ALT

-- Ted Chiang, from "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art"

I'm so glad they got Ted Chiang -- a wonderful writer of science fiction and thinker about technology, in my opinion -- to write this essay. My favorite line was this:

Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium.

Click Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71909371/chapters/196260336

ALT

EXCERPT:

As Lena and Kara exited the plane in National City International Airport, Lena's first observation noted how intense the sunlight was. Rays flooded the wall of windows and illuminated the interior with a warm glow. Metropolis often was cloudy, the sunlight muted from fog and industrial particulates. Here the air held little to no fog or clouds, the landscape around the city more of a desert mountain biome.

Although she'd prepared for a warmer environment, Lena found the heat far more intense than she'd expected. She'd opted to not wear the 'leather disguise' as Kara put it, and instead donned a green blouse and jeans before belting in for the landing. Where Kara had found the metal cane, Lena didn't ask, but it did compliment the outfit since the dark silver fit with the jeans darker tones. Lena felt glad of her choice. The heat radiated from each sunbeam, as if the sun waged war with the internal air-conditioning units.

Kara practically vibrated at her side at the thought of her meeting Alex Danvers, Kara's sister and the primary investigator of the Blue Blood case. Lena did not share Kara's excitement as it was entirely possible she might botch this interview and lose the chance at a job. However, her brief time living with the Luthors had taught her how to don a mask appropriate for the job at hand, so she radiated her confidence even as imposter syndrome snaked around her heart.

Despite that anxiety, her relief at finally setting foot in National City — heat be damned — flooded her with a different sort of warmth. An emotional warmth of being close to the freedom she so desired. That wild hope bolstered by the knowledge of just how careful she had been in masking her trail, in disappearing entirely. Surely all that work would be enough.

"Here we are," Kara interrupted her thoughts with her endless cheery attitude. She'd been leading Lena through the concourse toward the security area, careful to not walk too fast. Lena's cane thumped against the metal floors.

People buzzed around them, hurrying from point A to point B, while others browsed the many shops that held either food items or silly trinkets and books. A long line had formed in the security area, the scanners an older version due to their height.

Lena skidded to a halt. If those scanners included any retinal or thumbprint scans, her careful work would be destroyed.

"Hey, hey," Kara caught wind of her hesitation. "We'll do what we did in Metropolis and ask for a private scan. I know the people here a lot better too, so they'll understand." In Metropolis, Kara had dialed up her charm to the tenth degree to convince the security personnel, while Lena played the role of a skittish side-kick to a superhero. Honestly, their skit felt unbelievable to Lena, but Metropolis airport security had fallen for it. Perhaps superheroes wishing to pass through unnoticed were more common than she thought.

"All right." Lena squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I'll follow your lead."

"Great." Kara rubbed her hands together. "Let's suit up in that bathroom."

Okay you know what? Schizophrenia is way too demonized and, as someone who has had it for ten freaking years, I want to dispel some myths about hallucinations.

Aka talking about hallucinations using my own personal examples because I had an actual fucking THERAPIST tell me I was the ONLY person in the world who experienced hallucinations that were not solely visual or auditory. Warning for…hallucinations obviously.

Visual hallucinations - These are hallucinations you see. I usually experience these by way of inanimate objects moving (like dolls or mannequins moving on their own, before you ask yes I do hate clothing stores). Sometimes these can be scary and sometimes they’re mundane! I’ve hallucinated monsters and I’ve hallucinated pretty birds. Hallucinations don’t always have to be scary.

Auditory hallucinations - These are hallucinations you hear. I commonly hear crying, talking, music, and video game noises. If I play a video game for too long and it has a repetitive sound in it, I WILL be hearing that sound for minimum three hours. You think the sound that plays in LoZ when you’re low on hearts is annoying? Try having to listen to it on loop when you’re not even playing the game. Like with visual hallucinations, they’re not always scary! Contrary to popular belief, they can be totally mundane. Hearing voices is not always scary either. Sometimes they just say random stuff, sometimes they give me little pep talks, most of the time they just all talk over each other at once and I’m like GUYS ONE AT A TIME PLEASE jeezy cheez-it’s.

Tactile hallucinations - These are hallucinations you feel. I hear common tactile hallucinations are feelings of bugs on you and fur but I don’t usually have these, I mostly have tactile hallucinations of being choked which is…not fun.

Olfactory hallucinations - These are hallucinations you smell. Yeah I thought of farts first too. So far I haven’t heard of that being a common hallucination though. I hear a common olfactory hallucination is burning? But I just smell wet metal. I…don’t know why.

Gustatory hallucinations - These are hallucinations you taste. I don’t know how to pronounce gustatory either. I often taste blood or metal. I hear those are pretty common gustatory hallucinations.

