#cannot say this enough in my life: not everything on the internet is for everyone all the time and that’s ok
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danandfuckingjonlmao · 2 years ago
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(different anon) Dan VS is an old(-ish) cartoon with a fanbase on here - ur posts about Dan and Phil keep showing up in that tag because of tumblrs awesome tagging system. not blaming you just letting you know! -dan vs fan
ohhh thank you for explaining!! i was like ?? dan vs who?? are we ADDING CONTROVERSIES?? yeah tumblr’s tagging has been interesting there’s been all kinds of shit everywhere
to the other anon: i highly recommend scrolling past when you aren’t interested in posts bc social media gatekeeping is not the most effective strategy for avoiding content you don’t wanna see. maybe you could blacklist tags too?? or honestly just blocking me or people whose posts annoy you. i’ve blocked a few blogs that show up in the tags i frequent not because i have anything against them personally but because it’s nice to cultivate what you see and what you’d prefer not to. but above all, nothing quite like having the power to simply,, scroll past things (i can’t say that without sounding snarky and i think i am feeling a little snarky but also i’m so serious it’s very easy and low effort lol)
thanks again anon who explained this, appreciate you taking the time to do so :) hope you’re well and get sleep and drink water!
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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago
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That means that for a work to be eligible for copyright in the USA, it must satisfy three criteria:
1. It must be creative. Copyright does not apply to non-creative works (say, a phone book listing everyone in a town in alphabetical order), even if the work required a lot of labor. Copyright does not protect effort, it protects creativity. You can spend your whole life making a phone book and get no copyright, but the haiku you toss off in ten seconds while drunk gets copyright’s full protection. 2. It must be tangible. Copyright only applies to creative works that are “fixed in a tangible medium.” A dance isn’t copyrightable, but a video of someone dancing is, as is a written description of the dance in choreographers’ notation. A singer can’t copyright the act of singing, but they can copyright the recording of the song. 3. It must be of human authorship. Only humans are eligible for copyright. A beehive’s combs may be beautiful, but they can’t be copyrighted. An elephant’s paintings may be creative, but they can’t be copyrighted. A monkey’s selfie may be iconic, but it can’t be copyrighted.
The works an algorithm generates —be they still images, audio recordings, text, or videos — cannot be copyrighted.
For creative workers, this is huge. Our bosses, like all bosses, relish the thought of firing us all and making us homeless. You will never love anything as much as your boss hates paying you. That’s why the most rampant form of theft in America is wage theft. Just the thought of firing workers and replacing them with chatbots is enough to invoke dangerous, persistent priapism in the boardrooms of corporate America.
- Everything Made By an AI Is In the Public Domain: The US Copyright Office offers creative workers a powerful labor protective
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THIS IS THE LAST DAY FOR MY KICKSTARTER for the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
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Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.
On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.
On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
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universalitgirlsblog2 · 3 months ago
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🩷🌸PROTECT YOUR ENERGY🌸🩷
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🩷🌸Your energy is sacred and precious. It is so important to protect, cherish and nourish your energy in this chaotic world. Stop giving away your energy as if it is not valuable and precious currency. Do not give away your energy to mindlessly consuming things on the internet or to other people. Stop being always available. Not everything or everyone needs our response🩷🌸
🩷DO NOT DWELL ON THE NEGATIVE
Stop giving your energy and attention to things you do not want to see. Focus on the positive things , shift from complaining to gratitude. You can also repeat the mantra -
" I am now through my sovereign divine right calling back my power and my energy from all the people , places and past events where I have given my energy away consciously or unconsciously where my energy has been taken without my consent or with my consent. I call back my energy now . "
🌸SET BOUNDARIES
Boundaries are more about you than other people. If you have a diamond at home , you will protect it , right ? Similarly, your energy is ad precious and valuable as a diamond. Protect it. I made a post on summary of Tam Kaur video on boundaries. I would suggest you to read it. Click me !!!
🩷SELF-CARE
Make self-care your daily ritual. Workout , Meditate , Do Yoga , Mirrorwork , listen to Guided meditation and do breath-work. These things work miraculously. It is the little things that matter.
🌸BE MINDFUL
Be mindful of what you consume. On social media , there are people who feed on negativity . On youtube , you may find some youtubers who love to feed on negativity and offend people to get views and engagement. Please do not waste your time watching those youtubers , watch youtubers who inspire you , it can be the wizard liz , if you want to take inspiration for mindset or it can be a productive vlog . Anything which will inspire you and help you to level up in your life. I would recommend you to check out these two posts where I mentioned youtubers who can help you to be motivated and productive - click me and click me !! Unfollow influencer or celebrities you do not like , give you bad vibes or make you feel insecure. Follow content which will motivate and educate you. Do not engage in a conversation with toxic people. Let them be. Limit your exposure to negative influences. Do not be friends with anyone , not everyone deserves your attention and energy.
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🩷DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
It is never personal. Whatever people say about you , it is not about you. It is a reflection about them .
🌸CLEAN YOUR SELF-TALK
You do not have to believe everything you think. You have the right to choose what you believe. Write down your negative thoughts and switch them with positive ones.
I cannot do this -- I can do anything I put my mind into .
No one believes in me --- I believe in myself and that is enough.
🩷TAKE A BREAK
Stop mindlessly scrolling . Take a break from social media. Social media can be extremely draining. Put a time limit on social media. Be as intentional you can be about the media you consume. Follow positive influencers which will motivate and educate you.
🌸GRATITUDE
" A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles ".
When was the last time you were truly grateful for what you have ? Here is a small thing you need to do - before going to bed , think about the five things you are grateful for.Thank God or Universe for the blessings. Shift your focus from complaining to gratitude.
🩷FIND HEALTHY COPING MECHANISMS
Over-eating , smoking or drowning yourself in alcohol to numb your emotions will not heal you. Be courageous enough to deal with your emotions. Journal your emotions , do shadow work , meditate , cry or exercise. Adopt healthy coping mechanisms , they will help you in future too.
🌸CHOOSE YOURSELF
Choose yourself. Put yourself first.Be your own best friend. Be your biggest fan. Put your needs and wants first. You can never leave you , you will always be there for yourself.
🩷UNDERSTAND WHEN YOUR THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOURS.
Sometimes our thoughts do not belong to us , they belong to some comment we read on internet . Ask yourself- " Are these really my thoughts ? " . If the answer is no , do not entertain those thoughts and let them go.
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🌸🩷That is all for today. I hope this post helped you. Do not just read and like this post , apply the tips too ! Please protect your energy , it is precious , so are you !!!!🩷🌸
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littlegreenfag-archive · 7 months ago
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Regarding @littlegreenfag
Tldr: Adina, known by the Tumblr urls littlegreenfag and prksoda, has spent the past several years lying about many facets of their life. The list of lies includes, but is not limited to, being half manouche Romani, being Jewish, and being descended from Holocaust survivors.
I never wanted to have to do this. I’ve spent months trying my best to encourage Adina to come clean themself. My methods were not ideal. I should not have used anonymous messages. I used to be friends with them, I should've talked to them openly as their friend. I also should’ve attempted to be less aggressive at times, even though I think it is incredibly reasonable to have felt the way I felt when I was sending some of those messages. I understand and regret both of these things. Unfortunately, since Adina has deactivated @littlegreenfag, I cannot provide links or screenshots to every ask of mine that they responded to, only those I saved at the time. I will do this later, upon request. This post is already going to be enough of a monster without them.
Though the last day has been a complete nightmare, I am satisfied with one thing: Adina came clean about everything, even if not publicly. My worry was always with the though of having to reveal their personal information, as many of the things they’ve lied about would require me to, functionally, dox them. Though it's technically all public, I would much rather that no one who doesn't already have access to this information gain it.
So, why am I writing this post? For those of you who were on Adina’s blog last night, you may have seen this post. I was also able to save a capture of their blog on the Internet Archive. Here is a screenshot that I took around when the post was first published. Apologies for the formatting.
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To summarize, Adina begins to by admitting to a small lie, that they were born in Chicago, before admitting that they had been lying about their race. Though it was not present at the time of the blog's deletion, I would like to note that Adina had the phrase "jewish and half-romani" in their blog's bio for a very long time. This phrase was quietly removed after I sent the first anon message telling them that I was aware of their lies, on March 16th 2024. This can be seen on the Wayback Machine, by looking at the capture taken on March 5th, 2024, in comparison to the capture taken on March 24th, 2024.
That is what you may have seen. However, it is not the only major lie Adina has told. After suggesting Adina should turn off anons, I sent them another ask with my blog name visible, telling them that I could tell everyone about the other lies for them, if they wished to log off and be done with it. They messaged me privately, and this is the resulting conversation.
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I apologize for the block of images, but I figured it was necessary to include the entire conversation. Here, Adina openly admits to not being Jewish. Adina has spent months receiving social benefits for claiming to be Jewish, and they've even used this claim to support arguments. Truth be told, Adina has one Jewish great-grandfather. How Adina expected me to believe they would know about this without knowing his surname, I will never know. However, I should emphasize that Adina is not Jewish by the standards of any main movement of Judaism. Orthodox and Conservative look for an unbroken line of Jewish women, while Reform asks that you be raised Jewish by a Jewish parent. Adina is descended from a Jewish man who converted to Catholicism and raised his children Catholic.
Regarding the Holocaust claim, I understand hat Adina did not directly address this. I will say that I find it suspicious that they deactivated as soon as I mentioned it, but they technically never confirmed it was a lie. However, with the information that:
The ancestors they mention as being survivors or victims quite literally do not exist and
Their Jewish ancestor was born in the United States well before WWII
I believe it is quite safe to say this was also a lie. My screenshots of their claims come mostly from their Reddit account, which is now deleted.
