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herdivineshadow

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Authentic cringe.

May. 6th, 2026 02:18 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

I think Naoki Yoshida, a man in his 50s, dressing up in game cosplay for major fan festivals for Final Fantasy XIV is cringe. And yet no one ever calls it that because he isn’t ashamed of himself. Why should he be? He’s producer and director of the game.

He doesn’t need to do this. He does it because it builds community. It’s authentic. Why am I cringing? Why should I be embarrassed by this? Why should anyone?

You can say that it’s too authentic or too revealing. You can say “well, Amazon hired this person and she has to act enthusiastic” and the fact is that it’s just not true. This is cringe, yes, because cringe has come to mean a situation wherein someone is just being unvarnished and getting up on stage with absolutely no seeming shame about how they are supposed to be embarrassed.

And it’s beautiful.

On the beauty of the unvarnished self.

Leave a comment.+

Capital for oil.

May. 5th, 2026 08:18 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

Iran would not be treated as an “enemy of the west” were it not for what happened in 1953, when Winston Churchill’s government persuaded the CIA to launch a coup against the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The UK did so because Mossadegh sought to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company: to stop a foreign power from stealing the nation’s wealth. The US, with UK support, tried twice to overthrow him, and succeeded on the second attempt, with the help of some opportunistic ayatollahs. It reinstated the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1954, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became British Petroleum, later BP.

George Monbiot on crude history.

Leave a comment.+

splash_of_blue: (Snarky dragon llulls at you)
[personal profile] splash_of_blue posting in [community profile] ways_back_room
Afternoon folks, and happy May Day Bank Holiday!

And, equally, Happy Star Wars Day!

Following one of the themes of the day, and with a hat-tip to a certain Sir Terry Pratchett...

What union or guild would your pup be in? What would it be called? Bonus points for fun Dog Latin motto <3

Everything wrong.

May. 4th, 2026 09:36 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

Some myths about autism. Honestly, in some regards I think these say more about non-autistic people than they do they reverse; my favourite being the “autistic people lack empathy” stereotype seemingly coming about because “empathy” studies were mostly measuring in-group bias (which autistic people do tend to have lower levels of, due to caring more about universal principles of fairness).

Leave a comment.+

Saturday @ 4:52 pm

May. 2nd, 2026 04:52 pm
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

The best thing about making focaccia is getting focaccia, but the second best thing is making way too much mashed potatoes to put in it and then having leftover mashed potatoes.

Leave a comment.+

alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

All my homies hate AI (my homies are gamers).

The videogame industry, and its fanbase, sure does have some problems. But I think findings like this show that, despite those, people know and appreciate the fact that everything from single-dev indies to the biggest Triple-A franchises are, ultimately, hand-crafted by human beings. Which makes sense if you think about it; most gamers would probably be able to name specific people in the industry who they admire and whose work they actively seek out, from game developers to artists to voice actors to writers to soundtrack creators. For all that gamers will obsessively pour thousands of hours into making number go up on a screen, they’re still pouring thousands of hours into making number go up in the context of art created by other humans. Not just mindlessly extruded slop.

Leave a comment.+

Friday @ 10:39 am

May. 1st, 2026 10:39 am
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

Today Fanfic Grammar Tip: “Prodigal” is not the adjectival form of “prodigy.”

Leave a comment.+

Thursday @ 6:07 pm

Apr. 30th, 2026 06:07 pm
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

Music streaming services need a "I like this band but someone in it is cancelled so please continue to play things like this but that are not this" button, hey.

Leave a comment.+

Thursday @ 11:10 am

Apr. 30th, 2026 11:10 am
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

Listening to Mum talk to her high school friend yesterday about all the Iran lego slop videos they see on Instagram and it’s like . . . fuckin’ hell man. Just. For real.

Leave a comment.+

Wednesday @ 6:50 pm

Apr. 29th, 2026 06:50 pm
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx
A wall of glass-blown anatomical hearts. They have electrified plasma inside them like those lightning ball things they sell in novelty shops.

Went to the local glassworks after lunch today. Which was a Mistake, because now I want one of these glass electric plasma hearts soooooooo baaaaaaad.

Leave a comment.+

How you use it.

Apr. 29th, 2026 02:18 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

But the phrase’s core reasoning is insultingly naive. It doesn’t work well for most things: “A car is just a tool, it matters how you drive it.” Well . . . oil and gas is destroying the climate, seatbelts help save lives whether or not someone is a good driver, and since the invention of cars, American city design has become utterly unwalkable and unlivable.

So there is much more to tools than how we use them.

Frank Elavsky on tools.

