i have [gestures vaguely] my tendencies

on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship

it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.

“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”

“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.

“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”

“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”

“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”

“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”

“but then what is its purpose?”

“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”

this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard but I thought about it for five seconds and realized that if I were, say, a random communications officer onboard this ship and someone taped a knife to a roomba it would take maybe three weeks before even I was inordinately fond of Stabby. I would be proud of Stabby when I met up with my other spacefleet friends for space coffee, I would tell them about the time Stabby got the second mate in the ankle five seconds before the fleet admiral beamed on board and she swore in seven different languages in front of high command. 

also by the fourth day Stabby would be in the ship’s log, he’d have little painted-on insignia, people would salute him as he went by, and someone would hook up a twitter account to tweet maniacal laughter and/or a truly terrible knock-knock joke every time he managed to nick someone.

Omg so the ting I typed up might actually happen this is gold

How did it get clearance to every room? The gruff security commander is watching the footage from the ‘admiral incident.’ Some obscure camera angle finally catches Stabby in the act. “Someone get me the number of that space roomba™.”

“But sir, the crew, they… we… sorta have a soft spot for the little thing…”

“I know. I’m going to give it full access to the whole ship. Should be a riot when those Zendarians visit again.”

I meant to add this several thousand notes ago but better late than never, right?

Rithlen was not having a good galactic-standard week.

First, xe got stationed on a human starship as an ambassador for xyr race. Xyr supervisor had always had it out for xem, but this was a new sort of psychological torture. Everyone in the galaxy knew humans were a strange, illogical species. Now Rithlen had to put up with their strange customs, including the small robot with a weapon. The humans didn’t even seem phased by it. They just stepped over the robot. They actually seemed fond of the thing! They named it Stabby.

‘Humans are very strange,’ Rithlen often thought to xemself, ‘in the way they hold affection for a nonsentient piece of machinery designed to hurt them.’ The threat would be neutralized if they would just remove the tape holding the knife, but when xe mentioned the idea to some of the humans, they seemed horrified and offended by the idea.

Rithlen quickly learned to keep one of xyr feelers near the ground, scanning for the vibrations of the small machine.

Calling Tumblr Artists for Anti-AI Lesson Materials

Hello everyone! I'm a college instructor who teaches a freshmen section where part of the curriculum is helping students navigate the transition to higher education by developing the skills they need to succeed.

One of the exercises I have them do is create an image using AI and a provided prompt. They add their results to a shared slideshow, and then we use those examples to discuss the limitations of generative AI.

At the beginning of this lesson I also have them draw their own response to the prompt to illustrate how human creativity is infinitely more variant than AI. This year, I would also love to include some examples from artists who aren't scribbling on a note card in the first five minutes of class. If you'd be willing to contribute, I'd really appreciate it. The prompt is as follows:

Create an image of a "cell farm." Your image must contain 1) Individual cells with specific details, and 2) A person harvesting the cells.

I've noticed that AIs tend to default to animal cells. Submissions with battery cells, prison cells, or solar cells would be especially valuable.

AIs also usually depict the workers as white and male. If your worker is something other than that "baseline" (doesn't even have to be human!) it would go a long way to exposing the AI's biases.

Thank you to the friend who made this delightful drawing in response to the prompt!

Drawings can be absolute shit and still clearly convey ideas

👍 this was fun

AI will also never spontaneously draw something on the back of a napkin (if that's indeed what you used) which has its own definite charm. Thank you for sharing!

dear lord, please take all life problems and responsibilities away from fanfic writers but also make them financially stable and happy with nothing to worry about so they can happily focus on writing and posting fanfiction. amen

Artist: byeolnyang_e on instagram

Artist Jane Crowther

My two greatest fears are permanence and change

Wait I forgot about the strong as fuck ice mummy

You just can't get this site on any other site.

Paul Thurlby, Escapism

something about lotr that I truly appreciate is its love for Bilbo. it is so hard to put this into words... but as someone whose first Tolkien book was The Hobbit and loves Bilbo Baggins, it just! makes me Feel Things. the way Frodo has so many fond memories of Bilbo, and misses him, and wants so badly to see him again. how the hobbits sing songs that were passed on to them by Bilbo. how they casually refer to events in Bilbo's adventure, stories that they heard as children and grew up with. how so many other characters are friends with Bilbo: the elves (who joke with him and listen to his poetry)! the dwarves (who would not betray him to Sauron)! don't forget Gandalf and Elrond! and Aragorn! who can forget Aragorn reciting that bit of poetry Bilbo wrote for him! Sam talking about the tales that really mattered, and wondering if the end of their tale might be like old Mr. Bilbo's. Pippin's last thoughts before getting knocked out at the battle of the black gate suddenly drifting back to Bilbo; the eagles came in his tale, long ago. the good things that happened in The Hobbit aren't undone in lotr: lotr looks at old adventures and tales with reverence and love! and Bilbo himself, though his story is touched with nuanced and bittersweet sorrow, finds peace in the end. something immensely comforting about how the planned ending of his book he lived happily ever after till the end of his days is fulfilled

