Lilibet

This is what Roerich's paintings look like:

I just want to catch spelling errors and accidental double spaces and repeated phrases and whenever I use the wrong too/to or affect/effect and shit. But no. They've shoved AI up the ass of every grammar checking software out there and now they all fucking suck and make the most random, obnoxious, nonsensical suggestions.

I get why people keep saying this (and other versions of it like "Use Adobe alternatives" and "Use Google product alternatives."). But here's the problem: I do not create in isolation. Even my own 100% personal projects are getting sent to other people whether it's editors or printers or beta readers and unless every single person in that train is using the same products, things can get wonky.

Libre Office and Word handle formatting differently on the back end, which can completely break documents if you move them back and forth between the two. So if I write in Libre Office but my beta readers are still using Word, when I send them a manuscript for review there's a good chance things won't look right and my beta reader will not actually be reviewing what I sent them.

:| :| :|

-> Phonics For Adults <-

they've had to face settlements against stealing from current authors, so they'll just go for the old books now. they're also doing this so they have the only copies of rare books.

No wifi or bluetooth connections. No touch screens. No predictive behaviours. No account log in. No fancy bullshit nonsense.

A fridge that does nothing but keep your food cool. A washing machine that washes clothes, the fucking end. And actually on the washing machine note: they would all have optional two-tap ports, so you CAN use the machine to heat the water if you need to, but you dont HAVE to, if youre in a home that has a massive hot water tank or whatever. AND, it would have fast cycles. None of this two hour minimum bullshit. Fuck outta here with that nonsense. 20 minute half-sized fast loads, 45 minute full sized regular loads, and a two hour option for those of you who like things slow or wanna give your towels an extra good long wash or whatever.

Anyway moving on. Dumb clothes dryers that just dry things, at a manually set array of temperatures, not an auto-temp chosen by the machine based on the detected type of fabric or size of the load. Dumb toasters. But QUALITY. None of this "its just fifteen bucks but it will last five minutes" shit. Dumb TVs. With various different ports, while we're at it. You want a security camera, but want full control of who accesses the recordings? Done. Dumb elevators, that go up and down at the press of a button and have no complex bullshit that takes out the whole lift whenever it experiences an internet outage.

DUMB CARS. WITH NO TOUCH SCREENS OR TRACKING TECH OR OTHER BULLSHIT.

GIVE ME MY APPLIANCES AS DUMB AS A BOX OF ROCKS. I DONT WANT THEM MAKING DECISIONS FOR ME. I DON'T WANT THEM "HELPING" ME. I DONT WANT TWO THIRDS OF THE BULLSHIT THATS IN THEM THESE DAYS.

I tried to buy a washing machine recently. They were ALL SOME DEGREE OF FUCKING "SMART." And yeah you can simply opt to not set it up, which is what i ended up doing, but it still prompts me even now to "complete set up?" AND it pushed the overall price of washing machines up because even though I dont plan to USE any of their STUPID smart tech, it was still included in the model! So it costs more! Because its "smart"!

Daniel Molloy, the world's youngest vampire, comes face to face with Akasha, the world's oldest vampire, and despite having visions for the whole book he brings no skill, no weapons, no prophecy on how to defeat the big bad world-ending evil, just tells his sugar daddy "kick her ass, babe, I've got your blender" while Armand dissociates and in the end Akasha is killed by NONE of the assembled male heroes.

Also Akasha aka the big bad was the literal embodiment of bioessentialism and radical feminism and the death penalty and she got curbstomped by the belief of restorative justice and free will meaning every person and humanity is capable of both good and evil and are shaped by societal forces and we have to choose the radical act of changing self and society towards peace and goodness which sometimes means violently killing a genocidal fascist for the good of humanity.

...and Daniel Molloy was there, you know, a random reporter who witnessed the whole potential world-ending apocalypse but LESTAT is the one who writes the book and still dedicated a full third of the narrative to Devil's Minion.