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hellsitegenetics · 2 months

Note

genome THIS (pleag. it would make me happy):

STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITNER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITNER

STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT JURGEN LEITENER I HATE HIM SO MUCH WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MANY FUCKED UP BOOKS WHY DID HE DECIDE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT JUST SET THEM LOOSE IS HE DEAD IS HE A BASTARD MAN HAS SUCH A VISCERAL AFFECT ON ME NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM NEVER SEEN THIS MANS FACE AND I KNOW HE HAS THE WORLDS SHITTIEST BEARD GET AWAY FROM ME

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said jurgen leitners waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down

if i have to deal with jurgen leitner speaking one word in person on voice in podcast not only will i close the tab i will delete my bookmark out of spite and have to rewatch the entire series again for the experience of being able to skip all the times when he is mentioned or alive

i dont even know why i hate him so much. he collects books but i am just mad because i am angy

he better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if hes just some rich shithead whos a fan of creepypasta and wanted the irl version ill go ham

BETTER have had a book make him kill a man cuz if he didnt Im going to make him

paypal.com/IFuckingHateJurgenLeitner

episodes not even about him. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to maybe be his library and I lost it

where the fuck is jurgen leitner if hes still alive im going to so deeply wish he wasnt

crusty old man

ill punch leitner and his sad frail old man twig bones will simply flake apart under my epic huge meat fist and he will disintegrate until all thats left is one final book he kept on him at all times simply titled Now You Fucked Up in ancient yiddish

im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point

i hope theres a date given for when jurgen died or will die so i can make it a reminder on my phone

everyday once a year i will see it and do anything but pay respects to the man who had so many fucked up if true books

String identified:

T T TCG G T G A CCTG T ATG AT ATA TA T AATA T GGT C T CC AG T T C TCG G T

T G TA AT G T AT C A A C C T C A A T T T T A A ATA A A C A CA ACT T T T A AC A A T TTT A GT AA

at t gt t a a g a g t atg g t t gttg t ac

a t a t g t ag c cat t c t ta t a t t a a t atc t t aga t c g a t a t t t a

t at c. cct t a t a ca a ag

tt a c act t a t t c ta a a cata a at t g a

TT a a a a a a c t gg t a

aa.c/cgatgt

t at . ag t at t a a a t t

t c g t t a gg t at

ct a

c t a a a a tg a aat c g at t a tgat t a tat t a t at a t tt c act

t atg tatg at t t

t a at g g ca a t a

a c a a t a atg t a ct t t a a a c t

Closest match: Calendula officinalis genome assembly, chromosome: 11 Common name: Marigold

#tumblr genetics #genetics #marigold #flowers #the magnus archives #jurgen leitner #sent to me #requests #completely-real-and-normal-human #asks

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy. He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan

The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would blend in with the crowd.

Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast Dudesy released a "George Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny) "comedy" special:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/

As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit, assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.

This is an old technology story: I had a friend who was contracted to livestream a Canadian awards show in the earliest days of the web. They booked in multiple ISDN lines from Bell Canada and set up an impressive Mbone encoding station on the wings of the stage. Only one problem: the ISDNs flaked (this was a common problem with ISDNs!). There was no way to livecast the show.

Nevertheless, my friend's boss's ordered him to go on pretending to livestream the show. They made a big deal of it, with all kinds of cool visualizers showing the progress of this futuristic marvel, which the cameras frequently lingered on, accompanied by overheated narration from the show's hosts.

The weirdest part? The next day, my friend – and many others – heard from satisfied viewers who boasted about how amazing it had been to watch this show on their computers, rather than their TVs. Remember: there had been no stream. These people had just assumed that the problem was on their end �� that they had failed to correctly install and configure the multiple browser plugins required. Not wanting to admit their technical incompetence, they instead boasted about how great the show had been. It was the Emperor's New Livestream.