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It is absolutely ghoulish to me to create fake relatives so that you can pretend they were tortured and killed during the Holocaust. All to receive sympathy.
Though there are many, many other lies Adina has peddled, such as being a child of divorce and having a dead biological mother, I don't think any of them matter much in the grand scheme of things when these are the other lies that have been told.
It is also worth noting that this is a pattern of behavior from Adina. As some of you who followed them may know, back in 2019, a blog was created with the intent of calling them out for lies. Frankly, this blog, @prksodalies , is what put me on to Adina's trail in the first place. Though I believe that several of the things Adina was accused of on this blog are downright cruel to accuse someone of without evidence, the fact that there were so many smaller obvious lies made me very uneasy. What specifically made me curious was the post, here, where Adina claims that they are half Lebanese. Obviously, this did not make a ton of sense with the half Roma and half Ashkenazi Jewish Adina we all knew. As it turns out, this was one of the very few shreds of truth from Adina. They're a quarter Lebanese on their father's side, and other than that and a Jewish great-grandfather, are of mostly Polish and German descent.
This being a pattern of behavior, alongside the way Adina behaved in messages with me, tells me that this will likely unfortunately not be the last time this person creates a Tumblr blog with a fabricated life story. I feel immense guilt at the thought that they may continue to swindle and hurt people, and that I will never know or be able to help again.
To everyone who was friends with this person and has been hurt by their actions, I am truly, truly sorry. This has been an absolutely miserable experience for me and I can't imagine it's much different for any of you. If you have questions, I'll be available for a least a few hours. I do not want to share any of their personal information, but I will share what I need to (privately) if some of you need or want more information.
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multifandomwhore-003 · 1 year ago
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Forever —Drabble
Pairing: Lando Norris x female! reader
Summary: First time watching your boyfriend crash during a race? Rough.
Genre: angst, fluff.
Waring(s): Mentions of the Las Vegas crash.
Taglist: @ join taglist here
A/N: This is by far the most poetic work I've ever put out (I think), that being said. WHATEVER TF THIS IS, BLAME ON HIM, THIS MAN IS GORGEOUS
Gif credits to whom it belongs
REQUESTS ARE CLOSED
THIS IS NOT FREE USE, YOU CANNOT USE MY WORK
Even through ringing ears and a dazy view, he could clearly hear you, wondering then how it was even possible, he heard beyond the arguments and strong footsteps; the flare of your nose, the shakiness in your breath, the hamering in your heart, he swore he could feel it. And with that in mind, he sighed in relived, he could feel something after all, the last thing he remembered, the last thing he perceived was dread, flashing through the last few hours of his life, could those be his last?
Shaking, on the verge of tears all he could do beyond gathering the last remnants of strength in him, was think of his family, you right beside his parents, you.
Minutes passed before he realized he blinked forcefully, perhaps one of these times he'd actually lose consciousness, or worse, be gone for good. His usual dramatics and the painkillers were dancing around his brain, making it their playground. Against all of this, he tried to organize the sound with letters, letters into words, and words into speech. Speech, Could he speak right now?
He prepared himself for the task by trying to stand on his elbows.
"Mr. Norris, please lie down," the nurse guided his head back into the pillow.
"My girlfriend," his throat was hoarse strangely enough.
"She's right outside," the nurse's undertone confirmed his bare train of thought.
"I have to see her," he grabbed the woman's arm, he was pleading.
She whispered something under her breath, clearly giving in to the situation, "I'll let her in," she grinned.
He could recognize something now, your stance, firm in shape, trembling with every motion, you stepped in asking, no, demanding the nurse to close the door behind her, avoiding her gaze in plain coldness. You said nothing for the first few seconds, breathing deeply.
"I'm okay," he let out.
"I know, they've already explained everything to me," you covered your mouth.
His fingers reached for yours, longed for them, interlacing with one another, perfectly, like every time before tonight.
He took some awareness of his surroundings, as much as he could without pushing to the edge, how horrible of a might he had over his head, effective, but far too harsh, far too overwhelming.
"We're going home in a couple of hours, they just wanna make sure, you're going to be fine," you knew you were failing at reassuring him, he didn't need it, but you did.
"I gathered that, otherwise you would still be outside yelling at everyone you could,"
You chuckled, not proud of your actions, but finding them rather hysterical at the moment, "I'm sorry you had to hear that,"
"It was music to my ears," he joked.
"Having my screams flood this place?"
"Having you care so much about me,"
"Always," was all you could answer biting down a sniffle.
It was not so long ago when you quietly promised yourself to give him your heart, the one thing you'd never thought you'd offer, let alone to the guy the Russells so kindly invited to a tennis event, to the guy who over a few drinks and laughs without a sense of shame in the world asked you to dance messily, making of those videos something for the internet to cut and explore. He was so much more than that now, and even to put it into those words was the understatement of a lifetime.
He could say the same thing about his side of the story, to explore a rather rushed friendship before diving, completely submerging, was something he'd labeled as a blessing. To fill his hours by your side in talking, and talking until you had everything to learn from one another laid out and displayed in string lights. Neither of you looked for this, flowing like every bottle of champagne you saw him pop, like every shot of Tequila you drank during Mario-kart nights, like every tear of Rosé you spilled all over your couch in the middle of the night.
And to think that both the most infamous people of their career found in themselves something far more valuable than money, fame, even transcending. Comprehending during the first years of your adulthood what it all meant to allow yourself to be completely consumed with love. So unexpectedly both your reputation and his infinite rumors could all be proven wrong. Through the worst of the trials and tribulations of being committed, you still survived.
His head rested in all the calmness you made by moving heaven and earth to have, in the crook of your neck, never letting go of the sensation of his breath, his life. How funny was it to trust someone enough to keep you alive, physically, mentally emotionally; how funny that none of them could think of how to prove something as mysterious as love to be true, in themselves, in one another, in other people past the centuries, yet they believed in, that's what they invested their faith in.
Admitting you were never fools, but only to each other, you could almost touch each other's soul, finding it far more familiar than your own.
"I'm okay," he'd been repeating the same words like a prayer since the night before.
"I know," you gulped, letting go of a choked exhale.
He read you, "Trust me?"
"Forever," you reminded your thoughts, clearing them out with just one.
—If you can't trust yourself, trust him, forever—
"I'm okay," he tested the words against your sleepless frame.
"I belive you," you finally admitted in peace before giving you lips to his.
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centrally-unplanned · 17 days ago
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Let's see if I have one more election take in me:
I am deeply sympathetic to Sam Kriss's rage against the Democratic corpo-political shibboleth, and not just because we are both deeply enmeshed in the grand tradition of dissident Oxbridge-style cantankerous internet rants. He is right that Kamala was a weak candidate, for one. But more importantly, I still feel what he feels deep down. I remember the starry idealism of my halcyon youth, of believing that conviction, that vision, that the zeal only a platform birthed from authentic principles, tempered by struggle and sweat, would carry the day over crass, paint-by-polling-numbers incrementalism. When he describes Harris thusly:
"She’s a machine politician. She wants power, but not for any particular reason. It’s just that life is a game, and the point is to reach the highest level."
I see my own reaction to her when she first stepped into the 2020 limelight, and low-key hating her for it. I feel his heart, for it is my heart.
But it is not my brain. Because I am not a teenager anymore, and his critique is fucking bullshit.
He says all this stuff like:
The reason Kamala Harris lost is the same as the reason she was the candidate to begin with: the Democratic Party is allergic to democracy.
And how the electorate is seen as but ants from inside the towers of the Machine, like the Dems just invented "not running a primary" this time as a lark. As opposed to neither party in America ever having primaries against incumbent presidents! Because they are normally popular, and it would be a waste of everyone's time to do that! Could you imagine, launching a real primary against Obama in 2012? And possibly sabotaging his brand a bit for absolutely nothing? It is a reasonable policy, particularly when incumbents used to have an advantage for being so. Now they clearly don't, Biden was unpopular and too old, and the Dems took too long to realize it. A costly mistake, but it is a purely strategic error. Big orgs have inertia, and the Dems fucked up. It has nothing to do with an "allergy to democracy".
And Kriss can go off summarizing how the Harris campaign was offering voters nothing:
But for some unaccountable reason, among the general public, ‘Kamala: You Already Like Her!’ was not the brilliant pitch it seemed to be. [...] Another option would be to actually offer something to the voters.
Which sounds neat, but he made it up! I remember Kamala's actual campaign speeches, ads, and platforms, which she repeated so monotonically in her tightly-scripted campaign appearances: protect abortion rights, expand the welfare state, provide better child care support, lower the cost of housing. And most importantly, she ran on Biden's record of a strong economy and promised to deliver more of it. What does even mean for this to not be a real platform? Beyond not having some synthesized, totalizing "Critique" of modernity that packages it all into a beautiful, systematizing little box.
Because I promise you, voters synthesize jack shit. None of this is why Harris lost - voters have made that pretty clear:
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You can find other data ofc, this or that point varies, but the story is not opaque. They didn't like Biden! They didn't like his inflation. They didn't like immigration, or they didn't like his liberalism, and they thought Kamala was too similar. She had too much policy baggage. And she wasn't charismatic enough to dig herself out of that hole - no disagreement from me on that front.
Though even then, by that we mean she lost an election by ~3-4% margins after getting subbed in at the 4th quarter while down by ~8% in the polls. That ain't bad!
