#just tbc

[lurker-no-more]

This is exactly why we must never concede our power. (We all have to live under capitalism, so whenever we can make it work for us …)

Jimmy Kimmel Live! Will Return to TV Tomorrow

The news comes almost a week after it was pulled from airing on ABC “indefinitely.”

[disasterbispn]

I have gone from being so uninterested whenever Armand interrupts Louis’s interview to being absolutely obsessed with that beautiful traumatized gremlin.

[thedreamedpath]

FOUL SPECTER !!

[perdvivly]

*@caprice-nisei-enjoyer and David Foster Wallace enter*

CNE: Hey, so I heard you had some takes on the current state of AI?

DFW: You heard?

CNE: On the grapevine, yeah.

...

CNE: Could you share some?

DFW: *hums in consideration*

CNE: If it wouldn't be a bother. No pressure of course.

DFW: Well... It's such a non-specific question. Do I have opinions? Yes, I have opinions, so does the next guy.

CNE: Yeah, but I'm not asking the next guy, I'm asking you.

DFW: Right, but, an issue I'm having is that these issues are important issues. They touch what I think are the very deepest fathoms of the human soul, but talking about them as such comes off as grotesquely pompous.

CNE: Okay, so, inhibitions aside, pretend it's just you and me talking now. What parts of the soul do you think they touch?

DFW: I think the current state of AI is a reflection of certain forms of passivity. Have you seen SORA?

CNE: The new OpenAI model that turns text prompts into video?

DFW: Yeah, exactly. I think there's every chance a person using that doesn't have in mind some particular video they want to create, they have in mind that they don't want to work to make a video and if this tool takes that away from them, so much the better for them right? That's a layer of human drudgery swept away in service of a grander artistic vision.

CNE: Right?

DFW: But, of course, when you start sweeping away all the choices, eventually, without even noticing, you sweep away the artistic process. You've made a video, and you have no idea if it's the video you wanted to make. But it's real now. And there's. There's something perverting in that I think.

CNE: Perverting?

DFW: So, you could make me look like a total jackass if you share this out of context but... I think there's something noble about the human spirit. And I think that nobility has a drive to express itself. And a facet of that expression is in the artistic endeavour. Which is what makes great art so great right? That it's striving to acomplish something bigger than itself. It's part of a conversation. It is communicating and it is communication.

CNE: I do see where you're coming from. But I don't think it's as bad as all that. I think it's a perfectly legitimate use of somebodies time to make silly little videos that don't push an agenda or speak to a purpose, they just make the creator happy. And think of all the people that can do this now that couldn't before. Isn't that worth something?

DFW: Oh yeah, I totally agree with you. There's nothing wrong with it in small doses. If it makes you happy go for it. But it's not nutritionally dense with meaning. If it's the mainstaple of your diet, you're going to die.

CNE: Come on.

DFW: In a real, meaningful way, you're going to die.

CNE: You don't think that people can use it to make meaningful content?

DFW: Oh, I think you could. But I don't think there are very many incentives aligned to push folk in that direction. In fact, I think a lot of the primary incentives we've constructed as a soceity push in quite the opposite direction of living a more meaningful life. And moreover, beyond incentives, you're working against your own pyschology. Like I said, we can do it, but if we do it's against the grain, not with it.

CNE: In what way?

DFW: In the myriad ways it's easier to be a passive observer than an active participant in ones own life and choices. The deep allure of drugs and entertainment are that they offer an escape from choice, from the constant burning ache of being in control of your own life which in many ways is itself hellish. I think this is a very natural extension of that. A slow erosion of the burden of choice--a slow erosion of the possibility of communication.

CNE: I still think there's some vital perspectives that you're missing. I'm delighted to live in a world where people's autonomy is being expanded by the tools they have available to them.

DFW: Right. There's that too of course. Very few things that find widespread adoption are wholly negative. And it's the glimmer of hope that's so pernicious here, that offer of autonomy feels... If it weren't at least partially true, this wouldn't even be an issue right? Nobody would want it. But it is, and it's so easy to look at that and use it as an excuse to justify the lazier parts of our nature.

CNE: Sometimes, perhaps. But sometimes it causes us to confront the lazier parts of our nature and interrogate them! It drives us to a deeper understanding that we didn't have before. Consider the work of Emily Howell.

DFW: The AI developed in the 90s by David Cope to produce classical music?

CNE: Mhm! Put to a blind test, human listeners couldn't tell the difference between the work of Emily Howell and human composers. This dispelled a lot of wrongheaded notions about a spark of human creativity that AI just couldn't capture. It also let a lot of amature composers generate a ton of high quality music for free, for them to study and understand the structural components of!

DFW: Emily Howell is an interesting example. But in my daily life I encounter music in one of three places. First and second, in elevators and shopping malls that play the most mindnumbing muzak you've ever heard, whose sole goal is to get you on autopilot. And thirdly, when I choose to put it on for myself. The times I'd be likely to hear Ms Howell are only in that third category.

CNE: Well. You've given me a lot to think about Mr Wallace! Thank you for this conversation, it means a lot to me. I need to get back to work now.

DFW: Of course. I hope we can talk again soon.

*Both leave*

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you for the tag @greypetrel! Tagging in turn @star--nymph @ndostairlyrium @zenstrike @dungeons-and-dragon-age @daggerbean @transprincecaspian, no pressure as always!

Here is a little piece of a fic about when Emma first came to Kirkwall:

“Varric is pleased that you’ll be staying.”

