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#LONG LONG POST.
skunkes · 6 months
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sorry if this is a silly question but do you like. sit down and talk with your ocs in your head? and they tell you about themselves? how do you get them to reveal information....i am begging mine to let me know them orz
I do! In several different ways ^_^ the trick is to think of yourself as a character in your brain theater... ill mostly be explaining thru examples and using silly language ^_^ and its more How I Do It vs a how to....
"Sitting down and talking to em" interrogation style only happens before they're fully formed. when talon still didnt have very many traits it was like we were in a white room with 2 chairs... although you COULD make a scenario out of this its usually the Before for me. final tweaks in the form of basic traits and info before sending em out for further development
the way i get ocs to tell me about themselves is more thru actions! with talon I "locked him in a room" with al in the form of imagining how they'd meet. because I set it in talon's decrepit home with no running water or electricity, there come questions like. would he be accommodating? would he explain the vampirism or just rely on flashing his fangs or hiding them until its time to bite? these arent questions i actually went into the scenario having, but as you Play Dolls its questions that get answered anyway, ykwim? (although you could also go into the simulation (lol) with questions you want answered!) And its your brain so you can do as many takes and tweaks as you want, and things develop as you imagine the same thing, or different things, which all inform a character.
Scenarios could be anything. Im a serial daydreamer so anything goes depending on how bored I am or what im doing... and just like with real people, every scenario is a way to learn more about somebody...! It's like improv in your brain as you think up how they'd react and respond to things, and what they'd say. But also, going with your oc to the grocery store or a restaurant or to slay a dragon could give you insight into their behavior but likely not any info about their trauma or whatever, just like real people (but it also depends on the person) (and the oc!)
I DO have "sit down and talk" scenarios once i feel ive learned enough standard, early level friendship stuff about em though. It's much fun if you set the scene in your mind to mimic a real life Deep Conversation session. Sitting in the backyard on those plastic chairs, or aimless car ride at night. right now the one I keep going back to is just. Loafed in bed when you're really sleepy and just starting to say anything about anything and maybe get a little sentimental. sometimes its just me talking but I obvs have the ability to imagine how he'd be interpreting that in his brain, ykwim?? You play several roles at once I guess. It's like the sims, switching back and forth between povs, but the level of immersion i get into never feels like I'm Making Them Say It, it just feels natural at that point because I've learned enough.
There's also information that's shared by you figuring out what they'd Think (as above) vs what they say which is also fun characterwise... AND ALSO while im daydreaming scenarios I do multiple takes to find their voice. Like, I'm an overexplainer, a detailed therapy-speak-er. Sometimes I catch myself giving ocs that Voice and I have to do a retake. Like hold on, Talon would NOT be introspective. He wouldn't share all that shit I just "made" him say even if it is true and now I know about it. He'd say something insanely vague and confusing if anything at all. Let's take it from the top. etc
It rlly is about immersion! You have to have fun with it! Sometimes it's so Real to me that I genuinely can't develop an oc further because I cant make something up for them and they wont "tell me", which means I just have to spend more time with em I guess! or maybe need to leave em alone for a bit. or maybe ill never know (<- which also tells me about em!) just like real people. treat the fake people like real people in your fake dollhouse brain theater sims lot puppet show simulation.... also i added more in the tags bc i didnt know where to put it in the main txt 😭
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trainingdummyrabbit · 9 months
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I always see a ton of Pokemon AUs for Demon Slayer, but I never see any Digimon AUs! For the AU ask if you're still taking them
. okok iam Absolutely still taking these and ill do my best but anon this is a really funny ask because i. do have a mini digimon au. like its ridiculously self-indulgent and tiny but. getting this was like a kick in the shins (affectionate) WAHAHAHA
so!! i hope you dont mind if this is very blatantly biased, but its certainly a starting point! as well, i havent really interacted w/ digimon since watching the anime years ago + playing world dusk and championship a while ago, so i wont have as much knowledge to pick from as i would other things! with the disclaimers out of the way...!
