#moderator to a conversation if you will

[thedeafprophet]

At some point there really does need to be a serious talk about companies, including and especially indie companies, 'unawaringly' taking adventage free fan labour. This is especially promintent in terms of online communities and the extremely hard work of moderation.

Yes it is often willing volunteer work. No, that does not change that fact that it is questionable for so much labour to be put on non paid staff members, the power dynamics that are involved, and also just the complete mess this has lead too. This is so common, and i do think this is a factor of online spaces that has yet to full discuss the rammifications

[bacchuschucklefuck]

the never stop blowing up vhs is where cute twinks go to get harmed

[catadrome]

tried something clever today and got uno reversed. let this be a lesson to you: never try anything clever!

[gothra]

Unsurprisingly, ideological polarization is bad for healthy conversation about nuanced issues. As it turns out, telling people that “if you believe in Concept A, you’re always and 100% X, and if you are X, you want me and people in my community to die” tends to make it difficult for people to speak up if they believe something, valid, yet hopelessly adjacent to “Concept A” and then, when they don’t speak up, no one ever solves anything. All that’s successfully happened is sending everyone on either side of that issue back into their hidey-holes, rightfully convinced that the other side is their enemy.

Literally, the only thing we can do to escape this level of reactionary behavior is to listen to what other people say, even if we disagree with them and even if we know they’re totally 100% wrong and stupid and evil, and come from a place not borne of moral righteousness, but of genuine curiosity and the hope that a conversation can scratch an itch or draw in some perspective. You should want to see in color, not just your black and white.

[seaofreverie]

We should normalize bringing these sort of "small talk ideas" cards to meetings with other people so that it's possible to avoid the awkwardness of not knowing what to talk about to kick things off or if it's considered normal to talk about this specific thing and AUGHGHFCG all this stuff.

[aroceu]

one thing i learned from having ocd is that we can ease the suffering in our lives a bit more if we free ourselves from imposing rules onto ourselves and also onto others. obviously there's nothing wrong with having standards & personal boundaries but we reduce our own freedom (as well as others') when we have a set of guidelines dictating how people "ought to" think or behave or be. there are people and opinions and viewpoints i would rather not engage with but i will never go into the effort of trying to either control or destroy the feelings or thoughts or behavior or experiences of anyone (including my own) just to conform to my personal standards. i mean i suppose this is why i have avoidance issues lol but the point i'm really trying to make is that there is a huge difference between acceptance and complacency and that's that complacency abides by and conforms to rules while acceptance is a radical eradication of those rules

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Hi! A question For the Hilda Fandom

If Hilda's Dad is Fae, Would that mean Hilda would have some Fae Magic? What would Fae Magic even be in the Hilda World?

Hi! Considering Hilda’s worldbuilding in based on Scandinavian folklore, I think it’s safe to say that if that theory were true, then it would all resemble Nordic folk beliefs a lot. The fae-related headcanon I see the most in the fandom is Hilda as a changeling, which (as I understand it) means that she was 100% fae and left at Johanna’s for any reason rather than Jo having a baby with a faerie.

In either case, knowing how Luke Pearson works I’d expect her to have/not have magic according to whichever is most common in Nordic folklore. With I’m not at all well read enough to tell you about 😅

[sturionic]

Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

[zerolostwalks]

. . .

[theology101]

This is so not suspicious. This is the literal theme of the season.

Being stressed and angry is fine, the issue is about it overwhelming you and becoming uncontrollable. The whole point of a Barbarian is to use your rage, productively. Lydia has been in a state of mind bending fury for decades but she uses it productively and for the good of others. Last episode was about Gorgug accepting and embracing his rage while not letting it control him.

This unknown god, this Fire Deity, is pissed because HE AND HIS WIFE WERE OBLITERATED BY HIS BROTHER IN LAW. The Nightmare King, through love and devotion was able to return to Cassandra, and it’s going to happen again. This Rage God is a victim being used - as above so below, if the Rat Grinders are the Rage God’s sole followers, he is what they want him to be.

