slowburn or love at first sight // fake dating or secret dating // enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers // there’s only one bed or long-distance correspondence // hurt/comfort or amnesia // fantasy au or modern au // mutual pining or domestic bliss // smut or fluff // canon-compliant or fix-it // reincarnation or character death // one-shot or multi-chapter // kid fic or road trip fic // arranged marriage or accidental marriage // high-school romance or middle-age romance // time travel or isolated together // neighbours or roommates // sci-fi au or magic au // body swap or genderbent // angst or crack // apocalyptic or mundane
i'm gonna follow the trend and leave some notes, too!
most of our answers were the same with a few exceptions. you know how i am with apocalyptic aus.
i also need my slow burns, give me all the build up, especially if angst is involved. but love at first sight has never done it for me. it just feels... unrealistic.
even if the original show is fantasy-based, you know i'm going to find a way to add in even more magic, more whimsy, more wonder.
"canon can catch these hands" HA. same though. screw canon.
give my my middle aged goobers in love.
IT IS ME. YOU KNOW HOW I AM WITH ANGST.
no pressure tags for @lillie-grey @broadwaybaggins @fangirlsalad @sgabalconyviews and anybody else who wants to play, this is me tagging you XD (also if i tagged you and you already did it send me a link bc i love seeing people's takes on these!)
its probably a normal sign for the economy that all of my adulthood fantasies are like "imagine having your own kitchen living room and bathroom to decorate" "what if i could get on a train" "maybe one day i could purchase a sturdy pair of shoes" "i should save and invest in a single bicycle"
"which food scraps can i plant and turn into more food?" "would love to buy a house one day but all my money is going to rent so i'll never be able to save." "pay for utilities or pay for dental work?"
I feel like this time, the best thing I can do is just include a screenshot of one of the many WIPs I've been writing over the last several days, weeks, months...
We have some truly lovely Sparky fanworks to share with you all from sweet little oneshots to almost epic fics and some beautiful artwork, too. For easy access, here's a list (in random order and divided into fanfics and fanart) - creators are still unrevealed at the moment, but they will love to hear from you, so don't hesitate to leave kudos and comments when something brings you joy:
Fanfics
Invitation Only
Held Up
Déjà-vu
The Honored
The Longer Goodbye
Dinner
Back Home Again
Past the Breaking Point
When I Wake
Butterfly Effect
Fanart
Queen and Her Knight
Conversation
Where They Fit They Sit
✨Thanks to all our lovely creators for spreading the joy that is Sparky! ✨
literally what would we do without gif makers thank you gif makers THANK YOU GIFMAKERS i love nothing more than to watch a tiny moment of a scene loop over and over and over the world is so beautiful
I continue to be astounded by how Stargate created some of the greatest female characters I have ever seen or continue to see. Samantha Carter. Elizabeth *fucking* Weir. Vala. Just spectacular.
🚨BREAKING: OpenAI published a paper proving that ChatGPT will always make things up.
Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. They proved it with math.
Even with perfect training data and unlimited computing power, AI models will still confidently tell you things that are completely false. This isn't a bug they're working on. It's baked into how these systems work at a fundamental level.
And their own numbers are brutal. OpenAI's o1 reasoning model hallucinates 16% of the time. Their newer o3 model? 33%. Their newest o4-mini? 48%. Nearly half of what their most recent model tells you could be fabricated. The "smarter" models are actually getting worse at telling the truth.
Here's why it can't be fixed. Language models work by predicting the next word based on probability. When they hit something uncertain, they don't pause. They don't flag it. They guess. And they guess with complete confidence, because that's exactly what they were trained to do.
The researchers looked at the 10 biggest AI benchmarks used to measure how good these models are. 9 out of 10 give the same score for saying "I don't know" as for giving a completely wrong answer: zero points. The entire testing system literally punishes honesty and rewards guessing.
So the AI learned the optimal strategy: always guess. Never admit uncertainty. Sound confident even when you're making it up.
OpenAI's proposed fix? Have ChatGPT say "I don't know" when it's unsure. Their own math shows this would mean roughly 30% of your questions get no answer. Imagine asking ChatGPT something three times out of ten and getting "I'm not confident enough to respond." Users would leave overnight. So the fix exists, but it would kill the product.
This isn't just OpenAI's problem. DeepMind and Tsinghua University independently reached the same conclusion. Three of the world's top AI labs, working separately, all agree: this is permanent.
Every time ChatGPT gives you an answer, ask yourself: is this real, or is it just a confident guess?
use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.
use firefox or librewolf (open-source fork of firefox) instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).
use mega instead of google drive
get rid of bloatware
use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite
get free stuff with the help of r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH, r/piracy and r/roms
use trakt (for shows and movies), letterboxd (just movies), or TMB instead of IMDB (owned by amazon).
use storygraph instead of goodreads (owned by amazon).
