a cloaked Romulan vessel

[invisible spaceship noises] every time I post the bots find me. tf blog: tarnishedspark

[were--ralph]

what's something we should bring back in a major way?

[acloakedromulanvessel]

Tom

[teaboot]

There is a reality not so far from our own in which Ratitouille (2007) was filmed as an avant-garde conceptual horror akin to Eraserhead (1977)

[teaboot]

There is a young American man in France. His mother has passed away. He has few friends, and works the thankless job of a bus boy in a prestigious restaurant, but dreams of becoming a chef despite having very little skill.

He returns one night to his humble apartment, which is known to have vermin, and comes across a rat, which he could easily kill or set loose on the street.

But the rat- it is special. It seems to speak to him. Promises him every little thing he desires- talent, fame, and fortune. Recognition and esteem like he has only ever seen from afar; fine company like the wealthy men and women whose scraps he picks at over the sink.

Put me on your head, the rat says. Put me on your head and think of nothing.

It is strange at first, yes. Strange to feel another take control of his life and live it better than he ever could. To see miraculous things created with his own two hands, to feel his feet move in graceful and fantastic ways with a confidence he has never had.

But the rat delivers as he had promised: he receives promotions, notoriety, admiration. He is noticed. Envied. Every day is a waking dream, rubbing elbows with beautiful women and handsome men and influential personalities who lavish him with praise. It is addictive, this lifestyle- never mind that he is only ever truly conscious of it as a passenger of in own brain.

It is when he has reached heights few can ever conceive, with all that the rat had ever promised- a beautiful wife in a beautiful house with all the world in his palm, in possession of all the wealth and success a man could ever want, that the rat says that it is leaving.

Leaving? The rat cannot leave. Everything he is, the rat has provided.

"I have delivered on our bargain", the rat says. "I have brought to you all that you have ever dreamed. What more could you desire? I must live my own life, now."

The man is furious. He is terrified. He destroys the rat, in all of the ways that a rat can be destroyed, until nothing is left of it but a fine smear of marinara sauce.

He returns to the restaurant the next day moving like the shell of something hollowed-out and brittle. He cooks well- his fingers remember the movements, his eyes recognize the patterns, his mouth knows without his asking what orders to speak and what platitudes make patrons smile pleasantly with their straight white teeth.

He retains the talents of the rat. The charm of the rat. All the worldly pleasures the rat had provided him.

Still, it seems, he is little more than a vessel for the talents of the rat.

But the rat is gone.

What remains of the man?

[teaboot]

You see my vision

[acloakedromulanvessel]

they should invent a doing tasks for money that doesn't involve having to convince other people to let you do their tasks or having to convince people that your tasks are worth money

[tsunflowers]

there's some US states where they won't let you put ø or ñ on your baby's birth certificate, along with ' and -, and it's stupid. we all have unicode now. we all know that people use different languages which use different characters. the name Lucia Íñiguez-Garcia will not be too hard to type or break your computer

[valtsv]

lineless artists scare the shit out of me because what do you Mean you can create comprehensible complex three dimensional images without any construction lines to guide you. "yeah i don't really like sketching architectural plans so i decided to just build a cathedral with my bare hands instead" <- how you sound

[tieflingkisser]

[lesbianslimefriend]

here's where to find it on windows 10

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

Ugh, it was in mine. It's off now.

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

IT GETS WORSE

I had to turn this off, but it's something that allows Windows and anyone using your device to generate text/images.

LOBOTOMIZE YOUR MACHINES

[marougus-the-dragon]

AI is a freacking plague, I share this for any windows user.

[skystarweek]

Hello everyone! We are extremely excited to announce that we are back with SkyStar Week 2026! This year's dates will be between Monday 29th June to Sunday 5th July! We invite as many of you to participate and have fun devising whatever you can for these two starstruck planes!

