My latest cartoon for Guardian Books
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@barcelonalien
My latest cartoon for Guardian Books
Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice
It’s May 4th, and so I thought I’d share the first bit of the fic I’m working on.
Din Djarin x Luke Skywalker x Cassian Andor, E-rated, ~26k.
Chapter 1: The proposition
One year earlier (~11 ABY)
Luke lands the X-Wing next to the small house on a wide, rocky plain in the southern hemisphere of Nevarro. A silver Naboo Starfighter is glistening in the afternoon sun, sleek and elegant. The engine of the X-Wing powers down and Artoo gives a few encouraging beeps.
“Yeah, yeah, shut up, I am going. Of course I’m going,” Luke mumbles as he takes off his helmet and climbs out of his seat. Over the past weeks, he’s constantly been debating if he should do this, and if this is a good idea at all. He still isn’t sure.
My beta @ennisnovember said I should tag people, so I tag people ♥️
@sixhours @iamsherlocked-1998 @deervsheadlights @thecoffeelorian @somaybelikeno @starrla89 @maggiemayhemnj @electricthursday @newpathwrites @221b-carefulwhatyouwishfor @honeyshineshipsandshit @awkwardpaws
Happy Easter!
Appreciation April week 1 - first work(s) you posted
Thank you @sixhours and @newpathwrites for the tag! It’s an amazing idea.
The first fic I ever wrote was The Swear Jar Project (BBC Sherlock) and I posted that… almost ten years ago. (Jfc… how has it been almost a decade?). I’m still proud I did this, because with this fic I realised how much I love writing. I haven’t stopped writing ever since, and there are few things that make me happier. (I don’t think I can read this fic again though. Ever.)
Fast forward eight years and fourteen or so fics…
Ere break of day is the first fic I wrote for The Hobbit, and I actually still like that fic!
The taste of summer yet to shine is the first fic I wrote for The Last of Us (HBO). There’s a queer Joel falling in love with a guy who suspiciously looks like Oscar Isaac. (Feel you, Joel.)
Stuck with me now is the first fic I wrote for Star Wars and The Mandalorian. If you enjoyed that, I’m working on another one with Din Djarin and Luke Skywalker. And someone else, because I love threesomes. Triads.
I wouldn’t have been able to write these fics without the support of @ennisnovember who has been beta-reading my stories since 2016 and @andthetardis who has helped me with so much of my writing. You’re the best. Thank you for bearing with me. ♥️
Tagging - if you’re in the mood! - @ennisnovember @andthetardis @shirleycarlton @iamsherlocked-1998 @saltwaterandstars @electricthursday @maggiemayhemnj @kizzyataphelion @hubblegleeflower @221b-carefulwhatyouwishfor. If I haven’t tagged you (probably because I forgot, that happens, or because I was worried I’d get on your nerves) but you’d like to join, go ahead! This is such a cool idea and I’d love to hear about your firsts.
WIP Wednesday Thursday
Wooohoooo, @deervsheadlights , thanks for the tag! I enjoyed your new chapter of drunken southern stars so much today!
Here’s something from my DinLuke WIP::
Luke watches, cocking an eyebrow, as Din hurries to put on his helmet in front of the airlock hatch. Grogu is gazing at him curiously with big, round eyes.
Din shoots Luke a look and huffs a breath.
“It’s not like Solo is…” Part of my clan, Din wants to say, then gets caught on the fine line he’s been walking since he stopped wearing the helmet, and what comes out instead is, “family.”
Din clicks the helmet into place. He takes a deep breath, readjusting to – the narrow field of vision and the staticky grain of the visor. The familiarity, the safety, the protection. The barrier between him and everyone else.
Luke tilts his head, a kind, amused smile on his face. “In fact, Han is exactly family, Din.”
And I tag @electricthursday @shirleycarlton @iamsherlocked-1998 @sixhours
at times, the soul needs to wander.
WIP Wednesday Thursday
Wooohoooo, @deervsheadlights , thanks for the tag! I enjoyed your new chapter of drunken southern stars so much today!
Here’s something from my DinLuke WIP::
Luke watches, cocking an eyebrow, as Din hurries to put on his helmet in front of the airlock hatch. Grogu is gazing at him curiously with big, round eyes.
Din shoots Luke a look and huffs a breath.
“It’s not like Solo is…” Part of my clan, Din wants to say, then gets caught on the fine line he’s been walking since he stopped wearing the helmet, and what comes out instead is, “family.”
Din clicks the helmet into place. He takes a deep breath, readjusting to – the narrow field of vision and the staticky grain of the visor. The familiarity, the safety, the protection. The barrier between him and everyone else.
Luke tilts his head, a kind, amused smile on his face. “In fact, Han is exactly family, Din.”
And I tag @electricthursday @shirleycarlton @iamsherlocked-1998 @sixhours
[*sandwich bag style | käsebrot*]
[*homeward | drizzle*]
I asked people in Minneapolis what they wanted other people to know about their struggle, and one person replied: tell people about the beauty here too. The most horrific acts of the state capture the headlines—and for good reason—but there’s a specific beauty to what’s happening here.
Margaret Killjoy spent four days and three nights in Minneapolis last week and wrote about it on Substack. So worth reading.
January morning.
Christoph Niemann
Christoph Niemann (German, 1970), Mattina Romana [Roman Morning]. Two-colour silkscreen print. Edition of 100.
Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.
I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.
Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.
Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.
Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.
I think this is an incredibly important post for a lot of reasons. You have to write a bad book in order to learn how to do something. You have to suck at playing an instrument before you can improve.
Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.
AI is not like a calculator, or a synthesizer, or a prompt generator. It's not a tool to aid in your process of understanding or creating something. It is replacing your ability to learn things, and that is going to do so much damage if you let it.
sometimes, reality.
Der Zug aber verkehrt im Kreis: die Tore der alten Stadt hinter sich lassend, durch die enge Schlucht, das sonnendurchschnittene Tal, oben s
The river. December mornings.
[*commute into minor key*]