#i mean i have editing resources

[quotidian-oblivion]

GUYS 😭

I can't stop seeing BBC Merlin parallels. I'm seeing it everywhere on the show. Every time I watch a new episode (nearly at the end of the show now), I go back to the earlier episodes and watch a scene that reflects that or is similar but has changed.

Damn it I want to make a Merlin parallels video but I don't have the whole show episodes w me to make it.

[angel---eater]

tbh the whitest trolls to me are the zahhaks and the makaras bc of what kind of internet-people equius and gamzee represented at the time. juggalo culture is predominantly white working class folks or white folks on the poverty line, and in the US bc of segregation, that meant a lot more mixing of cultures than you see in middle class and up areas. its the same with canada and the UK. so you see a lotta black influences in there bc of how US class structures have been constructed. its a melting pot made by and for the working class. a lotta irl juggalo stuff is pretty chill from what ive heard? as a movement they want to demolish class heirarchy and build community. ofc theres room for abuse in the lifestyle though, thats not unique to juggalos. gamzee as a rich white boy living a juggalo lifestyle but not getting it right and actually reinforcing what irl juggalos fight against makes perfect sense for his character

equius on the other hand is like belligerently Hegemonic White Cis Dude coded to me. he represents young white cis boys on the precipice of falling into the manosphere pipeline, imo. specifically bc theyre lonely and insecure. his spot on the hemospectrum is perfect for breeding that shit. he's been told his whole life that hes better than most of the ppl he knows. hes higher up caste wise than most of his friends, particularly nepeta, but still feels inferieor to his friends who ARE higher up than he is, which is what sparks that hyperspecfic brand of insecurity in white cis boys. their only real problem is that someone else whos even more priviledged is looking down on them. and gamzee also being white just kind of compounds that bc of the sense of 'competition' between white guys or whatever, to be The Whitest Squarest* Guy who is On Top (haha) Of All Other White Square Guys

everyone else? nah. its so obviously not whats happening. which really just highlights the fact that large swaths of fandom still believe that white is default in terms of character design. and its insane to me how ppl can say w/ their whole chest that the hemospectrum has nothing to do w/ race, its just abt class, when racism and class are intrinsically tied. like theyre horrible twin sisters, man, you cant rlly have one without the other. enforced class models in society dont work unless theres someone up top deeping someone else Deserving of having less bc theyre not the exact same type of person as them

*using the term Square here not to denote any kind of 80s movie nerddom but to try to describe hegemonically cishet (and homogenized white) normies who are toxic abt it and think everyone else should be like them

[e-louise-bates]

I will admit that it never occurred to me that I would need to check the history book that claimed to be scholarly to see if it used references and footnotes, because how could a book be a scholarly work on history without such things, BUT NOW I KNOW BETTER.

[tinetar-cheez8]

This is my blog for reblogging terminology and responding to stuff.

Tags are for reach. I will not follow DNIs unless I’m specifically following your blog (meaning I will only try to look for it if I’m considering following you). If you have a problem with this, either go somewhere that’s not Tumblr or private your stuff (password protected blogs exist). Reblogs are not endorsement.

If we’re mutuals you may DM me for either the link to an external hoard/collection site (some terms reblogged here end up there) or my Discord.

[britneyshakespeare]

So yesterday I read "Slimed with Gravy, Ringed by Drink" by Camille Ralphs, an article from the Poetry Foundation on the publication of the First Folio in 1623, a major work without which most of Shakespeare's plays might very well have been lost today, possibly the most influential secular work of literature in the world, you know.

It's a good article overall on the history and mysteries of the Folio. Lots of interesting stuff in there including how Shakespeare has been adapted, the state of many surviving Folios, theories of its accuracy to the text, a really interesting identification of John Milton's own copy currently in the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the fascinating annotations that may have influenced Milton's own poetry!!! Do read it. It's not an atrociously long article but there's a lot of thought-provoking information in there.

