#less than ten exceptions

[oscargender]

32… all this time I had been assuming that Chu Wanning was AT LEAST 40… probably closer to 50-60, and he just looks young because of his cultivation… 32…

[benetnvsch]

wow,, this really was our bungou stray dogs,,,,

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

i feel like if i got my hands on an upper of some kind, things would be improved because i'd be able to get things done. at the same time i do have downers actually prescribed. trouble is, if you take a small enough dose to keep yourself actually functional in any way, it just means you feel less stressed but also less... everything. like the stress is still there because it isn't physiological stress, it's knowing you've not done everything stress. but if i took a dose that would actually help, a) i'd run out (i only have the one script) and b) take all week to recover from it. so there is no good answer, because if i'm gonna take a downer, it's gonna be enough to actually help, i.e. enough to make me crash out. unfortunately 'actually help' is synonymous with 'loss of consciousness', because being conscious is hell, you know?

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Dog has a swollen lymph node. Just one for now. Which means her cancer is getting worse already. The longer this goes on, the more detached I feel from reality.

[nobodybetterlookatme]

I've never heard of emts working only at events? What's that like for you if you don't mind my asking?

Yeah, there are ambulance companies that staff certain events, but there's some event specific companies out there lmao. For me specifically, it's almost entirely college events, whether it's happening on a campus or not. It's not great, usually pretty boring, but it's better than being on an ambulance or in a hospital. We do get actual emergencies sometimes, but usually it's just getting drunk people to the tent or giving out water and bandaids lmao. Again, boring as fuck, but I chose this over working on a 911 rig, so that's on me 😔 if I'm being so real tho, other than my coworkers, the best part of the job is the food lmaoooo it's so good and all the food trucks/food booths give discounts or free food to us depending on the location and event. And there's almost always a ton of downtime, so I basically just get paid to sit there and vibe for the most part

[epaulando]

girls when sooooooo much overdue work and an awful headache and their grades are awful. and the parental vibes are terrible.

[quietwingsinthesky]

actually funny story regarding prev post but when my friend forced my to watch Red White and Royal Blue, at one point I said something along the lines of “They’re probably going to break up in a few years anyway, despite all this fuss.” and she accused me of trying to ruin the movie for her. And then I did not say the next thing I thought because she was already annoyed at me, which was “Why does them breaking up in the future matter if the story is about them being in love now?”

[spicymiilk]

I was going to be updating two fics tomorrow but unfortunately I had the most appalling day health wise today and probably won’t be able to, unless ya’ll will settle for a short ass chapter of Crop Circles

On a completely separate totally unrelated note, passing out in a grocery store? I don’t recommend.

[of-another-broken-heart]

Damn, that survey about jam on toast really has me wishing we had bread (and butter) because I could DESTROY like half a loaf all by myself right now.

Which of my menagerie of maladies is to blame for me craving salt and fat above all else?

I don't fucking know.

Even day-old bread costs like $4 a loaf now. And butter, that shit's like, double digits for a pound.

I don't remember the last time I could eat enough to actually feel full.

I say, while just wanting fucking. Bread.

Hit me with the peasant scraps. I will take your stale heels and I will be delighted.

[elainemorisi]

every couple months in one of the larger local fb groups some transplant complains that people here don't smile at you

a) yes they do?? if you smile at them first??*

b) as a Midwestern transplant. the people who make those posts. are bad people. like. I'm. half joking. but that's one of the sketchier relatively apolitical things you could say, actually, imo

[prlssprfctn]

Bruce, Alfred, and Barbara get fed up with Batboys pissing them off, and because all of them are competitive, they decide to come up with a perfect solution — the best son of the week chart. Each of them create ten criteria that boys should follow in order to get more points from all judges, except they keep it in the dark what criteria are. So they would always walk on the eggshells.

Does it work? Barely. Does anyone win? Yes. Jason.

The only problem — he had no idea about the contest, and he doesn't give two flying fucks.

Damian: That's pure nonsense! Todd was never fit for this title!

Tim: Wait, wait, I think, it makes sense!

Tim: Think of it! Alfred's criteria are probably about keeping things clean and something along these lines, right?

Dick: Right! And what Jason does when he is in the Manor?

Damian, slowly: Washes dishes after himself. Sews his suits back himself. Cooks. Helps with laundry.

