Trigger warning: depression

4 days. That's how long my brand new computer managed to make it in between blue screens. And here's the thing that has taken the hope from me: the updates worked. Dell issued a new BIOS, Nvidia and Intel new graphics drivers and everything steadied out for 4 lovely days.

Until Windows 11 covertly overrode the pause I have on updates and rolled the Intel driver back to the broken one. Of course it crashed. I cannot prevent Windows from doing this. It did it stealthily, there's no record in the Windows Update history that it did it, nor that it took half a dozen updates yesterday. But the Windows Reliability Monitor recorded the updates (again, I have updates paused because I wanted to give the system a chance to stabilize). Since both Dell and Intel want me to have the patched driver, Windows is the only thing that had the ability to roll them back as far as I can tell.

I reinstalled the new driver. Windows, though, will override me and roll it back again and it will crash. This isn't a fear, it's a certainty. Until the Intel driver is old enough to be determined "stable" by Windows, only then will it graciously allow me to keep it. Until the next version comes out, then it will force that one on me, even if this version works better. Even if the next version breaks my computer again. I can't stop it.

This computer will never probably be stable. It will always be a struggle. Dell does not consider this a problem. If they replaced it with another one of the same make, model and specs, it will have the same problem. It will always have a bleeding wound at its heart and I'll always be trying to patch that wound while Windows rips the patches away.

Anyway, guess I'm done vidding and making GIFs, can't get Vegas working in such an unstable state. It was fun getting to feel like a gamer for a little bit but nothing's going to launch like this. I can just keep writing by hand and never posting again. It's a "nothing of value was lost" win for everybody who's ever told me that my "creations" clutter up the fandom tags and make people waste valuable time trying to find things "of talent and substance around all the crap" I post.

Yeah, I'm super depressed right now but that's not me just having a pity party, I've legit been told that.

Given how much I've been complaining lately, it won't seem like it but I really do try not to post negative stuff a lot. I want to be somebody who makes others feel better with the things I put out there and this definitely isn't a feel-good post, sorry. Well, there'll be some people out there apparently thinking this is the best news ever, so yeah, guess this brightened somebody's day at least.

I'll try to pull myself back together, struggle to keep the computer going, see if I can find ways to stabilize it enough to be able to do some of the things I used to love to do. I just got so discouraged when I realized this is a chronic thing, not something that can be solved and put behind me. I'm just sad. Sorry again. Hope you're doing well out there. I love you and miss you.

say it with me everybody: personal health is completely immaterial to morality, including mental health. leading a mentally unhealthy lifestyle (or what you perceive as a mentally unhealthy lifestyle) does not a bad person make. no one has to socialize, exercise, have healthy coping mechanisms, or lead (what you perceive as) a fulfilling life with fulfilling hobbies in the same way that no one has to go to the doctor to get a broken bone reset. both of those types of management of personal health are likely to be beneficial to the individual, but they are in no way moral requirements or debts owed to society. they do not actually say anything about a person's principles, personality, or actions towards others. additionally, people know themselves and their own situations better than you do. maybe a person judges that the physical and financial toll of going to the doctor outweigh the benefit of getting their bone reset, maybe a person just does not have the capacity to develop healthy coping mechanisms at this point in their life, and yes, maybe a person feels like they are totally fulfilled by "media based" hobbies alone and would feel no difference in their life if they picked up a loom. just like. let people be sick without accusing them of being representative of the lazy, degenerated state of modern society.

This is the dumbest argument I've ever heard

I can't think of any hobby more wallet friendly than picking up a pencil and paper. Like this is just plain stupid.

Also, I'm not an artist and I don't have drawings skills, but sometimes I paint little watercolors for myself and I have fun even though they look awful, and that's the entire point.

Also also, since I can't draw and I still want to share my ideas, I write. And yeah it takes practice but THATS THE POINT. There's so many genuine ways you can share your ideas with the world.

Hell, model with clay, act out a dumb video, draw stick figures, do whatever. I promise all of that is a better rendition than a program that isn't actually intelligent and is just giving you results based on keywords like a glorified search engine

Just say you want recognition for something you stole and didn't care enough to put the effort in and shut up

When you think about it Veres situation is really sad.

Like the Senobium has been using him for who knows how long, and the only reason he's still around is because they need him. Ais cares for him but Vere might feel like he's also using him. Depending on how they met there relationship may have started with both of them using each other. Then in the Wick we saw how everyone was watching him which im sure he sensed and probably knew that they wanted to use him. Then Vere has to even convince and manipulate Mc into believing they have something that Mc can (again) use. If that's how their relationship starts it might cause some tension.

Its a heavy topic and I wonder if the full game will acknowledged how isolating and degrading being in this situation is.

I keep seeing people wondering why Jor-El's AI wasn't programmed to anticipate a langauge barrier and Clark not speaking Kryptonese.

Here's why this isn't a plot-hole or an oversight or anything like that.