...hey what if we isekai'd the tokitwins? (post-writing edit: this ended up over 2k words long. This Is A Warning.)
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so, you've been oh-so-luckily chosen to be digidestined and whisked away to an unfamiliar world where just about Everything wants to kill you, you have No way to contact your own world, and you have No idea how to get back. great! cool! excellent!
introducing our funny little guys of the week: yuichiro and muichiro tokito! just them for now, before i scope-creep myself to death. but, that aside, you can't be digidestined without a funny little digital partner of your own! so, introducing:
-Patamon, Muichiro's partner! an observant yet skittish little thing that never tends to stray far from its partner. it takes its job very seriously, oftentimes coming across as a bit fussy. even so, it is very easily overwhelmed and may need encouragement to press on. as well, it also tends to take things at face value more often than not, making it very earnest but Very gullible. -DemiDevimon, Yuichiro's partner! a mischeivous little thing that rarely seems to take things very seriously. its defiant and a bit self-centered, and honestly at times seems to genuinely only stick around the twins because theyre entertaining to mess with. it's here for a good time and Nothing Else. despite its yapping, it does occasionally let a bit of protectiveness slip through-- always fiercely sticking by them despite its nigh-constant complaints about how it wants to leave.
this ragtag group of four must make their way across the digital world to find a way back home-- and hopefully remain alive in the process. in such an unfamiliar and dangerous world, however, problems are sure to arise.
the twins, of course, stick together-- but more and more often, their desires and personalities begin to clash in ways that make it more difficult to progress. it's easy to keep your head low and follow along, but just how long can you really take that-- how long can you pretend it's okay? it's easy to keep a brave face, but there's only so much you can do with what you have-- and what you convince yourself that you don't. there's only so long you can stay in such a high-pressure environment before something begins to break.
throughout their journey, they'll discover more outlandish and mystifying places, meet more new faces, and uncover strange secrets-- what's the connection between their digimon partners? how did they get sent to the digital world in the first place? and most importantly: why does this world seem to already recognize them?
///
with that out of the way... time for the fiddly bits.
the twins have an arc with each other much alike the one they get in canon-- but pressed a bit further. the two learn to stand their ground, speak their mind-- and ultimately, learn to really, truly trust one another.
yui oftentimes takes the lead, and tends to do a better job keeping everything in order-- but... he's still just a kid. a kid that cares deeply for his brother, and would do anything to keep him safe. but in a world like this, there's not much that he Can do. so he plays the part as best he can-- even if it means that he has to make hard choices.
mui, on the other hand, wants desperately to be able to help-- he slowly starts getting bolder and more forward, away from that more shy personality he'd been known to have. of course it was more dangerous. of course they didn't know what would happen next. but he would never forgive himself if he just did Nothing.
at its core, the two begin to actually almost switch places through their arc-- mui becoming more active and yui more passive-- as they make their way forward and sort themselves (and each other) out.
and of course: their partners have a whole Thing(tm) going on too! with the twins And between each other.
mui+pata are like odd little peas in a pod, oftentimes found staring at something or other with their big ol owly eyes, going back and forth over this-and-that about it in a way that makes sense to nobody but them. pata knows more about the world and where they might be going, but mui is a bit of an emotional rock for it-- providing encouragement and talking it through any roadblocks it may have come across. theyre odd little enablers! at least, when pata isn't pulling mui's hair over the fact that theyre going the wrong way, they went the wrong way we have to go that way-- no, thats the wrong way too we-- were lost were lost oh no were lost what do we DO--
yui+dDevi are. a goddamn mess. dDevi loves messing with this kid, always talking at him like it knows better-- which it does, technically, but it doesnt have to say it like that, shut up. it talks like a shitty older brother as if it wasn't leagues smaller than him and shaped exactly like a kickball. (yui doesn't vocalize this. he is so very tempted to, though.) despite all the ribbing, yui is pretty much the only person it'll talk seriously with. obviously yui is rather frustrated with it at times, but he can tell it does genuinely mean well. mostly. they squabble, but they do keep each other from doing anything too stupid. and further than that: even if he doesn't say anything, yui can tell when there's something on its mind.