Tim: Exactly.

Dick: It is hard to say what bothers Babs, but Jason loves her. He barely pisses her off. Even if he argues with us, he has a not so secret comms with her, so-

Damian: Thus, the only negative points to Todd would come from Father.

Tim: Which is still bad for the record, but much less than our results, because we definitely fuck up at least one or two points from Alfred and Babs.

Boys: *collective groan*

Alfred, in the Batcave: So, are they right? You gave our boy negative points?

Bruce: ...Just two out of ten.

Barbara: Wow, not you being merciful to Jason. Who died?

Bruce: Some drug dealer, that's why I put one negative point.

Barbara: No, I meant— Nevermind. What was the second one for?..

Bruce: He stole your father's tires.

Barbara: I honestly don't think dad minded much.

Bruce: I know.

Alfred: Master Bruce is just jealous.

Barbara: You can't just put negative points for that! It should be followed by a criteria—

Bruce: Well, I put it in the family bonding criteria.

Alfred: *a patient smile of a person who hasn't seen a ray of hope within past 30 years of his life*

[dduane]

Just checking in

Because some of y'all are worrying about me, I know.

(Inserting a cut here. TW, as you might expect, for mentions of death and after-death issues. Also of crap beds, noisy clueless tourists, and giant koi.)

The "Trip Away From Home To Try To Get A Grip On Things" is proceeding as well as it can when the one element it would need to be perfect, and truly enjoyable, is missing. (sighing) If Peter was along in corporeal form, he would be lapping this up.

...Well, everything except the current weather. I'm in Interlaken, and it's raining. And not just some little passing episodic rain, either. This is more, even, than the Irish definition of "soft weather". It's coming down in the steady persistent way that would make Peter say "Well, that's on for the day..." And so it may be. So for the time being, I get to sit in the hotel and watch it rain, and consider the odds of actually getting up the Jungfrau to see the Aletsch Glacier before any more of it melts. (And those odds seem poor: but more of that later.)

So here's where I've been:

Dublin—overnight in U2's hotel. Which is very nice. And which has come down in price, astonishingly, on their singles. (Though I nonetheless thank, yet again, the folks who have made this difficult transitional people so much less problematic for me via Ko-Fi.) As Peter had been telling me I really should try this place some time when I had to be going somewhere else, I took him at his word.

Zürich, just briefly. (Shopping will wait until the run back.) On the way to:

Basel, for one night before the Eurovision finals. I don't know for sure, but it seems likely to me that Basel may have broken the record for biggest Eurovision venue (the St. Jakob's Stadion had 49K people in it on Saturday night). Also: one of my cabbies told me that the city had nearly half a million tourists in it... which, for a little-ish city like Basel, is a whole lot. I can tell you that about half them seemed to be walking around in the streets when we were trying to drive in them, and it was a nightmare, and my cabbies were saying terrible things in Baslerdeutsch.

Freiburg im Breisgau for two nights out of a planned three. ...I had to go early, as the bed in the [otherwise lovely] room the hotel had put me in was not good for my back. Fortunately I had enough funds on hand to simply kiss off that third night and return to the hotel in Basel, which not only had way better beds, but the most comfortable pillows I've ever slept on in a central-European hotel. I would go back to the Maerthof (money allowing: it ain't cheap...) for just the pillows alone. (And also the shower in the room was terrific, and I very much noticed and appreciated the numerous solid and well-placed accessibility aids. Ask for room 402, and don't freak out when the anti-sun glare blinds automatically come down at 0900.)

And now, Interlaken (already famous to some of you for this craziness, in which we found soup ads in Terry Pratchett's German editions). I'll be here tonight and tomorrow night, and then (probably, not decided yet) in Bern the night after. Zürich again the night after that, as I fly back to Dublin the next day, see people on the Dublin 2029 planning committee, and then... head back home to get on with gettin' on. ...Whatever that looks like.

Mental state: I miss him. Oh gods I miss him! Every fifth minute. Or third. And I always will! That's not a conditional. But I'm watching my moods (and physical health) with great care. If I start suspecting that I need antidepressents, or some other kind of specialized care, I'll go get it. There's lots of it around. (I note in passing that my appetite has slowly come back. My sleep patterns are still stupid, but I'm getting more sleep than earlier in this ten-day period.)

