My Favorite Time Wasting Random Fandom Place

Scar, she/her, with absolutely zero time on my hands but I’m here anyway.

[ziggy-scardust]

Okay but. A Bradley Bradshaw who truly doesn’t know until TGM that Maverick is a little unhinged. He “tried to be the father he lost”, tried to set a good example, didn’t exactly tell an impressionable kid about all the ways he earned his reputation. So for years, Rooster avoided any mention of Maverick and probably dismissed rumors about him pissing off Admirals as so much Navy scuttlebutt - after all, he never got kicked out, he made it to O6, and he’s at least known for being good at what he does. So he figures the stories he heard growing up, and the new ones he’s hearing, are exaggerated.

…until they’re shot down behind enemy lines and Maverick’s happily strolling onto a bombed-out enemy flight line to steal a whole aircraft in an unknown state of repair by taking off from a very short taxiway and is just expecting him to go along with it, like it’s the obvious thing to do.

Smash cut to Bradley running down a LONG list of batshit stories he’s heard about Maverick, trying to confirm what’s actually real, and having to mentally readjust his whole worldview (including realizing that Goose was equally batshit and egging him on from the backseat half the time.)

“This one has to be made up, right, you’d never take an admiral’s daughter on an unauthorized F/A-18 flight — wait what do you MEAN that was Penny from the bar??”

[st-just]

A character trait/dynamic that I'm endlessly compelled by is someone dealing with (or, like, failing to) being the child of people who were too busy being good people to have the time and attention to be good parents. This can be anywhere from 'was a public defender who gave a shit working 60 hour weeks with basically no vacations' to 'left their family behind to join the revolution/war effort and is now a universally beloved martyr-hero who saved/remade the world with their final breath' on the groundedness spectrum. The important thing is a viscerally felt but confused and ugly mess of longing, resentment, and guilt about feeling the resentment.

[teapotchamelineon]

Prev tags

#the idea that someone can simultaneously be a bad parent and a good person is one that seems to escape a LOT of people#I see far too many people who insist that if someone is a bad parent they're also a bad person#because being a bad parent MAKES them a bad person#“well they never should have had kids if they were going to be bad at it!” cool cool so I don't know if you know this but#not everyone is able to see how things will play out before they happen#also someone may be a GREAT parent for one kid but a mediocre one for another kid#because (and I know this is another pretty alien idea to a lot of tumblr) everyone is different#what one child needs is not necessarily the same as what another child needs#anyway#it's much more fun to explore this concept in fiction than in reality#when it happens IRL at least one real person gets screwed over; in fiction it's an interesting story to explore

So fucking true

I know people who are great as friends for example, but they shouldn't be parents.

[ziggy-scardust]

I’m the oldest of three. My siblings & I are very, very lucky that my parents realized - when the youngest was still only a baby - “oh, shit, all our kids are WILDLY different, and the advice we’re getting is *not working* for any of them”. My dad still claims to “not believe in therapy” but he & my mom recently told me that they not only took me to a psychologist (I don’t remember) but they went to the parenting class she recommended. Thirty years ago, when this wasn’t really a *thing*. They weren’t perfect. But they figured out a lot of shit about how to do right by kids with different needs. It took a lot of work on their part. I know I didn’t make it easy on them. It is NOT trivial to be a good parent. It is very possible to be a good person in other parts of your life and a bad parent. It is very possible to be a good parent to one kid and not another.

People contain multitudes. None of this is easy. Welcome to nuance.

