#I've been using this stupid website for over a decade

[shikai-the-storyteller]

It's been such a bad frickin week man

[crediblebombthreat]

/tttt/ Analysis: You're Not As 🧠Self-Aware🪱 as You Think You Are

With the Easter Miracle of 4chan dying and resurrecting, I feel like now is a good a time as ever to post about /lgbt/[1]. I have a somewhat unique perspective -- I started browsing the board before it became /tttt/ (the board wasn't any better back when the majority userbase was maladjusted gay men such as myself, to be clear). I've seen all of the lore, I know (most) of the trip drama that didn't happen on twitter or in some shitty discord, and (crucially) I know about all of the buzzword brainworm pseudoscience. I was there when it was written, and I want to write about it in turn.

To start out, a crucial point: a thorough analysis and history of the board would start with the late 420chan's /cd/ board - a place I am woefully unfamiliar with. If anyone on Tumblr was a regular on /cd/ or even 420chan broadly, I invite you to add some context to this post if you deem it necessary.

To start, a note on /lgbt/'s most major influence: /r9k/.

/r9k/ has been a lot of things, but it started as a 4chan board with the simple idea that no one post could ever be repeated. If someone made a post that said "lol," that would be the only post that could be "lol" in the entire history of /r9k/. The general idea was to see if a board could create its own culture if copypastas and memes were forcefully deemphasized. Which harkens back to a self-conception of the internet that is absolutely alien now.

Eventually (due to factors that I'm carelessly and irresponsibly papering over for the sake of brevity), the board devolved into it's most well-known incarnation -- a bustling hub for self-described "incels," perpetually cascading against /r9k/'s non-incel userbase...and numerically overtaking them. "Virgin" (of Virgin vs. Chad fame) is from around this time, an artifact that scintillatingly captures the mentality of /r9k/'s userbase:

/r9k/ (like all popular 4chan boards) was both culturally upstream and downstream from the rest of the website. Note that as influential as it was, it was nevertheless constantly in a state of festering reinvention, taking on various qualities of its contemporaries -- even as its contemporaries were changed in kind.

However, /r9k/'s core anxiety, the constant urge to shift and lurch towards increasingly self-destructive and novel means of (what its posters assume to be) self-awareness is the single most impactful and widespread neuroses on all of 4chan. Even /lgbt/ -- relatively separate from other boards culturally, more resembling a polyp of certain nooks and crannies of twitter -- has this mindset (and its associated fears) baked into its discourse as an axiom. If Tumblr is the Catholic website (socially fueled by the masochistic urge to feel guilt as atonement), 4chan is the Gnostic website; where precise knowledge of one's own insecurities and shame breaks an illusion, and allowed for a divining of a deeper truth about the vile Real World.

Although, that knowledge doesn't save you from suffering in the Real World: you're stuck here. If you know too much, all that can be done is to wallow with us.

When people say that /lgbt/ is /r9k/ for trans women, this is what they mean[2]. It's a translation of the typical insecurities of your average 4chan poster. It is not self-awareness, it is not development of knowledge; it's picking at your skin in the hopes that you'll break through, find yourself satisfied, and eliminate the urge.

From this standpoint -- critical observation of 4channers for over a decade -- I've found a lot of the arguments against the "brain worms" that /lgbt/ promulgates to be insufficient. Not because they aren't scholarly enough, mind; it is very easy to explain why Blanchard is a stupid hack. People much smarter than I have. It is also very easy to explain why taking precise measurements of your own body only serves to skew your perception without giving you any tangible insight on what others perceive. Likewise, it doesn't take much rumination to determine logically that having a bunch of overly critical strangers scrutinize your body to determine if you're "delusional" or not.

But none of that matters, because logical processes are not what's appealing about these "brainworms". They lodge into people's brains compulsively, presenting themselves as a means of social sharpening and exercise when, in reality, they do the exact opposite.

/tttt/'s Gnostic-style shattering of the 'grand illusion' of the physical world is, itself, another grand illusion. Pulling aside a curtain (the existence of which is debatable) only reveals an equally obscuratory concrete wall. Finding the real truth, one that isn't subject to masochistic neuroses, requires one to turn away from the curtain and the wall completely. There are social spaces that don't ask their constituents to perpetually hate themselves to appease an unappeasable and omnipresent other[3].

I fucking hate tumblr, and I think the act of being on here makes you dumber and pettier as a more or less direct result of its shitty UX. However, despite its many shortcomings, I see tumblr as proof that these sorts of radically self-affirming spaces can exist and persist -- as well as how necessary they are.

There is an unyielding criticality pointed towards trans people from almost every outgroup of insane people on the planet. It isn't particularly groundbreaking to suggest that these people don't know what they're talking about -- however, their voices are so loud and ubiquitous that I don't blame anyone for assuming that these bad-faith questions necessitate direct and measured responses. However, in real time, I saw the posters of /tttt/ imbibe these criticisms in an attempt to process them, accepting inherent assumptions baked into the questions that could only lead to a miserable neuroses -- one that constantly challenges one's self-perception without ever offering an answer, only the hollow promise of one[4].

