#it's a complicated situation

[droolski]

we love you kyle

[writinginthesecrettrees]

In some situations I am only 100% on Joey's side because the other side is Dawson, and I will never take his side.

[lonesome-witching]

The one thing I like about writing smut is that it really gets me out of my comfort zone and allows me to stop overthinking certain words and sentences. It's pretty good for me to learn to let go and that writing about sex isn't gonna make me awful or dirty or something.

[inkskinned]

i have chronic pain. i am neurodivergent. i understand - deeply - the allure of a "quick fix" like AI. i also just grew up in a different time. we have been warned about this.

15 entire years ago i heard about this. in my forensics class in high school, we watched a documentary about how AI-based "crime solving" software was inevitably biased against people of color.

my teacher stressed that AI is like a book: when someone writes it, some part of the author will remain within the result. the internet existed but not as loudly at that point - we didn't know that AI would be able to teach itself off already-biased Reddit threads. i googled it: yes, this bias is still happening. yes, it's just as bad if not worse.

i can't actually stop you. if you wanna use ChatGPT to slide through your classes, that's on you. it's your money and it's your time. you will spend none of it thinking, you will learn nothing, and, in college, you will piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars. you will stand at the podium having done nothing, accomplished nothing. a cold and bitter pyrrhic victory.

i'm not even sure students actually read the essays or summaries or emails they have ChatGPT pump out. i think it just flows over them and they use the first answer they get. my brother teaches engineering - he recently got fifty-three copies of almost-the-exact-same lab reports. no one had even changed the wording.

and yes: AI itself (as a concept and practice) isn't always evil. there's AI that can help detect cancer, for example. and yet: when i ask my students if they'd be okay with a doctor that learned from AI, many of them balk. it is one thing if they don't read their engineering textbook or if they don't write the critical-thinking essay. it's another when it starts to affect them. they know it's wrong for AI to broad-spectrum deny insurance claims, but they swear their use of AI is different.

there's a strange desire to sort of divorce real-world AI malpractice over "personal use". for example, is it moral to use AI to write your cover letters? cover letters are essentially only templates, and besides: AI is going to be reading your job app, so isn't it kind of fair?

i recently found out that people use AI as a romantic or sexual partner. it seems like teenagers particularly enjoy this connection, and this is one of those "sticky" moments as a teacher. honestly - you can roast me for this - but if it was an actually-safe AI, i think teenagers exploring their sexuality with a fake partner is amazing. it prevents them from making permanent mistakes, it can teach them about their bodies and their desires, and it can help their confidence. but the problem is that it's not safe. there isn't a well-educated, sensitive AI specifically to help teens explore their hormones. it's just internet-fed cycle. who knows what they're learning. who knows what misinformation they're getting.

the most common pushback i get involves therapy. none of us have access to the therapist of our dreams - it's expensive, elusive, and involves an annoying amount of insurance claims. someone once asked me: are you going to be mad when AI saves someone's life?

therapists are not just trained on the book, they're trained on patient management and helping you see things you don't see yourself. part of it will involve discomfort. i don't know that AI is ever going to be able to analyze the words you feed it and answer with a mind towards the "whole person" writing those words. but also - if it keeps/kept you alive, i'm not a purist. i've done terrible things to myself when i was at rock bottom. in an emergency, we kind of forgive the seatbelt for leaving bruises. it's just that chat shouldn't be your only form of self-care and recovery.

and i worry that the influence chat has is expanding. more and more i see people use chat for the smallest, most easily-navigated situations. and i can't like, make you worry about that in your own life. i often think about how easy it was for social media to take over all my time - how i can't have a tiktok because i spend hours on it. i don't want that to happen with chat. i want to enjoy thinking. i want to enjoy writing. i want to be here. i've already really been struggling to put the phone down. this feels like another way to get you to pick the phone up.

the other day, i was frustrated by a book i was reading. it's far in the series and is about a character i resent. i googled if i had to read it, or if it was one of those "in between" books that don't actually affect the plot (you know, one of those ".5" books). someone said something that really stuck with me - theoretically you're reading this series for enjoyment, so while you don't actually have to read it, one would assume you want to read it.

i am watching a generation of people learn they don't have to read the thing in their hand. and it is kind of a strange sort of doom that comes over me: i read because it's genuinely fun. i learn because even though it's hard, it feels good. i try because it makes me happy to try. and i'm watching a generation of people all lay down and say: but i don't want to try.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Get that man (pregnant)!