[butchfagminotaur]

it’s nice seeing other people starting to open their eyes to what i’ve been saying for a while in that the current use and proliferation of the term “gooning” is an outright tool of fascism

[butchfagminotaur]

the second “gooning” stopped referring to a specific sexual practice and started to be used as a replacement for “masturbation” we needed to kill it immediately and sadly we didn’t

[butchfagminotaur]

if you call someone a “masturbator” in a derisive way you sound like a fucking mormon but suddenly you switch to calling them a “gooner” and you’ve created a way to express the same puritanical beliefs around masturbation that is not only palatable to the average person but the attached underlying implications of the term make people way more susceptible to adopting those beliefs themselves

leftists need to fucking stop using the term “gooner” right fucking now

[butchfagminotaur]

demonizing human sexuality and treating masturbation and sexual activity as deviant and disgusting are straight up fascist tools and it’s startling how successful this aspect of it has been the last few years

[ziggy-scardust]

“Goon” rightfully refers to the hired-muscle henchmen of a mob boss. And that’s it.

[rainintheevening]

*yanking The Character up by the scruff*

YOU are getting Forgiven and Redeemed and Saved by the Narrative, chucklehead!

[ampervadasz]

[masterkfox]

my two brain cells

[vigilantsycamore]

This is what executive dysfunction looks like

[a-book-of-creatures]

Inside you there are two hamsters…

[redstonedust]

for the record im not technially 100% anti-AI, in the sense that its a broad category of tech being lumped under one umbrella term so it feels over-zealous to say i hate all of it all the time forever. but i also think trying to discuss what it actually IS good for is difficult right now when i cant take one step without something trying to convince me to use chatgpt to summarize my life and speed up my hobbies and turn my friends into chatbots and optimize my life into oblivion. i am certain there is nuance to the topic but can we stop cramming the square peg into the round hole before you start trying to sell me on the legitimate benefits of the square peg. please.

[ralfmaximus]

Neural Nets have existed for decades and are genuinely useful. It's a form of AI that recognizes patterns, and can do stuff like identify cancer cells, tell whether an egg is fertilized or not, detect fraud, and optimize routes.

Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.

And so on.

The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.

But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.

If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.

But they wouldn't understand any of it.

That's ChatGPT.

And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.

But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.

I fucking hate it.

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

whats a stereotype for your country that you absolutely do. mine is that i unironically go "eh" and apologize a lot and i often drink maple syrup straight

[asteroidtroglodyte]

The grip that Burger & Big Drink has on the American People cannot be overstated

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[ziggy-scardust]

Reblogging because I have seen people on multiple platforms recently acting like they’re entitled to an author’s work to justify pirating it.

Do 👏 not 👏 do 👏 that 👏! Authors need & deserve to be paid! If you cannot buy their book, request it from your library! Libraries are amazing, most librarians will want to help you, and they buy books and signal demand for future print runs!

(if you need something to read while you’re waiting for their book to hit your library, LOTS of amazing works are in the public domain because their authors have been dead long enough! I have free iBooks of every Austen novel, a bunch of Dickens, etc. and those required no library card AND no money! Because Jane Austen has been dead for centuries and doesn’t need to eat anymore!)

[mysteryteacup]

And while we're at it: don't do the "hack" of buying an ebook, reading it, and then returning it on Amazon. You're not hurting Amazon. Amazon demands to be paid for the sold book one way or the other. And if the buyer doesn't pay? They make the author do it.

[ziggy-scardust]

Reblogging for this addition because that’s not cool! Don’t rip off authors!

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[ziggy-scardust]

Reblogging because I have seen people on multiple platforms recently acting like they’re entitled to an author’s work to justify pirating it.

Do 👏 not 👏 do 👏 that 👏! Authors need & deserve to be paid! If you cannot buy their book, request it from your library! Libraries are amazing, most librarians will want to help you, and they buy books and signal demand for future print runs!

(if you need something to read while you’re waiting for their book to hit your library, LOTS of amazing works are in the public domain because their authors have been dead long enough! I have free iBooks of every Austen novel, a bunch of Dickens, etc. and those required no library card AND no money! Because Jane Austen has been dead for centuries and doesn’t need to eat anymore!)

[clove-pinks]

As the battle between USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon raged in June, 1813, Chesapeake was blown into her opponent after a devasting carronade salvo, becoming temporarily hooked on a fluke of the British ship's anchor as the ships collided.

