You’re currently at the center of four different people screaming over each other, a Demon, a Fae, a Witch, and a Yokai. The reason, turns out your parents sold you to all four of them, and they came to collect on your eighteenth birthday.
You just found out that your roommate is a literal god(dess). One who is completely unknown and has not a single follower, because apparently they tried that before and quote: “they were so annoying.”
“Query. Human history between the years 2165 and 3454.” “No data found” “Librarian. Please bring up all human history between the years 2165 and 3454?” “Searching…no data found” “…librarian. Why is there no recorded human history in that era?” “Searching…answer unknown.”
One day, time freezes for everyone except you. You survive in solitude until 20 years later, you wake up and realized time unfroze but the world dramatically changed. It was as if 20 years has passed normally without you.
hey op. i want you to know my boyfriend has been in hysterics, laughing and occasionally wheezing out “bibby” for the past half an hour because of this post. are you proud of what youve done?
a lot of media assumes robots would be immortal but i think its a lot more interesting to explore robots dealing with their parts wearing down and battery life shortening and all the horrible little failings that come with being a complicated machine. sure they can replace parts but you’d assume you cant completely ship of theseus them, or it’d have pretty big rammifications on their sense of identity. idk. give me robots with distinct, unique signs of aging. as a treat.
Id figure you could ship of Theseus MOST of them. But once you start getting to parts necessary for the software to run itd be iffy. Like the memory and such.
Replacing rhe charging port is nothing. but the whatever drive they’re using for storage? Now thats gonna cause some existentialism.
but that’s not even considering compatibility and how quickly parts become out of date.
It was the midnight shift on the Galatea, and I was alone.
if i was weird al i would do a version of “we didn’t start the fire” that starts off like it’s just another hackneyed modernization of the song, except once it hits the present day it just keeps going. so verse 1 is like “GEORGE BUSH / WORLD TRADE / WAR ON TERROR / GREEN DAY” but by verse 6 it’s like “MARTIAN INVASION / ROBO-STALIN BACK AGAIN / NEO BRAZIL FROZEN OVER / PLUS THE MOON BLEW UP.” you might think “but kit, wouldn’t the song wind up being extremely long” but that’s the brilliant part- the tempo still increases with every verse. the song ends when weird al passes out
Hey this post made me laugh so hard I forgot to get my keys before leaving my apartment and got locked out so now I have to wait for my landlord to come let me in and I’m still laughing but very displeased about the situation this post has put me in.
my favourite piece of “AI art” is something that was not intended to be AI art at all, and was made and posted online as a joke. which is “salmon in the river”, from 2023.
this is how the AI apparently understood the above prompt. salmon filets jumping in water.
in this case, not only do i think this is interesting art, but i think it is interesting art only because it was not made by a human. like, this reads to me as art about alienation and commodification, right? obviously we all know that under capitalism products become separated from the labour and processes that created them. you buy a shirt and you don’t think about the hands that sewed it, and so on. the commodity form hides its own origins. and food in particular hides not just labour, but life. the animal disappears. like, if you think about how meat reaches you at a western supermarket, typically it arrives on a styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic, cut into shapes that don’t resemble the body they came from. a chicken breast doesn’t look like a chicken, and likewise a salmon filet does not look like a salmon. many times people actually find it gross or distasteful to see the animal! the filet is literally the shape that says don’t think about it.
so the art, then. the filets are appearing in the river, which is where the living salmon would be. the commodity form is occupying the space of the creature. the erasure itself is swimming upstream. that’s sick!!! and the wrongness of it, the visual absurdity, is exactly what reveals how much work the commodity form normally does. We’re used to seeing filets in kitchens, on plates, in supermarkets. In those contexts, they look right. they look like what salmon IS! it’s only when you put the filet in the context of a living animal that you suddenly see how strange it is and how much has been removed. it’s good art!!!