Leave a comment.+

Busy Weekend

Apr. 28th, 2026 12:14 am
diffrentcolours: (Default)
[personal profile] diffrentcolours

Last weekend was rather busy. After work on Friday, me and [personal profile] cosmolinguist cycled to Station South for a pint. It's the first time I've been on a bike since my hernia operation six weeks ago, but it didn't seem to cause any problems. Of course, I took it gently. And it was lovely to sit outside in the sun and drink and chat.

On Saturday morning, we met up with some Internet friends to walk around Sale Water Park with some doggos. It was nice being sociable, and the slow sniffy labrador meant we didn't go very fast. We chatted to a lot of people, and ended up having a nice pub lunch, again sat outdoors in the shade. We headed home briefly, to recharge my phone (and myself), before heading into the city centre for a friend's birthday, drinking in the sunshine at North Beer. It was fun to meet some new people, and have some good conversations about Manchester's history, culture and attitude. We ended up in the beer garden at The Salisbury, my old haunt from the 90s which is now much closer to its old rock pub self than its weird mid-noughties wine bar incarnation, but it was too noisy and smoke-filled so me and E headed home after a token pint of Old Perculier.

On Sunday, we went to visit Bud Garden Centre for their birthday party! We pottered round and looked at plants, but this was the point where my abdomen had had enough and started twingeing, so I went to sit in the car while E and V did the shopping, and took part in the raffle and other fun things. When we got home I had a nap, and in the evening we watched an MR James livecast.

My standard metric for a good weekend is "does last week feel like a long time ago", and with all these things it definitely does! I'm glad that I could do the exercise I did, and that I rested as soon as my tummy started hurting so it didn't get any worse. And it was great to get so much sunshine.

Being awake is not enough.

Apr. 28th, 2026 08:18 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (follow me to know where the next action is!). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community.

On doing.

Leave a comment.+

Music Monday

Apr. 27th, 2026 02:09 pm

(no subject)

Apr. 26th, 2026 09:09 pm
ceitfianna: (running towards a happy ending)
[personal profile] ceitfianna
From [personal profile] petra Reply to this post saying 'icon', and I will tell you my favourite icon of yours. Then post this to your own journal using your own favourite icon.

This was actually really hard to pick a favorite icon but I love this one which I call 'running towards a happy ending'. I just love the hopefulness of this. It feels like where I am today as well since the day ended up warming up and being sunny, it felt like Spring for the first time in a bit.

(no subject)

Apr. 27th, 2026 02:38 am
ashenmote: Animated: talkative, hyperactive goth kid. (Anna potato grapes plus)
[personal profile] ashenmote
I wonder why there was a all hands on board crow uproar at 2:30 in the morning? Huh.



I like this one so I put it here and tumblr.

The quiet part, loud.

Apr. 27th, 2026 03:45 am
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

Remember, it’s fuck your feelings. My feelings must be handled like a tiny baby hummingbird, that cannot yet take flight.

Paul Campos on the truth of it.

Leave a comment.+

Saturday @ 8:46 am

Apr. 25th, 2026 08:46 am
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

This fic contains a running gag about one character disliking another character’s Toyota Yaris, and as a former Toyota Yaris King of Cars owner I can say the arguments both for (very fuel efficient, very reliable, great first car) and against (so itty bitty teeny tiny) are the most realistic thing in this whole 90,000 words.

Leave a comment.+

The thing the thing is really.

Apr. 24th, 2026 02:00 pm
alisx: The head of a moth creature. It has dark fuzz and is grinning at you with glowing teeth teeth and eyes. (alis.mothface)
[personal profile] alisx

We can play this game all day: seek permission for an edge case, retreat to another case when trouble arises, appeal to amiability or tolerance. Two things to note when a conversation gets to this point. First, it’s a misrepresentation: reluctance to grant permission is portrayed as an intolerant move, a wish to take the other’s toys, when it is nothing like that. What do you need my permission for, anyway? Second, it’s a distraction: it moves the conversation away from values and towards a tech-first perspective.

Mark Dingemanse on tech versus values.

We went through this recently with Write Club’s attempt to introduce a AI policy, which was really a “no algogen allowed” policy. While most of the guild — being made up as it is of professional, semi-professional, and aspirationally professional Torment Nexus Scenario Imaginers — is pretty anti-AI, we do have a few boosters and a a fair few more of what I would describe as “permission seekers.” (“Oh but surely this use case is okay? What about this one? Or this?”)

In the end, the most convincing argument in favour of the new policy came from a member who got us away from the tech and back onto the values. Specifically, what did we want Write Club to be for? Was it just a place to churn out marketable prose . . . or was it a community group for interacting with a community? Are we here to interact with chatbots or with other living people?

And. Well. When you put it like that . . .

Leave a comment.+

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