#just regular degular robots

[autobot-ratchet]

I've got the first expression challenge sketched out and lemme tell y'all

I still fuckin got it lmAO

[pinolitas]

I'm pretty sure all those tools people recognize as ai are actually machine learning because isn't ai supposed to be predictive rather than generative

[copperbadge]

Daaaa Vatican

@afraid-of-woodpeckers posted that the Pope should move the Vatican to Chicago a while back and like an asshole I put a poll on their post instead of making my own, but it was such a fun post and I saw so many people curious about some of the options that I decided I'd do another one. I'm removing a few of the previous options -- Trump Tower because the seething hatred of it gave it an unfair advantage, the Bean because it's so well known, and Soldier Field as the least-high-scoring from last time. I'm adding in a few I saw in comments, BUT ALSO.

I thought I'd offer context! So if you're not familiar with Chicago, before you vote, scroll down to below the poll and peep under the readmore, where I have provided photos and semi-humorous descriptions of the various Chicago landmarks. Come to Chicago! We have Architecture! And a Pope! Kind of.

Look down here for more information!

Merchandise Mart: The world's largest building when it was built in 1930, it holds so many offices it has its own zip code. A lot of it is wholesale, so there's not much reason for most people to go into it, but it's so highly visible that you definitely know it's there. Also known for the Creepy Row Of Heads.

Goth Target: A decorative former department store built in the early 20th century; after standing empty for several years in the early 2000s, Target moved in and created one of the greatest brand visuals ever. Inside it is a regular-degular Target; before the boycott I shopped there for groceries a couple of times a month. I've bought shoes there.

University of Chicago: known as the school where Fun Goes To Die, University of Chicago used to be compared to Hogwarts before JK Rowling ruined everything. They have produced numerous Nobel prize winners and several war criminals, so the church should feel right at home.

Navy Pier: A tourist attraction built on an old military pier jutting into the lake, impossible to tolerate in the summer when it's brimming with people. It houses tall ships, two theatres, a large food court, retail shops, a convention center, a children's museum, an IMAX cinema, and a ferris wheel. It's got a lot going on.

Oak Park but keeps claiming it's in Chicago: Oak Park is a suburb of Chicago, known for many Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings and for people who live there claiming to be from Chicago, which can be extremely irritating to those of us who actually are.

Union Station: A grand old train station which is also at this point such a fucking labyrinth that it has at least one escalator which, at certain times of the day, reverses directions. If you've seen The Untouchables, the baby carriage scene was filmed there.

The Old Post Office: A truly imposing edifice built over a major downtown roadway; it's known mostly for having stood empty with numerous broken windows for a decade due to some kind of ownership/zoning issue. It is now an office building with retail after Rahm Emanuel threatened to take possession of it using Eminent Domain.

Harold Washington Library: The main downtown library, adorned with owls on the corners and full of joy. You aren't allowed to vote for this one because it's my library and I don't want to fistfight the pope for it but I will. I'm not afraid to hit a priest.

Let's Rename It The Holy See-ars Tower: Fomerly the Sears Tower and then the Willis Tower, it looks kinda like a robot. When built it was the tallest building in the world; it is now the sixteenth-tallest. I just really liked that pun.

Museum Campus: A jut of land on the lake, housing the Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, and Field Museum, just north of Soldier Field. It's also apparently impossible to photograph well. (I got suggestions for all three museums but I was running out of poll options.)

Marina City: Known locally as "The Corncobs", Marina City has the most hideously awful floorplans of any apartment building I've ever been in. But they do look cool as shit.

Nuance / Ken Griffin will just put his name on it eventually: Ken Griffin is a billionaire hedge fund manager who likes to pay ungodly amounts of money to be allowed to put his name on things like museums and libraries.

[explosionshark]

ooh btvs soft shock? 👀

A while back @comradesummers made this great post about a fic idea with the concept being a no powers AU where Ted is not an insane robot from the 50s but a regular degular piece of shit abusive stepdad. And also Faith is there

In the time since making that post, she's actually started working on that fic and it's awesome and I highly recommend it but BEFORE THAT I liked it so much I started riffing on it. I was reading Summer of Night at the time and listening to "Vampires" by S and that weirdly influenced the desire to work on it at all. (Title of the WIP is from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song though)

Anyway fuck it, I'll post the whole first chapter! I don't give a FUCK

-

Faith is in her usual hideaway, under the bleachers with a lit Marlboro dangling from her fingers, trying and failing to blow a smoke ring. Probably not the smartest move, sticking around on campus while she’s technically ditching Bio, but she’s not all that eager to head back to her little room at Clem’s place yet.

Being honest, and all alone in the hot and dark, Faith feels like she can afford to be a little honest, at least with herself, she’s been trying to figure out a way she can run into—

“You know, it’s almost like you’re trying to be a cliche, sometimes.”

Buffy.

Faith plays it cool, raises the cigarette back up to her lips and takes a long drag while she tilts her head to watch Buffy slink into the shade across from her. She looks good; hair loose, a little curly at the ends, tight jeans, pale blue spaghetti tank that Faith remembers was paired with a light sweater in the morning, when it was cooler. Faith wonders when she took it off, if it was folded neatly in Buffy’s locker, or stuffed at the bottom of the backpack dangling from her left hand, or if it’s draped over one of the chairs in the library, under Giles’ protection.

