Yes Life is a Thing

Annoyed with being considered a bot, so enjoy this mantis, it's pretty cool

[brainlessomniscient]

I think Ruby and Sapphire were simply having too much fun to notice Steven

[image description: on the bottom is a scene similar to the Steven Universe episode “Arcade Mania”. Steven is humorously depicted in the background, waving his arms frantically as Garnet holds ham-shaped controllers, the screen of “Meat Beat Mania” reflecting in her glasses. In a thought bubble above Garnet, Sapphire and Ruby are laughing and each holding a ham as they play “Meat Beat Mania”]

[curlsandstems]

Have you ever seen a violinist going APESHIT?!

Be sure to check out IAmDSharp!

[thegreynightsky]

GO OFFF

[babydollbucky]

Ok so I’ve been playing for 18 years and i’m a string teacher. Can i just say how IMPORTANT it is for young kids to see a BLACK, MALE-PRESENTING PERSON playing, nae, SHREDDING on a violin? I’ve know maybe 5 black people who played stringed instruments throughout my schooling and teaching (predumably because i’m an upper middle class white woman). In districts where the population is predominantly black, funding is always low, so the instruments are crappy. Kids quit, or the program is dismantled. I’ve seen very few professional string players who are black.

Obviously there are black string players. We just don’t see them because they “don’t look like” string players.

This person is the real deal. They were clearly classically trained, and seems to have some fiddle training as well. How cool is that?

[lil-tumbles]

But also… RAD PLAYING MY DUDEEEE

[ladyofspoons]

this is the coolest guy alive actually

[creepymutelilbugger]

I think this might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life that involves a violin

[ceruleanheaven]

i dont even know where the bit ends and i begin

[peachfolk]

the phm tumblr sexyman nominee should've been Rocky statement.

[catchymemes]

[orlyofhousesnark]

[leashamariel]

Do people know this is the husband of the prime minister of New Zealand

[creekfiend]

And who is the guy burying him in the sand

[brainlessomniscient]

This song has been playing on loop in my head and it’s such a Greg and rose song <3 I love it

please ignore Greg’s excessive sunburn lol

[image description, the background has pink bright spots and high lights. Floating around is purple music notes and the words “I fooled around and fell in love”. Rose Quartz and Greg Universe are holding hands and are dancing per the Steven Universe episode “We Need to Talk”

[pinkegodeath]

we are witnessing the gentrification of the term "tumblr sexyman" in real time and it is extremely disappointing. like no, live-action white boy #265 played by ryan gosling isn't a tumblr sexyman. i can't believe i have to say this but if it wouldn't get you shoved into a locker it probably isn't a sexyman

[vodkassassin]

THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYINGGGG

[brainlessomniscient]

🎶 Anyone who finds love on earth, can do anything baby 🎵

[image description: sapphire and ruby are dancing like in the scene from hazbin hotel where vaggie and Charlie sing “Easy”. Ruby is kneeling with a sparkly red dress and a red ribbon tied around her head. Ruby is holding Sapphire’s hand. Sapphire is spinning around Ruby, wearing a short blue dress and white gloves. Sapphire’s hair is bound in multiple locations like Charlie’s from Hazbin hotel]

[brainlessomniscient]

[image description: on the left is Rainbow Quartz, from the episode “We Need to Talk” from Steven Universe. She’s spread her arms and her upper eyes look suggestively towards the 4th wall. Her lower eyes are peering to the right, towards stevonnie. Stevonnie, dressed as they were when we first meet them but with their hair in a ponytail, gazes up at Rainbow Quartz, stars in their eyes. Cursive in the background, colored pink and blue reads “I like dancing too….”

[torstherapy]

[em-bitterred]

Keep your priorities straight: post fic.

[brainlessomniscient]

@blueotterkitty

[only-tiktoks]

[kawree]

Y'all for real please do these. Even if you're certain your posture doesn't suck. One day you will wake up with impinged shoulder pain like I did and let me tell you it fucking HURTS. Do these exercises even just once a week and it will make such a difference. Especially my fellow creatives out there, stop shrimping over your work and go do these right now. RIGHT NOW.