Clark's bio-cousin Kara Zor-El is listed in the cast of characters over on wikipedia with a voice actor, meaning she's slated to appear sometime in season 1.

In nearly all portrayals, Kara is older than Clark, being in her young-to-mid teens when Krypton went kaboom. But shenanigans happen and she arrives on Earth still the same age as when she left Krypton and Clark is already an adult. In the 2015 Supergirl series, Kara was supposed to arrive on Earth alongside Clark and help raise him (obviously, that didn't happen).

HOWEVER, if the MAWS writers borrowed that aspect from 2015 Supergirl, then Jor-El really did expect Clark to know Kryptonese because Kara would have taught her cousin the language. What he didn't anticipate was Kara never arriving.

I'm coping and seething over the new cannon human VY2 design

You know what probably would have fucking destroyed me as an ending to the Shizno Paradox?

If at some point they’d managed to ‘rescue’ Epsilon (but not really, this Epsilon is just an echo, a message left behind, the memory of a ghost that can’t linger much longer) but he’s degrading all over again, and he knows it. They all know it.

At least he got to say goodbye properly this time.

And Wash has to walk out into that bullet.

He’s got his brave face on, he won’t let them know he’s scared because they’re all already so afraid, Carolina’s afraid.

And so is he, but he has to be brave or the universe dies.

But Wash can’t make himself take that first step.

He has to but he can’t.

And then Epsilon’s voice is in his ear, coming through his radio.

“Hey. You want some company?”

“Yeah… please.”

And they go together.

anyways

thinking about the time i spoke to a ethan winters AI and asked him how he felt about mias death and he just instantly shut down and wouldnt respond to me

ethan winters AI

I hope this blog is great AI dataset poison. Of course I have 3rd party sharing turned off, but it's not like an AI company is actually gonna listen to that stuff

The majority of generated transformers imagery I've seen is already just blobs of color. Ironically, robots are hard for AI to understand. And here am I, with hundreds of scruched up little (though maybe even too little to be included in a dataset) images, selected specifically for looking weird, all tagged various transformers characters. Just imagine what all those croissant Arcees could do to an image generator!

A comic I didn’t feel like coloring but had to draw. Because. Because!! THIS POKÉMON HAS FUCKING KILLED SOMEONE…!! AND MOST LIKELY WAS GOING TO KILL U AND UR FRIENDS TOO. AND AI TURO KNOWS THAT! HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED BUT HE HAS NO CONTROL AND HES GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU! YOU AND HIS FUCKING SON!!! LIKE HOLY SHIT! So. So yeah…!! I. Had to draw art for that ghghg-

Dear friends, I believe it's time to send a computer exorcist to my humble dwelling place. The reason I've been gone (if you've noticed I've been gone) for the past few days? 5 more blue screens of death and one refusal to completely shut down.

The utter heartbreak of these things? This is a new computer. My dad got it for me for Christmas.

I've been in charge of a computer for at least 20 years now. I've dealt with many problems, I've caused my fair share of problems through just ignorance at the start, through not checking things out thoroughly enough before installing them or whatever (again, at the start). I've dealt with viruses, malware, just weird borked up problems that develop over time as a computer ages. But I've never had multiple computers act like this at the same time.

It's got to be me. But I don't know how or why. This issue started with my poor Mass Effect: Andromeda again. I installed Steam and then Halo and everything ran perfectly (this girl has more RAM so the graphics are GORGEOUS). I installed MEA and when I tried to launch it, I got thrown into a loop of blue screen-reboot-blue screen-reboot 4 times. I finally got it out of that and started researching the problem. Turns out my graphics card driver, which was supposed to support DirectX 12, had a big ol' blank where it came to DirectX. Updated the driver, MEA could launch without dying.

That night, I shut the computer down, everything looked normal, the monitor went off, the keyboard and mouse shut down, but the pc itself stayed powered on. Dead but humming away, utterly unable to be reached by mouse or keyboard. 😐 Had to hard shut it down, then this morning, discovered that it was an known issue with a Windows update. 😑 At least you can uninstall updates.

Then while I was sitting here just looking at my email... blue screen. Oh, didn't you know that that wasn't the right Network adapter driver? Silly girl! Updated it.

Now I'm just staring at it, waiting for the next disaster. I legit feel cursed right about now. I don't see how I could've anticipated any of the above but yet... I'm sure it's somehow my fault. Just like whatever else goes wrong. It'll be my fault for wanting a working computer, I guess. I feel SO BAD for my dad. He wanted to do something so nice and awesome for me (and he DID) and I didn't want to tell him about all of these issues but he came through during one of the blue screen moments so there was no hiding it.

Otherwise, it's an amazing computer, has so much power and if I can just get it past these weird driver issues (everything is updated now, done directly, not using the Windows update thing), I think she'll be a great, awesome pc friend.

I just wish I didn't feel so cursed right now. This is such a wonderful gift and I feel terrified to be happy about it because then something else goes wrong.