None of these hallucinations are inherently scary! As a child, I thought hallucinations were a super power. After living with them for over ten years, they just don’t phase me that much. Remember: you don’t have to be schizophrenic to experience hallucinations! There are many things that cause hallucinations including and not limited to trauma, PTSD, psychotic depression, etc. (sometimes even stress!)

But please please please be kind to people who hallucinate. I’ve lived with it for over ten years and (rarely) it can still be terrifying to me sometimes. People say “But there’s nothing there and you know that-“ yes I know that! But it’s still very very real to me and very terrifying! Minimizing what people experience with their hallucinations is not helpful and will only make them feel worse.

Thank you for reading!

They keep trying to make trek for modern sensibilities but they’re just making tos look excessively slutty

Exhibit A

I liked these tags but I had something to say about it

I already assumed that the dresses were a choice made by the female crew, mostly for my own sanity. They do show (very infrequently) women in tos wearing pants

And they show men wearing dresses in tng, but only ever in the background (unless you count the dress uniforms)

And obviously I like that these were included, but they were clearly a cop out decision.

“Yeah see men can wear dresses, women can wear pants. They just don’t choose to” reads as “of course I’m not sexist, women just like wearing tiny little dresses in the future”

And thinking about it from a late sixties perspective, many women did see more revealing clothes as an empowering choice to make. Men wanted women covered and modest, understated makeup, only exposed or done up for male enjoyment. Some women took that in the opposite direction and chose to wear more extravagant makeup, revealing clothing, and brighter colors. It was a progressive time, and some of the choices made in an attempt to highlight that in the show did not age well.

But at the same time, you can clearly see that some of these “progressive” points were only added in as a write off.

And thinking about it from a late sixties perspective, many women did see more revealing clothes as an empowering choice to make. Men wanted women covered and modest, understated makeup, only exposed or done up for male enjoyment. Some women took that in the opposite direction and chose to wear more extravagant makeup, revealing clothing, and brighter colors.

I think it's worth emphasizing that this very genuinely is the main reason for the "sexist" miniskirts. IRL, women were often not choosing between sexy miniskirts and non-objectifying pants, but long skirts (respectable) and short skirts (rebellious). Deliberately wearing short skirts as rebellion against patriarchal control that mandated long skirts or maaaaybe loose slacks on a good day is still hardly unknown among girls/women leaving conservative communities in the USA, and was only more commonly coded that way at the time.

Sally Kellerman, the actress for Elizabeth Dehner, found the close fit of the supposedly more feminist pants uncomfortable and is often given something to hold in front of her because she was so intensely self-conscious about them. Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand) loathed the more "proper" initial look and worked with the (gay) costume designer, William Ware Theiss, to design a different, more daring and cool-looking aesthetic for women of the future that appealed to her personally. That was what resulted in the miniskirt uniform design. No doubt it served the objectifying tastes of various straight men involved, but literally zero of them were responsible for the design of Whitney's and Nichols's uniforms.

Not only did Nichelle Nichols not consider herself suffering from the miniskirt, she admitted later to sometimes deliberately lifting the skirt even higher at Uhura's station to show off more of her legs because she hadn't worked so hard on her body to not show them off. Meanwhile, Jill Ireland, the actress for Leila Kalomi, was nervous that she might have to wear the kinds of revealing costumes so many other TOS actresses did, and Theiss instead designed her the comfortable overalls she wears as Leila in "This Side of Paradise."

The kneejerk backlash against short skirts (in decidedly more reactionary eras of both Star Trek and US culture) led to both the large-scale disappearance of the skirts and the snide commentary on them throughout later iterations of Trek, with zero consideration of the fact that they were designed by a gay man to suit the preferences of the leading actresses at a time when they commonly represented rebellion. The Berman-era Star Trek productions tut-tutting at the old costumes while actually putting actresses in uncomfortable, form-fitting uniforms they disliked is ... uh, something else.

Even while the female Starfleet costumes shifted towards pants (and militarism) in the movies, btw, Nichelle Nichols insisted on getting to wear skirts as Uhura—because she liked them and she had little patience for 80s respectability.

today we post everett true

February 16, 1917 (via Outbursts Of Everett True on Bluesky):

more than 100 years later and all of these are still problems

there was a great study a few years that went into the whole "ppl online are bigger jerks than irl cuz theres a virtual wall and no repercussions" and the researchers were expecting to see that be the case but it turns out that people who were really angry or argumentative online were also found to just be assholes in person and people who were pretty patient and nice online were found to be patient and nice in real person as well

and it just debunked that whole cynical idea that people will naturally be mean if theres no punishment for it

source another source

the researchers found that being online didnt make people more hostile, but that being online allowed already hostile people to dominate forum conversations, and the less aggressive people were much less likely to reply or engage, ending in just the aggressive people bickering at eachother

surely that italicized word will be the one that turns my fic into a masterpiece