dinkydruid

[dinkydruid]

“Wait, there are people blaming the writers?”

Are you surprised? Fandoms have become notorious anti-writer spaces. Studios love you guys. They can cut the budgets, cut the number of writers, cut the wages of the writers, and you guys always blame the writers. “The writers ruined the show!” It’s never “the studios ruined the show.”

I hate to break it to you: more than half the shows you complain were “ruined by the writers”, were ruined by the studios. Studios cut the scenes and arcs you were excited for. Studios cut the budget of the show, or even raise the budget of the show and force a “bigger, louder, bolder” tone on shows that were unexpected hits (this is where we get “the Netflix look” on every show post-Stranger Things and Queen’s Gambit).

You guys do not do your research. Half your fanfics are tagged with bad faith digs at the writers, when a few searches would reveal how strapped that show was and how poorly the writers were treated. Writers are being given a single week to write each episode—I’m not kidding, one-week-per-episode is one of the reasons for the strike. How are good arcs and scenes supposed to happen under that time limit, with a max of only four writers?

Tumblr, the self-proclaimed “pro-union, pro-worker, pro-artist” site is also a major fandom site. You guys rarely practice good faith consumer etiquette for television and film writers, because your fandom salt always turns you against writers. And studios love you for it.

Yeah, individual writers do create bad writing from time to time. But so do painters, chefs, and musicians. Directors and actors sometimes refuse to film certain scenes or follow a show’s projected style and arc, and the writers always get the crap for a bad performance or a poorly directed episode. This isn’t to blame actors or directors; it’s to point out that you guys have one villain, and it’s always the writers. You guys never give writers the same grace you give animators, designers, directors, actors, composers, and editors.

Studios love you every time you say “the writers ruined the show.” Every single popular fandom is guilty of this. View any of the “why did the writers cut this scene, they hate my characters” talk when leaked scenes hit the internet. Writers barely get paid for what they do write. You think they’re writing scenes and then happily throwing them in the shredder? You guys just eat the talk that studios put out. Always have.

[dinkydruid]

bell hooks mentioned going through a time in her life where she was severely depressed and suicidal and how the only way she got through it was through changing her environment: She surrounded her home with buddhas of all colors, Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival facing her as she wakes up, and filling the space she saw everyday with reinforcing objects and meaningful books. She asks herself each day, “What are you going to do today to resist domination?” I also really liked it when she said that in order to move from pain to power, it is crucial to engage in “an active rewriting of our lives.”

[dinkydruid]

be honest does anyone seriously enjoy sharing a bed. like im not even talking about having sex I mean literally just sleeping in the same bed as someone else does anyone actually want and enjoy doing that

[dinkydruid]

sorry but ur never going to be able to convince me that gender separatism is ever justified. no subgroup of trans people needs to be separated or protected from any other group of trans people simply based on gender identity. one of the biggest issues the trans community has, and has had for decades, is the way we are still not an integrated community. we still manage to separate ourselves by presentation or agab, and that’s just not going to work anymore. the only way to succeed in achieving our liberation is to immerse yourself in every corner of the community and get to know who you’re fighting for. care about experiences outside your own. drive someone to the grocery store. start a book club. stop letting “us vs them” become the norm in every single space.

[dinkydruid]

entomologists should avoid FSCA (Gainesville, FL) at all costs

I’m going to go into more detail about my workplace eventually but for now it’s important to make public that ethanol holdings in the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA, Gainesville) are completely neglected and actively rotting. Holotypes (the original specimen of a plant or animal used to define a species, completely priceless and the pride and joy of any good collection) are already ruined. Don’t ever donate your stuff there, it will go to waste.

Everything that is not personally interesting to the administrators has clearly been totally ignored for decades and priceless scientific information has been lost as a result. It is the worst I have ever seen, having worked in three other collections previously. I was lucky I had not formally donated most of my own collection material there because I guarantee they would have barred me from ever accessing the specimens again and then neglected them all to destruction anyway. Other people have not been so lucky and multiple scientists have their life’s work trapped in there and deteriorating. Admin is not above blocking former employees or whistle blowers from using the collection, even if it is your own material.