Be clear, too, that this isn't just me Being Tough because it's expected of me. I now have even more work-related responsibilities than I had earlier... as soon enough the copyrights on Peter's books will pass to my guardianship, and I have to make sure they're properly cared for. (In particular, his contract with his current e-book publisher is about to run out, and I think I'll be reclaiming those for publication at Ebooks Direct, as the other guys haven't been doing that stellar a job with them.)

And then I have to figure out: what do I need to do to write, now? Because there's a whole lot of that work that needs doing. Can I ever do it again in that house that's so quiet without him? And if not, how do I make this work? Peter has been the not-so-silent foundation of my life for forty years. (We missed that fortieth wedding anniversary by so little...) My most constant reader is now no longer in condition to read and report back...

(sighing) We shall see. Everything, now, is an adventure. Just nowhere near as cool a one as it was when he was here.

...Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the hotel in Interlaken, which has a charmingly modernized yes-this-is-the-Swiss-countryside-but-we-have-heard-of-modern-life-thank-you-very-fucking-much quality to it. And in particular: it's next to a feature called "The Japanese Garden" that features a pond with some of the BIGGEST damn koi I've ever seen. The damn things are like zeppelins. I'll post pics of them tomorrow: I want to see if there might be better lighting in the morning. They remind me of the ones at this hotel in Santa Monica that used to come up to the poolside bar seats and make adorable irresistible Fishy Faces at you until you fed them salted peanuts from the bar snacks. Which apparently they knew they were not allowed to have, but loved anyway, and they would make faces at you until you broke and appeased them.)

Meanwhile, here is this evening's wine. "Lucifer"? What's not to like? It's a light Valisan quaffing red.

("When you're drinking Swiss reds," says the Voice In My Head, "get the whole damn bottle. It's cheaper than by the glass. And if you don't finish it, or we don't finish it, you can always take it up to the room with you and have it tomorrow.")

(...You see what I put up with.) :)

Hugs to you all.

[ponderingmoonlight]

Oh, to be trapped with Dante

Pairing: Dante x fem!reader

Word Count: 1,3k

Synopsis: What's worse than getting trapped with Dante? Getting trapped with a stripping Dante.

Warnings: this is hilarious and fluffy at the same time, I'm still begging for Dante requests so get in my inbox if you have one, hope you like it @veijdana

You’re not sure what sets it off.

Maybe it’s the faulty lock. Maybe the door was always a little off its axes. Maybe the universe just has a sick sense of humour when it comes to you and that guy.

What you do know for sure is this: the door slams shut, there’s a sharp click, and no amount of jiggling the handle is getting you out of this storage room-slash-death trap. No windows, no signal, and the only light is from a flickering overhead bulb that looks like it could give up at any moment.

Perfect.

So much to being the greatest demon hunters of them all.

You turn slowly to Dante, who’s lounging against a metal shelf stacked with boxes labeled “Supplies” like this is nothing. Like he didn’t just help trap you both in a glorified closet with a single bottle of water and a half-eaten protein bar. Like he did something except for watching you struggle with that heavy ass door.

He raises an eyebrow.

“Problem?”

“The door’s locked.”

“I noticed,” he replies, utterly unbothered.

“Dante.”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

You cross your arms in front of your chest, barely able to hold it together any longer.

“Please don’t call me that right now.”

“Noted,” he declares, in a tone that means absolutely not noted.

He strolls over, casually tests the door for himself, then shrugs.

“Yeah. We’re stuck.”

“No kidding.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait until someone finds us.”

“Which could be hours. Or days.”

He grins, shameless.

“Even better.”

You sit down hard the cold ground. It creaks threateningly, but you’re too irritated to care. He paces once, twice, then flops down across from you like this is a vacation, arms behind his head, one leg draped over the other ready to sunbathe.

Except this isn’t Miami beach but a mouse trap.

“Are you always this calm when you’re locked in small spaces with people you annoy for fun?” you question innocently.

“Only when it’s you.”

You narrow your eyes, gaze spitting thick venom at him.

“Do you actually enjoy pushing my buttons this much, or is it just some kind of defense mechanism?”

“Little column A, little column B,” he thinks out loud, flashing you a lazy smile.

“But if we’re being honest… you're kind of cute when you’re mad.”

You throw a balled-up wrapper at him. He ducks it easily, still smirking.