None of the voters who matter share Kriss's sensibilities, and he cannot hide his disappointment in that. So he pretends that Donald Trump, the guy who promised 20% tariffs on everything to fight inflation, is giving them a real vision:
That’s what Trump did: he offered an enemy to blame and the prospect of doing violence to them
I don't know man, I think swing voters just don't like the last four years and think 2019 was better. I don't think the promises of orgastic violence against democrats are why Trump won! Actually a bit of an unforced error on his part.
But since Kriss presumes to value democracy, that thesis can't hold - so the lack of reality delivering on what his vision for democracy should be is displaced onto Harris's mistakes. The voters can never fail you. You can only fail to elevate them with the right candidate. Which, tactically? Sure, why not. But you can leave the moralism at the classroom door.
This ties into our dreaded media discourse debate, so it is time to bring in another explainer, by Michael Tomasky:
The line-by-line isn't interesting here; instead I want to focus on this quote:
Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president? The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.”
To which the immediate reply is: my dude, what are you talking about??
A 56 percent majority of Americans say Trump is probably guilty of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results through false claims of voter fraud, including 40 percent who believe he is “definitely guilty.” Republicans are less united than Democrats. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats believe Trump is guilty, while nearly 7 in 10 Republicans think he is innocent. Among independents, nearly twice as many think Trump is guilty as think he is innocent.
You know how when you ~13 years old, and you have that friend who is just old enough to start taking Dungeons & Dragons books filled with splash art of succubi into the bathroom with him, but not yet old enough to get that "talking to girls" is an acquired skill? And they are blatantly, openly salivating over the first chick in the 7th grade class who discovered what power the combination of a camisole and a push-up bra holds over the male gaze? And she just completely ignores his faltering attempts at ~casual conversation~, so his brain script-cycles through its backlog of tween sitcom plots until it lands on, "Hey, what if I confess to her? Then she will know about my feelings!"
And you have to pull him aside and gently explain that, bro. She knows. That is not your problem.
Kriss is too intelligent a thinker to not understand this, but our dear Tomasky - and so many like him - has stuck his 14-year-old head in the sand over this. Swing voters know Trump is a scumbag! They know he lost the election, they know he raped a few women in his day, they know he is a serial fraudster. Even a bunch of those Republicans who, in polls, go "oh it's all a Dem conspiracy"? They know too; they just have the decency to lie about it. How could they not? Every media outlet in the country has been repeating it for a fucking decade! I might think voters are morons but even I won't stoop this low; they have eyes and ears, they aren't illiterate.
They just don't care.
Not enough at least, not enough to make it the only thing they consider. And here is the rub, here is the grand mistake Kriss & Tomasky are making - they are at least somewhat right to not care. The height of the Democratic privilege is that they get to play this card because they don't have to deal with it being turned against them. Kamala is a political chameleon but she is a decent person. She would never take a bribe from a foreign government, she would never assault a coworker, she would never, ever, deny a free and fair election.
Which means you don't have to choose between voting for a rapist and voting for someone who is going to shove a bullshit interpretation of the 14th amendment down your throat via a stacked court to ban abortion nationwide, forever. Pro-life people think abortion is genocide against babies! Why are you surprised they aren't voting for the pro-baby-genocide person because she is nice? How sure are you that you would do the same when that is reversed? I guess those boycott-Harris-because-of-Gaza people got some cred, but I think we all agreed they were dumb, right?
This is the rub of why outsiders always have so much difficulty understanding how people like Berlusconi, Trump, Le Pen, etc, get so much vote share - they have no stake in the political struggle beyond the vague idea of democratic norms. It is easy to say "Italy, choose a non-crook!" when you don't have to live with the policy programme of the other guy. From the inside the price of those principles is far, far harder. It isn't shocking that most choose not to pay it.
This isn't to give voters like a moral pass - Trump's conduct is truly disqualifying, I would vote Republican if the shoe was on the other foot in this case. My point instead is that they generally won't as a simple fact of life, and blaming them is futile. If you have wound up in a situation where the political system has taken its pool of hundreds of millions of potential candidates and narrowed it down to two for the voters, and one of them has "launched a coup but will say go to hell to the inflation guy" as a bundled package, someone fucked up and it isn't the voters.
You need political elites to do their part in the system - Republicans never should have let Trump be their candidate in 2016. Open primaries with no organizational thumbs on the scale are a mistake, actually, allowing arbitrary minorities to generate subpar candidates. The decision to let Biden run again was, fundamentally, born from the same impulse - the Democratic Party had no leadership capable of telling him no, because they outsourced that job to "primaries". The Dems are not "allergic" to democracy; democracy is allergic to too much of itself.
But the cat is out of the bag now! These changes happened for a reason after all. Which I won't dig into here - I will keep my point as focused as something as sprawling as this can be. Voters will not save you, and you should not be disappointed when they don't. It was never their job.
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ayeforscotland · 10 months ago
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Trying to limit and monitor kids’ social media usage would make so many problems so much worse and I need people to think about it objectively and not take it into consideration just because the concept is a knee-jerk reaction from a grieving mother being exploited by everyone around her.
— Kids already lie about their age, so an age limit is already unenforceable unless you literally require legal ID, which is an incredible breach of privacy with even further safety risks.
— Vulnerable children including LGBTQ kids living with bigoted families would be put in real-life danger of abuse or homelessness if their families had a way of knowing when they’re seeking support.
— The internet and technology is a requirement to navigate the world around you at the most basic level. That is a fact and schools know it too. Limiting access to that in this day and age would be massively limiting one’s knowledge, safety and basic life skills, especially if their family is neglectful or abusive.
— What constitutes as social media cannot necessarily strictly be defined. Some people consider WhatsApp to be social media despite the fact it’s a texting app, and the people you communicate with there are presumably people you’ve spoken to before if you know their numbers. Kids need a way of communicating with people for both practical and safety reasons, and blanketing almost everything as ‘social media’ and limiting access to it inhibits that.
— If you put a ban on all ‘social media’ until the age of 16 and then suddenly allow access, what you end up with is a child who has zero knowledge or experience of something suddenly being thrown into a world where anything is possible. It’s like when teens are forbidden alcohol their whole lives and the day they turn 18 they go on a massive binge not knowing their limits and end up either sick or in the hospital. It’s a recipe for disaster. They NEED exposure so they can learn.
— Let’s be real, kids would find a way around a ban through VPNs or other means anyway. We all figured out how to dodge the website blockers at school when we were 12. I doubt this would be any different.
While the fact that one of the killers watched gore on the dark web is indeed concerning, I really feel the spotlight is being shone on entirely the wrong issue here. Their conversations about the murder were all on social media and provided significant proof for the case. What kids need isn’t for adults to try to control them and read everything into their lives, it’s for adults to communicate with them and make them feel comfortable enough to talk to them when they have a problem. And that’s ignoring the, you know, whole transphobia thing.
(Sorry to write a dissertation in your inbox but despite my deepest sympathies and compassion for Esther seeing people put any stock into her awful, awful idea when that’s so clearly not the problem does quite frustrate me and I need everyone to know just how illogical it is)
I don’t need to add anything to that besides saying this line of argument is very similar to the people who campaign for an internet where no one can be anonymous, it puts so many additional people at risk.
Thanks for taking the time to share!
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thepersonperson · 29 days ago
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Sukuna Can't Tell the Time (The unique way Sukuna is damned to eternal miscommunication and existentialism in the modern era.)
Notes before we start.
1) I will be mainly using the TCB scans for the manga because of their accessibility. 
2) I need professional help.
(Click images for captions/citations.)
Preface
I want to get one thing out of the way. This is going to be a weird write-up because I'm hardly going to cite the manga.
I'm basically posting this as a reference for myself. All of this occurred so I could properly lean into the old man aspect of Sukuna for a fic I'm writing. (Aka I read too much on actual Heian Era history and now you all have to suffer.)
People often joke that Sukuna is an old man, but I'm here to tell you he is so out of touch and out of time that he might as well be existing in a never-ending Lovecraftian nightmare where time has stopped being real.
It's going to take a while to explain why this is the case so hear me out, maybe?
Fundamental Measurements
What is a unit of measurement? And where did these units come from? If you've taken an entry level physics class, you've already been through the existential crisis answering these questions caused.
But for the uninitiated, have you ever sat down and asked yourself why you know what a foot/meter is? Everyone has kind of agreed they represent a specific distance, and depending on where you were raised, you'll prefer one over the other.
I'm an American. I'm also an engineer. I have to use SI Units and Freedom Units all the time. Differing distance units are things I can easily conceptualize. I understand what a meter is. It's like 3.3 feet.
Every time I hear meter, my brain does the conversion to 3.3 feet because I was raised with feet as my base unit of measurement. But oddly enough, when I hear 100 meters, I instantly know how far that is. This is because I was a sprinter for all of Jr. High and High School. When someone says 100 meters, I picture the got danged torture stretch of the 300 meter hurdles.
The point of this is to establish that early life experiences become a reference point when thinking about things as an adult. If I didn't run track or do engineering, I would be a "What the fuck is a kilometer?" type American.
Measurements of Miscommunication
If you couldn't tell, I wrote the previous section with Non-Americans in mind. I specified the units of measurement I was using for distance because I understand people outside of the US could be reading my post.
But what happens if I don't do that? What happens when people assume everyone's units of measurement are the same as theirs? Allow me to recall a conversation I'm sure most of you Non-Americans have had with an American on the internet and vice versa.
Friend, Non-American: Ugh it's 40 degrees out today.
Me, American: Dang that sounds pretty cold, don't forget to wear a jacket.
Friend, Non-American: What the hell do you meant that's cold???
Me, American and remembering where they live: OH YOU MEAN CELSIUS. That's 104 in Freedom Units.
Friend, Non-American: 104 IS SUPER DEAD IN CELSIUS.
(40°F is 4.4°C btw.)