[productofaritual]

"We need more morally grey characters in complicated morally grey situations" Y'ALL CAN'T EVEN HANDLE THEM

[unreadpoppy]

i'm so fucking anxious about going to college tomorrow i fucking hate this feeling

[asha-mage]

MDZS AU where Jiang Cheng realizes that Lan Sizhui is the Wen orphan that Wei Wuxian took care off during the Burial Mounds arc, decides that's close enough to qualify him as Nephew, declares that no Nephew of His (much less a surrogate son of Wei Wuxian's) is going to be raised in the Cloud Recedes, and immediately launches into a custody battle with Lan Wangji.

But since neither Jiang Cheng or Lan Wangji can acknowledge that Sizuhi has any connection to Wei Wuxian, both begin steadfastly and stubbornly insisting that he is a Cultivator of peerless potential and skill and he belongs in their sect thank you very much, and would clearly be very unhappy in the other's. This confuses the hell out of the already mystified Cultivation world, who had barely adjusted yet to gossiping about Sizhui being Wangji's illegitimate child by mysterious love affair.

(Eventually the common consensus in the rumor mills is that both JC and LW where in love with Sizhui's mother and both believe themselves to be Sizhui's real father.)

(LW couldn't care less what gossips say, but JC has to bite his tongue till it bleeds to avoid telling anyone the truth in a fit of anger.)

(It was Nie Huaisang who put that rumor out in the first place, partly to troll JC, partly because, in a way, it's a little true.)

[paradox-n-bedrock]

me in big fandoms: oh cool, it's so active and there's so many people to vibe with, this is amaz-

*finds my niche angle that appeals to approximately six people*

me: okay, folks, it's you and me now

[qaanngi]

Hapee seasonal 🎄

[thimblings]

~years later....

so @noctiscorvus sent me an incredible 'crowlycule' ask detailing out a scene, dialogue and all, and i decided i needed to draw it all credit for the idea and words goes to @noctiscorvus, i just couldn't help myself uwu;

the dagger is a snake and wings, with a mechanism in the handle that allows for poison to be held in it and then dripped out the mouth of the snake into a divot in the blade (idk if that actually would work but it's fantasy lemme have this).

idk why i keep drawing comics i do not understand good panelling i just have ideas i need TO GET OUT OF MY HEAD and sequential panels with drawings with white voids in the background are how i'm doing it lmao

anyway enjoy and i love ask suggestions, this made me so happy haha

[magicpiano]

I have seen the idea in Danny Phantom fics that the ghost zone connects alternate universes to each other. This makes me want a fic where Danny has a bad reveal with his family, escapes to the ghost zone, then goes to another world where Danny just straight up died in his accident. In their grief, his parents completely abandoned their research.

These alternate Fentons don't care that Danny is half ghost, nor that he is from another world, they are just so happy he is here. Now Danny has x2 Jazz, Sam, and Tucker.

[voltaical-art]

im in agony. a little self indulgent but I think wyll deserves to be told he's loved and have a small breakdown about it

[beif0ngs]

I’m so sorry about your mother. I’m sorry I can’t bring her back, but please just…

[tanabeth]

polyamory as a side effect of reintegration. Like mark was exclusively monogamous but his two consciousnesses had monogamous attraction to two different people. And then were sewn back together. What can you do.

[kindalikerackham]

Tommy calling him, "Evan," Ana calling him, "Edmundo,"

They weren't expressions of intimacy, not really. They were intimacy shortcuts.

Your friends call you this fun goofy name, and you're kinda strict about that? Well what if I call you something reserved for family? Something that ties you to a life I don't actually know about... This way, I can slot into being your family....

So they do. With these shortcuts, they gave themselves access to a raw part of Buck and Eddie.

Which, don't get me wrong, they were romantic partners. These doors were allowed open by the named parties. Although I think there's pretty clear evidence that both Buck and Eddie weren't necessarily understanding their own emotional investment in these relationships, but I digress...

All this is to say:

When Eddie calls him "Evan," telling him that he's not expendable? It's not a shortcut to intimacy. It's a deliberate expression of existing intimacy. It's a bid to recognize what they already are to each other.

Eddie is saying I know you. I see you, your childhood, your fears. I am speaking to the part of you that feels unloved, unwanted, like spare parts. I am speaking to the part of you that thought it was good to get hurt sometimes, that extended that feeling into a career of service and self-sacrifice. And I am saying, you are enough. That the part of you that felt unloved is enough. And that I want you here, that you dying is unthinkable, and that you should also consider it unthinkable.