Buffy’s cheeks have the slightest pink flush, probably from walking across the field in the full heat of the blazing California sun. Almost definitely from that.

But she’s here with Faith instead of in class, wrinkling her nose at the smoke curling in the air between them, shuffling just the slightest bit before she settles into a lean against one of the struts of the bleachers, like she might be just the bit nervous. And if being alone with Faith sometimes makes Buffy nervous, even a little, even for just a moment, maybe it might make her blush a little too.

“Hello? Earth to Faith?”

Faith barely manages not to wince, rolling her eyes and letting out a stream of stinging smoke through her nostrils. “What do you mean ‘a cliche?’”

“Well, you know, the whole bad girl thing. Cutting class, smoking under the bleachers,” Buffy says, flicking one hand up so count off on her fingers as she speaks. “Tank top, tattoos, bad reputation.”

Faith feels the butt of the cigarette flare with heat as she takes one last drag before she flicks it to the ground, grinding it under the heel of her boots and slips into her most shit-eating grin. “Aw, c’mon, B. You know I don’t give a damn ‘bout my reputation.”

“I know,” Buffy deadpans, but the effect is a little ruined by the edge of a smirk on her lips. She even plays along a little. “Not you.”

“Besides, what’s that say about you anyway?” Faith counters, kicking off from the place she’d been leaning and stalking closer. “You came all the way out here looking for me. Seems like you’re pretty down to try out being a bad girl, at least for a little while. Curious, maybe.”

She lets her voice slip lower, hearing the grit in it, a bit of heat, her own naked want. Lets her eyes linger on Buffy for a beat too long, the way she’s always fighting to keep back, curls her lip in the way that never fails to make boys, at least, sit up a little straighter for her.

Because she can't really help herself, and more and more, it feels like it's working. Buffy's gone from pointedly ignoring it when Faith flirts, to flushing and changing the subject, to even flirting back a few times.

Faith figures whatever it is she's trying to do, it's a little like the lotto: can't win if you don't play.

And today she doesn't exactly score a win, but she gets something near enough to one. Buffy flushes a little pinker, eyes flicking away for a second, tongue darting out to wet her lips before she snaps back into the casual confidence she usually projects. “Not if it comes with that filthy habit and a 2.5 grade average.”

Faith flinches a little before she can stop herself. “2.8,” she corrects, trying not to feel stung. It's passing, after all, and it's better than she did last year at her old school. Faith shuffles in place, itching for another cigarette just so she’d have something to do with her hands while Buffy stares her down like that. “So, alright, spill. What'd you come down here for? Whaddya want?”

“Just… Needed to get out of class. Wanted to be alone for a bit,” Buffy says, after a pause.

“You came to find me to be alone?” Faith repeats, this time she's not even trying to flirt, even though her mind races a little at the possibilities.

“Well, not alone, obviously just with— not with, y’know, Xander and Willow and—”

“Not with your friends.”

“Not with those friends,” Buffy corrects, catching Faith’s gaze and holding it. Faith’s heart does a stupid little tha-thump in her chest. “I was upset when I came to school this morning, and now they won’t stop fussing at me over it.”

Faith pauses, not sure if she should ask. On the one hand, Buffy might have said it to give Faith an opening to follow up on. Maybe she wants an excuse to talk. On the other, she just said she didn’t want to be fussed over. Faith can feel sweat start to bead at her hairline, the shade of the bleachers not enough to offset the scorching midday heat. Buffy won’t stop watching her.

“Upset about what?” Faith asks, finally, pressing the side of her tongue flat between her molars right after.

Buffy sighs and Faith immediately curses herself — you fucked up, she made it so obvious, all you had to do was say anything else— until Buffy says, “Can I try one of those?”

It takes Faith a beat to realize what she means. “You want a smoke?”

Buffy shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I want to try it. See what the big deal is. Why you and so many other people are willing to risk lung cancer and yellow teeth over those things.”

Faith scowls. “My teeth are fine.”

Still, she reaches into the pack in her back pocket and taps a Marlboro out into Buffy’s outstretched palm.

Buffy examines the cigarette for a moment, giving it a cursory sniff, nose wrinkling again but not in the slightly grossed out way it usually does when Faith lights one up.

“The smoke isn’t for everyone, but I always thought tobacco smelled kinda nice,” Faith says, stupidly, for no reason. Sure, it's the truth, but it's not like Buffy asked. But the fact that she can't seem to keep her mouth shut around the other girl has been Faith’s problem for months.

Buffy nods though and slips the filter into her mouth, pink glossed lips pursing around it enticingly. Faith lets herself have a beat to appreciate the sight before she withdraws the shitty highlighter yellow Bic she’d stolen from 7-Eleven a few weeks ago. Buffy tries clumsily to light the cigarette but she’s awful at it — can’t seem to hold the flame in the right place, doesn’t cup her hand to protect it from stray breezes, lets the fire die before the smoke manages to catch. Faith steps forward, not thinking, and plucks the lighter from Buffy’s fingertips, leaning in close, close enough to see the flecks of brown in her green eyes, close enough to smell the faint fruitiness of whatever body spray she’d used earlier, close enough to notice when Buffy’s breath catches in her throat, the quick dart of her eyes down to the blue-white flame of the lighter, up to Faith’s face, and back.

“Breathe in,” Faith instructs, low, quiet, proud of how steady her hand stays despite the wild thump of her heart.

