small tips for Enjoying Being Alive from someone who went from wanting to die to genuinely loving life. these won't fix your life but they'll make it a lot easier to want to live day by day. I promise.
tell yourself things you do not believe. it feels stupid at first but I've done this for years and now I believe it when I say "I'm good at this" or "I love myself" or "I deserve good shit!"
make a note of every mundane good thing that happens to you. mental or literal notes! could be as little as "the sky is a nice shade of grey, it's calming" or "I ate a piece of fruit today, I'm looking after myself" or "I talked to a friend". again, feels stupid at first, but I genuinely believe this is part of why I have so many "good days". trick your brain into storing things in your long-term memory that you wouldn't otherwise remember.
diet deficiencies can make you properly miserable. your physical health impacts your mental health more than you'd think. get some vitamins, some omega-3s and so on. whether from food or supplements. they can make quite a difference! your brain is responsible for a LOT of the way you feel, and giving it the fatty acids it needs to function at its best can go a long way.
I know these all sound like stupid junk people who have never wanted to die tell you. I know they sound like dumb "self-help" tips written by people who have suffered mild anxiety at worst.
they're coming from someone who had multiple daily panic attacks for half a decade. someone who genuinely felt like he did not deserve to live. someone who hated himself so much he convinced himself he was irredeemably evil. someone who loves being alive these days, even though it's difficult sometimes.
you truly don't have to follow any of this advice. but just read through. store it in the back of your mind. come back to it when you want. best of luck. [:
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if i was writing a satire of Christian-nationalism, and i thought of including a pastor who literally encourages men to essentially give themselves lung cancer so they can better perform masculinityā¦ i would be like, ānah, thatās too over-the-topā and cut it, but he just. he just said it.
this gif is perfectly timed because it gives you enough time to read it, comprehend it, and still have this too-long-for-comfort moment of suspense before being punched square in the solar plexus
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Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.
But... Stochastic Parrots.
Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 for refusing to retract a research paper, and every single warning that paper made about large language models has now happened at a scale the industry spent 4 years trying to make people forget about.
Her name is Timnit Gebru.
She co-led the Ethical AI team at Google. She co-wrote a paper called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" with Emily Bender at the University of Washington and two other researchers. The paper was 14 pages long. It was submitted to a top AI ethics conference. And it was the reason Google decided that one of the most senior Black women in AI research could no longer work there.
The story Google told publicly was that she resigned. The story she told, confirmed by 2,695 of her colleagues in an open letter, was that she was fired by email while on vacation because she refused to either retract the paper or remove her name from it.
The paper had not even been published yet.
Here is what she actually wrote, and why every prediction inside it has now come true.
The first warning was about scale itself. Bender and Gebru argued that training ever-larger models on ever-larger scrapes of the internet would produce systems that appeared fluent but had no actual understanding of language. They called these systems stochastic parrots because they would repeat patterns from training data with statistical confidence and zero comprehension. The paper predicted that this apparent intelligence would fool both users and developers into trusting outputs that were structurally incapable of being reliable.
This was 2020. GPT-3 had just come out. The paper predicted the hallucination problem before anyone had a word for it.
The second warning was about bias amplification. The paper documented in detail that internet-scale training data contains systematic overrepresentation of dominant viewpoints and underrepresentation of marginalized ones. The models would not just absorb this bias. They would amplify it, because the optimization process rewards confident outputs, and confidence in language patterns tracks frequency in the training set.
The prediction was that hiring tools built on these models would discriminate against women. That healthcare triage tools would underperform on Black patients. That loan approval systems would entrench inequality while presenting their decisions as neutral algorithmic judgment.
Every one of those things has now been documented in deployment.
Amazon's hiring algorithm penalized resumes that contained the word "women" in any context. Healthcare risk scoring algorithms used by major US hospitals were found to systematically underestimate the medical needs of Black patients. Apple Card's credit algorithm gave wives credit lines 10x lower than their husbands for the same financial profile.
The third warning was about environmental cost. The paper calculated that training a single large language model produced emissions equivalent to the lifetime output of 5 cars. The prediction was that the race to scale would create an environmental footprint that would eventually rival entire industries.
In 2024, Google's emissions were up 48% from 2019, and the company explicitly blamed AI infrastructure. Microsoft's were up 29%, same reason. Both companies have now quietly abandoned the climate commitments they were publicly celebrating the year Gebru was fired.
