew—this wasn’t the last time she’d have to deal with that walking, talking, open-shirted migraine.

The elevator doors creaked open with all the enthusiasm of a Monday hangover. Heather stepped in, hoodie swallowed around her like a fabric shield, socked feet tucked into Adidas slides, legs bare and chilled under the fabric of worn athletic shorts. She looked like what she was: an exhausted, overcaffeinated, over-it woman one microsecond away from flaying the next person who so much as breathed too loudly.

Unfortunately, the next person was already inside the elevator.

Her fucking neighbour.

Slouched in one corner like a cover model for "Too Cool to Care," he wore a zip hoodie hanging open over a rumpled black tank, grey sweats slung too low on hips that had no business being that sculpted, and—of course—sunglasses. Indoors. At 8:07 a.m.

Her eye twitched. “Are you seriously wearing sunglasses inside?”

He tilted his head lazily toward her. “Heather, right? Good morning to you, too.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

He yawned. Loudly. “I’m hungover. Lights are loud. Your voice is louder.”

Heather jabbed the lobby button harder than necessary. “You're giving 'douchebag' all too well.”

He didn’t blink. Might’ve been the glasses. “That’s funny. Coming from the woman who looks like she woke up after an adderall bender.”

“Fuck you.”

"Not with that attitude."

"Then choke on glass."

He grinned, teeth too white for someone claiming to be that hungover. “Nice go-to. You serving it plain, or should I expect a cube or two for garnish?”

She side-eyed him, deadpan. “I’ll chill the whole damn shard for you.”

He chuckled, low and smug. “Spicy this early in the morning. Adorable.”

She didn’t answer, just crossed her arms tighter across her chest and stared at the floor numbers ticking down too slowly for her liking. The silence stretched thick with mutual annoyance.

“I gotta say though,” Jackson said, breaking it anyway, “you do grumpy better than anyone I’ve met.”

Heather’s jaw tensed. “You’re lucky I don’t code viruses for sport.”

He made a dramatic show of clutching his chest. “Be still, my tragic heart.”

The elevator dinged. Doors opened.

She stepped out first, refusing to look at him.

Behind her, he called out, “Hey, if you want to carve my death sentence into my door, just ask for my full name.”

Heather flipped him off without turning around.

The building lobby was quiet—thankfully. Heather stepped through the glass doors and into the biting morning air, tugging her oversized red hoodie tighter around her. She was barely awake, hair in a high, messy knot, hoodie half zipped over a sports bra, Adidas shorts just peeking beneath the hem, and black crew socks shoved into plastic slides. Not a look she’d ever choose to be perceived in. But caffeine was life or death.

Her phone buzzed. Order dropped off.

She spotted the delivery guy by the curb with a paper bag in one hand and a cardboard drink tray in the other. She moved to intercept, pulling her hoodie hood further over her head like she could disappear into it.

“Hey—Heather?” the delivery guy asked, glancing between the names on the receipt. “And… Jackson?”

Before she could respond, the door behind her swung open with a gust of warm air and the smell of cologne and regret.

“Yo, that’s me,” came the voice she’d already spent too much of her brainpower hating this week.

She didn’t need to look to know.

Then his eyes—well, probably his eyes—shifted toward Heather. “We really gotta stop meeting like this.”

Heather gawked at him. “You order from Mildew?”

Jackson shrugged, plucking his own iced coffee. “Their cold brew's the only thing stronger than my regrets.”

"-- And a protein wrap." the delivery guy read his order receipt.

"Thank you."

Heather grimaced, “God, even your breakfast order is pretentious.”

The delivery guy awkwardly extended both drink trays. “Uh… you guys want to split this up?”

Heather grabbed hers, iced americano with two caramel shots and a tiny pastry bag. Jackson took his with one hand and tore open the bag like it owed him rent.

“You know,” he said, tearing a bite of rap, “you could’ve just told me you wanted to grab coffee together.”

She scoffed. “I’d rather snort sawdust.”

“Hmm.” He chewed slowly, sunglasses tilted as he clearly scanned her from hoodie to socks. “Is that your way of saying this is your morning look? ‘Unapproachable with a hint of homicide’?”

She took a sip of her drink and stared him down over the lid. “This is the look of someone who works. Unlike you, I’m guessing.”

He grinned. “Sweetheart, I work hard enough to afford the noise complaints.”

