whodoyouthinkithinkiam

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Peer-reviewed tags by @unendingreblogging

Major Concern: Hey wait. Guys why is the gun able to be described as “Unshackled”?

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Ugh.

My daughter, at age five, noticed a Let's Play in the sidebar of her music video and clicked on it.

Immediately, half the recommended videos, were things like "[Name Redacted] DESTROYS Feminist in Debate".

Going back to music didn't help. Waiting a couple of months calmed it down a little. Now, over a year later, the Youtube front page on her browser only has one video of a Hollywood celebrity "destroying woke culture".

She never even clicked on a single one of those videos. (I was prepared to explain to her exactly why not, but she never even tried.) But video games are a Right Wing thing enough for Youtube to think this is a good idea despite it having never had a single hit in over a year.

(The game wasn't right-wing, one of those games people are known to throw slurs on, or even multiplayer, by the way. It was a Mario game.)

Youtube was the only social-media-esque thing we let her use, and it was a mistake. No more for years.

To get back to the original post, a link to something political won't turn their phone into a doomscrolling machine, but it might turn their brain into one. That would probably be a morally good thing (assuming they don't hit the conspiracy BS), but they would be less happy. Knowing what the world is like can do that.

i have a thought percolating about, like. engagement. the concept of engagement. and how i think it's a flawed concept in part because there's a significant segment of the population that's just... not going to do that. for whatever reason they are only really interested in consuming things passively. art, news, whatever. they are not interested in engaging. they will only ever get the surface-read on anything. if something demands engagement and doesn't allow for surface-level readings it's not for them. they will use whatever app or social network or website that allows them to use it as passively as possible.

mostly i am thinking about this in the context of engagement hacking and 'the algorithm'. posts designed to be infuriating to maximize engagement. headlines crafted to upset you for engagement. and for the right subset of people, it works. but for the passive people, i think they move on. instead of getting them to like and share or whatever it chases them off. the post made them feel bad, so they don't like it. they're going to find posts that don't make them feel bad, instead.

i am thinking about this in the context of living in deeply republican bumfuck nowhere, surrounded by trump supporters who have no idea who mitch mcconnell is. they are unclear on what the supreme court does or who is on it. they do not know the difference between the house and the senate. if you try to talk to them about politics or the news - not even a serious discussion, just trying to explain facts - they will say something like, "oh, i don't follow politics. i don't watch the news. it's all so bad. it just makes me upset. i avoid all of that." and if you keep trying to explain basic facts despite that, they will respond like you're trying to describe the graphic details of a snuff video. there are people who come into our office who my coworkers avoid by pretending to be on the phone, because if they don't, they might try to talk about the news.

the only news or politics they ever see is something that gets enough engagement from the people who care that it makes it onto their feed of funny animal videos and 5 minute crafts. they extrapolate that there's a whole world of nightmares out there that they can safely avoid by never looking. they don't know in any conscious way what it means to curate your feed, but they'll treat a link to anything 'political' like a virus that will turn their phone into a doomscrolling machine that makes you crazy.

i don't know if i'm expressing anything coherent here, i don't have a thesis statement or a hypothetical solution to whatever you would call this. i'm just tired.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I had to make fanart of this song, but I can't draw. This was the best I could do.

and i don’t know why it feels like nothing gained at all and not a word to help accept what’s coming we’ve killed all gods and now gravity’s all that remains to call my name

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Love the garages cause there'll be songs like "I love my little blorbo <3 <3 <3" and then songs like "yeah we're just straight up murdering gods" and then songs like "I am unrelentingly sad and you should be too" and then songs like "Everything is burning. Everyone is screaming. Soon it will all be over. But while we are still here. We shall yell into the abyss how it has failed us. I would miss you but I shall soon lose the ability to miss anything. Are you fucking scared of death?"

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Oh damn, I thought I was finally okay about Blaseball.

and i don’t know why it feels like nothing gained at all and not a word to help accept what’s coming we’ve killed all gods and now gravity’s all that remains to call my name

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I didn't know about this, but I had to call squatter's rights once.