Adding @katekatharos's tags because they're great:

#I think this hits why I so rarely like sequel works #its so often well everything the characters you loved suffered for didn’t last #didnt matter #also they’ve continued to suffer #their happy ending didnt last #Bilbo’s does #and yes there’s now another worse threat #but the victories won in the hobbit haven’t been negated by it #they help to defeat it #nothing more so then Bilbo’s pity of Gollum #that defining character moment is what saves the world #in another book it would so easily have been that pity was what led to the new disaster #a lesson in the original characters reluctance to commit murder coming back to haunt their successors #but it’s the oppposite

Thought this might help others who struggle when writing. I know I get in my head too much.

#and I think because you are developing like 19 different skills simultaneously#but the ones that you're better at feel smooth and easy and therefore not noticeable#but the places where the pen drags metaphorically feel more significant#so it's like oof ouch the struggle (doesn't notice the 100 hundred things that would be very hard without practice & experience & skill)

(via @karliahs)

[Text ID: I don't know who needs to hear this, but writing is hard because you care about it and you want it to be good, not because you're bad at it. /end ID]

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A recent conversation in a discord group reminded me of something important. If you're on the younger side (under 25 or 30) and you haven't seen all the incredible, dark and disturbing fantasy films that came out in the 1980s and late 1970s, then I would strongly encourage you to do so. There was something so dark about that genre during that time that I absolutely adore and that isn't really around in modern films for children and young adults (once they learned that it traumatized a whole generation of us).

My faves in case you need any recommendations. (Some of these are really not appropriate for children, so keep that in mind lol).

The Dark Crystal - 1982 - the Skeksis will give you nightmares. I am honestly very proud of the remake for being just as disturbing if not more so than the original.

Watership Down - 1978- NOT FOR CHILDREN - Jesus Christ why did so many of our parents show us this film at a formative age? It's all about trauma and death and displacement and there's literal blood and murder. Not a G Rated Film. Still, it's very good. Loads better than that CGI remake from a decade ago.

The Secret Of NIMH - 1982 - Incredible movie. Minor disturbing elements. Probably my favorite on the list. It's just a great adventure story with real world issues (animal experimentation, mental health problems, disabilities) and there's even a lovely romance. Highly recommend.

Legend - 1985- This film is just straight up disturbing. Yes, there's a lot of beautiful shots of unicorns and sexy, 20-something year old (insane Scientology wack job) Tom Cruise and gorgeous Mia Sara, but there's also torture, madness and literally the Devil (Tim Curry is the entire reason you should watch this film)

Labyrinth - 1986 - I only really have two words. David. Bowie. My 10 year old self found out about a lot of burgeoning kinks while watching that man prance around in eyeliner and a codpiece. It's a wonderful adventure as well - if you ignore the blatant romantic and sexual tension between Bowie and an underage Jennifer Connelly (none of us could)

The NeverEnding Story - 1984 - Lots of disturbing imagery in this one! The Nothing was fucking terrifying, and the creatures in this world seemed uniformly creepy, but still incredibly well done. Love the adventure of it.

The Princess Bride - 1987 - Not technically a kids film maybe? Lots of adult themes and adult jokes, but safe for kids imo. I adored it and still do. Incredible performances by Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin. R.O.U.S, Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! (need I say more?)

The Last Unicorn - 1982 - A beautiful film with stunning representations of innocence, good and evil. Just gorgeous really. I should rewatch it as it's been 20 years or so.

______________

Adding a couple...

LadyHawk.

A romance / Action film about a knight and a maiden who are cursed. Her to transform into a hawk during the day & him into a wolf at night. Forever keeping them apart.

DragonSlayer

A coming of age tale about a wizard apprentice who must save a village from a dragon & the sacrifice lottery the village has established around it.

(Rare example of 1980s genderfuckery)

Willow

LOTR before we ever thought a LOTR film would ever be possible. You've probably seen this one, but just in case.

The Flight of Dragons

Transplanted into the body of a dragon a scientist must come to terms with magic, even while explaining it.

Krull

Classic adventure story severely undervalued in its time.

Some of the creepiest spider stop motion to ever exist.

Beastmaster (1982)

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