Perhaps that's what happened to the Dudesy bros. But there's another possibility: maybe they were captured by their own imaginations. In "Genesis," an essay in the 2007 collection The Creationists, EL Doctorow (no relation) describes how the ancient Babylonians were so poleaxed by the strange wonder of the story they made up about the origin of the universe that they assumed that it must be true. They themselves weren't nearly imaginative enough to have come up with this super-cool tale, so God must have put it in their minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

That seems to have been what happened to the Air Force colonel who falsely claimed that a "rogue AI-powered drone" had spontaneously evolved the strategy of killing its operator as a way of clearing the obstacle to its main objective, which was killing the enemy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/

This never happened. It was – in the chagrined colonel's words – a "thought experiment." In other words, this guy – who is the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations – was so excited about his own made up story that he forgot it wasn't true and told a whole conference-room full of people that it had actually happened.

Maybe that's what happened with the George Carlinbot 3000: the Dudesy dudes fell in love with their own vision for a fully automated luxury Carlinbot and forgot that they had made it up, so they just cheated, assuming they would eventually be able to make a fully operational Battle Carlinbot.

That's basically the Theranos story: a teenaged "entrepreneur" was convinced that she was just about to produce a seemingly impossible, revolutionary diagnostic machine, so she faked its results, abetted by investors, customers and others who wanted to believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

The thing about stories of AI miracles is that they are peddled by both AI's boosters and its critics. For boosters, the value of these tall tales is obvious: if normies can be convinced that AI is capable of performing miracles, they'll invest in it. They'll even integrate it into their product offerings and then quietly hire legions of humans to pick up the botshit it leaves behind. These abettors can be relied upon to keep the defects in these products a secret, because they'll assume that they've committed an operator error. After all, everyone knows that AI can do anything, so if it's not performing for them, the problem must exist between the keyboard and the chair.

But this would only take AI so far. It's one thing to hear implausible stories of AI's triumph from the people invested in it – but what about when AI's critics repeat those stories? If your boss thinks an AI can do your job, and AI critics are all running around with their hair on fire, shouting about the coming AI jobpocalypse, then maybe the AI really can do your job?

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

There's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype," coined by Lee Vinsel, who points to many reasons for its persistence, including the fact that it constitutes an "academic business-model":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That's four reasons for AI hype:

to win investors and customers;

to cover customers' and users' embarrassment when the AI doesn't perform;

AI dreamers so high on their own supply that they can't tell truth from fantasy;

A business-model for doomsayers who form an unholy alliance with AI companies by parroting their silliest hype in warning form.

But there's a fifth motivation for criti-hype: to simplify otherwise tedious and complex situations. As Jamie Zawinski writes, this is the motivation behind the obvious lie that the "autonomous cars" on the streets of San Francisco have no driver:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/driverless-cars-always-have-a-driver/

GM's Cruise division was forced to shutter its SF operations after one of its "self-driving" cars dragged an injured pedestrian for 20 feet:

https://www.wired.com/story/cruise-robotaxi-self-driving-permit-revoked-california/

One of the widely discussed revelations in the wake of the incident was that Cruise employed 1.5 skilled technical remote overseers for every one of its "self-driving" cars. In other words, they had replaced a single low-waged cab driver with 1.5 higher-paid remote operators.

As Zawinski writes, SFPD is well aware that there's a human being (or more than one human being) responsible for every one of these cars – someone who is formally at fault when the cars injure people or damage property. Nevertheless, SFPD and SFMTA maintain that these cars can't be cited for moving violations because "no one is driving them."

But figuring out who which person is responsible for a moving violation is "complicated and annoying to deal with," so the fiction persists.

(Zawinski notes that even when these people are held responsible, they're a "moral crumple zone" for the company that decided to enroll whole cities in nonconsensual murderbot experiments.)

Automation hype has always involved hidden humans. The most famous of these was the "mechanical Turk" hoax: a supposed chess-playing robot that was just a puppet operated by a concealed human operator wedged awkwardly into its carapace.

This pattern repeats itself through the ages. Thomas Jefferson "replaced his slaves" with dumbwaiters – but of course, dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, they hide slaves:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

The modern Mechanical Turk – a division of Amazon that employs low-waged "clickworkers," many of them overseas – modernizes the dumbwaiter by hiding low-waged workforces behind a veneer of automation. The MTurk is an abstract "cloud" of human intelligence (the tasks MTurks perform are called "HITs," which stands for "Human Intelligence Tasks").