As you can see, these kind of assumptions relay drastically different information. 40 degrees without a unit is read as cold or hot depending on where a person is from. It also doesn't help that the conversion between these units is nonsense. The vast majority of people can't do °C = (°F − 32) × 5/9 off the top of their head.
I, for the life of me, cannot comprehend Celsius. Temperature is too abstract a concept for my brain to swap systems. I think there's a reason for this.
Unlike distance, you can't see the temperature with your body. You can feel it, sure, but sometimes you step into a walk-in freezer and come out feeling like everything is warmer than it is. Relativity like that won't affect how you see distance. A foot is a foot, a meter is a meter, and they will always look those distances. You can check them easily.
Temperature? You need a thermometer to check. Or you assume the generalized data on a weather app is accurate. And things like humidity can fudge with your perception it.
This is all to say that my brain assigned the number 40 as cold. It being a hot number is barely comprehensible because my foundation is it being cold.
(If you were wondering, yes this is why I write out dates like Month DD, YYYY. It's so no one has to look at 3/4/YYYY and guess if they're supposed to be reading it as March 4th or April 3rd because they can't tell what country I'm from.)
What does this have to do with Sukuna?
Well my dear reader, my question to you is: What units of measurement were used in the Heian Era?
Forget about distance and temperature. How was time measured in the Heian era?
Heian Era Timekeeping
Ancient Japan ran on something called a Lunisolar Calendar. This is a type of calendar based around moon phases and sun positioning hence, lunisolar.
Taken directly from Wikipedia:
"A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, incorporating lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Earth's sky. If the sidereal year (such as in a sidereal solar calendar) is used instead of the solar year, then the calendar will predict the constellation near which the full moon may occur. As with all calendars which divide the year into months there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of months. In some cases ordinary years consist of twelve months but every second or third year is an embolismic year, which adds a thirteenth intercalary, embolismic, or leap month.
Their months are based on the regular cycle of the Moon's phases. So lunisolar calendars are lunar calendars with – in contrast to them – additional intercalation rules being used to bring them into a rough agreement with the solar year and thus with the seasons."
Did you notice something funky? A leap month has to be accounted for with this calendar. And it gets worse. The duration between leap months vary because the earth's path around the sun varies.
Under this calendar system, instead of a fixed interval of time always passing for a year, everything is variable. This means conversion to a modern date, which uses fixed time intervals, is not a one to one thing. It's kind of like trying to convert February 29th to non-leap years. Some people born on this day celebrate on February 28th and others will use March 1st. Legally speaking in the US, March 1st is used for tallying. (And if you've seen the Pirates of Penzance, this is an actual plot point when trying to determine a character's contract clause.) So imagine that but for months, years, and hours all the time.
I exclude days from this issue because Heian Japan agreed that a day was as day. They don't shrink or grow. The 12 hours a day always pass! And yes I mean 12 hours a day.
Heian Hours
For the rest of this discussion I'm referencing this lovely source by Katherine M. Lawrence. Everything quoted is from here.
So... let's get into that 12 hour day thing.
"Days consisted of 12 hours based on the 12 zodiac animals, each Heian hour being equal to about two modern hours. In a moment I will get to why I deliberately used the word “about.”
Days were divided into six “hours” of daylight and six “hours” of darkness. Instead of midnight, the day started at daybreak. Only in the Meiji times, in 1867, did the day change at midnight.
What is fascinating is that there were always six “hours” of daylight and six “hours” of night irrespective of the time of year. In modern times, with mechanical and even atomic clocks, we accept that more daylight falls in summer than in winter. We might turn back or move our clocks forward twice a year. In Japan it was done 24 times a year—approximately every 14 to 16 days—so that the first light would always come during the first “hour” of the day, which was known as the Hour of the Rabbit, sometimes called the Hour of the Hare. Dusk would come at the Hour of the Bird, sometimes called the Hour of the Rooster.
If we were to measure the actual length of winter days using a modern timepiece, the Hour of the Rabbit would be shorter than two hours because the relatively shorter total daylight in winter would still be distributed into six parts.
The six nighttime hours in winter would absorb the extra darkness and be proportionately longer than the nominal two hours of our 24-hour clock.
All this kept the astrologers and priests busy, because every 14 to 16 days, the clocks had to be adjusted. “More on that in a minute,” which by the way, is an idiom the Japanese of the era would not have used, because our modern concept of sixty minutes to an hour and sixty seconds to a minute is highly tied to mechanical clocks."
In summary, Heian Hours quite literally grow and shorten depending on the season. That 1 Heian Hour=2 Modern Hours conversion only works when daylight hours are the exact same as nighttime hours.
But it gets even weirder than that. Rather than counting from 1 to 12 for daytime and nighttime like we might on our modern clocks, Heian Japan counted down from 9 to 4 twice. This results in a clock conversion that looks like this.
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And remember, this is only accurate when daylight hours are equal to nighttime hours!
It should also be noted that these hours were announced by the ringing of temple bells throughout the day and the night. Everyone relied on these temples to keep the time at all times.
But wait, there's more! (Heian Months and Solar Stems)
This is where timekeeping really starts to fall apart in terms of my understanding of it so Ms. Katherine M. Lawrence is going to explain it.
"In the Heian period (and until 1867), each month began on the dark moon, also know as the new moon. The full moon would come on the 15th day and the month would end approximately on the 28th, sometimes the 29th, and even the 30th day of the month.
Japanese did not have the western concept of the seven-day week, though they certainly could count to seven. What they had instead was the concept of the solar stem, of which there were 24."
"The first solar stem of the Japanese year starts on the first day of the year: Start of Spring, which, unlike the Western calendar, is not  in March. The Last Solar Stem (the 24th) ends on the last day of Major Cold. The beginning of the year in Japan, as measured by the Western calendar, would start somewhere between mid-January and mid-February, the variation resulting from aligning the solar stems with the lunar months."
In summary, Heian Months may be about the same length as Modern Months, but they are strictly based on the moon phases and the 24 Solar Stems are anchored around them.
This leaves us with a conversion calendar that looks like this. (Edited to number the Solar Stems.)
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And remember, this is approximate. The Solar Stems do not always align with these exact Georgian calendar dates.
The lunar months, of course, do not use our calendar date names. I present a summary table based on several people's documentation (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3) since sadly the other blogger didn't include them:
(Jan-Feb) Mutsuki (睦月) Month of Harmony/Affection 
(Feb-Mar) Kisaragi (如月) Month of Changing of Clothes
(Mar-Apr) Yayoi (弥生) Month of Plant Growth/New Life
(Apr-May) Uzuki (卯月) Month of Deutzia Flowers
(May-Jun) Satsuki (皐月) Month of Planting Rice
(Jun-Jul) Minazuki (水無月) Month of Water/No Gods 
(Jul-Aug) Fumizuki (文月) Month of Literature
(Aug-Sep) Hazuki (葉月) Month of Leaves  
(Sep-Oct) Nagatsuki (長月) The Long Month    
(Oct-Nov) Kannazuki (神無月) Month of Gods    
(Nov-Dec) Shimotsuki (霜月) Month of Frost     
(Dec-Jan) Shiwasu (師走) Month of Running Priests  
This table merges multiple sources because the translations of Kanji differ and it's good to see how/why these differences occur. There's also the issue of the bloggers presenting the months like 1-to-1 conversions.
I want to stress that these Lunar Months start and end anywhere from the middle to the late parts of Georgian Months. This is why Source 1 claims Mutsuki=Feb while Sources 2 & 3 claim Mutsuki=Jan. Source 1 chose Feb because the majority of Mutsuki occurs in Feb while Sources 2 & 3 chose Jan because Mutsuki technically starts in late Jan.
Now that I've laid all this out, I'm sure you have the following burning question:
How the hell do you convert modern time to Heian time???
I turn to Ms. Katherine M. Lawrence again for guidance.
"If this post gets some interest, I will continue and explain how the author calculates..."
There's no guidance.
However! There is an example of a conversion without the explanation.
"Thus, we know as Yamabuki and Tomoe ride up to the Shayō Tōge, the Sunset Pass, at Sunset on May 11, 1172, in the middle of a freak snowstorm, the author can say with some assurance that it happened at the Hour of the Bird on the 13th day of the 7th solar stem, two days past the full moon of the Flower Month."
So I'm going to try to figure out how this occurred using the information I've been given.
Hour of the Bird: This one is easy! The bird hour is the official sunset hour.
7th Solar Stem: According to the chart that's between late April and early May.
13th Day: Since Solar Stems are about 14-16 days this means it's almost the 8th Solar Stem which starts around May 21st.
2 days past the full moon of the Flower Month: "Flower Month" is not on my chart. From what I know about kanji, I think this is a simplification of Uzuki (卯月) or the the Month of Deutzia Flowers. This aligns with the month of May.
This is where I give up. I legitimately do not know where to go from here. ...And that's my point.
What does this have to do with Sukuna?
Before I completely lose you, my dearest most patient reader, please consider the following:
You wake up in a place where time is counted backwards and the hours pass faster than you've ever known them to. The things you use to tell the time don't exist or are in a form you no longer can recognize.
You see a clock face that counts in the wrong direction to numbers you've never seen used for time. The sounds it makes are familiar and foreign all at once. When you try to use the times and dates everyone you ever knew understood instantly, you're met with complete confusion. No one except a few dedicated scholars know how to convert your concept of time to theirs.
This is how Sukuna experiences time in the modern era.
Sukuna Can't Tell the Time (Sukuna almost fumbled his date with Gojo.)
Remember all my rambling about my own experiences with trying to understand SI Units as a Freedom Units user and my complete and utter failure to convert Heian Time to Modern Time? This is to establish that on a fundamental level, it does not matter that Sukuna has access to his vessel's memories. These foreign units mean nothing without a conversion reference.
