If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.
Including (sigh) the em dash.
There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.
A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.
No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.
You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.
Defend the em dash.
(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)
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next time we get a reboot, i want a Batman who isn’t grim, but instead...
he’s unsettling.
Batman’s whole basis is the idea of scaring criminals, right?
well, sure, outright intimidation through brute force works for that.
But the whole reason a bat was chosen is that the average person doesn’t understand how cute and cool they are, and finds them creepy and gross.
So let’s play that up. A Batman who uses his training in escape artistry, stage magic, and contortionism to move in ways people think humans shouldn’t be able to move. A Batman who reacts to things that he shouldn’t be able to (because his suit is wired with sensors and Alfred is monitoring things through hacked security feeds). A Batman who has a Slasher Smile.
Give me a Batman who, for the villains, seems like a cryptid. An urban legend on the level of creepypasta, some half-glimpsed shadow who, instead of being scary because of his muscles, is scary because holy shit what was that? What just happened? I’m outta here, man!
Give me a Batman where his battles with characters like Scarecrow and the Joker seem more like one of those crossover films where two horror movie monsters fight it out.
As of @sapphic-giraffic‘s reblog, this had exactly one thousand notes. I was not expecting that, so i feel i should specify in regards to Robin:
I mean a Robin who is unsettling precisely because of people having the reaction of what the fuck is this bright and cheery child doing hanging around with an escapee from the SCP Foundation?
I mean a Robin who is a little too bright and cheery, maybe. And you start to wonder amidst all the smiles and quips, why exactly this particular “robin red-breast” has that shade of red on their chest. Why the red looks a little more brownish, why this child smells coppery when they lean in close to tell a joke. Are you sure they’re a child? Are you sure there’s just one of them?
While you’re wondering this, back at the Batcave, Bruce and the like six different kids who act as Robins are having a laugh and reapplying the fake blood Alfred bought in near-bulk quantities at the Gotham Party City during the last After-Halloween sale.
This is part of the appeal of Cassie, and she’d fit in right with this riff on Batman and Robin. No visible eyes or mouth, never speaks, moves distinctly unlike any person any crook has ever seen, and you just can’t hit her. Crooks know the Bat can be hit, he just doesn’t get hurt by it. Robin gets hit by glancing blows all the time, and everyone knows that even when he takes a hard hit, that would lay up any human for a week, he’s right back out there the next day bouncing around just fine. But Batgirl? Nothing but air. Doesn’t even look your way just sidesteps the punch or shot. Creepy.
And recently, they’ve spotted her with another freak, who’s just an empty purple cloak. Just black void inside the hood.
i adore your fic recs your taste is truly >>>> do you have any recs for damian and steph i love them so dearly and i need to read more fics with them :’)
i am so glad you like them <3 and YES!! I DO!! they are so so wonderful. truly the best duo ever and i wish dc hadn't forgotten what an awesome big sister steph was to damian when he first joined the batfam, or how they worked together later on as batgirl and robin !!! i hope you will enjoy these :]
STEPH AND DAMIAN FIC RECS ON AO3
in this quiet company (i forget sometimes, just how to breathe) by emavee
Steph and Damian kill time in Gotham and Damian tries his best not to experience Emotions. Oh, and there's ice cream.
MY NOTES: oh i am so fond of this fic forever. so sweet. stephanie is truly the sister of all time and damian is such a little brother oh wow there are tears in my eyes thinking about the marvelous damian introspection
Nearly-normal-almost-family by glitter_in_my_eyes
Steph hasn't worked with the new Batman and Robin duo long, but she doesn't hesitate to come when they call for backup. Their family's a little rough around the edges, but she'll do what she can to smooth things out.
MY NOTES: if you hear an explosion it's me bursting into a million tiny sad pieces at the thought of the steph dick and damian family dynamic during what was arguably the worst time for everyone. they are so complicated to me and i appreciate the way this fic focuses on that complexity but also the care between them all. so lovely
the spillways of your soul by paperxcrowns
She trips over a root hidden by the snow and swears loudly.
“Do you want them to hear us?” Damian grouses.
She sends him a vicious glare. “You try running in the woods in the dead of winter wearing high heels.”
Damian wrinkles his nose, but thankfully doesn’t make any further comments. Steph doesn’t move for a few minutes and instead focuses on catching her breath.
MY NOTES: only the steph and damian fic of all time. nothing says sibling bonding like near death experiences when stranded in the wilderness. truly my favourite batfam trope.
-> this author also has ANOTHER steph and damian get kidnapped and almost die escaping into the wilderness fic called 'you're just a little bit too much like me.'
do you ever think of me and my two hands by Le_tap_22
Stephanie has never thought, and will never think, of Damian as her child. He’s a child, sure. Bruce’s child, Dick’s child, Talia’s child. But not hers.
