#i do this on a regular basis

[dragons-in-spaceee]

Just one more week till I can disappear up north again I can make it just one more week

[sysig]

Permission to headbutt: Granted (Patreon)

[canisalbus]

um

.

[too-fond-to-be-fearful]

Been thinking recently about the goings-on with Duolingo & AI, and I do want to throw my two cents in, actually.

There are ways in which computers can help us with languages, certainly. They absolutely should not be the be-all and end-all, and particularly for any sort of professional work I am wholly in favour of actually employing qualified translators & interpreters, because there's a lot of important nuances to language and translation (e.g. context, ambiguity, implied meaning, authorial intent, target audience, etc.) that a computer generally does not handle well. But translation software has made casual communication across language barriers accessible to the average person, and that's something that is incredibly valuable to have, I think.

Duolingo, however, is not translation software. Duolingo's purpose is to teach languages. And I do not think you can be effectively taught a language by something that does not understand it itself; or rather, that does not go about comprehending and producing language in the way that a person would.

Whilst a language model might be able to use probability & statistics to put together an output that is grammatically correct and contextually appropriate, it lacks an understanding of why, beyond "statistically speaking, this element is likely to come next". There is no communicative intent behind the output it produces; its only goal is mimicking the input it has been trained on. And whilst that can produce some very natural-seeming output, it does not capture the reality of language use in the real world.

Because language is not just a set of probabilities - there are an infinite array of other factors at play. And we do not set out only to mimic what we have seen or heard; we intend to communicate with the wider world, using the tools we have available, and that might require deviating from the realm of the expected.

Often, the most probable output is not actually what you're likely to encounter in practice. Ungrammatical or contextually inappropriate utterances can be used for dramatic or humorous effect, for example; or nonstandard linguistic styles may be used to indicate one's relationship to the community those styles are associated with. Social and cultural context might be needed to understand a reference, or a linguistic feature might seem extraneous or confusing when removed from its original environment.

To put it briefly, even without knowing exactly how the human brain processes and produces language (which we certainly don't), it's readily apparent that boiling it down to a statistical model is entirely misrepresentative of the reality of language.

And thus a statistical model is unlikely to be able to comprehend and assist with many of the difficulties of learning a language.

A statistical model might identify that a learner misuses some vocabulary more often than others; what it may not notice is that the vocabulary in question are similar in form, or in their meaning in translation. It might register that you consistently struggle with a particular grammar form; but not identify that the root cause of the struggle is that a comparable grammatical structure in your native language is either radically different or nonexistent. It might note that you have trouble recalling a common saying, but not that you lack the cultural background needed to understand why it has that meaning. And so it can identify points of weakness; but it is incapable of addressing them effectively, because it does not understand how people think.

This is all without considering the consequences of only having a singular source of very formal, very rigid input to learn from, unable to account for linguistic variation due to social factors. Without considering the errors still apparent in the output of most language models, and the biases they are prone to reproducing. Without considering the source of their data, and the ethical considerations regarding where and how such a substantial sample was collected.

I understand that Duolingo wants to introduce more interactivity and adaptability to their courses (and, I suspect, to improve their bottom line). But I genuinely think that going about it in this way is more likely to hinder than to help, and wrongfully prioritises the convenience of AI over the quality and expertise that their existing translators and course designers bring.

[writer-room]

Listen when people say they want Percy to go on a villain arc most times I see it as they want him to go dark, want him to start murdering, maiming, going full Luke, etc. And I support that. If anyone deserves to kill people it's this kid.

However, let us be realistic for a moment, because I quite like the other alternative. Villain arc Percy usually entails "he's finally had enough of the Gods bullshit & will do things his own way". Let us think on this. What would Percy most likely do in this situation? Would it really be murder right off the bat?

I think he'd be the pettiest, annoying little shit there is. And because one can't usually threaten the Gods in a way that truly matters, but they can make them sweat really hard.