The fourth warning was about documentation. The paper argued that the training datasets being assembled were too large for anyone to actually audit. Nobody at Google, OpenAI, Meta, or any other lab could tell you with confidence what was in the data their models were trained on. This was not a temporary problem to be solved later. It was a permanent feature of the approach.
In 2023, researchers discovered that the LAION-5B dataset, used to train Stable Diffusion and other major image models, contained thousands of images of child sexual abuse material. The companies that had trained on the dataset had no way of knowing. The paper predicted that category of failure 3 years before it was found.
The fifth warning was the one Google cared about most.
Bender and Gebru argued that the deployment of these systems would centralize linguistic and cultural power in the hands of the small number of companies that could afford to train them. The internet would become a place where the dominant voice was a statistical average of dominant voices, presented as a neutral assistant. Languages underrepresented in the training data would degrade over time as more web content was generated by these systems and fed back into the next training run.
This is now happening in real time. A 2024 study found that 57% of new web content in English is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Researchers studying low-resource languages have documented active degradation in translation quality, because the synthetic content fed back into training is itself worse in those languages.
The paper Google fired her for predicted the model collapse problem before model collapse had a name.
The mechanism behind why this all happened is the part of her work that nobody quotes.
Gebru's argument was not that AI is dangerous in some abstract sci-fi sense. Her argument was that AI is dangerous in a very specific structural sense. The technology was being built by a small group of researchers who shared similar backgrounds, worked at similar companies, and were rewarded for shipping products faster than competitors. The incentive structure made it impossible for safety, ethics, and bias concerns to slow anything down. Anyone inside the system who raised those concerns was either ignored, sidelined, or removed.
She was making that argument from inside Google.
Then Google proved her right by removing her.
The team Google had built to make sure their AI was safe was dismantled in 90 days because they did the job they had been hired to do. Margaret Mitchell, the other co-lead of the Ethical AI team, was fired two months after Gebru for searching through her own emails for evidence of how Gebru had been treated.
Gebru did not stop. She founded DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, in 2021. The mission is to do AI research outside the control of the companies that have a financial interest in not hearing the answers.
Every prediction in the Stochastic Parrots paper has now been validated by deployment. Hallucinations are an industry-wide problem the largest labs cannot solve. Bias amplification has been documented in hiring, healthcare, lending, and criminal justice. Environmental costs are larger than entire small countries. Training data audits remain impossible. Model collapse is an active research crisis at every major lab.
The question worth sitting with is the one almost no one in the industry will say out loud.
Every researcher with the technical credibility to call out these problems watched what happened to her in December 2020 and made a calculation about their own career. The number of people willing to speak publicly about safety and ethics issues inside the major AI labs collapsed after that firing and has not recovered.
The researcher Google fired for warning about exactly what is now happening was right.
The company that fired her is now the second-largest deployer of the technology she warned about.
And the people inside that company who agree with her are not allowed to say so.
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.
Hey there! Just a friendly reminder/PSA from your friendly neighborhood Pixiemage!
āDead Dove: Do Not Eatā is too often (incorrectly) used as a cover-all tag, on fics ranging from Vaguely Uncomfortable to Serious Shit, as a replacement for any intense tags relating to the story. People will use it to say āHoly shit guys some INTENSE SHIT happens in this storyā without actually saying what that Intense Shitā¢ is.
In actuality, the āDead Doveā tag is meant to be used in addition to other warning tags. Pulled from a scene from the show Arrested Development (look it up on YouTube!), it means āHi! Hey! I labeled this fic to warn you of whatās in it, so you might REALLY want to read those labels! This fic is exactly what it says on the tin! The tags are accurate! Donāt say I didnāt warn you, because this is me warning you! Read the tags!ā
So before you accidentally use the āDead Dove: Do Not Eatā tag without context, hereās your preemptive lesson for next time. Please tag your fics accordingly! Ta!
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given the current climate this pride especially i feel i must mention that i love my trans friends, i stand with trans people in the fight against transphobic legislation and those who would enforce it, and this blog is not a good place for you to be if you do not vibe with that
itās the summer, and I have a lot more free time now, so Iām going to post some weekly comic reviews, at least for the next couple weeks, and you cannot stop me.
(yes, I know this is a week late; blame my brotherās graduation party)
expect full spoilers for all comics discussed here.