the digiduo are... odd, certainly. but, strangely, there seems to be some sort of tension between the two-- they... really dont seem to get along. pata is deeply distrustful of dDevi, noting its existence as an evil digimon. like, it's in the name! devimon! not to mention how often it leads them astray or messes with them just for kicks-- something's up and it's not sure what.
on the other hand, dDevi doesn't much like pata either. it's a stuck-up killjoy thats convinced it's always right when it can barely make any good calls. always hiding behind its whole spiel of "good" and "evil" like it's so trustworthy. it doesn't even know what it's talking about half the time! if it's going to lecture them, it should at the very least be right about it. get a reason to be upset other than "that ones clearly evil, look at it!"
and then... there's the memories. or rather, the lack thereof. both seem to remember parts of some grand legend that they no longer have the ability to recall the whole of. something important to their reason of being-- and the presence of the digidestined twins.
pata seems particularly insistent of it being a prophecy, a series of steps to follow that foretell what and who they should be. (something about it seems to stress them out particularly badly, though... what exactly is it that they're living up to? why doesn't it know?)
dDevi... pretends not to care, at least. but it recalls the legend too, and hearing the fragments of it seems to make it upset. it wants nothing to do with the legend, and just wants to do... anything else. (anything to get further away from that stupid story. it's not one to be shackled by expectations like that.)
and again, the twins seem to differ on what they make of the story. yui sides with pata, believing its their best bet to at the very least figuring out how to get home. mui, on the other hand, slowly begins to wonder what exactly the gaps in the legend could mean, and wants to find out what it truly is. it's hard to follow a broken path. after all, who's to say its really a path at all? which brings us to... a bit of a conflict.
///
after a particularly rough leg of the journey, things start to get... difficult. theyve had little to no luck learning much of Anything of the way forward-- and things are just getting harder and harder as they go. yui isn't sure how much more they can really take of this. they're starting to barely make it out of these situations alive, so... so maybe they're better off just accepting it. nothing's leading them anywhere, nothing is making sense-- they might as well just... find a place to hide and keep their heads low. live it out as best they can. (he isn't sure how much more they can take.)
mui, of course, protests-- there were so many more places they haven't looked through yet! there was no telling if they found something or not unless they went for it! it was always going to be hard-- they couldn't just give up and wait for the difficulty to find Them. (he can't stand the idea of just giving up after all that...)
the two begin bickering, and it gets... hard. pata starts experiencing some doubt, unsure of if they should really be pressing on into certain death-- they'd just had some ridiculously close calls, and maybe waiting it out would reveal something..? (the knowledge of the unfinished legend hangs above its head, and the thought of unravelling it... is starting to give them a bad feeling.) dDevi doesn't want to sit around and do nothing while waiting for death-- that's boring and pathetic. itd much rather do something with itself even if it's scary. (it needs to know the truth. why so many others know them, why it keeps getting such bitter stares... why? it's frustrating.)
and the bickering turns to arguing. after a few too many harsh words from both sides... they split up. mui heading off with dDevi to find out what was really going on, and yui with pata to... find somewhere safe. figure it out.
for yui and pata, it's... a bit of a long journey. the two rarely speak, mostly just quick words to keep each other alert and avoid attention. yui is mostly pushed forward by his stubbornness, but... it does bother him. it bothers him a lot. he's afraid, he's worried, and he doesn't know what to do. he wants to figure it out, he wants to have all the answers. but he doesn't, and it was stupid to think he ever couldve. legend or not-- prophecy or not, they were just kids. what could they really do? what were they supposed to do?
and as it turned out, pata was worried sick as well. it isnt until a quiet moment that yui catches pata crying-- and they finally talk. because pata hated this too. it hated feeling like it should be able to lead them, but being unable to because of the gaps in its knowledge. it hated giving up, because it knew they needed to do something, and it was letting them down by doing nothing. and most of all... it missed mui. it argued because it was afraid, but it knew this was no better. more than anything, it just wanted to help.