If there is any lesson to be learned, it's that these internally-facing criticisms are entirely opposed to self-understanding because of where they fundamentally come from -- both ontologically and socially. True enlightenment exists only where it is possible.

[1] Still took me like a month to be fucked with writing this whole thing. Not very timely anymore. Oops.

[2] If they're savvy, smart, and charming like I am. Much dumber people have made this claim, but they did it incorrectly, and as such don't detract from my point.

[3] Tried to fit in the word "panopticon" into this paragraph without it feeling corny. I failed.

[4] The title of this post is a mirror of this, a smarmy challenge to one's self-perception that is irresistible to a certain type of person. Wondering if that's gonna draw the intended audience in, or if it's going to end up being a five note flop.

[alicesmindpalace]

I've decided that I'm gonna take the excuse of Anthony's birthday 🎂 as a chance to make a quick post to explain why I love and respect this guy so much.

For context, I have been a Smosh fan since 2013 and as you can imagine, it's been a real rollercoaster 😆, but I am glad I stuck around because in the end it was really worth it.

I think the main reason why I am still around and I'm still here in my late 20's (yeah, I'm old lol) is that Ian and Anthony as people more than as creators, always kinda hit a little different for me.

Ian and Anthony are so precious to me, and I will never shut up about how Anthony deserve a lot more praise and understanding.

Because sure, being good looking in our society is a big advantage but being known as "the hot one" in a comedy duo isn't that easy. Anthony's contributions get overlooked often because of this dumb old mindset and I think it's really unfair tbh.

Anthony has a great sense of humor, even if he doesn't make jokes 24/7 he can immediately recognize what makes something funny, hone in on it and use it to make the situation funnier. He built a media empire doing that if you really think about it! He really found a golden goose and immediately knew what to make of it. Anthony and Ian BOTH (that's right both) have a great sense of humor and it's very compatible, which is why Smosh became a thing imo.

Of course, the best part of this is that you can't have a sense of humor and be stupid, it's impossible, you can be funny and be an idiot yeah, but having a sense of humor needs quick thinking, an ability to recognize subtle patterns, the contradictions, making unexpected connections all of that good stuff, which means that these two guys are also really intelligent.

Which makes sense because Anthony was already building websites when most of the people his age were clicking around on Newgrounds. He created two successful buissness form scratch, the boy is smart! 🙌

He came from nothing and got to where is now which is very impressive.

That's also why another thing that I respect about him, is that he almost never mentions how hard it's been for him during his childhood or uses it to gain sympathy even though it would be really easy to do it. He only mentioned the difficult situation at home and his mother's problems a few times in all these years on camera. He still is mentally struggling these days because he didn’t have an easy life but he doesn't use it to get pity or attention, like a lot of people on the internet do.

He really is one of the only remaining unproblematic internet creators that there are left and he managed to be one of them for decades.

There is no dirt on him. He is a nice person and that's probably the most important thing for me tbh and the reason why I could never just forget of Ian and Anthony or get over them or just swap them for some else. Finding Smosh to me felt as mind blowing as finding two four leaves clovers right next to each other.

Even when things went south and they separated, they were never spiteful or malicious, like (a lot of) other people are in these situations, and both handled it with so much respect. They could have made up stuff and thrown shade or dirt to make themselves appear in the right but they didn't. We maybe not know all the details but even just the way they still love and think of each other now after the worst went down tells you who they really were and are behind close doors.

I have so much more to say but it would get too long, so, yeah, this is (part lol) of the reason I love and respect Anthony Padilla so much.

These are only my thoughts of course, I'm talking for me, but I hope you enjoyed (will probably do one for Ian's birthday as well and talk about more of the reason Ianthony are my all time favorites 🤞).

[thekimspoblog]

My stance on the new Harry Potter tv series is "Why haven't you just canceled ALL your streaming subscriptions by now?"

My mom ragequit discontinued all our subscriptions shortly after the 2024 election, and piracy has ended up being just as convenient if not more. Yes, avoid your money finding its way into JKR's pockets as best you can. She's been very clear what that money goes towards. But also like... avoiding a solitary tv show on HBO Max isn't how boycotts work?! You're going to need to give up The Last of Us too?! If JKR WASN'T a bigot, would that mean making a billionaire richer was okay?! No! And more importantly, you think she's the ONLY transphobe in the higher echelons of Warner Brothers? Or is it possible large entertainment studios donate to conservative causes all the time and just do it discreetly without announcing it on Twitter? Giving shit like Disney a pass as if they aren't (AT MINIMUM) as bad as JKR is very silly.

I've made my stance on Harry Potter clear over the two years I've been here: There's still a lot about the books that are worth reading; 5, 6, and 7 especially have a lot of insights about the mechanics of a neoliberal government falling to fascism that sadly only become more relevant as time wears on. It really sucks that there's been this crop of anti-intellectualism that treats that merit as invalid just because the author went and decided to lose her goddamn mind.