Our list of prompts for this year is:

Day 1 (Monday 29th) - Mirror / Mask  Day 2 (Tuesday 30th) - Experiment / Misunderstanding Day 3 (Wednesday 1st) - Gift / Weapon Day 4 (Thursday 2nd) - Jealous / Trapped Day 5 (Friday 3rd) - Royalty / Imposter Day 6 (Saturday 4th) - Fireworks / Compass Day 7 (Sunday 5th) - Date / Apology

However, they are not strict guidelines and you don't have to follow them. These are simply there to give people ideas for fanworks! At the end of the day the main rule is to have fun! We'll be keeping you notified with more updates as we get closer to the date! For now happy SkyStar!

Our FAQ can be found here. / Find us on Bluesky as well!

[skystarweek]

We're about a month away from SkyStar Week! Hope you're all having fun and we're looking forward to seeing all of the ideas you'll be devising!

[depsidase]

[barkingbarghest]

Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click. "Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said. Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from. "If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):

While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.  Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.

And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:

When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of “catastrophic” impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.  Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.  Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers.   Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Google’s planned changes to search are “going to have a devastating impact on the Internet.”  “It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.  

[anarchopuppy]

noai.duckduckgo.com blocks all AI content in search results automatically

[acloakedromulanvessel]

when u want so much to use the open source solution but the UI is So Infuriating that u just cannot. When the UI actively prevents u from performing the simple task u came there to do.

When it is somehow quicker and easier to log in and download the proprietary alternative and figure out hot to do the thing there than to find where they could have Possibly hidden the button you need.

[indigosfindings]

how do you pronounce the honourific "Ms." in english

"miss"

"miz"

other

unsure/see results

Voting ended onMay 21

[mortalityplays]

really good "shocking number of people are confidently objectively demonstrably completely wrong" poll

[3liza]

i am losing my fucking mind

[avocado-moon]

#we dont use honorifics in my first language so whenever i have to select options (usually for flights) im always so confused#like what is actually the difference between miss and ms#i like miss bc it sounds more historical and im a historian so

"Miss" means an unmarried woman. "Mrs." means a married woman. (both of these have origins in the word "mistress" as in "mistress of the house".)

"Ms." - prounounced MIZ, btw - is a third option popularized by gloria steinem in the 70s - mainly through her feminist magazine Ms. - which is meant to be a neutral term, usable for any and all women regardless of marital status (hence the soul destroying irony of the tags above). it gained wider general acceptance when geraldine ferraro, the first woman to be nominated as VP on a national major party ticket, started using it widely to avoid confusion, since she was married but used her maiden name professionally. eventually over the years it came into common use though i do think the brits are a little more critical of it than americans (as far as i'm aware lol)

[avocado-moon]

"obscure facts only a tumblr user would know" and it's one of the most influential institutions of second wave american feminism. PLEASE open the schools

[onbearfeet]

Hi. I'm an unmarried woman in her forties. I use Ms. and pronounce it "miz", though I don't correct people who accidentally use a soft S. I use Ms. because it's no one's business but my own whether I'm married, to a man or anyone else, and that's what Ms. means. It means fuck off, my marital status is irrelevant, just as it is for every man who uses Mr.

I've had people (usually children) ask me at work if I'm a missus or a miss. I have replied that I am a miz, full stop. And when they pressed for which one I was REALLY, I have replied, "Why? Are you going to treat me differently depending on whether there's a ring somewhere?"

That's what Ms. is for. That is its linguistic function. It says, "This is an adult woman," and nothing else. Nothing else is necessary, and in my case, nothing else is desired.

I also use miz for other women unless and until they express a preference for something else because I don't magically know everyone else's marital status when I meet them. That's a courtesy—I'm declining to assume marital status and allowing them to decide whether they wish to declare it.

Also, I've taught English and worked as an editor for twenty years. I am quite literally the grammar police. This use of Ms. is a standard construction. If you didn't learn it in school, someone failed you.

[squeeful]

“Obscure facts” Boo boo I was taught it in elementary school. One with a state standardized curriculum.