There's one paragraph in particular I keep coming back to though, so I'm just gonna quote it down here:

...[T]he Play on Shakespeare series, published by ACMRS Press, the publications division of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University... grew out of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s plan to “translate” Shakespeare for the current century, bills itself “a new First Folio for a new era.” The 39 newly-commissioned versions of Shakespeare’s plays were written primarily by contemporary dramatists, who were asked to follow the reasonable principle laid out by series editor Lue Douthit: tamper in the name of clarification but submit to “do no harm.” The project was inspired by something the linguist John McWhorter wrote in 1998: “[the] irony today is that the Russians, the French, and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do … [because] they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.”

Mainly it's the John McWhorter thing I keep coming back to. Side note: any of my non-native-English-speaking mutuals who have read Shakespeare, I would love to know your experiences. If you have read him in translation, or in the original English, or a mix of both. It's something I do wonder about! Even as an Anglophone reader, I find my experience varies so much just based on which edition of the text I'm reading and how it's presented. There's just so much variety in how to read literature and I would love to know what forces have shaped your own relationships to the stories. But anyway...

The article then goes on to talk about how the anachronistic language in Shakespeare will only fall more and more out of intelligibility for everyone because of how language evolves and yadda yadda yadda. I'm not going to say that that's wrong but I think it massively overlooks the history of the English language and how modern standard English became modern standard English.

First of all, is Shakespeare's language completely unintelligible to native English speakers today? No. Certain words and grammatical tenses have fallen out of use. Many words have shifted in meaning. But with context aiding a contemporary reader, there are very few lines in Shakespeare where the meaning can be said to be "unknown," and abundant lines that are perfectly comprehensible today. On the other hand, it's worth mentioning how many double entendres are well preserved in modern understanding. And additionally, things like archaic grammar and vocabulary are simply hurdles to get over. Once you get familiarized with your thees and thous, they're no longer likely to trip you up so much.

But it's also doubtful that 400 years from now, as the article suggests, our everyday language will be as hard to understand for twenty-fifth century English speakers to comprehend. The English language has significantly stabilized due to colonialism and the international adoption of English as a lingua franca. There are countless dialects within English, but what we consider to be standard international "correct" English will probably not change so radically, since it is so well and far established. The development and proliferation of modern English took a lot of blood and money from the rest of the world, the legacy of which can never be fully restored.

And this was just barely in sight by the time that Shakespeare died. This is why the language of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans is early-modern English. It forms the foundations of modern English, hence why it's mostly intelligible to speakers today, but there are still many antiquated figures within it. Early-modern English was more fluid and liberal. Spelling had not been standardized. Many regions of England still had slight variations in preferences for things like pronouns and verb conjugation. We see this even in works Shakespeare cowrote with the likes of Fletcher and Middleton, as the article points out. Shakespeare's vocabulary may not just reflect style and sentiment, but his Stratford background. His preferences could be deemed more "rustic" than many of his peers reared in London.

Features that make English more consistent now were not formalized yet. That's why Shakespeare sounds so "old." It's not just him being fancy. And there's also the fact that blank verse plays are an entirely neglected art nowadays. Regardless of the comprehensibility of the English, it's still strange for modern audiences uninitiated to Elizabethan literature to sit there and watch a King drop mad poetry about his feelings on stage by himself. The form and style of the entire genre is off.

But that, to me, is why we should read Shakespeare. We SHOULD be challenged. It very much IS within the grasp of a literate adult fluent in English to read one of his plays, in a modern edition with proper assistance and context. It is GOOD to be acquainted with something unfamiliar to us, but within our reach. I'm serious. I do not think I'm so much smarter than everyone else because I read Shakespeare. I don't just read the plain text as it was printed in the First Folio! The scholarship exists which has made Shakespeare accessible to me, and I take advantage of that access for my own pleasure.