If curiosity gets the best of me, I might pirate an episode or two. But the thing is I'm really not that curious. I don't see avoiding this show as the hot button issue of the decade, but I'm still against it for much more mundane reasons to be against a remake:

The movies from the 2000's were already basically perfect and I don't think I'm ready to watch someone besides Daniel Radcliffe as Harry.

There was a time ten years ago when I would have said a TV series was a good idea because you could delve more into subplots from the book the movies didn't have time for. But the thing is this is where JKR going off the deep end does become relevant to the actual quality of the product! Politics aside, basically everything she's added to the story's lore both on Twitter and on her website in the past ten years has been kind of fucking stupid and with her getting to maintain creative control over this new project despite all the evidence that this woman forgot what her own story was about, all signs point to this ending up as a train wreck. I have no reason to think we're going to get more time dedicated to Ariana's backstory and not... like... wizards shitting their pants then magically disappearing the mess. Nor do I have any reason to believe JKR will have the restraint to NOT shoehorn her politics into the script.

If they were going to do something different this time with the presentation - like do the whole thing in hand-drawn animation - my interest still could have really been piqued... they didn't tho so we can consign this new thing to the dustbin and bypass the discussions of ethical consumerism altogether.

Seriously though, cancel your HBO and Hulu subscriptions already!

[u2fangirlie-blog]

Reading Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook

I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons in 28 years. Recently, I've been invited to play again. I have thoughts about the handbook. What's it like reading the Dungeons and Dragons player's handbook? Some sections are written like an instruction manual written by engineers who assume the reader has a certain level of background knowledge. It's difficult to read. From the perspective of a community college English instructor who taught students to write research papers, this the same problem as reading texts that are unfamiliar and written in a style that is specific to an academic discipline or industry that outsiders find difficult to comprehend. Students often struggle with reading journal articles and give up reading. They misunderstand the content, misrepresent the authors' ideas, and use information incorrectly or out of context. I wonder if this is the same for players and Dungeon Masters.

In the way the D&D handbooks are written, sometimes the rules and spells don't make sense to me. I think this is because the game is decades old and the manuals have been revised so many times by different people that they have lost perspective on making the rules clear to outsiders and newbies. Is it intentional? I don't know. (I suspect that might be a form of gatekeeping.) I do understand that some rules and spells are written vaguely so Dungeon Masters can apply their own interpretation during gameplay. This allows the game to be modified to the group's needs and preferences.

In my opinion, unclear rules are the result of word economy and trying write as concisely as possible. Book publishing is expensive for the parent company (Wizards of the Coast) and the cost of books for the gamers. If books are pricey, people won't buy them. However, in trying to reduce costs by using fewer words, context is lost in the effort to avoid wordiness. The player's handbook is free on the D&D Beyond website, along with information from other manuals. The handbooks could be improved by adding context and clear explanations. They need to use more words for us dummies.

When I get confused reading the D&D rules multiple times, I feel that old math anxiety take control of my brain. I can't think clearly and get frustrated. I feel stupid. It's like my brain is Teflon coated, and the words slide off. Then my brain shuts down. It feels like there's a wet towel or heavy blanket over my head. (Actually, that's a physical sensation of anxiety and depression.)

Thank goodness for the internet. I can research the rules. This information wasn't readily available online 30 years ago when I started gaming in college. Today, the message boards on D&D Beyond and fan-run webpages often are no better than the handbook. People write responses and regurgitate the rules in the exact same wording for confused gamers who ask questions.

However, some websites write articles explaining the rules more clearly, giving definitions and context, and providing examples of using the rules during gameplay. YouTube has many D&D video creators who explain the rules and demonstrate gameplay. I'm grateful to those writers and video creators who understand what their audience needs. Sometimes I save reader friendly versions of webpages as PDFs. Later I print them out and take notes in my own words. (Yes. I still print articles. My brain processes text better in print rather than electronic text.) Those are my thoughts about the D&D handbook.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[mvnces]

there's something so hilarious about the hellsite trying to do tutorials / going 'yay! u liked 10 posts!' when I've been using this stupid website for over a decade

[gwydionmisha]

how do you keep up with all these articles and websites? With twitter being down the shitter, and tumblr recycling month old posts, i havent been able to find a good central news source. I figured I could use RSS feeds, but these sites post SOOOO frequently that I find it overwhelming. any advice?

it's an eclectic process. I watch some TV news which gives me a heads up on things happening. So does dreamwidth and tumblr and friends with different areas of interests that will let me know about things happening in the areas they watch or in their countries. I also watch a couple of other progressive aggregators with sort of Venn diagram interest areas with mine. So some stuff over laps with things I already read, but there are more things I wouldn't have spotted on my own that are important and/or interesting. I also have a bunch of searches I do for longer running things, and things I'll do a random periodic search on to check in with ongoing situations that mostly fell out of the English language news cycle.