This is such a truism that techies in India joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians." Or, to use Jathan Sadowski's wonderful term: "Potemkin AI":

https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/

This Potemkin AI is everywhere you look. When Tesla unveiled its humanoid robot Optimus, they made a big flashy show of it, promising a $20,000 automaton was just on the horizon. They failed to mention that Optimus was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Likewise with the famous demo of a "full self-driving" Tesla, which turned out to be a canned fake:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

The most shocking and terrifying and enraging AI demos keep turning out to be "Just A Guy" (in Molly White's excellent parlance):

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1751670561606971895

And yet, we keep falling for it. It's no wonder, really: criti-hype rewards so many different people in so many different ways that it truly offers something for everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Ross Breadmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossbreadmore/5169298162/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #ai #absent indians #mechanical turks #scams #george carlin #comedy #body-snatchers #fraud #theranos #guys in robot suits #criti-hype #machine learning #fake it til you make it #too good to fact-check #mturk #deepfakes

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byooregard · 11 months

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TAKUTO MARUKI? STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING TAKUTO MARUKI GODDAMN FOOL PAPER WRITING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY TAKUTO MARUKI

STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT TAKUTO MARUKI I HATE HIM SO MUCH WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MUCH FUCKED UP RESEARCH WHY DID HE DECIDE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT JUST SET THEM LOOSE IS HE DEAD IS HE A BASTARD MAN HAS SUCH A VISCERAL EFFECT ON ME NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM NEVER SEEN THIS MANS FACE AND I KNOW HE HAS THE WORLDS SHITTIEST BEARD GET AWAY FROM ME.

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said takuto maruki was on the other side i would piss on god's feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down.

if i have to deal with takuto maruki speaking one word in person on voice in podcast not only will i close the tab i will delete my save out of spite and have to replay the entire game again for the experience of getting to skip any time when he is mentioned or alive

i dont even know why i hate him so much. he writes papers but i am just mad because i am angy

he better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if he's just some academic shithead who's a fan of fix it fics and wanted the irl version ill go ham BETTER have had the metaverse make him kill a man because if he didn't im gonna make him

paypal.com/IFuckingHateTakutoMaruki

arcs not even about him. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to maybe be his palace and I lost it where the fuck is takuto maruki if he's still alive im going to deeply wish he wasnt

crusty old man

i'll punch maruki and his sad school counselor twig bones will simply flake apart under my epic huge meat fist and he will disintegrate until all that's left is one paper he kept on him at all times simply titled Now You Fucked Up in ancient Yiddish.

im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point

i hope theres a date given for when takuto died or will die so i can set a reminder for it on my phone

everyday once a year i will look at it and do anything but pay respect for the man who had so much fucked up if true ideas

#not tagging him but #p5 #p5r #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #cleb talky

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theillegalpundealer · 7 months

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Rating podcast men based on how likely i'd be able to beat them in a fight

Jonathan Sims tma: rat man. he's 90 pounds sopping wet. an angry weasel could easily beat him. i feel like one good punch would do him in he only survived the podcast through sheer stubbornness

Cecil Palmer wtnv: he'd trip on his own feather boa and manage to knock himself out before a single punch was thrown. and if he somehow managed not to do that i feel like he could hold his own for like thirty seconds and then get folded

Arthur Lester malevolent: do you think i have a death wish i would die immediately. it wouldnt even be a fight to the death and i would die within five seconds. this man has killed before and will kill again and i am so so afraid of him

Obituary Writer death by dying: i feel like he could hold his own. like i think it'd genuinely be a pretty equal fight. there is a 50/50 chance id die in some entirely unrelated and mysterious way but he'd write me a great obituary and be a great sport about it

Warren Godby red valley: seeing as warren literally killed a man and went to prison i dont think i could rate my chances all that great here. like he's nice and chill now (mostly) but still. like i dont think id die but he would totally kick my ass

