@porcupine-girl / porcupine-girl.tumblr.com
I have ignored all my other responsibilities and projects for the past 2-3 days to bring to you this Stupidly Thorough Introduction to The Untamed. The entire slideshow is 32 slides long - the rest is under the cut, or you can view the whole thing as a PDF here. (As of May 2022 the PDF is more up to date than the graphics in this post, but it’s not major differences.)
So uhhhhhhh were Ivanova and Talia fucking or what.
Ah, comments agree that this was 100% intentional. It sure seemed like it, but it also seemed very out of nowhere so I wasn’t sure. Like, the Delenn/Sheridan romance is a little clunky but at least they’re building it - it felt like these two had gone from somewhat cold acquaintances to kind of allies and then suddenly at the start of this episode they’re like “wow, look how close we are now!” when we did not get to see any of that closeness develop. I mean, good for JMS, even doing as much as they did was bold for the time period, I just wish we’d gotten like one more episode to develop it, like them having to work together closely on something and clearly being friends by the end.
The writing has gotten a lot better now that we’re into the meat of the plot. My only quibble is with the dialogue, which often sounds like things people would write (whether in a story or a letter) but not how they talk, which is one of my pet peeves. I was delighted when I had this complaint about The Magnus Archives but it turned out they were doing it 100% on purpose and had an episode that specifically showcases that fact, but I seriously doubt it’s intentional here unless the Vorlons are controlling everyone’s speech patterns or something.
The plot and character development are great, though. (Well, character development kind of varies along a scale from “excellent and nuanced” to “this person has a couple personality traits I guess” but one of the two I felt were on that lower end was Talia so maybe she’ll be more interesting evil.)
Hi,
It’s you friendly neighbor fanfic author here. In the light of this apparent new trend of people feeding unfinished fics to AI to get an “ending,” and some people even talking about “blanket permissions,” let me just say this:
I EXPLICITLY FORBID ANYONE TO FEED MY FICS TO AI. DUDE, THAT IS ABOUT THE LEAST RESPECTFUL THING YOU CAN DO. IF YOU DO IT, SHALL YOU BE EXCOMMUNICATED FROM YOUR FANDOM AND WALK ON LEGOS BAREFOOT TILL THE END OF DAYS.
That is my anti-permission.
Thank you for your attention.
Co-signed.
And if I somehow come across mention of you doing this, I am going to track the author down, let them know, and proceed to make sure people know what kind of dirt-bag you are.
Look, I’ve been reading fic on the internet practically for about 25 years, and I have encountered many a fic I would murder several first borns to know what happens next.
I also -unfortunately- am also responsible for a few unfinished fics out there, but I want you to hear me loud and clear:
I’m just working on other shit like trying to be a person, you know.
But it’s very simple: if you want to know what happens next in anything I have up, unfinished:
I actually have shit written, I have outlines, I have hundreds of thousands of words stuck inside me I will vomit all over a person if even marginally asked.
Just ask my poor partner who got to listen to me talk about a massive reveal I have been sitting on for 10-15 years. (…oh Amy Bradshaw, I was merciless to you.)
I promise you right now with 1000% surety: no AI exists that will ever figure ANY of the turns I have planned.
Mind, I also know my shit is so niche and specific the likelihood of someone trying this is slim. But just fucking don’t for ANYONE.
Hi if you do this you are Officially Dead To Me.
This is not okay, this is NEVER OKAY.
I don’t CARE if it’s a fic that’s been unfinished for years, I don’t care if it’s a fic that the author has SAID they won’t finish. YOU. DO. NOT. FEED. THE AI. WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S STUFF. ESPECIALLY ON SOME “SILENCE IS BLANKET PERMISSION” BULLSHIT EXCUSE
DO NOT DO THIS TO ANY OF MY STORIES. EVER. IT IS FORBIDDEN.
I ever catch someone doing this on Ao3 to my or any other fic I am reporting their ass for story theft and blaring an alarm out to every fragment of fandom community I know.
Don’t ever feed my stuff into any AI menace, either. I’ve spent years, tears, and blood writing all my stuff, and no AI will ever figure out what I plan for any of them.
It’s also why I tend to write only one thing at a time, and finish it before I start another one, because there’s no reason to feed a finished fic into an AI menace. Yes, one of my fics took a long time to finish while I worked on another one, but that’s not permission for anyone to do anything but read them.
Writers are no one’s bitches. They don’t “create content.” They write stories from nothing but inspiration and drive. So respect them. All of them, even when they don’t work on something on a schedule to suit you.
Just updated my blanket permission to create podfic etc on my ao3 profile to note that I do NOT give permission to feed any of my work into any AI either as a prompt or as part of a dataset. (I realize if someone else goes to scrape all of ao3 again this won’t prevent that but it can’t hurt to mention datasets.)