Absolute Wonder Woman #20: at this point, āAbsolute Wonder Woman is one of the best comics DCās currently publishingā is no longer news to anyone. every issue is great! Kelly Thompson still knows just how to very carefully futz with your expectations, while Hayden Shermanās character designs and page layouts are as gorgeous as ever.Ā
itās a very good comic, basically. Iām excited to see where Barbaraās upcoming transformation into the new Cheetah is going, and how itāll differentiate itself from Killer Crocās storyline over in Absolute Batman.Ā
Batman #163: at long last, āH2SHā is done! and I know that this is supposed to be only the end of the first half, but cāmon, theyāre not gonna make any more of this. I understand that the long delays were caused by Jim Leeās health issues, but they did not help the reputation of an already bad comic.Ā
Hell, every other DC comic has mostly ignored or hand-waved Bruceās disconnection from the wider Bat-Family! the only real exception was the Red Hood solo series, butā¦ well. yeah.
point is, nobody cares about this story anymore, if they ever did to begin with. say what you will about the original āHushā storyline, but it was a simple mystery that featured almost every major player in Batmanās life, with a plot that could be summed up in a few sentences and a clear emotional hook. āH2SHā has the main villain getting shot in the head, seemingly at only the halfway mark of the story.Ā
Iāve read much worse, but Iāve also read better, including better from this exact creative team.Ā
Doomquest #1: this reminds me a lot of Hulk: Smash Everything, which was also written by Ryan North. thereās a bit more to dig into here, because Doom is a much more articulate and complicated character than the Savage Hulk, but itās an evergreen-continuity miniseries about the main character being sent to different places and showing off how cool they are. itās aura-farming, basically. not exactly high art. but, hey, North at his worst is still a good meats-and-potatoes writer, and heās worked well with Francesco Mobili on that Secret Invasion mini. so, this is still a fun time.
Exquisite Corpses #13: decent ending, though I didnāt think it quite lived up to the hype. still, Iām excited for what comes next; that Rascal Randy spin-off looks fun. on the whole, this series sold me on the in-universe premise and the concept of āthe indie-horror equivalent of WrestleMania or a big event-comicā, and thatās the main thing it needed to know.
Flash #33: now this is GOOD Ryan North, when the guy is clearly trying a little harder, and itās pretty great. itās always fun to see Wally and Snart forced to work together. the villainās scheme is stupid, but it is a topical, believable kind of stupid, so Iāll buy it. a good first arc, which will hopefully be overshadowed by better stuff to come.
Harley Quinn #62: I started reading this series after K.O., because I thought the Batquinn status-quo looked fun, and Iām really enjoying. yes, the over-the-top self-aggrandizing internal-monologue is hilarious, but Kalan just knows how to write good funny-superhero comics in a way that doesnāt diminish the humor or the super-heroics. adding the dual-track structure on top of it is just showing off.
Infernal Hulk #7: loved this, but poor Marrow. I hope they just hand-wave her injuries away in her next appearance. anyway, PKJ and Nic Klein are just very good at making crunchy body-horror superhero comics, and Iām super excited to see what theyāve been building to in Hulk War. the only reason Iām excited for this new Midnight thing is that PKJ is involved, so at minimum his Spider-Man book will be good.
also: man, between this and the āDanger Roomā arc and ofc Ed Brisson, I guess a certain generation of people just love Glob Herman. I mean, I like Glob well enough, heās fine, but I didnāt think he was the blorbo of THREE different prominent writers!
Justice League Unlimited #19: perfectly fine issue. not much to say.
Star Trek: Celebrations 2026 #1: Iāve been really loving The Last Starship, so I checked out Star Trekās Pride issue this year.
itās fine. I think doing a wholly-positive story about the Mariner/Jennifer romance is weird, since we know for a fact they break-up.Ā
similar situation for Seven/Raffi, but to be fair theyāre obviously going to get back together eventually in those new ongoing series. the art for their story was extremely subpar, but I appreciated the references to Voyagerās many holodeck episodes.
I imagine the Tālir/Lily story is a fun epilogue for people familiar with these characters; I liked it well enough. Jay-Denās story was great, somehow managing to turn the old Klingon-mating nonsense from TNG Season 1 into something genuinely sweet and romantic. itās nice to see how Kelvin-Sulu met his husband.
and the Chapel storyā¦ look, I appreciate any significant acknowledgment of Chapelās bisexuality, but the art is just. not my thing. I donāt even think itās bad per se, because itās clearly intentional, but itās unappealing.