Yuta in Gojo's body showed us how the memory recollection process works. You see them like movie and must draw your understandings from them.
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We also learn from Sukuna that he tends to ignore memories that aren't relevant to his sorcery. So something mundane like telling the time isn't his priority. (I often think about how Sukuna has been watching Yuji and everyone around him use a cell phone but he still calls it a photography device.)
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(He's lying about the flowers though.)
So this leads us to Sukuna and Gojo setting the date for their battle...
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When Sukuna heard Kenjaku say November 19th and Gojo say December 24th his brain was the equivalent of TV static. It's very likely that Sukuna had to rely on Kenjaku to ensure he showed up at the right day. (Kenjaku, of course, is an exception here because instead of drawing from memories, Kenny got to live through the transitional period of the Lunisolar Calendar to the Georgian Calendar and had 100+ years to adjust to it. And now that I think about it, the Culling Game using days to count time is probably Kenjaku being considerate of this generational difference.)
It's a really good thing that Gojo didn't specify the time because that would've made things worse. See the following examples using the handy dandy conversion chart as a reference...
Gojo: Let's do this at 10.
Sukuna: ???
Gojo: Let's do this at 9.
Sukuna: *Shows up approximately 2 hours late at 11 am.*
Gojo: Let's do this at 8.
Sukuna: *Shows up approximately 5 hours late at 1 pm.*
Gojo: Let's do this at 7.
Sukuna: *Shows up approximately 8 hours late at 3 pm*
Gojo: Let's do this at 6.
Sukuna: *Shows up on time?* (It’s December in the northern hemisphere so the sun comes up after 6. Sukuna might still show up a bit late.)
These examples also assume that Sukuna can still gauge Heian Hours accurately. That too is up in the air because the hourly bells that sounded the Heian Hours no longer exist. The temples and bells may remain, but their use for timekeeping has changed entirely.
Since it's likely he spent a large portion of his early life in a temple, there's a chance Sukuna has a strong internalized sense of Heian Hours. But how many people do you know that can accurately feel an hour pass on vibes alone?
There isn't any point in the manga where Sukuna indicates he knows what Georgian Month is, let alone a Modern Hour. I think that's why he's just waiting on top of the building for Gojo to show up. The day starts for him when the sun comes up, not midnight. He probably figured that as long as he was out there by dawn, eventually his date would show up.
There's something strangely adorable about that. Sukuna didn't go out massacring others for funsies or wreak havoc after Gojo was unsealed. He just waited a whole month and gambled on their connection starting the death date on time.
How Sukuna Might Tell the Time
When Sukuna uses time units, he only uses minutes or seconds.
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Well...the narrator implies he's able to use seconds.
This makes sense despite the Heian Era not having minutes or seconds. They're foundational units rather than a unit he needs to convert to something mentally. Because they are so drastically smaller than other Heian units of time, it's easier for the brain to calibrate itself to them.
This means that if one wanted to communicate a duration of time to Sukuna, it would be better to use minutes or seconds.
For example, rather than saying "see you in an hour", "see you in 60 minutes" would be better. Otherwise Sukuna is going to default to 1 Heian Hour and show up approximately 2 hours late.
Another example, telling Sukuna you'll "be gone for a few hours" means to him that you'll be gone for most of the day. At this point it would be better to reference a duration of an activity he's familiar with than use minutes. Sukuna watched some of those movies with Yuji. "I'll be gone for 1-2 movies" will make a little more sense to him.
Funnily enough though, telling Sukuna that you work a 9-5 wouldn't cause a miscommunication for duration. That's 4 Heian Hours or about 8 Modern Hours. He probably thinks it's weird you start working in the middle of the day and into the night though.
How Sukuna tells time for himself is likely similar to someone lost in the wilderness. He'll mostly be relying on environmental cues like moon phase, sun position, constellations, and flora growth. (Which ironically, climate change affecting flora growth patterns would throw him off even more. I can't even imagine how he'd feel about light pollution stealing away the stars on top of that. But at least the moon is still there!)
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But as you can see, the normal methods of precise timekeeping are next to impossible for Sukuna to use and this discrepancy is ripe for miscommunication. This has a lot of comedy and horror potential in fanworks. (Hence me writing this as a resource.)
How Sukuna Used to Tell the Time
After doing all this research, I found myself viewing Sukuna's theme Malevolent Shrine a little differently. I always found it to be a quite sad sounding song for his character. Villains as violent and fierce as Sukuna tend to get battle themes that reflect that. In comparison to high energy bangers like One-Winged Angel (Sephiroth Final Fantasy), Avalon (Ultimate Lifeform Kars Jojo), or The Last Mission (Murem vs Netero Hunter x Hunter), Malevolent Shrine is rather somber and unfocused.
This theme opens and closes with bells. The opening in particular feels chaotic with how the different bells seem to overlap and overwhelm each other. But if you listen closely, you'll hear the gong of a temple bell that keeps rhythm by marking the start of a new measure. Using this bell, it becomes easier to count the beats, even when it eventually disappears in the middle section.
His theme to me now feels like an echo of what Sukuna used to know before he was thrust into a world that is no longer in sync with his very concept of time.
"Interestingly, the Japanese “witching hour” is not at midnight, but at nominally 2 AM (1 AM–3 AM) and is known as the Hour of the Ox."
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I don't really know where else to put this. Sukuna on his throne of ox skulls, a representation of the witching hour where reality falls apart and spirits come out to play.
How all this might look in action. (Defending my questionable writing choices.)
Though everything I've given is plenty enough for people to run wild with in fanworks, I would like to give examples of it in my own. My type of autism is one where it's easier for me have something to use as a direct reference. (Clear and concise instructions please.) So I want to provide that for anyone else wired similarly.
Context: The fic I'm writing is from Sukuna's POV so I've taken great care to avoid him using modern timekeeping terms. I have a timeline for everything outlined, but I refuse to make that clear to the reader so they can get the Sukuna Experience™.
Other characters will reference the time and give the reader little windows into what date it possibly is, but otherwise they have to infer it themselves.
But because I myself use modern time, I caught mistakes I made in an early chapter... (Aka before I realized Heian Timekeeping is Extremely Different.)
Old Sentence: The year is 2019.
Revised Sentence: The year is 2019 for the Common Era.
(Heian Japan was mimicking China so I'm assuming that the numbered years restarted with each era since I couldn't find how years were kept.)
Old Sentence: It’s reminding him he has not eaten for the past 5 hours and 38 minutes.
Revised Sentence: It’s reminding him he has not eaten since the hour of the dragon—338 minutes and counting.
(This one is self evident I think.)
But even within this chapter, I obscured the date by having Sukuna observe his surroundings. I don't think it's a good example so I'll use a different one from an unpublished draft.
...it occurs under the same wisteria and same midday sun. The branches and buds have begun to green and swell before the Flowering Moon has reached its full, an indication that the bloom will come early.
Wisterias bloom in late April around the time of full moon. April aligns with Yayoi or the Month of Plant Growth/New Life. I worked under the assumption that the moons can be called by their month names kind of like Native American moon names. But Plant Growth/New Life Moon didn't sound good to me so I changed it to Flowering.
So I do have a very specific date for when this scene occurs, but Sukuna doesn't know so the reader doesn't know. The best you can guess is sometime in April but you have to know when Wisterias typically bloom and what a Flowering Moon might be. (I'm hoping this kind of vague timekeeping disorients the reader and causes frustration. I used sun, moon, and star positioning charts for this got dang it.)
Tools to Use for Weird Timekeeping
Chinese Calendar Conversions
Solar Stem Converter
(This one is annoying to use because they don't use the translated names but there is a definitions table.)
Lunar Calendar Converter
(Unfortunately it only allows for 1901-2100. You can probably infer the lunar month via the Solar Stem Converter for older dates.)
Celestial Bodies
For star/constellation positions in the night sky use this:
Sky & Telescope Interactive Sky Chart
(Yes you can even change the location and time to get the exact night sky the characters might be looking at.)
For sun positions and sunrise/sunset times use this:
SunCalc
For moon positions and moonrise/moonset times use this:
MoonCalc
(If you want to see a summary of moon phases by month this tool is helpful.)
Why have you done this?
I don't know. Please enjoy my perverse obsession with the little details.
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hyakinthou-naos · 5 months ago
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Hey, hope this is ok. I need some reassurance.
I've never felt a God's presence (except a vague warmth/peace when meditating about them sometimes I guess), much less talked directly to them (as in hearing them answer) and with so many people, esp on tiktok and here, talking like they have a private relationship with the Gods, a close friendship, even dating I just... I feel lesser I guess? Like so many people were chosen but not me and that must be a problem on my part. Like the Gods prefer everyone else over me. Like I'm not doing enough, even though I'm doing what I manage to do, given my limitations. I'm jealous of people who do communicate directly to the Gods. Part of me doubts them but part wants to believe them because it would be so shitty to lie about something like this and I don't want to believe these people are shitty. I don't believe non harmful hallucinations are all that common either, which would be the other explanation.
From what I understand you don't have this kind of direct communication either and I wanted to ask - how do you prevent yourself from feeling bad seeing all these people who (claim they) do?
I'm struggling here :( It's already hard for me to keep a consistent practice because of executive dysfunction and chronic illness and other stuff and this makes it harder. Feeling like I'll never be at everyone else's level of connection makes it harder.
Sorry for the vent-ish ask. You don't need to answer but I'm already glad if you read. Thank you.