Gordon Porlock red valley: okay i know warrens already there and i might not stand a chance against warren but gordon? he would flake apart like a wet napkin. mans is jon sims levels of pathetic. probably worse. i feel like if you bumped into him too hard he'd disintegrate or something

Sydney Sargent ch&t: i would feel soso bad but sydney is going down. like i would hate it. i would want to give him a piece of bread and butter and send him on his merry way but if i had to fight him there is no way in hell he could win

#these were all the ones i could think of on the fly #but if anyone has more feel free to send them over and ill rate em too #tma #wtnv #malevolent #death by dying #red valley #ch&t #sof speaks

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incidentalcomics · 5 months

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Poetry Comics Month, Day 23: Found Lost Poem by Guest Artist Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is a children’s book author and illustrator and the creator of The Yarn podcast. Travis’s most recent picture book is JUST ONE FLAKE, about the quest to catch a perfect snowflake. He also wrote BLUE FLOATS AWAY, which I had the honor to illustrate. In addition to being a dynamic storyteller, Travis is a connector in the kid lit community and an enthusiastic supporter of children’s literature. Listen to his podcast, follow his blog 100 Scope Notes, and find his books at your favorite library or bookstore.

#poetry comics month #poetry comics

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qc-wiggles · 10 months

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JURGEN LEITNER?

STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITENER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING JURGEIN LEITNER

STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT JURGEIN LEITENER I HATE HIM SO MUCH WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MANY FUCKED UP BOOKS WHY DID HE DECIDE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT JUST SET THEM LOOSE IS HE DEAD IS HE A BASTARD MAN HAS SUCH A VISCERAL AFFECT ON ME NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM NEVER SEEN THIS MANS FACE AND I KNOW HE HAS THE WORLDS SHITTIEST BEARD GET AWAY FROM ME

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said jurgein leitners waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down

if i have to deal with jurgein leitner speaking one word in person on voice in podcast not only will i close the tab i will delete my bookmark out of spite and have to rewatch the entire series again for the experience of being able to skip all the times when he is mentioned or alive

i dont even know why i hate him so much. he collects books but i am just mad because i am angy

he better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if hes just some rich shithead whos a fan of creepypasta and wanted the irl version ill go ham

BETTER have had a book make him kill a man cuz if he didnt Im going to make him

paypal.com/IFuckingHateJurgeinLeitner

episodes not even about him. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to maybe be his library and I lost it

where the fuck is jurgein leitner if hes still alive im going to so deeply wish he wasnt

crusty old man

im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point

i hope theres a date given for when jurgen died or will die so i can make it a reminder on my phone

everyday once a year i will see it and do anything but pay respects to the man who had so many fucked up if true books

#gerry keay #hellohello #wiggly pen #doodle #pls note this is the only time im going to answer this copypasta ask :-)#jurgen leitner rant

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forevers-world · 2 months

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Happy Jurgen Leitner Death Day!!! THE DAY HAS COME, MY BITCHES 🥳😈💀☠👹👺👻📚📜🪔🍷🍾✨😎

JURGEN LEITNER?

STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEIN LEITNER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING JURGEIN LEITNER

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said jurgein leitners waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down

i dont even know why i hate him so much. he collects books but i am just mad because i am angy

he better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if hes just some rich shithead whos a fan of creepypasta and wanted the irl version ill go ham

BETTER have had a book make him kill a man cuz if he didnt Im going to make him

paypal.com/IFuckingHateJurgeinLeitner

episodes not even about him. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to maybe be his library and I lost it

where the fuck is jurgein leitner if hes still alive im going to so deeply wish he wasnt

crusty old man

im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point

i hope theres a date given for when jurgen died or will die so i can make it a reminder on my phone

everyday once a year i will see it and do anything but pay respects to the man who had so many fucked up if true books

#magnus archives #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #magnus protocol #jurgen leitner #I fucking hate this man #Cursed books #Why #Why the actual fuck #elias bouchard #jonathan sims #sounds of brutal pipe murder

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 1 year

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I Can Take a Beating (Like a Good Pair of Headphones)

Pairing: Kendall Roy x Reader

Rating: T, shockingly

Notes: Hey look it's that Kendall Valentine's oneshot I mentioned. Title from the Walk the Moon song Headphones. Written today and not beta-read, shocker, I know. also lolololol posted it to the wrong account the first time

Warnings: Cursing; Roman being a little shit; mostly fluff; potential power imbalance

Summary: This is where Kendall feels a little…Conflicted. He could hold out for whenever your birthday is, but your headphones seem to be on their last legs. And if he’s being totally honest, he’s been considering asking you out. Valentine’s is just a few days away. He could…Give them to you, ask you for a drink then? Or would you feel obligated because he’s the boss and he’s giving you a gift?

