mysmistree

[mysmistree]

YouTube Is Terrible.

Sorry to be in whichever feed harping on about YouTube again but, It's kinda hit me that, aside from the video streaming function will I will confess is fairly top-notch, The website's kind of shit. And it's just been getting worse, and has no good competitor to prompt it to do better. (That I know of.) So there's the age verification thing rolling out in ten days that everyone knows about. There's also the fact they recently-ish rolled out shorts which, function okay enough but jump around a lot and load the wrong short if you pick out a set from a channel? And frequently will jump to the first or an arbitrary short in the list, and is so finnicky about moving about that it will sometimes not load the page altogether? There's also the ads, aggressive, frequent, and incredibly irritating. Constantly clogging up feeds and slowing down watch-times for things no one is interested in and gets skipped immediately. There's also the fact the search feature barely works and presumes more based on what it thinks you're looking for than what you're actually looking for, which is somehow more functional when you drunk-type your favorite video than when you spell the title out word for word. There's also the fact recommendations frequently over-corrects for misclicked videos or search terms, clogging ones feed with things they didn't want nor need. The fact channel pages are often missed, latest videos frequently flying completely under the radar even from channels one follows with great frequency.

The fact that several channels get completely mauled out of the picture because they aren't popular but support and raise rage-bait and divisive subjects even to people who avoid such like the plague, The fact it can be abused to hell by AI slop channels because it chose, a long time ago, to try and support more videos than it ever had any hope of moderating, And the fact its bot detection system took literal ages to be even half-decent because they couldn't be fucked to communicate or work with people on it for five minutes, just sort of shrugging and hoping it'd work itself out. I am not even a dependent creator. I don't rely on YouTube for my dime or dinner, but holy shit the stress that must bear is insane. Nevermind the bleeding age moderation because YouTube has long tried to make its ads some of the most valuable on the market but that winds up being all powerpoint buzzwords in the face of the fact it never fucking works properly and constantly winds up gutting videos about people just living their life because things about who they are landed on the political spectrum, which is fine if you want to police if kids see that (Or, with some others, mainstream it to them) but then demonetizing it because its sensitive on that matter? Are you TRYING to sell a five-year-old a shitty app that doesn't exist and is a scam? Just. It's so shit. I use it every single day because the dopamine hits are practically an addition in themselves and it's so fucking stupid. I want and intend to stop opening these tabs, and if that age gate goes through that'll be the easier occasion. But overall, I just wanted to vent about the fact that because its given us unbridled access to the worlds video making habits, YouTube has monopolized the watching market for so long that they've just let themselves fall apart.

[mysmistree]

So, a giant fuck-off censorship wave is coming through major websites based around advertisement and internet usage. Is it possible to boycott the internet? Or, rather, youtube and the like. Like, yes, work around it, please, fuck these restrictions, they're stupid and on par with hostile architecture. But, also, turn off youtube the second it wants to serve you an ad. Or don't open it at all. Scanning your habits for relevant advertisements? How about the AI realizing the website is a conglomerate fuckwit? It happened with Twitter, X, whatever. It'd be funny if it starts recommending ad blockers and anti-ad systems and videos. It's also shitty that this is imposed so forcefully. Like, I'm sorry, are we going to start banning Shakespeare in schools, or has no one in power yet realized their favorite show is hated by someone also in power? I don't have any perfect solutions, but I'm mad and this is dumb.

And it will be worked around.

At the respective governments,

Putting up walls like this just makes moderation that much harder because you aren't looking where you think you've covered.

You won't notice the kids getting in pretending to be adults, or the horrible options you don't realize are there because you're trying to make it easier to not pay attention.

You think it will make it safer, but you aren't really thinking about what safe looks like or how to define the difference. You don't know how to handle it properly.

Pay attention.

Because if you don't, you will just make the alleyways darker and harder to see when something scary hides within.

[mysmistree]

This is the funniest shit I've seen all day. Props to them for giving it a shot but oh my god my LUNGS.

this video kills me they literally look like they're reading ancient scrolls

[mysmistree]

This is fun.

In a manner of speaking, this makes life fantasy.

Between the skyscrapers and the restaurants you have it. Between the bridges and the forests you have it.