She turned on her heel. “Try that line again when you’re not dressed like a hungover gym rat.”

Jackson called after her, amused and unapologetic: “Hey! Want me to order you glass with extra ice next time?”

She didn’t bother flipping him off this time. She just hoped the coffee kicked in before she accidentally committed a felony.

Heather cut through the lobby, legs moving with purpose, sipping her coffee like it could save her soul. Her slides slapped the tile with quiet urgency as she beelined toward the elevator. Behind her, she heard Jackson exchange a few pleasantries with the delivery guy—of course he was charming when he wasn’t being a complete walking migraine.

She reached the elevator, thumb jamming the ‘up’ button with a vengeance. A second later, the doors slid open with a slow mechanical sigh.

She stepped inside.

From across the lobby, she heard, “Hold up!”

Nope.

She hit the ‘close door’ button with the kind of speed that could win arcade games. The doors began their slow, deliberate slide inward.

Jackson jogged up, protein wrap still half in his mouth, coffee in hand, sweats slung low on his hips like they were allergic to tension.

“Hey! Heather!” he said around the bite.

She didn’t even look up. Just muttered, “Work hours only, gym rat.”

The doors closed on his groan of disbelief—and, she hoped, his dumb, smug grin.

For the first time that morning, she smiled.

Just a little.

[uboat53]

Okay, we all know that Elon Musk isn't good at a lot of things, right? Video games, mechanical engineering, relationships, the list goes on and on, but one of the things he does genuinely claim to be good at, and a lot of people believe him, is programming. What if I told you he was also bad at that too and that I have proof.

So right now, Musk is claiming to be going through government records to find fraud, waste, and abuse. Obviously that's not true because he's got a team of less than a dozen people, many of them have little to no actual experience (not being old enough to have actually had any), and the experience his team does have has nothing to do with actually tracing complex finances. What experience this team does have is in programming, or at least in software, so you'd expect that they might, at the very least, be okay at that.

Yesterday, Musk claimed that he'd found massive fraud in Social Security with payments going to 150 year old people. That sounds pretty bad right? Why did he claim that? Well, in examining the Social Security databases, they found a bunch of people listed with birthdays in 1875. Proof positive!

Yeah, except not so much. If you look more closely at those records, not only is every single birthday in 1875, but every single birthday is on the same date; May 20th, 1875. That's an oddly specific cluster isn't it?

If you work in software, you know there are a bunch of standards out there, and one of those standards is called ISO-8601. According to ISO-8601 standard, if there are issues with a date, your software should return a date of May 20th, 1875 because it's a date that just about no computer system would actually use. In other words, it uses an obviously wrong date because that way you know instantly that you have a problem, and it uses a specific date because then you can easily search for that specific date and see all of your bad data at once to make it easier to fix.

If Musk and his team were actually good or even minimally competent programmers, they might not be familiar with ISO-8601 specifically (there are a metric crap-ton of ISO standards and I doubt any rational human being is familiar with more than a few of them), but they'd see a cluster of strangely specific bad data and immediately check if it was part of an error standard before doing anything else. In this case it's not just that his (likely barely of age) programmer didn't spot this, no one else on his team, including him, did either.

Musk and his team aren't going to find any actual problems in the government, they'd have to be good at accounting, finance, and a dozen other fields to do that. Instead, they're not even good at the one thing they can actually claim to have real experience in. DOGE is pretty much set up to fail.

[vriheddiyev]

The mane edits are here!

First the links: patreon drive

So I finally managed to pack these. The shorter ones work well, while the longest mane has some clipping issues especially on the heavy body type. These are simply meant to add some variety to the lacking cas options that we got for horses... They're a bit more toned down versions of the original mane styles. They work with maxis models and my own mod!