Buffy does and the tip of the cigarette glows orange when Faith kills the lighter flame.

“You got it,” Faith says, stepping back, slipping her hands back into her pockets.

Buffy nods, and opens her mouth, smoke floating tepidly out.

Faith rolls her eyes, “Weak. B, you’ve gotta inhale, or else what’s the point.”

Buffy frowns and breathes in around the cigarette, immediately letting the smoke out between her lips again.

“C’mon,” Faith groans, reaching out and snatching the cigarette away, heedless of Buffy’s affronted ‘hey!’. “Don’t be afraid of it,” Faith says. She fits the filter between her own lips, mutters around it, “You gotta just—”

A smooth long inhale, and there's the slightly acrid tang across her palate, that feeling in her mouth, heavier than air, a lock inside her clicking open as she pushes the smoke back out a moment later, watching it dissipate between them, gray and white and then nothing at all.

Faith twists her hand out, holding the cigarette for Buffy, expecting her to snatch it back, slightly startled when Buffy leans forward instead, her lips brushing the skin on the insides of Faith’s fingers as she inhales, deeply this time.

It probably would be hot enough to short circuit Faith’s whole brain, to make her think of doing something really stupid, really reckless, like maybe closing the rest of the distance between them, like maybe kissing the smoke right out of Buffy’s mouth.

But she doesn’t get the chance because immediately Buffy wretches and coughs, face flushing its brightest pink yet, but not in a sexy, exciting way.

“Ugh!” she groans, while Faith laughs and slaps her back. Buffy spits onto the ground, bent over, and thrusts the cigarette wildly away towards Faith. “Yeah, okay, that’s disgusting.”

“Is not. Quit being a baby.” Faith snatches the cigarette back, twisting to stub the cherry out carefully on the side of her boot and slipping the half-smoked cigarette back into her pack for later.

“Agree to disagree,” Buffy’s voice is rough from coughing, there’s a teariness to her eyes that, disconcertingly, Faith can’t help but find a little sexy. “But you’re wrong.”

“Well, guess that settles it,” Faith shakes her head with exaggerated pity. “Not getting your bad girl diploma any time soon.”

“Guess not. Looks like I’m going to have to settle for the regular kind instead,” Buffy croaks. “Eugh, I might throw up.”

“No you won’t,” Faith rolls her eyes. “C’mon.”

She yanks Buffy’s backpack up from where it was dropped onto the ground, hooking one of the straps over her shoulder, using her other hand to steer Buffy out from under the bleachers and toward the gap in the fence around the school’s field, the one that lets out into the street.

“Where are we going?” Buffy asks, not shrugging away from the light pressure of Faith’s hand on the small of her back.

“It’s hot as hell out here,” Faith answers. “You’re buying me a soda.”

Buffy snorts but doesn’t complain and ten minutes later they’re tucked into one of the booths at the coffee shop Buffy likes, Faith nursing a too-sweet Italian soda while Buffy sips sullenly at an iced mocha. Faith always feels out of place in joints like this, populated with college kids and people with desk jobs and shoes that cost more than Faith’s TV. But Buffy looks like she fits in — like she's made for nice things, so perfectly suited to living comfortably that she doesn’t even notice that’s what she’s doing. Perfectly at ease, except for the downward turn of lips, the troubled look that won’t quite leave her eyes now that it’s quiet between them and she’s not distracted.

Faith’s trying to think of something to say, hating the way she gets smaller and quieter in places where she sticks out like this. “So. School’s out next week. You leaving right away or…?”

Faith wants to sound nonchalant, cool, like it doesn’t put a knot in her stomach to think about Buffy taking off to Los Angeles for the whole summer. Like she hasn’t studied the bus routes form Sunnydale to the neighborhood Buffy says she used to live in.

Buffy flinches. “I’m not going.”

“What?” Faith sits up straighter, almost knocking over her soda. “But you said—”

“My dad’s not picking us up this year,” Buffy mutters, staring down at the melting whipped cream atop her coffee. “He’s got work stuff, so instead of me and Dawn going to LA, he’s going to come down for a week in August and help me move into the dorm. He said it was his idea but Ted’s been talking about wanting me and Dawn to stick close to home this summer. Family bonding. And you know my mom goes along with basically whatever he wants. So, I don't know.”

Faith’s stomach swoops, teeth aching from the sweetness of the drink and the sudden tightness of her own jaw. “They told you last night?”

“Yeah,” Buffy says. “Just to kill any chance of me enjoying the last week of school, I guess.”

I’m sorry, B, Faith almost says and catches herself. Sorry for what? She didn’t do this. And what’s more, she remembers how it felt, when people said that to her. Patronizing, meaningless, stupid.

“Step-dick in action,” Faith mutters, instead and Buffy musters a weak little laugh at that, at least.

“You’re telling me. I'm supposed to be going to graduation parties and figuring out how to make a cap and gown look cute, not getting stomach aches every time I think about what I'll be doing next week.”

Faith doesn't know what to say to that, so she asks, “How’d Dawn take it?”

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Better than me, I guess. She responds well to bribery — dad’s paying for her to do this theater day camp thing that Amanda’s signed up for.”

Buffy's always doing that. Talking about people and things like Faith already knows all the details of her life, the people in it, who they are and why they're important. Amanda must be one of Pipsqueak’s friends, Faith can guess that much, but still.