Fig might be the only hope this god has to coming home.

this is. so fucking suspicious

[uznmaki]

man i hate when people from my country start mixing english with our native language too much like that’s so embarrassing!!! i get it when you can’t find a specific word or if it’s just a common phrase now but my god when i hear someone replacing very common words with their english equivalent i just can’t help but think it’s kinda pretentious

[elysian-edu]

rich husbands who make their whole life about taking care of you.

oh, that necklace you glanced at while at the mall? now you're there trying several other ones on because "they all look perfect on you."

the dress you looked at through that shop window? bought. plus anything else you even remotely wanted.

that snack you crave almost all the time? he almost buys the whole business for you just to have them as often as you'd like. (in moderation of course!)

rich husbands who don't understand why you want to work, and every time you tell them why they simply say:

"i can provide more than enough for the both of us, but go ahead."

rich husbands the second they see you all stressed and tired from that job, call in and quit for you.

and when you try to get up the next morning to go to said job, he ushers you back to bed, lays you down and tells you to "not worry about that pesky job again."

rich husbands who like to make it known to everyone that you're married to him.

buys you the biggest rock you've ever seen adorned on your finger to propose to you, and makes it his routine to see if you have his ring on. (which you always do.)

indirectly flaunts it to passersby's by holding your hand, occasionally picking your hand up to inspect it, and trying not to crack a smile as he hears women gasp, and whisper, "she's one lucky woman."

rich husbands who tell everyone they know about you, whether that be coworkers, family, or random people, he'll always somehow flip the conversation to being about you.

"oh that? my wife is quite fond of it, yes."

"that reminds me of my wife, she quite likes those things. often calling them "cute.""

rich husbands <33

[thatdisasterauthor]

👀 i would be interested in hearing the deviantart points rant

Alrighty, the deviantART points rant. For context, I had a dA account from the time I was 12 and used it steadily until I was about 20. I was also a volunteer moderator with them for about a year, and they even offered me a job at one point. (But there was no way in heaven or hell they could've paid me enough to move to southern California, and god forbid they offer remote work.)

dA was one of the original social media behemoths. Never quite to the level of Twitter or Facebook, but if you were an artist you were on deviantART. It was a fantastic site back in its heyday. Artists got their start on there, recruiters were on there, art directors were on there, the community building features were fantastic. Yeah, it had its share of weird shit, but point me to a website that doesn't.

Multiple famous artists got their start on deviantART. Back then, it was a place you got real, legitimate work from. A place you could use to build a real, legitimate audience. The titans of early 2000s digital art that pretty much everyone knows (in the West, anyway), the ones who still have a massive effect on art styles today, basically all got their start on deviantART. It influenced the entire western culture of what art looks like on the internet, and that bled out into what art looks like everywhere else because these people made beloved shows and comics and movies and books and everything else.

But one of the best things about deviantART was that it was created at a time before everyone decided social media had to be slimmed down to its barest bones. It was a complex site, and there was a lot to it. That made it really easy for all levels of artists (and just plain art enjoyers) to use, and easy for them to make it function in a way that worked for them. This fostered a great environment where people of all skill levels could interact, share knowledge, and just absorb skills from one another.

Now, one area deviantART didn't initially cater to people was built-in payment options. They had a print shop you could upload your work to, but it was like Redbubble or Printful; merch selling, not custom work selling. So if artists wanted to offer commissions, they'd have to take payments elsewhere. (Usually Paypal.) Which was fine! That worked great!

But, well. Corporations gonna corporate. I forget the exact year, but one day they launched a new feature called Points. Points were a site specific currency, and they were one of the first (if not the first) to have such a thing. There were also some other things launched with it, including the ability to accept commissions with points as payment. You could also use points to buy site subscriptions, badges, stuff from the print shop, etc., or you could gift them to other people. You could also cash them out for real currency, for a fee (I wanna say the fee was 10%, and less if you were a subscribed user, but I can't remember exactly).

The conversion rate for Points was 1 Point=1US cent. Which seems fine on the surface! But the problem was psychological, because what they didn't do was actually make it look like that. Points instead looked like dollars, because there was no equivalent to actual CENTS in the Points ecosystem. So, for example, lets say you want to charge one dollar for something. That would look like this:

$1

P100.

Or ten dollars for something:

$10

P1000

Or a hundred dollars for something:

$100

P10000

See the problem? They're the same VALUE, but points just look massively bigger. This was especially a problem for people who didn't know what the conversion rate was because they just didn't know, or they were from other countries and REALLY didn't know because it wasn't related to their own currencies at all. (I think there was also a max amount of points you could charge for a commission, like a couple hundred dollars worth maybe? It was low when you converted it to real currency, if I'm remembering correctly.)

It devalued the art market like a knife to the gut. People were suddenly taking commissions for literal pennies just because the numbers LOOKED bigger. And because deviantART was such a hub for the art community, it bled out elsewhere. Prices started to dip other places too, because people who DID understand the conversion rate knew they could go on deviantART and get shit for super cheap from the people who didn't know or care. Which made other people lower their prices to compete, and it just resulted in a spiral to the bottom.

Would the art market have still tanked in the same way without the introduction of Points on dA? Maybe. But Points were the first domino to fall, and they were a massive one. The art market has never recovered even though deviantART has been 90% dead for going on a decade.