GIF by jeremystrongs

He sort of admires your loyalty to your old pair. You’ve clearly had them for longer than they’re meant to be kept. You use them every time you're listening in on a meeting, or if you're head-down to get some work done. When you're finished, you always lift the headphones off of your ears with tender reverence, setting them aside and plugging them in to charge immediately (for as long as you must’ve had them, he’s certain the battery must be on its last legs). Then you always reach up, brushing little black flecks of flaked padding away from your ears before you duck your head back, inspecting your collar and shoulders for any little bits that may have escaped your notice.

Look, he gets it. Kendall’s a headphone guy.

He’s ready, willing, and able to discuss the merits of Meze, Denons, Bowers & Wilkins, Sweetwaters. He has more pairs than he can count, more pairs than he cares to think about. And maybe that’s why he does this himself, instead of asking Jess to handle it. It becomes a bit of a pet-project. He puts more time into it than he’d care to admit. He has a goddamn spreadsheet to compare each of the models he’s considering getting you based on the music he’s heard you discuss.

He has Roman do some snooping. It’s not a hardship. You’re one of the few people at Waystar Royco that Roman can stand. Kendall has to barter a couple of assignments and a future favor for it, but it’s worth it. Roman gets a breakdown of what you like to listen to, a full array—music, podcasts, audiobooks, streaming services that you prefer to use. And for the minor tooth-pulling it took to get his brother to agree, Kendall’s got to hand it to Roman. He got all of the dirt that Kendall needed to make a decision.

Kendall winds up having a pair custom made. The headband has a subtle diamond pattern, using two of the colors he sees you wearing often. The earpads are thick and cushy, and certain not to flake any time soon. He makes sure to have a headphone jack included, just in case, you know. He wants to give you options.

But this is where Kendall feels a little…Conflicted. He could hold out for whenever your birthday is, but your headphones seem to be on their last legs. And if he’s being totally honest, he’s been considering asking you out. Valentine’s is just a few days away. He could…Give them to you, ask you for a drink then? Or would you feel obligated because he’s the boss and he’s giving you a gift?

He’ll have them delivered to your desk, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll gauge your reaction, see how you like them, work it out from there.

“Roman! Is this why you were asking me all of those questions about what I listen to?”

“Well, you know," His brother gives a lame shrug, eyes wandering the package on your desk.

“This is so sweet of you, you didn’t have to do this!”

Kendall’s heart drops from his mouth to his stomach. He can’t do anything but watch as you rest your new custom headphones back down in the box and throw your arms around Roman’s shoulders with a gleeful grin. Kendall blinks dumbly as Roman reluctantly raises his arms and gives your sides a pat.

Roman just shrugs. “Maybe now that black shit from your other pair will stop getting all over the fuckin’ place.”

You’re laughing. You’re laughing at Roman and you’re hugging him. It’s not right. That’s supposed to be Kendall’s laugh, and Kendall’s hug. Kendall swallows roughly, turning from the two of them as Jess warns him that he has a meeting in three.

“Uh—Yeah. Yeah, thanks,” He nods. He chances one last glance at you. He takes in the way you draw back from Roman, picking up the headphones. He sees you smooth your fingers over the diamond patterning, and the earpads. You look so goddamn happy. It makes him feel so goddamn happy.

It’s almost enough to quash his urge to ask Roman what the fuck he was thinking.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“What? Dude,” Roman frowns as Kendall leans into his space, cornering him before either can leave the conference room. “Did you have falafel for lunch? I’m getting garlic.”