This is to say that I disagree with the notion that Shakespeare is better suited to be enjoyed in foreign tongues. I think that's quite a complacent, modern American take. Not to say that the sentiment of McWhorter is wrong; I get what he's saying. And it's quite a beautiful thing that Shakespeare's plays are still so commonly staged, although arguably that comes from a false notion in our culture that Shakespeare is high literature worth preserving, at the expense of the rest of time and history. It is true that his body of work has such a high level of privilege in the so-called Western literary canon that either numerous other writers equally deserve, or no writer ever could possibly deserve.

The effort that goes into making Shakespeare's twenty-first century legacy, though, is a half-assed one. So much illustrious praise and deification of the individual and his works, and yet not as much to understanding the context of his time and place, of his influences, forms, and impacts on the eras which proceeded him. Shakespeare seems to exist in a vacuum with his archaic language, and we read it once or twice in high school when we're forced to, with prosaic translations on the adjoining page. This does not inspire a true appreciation in a culture for Shakespeare but it does reinforce a stereotype that he must be somehow important. It's this shallow stereotype that makes it seem in many minds today that it would be worth it to rip the precise language out of the text of a poet, and spit back out an equivalent "modern translation."

[weirdcat1213]

So I started to think about queer media (as you do) and the question hit me like a truck

What is better, a subtle queer story or a explicit queer story? Why the difference?

This is gonna be long so get a snack, sit down and let's go

First off I wanna say this is not talking about queerbaiting. I'm not interested in that atm. When I say explicit vs subtle I mean the topic of queerness beyond romance, I mean stories that go further than "I can't like this person we're from the same sex oh no"

To explain myself better I'm going to touch on different pieces of media that show queerness subtly and explicitly, but those will also be divided between Japanese media and western media (oh God if you have recs on more queer media that isn't from the west nor Japan pls give it to me give it now-)

This post will have as representatives of queer Japanese media: "Our dreams at dusk", "Villain", "Requiem of the Rose King" and "Stars Align" (if applicable the manga spoilers will be kept to a minimum)

And the representatives of western media will be "Felix Ever After", "Heartstopper" and "Our Flag Means Death"

I bet now you can see how some of the media in the western group is similar to the Japanese media. All of the works mentioned are undoubtedly queer, but there's a key difference: a few of them talk about queerness with explicit terms (gay, trans, queer, etc) while others go more on vibes (the queerness is right there but its not named with labels or common terms)

Now I'm not saying the ones that are explicit are better or vice versa, but it made me think about the difference and why a method works for certain stories and not for others.

Let's go to the beginning: I was reading a recent manga called "Villain" by teniwoha and other collaborators. The manga is based in the vocaloid song of the same name. The story and themes within the song are pretty much gender-non conforming and trans people being vilified by society because they are different. But so far I can see the manga is trying to add more layers to the concept of queer people being vilified (I'll make another post about that I promise). The point is that the story explored a trans-masc nb teenager and a gay teenager who has a crush on the other person. The thing with this manga and these characters is that sometimes they're too...on the nose. Not only tries to sneak references to the song evert time it can, but some of the moments seem too classic, like if they googled "how do nb feel about being nb" and they got some testimonials from teenagers.

But that's the thing. those feelings are still valid because they belong/ed to someone. If you personally have not experience something, amplifying voices of people who have is the thing you should be doing.

All of that to say that "Villain" feels pretty explicit in my eyes and they are only in chapter 6. I strongly feel like the manga will get even more explicit because reasons (i will explain in another post i promise).

This moment reminded me to other Japanese media that are pretty explicit with queer terms, moments, etc. "Stars Align" and "Our Dreams at Dusk" present terms, reflections, etc that make queerness explicit. Characters in "Stars Align" reflect on gender identity and the future, while characters in "Our Dreams at Dusk" show the reader all the kinds of genders and sexual orientations that exist. They even touch on how they are perceived in their society.