Dear Anon,
Thank you for your ask, I am so sorry to hear that you are struggling. I want to tell you right off the bat that you are not lesser than any other worshipper - you are not less preferable to The Gods - and you should not feel any guilt around your spiritual/religious experiences. I would like to say the following to you, but also to the wider HelPol/Pagan community:
PLEASE Do Not Trust Spiritual Influencers on TikTok.
I cannot claim to know the legitimacy or the intentions/motivations behind every individuals actions regarding divine experiences, but I can say with confidence that most of the spiritual content on TikTok is dripping with lies and exaggerations.
Now, as someone with a mental health degree (I don't talk about my education often but I do have a bachelor's in Social Work and a minor in Psychology) I can also say with confidence that just because someone is lying doesn't mean they're necessarily a "bad person" but you don't have to be a "bad person" to have bad motivations.
Bad Motivations Can Include:
Lying for Financial Gain: This could be selling a product, selling a service, or trying to monetize on being an "influencer".
Lying for Attention: Many people do not have supportive friends, families, or communities - so as a maladaptive coping mechanism they will lie to get the attention they are lacking in their personal life.
Lying for Prestige: Some people don't feel important in their own lives, so they will lie so that other people will think that they are important.
Lying for Fun: In the age of the internet, the ability to make others believe something you know to be false can give someone an adrenaline or a dopamine rush. This is why "trolling" is still so popular.
And, not a "motivation", but still an explanation of why someone might "lie":
Mental Health Concerns: This could be a severe mental illness, a delusion, a hallucination, or conditioning from trauma.
People are weird and wonderful and diverse - and that diversity includes people who will lie (consciously or not) for a variety of reasons.
I speak about this openly as you mentioned, but I do not - nor have I ever - had any direct communication from any entity, deity, or spirit. Everything I know about my Gods (outside of myth, tradition, and history) I have learned through divination, ritual, and intuition.
Answering how I prevent myself from feeling bad when I see so many people "experiencing" something I can't - is a little bit complicated.
When I began my journey into paganism 11 years ago, TikTok didn't exist - Instagram was only 2 years old - and Tumblr had been around for a little under 5 years. My early knowledge came, mostly, from books. I wasn't comparing my experiences to those of others - because the only "others" I could compare myself to were limited to one high-school friend and the authors of the books I read. That kind of experience as a modern pagan doesn't really exist anymore because of how much the world has changed, but I wish it did. So, by the time I got to where I am now, the idea of comparing myself to others was so foreign. And as someone who grew up with the early internet - I learned very quickly that very little online is 100% real and truthful.
If you want to connect with your deities in an honest way that also feels real - you might enjoy trying one of the following (some of these might sound silly and/or childish - but if you truly want to grow as a pagan, you must throw away the idea that childish = bad):
Go outside at night and spin, put your arms out wide and spin and spin until you're dizzy (but not sick). Then lie down on the ground and close your eyes. That whirring sensation? That unreality of gravity? That is the Earth. That is Gaia. That is Demeter.
Listen to the rainfall on a stormy night. Sit somewhere you can hear the drops hitting the ground. Look and wait for a flash of lighting. The following thunder, that sound that you can feel in your bones that makes you jump, That is Zeus.
Write a letter to a friend, or to a loved one, or even to yourself in the future. Pay attention to how emotions become thoughts, thoughts become words, and words become writing. Communication - Language - Thought. That is Hermes.
I could go on- but at the end of the day, people are going to tell you that The Gods are "otherworldly"; but they're wrong. The Gods are of this world - The Gods are this world.
I hope that some of this has helped?
Eirene, peace and farewell,
- Aön
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qqueenofhades · 9 months ago
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Is it normal that I’m legitimately so scared of saying pretty morally tame things like “I don’t want to talk about genocide because it makes me severely uncomfortable” or in general expressing my political opinion.
Like i’m not even kidding when I say that all my drafts are just my possibly offensive (probably not) political takes i’m just so scared of everyone leaving me it’s not even funny.
Anyway i also think that if you talk about Palestine but not Ukraine you are a victim of Russian Propaganda™️
I’m sorry I don’t know why i did this have a nice day ok baiiiiiii
Here's the thing. You and every other average social media user should not have to masquerade as a sudden in-depth expert on every single social, political, humanitarian, etc. crisis that we are dealing with in this wretchedly miserable excuse for a timeline. It should not be a baseline expectation on you that when you log onto your little social media in your little average life, you have to come up with The Correct Opinions on everything and if you don't, you're "perpetrating oppression" by not vigorously spreading misinformation, instead of simply admitting that you don't know what to do, you as an average citizen are not in a position of making this change and therefore don't actually have to spend every waking minute obsessing about it, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd like to spend more time informing yourself until and/or IF you decide you want to talk about it. This is the same as the Instagram Activists (TM) who traumatize themselves to the point of PTSD by constantly consuming torture and/or war porn and/or graphic content about murdered children because they "don't have the right to look away." Actually, you do. You are able to make choices to control your personal social media use and to set boundaries as to what you do and do not want to do and/or see, rather than insisting that the only moral choice is to literally mentally destroy yourself with all the weight of human suffering in the world and then expected to act as a de facto expert on all of it, on pain of being Cancelled. This is a stupid, irrational, unhealthy, and generally idiotic expectation. You should not have to take part in it. Nobody should.
Likewise, I think that this is a large part of why people are so scared to voice any opinion that goes against the Prevailing Groupthink: they are afraid of losing friends, of having nasty bad-faith internet trolls say mean things about them, being accused of being a "bad person," or otherwise being guilt-tripped, shamed, and blamed for not centering their entire existence around something that they cannot actually do anything about. Once again, people think the only way you can be Known to Oppose Something Problematic (tm) is if you post on social media about it all the time. Forget whatever you might be doing offline, in your real life, or otherwise; it "doesn't count" if you don't make a big virtuous display of your Rightthink, or you will be viciously harassed. Now, look, I am old and/or tired enough that I don't give a shit what stupid internet users say about me, but I can tell you that I sure did when I was younger, it was incredibly painful to be on the end of those kinds of attacks, and it's (again!) not something you should just have to expect as a baseline level of gaslighting and harassment. As I have said. This is Tumblr. It is a stupid blue website mostly for fandom and/or three in-jokes. This is not a platform where we are expected To Do Social Justice all the time, nor should it be. As for Elon Musk's Twitter: yeah. No.
Also: yes, if you do spend all your waking moments obsessing over Palestine, but say nothing whatsoever about Ukraine and/or openly support Russia, you are in fact very much a victim of Russian Propaganda and you 100% support genocide when it's done by an "anti-western" state that you support for that reason alone. You only care because you can use the cause to make yourself look morally superior, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with opposing genocide on a basic, universal, or fundamental level. The end.
(I hope you have a nice day too. The anger in this is not directed at you. I support everything you've said here and hope that you're able to set healthy boundaries and protect yourself.)
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siriustaylorsversion · 2 years ago
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timothee chalamet x reader social media au
all that you ever wanted from me was, sweet nothing.
summary- you reveal your celebrity crush on the jimmy fallon show and the internet goes wild tagging him and telling him to make a move since his feelings are the same.
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yourname.official
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yourname.official tune in to watch me completely embarrass myself on the jimmy fallon show while talking about marvel, taylor swift, hamburgers and celebrity crushes at 8pm est... liked by taylorswift, vancityreynolds and 3,14,900 others.
taylornation she can make the whole place ✨shimmer✨ *liked by yourname.official
chrisevans Should we tag him?
yourname.official DON'T YOU DARE chrisevans hey, tchalamet robertdowneyjr something for you tchalamet chrishemsworth hey mate, tchalamet paulrudd is this a new trend? tchalamet scarlettjohansson guys, leave her alone.........tchalamet
yourname'sfan.forevermore as paul rudd said, hopping onto the trend tchalamet
haileesteinfield i'm on your team yourname.official but WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?
yourname.official damn this is not how i thought this post would go...
yourname.official
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yourname.official thank you everyone for tagging him! (i'm being sarcastic paulrudd) but at least you got us talking? liked by tchalamet, taylorswift and 2,80,999 others.
tchalamet to all who want to know... the way to get this girl is using taylorswift lyrics.
yourname.official facts. tchalamet what are you a rapper now? yourname.official LIL TIMMY TIM IN DA HOUSE. tchalamet forget i asked.
taylorswift i say that's my baby and i'm proud...
yourname.official I LOVE YOU. yournametaylorsversion HE USED YOUR LYRICS OMG
tchalametdaily
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tchalametdaily guess who did the paps spot today in NY?
liked by haileesteinfield and 10,890 others.
yourname.forevermore SCREAMING.CRYING.THROWINGUP.
haileesteinfield is this how i'm gonna get information about you now youname.official... is it?!
timotheefanclub WAIT WTF IT HAPPENED ALREADY?
yournamefan.69 that's what she said?
tchalamet
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tchalamet do you really wanna know where i was april 29th? hint: it was 8pm est... liked by yourname.official, chrisevans and 2,02,309 others.
yourname.official stop with the blondie lyrics.
tchalamet afraid you'll say yes? timmyfan WAIT WTF?! paulrudd I... what do you call it?? paulrudd ship! I ship! yourname.official paulrudd no one says that anymore, grandpa
yourname.forevermore I LOVE THIS. I LOVE YOU BOTH. I'VE FINALLY STARTED LOVING LIFE.
blakelively so... do we keep on tagging you in her posts?
yourname.official i love you, but NO
yourname.official
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taylorswift can i keep her? happy birthday, my love 🩷 liked by tchalamet, joealwyn, yourname.official and 4,05,690 others.
yourname.official thank you for *everything*!
tchalamet is that a beautiful boy reference? yourname.official i told you i loved it.
blakelively happy birthday sweetheart!
yourname.official thank you!!! tell vancityreynolds you're the funnier one!!
tchalamet
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tchalamet happiest birthday mon ange, thank you for all your support, love and just for... existing. wherever you stray i'll follow, here's to a new chapter in your life. liked by yourname.official, taylorswift, and 3,09,700 others.
comments on this post have been limited
yourname.official WOWZA you have a way with words. i cannot thank god enough that you're here in my life and i hope you know i'll be with you forevermore.
yourname.official
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yourname.official thank you everyone for ALL the birthday wishes, i love you all a lot!!!!!!! manifesting for more happiness, strength and love till the next one!
liked by tchalamet, taylorswift and 5,06,690 others. comments on this post have been limited
tchalamet love the shirt!
yourname.official you would because it's YOUR gift.
taylorswift 🥺🖤
yourname.official it's you and me, that's my whole world.