Ms. is marriage-neutral and it’s pronounced Miz. It is deliberately different from Miss.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#in the episode of Daria where there’s a rumor that her and tom had sex#upchuck knowingly refers to her as the lovely MIZ Morgendorffer#this was the end of season five meaning this would’ve been fairly common knowledge in 2001

[daddynietzsche]

throwback to that time in my existentialism class where the professor asked ‘who thinks hell is other people’ and half the class slowly and meekly put their hand up

then the prof was like ‘…i mean who originally said it’

[annabellioncourt]

there are some posts that sound utterly made up for the joke or for the notes, but this one I whole heartedly believe 

[kurloz38]

Sounds right to me…

[jadagul]

That quote is amazing to me in that it’s quoted completely accurately and yet in a way that means something completely different from what it meant in context.

(Sartre was claiming that Hell was other people. He was not claiming that other people were hell.)

[sigmaleph]

…I can’t actually tell what distinction you’re drawing there. Can you expand?

[jadagul]

The line comes from No Exit, which is set in Hell. Spoilers for No Exit follow

In particular, three people who have been condemned to hell are trapped eternally in a room together. And at first they think they got off easy without any pitchforks or fiery lakes or anything. But over the course of the play they discover that they have been chosen very specifically to have neuroses and character flaws that interact with and torment each other.

Each one needs the approval of a second in an unstable RPS cycle so that any time one of them might be satisfied by a second, the third swoops in and ruins it.

And when they figure this out, one of the characters expresses his understanding, that hell isn’t physical torture. “Hell is just—other people.”

So the point isn’t that other people, generically, are hellish; it’s rather that you can build a hell out of other people.

But when I hear people quote it, it’s usually sort of an introvert-pride thing. “Other people are hell; you should spend time alone.” And that’s not the point at all. It’s a statement about how bad unhealthy relationships can be, not a statement about how all relationships are unhealthy!

See also Sartre’s own comment here:

“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.

[diapordias-deactivated20180627]

Reblogging for the original post which was hilarious and also for that explanation which is beautiful

[galsinspace]

Another big point in No Exit is that the characters find out at the end that the room they’re in is not locked. They could just leave, but they’re each of them incapable of just leaving without winning their arguments. So really, hell is when we stay in dysfunctional relationships that harm us, when we can’t just leave other people be and move on.

[aromanticduck]

Character who is apparently an 'open book', but it turns out that a lot of the writing is incomprehensible or outright illegible, there are pages missing or in the wrong order, different parts of the text contradict each other, and 'reading' this person leaves you more confused than you would be if they revealed absolutely nothing.

[quinnception]

[hbystuff]

Passengers

[birdship]

you can’t call it that

[prawnlegs]

batten down the hatches I feel a rant coming on

[prawnlegs]

ok I think I FINALLY put my finger on the exact intersection of rage-making moving parts that happens in me when people talk about ai "democratizing art." It's the nonspecifity of "art." It's that vs. the EXTREME specificity of what it actually seems to refer to. Because in most cases it seems to refer to "representative, highly-rendered commercial-style illustration" or "representative gallery-style fine art, usually hearkening back to particular 19th and early 20th century styles."

Which are both perfectly fine genres to work in or aspire to but to act like you "can't make art ):" just because you don't excel at these disciplines OUT OF THOUSANDS is saying some things about either your understanding of art or your motives. I'll even be generous and imagine that every single person who thinks ai has leveled the playing field already put in years trying to learn anatomy, color theory, light, composition etc. etc. to absolutely no avail. Ok. So you've tried abstract expressionism? You've tried textile art? You've tried fashion design? You've tried four-panel stick figure comics? You've tried special effects makeup? you've tried drag? You've tried assemblage, collage, photomanip, photobashing, zines, paint pouring, ceramics, graffiti, zentangle, dioramas, toy customization, stop motion, video game photo mode? I'll be generous again and imagine there is something uniquely magical about visual art that rules out dance, poetry, performance art, music, etc. You've tried every visual art and just sucked at them all? Or... is it that none of those have enough prestige for you?