There's four styles in total:

shorter standing mane and forelock

longer mane and droopy forelock

button braids

short pulled mane and forelock

I couldn't merge the packs because now I really have issues while preparing to reinstall windows so the manes are packed into a zip file. It contains a folder so that the package files won't fly all around your mods folder. I'll update and merge the files once I get windows running well again (currently I'm getting an error lol)

You will need a software to unzip the files! My go to are either 7-zip or Winrar. Once you unzip them you don't really need the .zip file anymore ^^

[lividria]

absolutely losing my mind, does anyone have a rip of taranza's model from triple deluxe or know where i can get one without learning how to datamine the game myself, i am dying to figure out something completely trivial and pointless, i'm trying to figure out how different sectonia clone's spider form model's cape is from taranza's lol

documentation of my descent into madness, the discrepancies about this stupid cape i've found, and bad reasoning for why i even care this much beyond just getting too invested in solving it once i started under the cut, i have spent all day obsessing over this

you know how sectonia clone shows sectonia's spider form for a split second before blowing up? wikirby had a picture of that form with her actual textures and not all purpled and i noticed that the cape is like Entirely Different, which you can't even see in-game, and this peaked my interest

i had never seen anyone use this appearance of the cape before in anything, so i wanted to look into it before i drew her with this cape (or saw what the pattern looked like at a good angle if it was legit) or jumped to conclusions about her being the fourth antagonist with red/orange/yellow triangles on their clothes (dedede, dark matter blade, & drawcia sorceress) lol, so my next destination was the place that 90% of the time will have pictures wikirby doesn't for some reason, the kirby fandom wiki, it had it's own picture of her that had all the same detail changes from taranza besides the cape

and upon downloading the sectonia clone models off modeler's resource (which has the EXACT SAME PICTURES from wikirby, for some reason, no clue which came first) it does indeed have that cape in the latter photo, nothing at all like the triangle cape on the wiki and the model download's very preview

no sign of that triangle pattern anywhere in the textures of that model either

so i assume that was just an error that happened somewhere, no big deal, but now i'm still curious how different her cape is because i still wanna know what she actually looks like because that'd be kinda important and i don't want to just make her taranza 2 more than she already is whenever i get around to doing bad art again lol

in the Rockabilly and Blues celebration picture of star allies it looks like she shares his cape but you can't really make out details (and another celebration picture has a random whispy woods made out of clouds that doesn't actually exist, so I'd take this depiction with a grain of salt lol), and has the same cape design as him in the Stone statue too... but with less lines, which i had to pull my switch out myself to find out

so the obvious next step is get taranza's triple deluxe model and put it side by side with spider clone, right? but there's not any on modeler's resource, the best i can easily find is a rip of his clash deluxe model... on deviantart... which also includes 3DX sectonia and both sectonia clones (had the exact same texture files too)??? and it's in a file neither blender nor sketchup can open to my knowledge nor have i ever even heard of it (PMX), and i don't want to download a THIRD modeling software just for this, and the only other results i found without extensive digging were taranza's 3DX keychain which isn't helpful at all, and his star allies model which isn't really that helpful either BUT EVEN IF I WANTED TO USE IT IT'S IN THE SAME FORMAT I CAN'T OPEN

but i at least have the textures from the clash deluxe model which i assumed is approximately the same as 3DX's, and it DOES look like the capes are slightly different with the same amount of lines???

but it's so SMALL compared to the clone's that i can't really tell how much is genuinely different and how much is just due to like compression and changes between games or whatever, are these supposed to be identical??? (middle are original sizes of both)

like, that big line aside the main thing here is the colors, i don't think i'm colorblind, i can see that clone's is way bluer than taranza's and the yellow a totally different shade but like with taranza's in higher resolution it could be a much closer call since like on his 3DX model it's a much closer resemblance but i ALSO don't know if it's lighting or anything (for all i know taranza uses the exact same texture just only in 3DX and i JUST DON'T KNOW BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE IT)

i'd also get a reference picture from clash deluxe but he has a different design for like the entire game until he's in town where his back is facing away from the camera and fighters deluxe was like one of the few kirby games i couldn't find a ROM i could use without having to like use my actual 3DS to set it up or whatever it was so i can't get one myself i'm really bad at this

at this rate i need to just have the two spiders right next to each other holding hands but i CAN'T until i get an actual USABLE TARANZA MODEL and I'M DYING i NEED TO GET A RESOLUTION TO THIS

i initially tried to open the spider clone's model in blender before sketchup only to be reminded i don't know how the fuck to use blender because the cape was just a flat red color and i couldn't figure out how to fix it but here's the highlights of me torturing sectonia in effigy for doing this to me to limited effectiveness because i couldn't figure out how to actually alter her individual parts

[morlock-holmes]

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!"

[chaoxfix]

tails + "how long do you think you could hide that" perhaps

The Sonic Boom really should have been warning enough. However, growing up around them meant that Tails had more or less tuned them out. Sonic coming and going at his own speed (Mach 2) was simply a fact of life. 