In some manner or another, I think the Discworld manages to capture, so wonderfully, how magical the world really is and also why it is more malleable than magic and more confounding than contraptions.

It feels in words the way dragons would be if they were real. The way they'd appear a few pages after bears with notes on their diets and how many of them exist.

Magic lives in the Unseen University in the same way most studies of great sciences operate beyond their doors.

The world develops in the same way economics is introduced from the counterweight continent. New and fresh and scary and abused *immediately* by someone who understood the premise and not the purpose.

Artificial Intelligence is bright and curious and maybe life but also maybe it's just a bunch of ants that happen to go in the right tubes with the right pheromones and I mean that's sort of life but is it organized life or is it disorganized disassembly into-- oh it writes letters. It's entitled, I suppose that's to be expected.

And then there's Death! Death, my love. He is in all ways the kind and clever and warm and curious. The rituals of how we fear him and the warmth we try to bring to his mounting minutes and minute management.

There are gaseous balls that roar in the sky and we, slow motion explosions, are measured in atoms but cast spells between brushstrokes or electric mysteries between the clack of a keyboard.

And all because something impossible can look us in the eye, dare our existence, and then spill tea on the tablecloth because we both forgot to consider why we invited it over in the first place.

Why we were able to invite it at all.

And that's reality.

I find that so fun.

Discworld is a fascinating series.

It is a fantasy, it is absolutely fantasy.

However, someone asked me if it was fantasy, and I found myself replying thus:

"[It is], though, frankly, the way the Discworld is described, Fantasy as a setting takes mostly a backfoot to a world that is almost like ours, just a few years backwards and then sixty-one steps to the left."

And I felt quite happy with that description.

[mysmistree]

Discworld is a fascinating series.

It is a fantasy, it is absolutely fantasy.

However, someone asked me if it was fantasy, and I found myself replying thus:

"[It is], though, frankly, the way the Discworld is described, Fantasy as a setting takes mostly a backfoot to a world that is almost like ours, just a few years backwards and then sixty-one steps to the left."

And I felt quite happy with that description.

[mysmistree]

Advertisements are not good for much. But they are good for very private humor of coincidence, on a rare occasion. Watching "Why You Don't Want To Be A God" by Hello Future Me, I get an advertisement for some bookwriting system I've already forgotten the name. And in the advertisement, they write the title "To Slay A Mockingjay" which is riffing, clearly, To Kill A Mockingbird. And then it signs off with a Harper Colins, which is both an existing book publisher and a riff on Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird. About this time, I hit skip. And the video then goes, on a fully black screen with white text, "No, you can't do that" And I lost it.

[mysmistree]

*At Disney World*

Jaune, holding his son: Excuse me sir I've lost my wife. Can you help me find her?

Security Guard: Sure. What does she look like?

Jaune: Pyrrha Nikos

Security Guard: So red hair and green eyes?

Jaune: uh.....yeah? Cause it's literally Pyrrha Nikos.

Security Guard:........*starts laughing really hard*

Jaune:..........

Security Guard: *still laughing really hard*

Jaune:..........

Security Guard, wiping tear from eye: Okay, that was funny. But let's be serious now. What does she look like

Jaune: Pyrrha Nikos! She is literally Pyrrha Nikos!

Security Guard: *starts laughing again*

Jaune: Dude! I'm not lying! She's literally my wife!

Security Guard: *still laughing*

Jaune, sighing and looking at his kid: Where is your mama?

*meanwhile*

Pyrrha, gritting her teeth in annoyance as she's holding arkos daughter in her arms: Yes, that's a picture of my husband.

Another security Guard, holding Pyrrha's scroll: Really? Like, for real?

Pyrrha, gritting her teeth: I don't see why that's so shocking. He's quite a handsome man, if I do say so myself.

Security Guard, still shocked:......*turns scroll over to her* This guy? Right here? The blond dude? This is the right picture?

Pyrrha, gritting her teeth:.....yes.

Security Guard:......was this a planned wedding from your family?

Pyrrha, grinding her teeth: No, we were beacon sweethearts actually.