It's worse when they're around Buffy's other friends, the shorthand they have, the familiarity and inside jokes that make Faith feel like such an outsider. Sometimes, usually when it's just the two of them, Faith thinks it might be kind of nice, a good thing: that she and Buffy haven't even known each other a full year and Buffy seems to forget that. Like Faith fits so well in Buffy's life she could have been there all along. Other times, it's frustrating and embarrassing, reminding Faith of just how much of a late addition she is, how different she is, how out of place.

“‘Course that wouldn’t work on you,” Faith says after a beat too long, feeling awkward, but trying not to sound like it. “Too much integrity.”

“Exactly.” A goofy, emphatic nod from Buffy.

“Not a bad enough girl.” Faith teases, knocking her boot against Buffy’s calf beneath the table.

Buffy blows a raspberry and sinks back into her booth, pouting cutely, kicking her back harder. “I’m sure Ted would disagree. According to him I'm the baddest girl in Bad Town.”

“Probably not the only thing we’d disagree on,” Faith agrees mildly. “Sucks, though. Know you were looking forward to getting out here. Seeing your dad.”

Buffy stirs her drink, takes a loud sip that rattles the ice cubes. “Dad’s been blowing us off more and more lately, so I’m almost used to it. Honestly, I don’t even mind staying in Sunnydale, it’s just—”

“Him.”

Buffy’s eyes flick up to meet Faith’s.

They haven’t talked about it a lot. When Faith rolled into town earlier this year, when she’d met Buffy, it had been right after the wedding. She’d been plainly miserable, had gotten into trouble that landed her in detention, which is how they’d even really started talking in the first place. Ted was old friends with Principal Snyder, apparently. Buffy swore the miserable old geek rode them even harder because of Ted’s complaints about her.

And here Buffy wasn't exaggerating: Ted had plenty of complaints. Buffy was too wilful — she didn’t try to make their family work. She spoke back to Ted, lied and cheated, was a bad influence on her younger sister, didn’t show the proper respect to adults. Anything Buffy did, he found a way to be upset or offended about. When she’d been dating that college guy, Angel, Ted gave invasive lectures about the dangers of ‘not protecting her virtue.’ When Buffy’d been dumped (on Prom night, no less), Ted had lamented the sudden absence of a ‘guiding male influence’ in Buffy’s life. Worse than all of this, he’d been disturbingly successful at making every conflict out to look like Buffy’s fault, leading to increasingly bitter arguments between Buffy and her mother.

He was controlling, manipulative, condescending and mean, all in a way that no one else seemed to really notice.

In short: Ted was a massive fucking dick.

He didn’t hit them, Faith was pretty sure. And nothing Buffy said or did made Faith think he might be the most severe kind of creep. The few times Faith had seen them interact, she’d watched carefully - his hands didn’t linger too long, his gaze was never leering and greedy, he didn’t crowd them with his body. But there was a tension to him, an anger barely suppressed that Faith recognized immediately. Something dark and cold lurking behind that bland smile, the firm handshake he’d offered her.

“Yeah,” Buffy finally says, releasing the mangled red plastic straw she’d been flattening between her teeth. “I just wish I didn’t have to be around him. At least Dawn will be at camp most of the day.”

“You… I mean, my place is kind of a dive, but if you need somewhere to stay…” Faith knows it’s stupid, but she offers anyway.

Buffy laughs, and she’s not trying to be mean, Faith can tell, and somehow that makes it sting a little worse when she says. “Puh-lease. Can you imagine? My mom would flip. Ted would probably chain me to a radiator or something if he thought I was running away.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Faith mumbles, heat scorching up her neck.

Buffy doesn’t seem to notice. She’s staring down at her cup of ice again, swirling it absently with her bent straw. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Stay out as much as possible, I guess.”

“So, basically what you’ve already been doing.”

“Yeah. But more.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah. Guess Xander and Willow are gonna have to get used to seeing a lot more of me,” Buffy says. “And you.”

And she smiles, small but sincere, across the table. Almost shy, like she really means it, something natural and honest and just for Faith. And just like that Faith finds herself smiling back, that hot, painful little coal of resentment burning in her chest a breath ago snuffed out in an instant.

[literaticat]

I have a question about your post regarding AI in which you detailed some agents' concerns. In particular you mentioned "we don't want our authors or artists work to be data-mined / scraped to "train" AI learning models/bots".

I completely agree, but what could be done to prevent this?

(I am no expert and clearly have NO idea what the terminology really is, but hopefully you will get it, sorry in advance?)

I mean, this is literally the thing we are all trying to figure out lol. But a start would be to have something in the contracts that SAYS Publishers do not have permission to license or otherwise permit companies to incorporate this copyrighted work into AI learning models, or to utilize this technology to mimic an author’s work.

The companies that are making AI bots or whatever are not shadowy guilds of hackers running around stealing things (despite how "web scraping" and "data mining" and all that sounds, which admittedly is v creepy and ominous!) -- web scraping, aka using robots to gather large amounts of publicly available data, is legal. That's like, a big part of how the internet works, it's how Google knows things when you google them, etc.