"This is all fine" I hear you cry "but we already got stuff like that. Media that explicitly shows queerness as a way to teach the audience about it" and you're right! we have media like "Felix Ever After" and "Heartstopper". They both talk about terms, gender identity, labels, etc. Media that talks about queerness in a way that makes it the focus to teach the audience about queerness is not new.

But you need to consider the oh so precious cultural/political context. You see, I'm going to assume, my western reader, you are used to this because western media has dipped its toes on it already. After years of making queer subtext, we have seen explicit queer media in the last 10-5 years? so we are used to it. Hell, some people even prefer media like "Our Flag Means Death" because queerness is alive and present, but it's not as explicit as it could. The words "gay, polycule, lesbians, nb" etc are never said but the characters are loud in their queerness. A lot of people prefer that approach because it voices their feelings without getting...lets call it technical: in both "Our Dreams at Dusk" and "Our Flag Means Death" there are characters with no defined gender identity. they are themselves without any labels.

Japanese media is not new to the subtleness at all. Works like "Requiem of the Rose King" have already proof they have and can do queer media, but for years it has been subtle. No one says "gay, intersex, trans" etc in the manga mentioned and yet readers knew the queer themes explored in the manga. It is just recently that japanese people are being more vocal and have the chance to show queerness in media (I'm aware they have been protesting for years I only mean in media). Media like "Villain", "Our Dreams at Dusk" and "Stars Align" are not explicit because japanese people just got the great idea to talk about it after the west did, it's because being explicit about queerness works in their political and cultural context. From what I've been told, currently most japanese people are accepting but they will ask you to "keep it at home." In a situation like that, no wonder why they are going for more explicit media recently. They don't care western media has been doing so for years now, it is their culture and their fight. There is still subtle japanese queer media (monster 2023 ily) but their creation process does not follow the creative process queer media in the west does.

So back to my questions: What is better, a subtle queer story or a explicit queer story? Why the difference?

The answers are short: both and because they belong to different political and cultural environments. Representation is important, but we need to consider the place it comes from before criticizing it.

What should you choose if you create a queer story? idk, whatever fits you. whatever fits the story you want to tell.

[fakehelper]

anyway as I'm working on adding more gifs to my Quannah Chasinghorse pack, I realized that some of my gifs, while better than the original video, still wash her out a bit so I'll be editing them! And just in general, here's just a reminder that when you make mistakes, it's always better to own up to them and try to make things better rather than giving up.

[thedeadthree]

the brainrot is brainrotting !!!!!!!! 🥀🥴🤧

[veterveter]

Happiest of birthdays to the most dearly beloved @sorrydearie !!!

I have written for the occasion, yet again ill-advisedly. For being lovely & being my friend, you get the *checks notes* angst you pitched to me. There is fluff there though, if you make it to the end. (It's like a reward.)

So it takes Andrés a month before he cracks, all because it becomes tiresome, in the end. To tell Martín a story, and repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it. To watch their plan turn from a near-complete masterpiece to a work still in progress, to witness their greatest discoveries become undone.

[boreal-sea]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[tuliptiger]

I! Would also love to see this studied so we can use whatever the results are to help change the things we're able to. I have been sitting here trying to figure out how to word my thoughts though.

I disagree with the hypothesis that people are chronically understimulated or at least I disagree with that as a general statement. I think that we're plenty stimulated but more importantly people with all sorts of different interests find their own stimulation just fine.

I love nature and the natural world, merlin, ebird, Inaturalist and good old notebooks and field guides are my favorite activities to go outside and do. More than anything I love birding. I also have education in natural resources and plan to live out my life with that as a career.