I started out doing history articles and archeology news, that sort of thing. Then there was a little commentary. Then Us politics went completely berserk and I ran out of time to properly read and post breaking news, let alone the things i still care about but are so much less world on fire. I try to squeeze some in at the edges never theless.

It helps that I read stupid fast with a high comprehension rate. also, I'm disabled and don't work, so I have time other people don't have, even working at whatever pace my body is up for that day. I can just go lie down if need to. I don't have to force myself to type much if my arm is completely fucked that day. Most people have a whole lot of time sucked into working and commuting. Most aggregators are working to some sort of schedule if only self imposed.

A lot of why my out put rate is so uneven from day to day is some days I am too busy or ill. Some days I do a ton of reading and prepping, but am too ill or tired or in pain and can't post much of it. The massive output Sunday evening was an example of the opposite thing, where I hadn't time to read, but I had a ton of links read and preorganized, so I could toss them onto the dreamwith scaffold and post them very fast at the same time on Tumblr, so I gnawed through some of my backlog pile.

(I post a sorted aggregate on dreamwidth once or twice a week at https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/. Tumblr they mostly go up in batches).

I am doing this on the most basic level out of love. I love learning stuff, hence my origins over on livejournal before the Russians got it, sharing links to articles about cool things people dug up. I grew up in a political family. I've been watching politics since the Ford/Carter debates. I do care about the world. I want things to be better. I can't march. I can signal boost, and write, and share links, and call politicians to complain about stuff. It means a lot to me when people I don't know look at what I do and it helps them in some way.

I would be reading news regardless. I learned at the age of eight that when confronted with horrors, that for me personally, I do best if I study the enemy. This allowed me to work out how best to resist and survive. all these decades later, my survival strategy dishes up news links organized in anxiety friendly ways on dreamwidth, and in the more chaotic but blacklistable form here on tumblr. I'm anal retentive about news tagging to help the people who aren't here for that or who aren't up to staring directly into the void with me and drinking from the news fire hose. I never even expect my closest friends to read all my output, because my volume is rather excessive.

Don't feel bad if you aren't up to it, some days or weeks or months. My adaptation is wildly atypical and for most people this would be unhealthy.

If the news is too much, it's okay to take a mental health break. I do ask that you vote, because we need everyone, regardless of country to save the world. The news will still be there when you are up to it

Any aggregate has a bias, both selection, and the other kind. there are things i don't cover because I don't know they are happening or because there isn't time. There are a whole lot of other things that I don't or barely cover because they aren't good for me. it is so much harder to see absence than presence.

My best advice to you, is to find someone like me who gets a lot of the things you are interested in so you can at least skim headlines. More than one is better, but if you get stressed out by the output keep it simple. Find some news sites you trust or if you have a good local paper get a subscription. (I used to read the paper everyday, but my local paper is extra bad, so I'm all online now). Read articles on things that interest you. If you are up to it do some searches on topics important to you.

Whatever you do, never read or watch one news source exclusively. Every source has biases. If all that history training has taught me anything, it's that.

Remember that no one can read everything and that's okay.

I have no idea if this helps. I just stopped to read your note before bed, so I'm a bit rambly.

[nerdcrawfish]

Yeah, the only fic ideas I will be able to do that on were really intense aus that I basically went mid waythrough development: "Hey... this is really good. I should just make a book." And the amount of stuff I have had to cut and revise is... Painful. But I think my decision will be for the best. I chatted with someone abput my idea and they approved a lot, so I'm really excited. BUT I have to emphasize the amount of CUTTING I had to do and redevelopment is insane--I'm still processing it and it's kind of hard. And I was really, really early in the brainstorming process on that one. So I think that’s why it was so easy to pivot. I also was just mildly into the material, so I think that's the biggest contributing factor lol.

Oh and the other type is like... I do hella backstory, world building, and background going decades to centuries before canon and I'm like... Canon doesn't need this... I can make this a novel. I still had to cut a bit because that fanfic writer flair--I made it to complement canon and ANOTHER fanfic lol... So I think that type of fic CAN (not always) be "transferable". My other GenImp one... It didn't fare as well in 'The Mutilating' and it phew. Y e a h. I've given up on that idea. Sometimes even precanon stuff doesn't do well either.

And like, everyone is saying... If it's insanely hard to wipe something of the fanon elements, you're a great fanfic writer and that's a really awesome thing!! You've got a diamond right there, be happy!!

I know there's a huge push to be productive and make money off of things that are hobbies. (Especiallyin this economy.) But, writing is one of those ones where it's hella hard for so many reasons. It's a huge energy input and then we legally can't make money off of GOOD fanfic. We technically can't take any money related to it. That's why we have AO3, and need it!, to legally protect us. We have a contract...

(And writing for money can be a bit of a hassle from what I have seen.)