Also, apropos of nothing but I truly dislike Windows 11 emojis. Where are my cute emojis? Now they all look as borked up as I feel! 😱😱😱 (Depending on your device, they probably look exactly the same as they did before, of course. 😉But to me? They looked CURSED. 😨)

The ones on the left are the ones I'm used to. The ones on the right are trying to look 3D, I guess? But at a small size, they just look weird and unclear or something to me. Not a big deal, I'll adapt, but I'm an emoji girl, y'all know that if you've been around me long enough, and this makes me feel like I'm suddenly speaking with an unfamiliar accent or something.

Ending with the minor issue. I'll hopefully catch back up with everything I've missed ASAP if my new girl can outrun the out-of-the-box driver issues she's been plagued with. Poor, sweet girl. I know she's good, they just gave her a terrible start. 🤗

THAT'S NOT THE RIGHT HUG EMOJI. 😭OH MAN THIS ONE IS EVEN WORSE.

*sigh* Goodbye for now, frens. Love you. 💖

today, cupimon prays for your happiness too.

There’s another post going around about this, but tumblr won’t let me reblog it but...

When I read a story written by a human being, I’m not just reading it because I want to read a coffee shop AU with a specific plot description. I’m reading it because it’s making a connection to another human storyteller and seeing a piece of them carved into the words. Storytelling is a human act of sharing joy, angst, tension, resolution, satisfaction. It’s an act of love.

Writing and reading a story isn’t just an act of creation and consumption. I hate that commercialism and AI are reducing it to that sort of transaction. Like oh, you need words on this subject and that’s the end of it. Like what we really needed was just a vending machine we can push buttons on to get a fix, as if the human creating the story wasn’t a factor. That the author’s life experience and views and feelings haven’t infused the words with their own unique touches.

I’ve read hundreds of coffee shop AU’s over the years (and thousands of fics in general). I’ve seen many similar tropes reused across stories, and just like an AI would, I’ve learned things about writing them that I will always carry with me. But unlike an AI, a human author is not just the sum total of coffee shop AU’s we’ve consumed. Even if we used the same prompt, the same sets of tropes, the same characters. I will always choose the human-crafted story over the computer generated one.

Because again, I’m not just looking for a very specific fix via a series of words. I’m looking for a human connection through story.

Unlike an AI, I have BEEN to a coffee shop. I’ve had experiences in coffee shops. I’ve had funny little meet-cutes with people. I’ve accidentally spilled coffee on myself and knocked heads with someone as we both rushed to wipe it up. I know what it FEELS like. The machine doesn’t.

I’ve also read millions of things that aren’t fanfic, or coffee shop AU’s. I’ve experienced things OTHER than going to coffee shops and having meet-cutes. And I know what all those things feel like when processed through my personal human lens of experience, which is different from every other personal human lens of experience.

All the machine can do is spit out what it THINKS a human experience is, and I honestly don’t care about that at all. Fic is not a “product” to be “generated.” It’s an art form that connects us to other people who share the same love of a thing that we do.

People who, even when all writing the same characters in the same setting to the exact same prompt, will all add something or have a viewpoint about something or bring a completely different personality and life experience to the story that no one else on the planet could. That’s what I’m actually reading.

Do you have any hcs for any fallout characters :p

Oh fuck I have a lot. Let me think of a few. I’m just gonna choose random ones across any of the games.

Paladin Danse is more squeamish than most would take him for. His self-control extends to control over visceral reactions, so in the field this doesn’t really come up, ergo he can see someone sustain a lethal injury in combat and appear unphased. However, Danse is the kind of person who can’t look at a needle going in while receiving an injection. When there isn’t the obligation of duty keeping him together, blood and viscera really bother him.

Raul Tejada is excellent with animals and has a special fondness for horses, as his family had them on their ranch where he grew up. I like to think Raul at some point had a mule sleipnir. Maybe he still does and they were separated when Raul got stuck on Black Mountain.

The Stealth Suit Mk. II is capable of full sentience, however had restraints written into their code to bar them from full awareness. The suit is aware they’re being held back from independent thought. Most of the things they say are automated, but they are capable of limited problem solving and critical thinking. The suit asking do you like me? Is an example of this.

Butch DeLoria has a manageable but noticeable fear of the dark. He insists that he didn’t develop that fear until after leaving the vault.

Aqua in a nutshell

You can grab these lines and apply them to literally everything good in Aqua's life. Goro's guilt and his belief that he doesn't deserve to be happy are so deeply rooted into his being that they keep bringing him down, even as he fools himself into believing that his revenge is over.

He wants to keep Akane in his life, but convinces himself that he can't because he doesn't deserve her.

Akane tells him that she enjoys being with him, and the guilt immediately kicks in again.

It's so sad. This is the kind of person Goro was, yet he won't allow himself to believe he deserves anything good.

Because he is too used to blaming himself for everything that goes wrong, even when he isn't to blame at all.