That being said, this last field season I worked exclusively outside, four 10 hour days outside in an area I absolutely am in love with. I still stayed up, often into the following days, watching tiktok and "satisfying" videos. Looking back I think I was stressed from, well everything. Needing money to pay for everything, the world's entire situation and americas fucked up (sorry for the language but describing it would deserve it's own post) cultural and social shifts. (While I love my career natural resources notoriously doesn't pay well, at least not the FS)

Those videos never actually made me feel better and often ruined the following day, anything I learned was questionable at best and completely devastating at worst, and the ratio of actual content I'd care about vs the rest of it was completely drowned out by the sheer volume of the library of content.

I found bird feathers and animal bones (environmental story telling forest edition), looked at bugs, spotted every animal and bird I could lay my eyes on. My crew and I would eat local berries and take breaks under the bluest sky I've ever been under, experience the awe-some views and sounds of being so far away from civilization the only way to contact us was through our radios.

That did NOT change my consumption of "stim videos" and quick content. My knowledge, curiosity, and adoration of nature was not correlated with my media use. Maybe for some people those things can be related, we're people and we're variable and nebulous but I think the issue is deeper than people being understimulated both mentally and physically.

If I had to put in a guess I'd say the larger issue is honestly stress, work and value (capital, value, worth) culture ie if you aren't creating value you are worthless. I'd also wager in correlation with these constant feelings of needing to be active and creating value, people are uncomfortable with being bored more than anything else these days.

(Sarcasm) If you're bored you can and should be making money right? How else is anyone going to pay their bills, go on vacation, have a stable life, or retire? Don't be lazy and stop staring at bugs. (End of Sarcasm)

I do not think boredom is bad at this point in my life, I'd even go as far as to say it's necessary (this would deserve it's own post to explain what I mean by this but I hope the meaning is clear enough) But capitalism doesn't have any room or patience for boredom, inactivity and monetarily valueless exploration. That's only good for your long term health and wellbeing and unsatisfied, ill people spend more money.

Addition: I rambled way too much, I am not currently good at condensing information. I just wanted to add on another piece of the puzzle, because it's really not one big thing it's a thousand different things I think.

Anyway...I just wanted to add that our infrastructure is so unfriendly to people just existing let alone exploring in urban AND rural areas it makes me furious. Birding these last couple years has really exposed me to this too. I can almost never find safe locations to pull off of roads to set up my binos or spotting scope to look at birds. Cities rarely have TRUE "loiter" friendly areas, parks are ok but USUALLY not the best for the purpose of learning about ecosystems or native ecology (unless you have a really cool city planner/city council that built parks around the idea of the local ecosystems).

I have never felt safe or welcome in residential areas either and they aren't particularly interesting in terms of biodiversity. Down town areas are out of the question due to noise, population and overall lack of the natural world. Unless you're buying things from shopping areas people dont take too kindly to you checking out the bushes and grasses around either. Urban areas don't encourage a slower pace of life and curiosity for the natural to me.

Again, if I'm not spending or making money and I'm only interested in my pretty cheap and free hobby I'm not welcome. And the final thing, this is, of course, just from my experiences and the places I've traveled. This does not encompass the entire USA let alone the world nor does it cover everyone's lived or future experiences.

I would be interested in resources and studies of why this trend of stim videos and quick content is on the rise though. I don't think any of us will like the answers but it would be a step forward to shift our society hopefully. If nothing else it could give individuals the chance to learn something about their habits to make the change for themselves.

My random unsubstantiated hypothesis of the day: the popularity of "stim" videos, fidget toys, and other things like that is a warning sign that something's Deeply Wrong with our world.

Don't freak out. I am autistic. These things are not bad. However, can we just...take a second to notice how weird it is that there are entire social media accounts full of 10-second videos of things making crunching noises, people squishing slime in their hands, and objects clacking together, and that enjoying them is mainstream and normal?

It seems that nowadays, almost everyone exhibits sensory-seeking behavior, when just a decade ago, the idea of anyone having "sensory needs" was mostly obscure. It is a mainstream Thing to "crave" certain textures or repetitive sounds.

