#what even is a fractal

[companionwolf]

Possible insight on system inner structure-- the sections are...section 1 is its own constellation, not connected? It is the Barrel, with all those little subareas. Whereas 2-...15?, those were all part of a singular second constellation, and said sections were just subareas like the Barrel's.

The layers are still...layers though? Maybe? Spinning takes us through constellations, not sections? It's...recursive? Fractal? I don't know.

But it's circles in circles in circles...

[fferthe]

YOU

[bookshelfpassageway]

i'm gonna be the one insufferable bastard on this earth that liked everhood 2, huh

[magpie-trove]

You could write a dissertation on the use of ‘fair’ in this movie

[neriyon]

Ivalice raids are included in the mog tome events, LET'S GOOOOOO

[mrvelocipede]

Given the current level of custom wallpaper technology, you could conceivably print these things out really big and actually stick them to a ceiling. And then hang glittering ostentatious chandeliers from them. I could almost see it working, someplace like the Cheesecake Factory.

[19catsncounting]

Sometimes a small throwaway detail just comes to me to fill in a space for a description and then I start peeling at it and it's Fucking Rad.

Jody giving Lucifer a pocket knife for Christmas because every man-shaped person in middle America has a pocket knife and it doesn't matter that he can snap rebar with his hands. And she picks one with a mother of pearl handle, green for the most part with a white dove in flight at the end, and thinks the white wings are the important part.

But, it's the full story. It's about a dove that was cast out of the Ark to search for land over an endless ocean by the patriarch of humanity, with little regard for if that dove would find any rest or respite aside from the hungry dark ocean below it, because the needs of the Ark were greater than the risk of the dove. And the dove flew, and flew, and when it found land, the ocean of green probably looked like salvation. And that dove found rest on an olive branch, before returning to the Ark, taking a single leaf with it.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

on one hand, I think it'd be wild if, say, Anet finally answered the question of what happened to the 'real' Dessa and Arkk by throwing them into the wizard sky civilization where they can study fractal islands to their heart's content.

on the other, I think it'd be a lot more likely to finally find out who the heck Marjory's mysterious informant "Mister E" is after all these years of having literally no idea who they are or where the heck they're getting their intel or why they're so secretive about their identity.

[larkthecarneline]

ok but hear me out

what if the universe is actually a fractal

[corpsesoldier]

I truly am not smart enough to understand exordia. woe.

[nanamisgirly]

pussy slapping with your maths teacherྀི

based on this ask (I hope the anon will like it🙂‍↕️)

next part

you knew the email meant trouble the second it landed in your inbox.

subject : “Homework 6 — Integrity Dicussion.” from : Gojo.Satoru@college.ct

so now you're standing outside his office door, palms sweating, thighs pressed together in your miniskirt like that might save you from the cheating homework you assigned. it's not like you're scared of Gojo. he's just your goofy annoyingly attractive nerd math professor. the man wears Gundam socks with his loafers, makes calculus puns, and has a signed photo of Neil deGrasse Tyson on his bookshelf like it's a family heirloom.

but he also happens to have shoulders like a swimmer, hands big enough to palm a basketball, and a mouth made for sin that he hides behind dump jokes with his stupidly slutty glasses. you're not into him or anything tho, you're just not blind.

your knuckles tap against the door.

“come in,” he calls, voice low. too low actually.

you step in, closing the door behind you. 

the first thing you see are the posters of fractals and famous math equations—not surprising. in the other hand, what is really surprising is the life-size cardboard cutout of the pokémon Blastoise. what the fuck is that?

your surprise doesn't stop there, as your eyes land on the chunky old Casio calculator sitting on his desk next to a mug that says, “i'm a cute professor <3”.

he's seated at his desk, glasses on, sleeves rolled to the elbows showing strong forearms scribbled in veins, one ankle resting over the opposite knee like he's got all the time in the world. a lopsided smile appears as he asks “you're nervous ?”

you scoff, clutching your handbag a little tighter. “i'm not.” he's the one to talk—how would anyone look comfortable in a office looking like this?