I answered an ad on my university-approved housing bulletin board for a single room. I didn't see anything sketchy about the place. Lived there for most of a year without issues. Then my landlord died... and his landlord showed up.

Yeah, I'd been paying in good faith, but he hadn't had the right to rent to me and in most other contexts this is known as "receiving stolen goods" and what I knew doesn't mean squat. In this case, it did mean squat. (Pun not originally intended but when I saw it I sure did embrace it.)

One of his other tenants was dealing with the landlord, and I never saw him in person, but I told her "tell him squatter's rights" and the demands went from "get out now" to "okay, you have a month."

Looking up more information I don't think this actually counted as squatter's rights because it requires years in my jurisdiction, but I think the landlord folded once he realized we knew we had any rights at all.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

this starship has potentially infinite space,

Recently user Inchoatl finished a really cool Kidd Commander fic where they wrote 100 words for every prompt on a list of 100, every single day straight in a row. They've written some excellent fic for KC in the past and always have such fun insights about the characters, it was such a treat getting to read a little bit about someone new every day!! One of my favorites was number 67, which I wanted to draw immediately but y'all know how it goes. ANYWAY: go read it, my god.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

"X Reader" fics are absolutely not for me. I don't disapprove of them existing, but I don't care to see them.

On the other hand, some of my most beloved fics are self-insert, and not written by me.

It seems bizarre to me that these two are conflated, but the relatively low proportion of "It's complicated" indicates that I'm in the minority on this one.

(Millennial, btw.)

Please reblog to increase sample size, thanks! Also if there’s nuance please reblog with your thoughts. I’m asking because I’m genuinely interested and curious.

When I say love and hate, I mean do you lock in to read these fics with a favorite character, or do you cringe and scroll/blacklist these tags?

Also to get ahead of bitching: 60+ year old fans exist, and regardless of your views on whether it is appropriate or not, minors are reading/writing fan fiction.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

My boyfriend has really vivid, elaborate dreams. He’ll often wake up and talk about some grand narrative- travel, exploration, politics, performances. I’ve always been a little jealous, he can hold really good plots together for them sometimes.

But anyway, this does have a downside; vivid, elaborate dreams make for vivid, elaborate nightmares. I can usually tell when it’s one of those nights, since he grinds his teeth pretty badly.

I was never quite sure what to do when I knew he was having a bad time of it, though the grinding alone was enough to worry me and push me towards intervening. I used to just shake him gently, hope to rouse him just enough to reset the dream or something, but it wasn’t too effective and anyway waking him up all the time isn’t good for rest.

I’m rather proud of the strategy I eventually settled on: gently, so as not to wake him up, I’d lay one arm across his hands, wrapping his fingers around me so that he was holding on. Nightmares being nightmares, I can usually count on a pretty tight grip when this happens.

It may seem a little odd, but consider that holding on to something with both hands is typically a very agentic frame of mind. We hold on to things that give us power, in one way or another, and possessing objects often makes us feel powerful in some respects. That has consequences, even for a dreaming mind.

I knew it was working when he woke up rather mystified from one such dream, and told me that he’d been running through the caverns of some dungeon or cave system, pursued by monsters, but then all of a sudden he was holding a giant anime sword and fought them off instead. So I got to be a sword for him that night, I was delighted.

I don’t usually get to know exactly what happened, since even for a very vivid dreamer like Ritter, nine tenths of these things get forgotten. But I know I’ve been things like door handles, steering wheels, stuff like that. And even when I don’t know what I am to him, he doesn’t grind his teeth nearly as much- the sleep is deeper and more peaceful, so I get plenty of feedback that it’s working.

It’s such a perfect encapsulation of love in microcosm, isn’t it? No matter how much you mean to them, and how much they mean to you, the gap between two conscious lives is fundamentally separating you. But fundamental does not mean insurmountable. There’s this whole world in him, full of dreams and perspectives that I’ll never truly experience. But I will be a part of those worlds all the same, finding little ways here and there to make sure that the dreams of me make him a better, stronger, and happier person.