This goes beyond ignoring their calls and leaving them on read. He refuses to give food offerings unless it's the nastiest shit known to man. Bribes the cyclops into hucking huge objects up Mount Olympus before they all scurry off. Finds the olive tree Athena gave to Athens, and while he wouldn't have the heart to destroy it, he'd for sure rip off a branch & mail it to her (Annabeth nearly had to put them in witness protection).

Eventually it gets to the point he has Nico on speed-dial and offers him a shit ton of fast food & a 'get out of Percy's quest bullshit free' pass if he could hop into the Underworld and yoink up some annoying spirits or dead monsters to piss off the Gods. When the Gods get pissed at him Percy just silently pulls out some safe-for-demigods phone like "hang on I wanna see how many happy meals I owe Nico for bringing Typhon back up". They know he is not bluffing.

Could the Gods counteract him? Yeah, sure, Hera gave him amnesia and it was like 90% effective for a while. However, he kind of went off the rails, everyone else went off the rails, and then they had even more Roman nonsense to deal with. If anything it both solved but also made even more problems. And a much angrier Percy. So, frankly, they're very confident it could work, but they're a little worried about what the aftermath would be.

Ares suggests just killing him. Poseidon takes offense to this. Artemis scoffs and says even Ares couldn't beat him. Everyone stops for a moment. The question is not asked verbally. But it is seen in the darting eyes and shifting seats.

Can they kill Percy Jackson?

Well, sure, they must be able to. He's a powerful kid, no doubt, with powerful allies, but they are Gods. Of course they can kill him. So that's not the real question, they wouldn't dare really entertain such a thing to ever confirm if it was true, but this is rather the layer of frosting hiding the real atrocity of a cake underneath it.

What will they lose trying to kill Percy Jackson?

What will remain standing in the face of some 18-year-old who lived one of the hardest knocks of life, loves so much it makes them sick, is so completely unaware of his own strength not even they know its full extent, and currently has absolutely zero fucks to give about the end of a reign longer than he will ever understand?

They decide to quietly shut the lid on that whole fiasco and let Percy do whatever he wants.

Unfortunately, they can't exactly ignore everyone else. And everyone else is who Percy cares about the most. So, think of it more like leaving a grenade in a locked box in the attic. Just hope and pray you've moved out before something gets curious and starts rummaging around up there.

[romansmartini]

have you ever seen two people more married in your entire life. please

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

[hellenhighwater]

I'm on a work trip--it's a class of people in my field picked from all over the country, so I don't know anyone else here--and the info packet I got basically said "people have told us they wish they'd been given a chance to meet everyone else before the class starts, so if you want to do that, show up to the hotel bar at this time and look for people who look like lawyers."

and I know. that I should go do this, because networking good. but also. this is weirdly stressful. how do I make sure that a group of random lawyers knows I am also a lawyer while still being casual and chill but not dressed formally at all

am i going to have to take off my combat boots for this

[lupuslikethewolf]

in honour of being promoted to Deputy Stage Manager in my school's theatre department, top gun high school/sixth form au:

Dr Kazansky rules the drama department with an iron fist. always wearing black turtlenecks. never seen without his glasses, his coffee, and his terrifying glare (which earned him the moniker Dr Iceman). do not show up to rehearsals if you don't know your lines. death be upon the poor students who fuck around during tech and dress, because they will find out. he loves the crew tho.

Mr Call-Me-Mav Mitchell is the head of sports. you name it, he's played it, and he could absolutely give you pointers, also, do you want a protein bar with that? it's chocolate flavoured :) even the kids who Hate (capital H) sports love him. he is sunshine and adrenaline in human form. endless energy. no one knows why he is called maverick, but even the principal does it, so.

Mr Kerner is the principal. he is also the only person who can interrupt rehearsals and survive. dr kazansky loves him. inexplicably, maverick hates him. nough said.