What's even weirder, is that it's not just that "stim" content is mainstream; the way everything on the internet is filmed seems to look more like "stim" content. TikToks frequently have a sensory-detail-oriented style that is highly unusual in older online content, honing in on the tactile, visual and auditory characteristics of whatever it's showing, whether that's an eye shadow palette or a cabin in a forest.

When an "influencer" markets their makeup brand, they film videos that almost...highlight that it's a physical substance that can be smudged and smeared around. Online models don't just wear clothes they're advertising, they run their hands over them and make the fabric swish and ripple.

I think this can be seen as a symptom of something wrong with the physical world we live in. I think that almost everyone is chronically understimulated.

Spending time alone in the forest has convinced me of this. The sensory world of a forest is not only much richer than any indoor environment, it is abundant with the sorts of sensations that people seem to "crave" chronically, and the more I've noticed and specifically focused on this, the more I've noticed that the "modern" human's surroundings are incredibly flat in what they offer to the senses.

First of all, forests are constantly permeated with a very soft wash of background noise that is now often absent in the indoor world. The sound of wind through trees has a physiological effect you can FEEL. It's always been a Thing that people are relaxed by white noise, which leads to us being put at ease by the ambient hum of air conditioning units, refrigerators and fans. But now, technology has become much more silent, and it's not at all out of place to hypothesize that environments without "ambient" white noise are detrimental to us.

Furthermore, a forest's ambience is full of rhythmic and melodic elements, whereas "indoor" sounds are often harsh, flat and irregular.

Secondly: the crunch. This is actually one of the most notably missing aspects of the indoor sensory world. Humans, when given access to crunchable things, will crunch them. And in a forest, crunchy things are everywhere. Bark, twigs and dry leaves have crisp and brittle qualities that only a few man-made objects have, and they are different with every type of plant and tree.

Most humans aren't in a lot of contact with things that are "destroyable" either, things you can toy with and tear to little bits in your hands. I think virtually everyone has restlessly torn up a scrap of paper or split a blade of grass with their thumbnail; it's a cliche. And since fidget toys in classrooms are becoming a subject of debate, I think it pays to remember that the vast majority of your ancestors learned everything they knew with a thousand "fidget toys" within arm's reach.

And there is of course mud, and clay, and dirt, and wet sand. I'm 100% serious, squishing mud and clay is vital to the human brain. Why do you think Play-Doh is such a staple elementary school toy. Why do you think mud is the universal cliche thing kids play in for fun. It's such a common "stim" category for a reason.

I could go on and on. It's insane how unstimulating most environments humans spend time in are. And this definitely contributes to ecological illiteracy, because people aren't prepared to comprehend how detailed the natural world is. There are dozens of species of fireflies in the United States, and thousands of species of moths. If you don't put herbicides on your lawn, there are likely at least 20 species of plant in a single square meter of it. I've counted at least 15 species of grass alone in my yard.

Would it be overreach to suggest that some vital perceptive abilities are just not fully developing in today's human? Like. I had to TEACH myself to be able, literally able, to perceive details of living things that were below a certain size, even though my eyes could detect those details, because I just wasn't accustomed to paying attention to things that small. I think something...happens when almost all the objects you interact with daily are human-made.

The people that think ADHD is caused by kids' brains being exposed to "too much stuff" by Electronic Devices...do not go outside, because spending a few minutes in a natural environment has more stimuli in it than a few hours of That Damn Phone.

A patch of tree bark the size of my phone's screen has more going on than my phone can display. When you start photographing lots of living organisms, you run into the strange and brain-shifting reality that your electronic device literally cannot create and store images big enough to show everything you, in real life, may notice about that organism.