“mmh. tell yourself that.” he leans, pulls open a drawer and slides out your homework. he taps the edge the paper as he hold it in the air. “you handed your homework last week. and you scored…a beautiful 97.” he tilts his head, gauging your reaction. 

you're feeling a bit too hot now, sweats trickling down your spine, but you try to hold it together. you feign innocence, “yeah, incredible isn't it?” you say, rolling your eyes to play it cool.

he hums thoughtfully. “sure… if you hadn't cheated.”

you swallow, crossing your arms as you cock a hip “a girl scores high and suddenly some old grump of a man's offended by it. what a world we live in.”

gojo leans back in his chair, gaze sliding over your form—lingering a bit too long on your thighs. “is that how it is?" he hums, eyes flicking up to meet yours "just a bitter old man then?” the corner of his mouth twitches like he's trying not to grin 

he clicks his tongue and leans back further, arms spreading across the armchair like he owns the place. he does, actually. his knees spread too—annoyingly wide, “look, we both know you didn't do these problems yourself. and you're gonna redo it. right here. right now. on me.” 

your lips part. “gojo—”

“professor gojo,” he corrects, tone maddeningly even. “you don't want me to call the Academic Integrity Committee, do you?”

you glance down at his thighs, then back up. “you're a math professor. Not my—”

“—brat tamer?” he cuts in smoothly, raising a brow without blinking.

you go still. your jaw clenches, heat crawling up the back of your neck. he's so smug. smug and patient and infuriatingly unfazed.

you step forward and settle on his lap—hovering, refusing to fully sit. if he thinks you're gonna give in that easily, he's dead wrong. you don't care if your thighs start shaking. you'll squat until the apocalypse if you have to.

“ah—!” a squeal rips out of you when his hands clamp around your hips, big and warm and decidedly firm as he drags you down until you're fully seated, straddling his lap. your miniskirt hikes up dangerously high in the process, your bare thighs pressed tight to his slacks.

his breath hitches, almost imperceptibly. you probably wouldn't have noticed if you weren't so hyper-aware of every single shift in the room.

“problem one,” he says, casually putting your paper on the desk like he isn't now rock-hard beneath you like a complete weirdo. his hands stay planted on your thighs, thumbs stroking idly, but his voice stays cold. unbothered, professional almost.

keyword : almost.

you swallow hard, cheeks burning from the sheer proximity—his firm chest pressed to your back, white fluffy hair brushing every time he leans in. his scent clings to your skin—clean linen, cologne, and chalk dust—it's driving you insane. and those damn impossible formulas staring up at you on the paper—differential equations, matrix exponentials, fucking laplace transforms. couldn't he have picked basic calculus ?

your brain is short-circuiting. and the little laughs of the far-too-good-looking-with-his-glasses-pushed-low-on-his-nose professor is doing nothing to ease your nerves. “solve the matrix for the homogeneous system.” your spine stiffens as his voice is nothing but hot air dragging goosebumps up your neck.

“c'mon, engineer girl. use that big brain of yours.” you let out a shaky exhale, trying to focus on the paper even while his fingers toy with the hem of your panties. he hasn't even really touched you, but you're feeling your panties clinging to you—embarrassingly wet.

“one over s-squared plus four?” you try something, mind too fuzzy to think. your breath catches as his fingertips trace your clothed slit—oh very so slowly. he doesn't bother pressing, just lets the fabric catch and soak even more.

“gojo, what are you—”

“professor,” he reminds you, tone suddenly sharp. “and…” he's turning his head, cheek brushing yours as he watches your teeth dig in your bottom lip “no guessing.” you shudder, thighs trembling on his thick one.

that’s ridiculous how sensitive you were from featherlight touches…you’re better than that..so why are your wetting your thighs by seconds ?

