the return of the magnificent sternin

lover of elementary, the assembled idiots, star wars, frasier, and doctor who. " Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s always happy. Be happy."

[depsidase]

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[kyrasaphira]

Statuette of Venus made from rock crystal quartz (Roman, 1st century BC)

[victusinveritas]

[penandinkprincess]

I shredded up a metric fuckton of cabbage for mealprep while I was waiting for my dinner to finish cooking, and then I left it while I ate and y'all

my kitchen now smells AGGRESSIVELY cruciferous

[penandinkprincess]

accidentally poured msg from the spout and not the shaker side, so this is about to be the most savory cabbage man has ever known

[penandinkprincess]

my beautiful children who have made my kitchen smell so, so cabbage

[just-add-butter]

What is this and could you please share a rough recipe?

[penandinkprincess]

eggroll in a bowl! i didn't invent it so there are many recipes if you want an actual one to follow, but:

required ingredients:

cabbage and carrots (you can save time/energy and just buy coleslaw mix, but i shredded mine myself to make them tiny tiny)

ground protein of choice (i used tvp, but shredded tofu or ground beef/turkey/chicken/pork could also work. chopped shrimp are also an option. you just want it to mix evenly in the bowl.)

soy sauce

vinegar (i recommend rice vinegar, but use what you have or even sub lime or lemon juice. you just want a little acidity)

recommended:

mushrooms

celery (shredded like your cabbage)

water chestnuts (chopped into strips)

sesame oil

msg

ginger

oyster sauce

green onions

wonton strips for topping and cronch

sautee your cabbage and carrots (preferably with a little sesame oil and with ginger, either powdered or fresh or Aldi Tube Ginger, my beloved). add celery if using. when almost done, add msg, soy sauce, and vinegar and mix. add water chestnuts if using. set as base of whatever you're serving it in. sautee mushrooms if you're using them, and when they've got some color, add your protein of choice. season with soy sauce, ginger, vinegar, and msg. i also added a little oyster sauce. put over your cabbage/carrots. top with chopped green onion and wonton strips. (you can also top with a fried egg if you want). bone apple teeth.

[sailermoon]

james baldwin was so right when he said “the children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

And if I said Megamind is one of the few movies that understands Superman.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

And if I said Megamind through its three subversions of Superman shows a deeper understanding that the point of Superman is that he was loved and taught to love by good, present parents, and because of that he is able to return that love to a world even if it doesn't always accept it, and he is not corrupted by his power, than many other films either subverting or playing the superman story straight.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Megamind has three Superman subversions. One is obviously Megamind himself. He was not raised loved by the world, but rather was loved by those hated by the world. Because he was still raised with love, he does care about other people, hence his character development. But because he didn't receive wider love growing up, his own is misplaced at first.

Metro Man was not loved growing up in a way that mattered. His adopted father was clearly very absent, and while we don't know much about his family, their relationship seems superficial. Because of this, his sense of duty to the world is also superficial, hence his boredom.

Hal wasn't raised with power. He gained it and was shown how to use it by a 'space dad' who only taught him power and not love. Hence, he sees it only as a grasping means to an end.

All three of these subversions, in their negative space, create the silhouette of the superhero that they are parodying. That silhouette is of a space child that came to earth and was cared for very deeply by the world, and taught love through his experience of love, and because of that holds fast to his duty to the world. Which is Superman.

[targetedknowledge]

[alex-and-nova420]

made this into a gif bc i liked it so much. shark Denied

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

God being a writer would be so great if I didn't have to write anything

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Wait I just remembered that ai books exist and the empty spectre of being a writer without writing anything suddenly gave me the urge to eat nails. Post rescinded. I'll write the fucking chapter.

[nonetoon]

[nonetoon]

I made this in reference to comic/game stuff but I’m glad to see this one’s going over well with all the writers

[sarroora]

Reblog to give your followers and mutuals the strength to continue

[ooooooh]

Eridians have a full name that they introduce themselves with and use formally, and it’s very long because it includes details like their occupation, role in society, and their lineage. And, once Grace is on Erid, it’s decided by Rocky and the Eridian officials that Grace needs a full Eridian name, because it’s odd to just call him Grace in certain situations. It is easy to figure out part of his new full name, adding in teacher and savior of the stars, but the lineage bit is a little tricky. Grace was never particularly close to his parents so that doesn’t feel right, and he doesn’t feel like attempting to translate their names into Eridian. In the end, for that section, he just adopts parts of Rocky’s and Adrian’s names because that’s really his new family.

On his first excursion out of his biodome and through Erid (because of course they made him his own xenonite suit) with Rocky and Adrian, they get approached by many other Eridians who have heard of Grace. They coo some and praise the human, and add a congratulations to Rocky and Adrian at the end. It takes this happening a few times before Grace picks out the Eridian word for baby or child in the congratulations, and he’s ECSTATIC, making the assumption that his friends must be having a baby. Of course, he has some questions like “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” and “Why does everyone know but me?” and “When will they be here?” and “Actually, how do Eridians reproduce?”. During his barrage of questions, Rocky and Adrian are speaking to each other in low tones, trying to figure out the best way to tell Grace that the name he uses for introductions and official matters translates to Grace, Child of Rocky and Adrian, Teacher and Savior of the Stars.