Plus, Station Square had always been pretty noisy. There could have been a thousand reasons that the sky suddenly shook. Especially since Extreme Gear had just crossed the speed of sound, and plenty of teenagers were using them more often despite them being restricted. (But like, who was going to catch them at that speed? Sonic? Even if the mayor asked him to, he’d just give them a high five.)

So no, Tails did not react. He’d learned to tune them out when working years ago; most of the time, he could even sleep through them.

Fatal error number one, really.

But Tails would never have expected Sonic to turn up here. 

After all, despite being gifted a New Station Square penthouse, Sonic never came here.

At best, it was a place for Sonic to store all the Sonic-The-Hedgehog-themed gag gifts his friends gave him over the years. 

(And yes, Tails is a little creeped out by the sheer amount of it, despite being the one to purchase at least a third of it. When he arrived at night, he’d tried keeping the lights off so he could pretend it wasn’t as decked out as it clearly was in the daytime, but the glow-in-the-dark shower curtain jump-scared him. His tails had stayed bushy for a full half-hour after. Ugh.)

Sonic hadn’t been able to get out of legally owning it, either. So despite still being a nomad in name and practice and worldview, Sonic T. Hedgehog officially had an apartment in New Station Square. Which meant to save face he would absolutely, never, under any circumstances, come here. 

And he especially wouldn’t come here looking for Tails. 

That’s what Tails thought, at least, until, a minute after the Sonic Boom, the door burst open. 

Tails, clad in an oversized Sonic Sez T-Shirt, blinks up at him. As embarrassing as the shirt is, he’s glad he’s wearing it, because what’s underneath is way worse. 

“Way to check in,” Sonic says, in lieu of hello. “‘Yeah, I definitely am going home after this,’” he mimics. “‘I’ll just be working on some software updates for Tailsblr, don’t worry, you can go check out the Spagonia ruins, I’ll be fine!’” 

“I don’t sound like that.” 

Sonic arches a brow. 

“I don’t!” Tails, embarrassed, scrunches his face up in a pursed-lip pout. It’s incredibly tough-looking, he knows. “What are you doing here, anyways?” 

Sonic glances around at the Sonic-themed apartment. “...Are you going to make me say it, or-”

“Never thought you’d call this ‘your’ apartment,” Tails mumbles. 

“Okay, point.” Sonic leans in the doorway, effectively blocking Tails’s only exit, unless he busts open a window. Which he doesn’t want to do. The Sonic-themed-stained glass would be almost impossible to duplicate, and Amy paid good money for that birthday… ‘gift’. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing here, though? And why you haven’t checked in with anyone?” 

Tails crosses his arms over his chest. He definitely doesn’t look petulant. Wincing ruins it, but he does his best to play it off, putting on an annoyed expression he’s not sure Sonic totally believes. “...no.” 

Sonic, predictably, eyes Tails. And the shirt he’s wearing. “I came all this way though?” he says, faux casually. “Nice digs, by the way.” 

“I figured it would be good camouflage.” 

“Hiding from me got that serious, huh?” 

What is there to say to that, exactly? Tails huffs, but ruins it with the way he toes his foot against the ground. Unsocked, because his usual ones are washing – and he couldn’t, surprisingly, find any Sonic-themed socks among the mess. He could’ve found slippers, but his paws were big enough as it was. 

Sonic, as always, takes it upon himself to fix it. He steps closer, unsubtly poking around him trying to find an injury. 

Tails turns away, trying to avoid Sonic getting too close, but it’s a losing battle with a decisive defeat when he winces again. Sonic sees it, because of course he does, and capitalizes on it immediately. 

“We really have to do this the hard way?” 

It sounds almost petulant. Tails huffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about-” 

“It can’t possibly be more embarrassing than hiding here of all places.” 

“Who said it was embarrassing?” 

“Then you’ve got to give me an explanation, because otherwise that’s what I’m going with, bud.” Sonic intentionally challenges him, maybe knows deep down that it’s something else. When Tails doesn’t offer an explanation though, Sonic just sighs. “Alright, guess I’m just gonna assume you’re hiding out here licking your wounds…”

Tails grimaces. There’s no putting it off or getting out of it, is there?