“from now on,” his fingers slip beneath the damp lace, two digits brushing your folds, “you get every problem right, you're so good at pretending to be smart—but be smart.” his hand curls back up—cupping your pussy, applying steady pressure to your aching clit through the underwear. your thighs squeeze together instinctively, the heat unbearable.

you stare at the same problem, chest rising and falling in heavy breath. “a-a inverse time b—?” you offer weakly.

a low, pitying sound escapes him.

smack.

“wrong again.” the sudden sharp slap on your cunt makes your entire body jolts in his lap, your ass pressing harder against his cock. your head drops forward, tears prickling your lashes, hips twitching in a pathetic attempt at friction.

it"s so humiliating. that nerd of a teacher. fuck.

“uh-huh, don't move, sweetie. who told you you get to grind on my thigh?” he grabs your jaw with his free hand, forcing you to meet his glacier-blue eyes glinting behind crooked glasses. “let's try again. if f(t) = sin(3t), then what's the Laplace transform?” his breath ghosts over your cheek, one hand directing your gaze to the paper like you aren't already losing your mind.

your mind scrambles, your pussy pulses, and you're cursing the world for putting you in this situation. you can't even help it, it just feels so good. 

your voice breaks on a moan, nothing reflecting your angry mind “three… over…squared plus n-nine—”

gojo groans softly, cock twitching under your ass. “there she is,” he mutters, hand sliding down to rub rough circles against your clit. “smart and fuckable? you might be my new favorite little project sweetie.”

and just as a whimper leaves your lips—the second your hips barely roll forward in a desperate grind—he yanks his hand away.

“what did i say?” he asks, calmly adjusting his glasses like he's not the filthiest thing on earth right now. “no grinding. one right answer doesn't mean you get to cum. you've got four more questions, we're far from done.”

he lands another slap on your clit—scarily precise. “i get to edge you again. and again. until your poor little cunt forgets what cumming even feels like.” you sob his name as he pulls your underwear taut between your fat lips, the soaked lace dragging cruelly against your swollen clit. you shove your fist into your mouth, biting it to stay quiet.

he dips his fingers back into the ruined mess between your legs. not inside—never inside apparently. he's probably a psychopathe who loves skimming his student's pussy entrance, circling it like a threat.

 “if you get all the five right tho," he murmurs darkly, "i'll bend you over this desk and fuck you, raw, with your nose pressed onto that test," your walls clench hard at his words—and he feels it, obviously…

smirking into your hair, he adds, “you'd love that, of course you would. so go on, sweetie. show me you're not just a brainless little brat. show me how much of a perfect slut you are for good grades.”

you swear once you'll get all your mind together, you're gonna make him regret everything. that cocky, small-dick bastard—acting like he's got a big game between his thighs. 

a nerd like him, isn't packing enough to pleasure you. right?

^⌯𖥦⌯^

a/n aaaand we thanks my bachelor in engineer for my knowledge ☝🏼 tho i hope you enjoyed reading this, i don’t think it’s perfect buuut i tried :))) let me know 🫶🏻

[dumb-dumb-mander]

Useless achi'?

Yes.

But I was terribly annoyed to see the Blish markers everytime I was doing fractals with my guildmates efnzjlf

[seat-safety-switch]

The news keeps banging on about self-driving cars. That's useless crap. Why would I want to get rid of the driving excitement of my daily commute? Most of my cars aren't even assisted-driving ones. No, what's really going to change automotive ownership forever is the development of the self-driving tow truck.

You've probably seen a bunch of crazy hype videos about a theoretical future car dropping its owner off and then going to look for a parking space on its own. This will never happen. No matter how stressful you find the act of parking, just imagine how much angrier you'll be when you come out of the Superstore and discover your shitbox is gunning it on the highway because it decided that the best place to park would be somewhere in Manitoba. Then it does a U-turn across four lanes and rams a bus full of nuns. No.

For my money, the more useful scenario is this. My car breaks down, then I press a button and a tow truck magically comes to get me. We throw that car on the tow truck and drive home to get it fixed. Easy. Economical. And if the eggheads working on this kind of thing do their jobs right, I won't even have to mess with the tow hooks myself. I can go grab a taco while the robot truck is busy roping up my stricken car and preparing the little winky-blinky lights.