[tacticalhimbo]

covidsafehotties , a blog dedicated to covid pandemic resources run by a trans* woman, was deleted for "harassment" after mentioning that her abusive, tme roommate had drawn a knife on her. she simply mentioned that this roommate was tme (which does not mean inherently mean transmasculine; iirc this roommate was cisgender), received threatening and harassing anonymous asks for simply stating that she was a victim of transmisogyny, and SHE was the one banned.

edit: here is a [link] to the covidsafehotties discord server; and here is a [link] to a follow-up post i made about certain recurring comments/questions!

edit 2: here is a [link] the new tumblr blog, covid-safer-hotties! in case this one also goes down; to find a better archive of information, make sure to check out nadica's proboard dedicated to covid safety, which can be found at this [link] !

while nadica (blog owner) has privately stated that she is attempting to go through the appeals process, tumblr's email from @staff has made it clear that she as a transgender woman is not welcomed on this site.

just as they have numerous trans* women in the past week.

in fact, she received the exact same email as them, stating that "automatic means were not used to make this decision or identify the content at issue", meaning that real. human members of staff saw a trans* woman being harassed, talking about her experiences as a trans* woman, and banned her for daring to say so.

they even went as far as to state that she "[should not] engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others".

how in the FUCK is her sharing these experiences sexual? how in the FUCK is her being harassed by transmasculine folks on this site sexual??

just a reminder: here are details surrounding tumblr’s NYCCHR Settlement, which is publicly accessible information

Summary of NYC Gov. Settlements [ LINK ]

NYCCHR Settlement Documentation [ LINK ]

in case y'all really want to raise a stink over the "queerest site on the internet" raising their transmisogynistic paws (again). and from nadica herself:

" Can we all appreciate that even beyond the transmisogyny of the likely scenario, that this person disliked a single acronym [re: tme] I used so much that they got the most [active] and interacted-with covid blog on the site banned. i can't imagine being so cruel and thoughtless about any resource "

as a tme person, i stand with every fucking trans woman and transfem that tumblr has banned from this site for existing within the content guidelines. i stand with every fucking trans woman and transfem who has been harassed, stalked, and booted from this site because the moderation staff refuses to do SHIT about it.

and i stand with every other group who faces the same treatment. the dozens of black bloggers. the dozens of indigenous bloggers. the dozens of palestinian bloggers.

tumblr is not the queerest corner of the internet. it is not a safe space. and if i get banned for saying that, then fuck it and fuck every one of y'all who let it happen.

[allinllachuteruteru]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

[phoenixcatch7]

The Legend of Zelda - Hero's Diaries masterpost

(Don't expect this to be continued, this is just for my own organisation lol)

If you've seen posts like my Project Sky, Earth Heart, or Bleach Maths, you know I like my overly grand dedications and oversized projects. Outside of a few personal ones, this is probably my longest and most researched one yet - my Hero's Diaries.

Zelda, to me, is one of those franchises I just sort of slipped into, my parents bought the games because we had the appropriate consoles and they were consistently good, you know? I loved them individually, but didn't piece them together as parts of a larger world until I was a little older, and then sought them out on my own.

Possibly one of the best parts of tloz is its silent protagonist, Mx-link-between-the-player-and-the-game. As a child, and even really as an adult, I could get so engrossed in the games, choosing my every action wisely, playing little games I made up myself in the world, taking in the scenery, frothing when I died to some smug looking boss, standing in front of animals to pretend I was petting them (mostly Epona) XD.

So between that, my love of documenting and researching, and my writing hobby, it was only natural that I keep little records of my own playthroughs. Funny little details and accidents, dramatically or comedically timed moments, bosses I defeated first try, npcs I did or didn't like.

It turned out, when I sat and thought about it, I'd actually played a lot of Zelda games, throughout the years.