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spread love and kindness <3
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the-lonelybarricade · 8 months ago
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Hi LB, I woke up this morning and read another one of your recs which I fell in love with and I wanted to express my gratitude for all you do.
So here it is. Thank you for everything you do for this fandom, not just the beautiful and inspired work you create, but how you never miss an opportunity to uplift other artists as well, how you seem to take note and remember work from even the smallest artists, how everytime someone compliments you you never fail to redirect part of this love to shine it onto someone else and their work.
Becoming a good writer is something that can be honed but the kind of goodness you have it cannot be taught or faked and I may not know you personally but I'm absolutely certain you are a gift to everyone lucky enough to be in your life as well. Thank you for spreading some of your light to this corner of the Internet and thanks you for all the wonderful writing you have shared and will share in the future.
Enjoy your bank holiday and Easter weekend.
Goodness, Anon 🥺
I've reread this so many times and I've been at such a complete loss of how to properly articulate what this meant to me. I came into this fandom very soon after ACoSF came out, when the ship war was really starting to take off and the Feyre/Nesta stans were vicously at each others throats. It felt impossible to be in any space that wasn't rampant with hate for some other group of fans. And very early on I decided I wanted to be intentional about fostering a positive space in the fandom.
I've by no means been perfect, but I've made a very deliberate effort to keep my blog void of anti content for any ship or character. And as my account has grown (which has been a very humbling and mind boggling experience), I've tried to use it to spread positivity in a fandom that feels so intent to tear at each other's throats. I wanted to contribute to a community that focused on uplifting each other.
This might be the first time I've been transparent about that goal, I guess because I'm concious of patting myself too heavily on the back and/or subjecting myself to scrutiny. But it was really lovely to see this message, because it's gratifying to feel like the concious effort I'm making is recognized. It's also been an extremely rewarding way to make fandom friends!
I'll also say that I'm definitely not the only blog who's taken this approach. So many of my good friends also curate uplifting spaces, and I've been so fortunate to fall into a community of writers and artists that support and hype up one another 🥰
Then there's the wonderful blogs like @acourtofkindness and @elainsflowergrams that go out of their way to spread kindess and positivy - thank you both for all you do 💕
And thank you, anon. This was such a lovely message. It made me feel seen in my silly, little efforts to make this fandom a brighter place. And I hope you know that it's also the work of people like you, who take the time to send such kind messages to others, that contribute to making this little corner of the internet feel like a happier, more positive place. I hope you're having a wonderful bank holiday/Easter Weekend as well!
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nashdoesstuff · 2 months ago
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hey, update post
so i’m feeling better, relaxed a bit. i think i need to talk about my stance on the callout post with my name on it. this will be the final post i make about this. any asks i get about it will be answered privately unless i consider them important.
first of all, i would like to say that i don’t care who people ship together as long as it is fictional and as long as nobody is being harmed, i see no reason to throw a fuss over someone’s interests.
secondly, if you actively participate in callout posts like these, please block me. i don’t want to interact with you. i don’t like you.
thirdly, i am not a proshipper in the sense that i ship problematic/illegal ships. i simply believe fiction is fiction. i will never endorse ships like dreammare, fontcest, pjxfresh, etc., because they make me uncomfortable, but i won’t hate against anyone who disagrees.
lastly, don’t ever put me on a list like this again. this fucked with my day yesterday, and i’m here to enjoy my special interest. i want other people to enjoy my special interest. posts like these only drag people away. they only drag me away.
ship discourse in this fandom only tears us apart. a lot of us just want to have fun. by doing shit like this, nobody does. nobody has fun when they’re subject to harassment over fiction.
i cannot stress enough the use of blocking tags or blocking people. i have the dreammare tag blocked, because i don’t want to see it. i will never harass someone who makes this content, because the likelihood is that this isn’t the only thing they focus on. they’re human beings. they eat, sleep, drink, and enjoy the thrills of life, both online and offline.
some of these people need the internet, usually because they have nowhere else they can openly express their interests or because they’re going through something and need an escape. they can be a minor with an un-approving family, or an adult, who’s financially struggling to go to any events where they may find people with common interests. whatever it may be, everyone has a reason for their shipping choices. the most you can do is respect, because they may not be yours.
and yes, i support proshippers. personally i’m quite the fan of zu and syxadel, and i’m mutuals with people that are friends with kia. the point is i don’t care that they ship siblings together, because that doesn’t concern me. that’s their business, not mine. you aren’t required to like everything on a restaurant’s menu.
and for the love of god, don’t spread misinformation. my friend chair was listed as a proshipper on that list. i don’t know where the hell that anon got that info, but it is not. if you really want to make these posts, find evidence for your reasoning like you did in the 5th grade, dipshits.
i think the point of this was just to say don’t ever pull this again. not with me, not with anyone else. block and move on. don’t harass people, don’t send them death threats, don’t tell other people to harass their friends, don’t go on anon to tell other people to harass them, and don’t doxx them. don’t be a toddler.
grow up, undertale community. grow the fuck up.
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garoujo · 2 years ago
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i just wanted to say a huge thank you for not only reaching 20k followers right at the end of the year but also 4 all of the kindness i’ve been shown on this blog ! fank yew 4 letting me have this little corner of the internet as a little safe space ^_^
i wanted to do my own sort of ‘year in review’ i guess so i could kind of throw a spotlight on all of my favourite fics / blogs / artists that have rly added to my time here with everything they do <3 if you’re not included pls don’t take it personally i hav smol brain + also couldn’t involve everyone since theres so many !
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WRITING SPOTLIGHT 2022
a small list of all of my favourite pieces of writing i’ve read this year, mostly for my favourite blorbos <3 please read the warnings before proceeding on creators blogs + b4 reading !!!
WHATS TAKING A LIFE OR TWO [IF IT MEANS GETTING TO KEEP YOU] — hanma shuji. ( @hijackser ) this is my absolute FAVOURITE SERIES PERIOD. obviously i’m actually insane 4 hanma but no this series made me EVEN MORE INSANE ! i’ve reread it an insane amount of times, i think about it 24/7. it is my favourite piece of writing to even exist.
SHOW OFF — hanma shuji ( @killsaki ) dallas is probably sick of me talking about this fic but ILL NEVER BE OVER IT ! favourite stand alone shuji fic ever ! everything about it is soooo perfect n so insanely him i could cry <3 absolute favourite shuji fic in the world.
ABSENTEE LOVER — hanma shuji ( @shoyoist ) ive read this an absolutely criminal amount, words cannot DESCRIBE !!! how much i love it like it has such a special place in my heart i adore him in this ! rekha never disappoints w the shuji content <3
CLOUD 9 AND SICK DAY — nagi seishiro ( @iitoshi ) everytime kai writes nagi i absolutely eat it up + these little drabbles are on my mind literally always !!! i will never be able to get enough w how well he’s written here EVER !!!
BLLK BOYS WORKING IN A PIERCING SHOP — multiple. ( @pinteukr ) i literally just read this, specifically nagi’s part but i HAD to include it because i was a MESS !!! ABSOLUTELY DONE !!! it is so good + this imagery / au is EVERYTHING 2 ME <3
PROPOSAL — nagi seishiro ( @tcshi ) i read this a few days ago + it’s still on my mind constantly hes just SO IN CHARACTER ! EVERYTHING IS SOOOO RIGHT !!! would reread one million times after !!! infact i’ll reread right after writing this !!!
WHEN THEY GET JEALOUS — multiple bllk characters ( @lalunanymph ) SO GOOD !!! SO CRAZY !!! nagi’s part had my toes curling n my feet kicking like akajakaka dawn !!!! i literally ate up every character honestly i’d read anything from u <3
SUGARSTREAM — gojo satoru ( @satorhime ) THIS FIC CHANGED THE TRAJECTORY OF MY WHOLE EXISTENCE !!! literally thee reason i became like actually unhinged 4 gojo satoru . it changed me down 2 the core it’s TOO GOOD !!! FOR FREE TOOO ????
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BLOG SPOTLIGHT 2022
a small list of some of my favourite blogs who are also amazing writers + i recommend with my whole heart ! again i can’t include everyone but just know ily <3 again please read warnings byf !!!
@saetoshis + @goroushis — multifandom [+ genshin writing blog] nsfw + dc !
@getoswhore — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@bbiemilk — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@tetsutits — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@alhaithms — multifandom. nsfw !
@anantaru — genshin impact . nsfw + slight dc !
@blueparadis — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@itoshi-s — blue lock. nsfw + dc !
@ilykento — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@r-oronoa — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@touyyes — mostly jjk but multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@510hz — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@starlitheaven — jjk + hxh. nsfw + dc !
@torufilms — blue lock. sfw + nsfw !
@sailewhoremoon — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@dilu3 — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@shirohyorin — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@saneminx — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@takaholic — multifandom. nsfw + light dc !