Jake Seresin is the school's golden child, not even because he's Kazansky's nephew. he’s head boy. he’s on the school’s football/rugby team. he writes regular articles for the internal magazines. and this year, he’s playing Orpheus in the school’s production of Hadestown. everyone thinks it’s nepotism. it is and it’s not, jake just lost a bet to his Uncle Tom, and must now reap the consequences to said uncle’s delight.

Bradley Bradshaw has been stage crew since he was thirteen and an overworked runner, thank you very much. it’s his final show, he’s the DSM, and if fucking seresin ruins this for him, he will riot. dr kazansky should never let that happen. however, this is the same man who, last year, laughed when revealing that a screen on stage had turned off and bradley had to go on stage during the show to fix it. hm. maybe bradley should have re-thought his life choices. also: the turntable. the goddamn turntable.

other characters include: phoenix as eurydice, bob doing lighting, payback and fanboy as ASMs who flirt over the comms to everyones misery, cyclone as another drama teacher/stage manager,

maverick keeps turning up to rehearsals and trying to help because his favourite (cough only cough) godson and his favourite player are both interested in this stuff, so he should at least try, right? kazansky hates it until he doesn’t. kerner thinks it’s all fucking hilarious. bradley is embarrassed but its kinda endearing do NOT tell him i said that.

kazansky and maverick both bare witness to A Moment between their respective pseudo sons and decide the two simply must get together for their sakes and also so they never inflict that on another person ever.

bradley and jake both bare witness to A Moment between their respective pseudo fathers and decide the two simply must get together for their sakes and also so they never inflict that on another person ever.

kerner is cackling. Cackling.

[celaenaeiln]

Bruce: *sees a motorcade come up on his right* *ignores*

Timmy in the back eying the group suspiciously: ….

*tapping on glass*

Dick: B, there’s someone tapping on my side.

Bruce: Don’t roll the window down they could be-

Dick: *already rolling the window down* *GASP* ROMMEY?! ROMMEY! ROMMEY!!

A 45 yr old grizzled man with a smoker’s voice, nicknamed Rommey by Dick: heya Dickie, how it’s going kiddo.

Dick: ROMMEY IM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU AGAIN!

Another motorbiker with a full claw scar down his face: what about the rest of us, kid? Forget about us?

Dick: MANES! DERRICKA! IZZY!!

Derrick-I take down mercenaries for fun but let a kid I like call me DERRICKA-Rolan: You little shit, why’d we not hear from you after you fucked off to neverland huh?!

Isabella-what? Someone went missing? I had nothing to do with it, it’s total coincidence that I hated him-Hodges: Maybe he doesn’t like us, Der. That right, Dickie?

Dick: *flabbergasted* No!! It’s a long story! After I left I ran out of gas and then some girl crashed into my bike and sent it flying off the cliff but I dove off it first and then I had to walk to the nearest motel on bare feet because I gave her my shoes and then I met this half bear half man and I’ll be pleased to tell you that it was a beary bearable encounter once he got his bearings hahahahaha- *progressively climbing out of the car as the story goes on*

Bruce: Dick! Get back in the car! *having one hand on the steering wheel and grabbing the back of his shirt with the other to keep his wayward son from falling out*

Dick: Wait- *accidently twisting too far and nearly braining himself on the speeding asphalt*

Rommey: DICK!

Bruce: DICK!

Rommey, Derricka, Izzy, and Manes: *grabbing the front half to prevent Dick from becoming like two-face*

Bruce: *letting go of the wheel to grab Dick’s bottom half for the same reason*

Tim: *high pitched screaming from the back* DICK! Tₕₑ Wₕₑₑₗ! ₜₕₑ Wₕₑₑₗ!!!

Bruce: *struggling to pull his son in while the motorcade struggles to pull him out to sit on a bike thus leading to Dick hanging in limbo out the window of a car going 80mph on a freeway* GRAB THE WHEEL TIM

Tim: *sacrificing a few ribs on the edge of the front car seat* IM TRYING! I CANT REACH THE CRUISE CONTROL AND DONT LEAN BACK AND OH MY GOD SIGN POST! SIGN POST! THE POST! THE POSSSTTTTT!!!