The minutes stretch. Then an hour. The silence tries to creep in, but Dante won’t let it. He talks. About nonsense. Old missions, weird dreams, things he overheard once that he probably wasn’t supposed to. You try not to laugh. You really try.

Eventually, you’re sitting on the floor with your back against the wall, legs stretched out, head tilted toward him without meaning to. He’s closer now, somehow. At some point. The distance between you shrunk while you weren’t paying attention.

“I think you like being trapped with me,” he mutters, voice quieter now.

Less teasing, if that’s somehow possible.

“You haven’t told me to shut up in, like, ten whole minutes.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no heat behind it.

“That’s because I’ve accepted my fate. Resistance is clearly useless. And somehow I get the feeling it turns you on even more.”

“Exactly. Might as well enjoy yourself.”

He bumps your knee with his. You don’t move away. No, somehow, this faint touch has a comfort to it, a warmth you haven’t felt for quite some time by now.

The silence now is different. Thicker. Weighted. Like you’re both suddenly aware of how still everything is. How alone. It’s just you and him. You and the walking sex symbol itself Dante.

Your voice comes out softer than you mean it to.

“This is the part where you make some dumb joke about body heat, isn’t it?”

He chuckles, low.

“Tempting. But no. Not yet.”

You glance at him.

“Yet?”

He shrugs.

“I’m giving you a few more hours before I wear down your defenses. I’m not a complete monster.”

You shake your head, lips twitching despite yourself.

Another stretch of silence. Then:

“You ever think about it?” he asks suddenly.

You blink, caught off guard by that strange and unexpected question.

“About what?”

“Us. Like - if this whole ridiculous situation wasn’t so ridiculous. If it was… different.”

Your stomach does something complicated. You turn your head to look at him, your palms starting to get sweaty. Why do you always feel like this when he’s around?

He’s watching you, eyes dark and serious for once. No smirk. No teasing.

“Yeah. Sometimes,” you admit quietly.

A beat.

“I like the idea,” he confesses.

You nod.

“Me too.”

He shifts closer, shoulder brushing yours now, solid and warm and real. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.

“Still not sharing my blanket, though.”

You snort.

“I’m not cold.”

“Yet.”

You laugh. And this time, you let your head rest against his shoulder. Just a little.

Just enough.

Bonus:

You're curled on one side of the room, using your jacket as a pillow. Dante's a few feet away, stretched out like he owns the floor, arms folded behind his head. The silence has gone companionable, easy. You almost forget where you are.

Until he moves.

You hear the rustle of fabric first. Then the unmistakable sound of a zipper.

You lift your head, every single alarm going off inside your head. No, he isn’t about to strip…Is he?

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to sleep,” he remarks like it’s obvious.

Which it isn’t.

At all.

Because his shirt is coming off, and now he’s unbuttoning his pants in the dim light of the room, clearly visible to your accustomed to dark gaze.

“Dante-”

“What?” he interrupts, glancing at you over his shoulder.

“I always sleep naked.”

You sit up straighter, just the thought of seeing him naked, let alone shirtless...

“You are not - you can’t just strip.”

He shrugs, already stepping out of his jeans like this is just another Tuesday with a pizza waiting on his desk for him.

“It helps with thermoregulation. Look it up.”

“Oh my god,” you mutter, turning away.

“You’re the worst.”

“You say that, but you’re not telling me to stop.”

You don’t. You don’t want to. Which is the worst part.

He stretches out again, now under the thin blanket you both agreed to not share (but he’s already claimed half of), bare chest barely hidden in the dark, a picture of shameless comfort.

You try not to look. You try.

He catches you anyway.

“See something you like?”

“See something I want to throw a box at.”

He laughs - low, satisfied, like he just won a game you didn’t know you were playing.

“Relax. It’s not like I’m gonna pounce on you.”

“You better not.”

“Unless you ask nicely.”

You grab your jacket and hurl it at his face. He catches it one-handed, grinning like he’s thriving on your outrage.

“Goodnight, Dante.”

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

You lie back, trying to will your pulse to settle. But you can still hear him breathing across the room, steady and slow, and you swear you feel the heat from him bleeding across the short distance between you.

The night settles heavy. And you're very aware you’re trapped with a half-naked Dante, no door, no escape, and a dangerous lack of personal space.