AND YET if human artist had made this image, i don’t think it would be very good art. filets swimming upstream as a commentary on commodity food culture is fine but it would feel very on the nose in a banksy, makes-u-think kind of way. this would be a human saying “here’s what I think about how we relate to what we eat.” like imagine this as a political cartoon, right? immediately the exact same image would make me want to fucking roll my eyes. it would be kind of insufferable!! and to me i think that’s because it is making an argument. the artist has to be visibly making a point and the finger is always wagging. we live in a society, bottom text. UGH!
whereas, when an AI produces filets in the river, it’s not making a claim. it doesn’t think and it doesn’t care. it is just outputting based on what it’s been trained on and based on the prompt. it’s saying “here’s what salmon actually means in the aggregate of human visual culture.” it says something in and of itself that an AI image generator was asked to create salmon swimming in a river, and it produced filets. boneless, skinless, ready-for-the-pan filets, floating serenely through the rapids. and that’s because the AI was trained on us. it was clearly not primarily trained on, e.g Coast Salish art like on carved salmon with eyes and spirits or more generally on cultures that really focus on holding the sustenance and the creature together. instead it was trained on an aggregate blob of the internet, including the very massive and alienated western commercial relationship to food. our images, our photographs, our stock photos and food blogs and recipe sites. and in that corpus, salmon is overwhelmingly a filet. when you throw everything into the pile and ask “what is salmon,” the commodity form rose to the top.
thus when the model produces filets in the river, it’s not really making an error in the same way we would; it’s just accurately reflecting what “salmon” means in the aggregate, and putting it in a context that makes it seem incredibly absurd. it literally works as art because it’s not A Guy saying eyy, look what you’ve done, it’s just showing what we’ve done, without commentary or judgment and without even knowing it’s showing anything at all.
but then ALSO. was this really an “error” generated by an AI? or was this a human who prompted it to make a picture of salmon filets in a river and posted it as a glitch for internet points? i don’t know!!!
and at first this bothered me, because I’ve been so hard on arguing that the image only works because it wasn’t made intentionally. like, that the lack of human intent is what gives it evidentiary weight and what transforms it from trite political cartoon into Good Art.
but i literally think that’s still true. if a human made this, if someone deliberately prompted an AI to produce filets in a river and then framed it as an accident for heckin reddit updoots or even legitimately to make a political point, then what they created is a piece of art about the difference between intentional and unintentional meaning. they used the AI as a medium, but more importantly, they used our expectation of AI failure as a medium. The art isn’t just the image; it’s the image plus the caption plus our willingness to believe it.
either way, the image only works as art if we believe an AI made it, because that belief is what transforms “salmon in the river” from a heavy-handed political cartoon into a piece of evidence about how we see. but only a human could post it and have it work, because the act of posting it as a mistake is also an artistic gesture, regardless of whether it actually was one. the AI can’t do that part. it doesn’t know what it made or why it’s either profound or funny. but a human couldn’t do it alone either, because a human making this image deliberately would just be making a statement, and statements are easy to dismiss. the art exists in the gap between the generation and the framing, and that gap is where the human goes.
Mulan AU where she does get caught by the other fresh recruits while she’s bathing but Mushu helps her spin it like the lake is cursed by an evil lizard demon and will turn men into women if they stay in it for too long.
From there it’s not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn’t gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army’s not going to understand.
Shang is… tentatively glad that the men are bonding and getting along, even if they continue to be deeply weird about it.
Ling: Hey man, what’s up— you’ve got boobs?!?!
Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?
Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!
Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: Oh no! The spirit of the cursed waters!
I love tumblr’s dedication to solving problems in the funniest way possible.
there’s this lady who’s pretty popular on facebook for her amazing model shoots and her huge snakes but the next best part is when she annihilates someone for saying something mean about said snakes.
This is insult poetry and fucking rules and also this is the snake:
If you wanna follow her Instagram it’s @viperthesadistic and she has even more snakes as well as just some deer and an ox??