Dick, Bruce, Tim, and motorcade: *furious screaming and shouting and panicking*

*2 hours later*

*Arriving at the manor*

Jason: damn what happened to you lot, you look like you went through hell and back.

Bruce and Tim: *drained, pale-faced, messy, sweating, and heaving*

Dick: *a curl of hair falling elegantly into his shining eyes* I just had the time of my life, Jay!

Jason who is well acquainted with Dick’s “Time of the life”s: ah. My condolences.

Tim: Never again. *flopping on the ground and cater-pilling his way up the stairs*

Damian: Father, this is such disgraceful attire! Fix yourself at once, mother would be embarrassed by such a visage! What in holy reincarnation have you been doing?!

Bruce: Never again, Dick.

Dick: it’s nothing Dami, they were just helping me.

Damian: Father, I am ashamed of you. Why must you devolve to such a state when you assist Grayson, he is perfectly capable of extraordinary feats without your input. I suggest you refrain from interfering with his success again.

Bruce:

Bruce: Damian, you-

Dick: Bruce. *smiling pleasantly*

Jason: *immediately sneaking off*

Bruce’s life momentarily flashing before his eyes: …..nothing. Go finish your homework. *trudging off to whine to Alfred about how no one’s gonna believe him*

Dick: *sincerely* what a great day! 😊

[omnomnb]

"[insert om character] would be a swiftie" "going to a tswift concert with [character] hcs" i should be allowed to hunt you down for sport

[scalefeathers]

Today, in ‘Astarion casually saying the most gutting shit imaginable’, this bit of act 3 banter:

Gale: Mystra has a shrine within the city. Located in the Stormshore Tabernacle, if my memory serves me.

Astarion: Do whatever you need to, but I shan't be paying my respects to any of the gods on show.

Gale: You never felt the call of the divine, Astarion?

Astarion: Oh, I tried them all. None of them answered.

[braimin]

Law has the autism rizz, but that's nothing compared to Zoro's autism And ADHD rizz. Bro is unstoppable, Sanji took one look at this sword obsessed weirdo and went like "alright fine whatever I'll love this bitch for the rest of my fucking life"

Bestie you are correct ✨

Law will like, hear about the stuff you like and will be able to recite crazy shit that's somehow connected to it right off the top of his head. When he makes eye contact it's like you're the only person he's seeing (which is really because no one told him it's okay to look away when you talk to someone so he take eye contact very literally lol). He's the type to be vaugely unsettling when you first meet him and then when you get to know him he's got a very nice vibe to him. Also Law surprisingly has game when he hits on people, like he could really pull some hotties if he wanted to lol. (He doesn't, he hates people.)

Zoro, like Law, is wholly uninterested in most people. But I feel like Zoro's rizz is really niche, it takes a specific type of person to really get into him. Sanji is, unfortunately, one of those people. Which really just means he's a morosexual. Because Zoro is somehow simultaneously one of the smartest and dumbest people alive. He's so reckless he's borderline suicidal and yet he's one of their best strategists, he has never picked up a book in the entire time he's been with the crew and yet he is their human calculator.

Sanji has found himself on more than one occasion saying stuff like 'That's so fucking stupid, tell me more.' There's just something about the way Zoro says dumb shit. And it's always after saying the most profound and wise things.

He's also the perfect amount of bouncing off the walls kind of feral, like Law is, for the most part, a fairly monotone guy (unless he's around Luffy and Kid). But Zoro is ready to fight or fuck at the drop of a hat. When they first met Sanji saw him go crazy for a fight with a man who was so obviously out of his league, then almost die over it and was like 'Uh oh why was that attractive?' Every time he sees that feral smile before a fight it's like the 'oh no, he's hot!' meme plays in his head on repeat.

