essayofthoughts

[essayofthoughts]

What's that blog that goes over ridiculously expensive magazine christmas kitsch? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

[essayofthoughts]

The UK Government have launched a consultation on whether AI should be allowed to scrape content online with complete disregard for copyright.

The consultation is stuffed to the brim with technobabble buzzwords and jargon that frames AI as wonderful and that this is a foregone conclusion.

You can submit a response via the link above and tell them what you really think.

[essayofthoughts]

Even aside from censorship, there's something Guillermo del Toro said and I can't recall if its in his Cabinet of Curiosities book or the Crimson Peak companion book, but he said that with with his films, amongst other things, he has a few things he puts on his list of things for the film that are intended as sacrifices. If he gets them that's nice, and if he doesn't, it's no loss - for Crimson Peak, that was to do (a version of? part of? I can't recall exactly) the film in black and white.

Of course studio execs weren't gonna allow one weird niche gothic horror/romance film to get EVEN MORE niche by being in black and white! Even Mad Max Fury Road only got that after wild success! But GDT went into his meeting knowing he'd be asked to lop off bits of his film, and he planned ahead what things could be made into sacrifices so he could still make the film he wanted to make.

That video of Alex Hirsch reading S&P notes for Gravity Falls conveys a few things to me:

1) the U.S. entertainment industry (especially animation) is run by older conservative types who make up offensive terms and get really mad about them.

2) the people who run Disney would be the first to fall in line with a fascist regime.

3) most of the media we consume is tailor-made and watered-down to appeal to the tastes of older, deeply religious conservative audiences.

4) conservatism, not the left, is and always has been the biggest voice of censorship in American culture.

[essayofthoughts]

Hey! Could we get an updated link to the discord server? It seems the one in the post has gone inactive.

Yup! Link should be updated on the post now - https://www.tumblr.com/essayofthoughts/769621947485208576/just-a-general-place-for-if-you-want-to-write-and - thanks for letting me know!

[essayofthoughts]

Genuinely, this is a very brisk Q&A, shouldn't take more than five minutes and only asks for your country for personal info!

Survey on socio- and geopolitical tensions in YOUR country 

I am modifying the European Commission Checklist on the Root Causes of Conflict for a class of English language learners and would like to get a wide sample of perspectives on political tensions in various countries to use as a reference when I teach the class. While the survey is open to everyone, I would especially like to focus on respondents in countries either on the brink of, or are currently experiencing some sort of conflict, whether it be from internal or external forces.

The only personal data I will be collecting is the country you are responding for. Please try to respond using your own perspective and experiences.

Thank you so much for your time!

[essayofthoughts]

Don’t let Chrome’s big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome’s invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the “Privacy Sandbox,” is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven’t been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it’s built directly into the Chrome browser. It’s been in the news previously as “FLoC” and then the “Topics API,” and despite widespread opposition from just about every non-advertiser in the world, Google owns Chrome and is one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, so this is being railroaded into the production builds.

Use Firefox.

[essayofthoughts]

Survey on socio- and geopolitical tensions in YOUR country 

I am modifying the European Commission Checklist on the Root Causes of Conflict for a class of English language learners and would like to get a wide sample of perspectives on political tensions in various countries to use as a reference when I teach the class. While the survey is open to everyone, I would especially like to focus on respondents in countries either on the brink of, or are currently experiencing some sort of conflict, whether it be from internal or external forces.

The only personal data I will be collecting is the country you are responding for. Please try to respond using your own perspective and experiences.

Thank you so much for your time!

[essayofthoughts]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[essayofthoughts]

alstroemeria, chapter 5

uh, hey guys!! it's been... two years since i posted chapter 4!! i am. so sorry for neglecting this fic guys. i haven't been posting much in a while but oh my god. i wrote this chapter as part of a writing sprint and forgot that i actually finished it?? lmao?? i'm in the middle of finals but i wanted a boost of serotonin. it's not heavily edited beyond a generous beta read from @blorbologist but it's content!! this prompt was suggested by @essayofthoughts :D

title: for a gift

rating: general but with vex-typical strong language

word count: 1.8k

genre: fluff, gift giving, pre-relationship, whatever the precursor to pining is

(no spoilers for TLOVM fans, but it's set in campaign canon and characterizations)

•  •  •

Vex twists and dances through the packed marketplace while reading the list in her hand, muttering words to herself as she tries to make out everyone’s handwriting. Vax’s is easy and familiar, and Keyleth’s is fairly standard if a bit curlier around the edges, but that’s about where simplicity ends. Pike’s handwriting would be perfectly legible if it weren’t so neatly tucked away into a corner, small as her gnomish hand. Scanlan, for some ungodly reason, insists on writing in full-flourishes where flourishes aren’t even necessary; and Percy writes exactly as nobly as his posh accent would suggest.

(Vex has experience with handwriting courses, of course, and has penmanship to match any elven diplomat, but only in elvish. She’d focused so hard on outpacing the full-bloods who thought she never could that she’d neglected her common penmanship. Not that any of it’s been useful, anyhow.)