Zelda 1 - ongoing

Zelda 2 - in possession

Link's awakening - FIN

Four swords - N/A

Triforce heroes - in possession

Minish cap - N/A

Oracle of seasons - FIN

Oracle of ages - ongoing

Link between worlds - FIN

Link to the past - in possession

Hyrule warriors - ongoing

Ocarina of time - FIN

Majoras Mask - FIN

Wind waker - N/A

Phantom hourglass - N/A

Spirit tracks - N/A

Twilight princess - FIN

Skyward sword - FIN

Cadence of hyrule (lmao) - FIN

Breath of the wild - FIN

Age of calamity - FIN

Tears of the kingdom - FIN

Echo of wisdom - TBD

If I actually succeed in this, it'll be my biggest dedication ever. This is a project over a decade in the making, full of love for the games I've been playing since I was seven years old and getting nightmares from sneaking the ds under my covers and seeing the Majora's Mask aliens too late on a school night.

I'm really excited.

[autolenaphilia]

I talked about the problem of Windows system requirements being too damn high before, and how the windows 10 to 11 jump is especially bad. Like the end of Windows 10 is coming october 2025, and it will be a massive problem. And this article gives us some concrete numbers for how many computers that can't update from win10 to 11.

And it's 240 million. damn. “If these were all folded laptops, stacked one on top of another, they would make a pile 600 km taller than the moon.” the tech analysis company quoted in the article explains.

So many functioning computers that will be wasted. And it's all because people don't wanna switch to a Linux distro with sane system requirements and instead buy a new computer.

Like if you own one of these 240 million windows 10 computers, Just be an environmentally responsible non-wasteful person and switch that computer to Linux instead of just scrapping it because Microsoft says it's not good enough.

Edit: as have been pointed out multiple times in the replies. It's really not "all because people don't wanna switch to a linux distro." It's really Microsoft's fault for this form of planned obsolescence.

My original post was lacking in perspective at best. And of course, people who use computers for work are often made reliant on Windows by their job and employers and can't switch. Or lack time, resources, and information to make the switch. Which is also due to systemic issues, such as lack of education, and the culture of obfuscation about tech that tech companies create.

Edit 2: Making this unrebloggable: now I really know what reddit mods mean when they say "the discussion has run its course" Like there is absolutely no conversation anymore, just repeating of points already made and responded to, just endless repetition

To quote @mlembug

Source

If you can spend 5-10 minutes writing a reblog clowning on somebody, but you can't:

spend 10s to do a basic courtesy of checking the appropriate pronoun of the person involved

spend 30s checking the reblogs of a post to see if someone also decided to clown on the same person

spend 10s to click on OP's post to see if it was edited in the meantime (and guess what: the edits in OP's post does indeed blame Microsoft for planned obsolescence, which you decided to blame her for not doing in one of your reblogs)

THEN YOU SHOULD NOT BE MAKING A REBLOG. EVER.

[coolhumanoidbeing]

Shout out to people with Complex Dissociative Disorders (parents edition):

If your parents genuinely changed and improved overtime

If your parents were absent when you were a kid because they were sick / ill / working / otherwise indisposed

If your parents were not your abusers

If your parents would have acted differently if they knew you were being abused

If your parents didn't have the resources or knowledge to help / understand you

If your parents were loving and yet still neglectful

If your parents inadvertently invalidated / didn't believe you, but now do

If your parents weren't your primary caregivers when the abuse happend

If you weren't abused at all and your trauma was medical / environmental / etc

Had emotionally and physically present parents but you still had disorganized attachment with them as a kid because of your delusions / paranoia / etc.

If your parents regret how they treated you

If your parents loved and love you but acted the way they did because of substances / mental illness

If your parents are not completely bad people, or bad people at all

If you still get along with your parents regardless of what they did

If you ever invalidated your own traumatic childhood experiences because your parents were "too nice"

Your trauma is not less valid if you get along with your parents today. Sure, you needed disorganized attachment to your primary caregivers as a kid to develop a CDD. But that can take plenty of formes, and they don't all include your parents being monsters.

Edit: any other emotions regarding your parents are also valid and okay, and I couldn't mean that more. Childhood trauma survivors go through so many rough emotions, and self-invalidation is sadly way too common. Your feelings are a direct result of what happened and that makes them normal.