use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions
use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp
make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge
use search for a cause, ecosia, or ocean hero to support the environment instead of google
use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)
use flashpoint to play archived online flash games
find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books
burn your music onto cds
use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe
use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, or tuta instead of gmail
remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X
remove bloatware on samsung X
use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta
use project gutenberg for free public domain books, and librivox for public domain books and audiobooks
use the seal app (android only) to download video and audio
use ellipsus instead of microsoft word or google docs
use mastodon instead of twitter
use peertube to create a network of small video hosting providers (disclaimer: not a 1:1 alternative to youtube)
use threema and signal for encrypted communication, on mobile and desktop
use qwant and startpage for secure internet browsers
use syncthing to securely transfer files between devices
learn how to jailbreak your kindle/ereader if you have one (wiki and video walkthrough)
use riseup’s email and VPN for secure communication (aimed towards activists)
use cryptpad and collabora instead of the microsoft office suite
use google takeout to export the data on your google account
use library extension to look for books on online stores and find them at your library
remove paywalls with removepaywalls
install the open-source adblocker ublock origin
install sponsorblock to skip sponsored segments on youtube videos
use bookfinder to look for the cheapest available listings of books, including textbooks
learn a language through mango (duolingo laid off some of its employees and now relies on AI translations) for free with a library card or through your school
edit photos with photopea
edit pdfs with foxit and sumatrapdf
download music with doubledouble
take notes offline and collaborate securely with obsidian
for android tv, use smarttube and cloudstream (ad-free, open-source)
change your OS to linux
changelog:
removed ground news (uses AI to summarize articles)
removed unroll.me (sells your data)
removed proton mail and drive (AI assistant feature, claims of CEO Andy Yen supporting Trump, please DM if you have proof I can add here)
removed NCH suite (only has very basic free features, puts watermark on anything saved)
notes:
this post blew up while I wasn’t looking (the end of my semester was hellish, and i recently came back from a 3-week family vacation). thanks so much for all the suggestions! <3
i included Ecosia because of their financial transparency. It’s physically impossible that they plant a tree for every search, but their profits still go towards projects including reforestation and solar energy. i view their actions as a net-positive
feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3
Someday I'll string these thoughts together into one story, instead of just tiny scenes written within a universe. And then you'll all get to see what I've been writing that's necessitated "floor time" for @odakota-rose.fan
Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Rating: M
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood
Additional Tags: Missing Year (Once Upon a Time), oq au, Grief/Mourning, Blood and Injury, Cutting, Self-Harm (Cost of certain spells), Attempted Murder
Thank you to @odakota-rose for the beta
Regina woke to the smell of woodsmoke and the particular silence of a camp that had learned to be quiet around something fragile. Her eyes opened before the rest of her was ready. The tent ceiling came first, pale canvas greyed with dawn light, and then, before the ache, before she had even taken a full breath, her hand was at her sternum, searching for the hollow place where her magic had been, checking whether what she remembered was real or the architecture of a fever dream.
Summary: Elizabeth Weir is working on her day off, as she has been doing every Sunday since arriving in Atlantis, when a surprise interruption draws her attention into the oldest parts of Atlantis.
Beta by @odakota-rose
Sunday in Atlantis had a different rhythm. There were fewer alarms, fewer boots in the corridors. The lights seemed warmer somehow, though Elizabeth knew that was probably her imagination—the city's systems didn't actually change on weekends. Still, the hum of power beneath the floors felt less insistent, as if Atlantis itself understood the concept of rest, even if the people living inside it rarely did.
Elizabeth sat alone at her desk, sleeves pushed to her elbows. She'd pinned her hair back an hour ago without bothering with a mirror, twisting it up one-handed when the curls started bothering her neck. Her fingers found the clip now, testing it, making sure it would hold. The report on her screen wasn't urgent, wasn't flagged, wasn't due. She scrolled down anyway, highlighting a sentence, then deleting the note she'd just made. No one was waiting on her decision. But they would be, eventually. The city had a way of collecting debts. If she stayed ahead, just a little, she could almost convince herself she was in control.
She scrolled back up and started reading the same paragraph again when a shadow crossed the threshold of her office.
Elizabeth looked up. Her shoulders straightened automatically, chin lifting slightly, the small adjustments that meant someone needed her attention. Leadership, settling into place like muscle memory. Mike Branton stood in her doorway, weight shifted to one hip, like someone who'd rehearsed this moment and still hadn't found a version that fit comfortably. He wasn't in uniform. The civilian clothes—dark jeans, a shirt that was almost too casual for Atlantis—made him look unfinished somehow, caught between roles.
"Elizabeth," he said. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Mr. Branton." Elizabeth closed the laptop. Whatever she'd been using the work to avoid could wait. If he'd come all this way on a Sunday, the least she could do was be present.
"Please call me: Mike."
He lingered in the doorway a moment longer than necessary, and Elizabeth recognized the hesitation; she'd seen it in enough diplomatic negotiations to know when someone was working up to something difficult.
"Mike," she said, gesturing for him to come into her office. He shifted his weight, took a breath she could see in the rise of his chest.
"So," he began, then stopped. His hand came up, rubbed the back of his neck—a tell she'd noticed before, usually right before he had to admit a project was behind schedule. "I know this probably isn't the best timing."
Elizabeth leaned back slightly in her chair, buying herself a moment, fingers lacing loosely in her lap in a pose that looked relaxed but felt like armor. "There's rarely a perfect one," she said, keeping her voice gentle even as something in her stomach began to sink. "What's on your mind?"