But, we have a wonderful freedom with fanfic! We have protections that other types of writers don't. I can name drop brands and make stupid references without having a lawyer up my ass and I think it's hilarious as all hell. And honestly it's insane how much websites pay to host our stuff. And how much people love fanfic. It does suck that we can't make it profitable... But at least we can still do our stuff and be appreciated for it instead of sued into the ground over it.

And the amount of people who did fanfics and fanart and have been taken on to the franchise is always there. :) Because good fans made good stories.

sad reality of the fanfic-to-published work economy is that the weirdest people are willing to do it. that's why there's now hundreds of shitty no plot cishet hate-to-love enemies-to-lovers books that are ex reylo fanfic. and it's not even good. that's because the people who wrote book-quality steve/bucky and kirk/spock fic are too normal to think to themselves "i should get this porn published". they're too busy working in local government offices

[totaldramafan-lauri]

A decade on this hellsite (affectionate)

So, while I'm working on putting the finishing touches on this chapter, and am getting ready to work on other stuff as well, I...I have an announcement....

This is something I should've said yesterday, but I misremembered....

Uh...

I dunno how to say this super eloquently, but....yesterday was my 10 year anniversary on Tumblr! Wooooo!!

Yup! I joined Tumblr on November 6, 2013, and I've stayed here ever since! W-well, give or take a few hiatuses, but....I-I never LEFT, and that's what I'm celebrating....XD

When I first joined Tumblr, I did so to please a couple people I looked up to, who wanted to talk to me more. I'd been lurking on the website for quite a while beforehand, and didn't have a blog because I thought I wasn't an interesting enough person for one....and I also lowkey feared being made fun of. Yeah, I thought that Tumblr was a competition to get the biggest following, and if no one paid attention to you, you might as well not exist. That kind of mentality was pretty much drilled into me by the state of my current fandom at the time, which was ruled by a select few popular blogs and everyone else had to either conform to what they liked and hated, or get mocked.

How stupid of me, right? Tumblr is more than just the fandoms on it. Tumblr is literally whatever you make of it. You choose what to do and say, and who to engage with. Heck, even if you don't wanna talk to ANYONE, you can still use it for yourself. XD

Originally, this was purely a Total Drama fan blog. Then, over time, as I got more and more comfy with it, I talked about personal things more often, and then branched out, and just made it a me blog, in around 2015 or so. This ended up being the right choice. It became a second home, and grew with me over the years. I've gone through a lot - different special interests (many of which ended up being very important to me), a lot of personal changes, getting more comfortable with certain parts of myself - and Tumblr has captured all of that. At this point, I don't do anything for the attention. I just like putting it out there.

I've even accomplished things that 2013 me would've never tried...like, slowly embracing self-shipping culture, and all the fics I've written because of it. In 2013, I had my fictional crushes, but I was embarrassed about them and usually hid them behind OCs. And I'd never written a full fanfic. I was a former roleplayer. And now....Holy crap, I'm not saying I'm a GREAT writer, but...t-to try it, like it, and then KEEP DOING IT?? I call that an accomplishment....

I've met many people, including good friends, and....I-I like to think that....I-I've matured thanks to it. When you're in one place for a decade, it really influences you a lot, even in less obvious ways. I was a LOT more spontaneous ten years ago. I-I said some insensitive stuff that I didn't realize at the time. I stuck my nose in places it didn't belong, and I let myself get too pressed over the opinions of people I didn't even like. I don't do any of that anymore. I'm a lot more picky with what sides of my fandoms I talk to now. I'm still not perfect, but I've grown a lot, and it's cool to think....that this blog is essentially a document of my emotional journey.

(Not to mention all the Eurovision seasons, heheh....)

Does that mean my old posts from 2013 and 2014 are worth reading nowadays? HECK no, but I'm happy they exist.

I-I'm sorry that this is so word-vomit-y, but......point is, thanks for ten years. Here's hoping I'm still here in 2033. Until then.....I-I have an update:

I dunno why I didn't do this sooner, but I have a "Current Interests" page now, which I plan to update frequently. This'll make it easier to keep track of what I'm into at the present time. So that I no longer have to hide anything....just...laying it all out there for people.

I thought I needed it. I've just been lazy for waaaaay too long. XD I need to act my age and let people know what they're getting into.

[incorrect-dublin-murder-squad]

Cassie when Frank first offered for her to go undercover: Wait a minute! This is a very big decision. It might affect the course of my entire life. I shall have to think about it.

Cassie: *pauses for 1 second*

Cassie: I’ll do it.

[flowersforvax]

I can't even put into words the rage I felt at those first few paragraphs of the staff post.

Who was this written for? Because it sure as shit wasn't for the user base you're addressing. We're not stupid and we're not your executives. Buzzwords are not going to get us excited.