they both knew they couldn't keep going with this. if not for their own sakes, then for the others'.
team mui's progress is... equally difficult. it was already hard enough moving about with a halved party, but they also aren't with their bonded partners, so their Actual Useable FIrepower is much much more limited. the entire time, dDevi goes on and on insulting the other pair, insisting it was really about time this went and happened, and that their own pair was obviously right all along. mui stays quiet through much of this, but after a particularly cruel jab, mui snaps back.
because he knew it didn't really mean any of it. dDevi was smug and irritating, sure, but it was just about always a joke. it was never this mean about it... unless it was actually, personally upset. that was a lot of talk for someone who insisted it didn't care. and even if it were to deny it, mui wouldn't stand for someone saying the people he cared about weren't worth anything. of course they were afraid-- they all were. answers were never easy. it was why they were working so hard to begin with.
and dDevi was genuinely taken aback-- because it was always convinced that mui was the pushover of the group. but just like that, he'd managed to completely read its actions without so much as a word. and... he was right. it wasnt proud of what it said, but it had to stand by it. it just didnt know how else to justify itself-- how else to keep going. but... all of this-- everything had always been for each other, hadn't it? and they certainly wasn't going to stop there.
they just had to find a way to convince the others.
of course, nothing was ever easy. its the risk they knew they were taking, but... maybe a risk they weren't quite prepared for. wherever they go, together or not, some new threat will always find a way to rear its head. but between the two of them, there wasn't much they could do to fight back. and they full well wouldn't have been able to make it... had it not been for team yui showing up at a crucial moment, yuichiro putting himself directly in the line of danger to draw attention from mui-- giving him and pata a chance to actually fight back now that they were reunited.
it's a messy fight, but with all of them together-- and a newfound but concrete trust-- they manage to push through relatively unscathed-- if a bit battered on yui's end. after a few moments to make sure everyone was all right (and ironically, to scold each other over being so reckless,) they finally get the chance to talk. and... to apologize.
///
and now for more scattered notes before i end up writing another minific in a tumblr post.
the legend goes very similarly to a typical fairy tale-- a battle between forces of good and evil, and the champions of each. long ago, there was another pair of digidestined that stumbled across the digital world, and very quickly became unrivaled in power. one half, however, became corrupted by the allure of strength and jealousy, splitting both the digital world and their familial bond. as things came to a boiling point, their conflict brought unseen destruction to the digital world, each of the chosen digimon destroying each other in the battle. crushed and in denial (for varying different reasons,) the old digidestined simply... vanished, one day, never to be seen again. as for their chosen digimon, their data was wiped nearly clean, to be born anew for when they were needed again.
as a whole, it's a story of forging bonds, learning to trust, and breaking cycles of violence.
dDevi hates the idea of digivolving due to lingering memories of that past life. it refuses to interact with it at all, and commits itself to just having a good time and living a life it can enjoy. it doesn't want to become... that again.
pata remembers that betrayal and remembers something awful happening, but... something about having to distrust the other makes it deeply, deeply sad. it want to believe in the best in dDevi, but it also feels the pull of responsibility of having to live up to the legend. that was the only thing it felt it could trust.
the old digidestined are, of course, the tsugikuni twins. whether they show up again or not is still in the air-- yoriichi being pata's old partner and michikatsu being dDevi's.
i dont feel like digging through the digiwiki for another hour but id like to somehow integrate dDevi's original digivolution line being more in line w/ canon, going all in on the Hehoo Evil(tm) thing, but with yui, it follows a more neutral route, following its own desires rather than the course of what the story Expects of it.
SO !!! YEAH!!! DIGIMON AU!!!! i care about this a very normal amount, and if you read this far: thank you, and I Am So Sorry.