Here is how FSCA was keeping the holotype of the rare cave millipede Scoterpes rudis. The ethanol should be clear, but I had to fish the actual specimen out of the opaque yellow slime with forceps. Many others were just like this when I found them, and I did my best to care for them all but there was clearly already permanent damage years before I was even hired. I’m really sorry for the poor solifugid biologist who has to try to get useful information out of the holotype that is just a small wad of legs and glue now.

Many of the specimens, including some holotypes, are like this centipede, with the rubber stopper having degraded into a glue-like material and dripped onto the specimen. Reaching this state requires years of total neglect because you can see the rubber start to wilt long before it drips. All it takes to fix this is replacing the stopper more than once in a century, but apparently that was too much to expect of the “world class” FSCA.

FSCA higher-ups recently presented a big cheesy video at the Entomology Society of America meeting in Nov 2022 in Vancouver, patting themselves on the back for the size of the collection and soliciting new collaborators and donations. They are constantly seeking to acquire more material even though they are running out of space and totally incapable of maintaining what they have already. The other staff are completely aware, but apparently only concerned with their own personal research material and individual favorite bugs.

I would appreciate if you all could share this with anyone you know interested in entomology, natural history collections, or biology in general. I suspect my former position will open for new applicants almost immediately because of how many different aspects of the operation I supported out of a genuine love for entomology and curation. Now that I am gone, the ethanol collection is likely completely abandoned. Please do not give this pathetic institution and its staff more things to ruin.

-Mossworm

[dinkydruid]

yeah we might be brothers in christ but so were cain and abel so shut the fuck up before i decide to find a rock about it

[dinkydruid]

every time i post or reblog i get a bot follow. like clockwork. why. what is the reasoning or mechanism behind this.

[dinkydruid]

Okay we've briefly turned into a Ted Lasso blog because I finally caught up tonight and holy FUCK sunflowers was unparalleled. Literally everything about the episode could be explored for hours but I really just want to quickly highlight one thing:

Obviously everyone is talking about the newest layer of Jamie's trauma that's just been revealed (and good on Roy for immediately acknowledging it as trauma!!), and I'm not going to try and do any sort of deep dive because a hundred people have already done it better than I ever could, but there's one thing that no one seems to be talking about, and maybe it's because I just binged the whole show in two weeks so I remember season one better than folks who watched it when it came out, but y'all remember the charity auction, right? First time we meet Jane, Rupert shows up and steals the show from Rebecca, Ted forces Roy and Jamie to sit at the same table because he's trying to make them get along, and, oh yeah, everyone's bidding on the players?

Now, we laugh when Roy and Keeley are messing with Jamie about having to have sex with the highest bidder and he sort of freaks out and then angrily overcompensates when he realizes they aren't serious. I think Jamie from this episode is mostly remembered as being a dick and a shitty boyfriend (and yes what he did pitting Bex and Keeley against each other in the actual bidding war was definitely an asshole move). On a first watch he seems unreasonably upset about what everyone else thinks is a harmless joke. And since not being able to handle people taking the piss plays into our already established understanding of Jamie as a self-centered jerk who's not all that smart, we don't think to wonder if there's any more specific reason for his reaction than wounded pride.

I'm not doing deep character analysis tonight, as I've already said. But. Uh. Reevaluating that scene after what we learn in Sunflowers about Jamie's sexual history and trauma,,, might give it a different context

Anyway, yeah, I'll just leave y'all to think about that. And fuck James Tartt Sr I hope Roy beats his ass

[dinkydruid]

Sometimes a family is a bisexual blonde bitch who's an adrenaline junkie for life threatening situations, an autistic bilingual manwhore who hides depression under humour, their sharp witted chaotic girlboss daughter with a strange affinity for violence for someone of her standing, and the guy that sells them weapons and drugs for outdated currency.

[dinkydruid]

ok i just wanna check something.... reblog if you've never watched/opened tumblr live

[dinkydruid]

Please imagine some warrior culture (e.g. Klingons) getting super into video game esports in a relatively war-less setting and just getting insane about it

[dinkydruid]

Leon’s response to everything just being okay is so funny and awkward, I love it

Re2r

Claire: this is sherry

Leon: okay

Re 4

Ada: need a ride handsome?