I've been a tumblr user since 2010 and in that time I and everyone in my tumblr sphere has been using the dashboard in a very similar way - i really could have done without getting belittled as "a small part of the userbase" and basically called irrelevant. 2010! I've been on here for over a decade! And I would genuinely love to stay here until I'm dead but by god if tumblr turns into another app that shoves content I don't care about in my face via algorithm I will delete and search for another website to spend my time on. Or maybe become a hermit and get really into moss.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[raksesrot-a]

what have i come back to

[eti-mun]

"You turned off replies on your desteil meme!!!!" Yes I absolutely did and let me explain to you why

People are stating iver and over to just Google the information. And that is fair. I get that. Look up the stuff for yourself, the meme is just supposed to be a fun header. I know that, I get that, I've been around these parts for over a decade I am not stupid and I'm not trying to make people spoonfeed information.

However, if a fuck ton of people are going to end up learning about a topic first through a meme, then the least the op can do is add the source of where they got said information from. From there, we have easy access to read the information, find more, and form our own opinion.

That's also a good way to ensure if the thing they credited to is actually a good source to get info from. From there people can let the op know if the website they got the information from isn't legitimate if it happens to not be. The Logitech Sue desteil meme being fake, but people blindly believing it anyway, is a shining example of why we need those sources. Not everyone is going to look up information, it's just a reality that some people don't seem to like to accept.

Im not trying to encourage people to only get their news from hellsite dot com, that is the worst thing you can do tbh.

What I am encouraging is the share of useful information on a site that claims to absolutely love when things are sourced back to the original material or credited properly

And all it would require is for the op to make like. 4 extra clicks.

With that said yeah, I don't like hearing a broke record. I don't expect this to get as seen as the meme, so I know I'm still gonna get backhanded comments, which is fine. But I just wanted to clear it up for the people who actually listen and understand what I'm trying to say.

Anyway have a nice day, add sources to things, please and thanks

[starakex]

Warden Ingo Cosplay Build Log

Hey Legends Arceus / Submas / Pokémon fans ! I spent two months last year making a Warden Ingo costume because the game made me fall in love with the franchise all over again (and because I love sad amnesia uncle, of course). I'm pretty proud of it, so I thought it'd be fun to share the process here in painstaking details. I've been cosplaying for over a decade now and I learned a bunch from so many defunct cosplay tutorials on this website, so I thought I'd give back. This isn't a guide, persay, but rather a dive into the methods and decisions I picked to complete this project. Any pre-made items or patterns that are available online will be linked! I'll be splitting down each piece of the costume into its own section for easier reading. This is gonna be a long one with a bunch of pictures, so I'd suggest viewing on the blog directly! Without further ado, all aboard!

Station 0: The Guidelines

Before getting into the build itself, I wanted to preface this wall of text with the guidelines I set myself for this project.These core pillars inform a lot of the decision-making, and some people might feel like using this log as reference for their own cosplays, so I thought it'd be good to put them here to explain why I did some stuff the way I did. Comfort first: I knew I was gonna wear it in the summer, and stand around all day at a convention, so it needed to be lightweight and comfortable. (well, as much as a cosplay can be, anyways.) Realism: Ok, that's kinda weird to associate "realism" to a Pokémon costume (unless you're Detective Pikachu I guess), but I wanted to look more natural instead of translating a shiny fancy 3D model straight to real life (nothing against that, it just wasn't my goal). This meant adapting certain elements that only really worked in stylized Pokémon graphics. Be a huge cheapskate: I didn't wanna break the bank with this one, so if I could save money thrifting or reusing stuff I had lying around, I was going to do it. Whenever you see me pull some material out of my ass that wasn't entirely fit for the job, that's why. After putting these down, jotted down a battle plan for the project (basically just a huge compartmentalized list of all the material I expected to need and the steps to complete the costume), and then it was time to get to work.

Station 1: Thrift Shop Pit Stop

I like starting every project with a quick trip to the local thrift stores to see what I can find. I hate sewing pants with a passion, so my priority was to grab some navy suit pants to match the coat's fabric to later. I also found a long sleeve black shirt for Ingo's undershirt, a belt I ended up not using, and lucked out with some excellent clown shoes with removeable insoles. After slapping in my own insoles, replacing the shoelaces and fixing up the pants' button, we were good to go on every element that could be done without any extra work on my end. Moving on.

Station 2: Three Refined Metals For A Hat

I'll be honest here: when I initially planned out the entire project in my notebook, the hat was scary as hell. I had no clear idea how I was going to do it; I didn't really want to buy a similar pre-made hat cause roughing it up would've been stupid hard to get to look right. I figured I could probably make it out of EVA Foam (a certified cosplay classic), but I've never patterned a shape this complex before. Turns out Kamui Cosplay made a foam pattern for the same kinda hat. Score! I purchased the pattern and assembled the hat using 6mm EVA Foam and Contact Cement according to the instructions. I then destroyed some poor polyester cord trim from the bottom of my scrap bin and glued it into the base for the... sticky-outies? The damaged bits. Y'know.