It's more dubious if scraping things that are protected under copyright is legal -- the companies would say that it is covered under fair use, that they are putting all this info in there to just teach the AI, and it isn't to COPY the author's work, etc etc. The people whose IP it is, though, probs don't feel that way -- and the law is sort of confused/non-existent. (There are loads of lawsuits literally RIGHT NOW that are aiming to sort some of this out, and the Writer's Guild strike which is ongoing and SAG-AFTRA strike which started this week is largely centered around some of the same issues when it comes to companies using AI for screenwriting, using actor's likeness and voice, etc.) Again, these are not shadowy organizations operating illegally off the coast of whatever -- these are regular-degular companies who can be sued, held to account, regulated, etc. The laws just haven’t caught up to the technology yet.

Point being, it's perhaps unethical to "feed" copyrighted work into an AI thing without permission of the copyright holder, but is it ILLEGAL? Uh -- yes??? but also ?????. US copyright law is pretty clear that works generated entirely by AI can't be protected under copyright -- and that works protected by copyright can't be, you know, copied by somebody else -- but there's a bit of a grey area here because of fair use? It’s confusing, for sure, and I'm betting all this is being hashed out in court cases and committee rooms and whatnot as I type.

Anywhoo, the first steps are clarifying these things contractually. Authors Guild (and agents) take the stance that this permission to "feed" info to AI learning models is something the Author automatically holds rights to, and only the author can decide if/when a book is "fed" into an AI... thing.

The Publishers kinda think this is something THEY hold the rights to, or both parties do, and that these rights should be frozen so NEITHER party can choose to "feed", or neither can choose to do so without the other's permission.

(BTW just to be clear, as I understand it -- which again is NOT MUCH lol -- this "permission" is not like, somebody calls each individual author and asks for permission -- it's part of the coding. Like how many e-books are DRM protected, so they are locked to a particular platform / device and you can't share them etc -- there are bits of code that basically say NOPE to scrapers. So (in my imagination, at least), the little spider-robot is Roomba-ing around the internet looking for things to scrape and it comes across this bit of code and NOPE, they have to turn around and try the next thing. Now – just like if an Etsy seller made mugs with pictures of Mickey Mouse on them, using somebody else’s IP is illegal – and those people CAN be sued if the copyright holder has the appetite to do that - but it’s also hard to stop entirely. So if some random person took your book and just copied it onto a blog -- the spider-robot wouldn't KNOW that info was under copyright, or they don't have permission to gobble it up, because it wouldn't have that bit of code to let them know -- so in that way it could be that nobody ever FULLY knows that the spider-robots won't steal their stuff, and publishers can't really be liable for that if third parties are involved mucking it up -- but they certainly CAN at least attempt to protect copyright!)

But also, you know how I don't even know what I'm talking about and don't know the words? Like in the previous paragraphs? The same goes for all the publishers and everyone else who isn't already a tech wizard, ALL of whom are suddenly learning a lot of very weird words and phrases and rules that nobody *exactly* understands, and it's all changing by the week (and by the day, even).

Publishers ARE starting to add some of this language, but I also would expect it to feel somewhat confused/wild-west-ish until some of the laws around this stuff are clearer. But really: We're all working on it!

[ebbywaffle]

i'll never not be salty af about my darling freedom fighters basically getting cancelled three fucking times but one thing archie preboot-wise is how the fuck they were going to approach Bunnie's arc

i know that they made new, legionized designs for her so they were gonna go thru with it, but there's bombs in them things right?? i know i know her body her choice but girl this ain't regular degular robotization it's

and like yes she's not thinking clearly. a loooot of bullshit came at her real fast: best friend/husband on dying bed, other best friend/leader turned evil robot. some other crap too probably i forgor. characterization-wise, she's also had self worth issues so on one hand it makes some sense.

but on the other, why are you getting bombs put in you if you're doing this to protect your loved ones? robot parts from THE main villian who just blew up your husband on the off chance he MIGHT kill a freedom fighter?? HUH???

how were the writers going to fix that? were they going to try to find ways to de-bomb legionization? would that take away from the what made it different from robotization? but there's still the illusion of choice happening (Eggs is like "in exchange for your loyalty, i give you protection" even without robo bombs, that can still be intimidating), so maybe it wouldn't? if not, was there going to be an ever present danger for Bunnie?

THE JUICY DRAMA OF IT ALL AND WE'LL (probably) NEVER KNOW AAAAAAAAA

[the-whispers-of-death]

angst be upon you

i've been thinking about what my ocs would be like if their lives were just a little different. just imagine

a Hazzard that loves science and knowledge and nature and humanity and wants to use the science to make a better world and sharing his knowledge with people

a Void that is just a regular degular young man going to university, hanging out with his peers, joining a theatre club for fun, not being covered from head to toe, not a blemish on his skin, chatting with friends and preforming in plays

a Romanas who learned to be gentle, who got the help and love he needed, who is just a normal man working a normal job, making friends and the most harm that he has done to himself being a small cut he got while cooking

a Johan who.... well.... he.... hm

a Diana that is going to regular medical school, studying under licensed doctors, healing people and never seeing a military base or a soldier in her entire life

a Vaccine and Dartboard who are known as the eccentric twins in town who do odd jobs and are saving up to one day have their own club

an Otto who is a town mechanic and local robots nerd who fixes cars and teaches kids to make silly little things in his free time, who is a "safety first" kind of man making sure that no accidents happen

a Vendetta that still has no attachments but that's because the whole world is their home, who travels the world painting and photographing the places they visit, who never killed or became a sniper and instead uses their sharp eyes to catch details for their paintings