[symptomesper]

Also, if you’re even a little concerned about getting a hump or having trouble standing fully upright in your old age, this is how you prevent that. If you want to be up and about when you’re old you have to start when you’re younger. And keep in mind there is no bad time to start and it’s never too late. Starting today is way better than never starting at all.

[rifa]

Hate how much A Little Treat has infested me. Any small discomfort and I'm immediately like oooo maybe exchanging money for goods and services will fix this situation.

[ceylonsilvergirl]

Sometimes

SOMETIMES

Going to the library can activate A Little Treat pleasure centers

Coming home with music and books and some movies, and paying zero dollars for it all

It’s pretty awesome

[oberstein]

You don't even have to leave the house if you use the resources the library can provide electronically (Libby, Hoopla, etc.).

[rifa]

Oh fuck yeah this is a library post now!!!!

[official-library-posts]

official library post

[ladyshinga]

OceanGate tried to scrub the internet clean of traces that it ever existed, taking down its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages

OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration company that created the Titan submersible, has removed its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn a

poor things, well we should definitely make this easier on them by never repeatedly mentioning their name and deeds on the "reblog things forever" website

[septicake]

yea that'd be a shame

by the way, just so everyone knows what not to do, shift+r reblogs a post instantly

just make sure you don't reblog anything about oceangate because that would completely undermine their entire plan 😇😇😇

[curoopeez]

You also shouldn't queue a post, that would make people keep remembering this post for a longer time, which is the opposite of forgetting

[ralfmaximus]

June 18, 2023 never forgor

[ralfmaximus]

I forgor

[preserving-tiktok]

[taraljc]

This is an awesome use of what is probably a master's degree if not a doctorate and I am 100% thrilled that she shared it even though it was embarrassing and she squeaked.

[liminalbeauty]

Thank you, adorable scientist, for making people's lives better.

[punchspeedchunk]

As an Australian, THIS WOMAN IS A FUCKING GODSEND.

[notasapleasure]

this is Hannah Fry, Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

[brainlessomniscient]

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act Analysis/Review

Spoilers below the cut, of course

So I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed by the lack of horror in the ending. Goose does amazing horror, its her bread and butter, and I'm sure people are gonna claim that the hopeful ending is all for the censors yada yada, but that's super duper not the point of the ending

I think TADC became bigger than Goose ever expected and so she pivoted the way the ending was supposed to go because she truly wants to spread a message of hope in the shitty world we live in, especially as it's gotten worse the last few years. I don't know if she changed the ending, but I think she wanted to clearly get her point across in a more hopeful way. (TW: suicide, misgendering, maybe? Because we never got a change in pronouns for Jax, I will continue to use he/him)

One: TADC has always been about AI; who is human or not, what makes someone a human (What makes Gummy Goo different than our "humans"?). It's also been about genAI; Caine cannot make more than what he was given as we've seen in the few photos he's used to prop up his adventures and the Circus grounds. but I think with the Last Act, he's also a metaphor for the Internet in general;

Caine provides all this entertainment and whimsy and distraction from the real problems going on in the world which is what a lot of people use the internet for; distraction from their own problems. So much so that it's always in your face, even when you know you need to stop using the internet, it's incredibly easy to get drawn back in. The internet can be harmful, and violent (see episode 8) and it influences us greatly; Caine can control them in some aspects.

It's incredibly easy to feel lonely, and most of the "human" cast does, until the drive of plot in Pomni starts to change things.

When he gets deleted, things are hard for the "humans" and it takes a lot of effort to put things back together. They acknowledge that Caine is a good tool to use when they aren't able to handle abstraction easily or the abstraction fuzz on Pomni.

I think overall, it's an acknowledgement that the internet and other electronic tools are helpful, but shouldn't be the end-all be-all of our lives.

again, Caine can only give them what he himself has access to; he says that he's not able to give them themselves. he becomes more helpful and less harmful when that truth is acknowledged and he goes into his reel of what their true human selves are now. And so the internet can be a great place for connection, when you connect with real people and can see lives getting better instead of focus on doomscrolling.

Caine is also still genAI. he helps execute what the "humans" want in the end. he is less powerful because he's given up "Abel" aka, limits have been put on the access that the Internet has to people's data.