“You know you didn’t send her those fucking headphones,” Kendall spits.

“No, but who cares? I did all the research, right?”

“You asked her some questions. I did the research.”

Roman rolls his eyes, glancing back in your direction. Kendall looks over Roman’s shoulder, peering through the glass wall to where you’re sitting at your desk. You’re using your new headphones. Every now and again, your fingers raise to brush over the band, or over the outside of the pads. Each time, your smile widens before you force yourself to refocus.

“You want me to go tell her?” Roman offers.

“No. No, you have done more than enough.”

Roman smirks, holding his hands up in mock surrender before miming zipping his lips shut. Kendall puffs irritatedly as he draws back from Roman, meeting Jess at the door.

“What’s next?” He asks, eyes set on you as he walks down the hall. Jess rattles off his next few meetings, appointments, a note that he still hasn’t RSVP’d to Shiv and Tom’s for their Valentine’s dinner (or Valentinner as Tom had called it when he reminded Kendall of it that morning). Kendall considers for a moment. If he had a date for Valentine’s, Tom would probably get off his back about going to that stupid thing (then again, probably not. It would likely be met with a hearty congratulations and an urging to bring them along, no matter how premature the meet-the-family stage would be. Then again, you already know most of Kendall’s family—but still, he wants to take you to dinner, not into the lion's den).

“Okay…Okay. I’ve got,” He shakes his sleeve back from his wrist, “What, half an hour free?”

“Yep,” Jess nods.

“Okay. I’ll uh…I’ll meet you back at my office. Thanks.”

He stops as Jess goes on, and watches you across the office again. He can’t tell at this distance, but are you…Listening in on a meeting? Or are you focused up? He doesn’t want to interrupt your flow. He had those headphones specifically noise-cancelling so that nothing would interrupt your flow. He glances toward his office, then back over to you. He can just…Look, right? He can look over your shoulder from like a desk back, see what the hell you’re working on and make a judgment call. Yeah. Yeah, that’ll do it. Kendall moves carefully, desperately trying not to look at anyone as he walks through the office (though he fails and subsequently gives a quick smile, a mutter of, “Hi,” when he meets the odd person’s eye).

He gets a couple of feet behind you and tips his chin up a touch, eyeing your screen over your shoulder. Email. He’s seeing email. Email opening, email closing, email being archived, so nothing too…Involved, probably.

Kendall can still turn away from this. He can still turn around, and let it go. And then you tip your head forward, your fingers brushing over the band. He can see the reflection of your smile on your laptop screen, and—Yeah, damnit. He’s gonna do this. He’s not letting this go.

You glance up at the vibration of knuckles wrapping against your desk. You glance to them, then up at the person knocking. You do a double-take at the sight of Kendall standing in front of your desk. You grin, sliding your headphones off of your ears.

“Hey!”

“Hi,” Kendall smiles, his eyes dropping to where you’re still grasping your headphones. “You busy? You wanna go grab some coffee?”

“Yeah! Yeah, sure,” You nod, looking down at your laptop. “Just lemme me, um…” You finish off an email and pause your music before you carefully slip your headphones off. You raise your hands to your ears, absently dusting at your ears, though there’s no reason for you to. The pads of your new headphones are pristine, and uncracked. You stand, pulling your jacket on and rounding the desk to join Kendall.

“How’s, uh…How’s your morning going?” He asks. The two of you are pressed pretty close in the crowded waiting area of the Starbucks, waiting for your drinks.

“It’s been pretty nice, actually. Not completely crammed with meetings—and I had a really unexpected gift on my desk this morning.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm! I mean, I had a little, uh…A suspicion when Roman asked me about all of the stuff I listen to.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. How’s yours been?”

“It’s uh, it’s, uh…” Kendall trails off, looking around. “Been kind of a mixed bag.”

“Really?” You shift from foot to foot, fingers accidentally brushing against Kendall's. “What’s going on, everything okay?”

“Things are fine, but I have to,” He clears his throat. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay,” You nod. Kendall looks like he’s trying to bring something up and hold it back all at once. His lips are pursed into a thin line, his brow furrowed. You tip your head to the side a little, raising your brows. “What’s going on?” You press softly.