Sleep is going to be impossible.

And you think he knows it.

“I still feel you staring-“

“Shut the hell up, Dante.”

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP idea: The old switcheroo

Based on this ask that got me thinking.

It's not well-known that Mary and John Grayson had identical twins. The reason is that Haly Circus had a strict rule about babies traveling with them. There could only be one at a time.

Jack Haly tried his best, but it had been a long-standing rule of the circus back when his grandfather first started the business, and since he enforced it onto everyone else, he couldn't make exceptions for the Flying Graysons even if the second boy wasn't planned.

There were a lot of reasons for this rule. The first was traveling, which was dangerous for the little ones: illness and unsafe equipment. The second reason they encountered more delays whenever they crossed borders was because people were suspicious of multiple children being moved about.

The last was that Fedrick Haly thought children were a distraction and would not stand for his performers to not be entirely focused on their acts. So the rule went up, and anyone displeased with it was welcome to leave. He later allowed for more than one child as long as the first born had was at least ten years old before the second born was on its way.

The problem was that while a few people did leave, most had been born and raised in Haly's circus and couldn't imagine a world where they weren't part of it. Mary and John were in the second category, so they made a hard choice.

They gave up one of the twins to a lovely couple, Madeline and Jack Fenton, and tried not to think about him. They went as far as to leave themselves off of the boy's birth certification. This was a viewpoint the son they did keep, Dick, did not share.

The minute the circus Strong Man let it slip that he had a brother, Dick had tried tracking him down. He found an ally in Jack Haly himself, who had always hated his grandfather's rule and took him on an "educational" trip to America.

The Graysons didn't suspect anything, and the Fentons were also left in the dark because Jack H. was worried they would try to cause trouble among his people if they found out about Dick.

Danny Fenton, Dick's twin, swore to never tell anyone a thing. In his eyes, he saw it as tearing Dick's life apart when it was their parents who made the choice to get rid of him. He didn't even tell his sister or his best friends. He liked to think that one day, when they were older, the brothers would be able to be seen in public.

In the meantime, they shared secret letters as pen pals and would call each other once a month with the help of Haly. It wasn't much, but they built an unbreakable bond.

Then, the Graysons were killed when they were nine. Dick vanished from the face of the earth for a few months. They lost communication until Dick appeared in Danny's life again one year later. It couldn't have come at a better time because Danny, who was used to Dick not responding without months-long gaps in between, was getting angsty that he hadn't heard from his brother.

Apparently, he was taken in by a billionaire who felt a kinship with him, as someone who also watched their parents die. Dick begs Danny to keep their connection a secret for a bit longer because if Bruce knew he had family, he would ship him off to the Fentons, and Dick would never bring their parent's killer to justice.

But he kept their connection a secret anyway so his brother would not lose a second family. Despite what Dick believed, Danny knew that Bruce Wayne actually saw him as a son and that Dick slowly, over the years, thought of him as a father. Dick would later tell him that Bruce was Batman and he was Robin.

Danny didn't have the heart to tell him that he couldn't care less about Mary and John Grayson. He didn't even care that they were dead past the pain it caused his brother. After all, to Danny, they chose a career over him.

They were nothing but a tragic tale. Strangers in every sense of the world. He never even met them.

Both knew that Gotham needed the dynamic duo, so they kept their mouths shut. Danny later realized how important that was when he was turned into Phantom. He too had a city that needed protection.

One day Dick came to him with a proposal.

"We look exactly alike. Down to the mole on our left butt cheeks! No one would know if we switch places." Dick told him excitablely.

"I don't know Dick. I'm not exactly the best actor in the world." Danny started a little hesitant, but he eventually agreed because Dick worded it as a favor he needed desperately.

Danny would do anything for his twin. So he jumps on a plane and flies to Gotham, slipping into Dick's life quickly. He was trained to know people's names, faces, and even his school schedule, which were a part of Dick's life. There were only two things he wasn't prepared for.

Robin's training and the fact that the twins had very different personalities.

On Danny's first night out as Robin, he fell back on his powers to fight crime. He was lucky that Bruce had left Dick on his own for a month now, after years of arguing, and wasn't present to see Robin blast criminals with green rays. He was smart enough to stick to the shadows when people clearly out of his league were up to something- plus, fighting the bigger threats would expose his identity.