He's mostly hyper fixated on his swords but after spending so much time with Sanji, Zoro has accidentally learned a bunch of shit about food and the kitchen so he's incredibly helpful when it comes to shopping and cleaning. Because Zoro knows all his systems and follows them to a T (He complains every step of the way though and that pisses Sanji off.) He fits really well in his kitchen, Sanji has almost forgotten what it felt like to not have him there and he's not entirely sure he could go back to how it was before.

So yeah, Sanji goes from 'Damn, why am I into this little weirdo?' to 'Fuck, I'm in love with this freak aren't I?'

[a-dragons-journal]

Forgive me for showing my fangs a little here instead of being as delicate in phrasing as I usually am, but. Periodic reminder:

sweeping "humans suck, humans are evil, the world would be better off if humans disappeared/had never evolved" statements may be cathartic but they're thoroughly inaccurate (ie, the vast majority of uniquely bad effects of humans on the planet are a) extremely recent, like within the last couple centuries, b) the fault of an extremely small minority not the entire fucking species, and c) fixable)

hating being human isn't the same as hating humans. I get species dysphoria is a thing. I get that it's often hard to fit in as a nonhuman in human social groups and that can make it easy to slip into hating everyone around you. Please fight that instinct

villainizing people for traits they didn't choose, such as the species they were born into, is neither cute nor fair. No species is inherently good or bad

misanthropy is cathartic in short term vents or whatever but genuinely embracing it wholesale as a philosophy is liable to lead to you hating humans, human society, and being in a human body more and more over time and thus make your life worse by constantly reinforcing a thought pattern that makes you angry and upset

you are not immune to being part of human society (translation: just because you're nonhuman doesn't mean you're not included in statements about the effects of the human population on the world, ie "humans are killing the planet")

related, you are not better than humans for being nonhuman. looking at my fellow dragons in particular on this one. I get it, draconic pride is a thing, dragon brain probably says you're the supreme being and all else is beneath you especially anyone who annoys you. Mine does too. Please recognize that is an instinct you are supposed to FIGHT, not something that's TRUE AND THAT YOU SHOULD EMBRACE. Good fucking gods.

some nonhumans are also human (it's me, I'm some nonhumans) and you are making sweeping "humans suck, why would I ever want to be human, all humans do is kill the planet" statements in the presence of people included in those statements, which is insanely rude (and no, you don't get to "but you're different because you're nonhuman" me! you do not get to decide to ignore half of who I am because you don't like it, you do not get to decide I'm not "really" human, and also see the previous bullet point). this goes doubly if you're in a space like a DIscord server where people have expressly stated they're not comfortable being tacitly included in statements like that

saying "but I don't REALLY mean all humans, I just mean the specific ones at fault!" after the fact does not actually change anything if every other thing you say is constantly "humans humans humans" and not the group you're actually referring to, or at the very least doesn't change how it reads to everyone around you

[be-an-echo]

from another mother...

the day when Tess and Maria got shitfaced

[hijinxinprogress]

YJs ability to piss people off occasionally backfires (But they’re still gonna do it again)

Imagine YJ pisses off a telepath with a stupid costume so the villain with a habit of telepathically tormenting mfs starts targeting yj by making them hear things they’re afraid of and everyone else’s is like regular run of the mill shit like their family/friends dying or telling them they hate them, sometimes they hear them listing every bad quality they have and every mistake they’ve ever made, they know it’s not still happening but they’ll hear a loved one or a civilian they couldn’t save using their last breath to blame them for their deaths in the middle of the night which is usually followed by the voice that reminds them that ‘they just don’t quite measure up to their peers or predecessors so really, wouldn’t it be for the best if they just disappeared? No one would even notice and if they did, how likely is it that they’d care? What could they possibly be contributing to the world that can’t be done better by someone else?’ And that’s normal for yj but what causes them to lose it is when they start to hear the sound of someone clicking their tongue and humming in disapproval whenever they’re doing something ill advised but they only figure out who fears that sound when Anita loses her shit so they find her and they’re like wtf?? you live like this?? but she’s fucking petrified and muttering to herself