there are kids at my work who are eleven years old and have never had a prime minister for a full term
australian gothic
– we all refer to the prime minister by their first name. we know them well, and they know us. all of us.
– there’s a man on the street corner who never leaves. “just waiting for a mate,” he says. you realise he is on every corner, of every street.
– you are swooped by a magpie in the same place, at the same time, every single day. “it’s swooping season!” says your neighbour. it has always been swooping season.
– sometimes you hear a woman whispering late at night – or early in the morning. “rage” she hisses. “rage”.
– the prime minister never seems to last long and often disappears through no discernible democratic process. one of them eats a raw onion in an attempt to assimilate. he is gone by morning, replaced by another.
The Immortal Harriet
Charles Darwin brought back a tortoise from the Galapagos Islands. She was five years old, and he named her Harriet. Harriet long outlived Darwin, and passed through a number of owners – the last being Steve Irwin. Harriet died in 2006 at the ripe old age of 176.
The documentary is a good hour or so along. We’ve already covered the inception of the comic and the fandom’s early days. I am sitting on a red leather armchair, holding a half-full glass of wine and looking thoughtfully at a pipe. I appear already mildly tipsy.
When I start to take a sip of the wine I just make a face and spit it back out into a potted plant, which makes you wonder whether I’m actually tipsy or if this is just my natural demeanor.
“Bad vintage,” I say. “Bouquet. Palate. Where were we? Oh, right. So, all of that, that’s why whenever I make a lyricstuck for a new fandom–hm?”
A muffled voice off-screen gently questions whether it’s still a lyricstuck if it’s not a Homestuck fandom product. I scoff gently. Take another sip of wine and immediately abort the activity in the same manner as before.
“Well, there’s a lot of debate about that. I personally think the term transcends fandom–we made it, after all! We built this medium!”
A montage of classic lyricstucks scrolls across the screen, each longer than the last.
“Oh, we weren’t the first to put pictures with music, but we were the first to stretch your Tumblr dash to inconceivable lengths in the pursuit of that combination! Back in the days when Read Mores were a sin, even on 76 panels of murderstuck set to My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up) by Fall Out Boy.”
I pause and sigh. “Of all the options, I had to pick the one with a title almost as long as the song.”
Another pause. The background music swells gently. I turn to sit sideways in the armchair, but there isn’t room for my feet so I stop and turn back to the front, spilling the rest of my wine on myself in the process. I don’t appear to notice.
“But…you know, for all the weird shit you could say about lyricstucks or the fandom as a whole, no one could make crazy big art projects like we could.” I stare wistfully into the distance, shaking my head a little.
“No one.”
#off-camera the same voice asks if they couldn’t get anyone else for this interview
They asked @roachpatrol but he showed up already blitzed and waving a sword.
nobody ever talks abt AI and the theory of mind in relation to autistic people and it’s sad bc it’s such a fascinating intersection! people want to talk abt robots not having empathy or learning empathy but i really do relate to robots bc like. the idea that you just don’t have the programming to conceptualize and understand someone else’s mindset and emotions and still managing to excercise goodwill is so good. im trying not to go off but like. there’s so much about it and how we feel about AI and how society feels about autistic people that’s never discussed
TLDR that whole phillosphical discussion: “if a robot doesn’t have empathy how can it be a good ‘person’” is indicative of how society feels about those who have low empathy and kind of hurts but at the same time as someone with low empathy it’s fucking cool as hell to think about robots trying hard to be good anyways
“But….you have no empathy! How are you not evil?”
“Just because I can’t conceptualize the thought processes and emotions behind a human being doesn’t mean I have to be a jackass, but it’s really interesting how you somehow have empathy and still manage to be an asshole. Really. Tell me more about how you think I’m supposed to be evil.”
#fucking sue me ship#im stepping on your robot flash fiction work#do something
Hal are you flirting with me