The other Eridians figure that thirty Earth years and then some is awfully young to tragically no longer have parents, and it’s very kind of Rocky and Adrian to take in a child of an alien species and raise it as their own. Especially since Earthlings don’t seem to take good care of their young, sending them into space.

[fruitpunchfrog]

Rocky and Adrian: We’re adopting!

Grace: That’s amazing! So who’s the lucky little pebble?

Rocky, showing him the Eridian equivalent of adoption papers: You.

[deadgenerations]

the reason people think LLMs are conscious is because they use natural language. we evolved to understand speech and to specifically understand speech as representative of the internal world of the speaker. the only creatures we spoke to were conscious. we evolved specifically to have greater empathy and kinship via conversation - the main way people come to understand each other and feel closer is still just talking.

all that has happened to dorkins is he has fallen into an evolutionary trap. the exact same trap that those tiktokers who believe their dog can talk to them by jumping on buttons have fallen into. because the buttons create a simulacrum of language, however crude, the listening brain itself constructs a simulacrum of the internal world of the perceived speaker. Because that is what it already evolved to do with the only available speakers in its evolutionary history!!!!!!

[deadgenerations]

people are so evolutionarily hardwired to see conscious agency and communication in the world that for our entire history we have ascribed agency, communication and personhood to earthquakes, the weather, diseases, stillbirths, the arrangement of entrails, dreams, and much more besides. To this day we have to remind people that wild animals are not like people and do not have our internal world lest they become new Timothy Treadwells!

[whitealbum]

when you see the words girlhood girlie pop girl’s girl female experience and you immediately know you’re about to see something so completely unrelatable that it makes you feel like you’re on a different planet

[dogpuppy]

He is my princess diana

[nicolauda]

Murderbot should wear a lil skirt thing over its pants. More pockets and more shielding. This is my hill to die on.

[nicolauda]

Like this but properly laced boots

[amphibious-thing]

my favourite part of pride month is the increase of posts about queer history that get half the facts wrong

[razielim]

do you ever think about... murderbot... and its love of children... and how children naturally welcome it in a way older humans don't? the way teenagers are slower than children but far faster than adults to see it fully as a person and warm to it as soon as they realize how much safer they are in its presence?

do you think about how amena, sofi, and the others will someday be full adults? and mensah and the rest of team presaux will be gone? and murderbot will be surrounded by humans who have loved and cherished it seemingly their whole lives? how it'll be surrounded by humans, both in mensah's family and across preservation and the university in general, who don't remember what life was like before their first encounter with a secunit?

do you think about how someday some of these adults who love it will have their own children? and it will see that first gross little bundle of human offspring and be shocked by the size and frailty? it'll resist offers to hold the baby for fear of hurting something so small and frail (and also some other fear it can't name) (and also: gross). but eventually... something will happen and it will oblige and hold a baby for the first time in its whole existence while the parents run around dealing with whatever emergency. and it'll be absolutely rooted to the spot, thinking about how the baby is actually a bit heavier than it had guessed, thinking about how there isn't even any ROOM for bones in such a small body, thinking about how the baby looks doubtful and a little scared of it. until one of the human adults sweeps by and recommends that it smile and coo at the baby. well, it's not sure about "cooing" but it does get woken from its fearful stupor and hurriedly ups its body temperature, softly bounces the baby like it had seen humans do, and smiles — nervously, but it counts. and the baby... melts. the small little mouth and brows and eyes all slip into a delighted chubby-cheeked smile, still looking up into its eyes. and murderbot thinks, okay, maybe i'll try cooing. do you think about that?

do you think about how someday amena and sofi and the others will be known as nannas and grandpersons themselves, and murderbot will still be beset by children who want to watch shows with it and curl up against its chest when they're sad or hurt? and how sofi can still be found napping on its shoulder, though now she has more wrinkles on her face than naja ever had? and how amena's still bothering it for details about its relationships, anxious to see it loved and cared for after she and her siblings are gone?

do you think about how someday murderbot and its creaky old joints and worn ports are only still functioning because of a dedicated team of university researchers who'd put in thousands of hours into determining how to not let living construct consciousnesses become trapped in failing bodies and developed a protocol for training future researchers in proper construct geriatric care? and can you picture how it will have a few dozen children gathered around it at a cultural festival — their families camping in and around the ancestral home, together once again for the holiday — all those tiny voices clamoring to once more hear the story of how it and their great great great great greatnan amena defeated the aliens and saved the colonists, and could they pretty pretty please meet ART the next time it docks at preservation station?

do you think about how the children it loves growing up to become adults would never take away how safe and comfortable it feels around them?