a Boss who is a business owner, using his mangerial skills to do business, giving jobs to people and making cash in a legal way that involves no violence, who never saw the cruelty of commander or became cruel enough to be part of the inner circle, who is just a fancy old man working towards an early retirement

a Selga who is a regular degular janitor quietly doing his job, singing along to the music in his headphones, who goes back to his little apartment and relaxes on his couch with a cold beer, who's hands are steady as he writes his own songs while he eats a nice heated up snack

and the nameless soldier that killed commander who never became a mercenary and never lost his squad, his sanity or his life, who spent his time working a nice safe job going back home to a loving family, living a life free of cruelty and torture, living out his days and only going over the treshold when he's old and gray, surrounded by the people he loves most knowing he didn't waste his life fighting for nothing

if their lives were just that little different they would've never met eachother most likely.... so as cruel as the current universe is to them we can be thankful that they got to meet eachother :)

except for the nameless soldier rip my guy you freed everyone you the real mvp

What did I do to deserve this angst?? (/lh)

Anyways, yes, let's be thankful they got to meet each other. Nameless soldier, though, hurts my heart. I hope the afterlife is treating him better than the mortal realm ever did.

[theropoda]

local man desperately tries to remember how pigeons work

david 8:

-lives to serve. made for a purpose. but also kind of a flex on weyland's part as a way of saying "look what i'm capable of; i created a man, so i am a god", also he's really vain and cares about his appearance a lot so maybe a beautiful fancy-lookin racing or sports pigeon like a tumbler or a roller.

-NO idea what he is color or pattern wise. he's brunette but dyes his hair blonde and i feel like there's probably a phenotype out there that could represent this in a pigeon but i forgor like 70% of what i know about pigeon color and markings so. Oops. Well maybe since his appearance changes quite a bit over time you could assign different pigeons to each one lol

walter 1:

-david is a Special Boy as the first android made by weyland and also his robot son that he takes everywhere. walter on the other hand gives me strong vibes of yet another run-of-the-mill android just here to do his Job, (sorry <3) but still has that charm to how normal/ordinary he is so i am tempted to make him a regular-degular racing pigeon. just normal brown barred pigeon without any particularly fancy traits like a crest or muffs (okay, maybe he has a Little foot feathering. it's cute)

elizabeth:

-recessive red (or just red) frillback :) so something like this

vickers:

-she has a JOB and she takes it very seriously mostly because she just wants it to be over so something like a racing breed. but a very pretty one. dilute red. something simple and powerful. like this british racer idk

can't think of what ripley and andywould be rn....i will do that Later im tired

it's been a long time since i assigned my favorite character a pigeon. im getting rusty, need to dust my skills

[xelsrealm]

can’t believe i live in a reality where its my generation who has to witness the creation of, grow up alongside of, and acclimate to robots being introduced to everyday society

[multifandombullshitbabes]

Considering the SiD fandom is fucking dead. I can do whatever

So Walter x Killian hcs BITCHES. n also before anyone comes tell me that's problematic or whatever 1) i hate antis so just block me thx <3 2) Walter is literally 20-24 years in the movie, most likely 24 years old actually. Go to his wikia page n then to the comments for a pretty good theory/explanation on that. They said they'd put that age range on his profile but it just says 20 yrs old, which just seems false after all the proof from that commenter so. Yh. Fuck u <3

Now, first things first, yall know Walter upgraded the FUCK out of Killians body mods. Like he went "that looks cool! But i can make it better :) just saying :)"; now killian has better, comfier, smoother tech, like an actual robot hand instead of a claw; his eye was already pretty nice, Walter just helped make it more natural looking in case of malfunction, n avoid any pain n shit like that

Walter has Killian wrapped around his lil finger its insane. Anyone with any prior context of everything between them just doesnt know how to act. Walter wants a water? Ok but does he want it flavoured? Iced? Natural? Walter looks at Killian with those big blue eyes and suddenly he just has to touch him in any way.

Walter is definitely the chill half of this couple. Walters the anchor. And im not saying chill like in general, Walter is still is cute energetic self, what i mean is only one of them will become a flustered mess after their first kiss and think abt it forever all the time, especially at night while he watches the other sleep and pets his hair and is overwhelmed by the amount of Feelings he has for the other (killian is so emotionally repressed but then walter is the way he is n he just naturally forces killian not to be that way by just fucking breathing, n its very disorienting for Killian)

Killians not affected by sleep hours all that much, he goes to sleep whenever n then wakes up whenever n he'll be fine. Walter, however, is not a morning person. Can u imagine walter grumpy? Well, killian has now experienced it many times. Its actually how he first realized his feelings for walter. Its stupid endearing (he'd never admit this tho ofc)

Killian bites as a love language. Theyre very soft (sometimes >:)) n walter always turns beet red when he does them

Its hard for both of them to say i love u, but for different reasons. Killian, for ur regular degular emotional repression. Walter, because he never had meaningful emotional n intimate relationships to warrant saying that except for his mom, so saying it gives him anxiety like no other. So, they do that thing where u tap someone 3 times as "i love you" n then the other taps back 4 times "i love you too"

Killian never had the habit for listening to music. Walter introduced him to kpop n it all went downhill from there (his main group is dreamcatcher, because he has taste. His bias is dami)