Touchscreens do not belong in cars
And gauges and dials should be gauges and dials, not screens
Door releases should have a direct mechanical link to a latch, not send an electronic signal to a servo
You should not have to have your phone alive to unlock your car
Ughhhh we’re car-shopping right now and not only are touchscreens a bane of our existence in and of themselves, apparently (not entirely, but partially, due to all this unnecessary tech) the microchip shortage has screwed with the car market so much a lot of that 2021-23 used cars sell for MORE than new cars! You often have to get on a wait list for a new car, which drives people to pay extra for used ones that are immediately available.
Neil Gaiman: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale Gaiman: of the hierophant of illusions! Gaiman: the patriarch of the velvet shroud of night! Gaiman: the master Gaiman: [throwing sparkling dust] of dreams!
Gaiman: in tonight's adventure, the master of dreams is captured Koontz: oh no! Gaiman: oh yes my young friend Gaiman: imprisoned! Gaiman: in a sphere!
Gaiman: and when mankind if deprived of dreams, what can be said for our hopes? our stories? Gaiman: truly that would be the true waking death Gaiman: for do we all not star in the stories we tell ourselves? Gaiman: are we all not the heroes we aspire to be Gaiman: in our dreams?
Gaiman: the one who imprisoned the master of dreams Gaiman: a man who styles himself magus Gaiman: but nothing more than a conjurer of cheap tricks! a buffoon of the highest order! Gaiman: a charlatan who stumbled to greatness Aleister Crowley: haha this guy sounds like a chump
Aleister Crowley: this magus guy sounds like a real dope King: Poe: Lovecraft: Barker: Koontz: Crowley: what?
King: um aleister i think King: i think King: phew oh boy King: how do i say this Barker: it's you aleister Crowley: what Barker: you're the dope King: gee clive i was trying to let him down lightly Barker: yeah but this is funnier
Barker: this fail magus is 100% based on you Crowley: Crowley: Crowley: Crowley: naw that doesn't sound right Crowley: seems more of a victor neuburg type Gaiman: ah well the fail magus does have a fail son based on him
Barker: this fail magus is clearly based on you Crowley: what the fuck Crowley: what the FUCK Crowley: i'm no fail magus!!! Crowley: I'M THE GREAT BEAST Barker: haha he's gonna say the line Crowley: DO WHAT THOU WILT!! DO WHAT THOU WILT!! Barker: and there we go haha
Crowley: [grabbing Gaiman by the shirt] YOU TAKE THAT BACK, NERD, OR I'LL CLOBBER YOU Crowley: I'M THE GREAT BEAST!! DO WHAT THOU WILT! Gaiman: calm yourself, my friend Gaiman: for the tale is not yet told Crowley: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN Crowley: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN
Gaiman: think of this magus Crowley: I'M GONNA CLOBBER YOU Gaiman: now imagine Gaiman: that he is portrayed on the screen Gaiman: by charles dance Crowley: Crowley: [releasing gaiman] yeah Crowley: yeah he would play me Crowley: yeah ok Crowley: finally! Crowley: some respect!
Gaiman: yes stentorian thespian charles dance Gaiman: a presence that commands respect Crowley: yeah ok i like this Crowley: he's like everyone's disapproving dad Gaiman: no my friend Gaiman: he is not mere dad Gaiman: he is everyone's disapproving FATHER
“Bad Romance” with every first beat removed
I listened, waited, and…
Castiel raising the Soul of Dean Winchester, 18x24″, ink.
i really like looking at google image searches for “firemen rescuing cats” or something because you get super cute pictures like
AND THEN THERE’S THIS ONE
“THAT’S RIGHT TWAS I that set the house ablaze!!!”
Dying.
Every fucking time I know what’s at the bottom and every time I still lose my shit.
I’m so happy this post is back again asdlkfjsa
So uhhhhhhh were Ivanova and Talia fucking or what.
rewatching spn and seeing the ol' cajun sidepiece in his leatherman hat and his workshirt and high-waisted pants is just so. it's sssooooo, it's all so... queer. their whole thing. the whole parallel with amelia the whole "you and andrea held me accountable" sam literally acting like a snotty teen who hates his dad's new boyfriend, dean saying that benny has never let him down and sam going full bitch as if he didn't just fuck off for a year and hit a dog while dean was on his gay angel quest in the desaturated woods of the beautiful PNW also the lingering moment of Benny staring at dean's throat with devouring hunger (for his blood but we know, we know how it goes...) the brokeback strings when benny gets in his car and drives away.....
no cishets at pride! *spin kicks a grandma with a “I love my gay son” tshirt*
Yes, @passionpeachy illustrates a great point!