With the base finished, I drafted a pattern for the fabric covering, cut my pieces out of navy twill, sewed it up and slid it over the hat. I did the same for the inside with some cheap black muslin leftovers from another project, glued it all to the base in strategic spots, and then patterned, sewed and glued the band on. Finally, I took my seam ripper and scissors and opened up the seams where the little piles of sad polyester scraps were lining up to free them. With the main part of the hat complete, I cut up a disc of 10mm EVA foam for the insignia, scored the design on with a hobby knife and heated it up to form a bit of a curve. It was then sealed with flexbond, painted and sealed with a clear coat, and glued on! All that was left after this was weathering the hat. It's a little hard to photograph this piece properly, so I'll show the weathering process when we get to the coat.

I apologize for basically pulling a "rest of the fucking owl" here, but honestly a lot of the process was improvising and somehow not destroying the entirety of my progress, so I have no pictures of the hat building process beyond this.

Station 3: Sneasels Ripped My Coat

Ingo's coat started with a heavily modified version of a commercial pattern. Specifically, it's the D Coat from Simplicity's 4789. I could've probably found a pattern closer to the Subway Bosses' coat design, but this one had already been in my pile of "patterns I bought for an abandonned project and will totally use someday, I swear" and it was close enough, so I used it. Modifications included extending the collar, making the coat a little longer in proportion to my body, the sleeves wider at the ends, and adding inner pockets (a cosplayer's best friend). Oh, and the white bias tape on the edges and the orange stripes, of course. You may have noticed I'm not showing the pattern with all the modifications here. That's because as part of the Cheapskate Protocol, I really wanted to use this old Simplicity pattern to save money. A pattern I bought when I was a teen way back when. the misses sized pattern enveloppe. So I had to size up the entire damn thing. The biggest size on this pattern was like 7 inches off my measurements. It's a paper Frankenstein golem. It looks godawful. The actual adjustments to make the pattern Submas-ready are incomprehensible in there. But hey, I saved like 10 dollars! I started by assembling the base coat (undamaged) out of navy twill. I added heavy interfacing in the collar to help it stay up. I considered adding a lining to it to really sell the fact this used to be a modern machine-assembled piece of clothing, but it wouldn't have looked as good with the rips and tears later on. As a bonus, it's one layer less in the fight against heat exhaustion! However, if I were to make this coat for Pre-Eeby-Deebied Ingo, I'd definitively do a lining.

Next step was the stripes! I used some double fold white bias tape to finish the edges of the coat and topstitched the ones on the back of the coat on. I then used the same orange cotton as the hat band for the three orange stripes,which were topstitched on. Cheapskate Protocol made me buy barely enough orange cotton this time around because I was tired of building up the pile in the fabric scrap bin, so I had to improvise to make it work by snipping the bands in strategic spots in order to cover to whole coat properly. It's not like the parts that would be cut off later for the damage would need them, anyways. ✨Optimization✨

After rolling my rock up the hill of a Hell of my own creation, I booted up the game, dragged my avatar to the Ingo enclosure and marveled at the magnificent creature to see where the coat was ripped. I traced a loose guide of the tear designs with washable fabric chalk and crudely cut up the bottom edge, sleeves and collar to have the basic shape down.

All that was left was to add the armband and the buttons. Turns out the only metal buttonsI could find that were big enough were those buttons kits to cover with fabric. Since I wanted to go for realism here (and be able to throw the whole thing in the wash after sweating in it all day), I wanted to avoid crafting them myself. With the main construction done, it was time to do the weathering! ... ... ... OH GOD I FORGOT TO ADD POCKETS

Behold, the world's most awful pockets. Two stupid little bags sewn in such a way you hopefully can't tell from the outside that I completely forgot that I wanted these. They literally only exist so I can have my phone handy at a convention. There's a buttonhole to close it too, I guess. They're shamefully hidden with all my lining-less, raw seam sins. Ok now we can destroy the coat

Station 4: Stinky And Dirty

I mentionned earlier during the hat section that I was going to get back to the weathering process. This is happening now. For the sake of Realism™️, I wanted the damage to look natural in real life, so I had to make it look believable. Luckily this wasn't my first rodeo with the Dirt, so I had plenty of weathering experience under my belt. To break up the awkward scissor cuts from earlier on the edges and fray everything up, I pulled out the sandpaper and started... Sanding the fabric. Might sound weird to some, but a lot of costume makers swear by it. It's also great for ripped jeans (if those are still popular today) and general natural wear. I also refined the shape along the way with scissor to break up any long straight cuts before fraying the edges. I took care to reinforce any newly destroyed seams with a sneaky staystitch so it doesn't unravel in the future. I then mixed up a bunch of different shades of brownish grime with fabric paints (I had black, brown, yellow, orange and green on hand) to dirty the whole thing up. This doesn't look as realistic as some other methods like weathering powders and Just Using Real Dirt, but as mentionned earlier I wanted to be able to just throw it in the washing machine at the end of the day to sanitize it. (If you're interested in actually learning how to weather a costume, this guide is where I started my journey.) I prioritized the ripped edges and any spots where grime would realistically accumulate in over time, like under the edge of the hat band. Paint was dabbed, stippled and rubbed on with whatever garbage tools I could find, which in my case were some old crusty brushes, sponges and toothbrushes I could get really violent with. (brushes were harmed in the making of this costume, but not my good brushes.)