And, well. Grog can’t write. Most of the list items she assumes are his are tacked on to the end of most everyone else’s lists.

read the rest on ao3

[essayofthoughts]

Just a general place for if you want to write and discuss Campaign 1 Fic. That does mean all of Campaign 1 (VM, Guest characters, NPCs) and not so much TLOVM (show only people, spoilers WILL abound)

Discord Server Invite (if it expires, let me know)

[essayofthoughts]

Just a general place for if you want to write and discuss Campaign 1 Fic. That does mean all of Campaign 1 (VM, Guest characters, NPCs) and not so much TLOVM (show only people, spoilers WILL abound)

Discord Server Invite (if it expires, let me know)

[essayofthoughts]

✨ Please reblog to make it reach out to as many people as possible, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people listen to the music with an open mind 💖

Artists and titles will be revealed after the poll's conclusion, check the original post for an update! ✨

[essayofthoughts]

✨ Please reblog to make it reach out to as many people as possible, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people listen to the music with an open mind 💖

Artists and titles will be revealed after the poll's conclusion, check the original post for an update! ✨

[essayofthoughts]

reblog this and tag with a food you no longer have access to (closed restaurant, state you moved away from, ex’s mom’s cooking, etc) that will haunt you until your dying day, mine are the spicy chicken sandwich on the employee menu at the fine dining restaurant I was a prep cook at, and the onion bagel from the kosher place down the street from my house when I lived in the city

[essayofthoughts]

Lucretia My Reflection (12" Version) / The Sisters Of Mercy.

[essayofthoughts]

✨ Please reblog to make them reach out to as many people as possible, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people listen to the music with an open mind 💖

Artists and titles will be revealed after the poll's conclusion, check the original post for an update! ✨

[essayofthoughts]

On wastes of time

There's this recurring thing where people can't tell me what's so cool or important about this show they want me to watch or book they want me to read or podcast they want me to listen to and I know summarising is a skill, but it's also really important if you want to get people into things.

Because currently? Currently what we have drives me nuts. We get "Oh, it's gay!" or some obfuscating description that tells us nothing, or "it's so good i promise" and that isn't enough!

Okay, it's gay. I can go to AO3 for queer fic, I have queer books I know are good, podcasts, shows, etc.. I've been rereading a series where most of the main cast are from a non-human culture where queerness is normal and gender roles are flipped around. Tell me why I should care about this one. Gay is not a genre - is it horror, mystery, romance, fantasy, sci-fi? Is the queerness the whole plot or is it incidental? (Because, and I'll be honest, if the queerness is the whole plot, I will not be interested - some may! But not me.)

"read about this perfectly normal thing!" - well, obviously there's something not normal about it or else you wouldn't be writing about it. Is it an SCP kind of obsessively Normal thing in a way that's eerie and unnerving? A horror story? That could be cool. Is the weird coming from people investigating it, or around it? Does something strange happen to it? Is the thing entirely normal but it's just the setting and the story is about people around it or involved in it? I don't fucking know. You haven't told me.

Okay, so it's good. It makes you yell and feel emotions. What emotions. Why? What invokes the emotions? Why do you enjoy it? What bits stood out, what made it interesting to you? What might draw someone else in?

Back when everyone went feral over the Locked Tomb, I didn't get it. Goth Space Lesbians, okay. That's a cool art piece, maybe a stained glass window, but it's not a story.

You know what got me to read it? A post talking about the swimming pool confession.

That? That cut to the heart of messy interpersonal dynamics that indicated a lot of tension between the characters, a lot of nuance to the dynamics and things which, done right, I could find compelling. It showed history, it showed thought, it showed messy, flawed characters who still had morals and guilt and lines even they wouldn't cross within their rivalry, it showed a trust within their rivalry that they knew where they stood with each other even if that was at knifepoint. It made me curious.

I ultimately didn't really care for Locked Tomb, but that's fine. Sometimes you bounce off something, and it just wasn't my kind of jam. But that one post? That gave me a glimpse. That made me curious enough to try.

But a lot of summaries and attempts to make people start something new I've seen lately? Skip that step. Skip making people curious. Just say "HEY LOOK AT THIS" without ever giving a reason. And I get you may want to avoid spoilers, or go in blind, or avoid giving the plot away but...

What counts as spoilers? How blind should you go in? And does this give away the whole plot, or just that there is one? The kind of genre and tropes that might be in play?

If you tell people nothing, then you've given them a blank wall. It could be thin as paper - easy to step through and see what's on the other side, but if it looks like a blank wall, why would they bother? You have to provide a doorway - something they can look through, and catch a glimpse of what's on the other side. Something that makes them want to step through and see more.

You want people curious. You want people interested. You need to answer just enough questions to make them want to discover more for themselves.

If you want me to spend my time reading/watching/listening to something, then I have to know it's worth my time.