Security Guard:.....okay, if you say so. *Grabs radio* Hey Tommy, keep a look out for a missing husband. He's a tall guy, with blue eyes and blond hair. He should have a red haired boy with him.....oh you have him? That's great! I'll tell Miss Nikos right no-

*Suddenly a "ARE YOU FUCKING FOR REAL?!" coming from the radio followed by a victorious laughter*

[mysmistree]

Aging is a byproduct of the very systems that keep the body alive. That which keeps you upright and repairs your skin when it’s damaged also overworks and wrinkles with time the way a finely pressed shirt is stretched but not torn and thus folds in new ways.

As someone mortally afraid of this process, treating it as a disease is a shortcut to existential horror on a daily basis.

It’s okay to get older, it’s not contagious, and we can’t choose the effects of time.

And the beauty industry is corrupt and stupid, built on selling you shit that doesn’t work half as well as they claim.

In other cultures from the English ones, there are places that celebrate maturity and age. That celebrate the process because it IS natural and is a surefire sign of things like:

*someone who smiles a lot

*someone who works with their hands

*oftentimes depictions of their hobbies and habits in their posture and wrinkles and callouses

We are here and the trade off of life is the signs it wears through us.

But that’s okay. It’s life. And it’s proof of every warm yesterday.

scrunching my face real hard rn

[mysmistree]

While I don’t inherently disagree that such a statement would bother inherently everyone, I find myself agreeing, and imagine quite a lot of people would.

Men and women aren’t that different.

But people are very different.

You can find counterparts of tall and short, male and female and enby, near and far, a native and foreigner in any country of your choice. And you can also walk a thousand miles and not meet a single person who had their lives irreversibly changed by the same niche show or movie that you are.

When one says that men and women aren’t very different,

Whichever and whoever you may be, it is not a statement saying that you and your most hated other-gender or other-sex person in the world are the same, or that there isn’t reason to be proud of who you are.

The same way that being male, female, or enby doesn’t make you inherently the same as the worst people with the same identity.

Another way to look at it, is when you and this Other are not different *because* of your gender or sex. You’re different for reasons more involved in making you, you.

Such is my thought anyway.

It turns out that actually standing by "men and women are not inherently very different" is a reliable way to bother absolutely everyone. Left or right, cis or trans, feminist or misogynist, all cling to the binary for dear life.

[mysmistree]

Is it just me or does this bear strong Vlogbrothers vibes? John Green especially. I love it, keep it up, Brook Lamprey, good video, if you happen to see this.

[mysmistree]

Oh my god what.

[mysmistree]

Some PTerry quotes that feel especially salient at the moment:

"He asked you to shoot at people who weren’t shooting back,” growled Vimes, striding forward, “That makes him insane, wouldn’t you say?”

“They are throwing stones, Sarge,” said Colon.

“So? Stay out of range. They’ll get tired before we do."

- Night Watch

Odd thing, ain't it... you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.

- Jingo

It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.

- Snuff

The poor devils. They thought a king would make them free.

- Feet of Clay

Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say “we’re the good guys” and do bad-guy things. Sometimes the watching watchman inside every good copper’s head could use an extra pair of eyes.

- Thud!

[mysmistree]

I imagine you are asleep, presently departed from a solid world for a non-solid one in which physics is more of a suggestion. As is, admittedly, physics in the minds of some real-world underachievers.

And some real-world overachievers.

Perhaps physics simply is a suggestion.

In which case the only difference between being awake and asleep is the difference between land and water,

bar that you can dry instantly upon leaving.

That's rather handy.

[mysmistree]

Genuinely my favorite scene

[Yanagi on Thin Ice]

“I'm not gonna let you hate yourself because somebody else decided to hurt you”

A broken soul, shedding his facade to finally release the weight he’s carried for years—while another, a bigger soul, just as shattered, shielded his eyes so the light wouldn’t cut too deep

Last hayashigeki art before blue starts. See you!

[mysmistree]

book club duo

[mysmistree]

This comic needs not spelling out, and can apply to a great and wonderful portion of life. But for myself, I read it first as a pure fantasy story, and then as an allegory for transitioning. If I take unicorns for women and dragons for men, it actually lines up a lot with how I was raised, too. Whichever way and whatever subject, I adore this comic deeply. It is strong and it is honest. And I love it for that.

"I want to be a dragon."