Walter needs glasses but always forgets them. Killian is now used to carrying around two pairs of glasses: one for himself, n a duplicate of Walters glasses

I could make so many more of these bit its 4am where i am rn so i will go to sleep. If there's any mistakes yknow why that is

[lotstradamus]

the image of manchester united being dumb lil shits at your hotel has very much made my evening, thank you. (though i am sure you do not feel the same on this being actually on the receiving end.)

omg I wasn’t allowed to talk about it when I worked there, and then when I left I just plain forgot because I have no cause or desire to think about football, but for your entertainment here is my personal favourite story SLASH NIGHTMARE that happened to me: 

the hotel is within walking distance of Old Trafford, so when Man Utd stayed before games they were sharing the hotel with four other floors all packed full of - if we were lucky - mostly oblivious fans. naturally, they arrived at the quietest possible time, through the back, and didn’t leave their floor. as front office staff we weren’t allowed, under pain of yell, to confirm the presence of Filthy Rich Twenty Year Old Pro Athletes in the building. Manchester Evening News posted pictures of them walking into the hotel, but if someone said ‘hey, so Man Utd are here?’ we had to be like ‘WHO???’ (after the first time they stayed, people started booking with us BECAUSE Man Utd did, which was why they eventually had to start sneaking in through the back, but I did once get to tell a little kid ‘No, sorry, Man United aren’t here, but tell your dad you should definitely be standing in reception at 9pm tonight’ and he got to meet Jesse Lingard and it was precious.) 

anyway, they brought their own security guards with them and posted them at either end of the corridor to make sure no one who shouldn’t be there snuck onto the floor, and DEFINITELY to make sure the players didn’t just come down into the reception in the middle of check-in time and walk straight into lobby full of Man Utd fans because they were told to GO DOWN THE EMERGENCY EXIT STAIRS AT THE END OF THE HALLWAY and they DID NOT LISTEN and were just like Haha, I’ll Get In The Lift ! Weeeee ! (this happened.) truly just epic dinguses. and BECAUSE they were Epic Dinguses, they would constantly call the front desk because they forget to pack a toothbrush or got locked out of their rooms. CONSTANTLY. one shift I talked to what felt like EVERY MEMBER OF THE 2018 TEAM on the GODDAMN PHONE. 

so one time, Ander Herrera (yes I had to google the roster) calls the desk from the massage room and says he was visiting someone else’s room and now he’s locked out of his. a regular degular occurrence; no cause for alarm. I said I would bring a new key up to the massage room for him. the ‘massage room’ was a really poncy name for what was basically a hotel room that housekeeping had taken the bed out of so they could set up their widdle massage tables, and the lock on the door was disabled so everyone could just wander in and out of it without needing a key. despite hearing the words ‘the massage room’ and saying the words ‘the massage room’ and, indeed, understanding the concept of a ‘massage room’, I DID NOT GRASP IT. I WAS TIRED, AND STRESSED, AND EVERY TIME I WENT TO THE FLOORS I HAD TO FIELD 478279 QUESTIONS FROM THE BAR STAFF ABOUT WHETHER I HAD BEEN TO A FOOTBALLER’S ROOM, AND I WAS JUST NOT FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS.

I get up to the third floor, Foot Ball Habitat, and I’m like ‘hey security guard, Ander Herrera in 315 is locked out of his room, he asked if we could bring a new key to the massage room.’ and then I held out the key to the security guard, assuming that he would take it to The Massage Room. I was mistaken. idk if I was radiating I’m A Huge Professional Who Does Not Care About These Men energy or what, but he was just handwavingly like ‘no problem, you can take it down to him!’ and because I WAS a huge professional who did not care about these men, I TOOK IT TO THE STUPID MASSAGE(!) ROOM(!) MYSELF. 

I knock on the door. I hear ‘it’s open!’ I push the door open. and what am I greeted with? 

of course, I am greeting with the inner workings of A Massage Room!

there are two Manchester Utd players getting massages with tiny towels over their derrières. there are three more Manchester United players just hanging out, wearing tiny towels around their nèther règions. there is half fucking dressed Ander Herrera sitting on the sofa, waiting for his kèy. AND I HAD TO WALK INTO THAT HELLSCAPE AND GIVE THE MAN HIS KEY!!! 

listen: when I say my soul left my body, I am not exaggerating. I felt what only can be described as pure calm settle over me. my consciousness ollied THE FUCK out, and a customer service robot took over. I managed, through sheer force of will, to go totally blind. I have never IN MY LIFE been more professional. I don’t know if my face did anything other than turn freakishly blank, but I said ‘here’s your key’ and Ander Herrera said ‘thank you’ and I said ‘no worries’, and the customer service robot who was Ratatouilling my body got me the hell ass outta there. I even said thanks to the security guard who was partially responsible for the trauma I was currently living on my way past. he had no idea what had Happened To Me. 

I must have been slightly Gone behind the eyes still when I got back downstairs because the guys at the bar were like Uh, Are You Good? and when I relayed what had happened in what I’m sure was a completely normal voice they nearly cried. my front desk colleague wouldn’t let me answer the phone for the rest of the shift just in case nude football players needed anything else bringing to the massage room. (they did not.) when the general manager of the hotel came in on Monday morning he was like ‘sooooo I heard Man Utd gave you a strip tease?’ and I WASN’T. ALLOWED. TO TELL. ANYONE. 

to sum up: you literally never know WHAT is going to happen when you clock in for a shift at a hotel, and Ander Herrera if you’re reading this I hate your guts 

[apathycarestostudy]

“Putting yourself out there -”

Is a necessary evil, and let me tell you why.

