Reblogged
what if Thorin was a hobbit? and Bilbo, a dwarf? 🤔
In most of my ships I really love when they are portrayed as very competent, just in vastly different things. Do you prefer everyone in your ships to be skilled? If yes do you like them skilled in the same thing or like I do where their strengths cover for weaknesses? Or do you like one to be portrayed as not skilled perhaps even helpless?
*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer.
The thing I love about ships is the endless variety!
I do prefer power couples who are greater together than they are on their own. Both pulling their weight, both with their own competencies, and if that means covering for each other's weaknesses all the better! (I also like it when strong-willed characters argue and learn to collaborate with each other and realize what makes each other special.)
But I will read anything that is well-written or has a great idea behind it! (I loooove well-written AUs!)
Would you like to get either romantic or platonic valentines from a character/s? Who? What do you think they would gift you?
*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer.
I totally missed this ask! Sorry!
I honestly don't care too much about Valentine's day. But I DO like gifts so...
Thorin Oakenshield - Deeply passionate person and I feel like any gift from him would have been pondered and overthought for a while before he gives it. I could see him gifting jewelry.
Bilbo Baggins - Gifts are a Hobbity thing so he'd be prepared for this! I would say... a bouquet of flowers, a set of nice handkerchiefs, and tea that he prepared all of the dishes for. Not necessarily romantic but definitely you'd be satisfied with whatever he gave you because he understands the social nuances of gift giving and would give something politely appropriate for your relationship.
Aizawa Shouta (Eraserhead) - Wouldn't have even noticed it was Valentine's and likely wouldn't have considered giving a gift. (Having convinced himself it's illogical...) When he realizes you'd been expecting something he'd be embarrassed and give you the gift of his undivided attention/time... which he doesn't have a lot to spare.
Yamada Hizashi (Present Mic) - This guy loves giving out gifts and making people smile! He'd have a little gift for all of his coworkers and would go all out for his partner with every sappy trope you can think of. Rose petals strewn on the floor? Check. Champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries? Check. A big card with hearts and gold foil? Check. Making the object of his affection squirm with all of the attention and gifts? Priceless!
okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.
they’re sharing
it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.
it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people
but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.
Reblogged so-i-did-this-thing
Friendships as a teenager: we used to talk 5 hours every night now it’s down to 3… are we still friends 🤔? I wonder if they don’t like me anymore
Friendships as an adult: omg I’ve finally cleared up 20 minutes of my schedule to talk to my friend I haven’t spoken to in 4 months #bffs #we will find eachother in every life
I’m still so taken aback by people in the notes who claimed you need to be talking to people weekly or even daily to consider them your friend. how many people do you know? As an adult I feel like talking every day is sustainable with one person maybe 2 or 3 if your circumstances somehow are really conveniently aligned. yeah there’s people I talk to often there’s also people I don’t talk to for 6 months because there’s no way we’ll be able to coordinate time and energy and I still consider them my friends because this is real life and there isn’t a stardew valley esque hearts system based off of how many interactions we had this month
just fyi by the time youre in your 30s, most of the people you would call to help you cover up a murder are the people you text about twice a year. it's specifically because you can maintain the relationship on two texts a year that they are your closest friends. the reason everyone's interpersonal relationships are so unstable in your teens is because everyone's "best friends" are almost entirely circumstantial. you won't actually know which of those people are in for the long haul until the relationships have been stress tested by distance, conflict and silence.
Reblogged pocketramblr
vampireapologist-archive-deacti
Anonymous asked:
How many vampires do you think have been hit by a car backing up in a parking lot because the driver couldn't see their reflection
I’ve never considered it but you’re really shining light on what’s probably a very serious issue
Reblogged transformativeworks
Happy International Women’s Day!
Reblogged warsawmouse
Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.
I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.
Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.
Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.
Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.
I think this is an incredibly important post for a lot of reasons. You have to write a bad book in order to learn how to do something. You have to suck at playing an instrument before you can improve.
Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.
AI is not like a calculator, or a synthesizer, or a prompt generator. It's not a tool to aid in your process of understanding or creating something. It is replacing your ability to learn things, and that is going to do so much damage if you let it.