Freakinreal - ↑me

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

scout being the father he never had i'm going to fucking cry

CNN

A 40-day Target boycott starts today. It couldn’t come at a worse time for the company | CNN Business

Target is facing a 40-day consumer boycott starting Wednesday over the company’s shift away from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) polic

I wasn't aware of this one, so I'm trying to spread the word.

Uhm wrote up something silly of Fire Jelly (silly hero oc) at his silly job— also gave him a digital portrait <3 uhh minor smoking warning ig

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

You probably don’t expect a group of tech nerds to be all rowdy, but they are. The office is always full of loud laughter and playful pushing and such. It’s a bit crowded, though there’s just about 8 of them, the office isn’t the most spacious place. It’s okay, though.

It’s fun— they’re all friends.

It’s fun— they’re having fun.

It’s just a lot. Overwhelming. Overstimulating. A little. Just a little too much. Sometimes someone just needs a breather— a little break. Just a few minutes. Just a few minutes outside. Just a minute.

Finn pushed himself out of his little sticker-covered desk— and pulled himself out of his torn old swivel chair. He rubbed over the little stickers stuck on the wood surface for a moment before he walked off. Star stickers, flowers, cartoon characters, etc. slightly overlapping with each other, crammed together and completely covering a third of the desk. He hopes that the fact of nobody saying anything means it’s okay— because the furniture isn’t really good anyway.

He’s just a bit wobbly, sitting for too long. He wonders if that’s why the other coders are basically wrestling with each other every minute they can— so they don’t get all stiff and tired.

He slipped past them, trying to ignore the terrible jokes and music he’d been forced to overhear for hours, and made his way outside. He got bumped up against once or twice, and tried not to let his urge to just go limp and fall over win. He wouldn’t hit anything, his abilities triggered on instinct when he knew he’d be getting too close to eating dirt, but suddenly floating around in front of your coworkers isn’t an ideal situation.

He took a deep breath once he’d made it out. It’s darker than he expected it to be. How long has he been in there? It… didn’t feel that long? He didn’t want to bother pulling out his phone and checking, he didn’t really care. It’s not like he had anyone waiting up on him— or at least he didn’t think he did? He hadn’t been called in, so there’s nothing. He thinks.

He’s reaching into his pocket, because he’s realizing that maybe he should care— that the time might actually matter— but he’s cut off by someone tapping him with the back of their hand, trying to get his attention.

They had a cigarette in their hand. Right. This was a smoking spot, for when people needed smoke breaks. They were someone from another office, taking a smoke break.

“You have a light?”, they asked him quietly with their cigarette pointed towards him. “You can have one if you let me use your lighter.”, they continued.

He didn’t exactly think before he pinched the end of the cigarette between his fingers, and ignited it. The thought didn’t come across his mind, the thought of “normal people can’t spark fire from their hands, so you shouldn’t do it”. It just didn’t make it there fast enough. Apparently, it was just delayed, because he stopped and pulled his hand away a second later.

His panicked brain could only think of a response to the person’s offer, and not a way to handle his major misstep. “I don’t smoke— it feels gross”, he blurted out.

This person… didn’t seem to care much. As if they didn’t notice that instead of pulling out a lighter and igniting it, this strange guy just made fire from his fingertips. They just took a drag, inhaling and exhaling deeply as they leaned against the wall.

“Gross? Yeah, it feels pretty weird. I just ignore it.”, they spoke softly while watching the smoke float away. They took another drag.

He stared at them, dumbfounded. They definitely saw what he did, and they’re just completely unbothered. They didn’t even pause for a second. They didn’t blink. They just went on with their smoke break. He feels even more awkward than normal. It’d probably have been better if they just did something, but absolutely nothing? Does he just stand there too? But he can see them and smell the smoke— he can’t just ignore them.

“… Smoking’s really bad for you, and you feel weird smoking, so… why are you smoking..?”, he tilted his head a bit as he asked them tensely. He was turned towards them, looking between the smoke they blew out and bits of their attire. He could mostly just tell that they’re wearing the simple office attire every office worker wears. Simple work shirt, simple work pants. He didn’t look like that, because despite it being an office job, uniforms didn’t matter for his group.

They shrugged. Just shrugged.

He leaned a bit closer, so ready to ask something else, but he’s cut off the moment he opens his mouth. A phone ring. He’s phone’s ringing, and it shocks him upright. He turns on his heel and rushes off somewhere else— somewhere he’s not entirely sure of yet, but he’ll figure it out when he answers the call.

By the time he’s ended the call, he’s in the bathroom getting dressed. It was a distress call. From Angelfish. Well, less of a distress call and more of a “please come lend me just a bit of a hand..?” call. It was important regardless— way more important than being crammed in an office. To him. He can work from home anyway— he just shows up because they spent the money they didn’t use on furniture on good computers instead, and his laptop doesn’t like him very much. It can get the job done, but you can only take so much lagging and crashing before you wanna smash your computer.

He pulled on his little homemade hero uniform, and thought about where he’d take them for food this time. Any time he worked with them, he’d treat them to a meal for their good work. Like a coach buying his team pizza— except Finn isn’t much of a coach. Not much of a mentor either, but that’s what he’s supposed to be. He’s okay enough at looking after them, but teaching them? They teach him more than he teaches them. The best he offers is a few little anecdotes about his personal experiences, but not really lessons. His mentorship consists of yapping, watching, and buying food.

He’ll go with the same place again.

Biggest letdown in history this accessory never made it into the game...

btw you can get the Disco Elysium artbook for free here (archive.org)

6'10 btw haha

USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.

Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.

If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.

Are you with me?

Spread the word.

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.