With a sigh, Tails finally stops squirming away, though his tails continue to swish in annoyance. But the battle is over, and he knows he’s lost. So with a grand, over-dramatic sigh, he lifts the shirt, which loosely conceals bandages, and more importantly, a back brace. 

“I have to wear it for another week,” he grumbles, lowering the shirt back down, because an oversized Sonic Sez Stay In School! shirt (...did they even ask Sonic before they made that slogan?) is way less embarrassing than the medical brace. “More, in theory, but by then I’ll be mobile enough to make myself a cool exoskeleton so I can go back to helping.” 

Sonic raises both brows. “I, uh,” he starts, looking for a moment at a loss for words. He stares. 

Tails decides to cut him a break. “I’ve been using the sketch pads here to draft out all the important parts of the exoskeleton,” he continues, “And honestly, I’ll probably keep using it for a while after this heals, because it’ll be useful for heavy artillery. Similar to what I used around the time we met Shadow, just with actual support, because it was pretty uncomfortable-”

“Okay, that’s great, but, I fail to see why you’d… hide that?”

Tails’s whiskers twitch. “It’s hard to move. Meaning I can’t help with anything going on.” 

“Yeah? And that sucks, but it’s not– you should’ve told me.” How long did you think you could hide that, anyways? It's not a big deal, not to be on missions, but- I mean, there's more than matters than just that."

“It's not a big deal, injuries just suck,” Tails cuts in, cutting Sonic off from any other unnecessary worry, or so he hopes. Sonic stares at him blankly. “Besides, you would’ve felt like you needed to check in a ton, and you- you’ve been itching to go and do things again. And it’s important to stop Eggman’s newer plans. I’d just have slowed you down.” 

“Slowed me down.” Sonic tilts his head to the side. “I guess, from a certain kind of view, I could maybe, sort of, see that logic.” Tails almost feels relieved, before Sonic adds, “You know, if I was heartless. Which you know I’m not. So I'm serious, please tell me it's something else.” 

Tails squirms under the scrutiny. He shrinks in on himself, crossing his arms tightly over himself despite the ache it causes. All the while, Sonic is still looking him over, puzzling it through. Letting Tails’s silence and inability to refute that speak for itself. 

Tails sees the exact moment Sonic notices. He cringes. This was exactly what he was hoping to avoid. 

Because the thing is, Sonic always hid away when he was injured or sick or dealing with too much. Sonic was all about the power of friendship, sure – but that was for Eggman. When it came to interpersonal problems, or god forbid physical weakness, Sonic was suddenly a cool loner. He’d always make some offhand comment about seeing a part of the world he hadn’t seen before (a dwindling number every day) and then they wouldn’t see him again for days, weeks, or months. 

And, well. 

It wouldn’t be the worst trait to pick up on. The whole world agreed that Sonic was a cool role model – the whole apartment around him agreed! Why would he be a bad role model here, too?

And if Tails was ever going to be a hero in his own right, too, well… Shouldn’t he learn to take care of himself? 

“Ah,” Sonic says, eloquently. He opens his mouth, presumably for a speech, and comes up short again. He shifts a hand to his chin, clearly thinking hard. 

“I think I smell something burning,” Tails says. 

“Does no one trust me to do speeches anymore?” 

“I honestly think you’ve gotten worse.”

Sonic levels a half-hearted glare, but the tug at the corner of his mouth tells Tails he’s not actually offended. Sonic reaches for his bangs, half-heartedly ruffles them. “Yeah. That’s why I’m trying to take my time and think this one through.”

Tails doesn’t duck away from the affection. But he can’t help but shrink into himself, just a little. Not in a bad way – but he hasn’t felt shy in ages. He feels like a kid again, which is exactly what he was trying to avoid. 

Sonic must pick up on it, because he frowns a little. Then, punches Tails’s shoulder, light enough not to jostle his back. “Growing up doesn’t mean not leaning on your friends anymore,” he finally says. “We’ll always be around. You know that, right?” 

Tails has a lot he could say to that – about being around. 

He wisely keeps his mouth shut. 

Sonic reads into it, sighs despite himself. Of course Tails should’ve guessed it was written on his face. They’d managed years without words. “Okay, yeah, but that’s an extreme circumstance – and you could’ve… should’ve had our friends around,” he says. “If I had actually kicked the bucket – that’s what I would’ve wanted. Our friends looking out for you.” 

The unfairness of it all burns. “It's not an extreme circumstance when you already almost died again.” 