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whiteshipnightjar · 3 months
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Zoozve, my beloved
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in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off
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coffinwoodx · 5 months
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ok so for those of you who don’t know, there’s this twitter account of a japanese local hero mascot named dentman who went viral recently due to this tweet
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but yeah he saw the tweet. and his response went viral as well (which is how i found his account)
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and he just has like. hourly posts reminding you to brush your teeth
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oh and his rival? his name is mr. mutans. whenever dentman posts he makes a post of his own, ofc
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but THAT’S NOT ALL. literally while making this post i found a THIRD ACCOUNT that’s all about taking your meds
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safe to say i’m losing my mind
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anyway the point of all this was that people are ALREADY beginning to draw them ship art 😭
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and the reactions are everything
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I CANT ADD ANY MORE IMAGES BUT TRUST ME THIS IS SO FUNNY
toxic one-sided dentman yaoi wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card but it DEFINITELY IS NOW!
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great-and-small · 3 months
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Do y’all wanna hear about some absolutely crazy shit going down in the birding world right now
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powdermelonkeg · 3 months
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Important rules/tips I've learned as an adult that helped with anxiety
If people are mad at you, it's their responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess
If they're mad at you in secret anyways, they're the ones in the wrong, not you
If people don't like what you're doing, it's their responsibility to tell you
If they say it's fine when it's really not, they're the ones in the wrong, not you
People are allowed to be wrong about you
If they are wrong about you, wait for them to bring it up, because if you try to, you will inevitably overcorrect
Some people are committed to misunderstanding you. You will not win arguments against them. Yes, even if you explain your point of view. They do not care. Drop it
The worst thing that will happen from a first-time offense is being told not to do it again. Maybe with a replacement if you broke something
You can improve relationships and gauge willingness to talk to you by giving compliments. It's like a daily log-in bonus and nobody thinks twice about it
Most things are better after you sleep on them
Most things are better after you have a meal
Most things are better after you shower
Your brain makes up consequences that are irrational. If the worst DOES come to pass and someone acts like they do in your head, they are overreacting, and you are entitled to say "what the fuck"
If your chest hurts after you feel like you've made a social error, that's called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. It means your anxiety is so bad that it's causing you physical pain, which is a good indicator that you're overreacting. Tense yourself, hold it for 20 seconds, let it go, then find a distraction
If you're suddenly angry at someone after you feel like you made a social error, that's also rejection-sensitive dysphoria. You are going to feel annoyed about it for awhile, but being genuinely pissed off is your anxiety trying to find something to blame to take the responsibility off your shoulders, and getting scared because it can't justify itself. Deep breaths, ask yourself how much you ACTUALLY want to be angry at that person, then find a distraction
"Sour grapes" is more healthy for you than stewing. Deciding you don't like someone who's perpetually annoyed with you, won't talk to you, etc. makes letting go of anxiety over them easier
If people don't like you, they will find reasons to be annoyed with you when they otherwise wouldn't. If people do like you, they will find reasons NOT to be annoyed with you when they otherwise would. People do not ping-pong between the two
You DO have to make a conscious choice not to think about something. If you're having trouble circling back to it, say out loud that you're done thinking about it and why. Then find a distraction
When you're upset, part of you is going to want to make false bids for attention (suddenly texting differently, heavy sighs, etc. but when someone asks you about it, you tell them it's nothing). Do not listen to it. You gain nothing from it except more misery
People like to help people they care about. It makes them feel good about themselves
If you think you're insufferable for needing help, see above. Yes, really. They get a serotonin kick from it
If you think you're insufferable for mannerisms you have, you either have to consciously choose not to do them, or accept that they're part of the package that comes with you. Being apologetic about existing does nothing except make you more miserable
If you do things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it makes it easier to do them when you hate it
If you avoid things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it reinforces and magnifies how bad it feels when you hate it
Seriously. Read those last two points again. If you can make yourself make a phone call when you've got nothing to lose, you will slowly lose that panic you get when you have to make a phone call you haven't prepared for. You do have to CONSCIOUSLY take that step
Hobbies that make you care for something get rid of that nagging feeling that you're not doing enough. Go grow some rosemary
If you don't engage with your hobbies regularly, you will feel miserable, and anxiety will spike
Hobbies are things that give you a bit of happiness. They do not have to be organized or named to do that. Go be creative in something. Play with coins. Make up lists. Start a new WIP
No one cares what you look like
If people point out things they don't like about how you look unprompted, they are being rude. You are entitled to say "what the fuck"
People who like you will find you pretty to some degree. Minor things about your appearance go completely unnoticed. Literally, scars and dots and blemishes do not register to someone who likes your company
You looking at yourself in the mirror is 10x more closely than anyone is going to look at you
If you're anxious about your body type, and you're creatively inclined, make/write an oc with that same shape. Give them nice things and make other characters love them. Put them on adventures. You'll start to see yourself in the mirror more kindly
You care about wording and perfect lines/colors way more than anyone who views your work ever will
Sometimes when you're upset, you're going to feel like not eating. Do not do that. Not eating makes you more miserable
Same with things you normally enjoy. Denying yourself helps no one. You are punishing yourself for being sad. Stop it
Both of these will take conscious decision to break the habit of. Make yourself do it anyways, and it will slowly get easier
And again, to reiterate: If someone is mad at you, it is THEIR responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess
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secondlina · 1 year
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Check out my ongoing comic Crow Time. It has crows, and also neat pantheons of epic beasties.