@haruchiyos — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@satorini — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
@ohsatori — multifandom. sfw + nsfw !
@suget — mostly jjk. nsfw + dc !
@bleubrri — multifandom. nsfw + dc !
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT 2022
a small list of the artists who i follow + love seeing on my dash ! they’re just so crazy talented it’s insane <3
@tinymaru — reine is the one who drew my emmie x nagi fanart in my header and they are so craaaazy talented <3
@kita-dynasty — laine is SO AMAZING !!! every single time she posts i eat it up i could look at her art all day !!!
@omiishii — i’ve followed jace for YEARS ! and he only gets even better it’s actually insane !!! it’s just so amazing to see their art whenever i’m on dash <3
@omiyours — remi made my theme for me + she is so CRAZY TALENTED i just think she deserves absolutely everything 4 sharing it with people and being so kind <3
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if you don’t want 2 be tagged pls let me know + i can take you out but i just wanted 2 do a little round up and also thank everyone 4 all the support they’ve shown me on this lil blog of mine <3 i am so very grateful ! again if i’ve not included u i’m super sorry there were so many !!! I STILL LOVE U I SWEAR !!! yay 2 2022 tho >_<
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wild-at-mind · 7 months ago
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I don't want to be shitty to younger people on tumblr and in social justice spaces (teens and early 20s) and their absolutism and black and white thinking because I totally was like that too. I absolutely loved that thing where someone said something bad about a tumblr user and then you could act like everything they said was suspect forever. It was so convenient, to put things neatly into boxes. Social justice on here was very different back then, this would have been the early 2010s and a lot of it was about cultural appropriation vs appreciation. I think that is a very important conversation but this too was very black and white. I noticed that the only person injecting any nuance was an activist in her 40s I used to follow. Through her I learned also that some topics are really loaded for certain people but others might not feel the same because of different life experiences, even if they were the same ethnic group encountering the same type of potential appropriation. She got me primed for nuance I would later need, when my brain flat out stopped letting me deal with black and white thinking after my breakdown in 2015 and the fallout going up till 2017 and beyond. It's only now that I am really getting better. With occassional lapses. (Like when people on here were lauding protest suicide, that messed with my brain so much. Activists like the one I used to follow who don't like that kind of thinking, or the bloodthirstiness of a lot of the 'activism' shit on here, leave tumblr. They do, because it is shit here. You can get attacked for opposing the violence and self flaggelation in the rhetoric on here. By people you broadly agree with!!)
I think the reason youth tends to come with this kind of thinking is because they haven't seen it happen many times before and not lead to revolution. I can only assume that there really are people using social media to make young people interested in activism think that accelerationism is the only pure policy- by not doing things that might make things slightly better, society will be forced to fall and revolutionise into something much better. That means you don't become impure in the eyes of some internet strangers who don't give a fuck about you as a person, which is important to most people especially younger ones who haven't found their 'people' yet- everyone wants to be accepted. So you wait, years and years, the revolution doesn't happen. Things get worse in many ways, but it's never worse enough for society to fall. Because it won't. Or I guess probability means statistically, it could. But the older you get, the less likely it seems. What will you do?
I think the only thing that helped me out of this headspace was meeting people in real life who believed the same things as me, but who I disagreed with slightly. I found out oh wait, I do not have to do as the internet says and cast these people out. I can slightly disagree on how ideally an issue should be handled and that is ok. Now, many years later, I'm reclaiming my right to think the way I do, and to not trick myself into thinking I am a way I am not. The way my brain works may not be how my friend's brain works, but I can trust she won't reject me because I find JK Rowling's opinions offensive but don't find content dunking on her interesting in any way. Because she's my friend, and at the end of the day we share the same values.
To someone not online I don't think this stuff would make sense at all. Sadly I'm too weak to not be online, and I have this long background of being in that space which influences all the pushback with myself I've had to do. Its hard to get rid of that history, and hard to ignore the posting on here that seems to validate things that people living with OCD cannot put stock in (e.g. your feelings and thoughts are objectively real and also show what kind of person you really are- absolutely not something we can accept and still live with ourselves.) But I have to do it. I have to keep living. I have to believe that would be a net good. If I can't stay offline, maybe by writing this stuff it will help me and others who think like me.
My top tips for when you realise society isn't falling and won't just reset and come back better:
Join IRL activists, support their actions, plan actions with them. Get used to the variety of shapes activism takes. Talk with them about the things you disagree with. Your ability to ally with people you slightly disagree with but agree on most issues is the number 1 way you become set apart from internet-based activism.
Be suspicious of anyone promoting inaction as activism. (Yes that's about the not voting people.) You don't become impure if you vote for the candidate who is the least shit, or has the most chance of getting in and making things less shit. That's OCD thinking that for some reason has become mainstream on tumblr among non-sufferers and sufferers alike.
Posting on tumblr doesn't matter. I have seen people who convinced themselves it did go down conspiracy rabbit holes very easily. (You know- 'they are trying to silence us because of the importance of our posting!' and then it spirals from there)
People trying to guilt and shame you into doing certain things, such as rejecting your long-term mental health, or tell you that if you feel like shit all the time it's a good thing somehow- stay away from that thinking like its infectious. The most effective activism comes from people who are in an ok place mentally so they can plan and work together, not people who feel like them feeling ok is bad or offensive somehow and are making snap decisions based on this. You feeling bad doesn't help anyone.
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donnerpartyofone · 6 months ago
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Without saying that AI imagery is categorically good or evil, art or not art, I think one of the worst consequences of its existence is how it has automatically added this Argument section to many online images where lots of people urgently make their smug assertions about whether something is fake or not, often in the absence of any clear way to tell what the truth is. And like if this gets heated enough it can make you (or me, anyway) not want anything to do with the image even if it's otherwise fun and interesting. Suddenly the whole point of its existence is this loaded thing about authenticity and fraudulence without anyone even saying exactly what those things mean to them, and this just creates a really bad smell.
It's like a mutated version of trying to watch a movie near a person who won't stop congratulating themselves for knowing that something is a special effect, and won't stop complaining that the fictional actions of the fictional characters are unrealistic, and won't stop trying to guess a twist ending instead of just experiencing the story. They just want everyone to know that they have outfoxed the movie, they have the superior intellect because the movie cannot trick them into having feelings or believing it is an unedited documentary about real life. But the AI arguments are even more onerous because movies are usually not trying to trick you into believing in a certain reality, where AI *sometimes but not always* is trying to do that. And I really do not blame anyone for worrying about getting tricked, but I do hate that we've come to this point where you can just paint every single thing you ever see with this "fake" brush, because that tends to encourage people to just check out and not give a shit. If everything is potentially fake then what's the point of caring about anything. We've gone from reasonable arguments like "the internet is full of misinformation so take X with a grain of salt" and "everything carries the editorial biases of its creators, nothing is objective" all the way over to like, oh well, everything you ever see is so likely to be a scam that the only correct response to any stimulus is to pound your chest about how cynical and unmoved you are.
Personally one of my main problems with AI art is not ethical, it's just that most of the common, accessible stuff is ugly. I really don't like the look of almost anything that comes out of Midjourney and the other immediately available programs that I'm forgetting the names of, and for me that can only be overcome by a really great and/or hilarious concept, which things are rare. I'm not interested in drawing moral conclusions about that production and I don't find it compelling to listen to people who are dogmatically for or against it. My only concern about the legitimacy or whatever of AI art is the ease with which some programs can make something that is a very close imitation of something from organic reality--and it's not just because of the potential for fraud, which is certainly worrisome, but it can also take the emotional power out of art experiences. I've seen a decent amount of truly weird, exciting AI images *that are obvious AI images* and that doesn't bother me at all. To me that's a right-tool right-job situation and that's fine. I'm more bothered by the stuff that is a very close reflection of analog creations from real life. There's someone on here who has basically invented a made-up "old master" type-painter and they post these images that are sort of acceptably familiar to something you might see in a museum--fauns chasing nymphs, ladies standing in cottage gardens, politician portraits, etc--and I'm not saying they don't have the right to do that, but I'm not sure what the point is. Like, really great real-life versions of those things already exist and I'm not sure why it's compellingly important to prove that computer software can closely imitate what's already out there. Another thing that I find sort of vexing for the same reason is the blog that posts AI images of fake tokusatsu productions. Both of the blogs I mentioned say what they are in their headers, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but what happens to me when I see a reblog from that AI tokusatu blog is: I think "Oh cool, what show/movie is this from? What's the narrative? Was it popular or is it about to be rescued from obscurity? Who made it? Where can I see more of the filmmakers' work? It's awesome that something this unusual was constructed in real life, somebody drew this up and got it funded and then people built the suits and crafted those cool miniatures and painted the lovely matte paintings, and there was an audience for it, people used to actually accept and even crave really wild stuff like this instead of all the cookie cutter fan service-type crap flooding the market now, and...oh no, this isn't from a show or a movie. It doesn't tell me anything about a certain time period or culture or artist or type of production or the heroic things people do to realize their dreams or anything, it's just, like, somebody's modern, general idea about that stuff. Oh well, it's pretty, but now I have zero questions about it and I don't really care. I'm going back to watching actual tokusatsu movies because there are already tons of great ones from real life and I don't need anyone to simulate them for me, I can already experience the wonder and admiration they inspire for real." It just matters to me how a piece of art was made and when and where and by who, and I don't think that's crazy or backwards of me. There's more to art than just the question of whether something is a pretty picture or not, and moreover I think that if "pretty picture" is the only thing that really concerns you then that is actually OK, but you should just admit that and comfortably recuse yourself from any debates around what art is or is not.
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