(a dash of hopefully helpful rambling for my people with imposter syndrome, variations of the sort, or feel like they don’t deserve stuff)

I have issues I never wanted to acknowledge, but I’m trying to quit being in denial as a gift to myself. I overthink the littlest of things. I feel like I don’t deserve anything unless I do the absolute most and even then, I will never take what I’m owed unless the person I’m doing this for, a regular degular or an authority figure, shows their appreciation in a consistent way, enough to where I’m 100% sure I’m not “bothering” them. I do good by a whole lot of people, but I never cash my efforts in. I have endless opportunities rolling in and rolling right past me, slow enough to where I just need to reach out, but I simply don’t. I believe everything I’ve ever worked for, every accolade I’ve made, every step I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking was set up for me, and I just accepted it as something I had no choice but to do and did them. I unintentionally set up a facet of myself as my entire self to so many people when meeting them, and not only did I accept it for what it was, I continued to diligently play that persona that I absolutely hate just thinking about, and I refuse to give myself an out just because “I need to commit”.

I can keep going on and on, but that’s not the point of this post. I’m writing this to you so you could benefit off of what I had to learn the hard way. I’ve been like this since I was thirteen years old (almost 22 now), and only one instance, one random decision to say, “Screw it!” a couple of weeks ago opened my eyes to what it could be like if I snatched that opportunity slowly rolling right past me.

I was doing an online internship and thought, “Hm, these people don’t know me...so what if I acted like, I dunno, my damn self? I’ll never have to see them again anyways and worry about seeming inhumane.” And so I did. I wanna say it all worked out, but it didn’t. People treated my like an oddity at first, and I was getting aggravated and upset by that, and was about to retreat behind my robotic ways, but then I reminded myself - no, maybe you’re being sensitive. Maybe they’re having a bad day. Maybe you shouldn’t care because you’ll be done in a month and won’t see them ever again?? So I continued being myself. And guess what?

After a while of my ideas being ignored, worrying about it I over spoke or seemed to answer my team’s concerns immediately like I had nothing better to do, receiving everything with open arms yet with a critical eye - I became the most valuable member of our team. They were mad about that in the beginning because I guess I they had an impression about me, but then they started to confide in me personally, or ask for my input first, or give me permission to rip their work a new one because the only thing I’m good at is damage assessing and control. And I left them with such an amazing aftertaste that, for the first time in a while, they wanted to keep in touch with me and it seemed genuine.

But that’s not all. Me being me, I would never go out of my way and talk to a professor and say thank you privately, or hold onto them for future benefit. I just have this weird standard for myself wherein I want to reach my goals absolutely on my own, and not on the backs of anyone else, and I’m hella extreme about it. But this time I reminded myself again that I can try - it wouldn’t take anything away from me if they never responded. And you know what happened?

Not only did that person respond, but they wrote a thank you letter to me for being a good student, told me they recommended me to the place of internship for hire, and then was adamant on staying in touch so they could confirm if I’d gotten it, and if not, that would hook me up with somewhere else.

Like ??????????????????

As the conversations were happening, I was appalled that they were talking about me like that. As if all the good things I’ve accomplished in my opinion wasn’t there as proof that I can do it. I legit started thinking if this was a deeper form of imposter syndrome and if I needed therapy, not gonna lie.

So this was a long-winded build up to what I wanted to leave you with, assuming you’ve read all of that - put yourself out there. With all the crutches I gave myself, I never would’ve thought I’d get more than what I bargained for just by reaching out to opportunity. If I had known being greedy would get me what I needed, I would’ve had my hand out a long time ago. Of course, you gotta put in the work to cash it in, but this post was for the people who do and never put themselves out there. That’s me. That might be you too. Hopefully after this ramble, you reassess what you think you don’t deserve, and I continue to reach out instead of letting opportunity roll right past me.

Here’s to our collective success.

[blackwoolncrown]

like the white powers that be literally overtly ignored climate science for thirty years...but it’s so much worse than that bc this began SO long ago indigenous people have BEEN tellling Europeans ‘you cant use the earth like that it will ruin everything’ so even the narrative of ‘we knew for thirty years’ is white-centric.

But anyway they do nothing nothing nothing while actively making it worse, then a kid stands up and does *something* bc as she sees it no one else is helping then ppl cheer? No be embarrassed this is terrible and pathetic that it came so far, all the way down to kids bc their futures are pretty much nonexistent. Wtf have y’all been doing? The eurocentric pursuit of continuous progress and dogged pressure to prove themselves something more than animal, more than human, has been draining all life on Earth dry. Fucking exploitation in 4D. Billionares fucking planning space resorts and robot bodies and regular degular people conned into supporting the idea-- y’all’s ppl are HIGHKEY batshit dude!

 To this day there are middle class white ppl that just refuse to know what’s going on and I get it they really don’t want to face reality...

But until they do we all suffer bc they stay acting like this shit isn’t happening like white ppl don’t care about jack shit until it physically, personally affects them and no one deserves to suffer y’alls apathy like that just bc you’re hiding from your pasts.