When they met up on a roof, Bruce turned to him with a commanding aura that had Danny standing up straighter.

"Robin, report," Bruce, in his Batman outfit, bit out.

After years of giving his parents oral lab reports, he quickly rattled off, "There were four mugging by the east docks, two break-ins at Old Gotham, and a suspected sighting of Joker at-"

Batman slaps him across the face, cutting Danny off. He gasps, clutching his face. "Ow! What the hell!?"

"You were being hysterical. Not once did you crack a joke or insult me. I think the Joker slipped you something." Bruce tells him seriously, tapping his communicator to let Agent A know they needed medical aid as soon as they arrived at the cave.

"What?" Danny demands

"Oh no. You didn't throw a flying kick at my crutch for that. It's worse than I thought. I'm going to have to sedate you." Danny doesn't have time to dodge or go intangible before Bruce leaps at him with a needle.

The following day, he was informed he would not be out on the field until whatever was in his system was cleaned out. The tests picked up his ectoplasm- but Bruce wasn't aware of what it was. Danny is ecstatic about it, getting comfortable in the house of old money and enjoying the world's finest had to offer.

Bruce was unsure why "Dick" was okay with not going out in the field when his angry determination to fight was the whole reason he became Robin. He also took him to a gala, and when he was telling him that the Robinsons had an enormous chandelier and "Dick" was not allowed to swing on it.

"Why would I want to do that?" Danny scoffs, missing the way Bruce's face paled. He was more worried about how obviously popular Dick was and all the people that were tripping over themselves to speak to him.

It was a nightmare.

In school, Dick was in all the advanced classes. Danny was a little worried until he realized without ghosts to fight and people not bullying him every second of the day (Dick was one of the popular kids!), he actually did really well. He enjoyed learning.

Gotham Academy was challenging and engaging in a way Casper High never was. He would go straight home after class, check in with Alfred or Bruce, and then just relax in one of the Wayne pools or in the video game rooms- they had the latest games and systems!

Bruce looked like he was having an aneurysm whenever Danny politely asked him about his day and thanked him for everything he did.

Thankfully, the two switched back after a week-long stay at Wayne Manor. Danny didn't think he could keep tricking Bruce or Alfred without getting caught.

"Did you enjoy your time with Bruce?" Dick asks him after they switch clothes.

"It was.....something. Your foster dad is weird." He tells him.

"Yeah? Well your dad is way too sentetive. He told me he loves me before bed and every morning at breakfast." Dick scoffs. "I still think he was on drugs."

Danny sighs "Well, at least it's over. I miss Sam and Tucker, though I am not looking forward to seeing Dash again."

"Oh, about that. You're suspended from school." Dick tells him casually. "You hit Dash Baxter with a chair after he and his little group surrounded you to shove you in a locker. Thankfully, the ugly one, Paulina, was recording everything because they liked to laugh at the videos, and you broke her hand when you stole her phone. After getting proof of self-defense, plus several other victims coming forward with the videos, the suspension is all you have. Dash is expelled."

Danny gapes at him as Dick winks. "Thanks for doing me a favor of providing the perfect window to protect my twin. Love you! Bye!"

Dick hops onto the plane before Danny can find any words. When he shows up to school, everyone jumps out of his way, eyeing him like he is one second away from telling Sam and Tucker not to come to school tomorrow.

He forgot that Dick has some.....unresolved anger issues. Every day, he is thankful the Graysons gave him away to a family that may be ghost-obsessed, but at least they knew how to process emotions.

Miles away, Bruce watches Robin launch himself with a scream of rage at a mugger and wonders if his son has developed split-personality disorder.

Years later, he tells everyone that Dick has a second personality called Danny, who occasionally slips in once and while. Everyone treats Danny as his own person, including Justice Leauge and his siblings.

Both twins forgot to come clean about each other even after they turned eighteen. They thought the Waynes figured it out because the Fentons did when Dick switched again a few months after Dash got expelled.

It was the fact Dick laughed when his meal came to life, thinking it hilarious. Jack and Maddie were more than happy to have a second son, incredibly one open to ghost research. He did argue a lot about ghost rights, but it was better than Jazz and Danny, who wanted nothing to do with it.