Whoever made the decision to make Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise (and later on his own branch of spin offs) orange made the absolute best call because that’s the orangest orange cat to ever orange and I love him for it
a few of my all-time favorites (leaving out the mugler aura bottles because i can't keep bringing them up)
avon is lowkey a multi level marketing scheme. but... some of those vintage bottles are gorgeous, good god. i'd want just the bottle that i could decant other fragrances into.
mugler is just about always on top when it comes to packaging. something about the original angel doesn't work for me, but i'd love to try out more of the flankers so i could at least get a full bottle of one, if only for the star. i love the star! it's so cute!
this specific bambi perfume looks like it has a crazy amount of people looking for empty bottles to purchase. i can see why... it's very cute.
fragile by jean paul gaultier. this one's from 1999, i'm so pissed off that i haven't seen anything else use snowglobe packaging since. i'm going crazy for it
blue minou by novae plus reminds me of rosina wachtmeister's art. it's so stinking cute. i love kitty cats.
^ rosina wachtmeister cats
ahh, and the last one(s) i can't for the life of me remember the names of... does anyone remember seeing perfumes with stuffed animals on the cap? not the tomato one with the green mousey, i think i remember they were the heads of different teddy bears, bunnies, etc? i remember looking into them a while ago, and the brand wasn't normally a perfume brand but instead sells like, baby apparel. i remember the bottles were very cute, but i haven't been able to find them since.
if anyone remembers the name/brand, please let me know <3
okay notes on the romeo & juliet production i saw the other day:
set in modern-day appalachia and going in i didn’t think too hard about that beyond “oh cool” but it worked really really well. gave the whole thing an intense vibe of “this town has been left behind by the rest of america and everyone thinks we’re backward assholes and we’re clinging to all the pride we have left in our families and our history even when it’s history we should actually probably let go of.” like rewired my brain for real i had not considered the degree to which the city of verona can be a character in itself
also they played live music!!! mostly folk/country; the show opened with mercutio on guitar singing “ain’t no grave” & everyone else joined in
the cast also did a very short reprise at the end which did something to my brain. something about how the play opens telling you what’s going to happen and then ends with it happening, but this version of the play opens with a promise of life beyond death and ends with the actors standing up and shaking themselves off and smiling
looooots of folksy singing at the capulet ball. mercutio and benvolio got romeo to do a very dejected drum accompaniment, which he did like he was being tortured UNTIL
juliet did a banjo cover of nina simone’s “when i was a young girl” and it was incredible and lovely and also lyrically devastating in context
and THAT was what got romeo’s attention and got him to start engaging socially with anyone
romeo was wearing a tina turner shirt :)
tybalt meanwhile was wearing a natty lite shirt
paris looked exactly like a pedro/napoleon dynamite lovechild. i’m sorry for saying it that way but there’s no other way to put it. he had the curly hair and the doofy mustache and these dorky overalls and probably a pocket protector. normally i have very few feelings about paris but i really felt bad for this paris; he was clearly just another kid emotionally in over his head and he didn’t seem to know what was going on at ANY point which emphasized how much he was just collateral damage in the violence
all of the actors were amazing but the absolute standout was juliet. this juliet was SO good. this juliet is going to be the defining juliet interpretation in my head until the end of fucking days
she was soooooo thirteen years old. so angsty shy gangly teen always hovering between being brilliant + still being the girl who hugs her parents and clings onto their arm and hides her face in their shoulders. the actress was SO good at hitting the exact mark of displaying how bright and determined juliet is and also how she is soooooooooooooo scowly little preteen
also her pajamas were PJ shorts and a britney spears shirt
very good tybalt. he was hot-headed as any tybalt would be but he honestly felt a little hotspurcore–at the capulets’ ball when he saw romeo, everything about his body language and tone of voice was very clearly communicating not JUST anger but deep confusion/frustration about why he was the only person taking shit seriously. the feud runs everybody’s life and yet in this scene he is the ONLY person who seems to understand that and he looked genuinely disoriented that lord capulet told him off
which lord capulet did do. loudly. to the point where everyone else at the party started looking nervously in their direction even when lord capulet was like “aha no keep partying <3”