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adyophene · 2 months
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Husk's secret weapon
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kaftan · 8 months
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[ID: a screenshot of the “Bad Art” coloumn of the table shown in the original tweet.
The sections are: “makes you feel weird”, “saps energy”, “sets off a downward spiral”, “confuses the mind”, “produces stagnation”, “weed” (as a drug analogy), “unstructured and obsessively anti-rhythm”, “instinctively recognised as a scam”, “a malevolently bad map”, “obfuscation, lies, resentment”, “wises to destroy the canon”, “mocks the concept of values”, “enfeebles life”, “spits on beauty and actively celebrates ugliness”, and “bad art is whining, coping, seething, and a waste of time”.
End ID]
Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist
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suiheisen · 1 month
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"i would know her by reformed body alone... i would know her in death"
also... there's official art
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sedgewick-gayble · 6 months
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1920s tumblr simulator
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🎞 noirsuatoir Follow
Private detectives useless as hell all I do is sit behind a desk dramatically lit in black and white stripes by my half open blinds and smoke cigars. Living the dream
#privatedetective #detectivelife #i have 19 unsolved cases
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🎷 aceofspades Follow
prohibition hitting hard...making some bathtup gin tonight. DM for recipe
🎷aceofspades Follow
hopital
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🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow
Clara Bow is 20??!!!
🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow
SHE SHOULD BE AT THE SPEAKEASY
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🎙 fancy-nancyboy Follow
Smuggling some moonshine in my coat oh boy I sure do hope no big scary prohibition officer comes andbpins me and handcuffs me hahha oh nooo that would suck
#wink wink
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🍸 gladragz Follow
my thirsty ass could NEVER be a bootlegger!!!!
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🚬 runrummer Follow
Anyone else think some of those jc leyendecker drawings are kind of yaoi ....
#those arrow collar advertisments got me feelin smthn #jc leyendecker #jcleyendecker #jcl
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📻 flapperfanny-fan973 Follow
she speak on my easy till I jazz
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sayruq · 2 months
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phantomrose96 · 2 months
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If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.
(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)
Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.
Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.
Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and
But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.
So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.
But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.
But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.
So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.
You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.
The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.
Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.
Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.
You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.
Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.
Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.
Never mind that last part.
And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.
Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."
To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.
It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.
So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:
Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.
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weaselle · 2 months
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it was too much i had to make my own post
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line cook here. ACCURATE
if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.
it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.
The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.
So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.
(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)
Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.
More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.
So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.
all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.
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while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays
Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.
Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.
The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.
Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself
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you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)
If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.
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Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there
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Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in
oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?
water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.
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Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!
The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.
You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)
THE POINT IS
by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.
For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.
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if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.
you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.
See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?
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those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...
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And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...
Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.
In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.
IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO
open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.
Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.
It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.
but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.
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seenthisepisode · 3 months
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no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity
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