He’s her little asshole younger brother. But sometimes when she sits beside him— like now under the soft light of the sun shining through the curtain in the Manor’s library as she watches him write a letter to send to his mother— she feels a deep, almost indescribable emotion well up inside her.
Not for him, but for Talia.
Or, Damian and Stephanie sit together in the Manor’s library, two opposite halves of similar pictures.
MY NOTES: so i never considered this connection before, but after stumbling upon this my entire life has changed forever (very positive connotations). the way talia is written through stephs eyes, and the way stephs outlook on this aspect of her life is written is very special to me and i love this fic a lot
The Not-Babysitter by Hinn_Raven
Steph is volunteered to babysit Damian on his trip to the zoo, much to Damian's consternation. But an encounter with Steph's college classmates might force Damian to admit that things aren't so bad with her around.
MY NOTES: Hinn_Raven is by far my favourite steph writer and i can not recommend this writer enough!!! such a fun protective little brother damian fic
The Stories Between Us by DawnsEternalLight
Sometimes Damian doesn’t mind having someone in the room with him while he paints. When he allows Stephanie to study during one such painting session, he learns something about her past she never should have gone through, and it is his turn to comfort his sister. After all he too has dealt with issues of dying and guilt.
MY NOTES: if dc have decided to never bring up war games and what happened to steph then i have no choice but to find the angst in fics. this one is just. amazing. i need it inside my brain forever. there's a specific thing damian brings up about what steph means to him that literally made me tear up and yeah. im so okay about it
Top-Secret Mission to the Library by pennysparrow
Damian needs a book and only the Gotham University Library seems to have it, so he has to ask Stephanie for assistance.
MY NOTES: to end this off here is such a sweet and nice read. so adorable. damian the little guy that you are.
Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…
This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.
Because they’ve never known anything different. The idea that a broken arm is only a couple hundred bucks; a complicated birth a couple thousand; cancer treatment only tens of thousands; all easily covered by existing tax structures.
This explains a lot. And it’s a good example of what I was talking about in my post on scarcity being used to prop up ableism – always question the idea that a resource is genuinely scarce. Even if it seems obvious that it is, quite often that’s the result of careful manipulation and misconceptions that you’re not even aware of.
And never think you’re too smart to be fooled by that kind of thing, it doesn’t work like that. Similarly, don’t think people who are fooled by something are stupid. Nobody can have all the information about everything, and nobody has the time and energy to investigate and put together conscious conclusions about every piece of information they’re given. It doesn’t take being stupid, or even just gullible, to believe something like this.
I currently live in a country without free medical care and still, it’s enormously cheap compared to the USA. An American expat wrote a piece for our English language paper about how she paid more for parking at the hospital than giving birth to her baby that’s pretty interesting:
Yesterday I had to go to the hospital cause I injured my eye, I’m frankly dreading what the bill is going to be, but what made me balk was being told in the pharmacy that my insurance was denied for the antibiotic eye drops and it’d be over $100 out of pocket. So I didn’t get my eyedrops.
I’ve had these same drops before living in the UK. They cost me seven GBP.
It’s the exact same drug, same steroid, same strain of antibiotic. But somehow the US gets away with charging $100 for a generic non brand version of a drug which is easy to create and widely used. It’s downright robbery, but also a form of eugenics through poverty and class warfare. You keep the poor poor by making sure basic necessities remain unattainable and then you make it seem like the norm so no one fights it.
When I was travelling in Germany once, I seriously hurt my ankle. In a few hours, it had swollen to twice its size, and I went to a little ER in a tiny town. I spoke no German and only one nurse spoke English. They ran an X-ray and an MRI to determine what had happened (turned out I had bruised my peroneus brevis muscle and pulled the tendon), gave me a ton of very regulated meds for the pain and swelling, including some supports so I could walk…and my poor little 22-year-old ass was sat there, knowing all of this would cost thousands, if not tens of thousands, back in the US. I was shaking.
I’m in the exam room, post diagnosis and with pill bottles in hand, and in walks the one nurse I’ve been able to speak to the entire time. She pats my hand and tells me (and this is verbatim—I will never forget this conversation as long as I live), “I’m so sorry. We had to run those tests, and they are expensive. You don’t have insurance so you will have to cover the full cost.”
I start crying.
She continues, softly, as if telling me someone has died, “It’s going to be three hundred.”
I start sobbing, certain I’ve misheard, certain that I would be absolutely fucked, broke and going into debt in a foreign country. “Thousand?” I clarify.
Her entire demeanor changed, and she looked at me as if I had sprouted four extra heads. “No,” she says, “euros.”