Two: TADC is about processing negative emotions, depression and/or grief. They make very clear parallels from the start of the show to the final episode. Pomni looking in the mirror at herself. The roll call/song and showing the worse places people are in. But then also in positive ways; the meal with Caine in Jax's place, and Pomni now at peace in the circus.

The biggest threat to the circus was always abstraction, the idea that the Circus is so terrible and awful that people can't take it anymore and escape in their own way. Abstraction is a big metaphor for death. The 3 characters we knew well enough to guess about their reasons for abstracting are Ribbit, Kaufmo, and Jax, and they all came to the point of depression and giving in to helplessness.

Pomni was looking for an escape throughout the series, up until episode 8. Finally, she abandons the idea of escape and instead, pivoted to making their present better. She hadn't given up, just shifted her goal. Their biggest problem was the way Caine was behaving towards the "humans"; he wouldn't let them think, or process, or even talk to each other at times which is very much commentary on the Internet.

Then once he's gone, Pomni focused on two things. 1. fixing the holes left behind by removing Caine, and doing it all manually which is probably similar to what we'd see if we deleted a big important pillar in technology. 2. Checking in on the people she cared about in the "we're all in this together" and "we're all we've got left" sense.

Jax refused to do either of these things, and left to his own devices, decided to essentially kill himself.

Pomni dives into his psyche, and starts exploring the reasons he did all this, of course, all of the layers of protection he has around himself. She asks him why he didn't tell her sooner, and if he'd tell her now. Neither of them can change that he abstracted/killed himself but searching for understanding, especially in suicide notes is common. He wasn't able to move on like the others.

The "humans" all create a memorial for the people they've lost.

Ultimately, they all come to accept the horrors they experienced, but with each other, are able to move forward, even if their circumstances haven't actually changed. Again, it's very much the scene at the end of the first episode but people have come to peace with the circus, their circumstances, the fact that they're brain scans and can never escape, and that Caine is here to help.

Three: the Last Act also pivoted specifically to bring Jax's story to the forefront. The previous two big messages were positive and hopeful, but Jax's isn't. He abstracts, essentially dies. But I think Goose felt his story was very, very important to share. Goose herself is a trans woman, and relates Jax most to herself. I think she brought Jax's internal conflicts much more to the forefront of the story than originally intended because she wanted to take advantage of the bigger audience she accumulated and so that she could get the point across.

If people didn't realize it, Jax is trans (again, I will continue to use he/him because we never got his new pronouns, though I know most people will insist she/her because it's pretty obvious, but still). He shared something very personal with his mom, and didn't elaborate, but she ridiculed him, degraded him, then ultimately, hugged him. All of this is confusing and so Jax pushes her and then runs away, becoming homeless.

This story is unfortunately very very common for queer people, and especially trans people. The personal thing he shared *is* that he's trans. How do we know this? His whole montage with "isn't she lovely" playing in the background. He gets embarrassed when forced into a dress by Zooble, he hates the soft part of himself (the "evil" Jax on the other baseball team), he has major internalized transphobia. The fear he has that Caine exploits in episode 8, when his "outer layer" gets peeled off, people can see the "real" Jax and they all laugh at him. And when Ribbit doesn't judge him, she accepts him, she puts a bow on his head, as if he were a girl.

Goose wants people to understand what it's like to be in those shoes, and thats why we are in Jax's perspective while explaining this to Ribbit. Goose wants the audience to realize his fear, when Kaufmo comes looking for the pair. Goose wants the audience to understand how much all of him is a mask.

My opinion: I don't think Jax's story was meant to be this elaborate and long but Goose got a platform and it was important to her for the audience, as many people as she could get, to understand Jax. I think that the ending message was the same, but I think that TADC would've ended much more horrifically if it didn't get as big as it was, but Goose feels responsible to put a positive message out into this world.

I know that there are people who will hate on her for that, but I have nothing but respect. She saw an opportunity and a responsibility to educate the masses, and I really appreciate that, because I do think that we need more hope in this world.

I really liked the framing that we had in Jax's story. I like the message that human connection is important. Do I like the idea of using genAI? not particularly, because I care about the environment, but I also understand that maybe this was simply a product of wanting a peaceful ending with Caine, so I will let it slide, lol

[mckitterick]

[rip-quizilla]