Sure, it's going to put a whole lot of tow truck drivers out of business. Don't worry. Those brave folks have a highly transferable set of skills, and will be able to shift into a much lower-stress job, such as hostage negotiation or brain surgery. We'll need to keep a couple on hand, though, for when the robot tow trucks all break down and then start a horrific nightmare of trying to rescue one another, followed by a swelling fractal mass of tow trucks pulling tow trucks down the highway. That's a future you can bet on. Can I borrow your phone to call roadside assistance? Mine died when the alternator in my Plymouth blew up.

[kyliaquilor]

Except that there’s zero reason to believe killing an oil executive would have any impact on production or use of oil. Killing all of BP’s senior leadership at once, maybe, but corporations are nested layers of impersonality and systems that chug ahead on their own. 

Sorry for the bad photo quality, Tumblr doesn't like posts this long.

[drchucktingle]

As an autistic person, did you struggle to make and keep friends? And have you found friends through the writing world? I ask because my mom always said i needed to find my people. I did finally find them (they are neurodiverse trans nerds, haha), but not until i was like 30. And i wonder if its true of other autistic people too. So i guess my question is: did you find your people, and when?

thank you this is good question. i have always had a LOT of CLOSE BUDS even from a very young age. i would actually say that i am unusually socially adept in my way and that it is partially BECAUSE of my autistic trot. LETS TALK ON THAT FOR A MOMENT

'BUT CHUCK YOU SAID YOU ARE ON THE SPECTRUM AND AUTISTIC BUCKAROOS CANNOT BE SOCIALLY ADEPT' some say. and sure it is UNUSUAL overall, technically speaking, but there is also an important reason we talk about this as a spectrum of buckaroos and not a monolith

when buckaroos ask me what it is like to be autistic i try to explain like this: there are certain cues and markers from the outside that serve as a sort of identification checklist but because of masking they are not always correct. instead i see it as question of WHAT IS IT LIKE INSIDE YOUR BRAIN?

internally my brain is different. its taking in way more information all the time, including the stuff that neurotypical buds block out, and that can become overwhelming. it is hard to navigate because i do not have that automatic neurotypical 'here is what is important here is what is not' function

so yes i can be easily distracted and zone out as i watch the patterns and fractals spin off. and yes i can miss certain things in social situations. in many autistic buckaroos this makes large groups overwhelming and the OUTPUT of behavior matches what we typically know as signs of autism

FOR ME however, same thing is going on inside, but i have managed to HARNESS that information. even from very young age i see that everyone is DOING THE HUMAN ACT but instead of rejecting that and shutting off i think 'well okay i am just going to do THIS because thats what they actually want'

in other words, most neurotypical buds say one thing that has a kind of spiraling social-cue-related OTHER MEETING (they do this ALL the time) and instead of rejecting that i have trained myself to be REALLY REALLY good at knowing the hidden meaning. it is EMPATHY but on a sort of LOGIC BASED level

and because i have always been pretty good at that, people like to trot around me and say 'wow this is a good friend they understand me'. now for ME that can be a little exhausting and there are things i need to do and stims and all that to release the effort, but overall it is worth it to me

OTHER THING is that i was a successful CREATOR AND ARTIST BUCKAROO from an early age which is socially seen as 'cool' especially when you are trotting around in your youth. it is not particularly FAIR but it is true that some level of fame makes buds treat you well even if you are 'weird'.

of course it can be a sort of FAKE 'treating you well' but as an autistic buckaroo it is still more of a chance than you might otherwise get. this timeline has sort of carved out a very special little sliver of social grace for the token odd artistic weirdo to have a seat at each cool kids table