Or at least, so one hopes. It’s a difficult challenge, and things often go awry. But usually you get at least a little lucky.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

What's so wrong with imagine dragons that you're making that comparison? Did I miss something?

Listen. No disrespect but liking imagine dragons is like if your favorite food was water and toast.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

And the sky opened up

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

reblog if you need a hug

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

It's a funny article, and I'm too late anyway, but I'm inordinately amused that I know enough about fifth-century BCE Athenian democracy specifically to know who was the best choice:

"No ancient Greek would have had any trouble in understanding what happened on the 6th or that it was a serious attempt (albeit an incompetent one) to seize power. Having a leader or a political faction move with a mob (often armed, but not always so) to try to disperse the normal civic assemblies of a Greek polis and occupy their normal meeting place was a standard maneuver to try to seize power during stasis. As Dr. Roel Konijnendijk, an ancient Greek history specialist, noted in this excellent discussion on the r/AskHistorians reddit (where he posts as Iphikrates), “In the Greek world, most attempts to seize power by force tended to take the same form: the seditious party would contrive an opportunity to gather in arms while their opponents were unarmed and off-guard, and seize control of all public spaces.”

"To take merely the examples in Athens... Later in 411, the ‘Four Hundred’ would seize power in exactly the same way, arriving with a mob of armed supporters to disperse the Athenian boule – it’s council (Thuc. 8.69). That’s four examples of this exact tactic from Athens alone."

- Bret Devereaux, https://acoup.blog/2021/01/15/miscellanea-insurrections-ancient-and-modern-and-also-meet-the-academicats/

“I just don’t know enough about fifth-century BCE Athenian democracy to make an informed decision in this election,” said Powers, frantically reading about the Enlightenment to see for himself whether John Locke said anything about Kamala Harris’ record on immigration. 

…Just vote, ffs.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Victoria 5 day cat help needed

If any of y'all who are in Victoria have space for accommodating 1 cat until November 9th, I can trade you an artwork.

Her name is Twilight, she is well behaved around other animals and is 17 years old. It is a long story that I won't get into detail here for the sake of time reading this, but she is at a boarding facility in Vic and she was paid for until November 4th. November 4-9 costs $250 that I cannot afford.

My car has died, I have a friend who's helping me retrieve her on this Saturday the 9th. I live north island in Courtenay.

I am in good contact with the boarding facility. This was the first picture I've seen of her since I moved in February.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

The top pain scale is super fascinating to me. I've been at 10 (can't move due to my pain) without being at 9 (pain is all I can think about). I spend all my time at 4 (constantly aware of my pain) but it doesn't inhibit any activities. I don't consider myself to be "in chronic pain", and I'm probably doing better than the average obese 40-year-old (my demographic). On the Allie Brosh pain scale, I'd call myself a constant 2.5.

I think that the top scale just isn't a good fit for people with ADHD. I'm just not good at ignoring sensory things, unless I can get deep into a good book (at which point I won't be moving, and therefore setting my joints off, anyway).

(If you're wondering about that "10 without 9", I was giving birth. There's a lot to think about when giving birth!)

My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.

I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Victoria 5 day cat help needed

If any of y'all who are in Victoria have space for accommodating 1 cat until November 9th, I can trade you an artwork.

Her name is Twilight, she is well behaved around other animals and is 17 years old. It is a long story that I won't get into detail here for the sake of time reading this, but she is at a boarding facility in Vic and she was paid for until November 4th. November 4-9 costs $250 that I cannot afford.

My car has died, I have a friend who's helping me retrieve her on this Saturday the 9th. I live north island in Courtenay.

I am in good contact with the boarding facility. This was the first picture I've seen of her since I moved in February.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

"Show how far your OCs have evolved via their first and latest image" --

Thorn Estragon, 2024 versus 2013!