“The truth is…” He seems to weigh his words for a moment before he meets your eye. You’re stunned by the way he watches you—with a nervous smile on his lips.

“Those headphones, um…They weren’t from Roman.”

Your chest flutters with nerves and butterflies as it sinks in. “They were from you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did Roman let me think that they were from him?”

“Because he’s a shithead. I mean he’s my brother, I love him, but he likes to do things that get under my skin.”

“He seems good at it.”

“Oh, he’s an expert,” Kendall chuckles softly. “But I, uh…you know, you work really hard, and you clearly, like, love your headphones, so I just wanted you to have some good ones.”

“Good ones? Kendall, you got me, like, the 24-karat gold of headphones.”

“I mean, yeah. Yeah but you’ve earned them—” He goes quiet as you dart in, curling your arms around him before you can think to stop yourself. You didn’t hesitate like this when you went to hug Roman, but Roman is different. You have a far more casual relationship with Roman. You and Kendall, well. There’s always been this feeling pulling you toward him, but with this revelation and this gift, it’s grown stronger. Kendall’s hands rest hesitantly on your back before he draws you into his chest a bit more. You grin, turning and pressing your face into his shoulder.

The two of you let go as you hear your orders called. You turn, smiling as he passes you yours.

“Thank you,” You smile, and repeat it as he opens the door for you. The two of you take meandering steps back toward the office, keeping close enough for your arms to brush as you go.

“I uh…I actually wanted to ask you something,” Kendall adds.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I know, uh…I mean, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. Not the headphones thing, but this other thing—And I don’t want the headphones thing to effect this other thing.”

“Okay.”

The two of you come to a stop at a crosswalk, watching cars zip by as you wait to cross.

“What is it?” You press. Kendall’s gaze sweeps your face before he looks down at his coffee cup.

That guarded gaze is back. “I wanted to know if you’d be interested in grabbing dinner, or a drink sometime. Something, you know.”

Your brows raise, your smile widening as you nod.

“Yes, I would.”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be a big thing—”

“Right—”

“—But I would like to get to know you better, and I’d really, um—I mean it when I said that I don’t want the headphones to uh, to influence—”

Kendall goes quiet as you lean in, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He blinks at you in surprise, and you grin as you draw away.

“I’m up for dinner, or drinks, or…Whatever,” You insist.

“This is going to sound cliché and stupid, but are you busy this Valentine’s?”

“I am not…On one condition.”

“Okay, yeah. What is it?”

“We don’t go to that Valentine’s dinner….Thing that Tom’s doing.”

Kendall smiles widely, shaking his head. “I would never put you through that, trust me.”

“Okay,” You laugh, “Then yes, let’s um…Yeah. Let’s.”

Kendall doesn’t walk you back to your desk—he’s got his own meeting to get to. But you feel him watching you as you settle down at your desk, unlocking your laptop and picking your headphones up. You glance up his gaze, smiling and winking as he catches your gaze. You bite back a giggle as he grins and turns hurriedly, nearly walking into a wall as he goes. You dip your head, pressing play and forcing yourself to refocus on your work.

#Kendall Roy x Reader #Kendall Roy x You #Kendall Roy/Reader #Kendall Roy/You #Kendall Roy fic #Kendall Roy imagine #I Can Take a Beating (Like a Good Pair of Headphones)

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the-starlit-blade · 2 months

