The night etc.

A word of advice: If you only hit the Like heart, your blog appears to be empty and your tumblr experience will not be good. Because people will block you.

I will block you.

FYI, new people, a spam blog typically:

Has an icon/avatar/profile pic that is either a default one, or a photo of one or more women. (If your icon isn't technically a default one, but it looks like one at first glance, still beware: a first glance is all many people will give it. It's not a matter of principle, we're just trigger-happy from dealing with all these fucking bots.)

Blog title is "Untitled" or "Untitled" in another language, e.g. "Sin título"

Has the default tumblr-assigned theme instead of a custom one

Often has no blog description

Either has no posts, or the posts are thirst traps or porn. (I've seen that some of them like to start with a few posts that are just suggestive-but-well-within-TOS selfies or something, before moving on to posting porn and suspicious links.)

If they are posting and tagging things, they tag posts with a bunch of *unrelated* things and/or commentary tags copied from others. It'll be like "#naruto #gay feelings #barbie #petblr #I love him??? #sunset #cryptidcore #balder's gate iii". If you try to post selfies and tag them with random stuff so more people see it you will have a bad time.

If tumblr isn't letting you customize your blog before you follow people, then making a post is the way to go. It doesn't have to be elaborate or funny or personal--just looking different from a spambot is enough.

while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.

There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"

i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.

Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.

Basically I got in and there was an email that there was a new policy on lunch breaks which is that we are required to clock out for 30 minutes for a meal break. Which wouldn’t be a problem except we’re often staffing stores alone. And the company was like “You’re not allowed to close the store, though, just clock out and don’t get paid for 30 minutes.”

This made a lot of people very unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move.

So our manager was trying to go over the changes and I was like, “So I’m required to clock out for 30 minutes even if I’m alone in the store for the day.” Yes.

“I am going to leave the store. I am legally allowed to leave if you are not paying me.” You will get written up.

“That violates the labor laws and this company has had to pay for these violations previously. I will leave and look at birds.”

When we clock out we get an option to say whether we took a lunch. If we say no it then asks if it was voluntary or not.

If it’s not voluntary then the company has to pay us a penalty for not giving us an opportunity to take the break.

Every single shift I worked alone (which was most of my week at that time) I marked the penalty box. If I couldn’t close the store and was working alone then I did not voluntarily give up my lunch. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in doing so.

Three months later the company sent out signs that we could put on the door for lunches and an official update that we could close the store to take a lunch.

My favorite scene in mp100

Alt in read more 🕺

I’m gonna assume writers know whether or not their own works are ai because they either write them themselves or have ai write for them.

but as for readers (or writers who read other writers’ works), no, you can’t tell unless the writer themself says their works are ai generated. anything else is witch hunt, speculations and possibly wrongful accusations — all of which harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more.

so if at any point you think an untagged work is ai and if that bothers you, quietly click away. but you can never know for sure based on vibes. because everything ai writes, a human writer does. that’s what ai was trained on and what it was trained to mimic.

every “ai telltale” is something humans write before, otherwise ai wouldn’t have been able to mimic it in the first place. because it needs human-made works to mimic on.

It confidently told me it was 80% AI. Which, y'know, it wasn't.

Because I literally wrote it directly into the AI detector.

but it's like asking "how do I tell if someone is lying to me". of course you want to know that! but anyone coming up with lists of "tells" that you can look for and always know is just full of shit. "em-dash means it's ai" is like "avoiding eye contact means someone's lying".

Related:

OK LISTEN the first time I saw them I was like "oh my, I ship the ships" so I had to draw them a Transformers version✨

(Just want to do an AU with them ahhh) Click for better quality!

Extra Silly video I did for fun:

I think if Bruce ever found himself in a situation to meet Benoit Blanc, to his great chagrin, it’d be as Brucie Wayne. He’d be on some rich fuck’s island under cover when a murder happens and it’d be killing him that he can’t break cover to get a closer look at the body. And then along comes Benoit Blanc and Bruce decides, well he’s Brucie right now, it’d be weird if he didn’t flirt a little.

And hey, who knows, if Blanc likes him maybe he’ll let Bruce tag along and get into places Brucie wouldn’t normally be if he wasn’t trying to seduce this weirdly accented, tall glass of deductive skills. (And maybe he’s enjoying it a little more than he should, but technically he’s on vacation so…)

Blanc, of course, catches on and thinks Bruce has something to hide and is keeping him close because he thinks he’s either the killer or in on it.

Except that’s not what the evidence or instincts are actually telling him. Not really.

But he also can’t ignore the fact that Bruce managed to trip and fall directly into the filing cabinet in the office, causing the drawer to fly open and reveal the evidence Blanc’s looking for. Or that the billionaire has a slightly delayed reaction to seeing blood. Not much, but enough for Blanc to notice.

There’s also the way he keeps making suggestions that on the surface seem benign, but are nevertheless intended to lead Blanc toward where his own instincts are telling him to look. So either Brucie is one of those killers who likes to be involved in the investigation because they want to make sure you’re noticing their ‘genius’ or because they think they can control the narrative by being helpful, or…

“Y’know something, Mister Wayne…”

“Benoit, please,” Bruce says with a slow, seductive smile that unfurls like silk over rich velvet. “How many times do I have to ask? Call me Bruce.”

“… Bruce. You’ve been so remarkably helpful.”

“Oh, you know me. I always aim to please.”

Bruce’s smile takes on an electric edge that makes Benoit’s thumb slide to the gold wedding band on his ring finger. He’s a married man, he’s a married man…

“I can’t help but wonder, though,” Benoit says, matching Bruce’s smile for a knowing one of his own. “Don’t you get tired?”

His tone is off, he knows it is because Bruce’s expression doesn’t flicker, not even a jot. It’s just unnatural enough to be telling.

“Tired of what?” the younger man asks, just the right amount of cheerful confusion in his voice and an adorable title of his head like a puppy to make you miss the sharpness behind his eyes. The way his body is coiling tight. Ready for a fight.

“Of pretending,” Benoit says, lifting a cigar to his mouth, making a show of patting down his pockets for the lighter. “I know I surely do. It grates on a man, always being underestimated. Everyone thinking you’re not as sharp as you are. Not as clever, not as quick. It must be a relief, I think, to finally be seen…”

The hand that had been rummaging in his pocket shoots out, aiming for Bruce’s perfect face. Bruce deflects it, twisting Benoit’s hand in a viper-like move Benoit hasn’t seen since…