The first pride my mother attended, she marched with me alongside the PFLAG float, holding a sign that read "I'm Proud of My Gay Child".
I noticed she kept falling behind and running to catch up, nearly a whole float behind us. So finally, I stopped to see what was going on.
People kept pointing at her sign and cheering and then she'd proudly point at me, saying "they're here!"
That was usually the point where at least one person burst into tears. And this is where my mom started lagging - because she'd stop, reach over the barrier, and hug them. Teenagers, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings... they'd break down crying at the sight of a cishet woman proudly marching with her child in Texas, of all places. That she'd claim me and be proud of me. Because they couldn't imagine their own family doing the same.
So she stopped and hugged them and told them she was proud of them, even though she had to race to catch up in the heat, even though they were strangers. And i like to think she made those young people's lives a bit better.
So yes, cishets at pride.
I'd rather have a cishet grandma there than a gay cop.
Today, I would like to commemorate an event which has laid a very profound impact on the internet.
Ten years ago on this day (06/08/09), a forum website called SomethingAwful held a photoshop contest titled “create paranormal images”. The contest would require participants to edit ordinary photographs into creepy-looking images, and then try to pass them off as authentic photos on other paranormal forums.
Two days later, on June 10th, a user by the name Victor Surge would find this thread, and become inspired. He submitted the two pictures above, featuring a tall, faceless monster which would stalk children, who would then disappear. He called his monster “the Slender Man”. After this initial post, Surge and others would expand on the character and the story, creating one of the internet’s most famous monsters. The Slender Man proved to be popular enough to spread to other websites, with 4chan, Deviantart, and TV Tropes all having their own Slender-Mania. On June 20th of that same year, another user on the SomethingAwful forums found the Slender Man, and also wanted to contribute. Noticing nobody had made any videos yet of the monster, he sat down with some of his friends and planned out a video webseries involving a former college film student discovering and unravelling the mysteries surrounding Slender Man; this would become Marble Hornets, one of the first horror-themed ARG’s of the internet.
That all happened ten years ago. Ten years of haunting the darkest corners of the internet, and Slender Man has built up a surprisingly dense resume, for a fictional monster. Several popular webseries, a couple hit games, at least two movies, even inspiring other characters in seperate series like the Silence in Dr Who and the Enderman in Minecraft. And all this within a ten-year period.
I think this just attests to how much humans can be inspired by an idea. From a small handful of edited photographs, we collectively constructed a new monster which lurks in our nightmares, and now it almost seems as natural as the horror mythos he was based on. For better or worse, the Slender Man seems to be here to stay. Happy Birthday, Slendy! Here’s to hoping you continue to be both terrifying and terrific!
It’s hard to say he is not having fun with some MianMian or Yuandao right now.
I want this to be an actual poll, so I'm gonna need a REALLY big sample size, so do ANYTHING you can to get this around! Reblog it! Kung-pow-penis me, if you have to! Wreck my notifications! Just do ANYTHING!
At the height of the Greek crash in 2011, staff at Viome clocked in to confront an existential quandary. The owners of their parent company had gone bust and abandoned the site, in the second city of Thessaloniki. From here, the script practically wrote itself: their plant, which manufactured chemicals for the construction industry, would be shut. There would be immediate layoffs, and dozens of families would be plunged into poverty. And seeing as Greece was in the midst of the greatest economic depression ever seen in the EU, the workers’ chances of getting another job were close to nil. So they decided to occupy their own plant. Not only that, they turned it upside down. For a start, no one is boss. There is no hierarchy, and everyone is on the same wage. Factories traditionally work according to a production-line model, where each person does one- or two-minute tasks all day, every day: you fit the screen, I fix the protector, she boxes up the iPhone. Here, everyone gathers at 7am for a mud-black Greek coffee and a chat about what needs to be done. Only then are the day’s tasks divvied up. And, yes, they each take turns to clean the toilets. When the workers consulted the local community about what they should start to produce, one request was to stop making building chemicals. They now largely manufacture soap and eco-friendly household detergents: cleaner, greener and easier on their neighbours’ noses. Staff use the building as an assembly point for local refugees, and I saw the offices being turned over to medics for a weekly free neighbourhood clinic for workers and locals. The Greek healthcare system has been shredded by spending cuts, its handling of refugees sometimes atrocious; yet in both cases, the workers at Viome are doing their best to offer substitutes. Where the state has collapsed, the market has come up short and the boss class has literally fled, these 26 workers are attempting to fill the gaps. These are people who have been failed by capitalism; now they reject capitalism itself as a failure.