So yes. There's my internet history rant on Points and art values. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[ross-hollander]

A translation guide...

...for all those hotshot pilots who need to learn how to speak a conversational Mechtech in a hurry:

"Running diagnostics": taking a five-minute break.

"Checking that repairs settle": taking a ten-minute break.

"Sent the new guy to the quartermaster for the parts we need": taking a half-hour break.

"In five minutes": in ten minutes.

"In ten minutes": in half an hour.

"In half an hour": tomorrow.

"In an hour": actually, in forty-five minutes.

"Severe damage": functionally meaningless, they will say this about anything. Ignore it. It is small talk.

"Extensive damage": actually light damage but on the parts that are hard to work with, so try running a little cooler from now on.

"Moderate damage": sure, you nearly died, but shot-out cockpit glass is pretty easy to replace, stop being dramatic.

"Apprentice work": the most important parts of your 'mech are being left in the charge of the least experienced worker in the entire hangar.

"Armored up on vulnerable segments": an extra layer of tinfoil has been applied over your armor and fastened in place with hot glue.

"Extra armor stripped to save weight": your 'mech is now protected by about two sheets of corrugated metal plundered from a local hardware and landscaping store.

"Lunch break": a block of time that begins at the exact moment you return to the hangar with an engine on fire and one arm missing and ends just when they have to hand the job off to the night teams.

"Lighten up on the handling": treat this 'mech like a dainty lady of court who faints onto couches if slightly stressed and must not strain herself by strolling in the manor gardens too long.

"Push it all you like": if you bring this 'mech back in with all its limbs attached or the engine not exploded, they will assume you are denigrating the quality of their work.

"Get lunch some time at the mess": you have earned the Favor of the Mechtechs. Know you are blessed, and treat this gravely. Also, you are obliged to immediately counter-offer with getting command's permission to order in from a place in town. (Assuming it has not been blown up, the place or the town.)

[aardvaark]

the second david job is so funny from maggie’s POV. her deeply suspicious date is wearing her ex husband’s button camera. parked like 10 feet away is a deeply suspicious black van. she opens the van door to her ex husband (moderately drunk), the sheikh’s son who sold the david (with a laptop that was clearly monitoring her conversation), a representative of the vatican (eating gummy bears & shrugging), and the hangar receptionist (also eating gummy bears, not bothered enough to shrug). all sitting crammed in the back of a van looking at her with wide eyes. and the best part is that maggie’s not mad at any of THEM, she doesn’t think that these random people (who she is evidently soon told are internationally wanted criminals) might have manipulated nate into this, or that nate’s gotten himself entangled in something by accident, no. she’s just like "nate what the fuck are you up to now". another day in the life of knowing nathan ford

[uberoll-oystercrackers]

Kelsey, you and I both know I have told you before to leave me and any original posts on my blog alone. It's so absurd that you think, if you let enough time creep by, people's boundaries will just magically melt away. How many times are you going to make me restate my boundaries to you? Myself and my friends, who you have also repeatedly disrespected, have done this on our own and each other's behalf, how many times? How many times have we allowed you the grace of a private conversation despite the fact that your behavior over the years made some people feel legitimately distressed or even unsafe? Why do you get to do whatever the fuck you want, no matter how the people you disrespected feel about it? Did you really just think, especially ME of all people, we were just going to silently take this shit from you, forever? We held back for years out of a legitimate hope you would go on to improve as a person, even it had to be away from us, because we had reached our limits with you. We held back for years because interpersonal relationships often have conflict, and we didn't want this to become "a thing" because it's already so fucking stressful and upsetting how you treated all of us! We don't fucking care how many times you said you didn't mean it or you didn't know what you were doing when for over two years we had Socratic seminar style fucking sit downs with you where you were given infinitely more time, patience, understanding, and compassion than, you've made so clear, you ever deserved.

The fact that you did this on a piece that I was so happy about, that made my friends happy, that made an artist important to me happy, wow. You really are something else.

Like I said to you right before you left the group server in 2019, because apparently you couldn't take the people you treated like shit speaking up about it in a private server or some shit, and like I said to you again when you came into my tumblr dms in 2020 (these are just the times you were asked to specifically leave me alone, we're not even factoring the dozens upon dozens of times you were asked to stop XYZ behavior over and over again), leave me the fuck alone. That means forever, since you want to be funny about it.

drawing request possibilities: Summer Outfit Lars

i just have to ask you, does your neck hurt?

from carrying around the world's most wrinkled, gargantuan brain?!?

& the uncolored sketch, if ya like!