i know i’m saying this about every character but fantastic mercutio. he hit the exact right note of being 80% dickhead teen who causes problems on purpose and 20% Abruptly And Darkly Intense In A Scary Way. also he carried the guitar around all the time and sang lewd jokes at people
during the queen mab speech he got benvolio to act out being the fairies’ charioteer, which benvolio did by hunching down in a carriage-driver pose and making a gargoyle sound
i thought they weren’t using fake blood because sometimes you just have to imagine the blood with your beautiful mind. and then the duel scene hit and ohhhhh man. mercutio did his first “i am hurt!” like when you stub your toe. and then he turned around and i heard someone in the audience make a sound because it was GUSHING. romeo rushed over to hold him up and mercutio collapsed into him with this sort of desperate exhaustion and you could hear the blood continuing to dribble and slop around on the floor it was NASTY AND LOUD
his wound was just your generic actor’s faked stab wound. but romeo slit tybalt’s throat. and tybalt had been intense and scary up to that point but after killing mercutio he was clearly wobbly and as romeo held the knife up he went “no, wait–” very small
and then, unlike mercutio (who died offscreen), he thrashed around on the floor for like a full thirty seconds
juliet’s “tybalt is dead that would have killed my husband so i gotta stop crying” was transparently her trying to convince herself not to mourn tybalt but then she broke down sobbing again
that ^ scene was intercut with romeo and the friar talking about banishment so both of them were on stage at once but still unable to reach each other. very good
my beef with the friar + nurse is always “how are you THIS reckless with leaving these kids to their own devices when you have each had to talk each of them down from suicide like three times” and in this one. when the nurse found juliet “dead” in her coma. she thought juliet was sleeping until she found the empty vial of sleeping draught. and for a second she didn’t yell for the capulet parents she just stared at the vial in total devastation. not surprised at all. just horrified.
and then when she screamed for juliet’s parents she shoved the vial in her coat so they wouldn’t see it. maybe to protect juliet or maybe so they didn’t have to know
my shocker dark horse second favorite role interpretation was honest to god lord capulet. which is incredible because i’ve hated him violently since i read this play in high school english. but the actor very obviously had an EXTREMELY clear picture of his motivations and also that he loved his kid so fucking much
like far be it from me to defend the guy who screams at his daughter and threatens to throw her out on the street (he was frightening in that scene. really well-acted) but in every interaction between them up to that point his pride and adoration for her shone out of his body language. and at the start of that scene before he started yelling juliet (sobbing) ran up to him and grabbed him in a hug and he looked distraught
very painfully clear that he was trying to make her feel better. and also stressed out of his mind, especially after tybalt died, but mostly that he was really really really fucking worried about his daughter and trying desperately to make her better but always picking the exact wrong thing. STILL AN ASSHOLE! but devastating!
and when everyone thought juliet was dead the nurse + lady capulet were screaming but lord capulet just sat next to comatose juliet and very gently put her head in his lap and started stroking her hair murmuring “shh, shh” like man it takes a LOT for me to believe that man sees juliet as anything but a bargaining tool but THEY SOLD ME ON IT!
and then the nurse FUCKING SANG THE NINA SIMONE SONG AGAIN AS THEY CARRIED HER BODY OUT
romeo died very peacefully. he drank the poison + he kissed juliet + then he settled down next to her like he was falling asleep. but juliet. ohhhh god. juliet stabbed herself because that’s what juliet does and it wasn’t an easy hollywood-shakespeare one-pretty-knife-movement-and-she-gasps-and-dies stabbing. it was slow and agonizing and she twisted the knife in her own stomach and then she was sort of thrashing around on stage hyperventilating in violent terror like she was reaching out for someone to rescue her
has anyone noticed that they both have the same last word which is “die.” the word being die honestly matters way less to me than the two of them having the same last word. after their first conversation made a sonnet. always on the same exact page in their language
this ^ was the point at which i started bawling and then i did not stop for I Shit You Not A Real Human Hour
I’m watching The Big Bang Theory in its natural setting—playing in the background of a hot spiral room—and I can say within that specific context, it is a very charming show. Like the saltine crackers of media.
Hospital room. A hospital room. Not a hot spiral room. What a nightmare idea. And you all rolled with that idea. The idea that I was sitting in a hot sweltering spiral prison watching the Big Bang theory is actually what hell is. Bazinga.
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