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jurgen leitner stupid idiot motherfucking jurgen leitner goddamn fool book collecting dust eating rat old bastard shithead idiot avatar of the whore biggest clown in the circus laughed out of town cowboy motherfucking jurgen leitner stop pinning me when i talk about jurgen leitner i hate him so much why does he have so many fucked up books why did he decide to fuck around anf find out just set them loose is he dead is he a bastard man has such a visceral effect on me not even in the room never seen this mans face and i know he has the worlds shittiest beard get away from me if i wanted to get into heaven and god said jurgen leitners waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down if i have to deal with jurgen leitner speaking one word in person on voice in podcast not only will i close the tab i will delete my bookmark out of spite and have to rewatch the entire series for the experience of being able to skip all the times when he is mentioned or alive i dont even know why i hate him so much he collects books but i am just mad because i am angy he better have a fucked up backstory to explain this if hes just a rich shithead who likes creepypasta and wanted the irl version ill go ham better have had a book make him kill a man because if he did not im gonna make him paypal.com/ifuckinghatejurgenleitner episodes not even about him vaguely mention what is maybe supposed to be his library and i lost it where the fuck is jurgen leitner if hes still alive im going to so deeply wish he wasnt crusty old man ill punch him and his frail old man twig bones will flake apart under my epic huge meat fist and he will disintegrate until all thats left is one final book he kept on him at all times titled now you fucked up in yiddish im not breathing im hyperventilating at this point i hope theres a day given for when jurgen died or will die so i can get a reminder on my phone every day once a year i will do anything but pay respects to the man who had so many fucked up if true books

#the magnus archives #jurgen leitner #happy brutal pipe murder day to those who celebrate!!#jurgen leitner has been dead for 7 slutty slutty years

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notafraidofredyellowandblue · 2 years

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Flake's podcast - Gay and lesbian

podcast 2022-09-13, playlist of the songs

The biggest force in life and the only one Flake respects (apart from his wife) is Nature. And the biggest drive in Nature is Sex, big parts of life are about sex, thinking about sex, sex to reproduce, and to prevent to many people being born, Nature also created same-sex so it's completely natural for a man to love a man and woman to love a woman. That is the intro to this podcast, and Flake plays songs about, or by, gay or lesbian artists, some of whom are well known to be gay, some who had to hide it for a long time (and some, to be honest, i think Flake is 'outing' without really knowing 🍀 but as he sees homosexuality as something completely normal, he doesn't have a problem with that).

As a sidenote he also mentions some of his favorite things:

author: Kurt Vonnegut (0h29)

fictional character: Kilgore Trout

movie: Brokeback Mountain (0h48)

saying: 'Der Spaß ist kurz, ein Leben lang' (0h58, from the song Kribbel Krabbel by Ton Steine Scherben) (meaning something like 'Fun only lasts a short time, for an entire life'

composer: Chopin (1h53), but eventually he heard so much of it thathis interest diminshed a bit, Flake compares this how Modern Talking music, that was also played so much..."Paul our guitarist" said about that "It is good because otherwise there wouldn't be millions of people listening to it", but Flake doesn't agree, it's not his cup of tea, no matter how many listeners they have)

painter: Gauguin (1h53)

Completely fitting in the theme at 1h40 Flake plays the Rammstein song 'Mann gegen Mann' which to the band is called 'Schwuler' (but their Swedish producer Mann gegen Mann (Man against man) sounded better, Flake thinks it should at least have been Mann mit Mann (Man with man)), the songtitle comes from the Family Values Tour in the US which Rammstein did with a.o. Korn, Korn had a song 'Faget', and Rammstein told them it meant 'Schwuler' in German. They heard it so often at the tour that they made a song about it.

But the funnest anecdote (especially for the fanfic-inclined among us) is at 1h02, where Flake talks about when Rammstein records an album, they retreat to a studio and for three weeks they do everything together: make music, eat together, sit down after work, watch tv, and they all get really familiar. When hanging out together they regularly drop a theme and talk about each one's experience with it, often it turns out that a theme that one thought they had only experienced themselves, others know about as well. Well, one night the topic 'Homo erotic experience' was brought to the table, and as it turned out, the entire band had their experience with that...either going home with someone after a party , or when they were at school with a friend... ❤️ Most people have both sides in them, sometimes inclined a bit more to one side, sometimes to the other, and Flake also occassionally is attracted, to a guy, for instance in a movie.

He knows what it's like to get a warm feeling in his heart ❤️

PS. because of that anecdote, I'm not going to complain that he completely fails to acknowledge Adam Lambert is singing in Queen 😄 and that he isn't playing Freddie Mercury's boyfriend in the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' movie (or maybe i am in the wrong there 😊)

more takes on Flake's podcasts

#flake's podcast #des tastenfickers podcast #flake lorenz #rammstein

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