ANYWAY that is the trot of my life. it is a unique trot that i dont get to talk on much but since you asked THERE YOU GO. every chance i get to say 'I LOVE BEING AUTISTIC' and talk on HOW MUCH IT HAS IMPROVED MY LIFE i try to take a moment and do that. when i was young i had few autistic heroes

and OF COURSE it can be difficult and overwhelming and we need to have space for those stories and voices, but i want young buckaroos who get this diagnosis to know there are ALL KINDS of stories and trots on the autism spectrum. MINE IS PRETTY DANG COOL and maybe yours will be too. LOVE IS REAL

[txttletale]

hey what’s up, i think you’re pretty cool but disagree with you on the whole ai can make art thing. to me, without the purpose from an actual person creating the piece, it’s not art but an image; as all human art has purpose. some driving factor in a work, compared to a program which purely creates the prompt without further intention. i was wondering what your insight on this is? either way, hope you have a great day

well, first of all, does art require 'purpose'? there's this view of art which has very much calcified in "anti-AI" rhetoric, that art is some linear process of communication from one individual to another: an Artist puts some Meaning into a unit of Art, which others can then view to Recieve that Meaning. you can hold this view, but i don't! i'm much more of a stuart hall-head on this, i think that there is no such transfusion of Intent and that rather the 'meaning' of a piece is something that exists only in the interplay between text and reader. reading is an active, interpretative process of decoding, not a passive absorptive one. so i dispute, firstly, that 'purpose' is to begin with a necessary or even imporant element of art.

moreover i think this argument rests on a very arbitrarily selective view of what counts as "an actual person creating the piece" -- 'the prompt' is, itself, an obvious artistic contribution, a place where an artist can impart huge amounts of direction, vision, and so on. in fact, i completely reject the claim of both the technology's salesman and its biggest detractors that genAI "makes art" -- to quote kerry mitchell's fractal art manifesto: "Turn a computer on and leave it alone for an hour. When you come back, no art will have been generated." in the past, i've posed questions about generative art pieces to demonstrate this

secondly, of course, the process does not end after image generation from prompt for serious generative artists--the ones who are serious about the artform (rather than tech guys trying to do marketing for the Magical Art Box) frequently iterate and iterate, generating a range of iterations and then picking one to iterate on further, so on and so forth, until the final image they choose to share is one that contains within it the traces of a thousand discrete choices on behalf of the artist (two pretty good explanations of this from people who actually do this stuff can be found here and here)

third and finally, that very choice to share the image is itself an artistic decision! we (and by we, i mean, anyone who cares about what art is) have been talking about this since fountain -- display is a form of artistic intent, taking something and putting it forward and saying 'this is art' is in and of itself an artistic decision being made even if the thing itself is unaltered: see, for example, the entire discipline of 'found art'. once someone challenged me, yknow, "if you did a google search, would that be art?" and my answer to that is, if you screenshot that google search and share it as art, then yes, resoundingly yes! curation and presentation recontextualizes objects, turning them into rich texts through the simple process of reframing them. so even if you granted that genAI output is inherently random computer noise (i don't, of course) -- i still think that the act of presenting it as art makes it so.

since i assume you're not familiar with anything interesting in the medium, because the most popular stuff made with genAI is pure "lo-fi girl in ghibli style" type slop, let me share some genAI pieces (or genAI-influenced pieces) that i think are powerful and interesting:

the meat gala, rob sheridan (warning: body horror!)

secret horses (does anyone know the original source on this?)

infinite art machine, reachartwork

ethinically ambigaus, james tamagotchi

mcdonalds simpsons porn room, wayneradiotv

software greatman, everything everything (the music is completely made by the band, but genAI was partially responsible for the lyrics -- including the title and the several interesting pseudo-kennings)

i want a love like this music video, everything everything

cocaine is the motor of the modern world, bots of new york

poison the walker, roborosewatermasters (here's my analysis posts on it too)

not all of these were necessarily intended as art: but i think they are rich and fascinating texts when read that way -- they have certainly impacted me as much as any art has.

anyways, whether you agree or not, i hope this gives you some stuff to think about, thanks for sharing your thoughts :)