I liked the essay in the back, and I liked the shout-out to Jessie Gender, as someone who watches her videos on occasion.
Superman #38: I kinda hope Clark Kent never comes back. I could read about Superboy-Prime doing laundry forever and never be bored.Ā
but yeah, great issue. at this point, Williamson and Mora are at the top of their game. I loved the bit where Prime ripped through an advertisement; thatās just some classic fourth-wall stuff, straight out of Byrneās She-Hulk. and the set-up for next issue, where Prime ā this embodiment of fan-nostalgia ā is forced to contend with IRL fansā nostalgia for him as a villainā¦ oh, itās so good.
also, this is more of a note to self than anything, but: one of these days, Superboy-Prime should meet Eternity Girl. thatād be an interesting match-up, but I doubt people will want to touch something as weird and personal as Eternity Girl.
Ultimates #24: hard to really know what criteria to judge this by, because itās not REALLY the ending. Ultimate Endgame still has one issue left, and after that, thereās a big one-shot to wrap-up the entire universe. I liked it, but for a series this good, just LIKING it feels like a bit of a disappointment.Ā
so, this issue has three big threads to resolve: Shen Qi and Danny Rand, Wasp and Ant-Manās relationship, and She-Hulkās war against Hulk. in the end, I donāt think the first two storylines donāt fully live up to their potential, for a couple reasons:Ā
Shen Qi is not Shang-Chi. I mean, the names alone are a dead giveaway, obviously. but thereās nothing in Shen Qiās backstory about fighting against an evil father, or MI-6, or fighting against an evil sister, or the dissonance between the martial arts genre and regular urban environments. itās a completely different character. and thatās not even necessarily a bad thing! but Camp didnāt bother to fill that hole with much of anything. I donāt dislike Shen Qi, but I donāt like him either; heās just some guy, and I feel like he should have beenā¦ more.Ā
the Wasp/Ant-Man stuff, meanwhile, seems like it lasted a bit too long. the conversation either needed to be resolved earlier and quicker, or it should have gotten more time to develop. I think this was a victim of the real-time gimmick bumping up against the realities of what can be fit into 20-odd pages.
that being saidā¦ these critiques donāt really matter. Lejori Joena Zakaria got to brutally beat Bruce Banner to death with her own two hands, and I cheered. what more do you want than that?Ā
Wiccan & Hulkling: Raid of Ultron #1: Iāll start with one simple observationā¦ you notice that Marvelās annual Pride special this year wasnāt MARKETED as a Pride special? and that it featured no trans characters? and that all of the characters who DO appear are all white or white-passing? (yes, I know that Wanda is Romani and that Viv is sorta Black; not the point).
well, I noticed those things. and I found them very disappointing. it doesnāt help that the issue itself is only fine. nothing offended me, but nothing felt like it couldāve offended anyone at all. I think Mike Pence could plausibly read this and have his monocle un-popped the entire time.Ā
also feels like we couldāve gotten much more creative in the character pairings, to be honest! like, Tommy and Viv are kinda sorta half-siblings, but, as the first segment points out, they have never really had a conversation. it would be nice to actually see that, but instead Vision and Viv rehash their familial connection AGAIN, in a story where Vivās queerness never even comes up.
I did like Ultronica, but I much preferred the detail that Family-Man Ultron is wearing a yellow towel as a cape, as a bizarre parody of Visionās yellow cape. that was good subtle characterization for Ultron, who really needs all the help he can get after Gerry Dugganās god-awful West Coast Avengers run.
X-Men #30: solid ending to the Danger Room arc; donāt have much else to say here. definitely feels like MacKayās just marking time until he gets to DNX, an event that could go either way in terms of quality. but I think I prefer MacKay marking time to a lot of other writersā best arcs, so eh.
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One hundred and four daysā duration
'S the length of our summer vacation
So finding good ways
To spend all those days
'S the problem of our generation.
Like building a rocket for fun
And fighting a mummy when done
Or maybe we'll climb
Eiffel Tower this time
And stand at the top in the sun.
Discovering something thatās not
In existence (or thatās what we thought)
Or scrub and then scour
A monkey in shower,
Give tidal wave surfing a shot.
Or locating Frankensteinās brain
Or nan'bot creation attain
Or continent painting
Find dodos remain(t)ing
Or driving our sister insane
You see that the list is quite tall
Of things to be done āfore this fall
So with no more fuss
Just stick here with us
Cause Phineas and Ferb do it all!