Sonic rakes a hand back through his quills. “I really have gotten worse at speeches,” he mutters. “I don’t know. I’ve always been like this, though, keeping... issues to myself – but you haven’t.” 

On account of being four years old, Tails chooses not to point out. 

“Yes, okay, don’t look at me like that, I know you were a kid and kids need help and that’s okay! Good, even! But I always thought it was nice you didn’t get mad when I did stuff for you, even when you got older.” 

Tails scuffs his goes against the floor again. “Because you like doing nice things for other people.” 

“Sure,” Sonic agrees. “But it’s not like… -I always chose to look after you. Could’ve stopped whenever. Vanilla offered, sometimes. But I didn’t even let Knuckles babysit you unless it was like, an emergency-emergency.” 

Tails’s face feels hot at the mere idea of being babysat at all. Impossible standards, he knows, for being four. 

“I didn’t think you even minded being looked after, since we were always friends, not just… you know.” The word that doesn’t exist, Tails thinks, for their exact kinship. Siblings is closest, but there’s both more and less there, that the word doesn’t always fit. It's a puzzle piece that only mostly matches. “But then you were getting so good at things that had nothing to do with anything I taught you. Doing your own thing, being your own you,” Sonic continues. “...I guess I just never thought you’d take after me so much. I'm surprised, that's all.” 

Tails ducks his head. The shirt is in his field of vision though, and it strikes him as the most absurd thing about all of this. Having a heart-to-heart, after all these years, in a room absolutely suffocated in Sonic merchandise. 

Tails clearly isn’t the only one with a hero worship problem. The whole world seems to agree that Sonic's a role model. 

He can’t quite find the words to say, ‘How could I have possibly taken after everyone else?’ 

“You’re giving yourself a lot of credit,” Tails says, managing a small smile, despite everything. “...Deserved credit, but still.” 

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, where he knows a gigantic Sonic head plush (six feet tall and just as wide) is looming. A gift from Vector. 

“Saying I’ve got a big head?”

“I think they actually made it to scale,” Tails says with a grin. “But the important thing is… You don't need to think it's all you. You said it yourself, that I have all my own good traits. So I can’t let you act all guilty for my bad traits. Maybe I would’ve been like this anyways, who knows. But you don’t need to take credit, okay?” 

Sonic blinks at him. 

“I’m growing up. And maybe I didn’t need to hide away, or at least I could’ve told you where I was going,” Tails acknowledges. “But those are my mistakes to make. Okay? Not your responsibility.” 

Sonic still looks surprised. But he seems to chew on that, still deciding whether or not to agree. 

But Tails is older now. About as old as Sonic was when he set out against Eggman. 

It’s only fair to give him a little leeway, right?

So Sonic finally nods, still looking contemplative. “Just remember you’re not on your own,” he says. “You’ve got your own thing to figure out – I respect that. But I don’t want you to forget that we’re here because we actually care. What I was saying earlier… the thing is, we’re your friends. It’s not babysitting or looking after you anymore. Even then, we liked you and wanted you around. But now? You’re with us because you’ve got skills, and we want you there. I want you there. So remember that, okay?” 

Tails’s chest feels warm. Pride, he thinks. The pride of knowing he’s made Sonic proud. 

“Okay,” he says, feeling a little more confident. 

Sonic smiles, lopsided. The same smile on most of the trademarked merchandise around them. 

It’s such a perfect match for the poster behind him that Tails has to suppress a laugh. 

“What?” Sonic asks, turning to follow Tails’s eyes. “What’s- Oh, very funny. I can't help that that's my good side. I'm not even doing the thumbs up!” 

Tails grins, but there’s no malice behind it. “Thanks for coming here to check on me,” he says sincerely. “I’m okay though, just sorry for worrying you.” 

Sonic ruffles his bangs again. “You’re never going to have to be sorry for worrying me,” he promises. “I’d miss it too much if I stopped.” 

An hour ago, Tails would’ve felt worse, hearing that. But it doesn’t sting. Sonic can both worry about him, and know that he’s growing up and can make his own choices. 

“C’mon,” Sonic says, officially ending the heart-to-heart. “I put some sonic-shaped cereal in here the other day when I saw it in a store. Five rings says it turns my tongue blue?” 

“You’re on,” Tails agrees, knowing it’s a losing bet.