And have you thought to question why certain styles and genres come with prestige? Certainly it couldn't be anything political. Certainly it's not that marketable, decorative, unchallenging, digestible, nostalgic/"traditional" art is favored by a consumerist culture rapidly backsliding into fascist homogeneity. "ai lets me make art" is "my kid could have made that (abstracted, naive, simplistic) art" in a different font. So you're either being cynically disingenuous and what you really believe is that you're entitled to compete with people who have spent years practicing in an extremely specialized field to produce a luxury product, OR you have never experienced the satisfaction of tracing drawings from a disney coloring book to compose a tableau of Sebastian pinching Prince Eric's ass

[owlbelly]

#and before you come at me handwringing about disabled people. i am disabled people

for fucking real don't even try it

[soundwave-is-true]

Ok, one of the things at irritated me the most about AI art being marketed as a disability/accessibility thing is how grossly inaccurate it is. Disabled people make art all the time. Frida Kahlo was learning to paint trapped in a hospital bed. Henri Matisse painted from his wheel chair, Michelangelo was in pain and struggling with arthritis and painted and sculpted marble into his 80s, Van Gogh was in and out of mental hospitals. These are just the famous examples and confirmed cases, but many artist including professional artist are chronically ill or disabled and do art anyway.

The “accessibly” of AI isn’t for disabled people it’s for people who don’t want to try.

[tumblr]

Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!

[acloakedromulanvessel]

Guess what, you get my feedback as a reblog now because of this nonsense. it has been Thinking About sending the feedback form for over 15 minutes now. Fortunately, this is not my first rodeo and I thought to copy my text before pressing submit

Hello,

If you wanted to collect individual reblog statistics and display them all somewhere as a subtotal, that would've been fine. Cool and useful, even

What is Not cool or useful is removing the original poster's notifications for everything that happens on their post, without even an option to turn these notifications back on again. Its like every post has been set to notifications disabled by default.

This update changes a fundamental part of a way the website functions. It has instantly cut users off from feedback given even just two degrees of separation away on the social network graph.

Anyone who has not been keeping up with tumblr updates is going to be left wondering why their posts suddenly have no replies anymore. Why no one is sharing their work anymore. They will be left feeling that no one likes their work anymore. Because no one would conclude from this experience that the website they have been using for over a decade had suddenly changed its most fundamental function in this way.

When users have to find workarounds in order to perform the basic task of communicating with the person whose work they are viewing (i.e. manually navigating from the copy of the post they are viewing to a second, otherwise identical copy of the post but this one gives notications to the correct person)

And that this change disincentivises people from adding anything to posts as it will be seen as "highjacking the post" at a time when people are Already telling people it is bad tumblr etiquette to add your thoughts in the text body instead of the tags.

And I cannot even tell what the supposed benefits of this change are supposed to be. If it is to stop the original poster from being overwhelmed by alerts if their post takes off, we already have options to disable alerts and reblogs. If the purpose is purely to split up statistics, this could have been done without coming at the expense of notifications and availability of the aggregate number. If this was done to homogenise tumblr with other social media sites, then you lose the differentiating factor that prevents users from leaving for those other sites. If this was done because some shareholders or executives somewhere were confused by the way the site functions. skill issue tbh. If this was done because of some technical limitation the site was running up against, the userbase would be Far more understanding of that explanation.

idk it just really feels like someone decided we are (or Should be) all chasing individual clout at the expense of our fellow community members and that is rly not the vibe of this here site community who banded together to buy out the giftshop of a struggling museum and saved them from foreclosure.

And you won't even see all the notes of people disliking this change, because you've hidden them from yourselves in the reblog chain, where you will never be notified of them.

p.s. I hope u have a good day, tumblr feedback person. I know you are probably getting a lot of these, given this is very much a [nobody liked that] kind of change