The Tars of Old England Triumphant, 1813 print (Old Print Shop, NYC).

In this close action, the Shannon's officers and crew boarded the enemy ship—and those in the fighting tops ran across yard arms, including midshipmen.

As Chesapeake’s sails began to fill the ship lurched forward. As her side scraped down the Shannon’s forward end her foreyard fouled Shannon’s briefly. Seeing a momentary opportunity, Midshipman John Smith stationed in the foremast fighting top, ran out over the yard followed by five of his topmen and onto Chesapeake’s foreyard. Fighting their way up into the enemy foretop they forced the Americans there to flee down the weather-side shrouds.

Seven men in Chesapeake’s mizzen top armed with muskets and a small howitzer were still causing great execution amongst Shannon’s boarders. Seeing this, Midshipman Philip Cosnahan across in Shannon’s main top began to pick them off one by one using a succession of loaded muskets passed down to him through the lubber’s hole.

— Martin Bibbings, "The Battle," in Broke of the Shannon and the War of 1812, edited by Tim Voelcker.

A model diorama of an early 19th century fighting top by Flagship Models.

[uncannycookie]

Actually genuinenly enjoying my customer service job sometimes

Customer (calling from Ireland): “Yes hello, I would like to -”

Sheep in the background: *gentle baa*

Customer: “Uh, sorry, what I want to do is -”

Sheep: *slightly more insistent baa*

Customer: “No, not now! -cough- Excuse me. I have a reservation and -”

Sheep: *VERY LOUD ACCUSATORY BAA*

Customer: “Arnulf! Please be quiet, I am on the phone! … Sorry, I sincerely apologize on behalf of Arnulf.”

me: “I love and forgive him.”

Customer: “Don’t, he doesn’t deserve it. Anyway, I’m calling about -”

Arnulf: *small, very self-satisfied baa*

[totallynotsarah]

I still love this lol

[uncannycookie]

It’s ruining my notes dude :’D

[pillmillipedes]

I'm so fucking normal that regular expressions are just expressions to me

[toaarcan]

Happy Moon Landing Day!

[ghost-mantis]

On this, the anniversary of the lunar landing, let us also celebrate the greatest post-mission achievement by a crewman.

I refer, of course, to the time Buzz Aldrin (age 72 at the time) cold-cocked a moon landing conspiracy theorist straight in his smug face after being accused of being a coward, liar, and thief.

Yes, someone was indeed dumb enough to tell a man so unafraid of death that he was willing to go into the void on a fragile explosive rocket, a coward.

Said dumbass was filming this confrontation as some sort of proof of moon fraud, but has instead captured this glorious moment of near-cosmic justice for us to loop for all time.

Aldrin was not charged with any crime. He should have been given another medal for public service.

[ziggy-scardust]

This is a stellar accomplishment and does indeed provide us with a cosmic-justice gif for the ages. HOWEVER. In terms of post-mission achievements, his Apollo 11 crewmate Mike Collins holds the crown, in my opinion, for his role in getting the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum built. He was the very model of a modern Major General, indeed.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

weighted blanket's not enough i need to be compressed by a hydraulic press

[sanguine-squid]

where is any higher quality version of this image

[satellites-halo]

can't find anything other than this which has maybe 5 extra pixels

[sergal]

[solitairie]

now dance fucker dance man he never had a chance

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #14,658:

When you come up with a really good idea for a piece of fan work, only to find someone else had already done it, and ten times better than you ever could.😔

[lytefoot]

This is, 100%, where the "two cakes" theory come in.

I have, stored on my kindle (so, the fics I reread) three different versions of the same fic premise, same fandom, same ship, mostly the same plot points, executed slightly differently by different authors. It's definitely the case that one of them is objectively "worse" than the others (executed with less technical skill), but it's fun for other reasons, and it's fun to have different versions of the same story.

(Note that I don't think any of the authors copied each other--it's a fairly obvious premise for the fandom and ship, they just had the same idea and executed it differently.)