I had my gallbladder out in Germany. Out of pocket costs: 200 euro.
My sister just had her gallbladder out in the US. Out of pocket posts: 5,000 dollars.
I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:
It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).
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We’re working on making your follower count more accurate. Specifically, for those of you with less than 1,500 followers, the follower count no longer includes followers that were deleted or suspended. We had previously launched this for folks with less than 200 followers, then later for folks with less than 700 followers. With follower count not being a status symbol here (on [tumblr]) our goal is to make the count overall more accurate to accounts that would actually be able to see your posts in the Dashboard.
🛠 Fixed
[tumblr] was briefly down yesterday, so we sent one of our best developers on a coffee run for the tumbeasts. Once satisfied, they brought everything back online.
We fixed an issue that prevented posts in a community from being filtered based on the author’s blogname.
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Reblogging this outloud to say accurate follower count makes sense, good move. Just highlighting this because, in a vacuum, "losing" a lot of followers suddenly might look like there's a callout post circulating if someone doesn't have this context.
So just emphasizing the part that says "Specifically, for those of you with less than 1,500 followers, the follower count no longer includes followers that were deleted or suspended". If you just "lost" a lot of followers it's probably completely fine.
Re: the last post, the article mentions that some places use clams to test the toxicity of the water. It’s like that in Warsaw- we get our water from the river, and the main water pump has 8 clams that have triggers attached to their shells. If the water gets too toxic, they close, and the triggers shut off the city water supply automatically.
The clams are just better at measuring the water quality than any man-made sensors.
Edit: check out this documentary trailer : https://vimeo.com/408820791
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A Bad Night
(Gray X Reines)
Reines husband tried to have her killed - and that rips open old scars and leaves her without an excuse to ignore her feelings.
So, in all her great insight, she decides getting drunk will help.
Trimmau, Waver, and Gray beg to differ.
Sequel to
A Long Delayed Meeting
"She had meant to return before this—years now, but she just hadn’t been able too. Too busy and too cowardly in turn.
To finally return… seeking help—"
Or
Gray returns to Blackmore village almost ten years since the last time with a baby in tow. She needs shelter and a place to hide for a bit--and she hopes her mother can give it.
But even knowing her mother did everything she could to save Gray from the ritual, that all the neglect and emotional abuse had been an act, doesn't make everything better.
But it doesn't go as bad as it could have either.
Absolutely. Waver loves as his weird, annoying little sister and has for over a decade at this point. All I have to do is look to his reaction when he believes Svin and her are trapped with Faker in the rubble of Slough Street-and how he was going to act even in his depressed and shut down state.
What was the line, something like: “How could I not go?! That’s my little sister and my student!"
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A Bad Night
(Gray X Reines)
Reines husband tried to have her killed - and that rips open old scars and leaves her without an excuse to ignore her feelings.
So, in all her great insight, she decides getting drunk will help.
Trimmau, Waver, and Gray beg to differ.
Sequel to
A Long Delayed Meeting
"She had meant to return before this—years now, but she just hadn’t been able too. Too busy and too cowardly in turn.
To finally return… seeking help—"
Or
Gray returns to Blackmore village almost ten years since the last time with a baby in tow. She needs shelter and a place to hide for a bit--and she hopes her mother can give it.
But even knowing her mother did everything she could to save Gray from the ritual, that all the neglect and emotional abuse had been an act, doesn't make everything better.
But it doesn't go as bad as it could have either.
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RE-REGISTER IF NECESSARY! They can purge you, but they can't stop you from just slapping your legally valid registration right back in the system! Don't let them get away with stealing your vote!
At this point they know they only way to get the twice-impeached 34-count felon (that cheated on is wife with a porn star while she was pregnant and then lied about using presidential campaign funds to pay off said porn star's hush money) elected is if if they stop the opposition from voting entirely. So they're going to purge the people most likely to vote against him. Which is illegal but clearly they don't care about illegal shit, or else they wouldn't be running a convicted felon for president, now would they?
I’ll say it again. In 2020 I was purged between a local town council election and the national election. Thank bob I’m paranoid and checked my registration in time to reregister. If you’re in the US check your voter status asap. And then check it again in a month.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 21: More Lost Than Ever.
Higgs was left to die--no, he was lost in Skfiander, which was once again lost to her, to her relief and pain anew--The Brek'kah stone was gone. The artifacts gone. Agatha had passed out for three days after Zeetha couldn't help her at all.
But now Agatha wake and they can move froward.
Through a Lost Princess's Eyes is the Girl Genius Story post timeskip from Zeetha's point of view. It is mostly canon compliant so far, though I've adjusted some things (No more than you see between the comic and novels though, I think.) and will have an uncanon Skifander (Since I've implied to much already.)