[salsakiyoomi]

sukuna had been gone for ten days.

he won't answer his phone, he won't answer his texts, you even tried to send him an email — yeah, no use.

by the tenth day, you were starting to feel less worried and more angry.

that's when he finally came knocking at your front door.

it was a random tuesday night when you were crying your eyes out at an angsty romance movie when a series of knocks came at your door.

quickly, you wipe away your tears and you head towards the door, creaking it open slightly to see who it is.

a gasp escapes you at the familiar sight of the tattooed face of your stupid, stupid boyfriend.

you swing the door open and before he could get any words out, you drag him in by the collar of his shirt and slap him across the face.

stunned is an understatement.

if anything, sukuna is thoroughly dumbfounded — sure, he knew you were feisty, except, he never thought you'd throw hands, especially as sexy as you did just now.

“where the hell have you been?!” you yell at him, but he's still flabbergasted, with his hand on his cheek where you had just slapped him.

“sukuna.” you growl, and he knows that he’s in trouble.

“sorry, something came up.” he says under his breath, rubbing his cheek.

holy hell, you sure knew how to throw a slap.

“really?” you huff, an angry scowl on your face at the audacity of his curt and vague answer, “that's all you have to say for yourself after ten whole days of being MIA?”

“look, baby, i'm sorry —” “i don't want your apology! i want an explanation! i called you, i texted you, i even sent you an email and you never responded!”

sukuna feels something close to guilt and maybe even…joy? because wow, were you really that worried about it? how flattering.

“i just had a deal going on.” he mutters under his breath, knowing you're going to reprimand him for it.

“what?” you utter out, “a drug deal?! seriously, ryomen? again?! you promised me you quit that shit!”

“it was a good deal, okay?!” he responds, starting to feel frustrated now, “and i needed the money.”

“you could've asked me for money!” you tell him and he scoffs, “yeah, like you're any less broke than i am.”

“sukuna.” you warn and he shakes his head, avoiding your gaze.

“look, i'm sorry, okay?” he says, “it was a moment of weakness.

“yeah, like all of the other times?” you ask sarcastically, “get out.” you add, pointing at the front door of your dorm and already ushering him out.

“oh, come on.” he chides, using the tone that he knows makes you weak, and looking at you with those stupidly convincing red eyes of his, “i said i'm sorry baby, okay? i won't do it again, i promise.”

“you stress me out, ryomen.” you huff, crossing your arms.

“i know,” he says smoothly, “i won't do it again, for you.”

he knows he's let you down again. in his history of fuck ups, this was probably one of the worst — breaking your trust, again.

and yet, he knows you'll always come back to him, forgive him and coddle him — just like you always do.

there was no denying that you were weak for him.

“....fine.” you mumble, “but if you do it again, i'm breaking up with you.”

“yeah yeah, i know.” he chuckles, his hands at your hips, “i won't.”

“good.” you huff.

he hums in response, leaning in to kiss you to make you forget about everything he's ever done and he practically feels the way you melt into the kiss, sinking into his touch as he caresses the soft flesh of your hips.

he was a manipulative piece of shit and he knew it, but if it meant having you under his touch? yeah, he won't give it up.

you bite on his bottom lip and he groans, pulling you closer.

after a moment, he pulls away, the both of you gasping for air.

he smirks, “i can tell you miss me.”

“shut up.” you huff and he chuckles, his hand sliding up to caress the back of your neck and pull you in closer.

“i'll hit from the back tonight if you let me.” he whispers in your ear and you blush, slapping his chest.

“ryomen!” you exclaim and he laughs, “come on, baby. don't you miss me?”

before you even get a chance to respond, he's hauling you up and carrying you to your bedroom.

sukuna's a manipulative piece of shit who probably has nothing better to do than play around and break hearts — he doesn't get attached.

and no matter how many times you threaten to break up with him, he knows you'll always stay.

he was just that good.

[txttletale]

Saw a tweet that said something around:

"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"

I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.

i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.

'depleting the global power and water supply'

something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:

running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours

gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours

watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours

and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!

a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)

a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)

i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?

1-1.5%.

ah. well. nevertheless!

what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.

most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.

but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.

but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!

so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!

'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'

this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."

it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.

nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!

plagiarizing human artists

nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.

AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).

to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?

then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!

this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.

(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)

today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools

i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).

jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!

there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.

so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.

if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.