hermithermithermit

[hermithermithermit]

Original post

Poem @chucktaylorupset

[hermithermithermit]

You run a mostly ordinary coffee shop, but it's frequented by members of the Fae court and other creatures of myth. Ordinarily, they'd try and take your soul or turn you, but they all just enjoy the drinks and atmosphere that there's an unofficial rule: You are off limits.

[hermithermithermit]

I was reading something about Whitestown, Indiana and my eyes nearly popped out of my head thinking it was one of THOSE comically racist towns. Nice to know, at least the name, wasn’t that.

[hermithermithermit]

so judging by how astonished people are by it every time we explain it to anybody, it seems like my wife and I might really be onto something here

during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."

when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.

"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.

it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.

like idk it's a small thing but it's made our lives so much nicer, so if you and your partner/roommate are both people who sometimes need total privacy in order to recharge, maybe try it

[hermithermithermit]

they want you to make fried rice

[hermithermithermit]

Ohhh mu goddd my boy 😭😭😭

Okay so recently my darling angel cat son Ollie has been giving me signals that I have LEARNED means his natural young predator instincts are kicking in and he’s inviting me to play-wrestle, and over the last couple days I’ve been figuring how to go about stimulating these instincts without encouraging spontaneous violence, yeah?

So I’ve slowly started communicating with the word “fight” to signal that it’s okay to proceed- once he KNOWS the word I’ll get him another talking button to prompt me back, but for now, I’m going with body language- when he gives me his usual bastard signals, I say “fight”, sit on the ground, and cover my hands and arms with a backwards coat or a blanket. Right now, I put my covered arms up, and he’s been taking that as invitation to “attack”.

But I want him to know an emergency stop, too, so I figured when he bites too hard or gets too rough, I’ll make a high squeaking “ow” sound like I have normally since getting him.

Just like… five minutes ago, I was sitting on the floor wrassling with him, and one of his claws got through a hole and scratched my arm.

It wasn’t very bad, but it WAS a good learning opportunity, so I made the “ow” noise and dropped my arms.

My boy. My sweet perfect son. He froze mid-bite, holding on a second, then let go, let me scoot away, paused a sec… then snagged a nearby kicky fish toy, picked it up with his teeth, and started shaking it around like he was an angry little bulldog.

My precious baby angel recognized the ‘playing too rough/unhappy/pain’ sound, stopped of his own accord, and then- recognizing I was hurt and withdrawing, but still wanting very badly to fight- redirected himself UNPROMPTED to one of his toys instead of attempting to re-engage when I wasn’t ready

I’m so stupid proud right now. I’m very careful about not mentally anthropomorphizing animal behaviour because it can go so wrong but like. Seeing evidence that little mans KNEW we were playing, KNEW I wanted to stop, WANTED to keep going, made the connection in his head of “playing attack with dad - Dad hurt - Dad doesn’t want play - Ollie want play - attack Fishie” is absolutely insane.

It’s one thing to know he has a process, but it’s a totally different thing to like… slowly, carefully learn to work out exactly how he communicates, and watch him clearly think things out in return.

My baby likes to fight. My boy doesn’t want to hurt me. My little guy has a concept of respect and boundaries and inappropriate behaviour, as broad and nebulous as it is, and he is capable of making choices with that information.

It’s absolutely blowing my mind. He is a cat. He is 17 months old.

And he is demonstrating- to the greatest capacity that one could feasibly expect from an animal, to the best of his ability- what one may reasonably describe as kindness, consideration, and selflessness.

😭 I’ve raised such a good little boyyyyyyyyyyy😭😭😭😭😭❤️😭😭😭😭😭❤️😭😭😭😭😭😭❤️🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹💞🩷💗💞🩷💞💞💞💞💗💗💕🥹❤️

[hermithermithermit]

I made a bad comic and now you have to look at it

[hermithermithermit]

there's been plenty of pushback against youtube's plan to age-check users by using an AI to analyze everyone's watching habits, but amidst that, i spotted this playlist circulating among some teens:

(picture is a reconstruction to protect the kids identity)

interesting! they're trying to trick the AI by watching videos that have a primarily adult viewer demographic? well im a curious fella so naturally i have to take a look-see, and

[hermithermithermit]

They’re calling me every slur under the sun over on twitter for this post

[hermithermithermit]

Tiger Rumi sketches that I spent too long rendering 🐯 I JUST THINK that Rumi should get to be a big tiger demon that her gfs can cuddle with alright

[hermithermithermit]

Firefox Extensions I like

UBlock Origin - Adblocking

Chameleon - IP and random agent spoofing

TrackMeNot - Floods web search engines with false queries at a settable interval

Location Guard - Obfuscates precise location

Privacy Possum - Blocks and falsifies information collected by tracking

ClearURLs - Removes tracking elements from URLs

LocalCDN - Prevents third party requests

CanvassBlocker - Prevents fingerprinting

UnPaywall - Circumvents paywalls for research papers

Sci-Hub - Adds a Sci-Hub link to academic papers

ChromeMask - Disguises Firefox as Chrome for Chrome-only websites

FlagFox - Adds a flag next to the URL indicating its origin

[hermithermithermit]

I need these guys to stop taking over my life

[hermithermithermit]

" we just wanted to help "

[hermithermithermit]

the melancholy of mystery

[hermithermithermit]

Jinu Art

[hermithermithermit]

I CAN BE YOUR SANCTUARY

[hermithermithermit]

Fairy: Hey I didn’t get your name.

Me: Yeah that was on purpose.

Fairy: Oh my god stealing people’s names has been categorized as a war crime for like a hundred years. Do I seem like the kind of fairy that would do war crimes?

Me: Well yes, but that’s just my impression of you personally. Not fairies in general.

Fairy: You’re smarter than I thought.