The tea hadn’t been given long enough to brew. Maria sipped it anyway, then set the delicate teacup back on its saucer. She’d broken out the good porcelain for her illustrious visitor, but the Inquisitor did not seem herself. Or rather—not the version of herself that Hawke remembered. There was something sharp about her now. Her cheeks seemed hollower somehow, the jagged ends of her shorn hair jabbing at her shoulders in accusation.

Varric had been right to worry. Hawke had wondered if he was just being fussy, but…yes. She understood now.

“I’m glad,” Lavellan said, crossing one leg over the other.

She’d been stirring her tea for several minutes, but she set the spoon aside now and took a sip. If she liked it, Hawke could not tell.

“Have you found the manor to your liking?”

“Yes,” Lavellan said, eyes straying to the corner of the library.

Sun pooled on the little table before the window there, a promise of the delights to be had in the courtyard beyond. If Lavellan had not come for tea, Hawke would be out there now. If she strained, she could hear Fenris’s low voice murmuring to Leander. It was funny, sometimes, to remember what he had been like when they’d first met. She could never have imagined that he could be so…well. Effusive rather covered it, she thought.

When they’d first met—well. He’d been rather like the woman who sat across from her now. There’d been something burning behind his eyes then, something she’d seen a dozen times after. Vengeance, she supposed, and a need to see the wrongs done to him righted. Something burned in Lavellan’s eyes, too. Hawke was not entirely sure that she wanted to know what it was.

“I am sorry,” Lavellan closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I am still getting used to all of this. I appreciate you inviting me here. I hadn’t expected…well. I am grateful.”

This, too, sounded little like the woman Maria remembered. The Inquisitor had been sharp then, too, but sharp like a rapier or a scalpel. She had been precise in all things. Now—she was sharp like a mirror after a fist had been put through it.

The last time Hawke had seen her, she’d been in love.

“There is more to the city than I’d thought,” Lavellan went on, twisting the teacup over and over in her lap. The pale green tea swayed close to the rim over and over, but never quite spilled past the edge. “More stairs, at least.”

“The stairs always take people aback,” Hawke agreed. “I recall being sore all over when we first came here. You’ll get used to them sooner than you expect.”

“Perhaps,” Lavellan took another sip of her tea, then set it down again. “And you? I seem to remember you mentioning a place outside the city where you’d been staying. Do you live here all the time now?”

“More or less. Varric asked me to come back—said being Viscount was awfully boring without me around to keep things interesting. Did he say the same to you?”

“Something like that.”

Fenris’s voice rose outside, nearing the door downstairs. It creaked open, then latched shut again.

“What do you…usually…” Lavellan’s eyes fixed somewhere behind Hawke. Her smile, which could only be described as polite, fixed itself into a rictus on her face.

“Maria, he needs—” Fenris cut himself off abruptly, taking a swift step to the side—out of the open doorway, Hawke noted. “Who is this?”

Lavellan said nothing. Her face was horrible to look at.

“Inquisitor Lavellan,” Maria said, looking between the two of them. They couldn’t possibly know each other. This had to be something else. Something she didn’t have the context for. “Emmaera Lavellan. She’s the one who got me out of the Fade. Remember?”

Fenris said nothing. His lips were pressed closed and his free hand had come up to curl around Leander’s little head.

“You have a child,” Lavellan said, and there was a sharp noise as the teacup landed on the table. “I mean—thank you. For the tea. I need to go now.”

“Yes, I—Ah.”

The former Inquisitor was gone almost before Hawke had finished speaking, the edge of her cloak sweeping round the doorway only moments before the front door swung shut.

“Hawke,” Fenris said, his eyes fixed on the doorway. Maria set her tea aside and stood, following the path her guest had taken. The foyer was empty.

“What happened?” Fenris asked, for he’d followed her into the room. He scanned the empty foyer and relaxed slightly. Leander, who’d been busily gnawing on his father’s collar, made an inquisitive noise.

“Well,” she told the closed front door. “I can’t say it went well, Varric. No, I didn’t convince her that she ought to stay. Yes, I know that’s the only thing you asked me to do. Andraste’s knees.”

“I couldn’t for the life of me say,” Hawke said, lifting their son from Fenris’s arms. She pressed a kiss to his pale, curling hair and turned back to the library. “Do you know each other?”

“She wasn’t looking at me,” Fenris said, his voice dark.

“Hmm,” Hawke murmured, and pressed another, longer kiss to her son’s curls.

[nefoe-dd]

idk how many more posts there will be about it going around tomorrow when people realize/learn about what happened

But I probably won’t engage with any serious ones since its pretty obvious what the general opinion is for once.

I might reblog some memes about it though because some are v e r y funny to me (as you may have already noticed)

It’s one of those things that (for now at least), is kinda funny to laugh at. Not necessarily because of the context but some specifics y’know?

Anyways if any of that stuff bothers you feel free to block the ‘discourse but funny’ tag to avoid the content coming from my blog

[lurker-no-more]

If you have a day where you’re stuck on the couch and need some escapism, Hotel Portofino was a perfect 6 hours of coastal beauty shots, villa life, 1920s fashion and a smattering of drama.

(I figured there wouldn’t be many gifs, but it makes sense these two would be represented!)

[ryhsrunner]

Add more nuance to your life by refusing to commit to anything. Go by at least five names, try to kill a dog and save a child at least once a week, dress in all black and monolog while cleaning up a public park. Answer 'maybe' whenever asked about your availability and roll a die to determine if you show up. This will make you a complex and well written character that audiences will love*