Leon: *giving her the nastiest bitch ass look* okay

[dinkydruid]

I can't express in words how much I DIDN'T EVER WANT THE SCROLL FUNCTION FOR VIDEOS.

I want to be able to exit the video when I swipe up or down. That was one thing I really liked about tumblr. There's a goddamn reason I actually use tumblr and part of it is because it doesn't employ video scrolling that brings up whatever video some algorithm or lack thereof decides I want to see.

I like that I can follow people who's videos I actually want to see. I DO NOT want random videos popping up when I try scroll away from the video. One of the best things about tumblr is the ability cater your dashboard to the people, blogs, and topics you want to see and this just flies in the face of the biggest fucking thing tumblr has going for it.

Also.... holding to pause a video? If I need to pause a video, I'm trying to pause it now. Not after I missed whatever I needed to pause it for because I was trying to hold the pause function long enough to work. Tapping once to pause and again to unpause was simple, easy, and it worked well.

[dinkydruid]

oh cool. due to random circumstances and an emergency klonopin i learned that the reason i don't post 99% of my drafts or respond to texts is *just*pure anxiety. how do i stop.

[dinkydruid]

Something that occurred to me when watching OSP's Dracula video is when Red says that Dracula can't work as anything but a novel, I realized that hey, maybe adaptations to film or television or theater can't capture what makes Dracula Dracula, but a video game could. There have been plenty of Draculas in plenty of games, but I think a near-identical translation of Dracula into the video game medium could be the closest we get to an actual adaptation. And specifically, one that changes styles multiple times throughout the game.

Think, we start with Jonathan Harker on his way to Castle Dracula. It's a fairly normal 3rd-person RPG that morphs into survival horror as the secrets of Castle Dracula and the Count are unearthed. Then it abruptly turns into a visual novel of Lucy and Mina exchanging letters, complete with a romance subgame with Lucy and her suitors. Interspersed throughout the game are Seward's interactions with Renfield through the lens of a puzzle game. Then we're on the deck of the Demeter in a full-on horror game as Dracula feeds on the crew.

We're back to the visual novel style as Lucy and Mina go on holiday to Whitby, which ends when Mina receives a letter about Jonathan being in Budapest. Then once again we're in a 3rd-person RPG, this time as Seward, and we are finally introduced to Abraham Van Helsing. This part of the game would incorporate the puzzle elements of the Renfield sections as we attempt to diagnose Lucy's illness.

After Lucy dies, the game shifts into a more action-focused tone for a time as we hunt down the Bloofer Lady and finally stake Lucy. After this, Jonathan and Mina return to the story and it becomes a mystery game as we track down where Dracula's coffins of earth are. Mina begins to show the same symptoms Lucy did and we get a rhythm game from Van Helsing's POV as he hypnotizes her to aid in tracking Dracula.

In the final section of the game, we follow the three groups in sequence. First, Mina and Van Helsing in a dungeon-crawl game as they reach Dracula's castle, ending in Van Helsing destroying the brides of Dracula. Second, Quincey and Seward's travel as the pair follow Dracula on land, ending with the sight of Dracula's coffin being loaded into a wagon. Third and finally, Jonathan's POV as he, Holmwood, Quincey, and Seward converge on Dracula, and the final fight of the game begins. Afterward, we see the epilogue play out and thus ends the Dracula video game adaptation.

It would probably be insane to pull off but if it were, it would be glorious.

[dinkydruid]

I just saw someone say the words "jokingly gaslight" this might be a good time to reintroduce the internet to the terms "lying" or perhaps "pranking" or even just "joking" on it's own

[dinkydruid]

listen if i ever ask "why tf do you know that!?" or something similar about a thing you said, i need you to understand it is not in any way critical, but instead spoken in awe and admiration. i am not judging you or accusing you of being weird in a bad way. i am giggling and blushing and kicking my feet etc, i want to know more about you and whatever topic you're discussing and i probably want to do whatever it is you did to learn about it. if i ask why you know something, what i mean is i love you