The whole thing was then sealed with heat using a flat iron as per the fabric paint instructions. With the coat done, all of Ingo's old Subway Boss uniform was complete!

Station 5: A Warden's Garb

Next step on the list was making the Pearl Clan uniform. Thankfully, there's a fun little piece of concept art that shows Ingo without his signature coat, so from it we can confirm that his clan outfit has short sleeves (good for the comfort goal) and consists of two pieces: a tunic and some kind of hip sash. I omitted the hood on the tunic because I was realistically never going to wear it up and it would have just bunched up under the coat anyways. Now you'll be painfully aware of that terrible corner cutting truth whenever you scroll down and see photos of the costume. Sorry. I drafted out a quick pattern for both pieces of the clan garb through the power of math for the sash (a couple half circles with another piece for the border) and tracing over a tunic in my wardrobe for the shirt. I assembled a test version out of scrap muslin to make sure it worked properly, then set the pattern aside so I could prepare the fabric. In order to have all of the tunic elements match together, I picked up a bunch of white stretch knit fabric and a bottle of purple synthetic dye so I could reach the shade of dusty lavender I wanted. I measured out two squares of fabric based on the pattern. One square was for the darker border on the waist sash, while the rest was the lighter color for the whole outfit. I boiled water according to the dye instruction and worked on my Fabric Soup.

With the fabric dyed and washed, I cut my pattern pieces out and assembled everything together. Nothing special happened there since the pattern had been tested and adjusted prior to sewing the real deal. Ok, one thing happened actually. My sewing machine absolutely hated how thin this fabric was and kept trying to eat my costume. By the end I was about ready to throw the machine out the window, but things worked out.

It's pretty sneaky and totally not visible on the outside, but the sash is held closed with two snap buttons on the front. It's easily the single jankiest piece of the costume due to the aforementioned attempt by my sewing machine to have fabric dinner. But hey, it works and the jank isn't visible so who caaaares (I care)

Final step for the Pearl Clan outfit was adding the logo on the front. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do this, at first, but to keep the fabric's stretch and keep with the idea that this is a hand-sewn garment from old Hisui, I decided to go with hand embroidery. I grabbed some scrap white cotton, dyed it purple, then cut it out in the shape of the logo. It was then painstakingly applique'd to the tunic by hand with embroidery floss.

With that done, the tunic was completed! It looks absolutely depressing on a coat hanger, but when worn with a belt it's all nice and cozy. As a bonus, it layers with the coat well enough that I don't have to wear a binder under everything to hide obvious boob shapes. Another win for the Comfort team! 👏 With all the sewing done, all that's left is the Warden bracelet and the hair.

Station 6: Noble Sneasler's Cool Bling

Ingo's got a bestie bracelet of his best pal Sneasler, so we gotta make that. The build should be pretty standard to anyone that's made anything out of EVA Foam for a cosplay. I drafted the pieces by referencing the in-game model, cut them out of different thicknesses of the material to create some depth, and glued everything together with contact cement and hot glue. (The main bracelet is 6mm foam, the details are 2mm foam and the black parts for the base of the head and the gem are 4mm foam.) I added an elastic on the wrist to keep the bangle secured to my arm while still being able to easily slip it on and off.

The whole thing was then sealed with flexbond, painted and then sealed with a spray clear coat. Honestly, it was the simplest part of the build and it actually went without a hitch this time around.

With the accessories done, it was now time to get to what I am convinced is every Submas cosplayer's worst nightmare: The Goddamn Hair.

Station 7: The Goddamn Hair

There's a lot of artists credited as character designers in the credits of Pokémon Black & White (2010). This means I can't figure out who to blame for Ingo and Emmet's stupid sideburns that make absolutely no sense in the real world. Instead we're just going to scream at the heavens and find a solution to the geometric flaps. Another fun fact: I'm awful at wigs. Like absolutely awful. I understand the methods involved, but I'm stupid bad at applying that knowledge on an expensive mop of plastic hair I don't want to ruin. So I did some research to figure out how people were making the twins' hair on their own cosplay. Everyone did a great job, but it wasn't really the effect I was looking for, so I decided to start from scratch. Because, you see, I was going to completely avoid styling a wig. I've always interpreted the art as them having some sick sideburns/muttonchops. (This art piece by waltias on twitter was posted like a week after I finished my cosplay and I felt so so validated in my interpretation) I also love Makeup FXs, so I thought "hey, I can look up beard makeup tutorials." I ended up with two ideas: either I could buy crepe wool hair in grey and glue the fibers to my face individually every time I put the costume on, or I could make a reuseable prosthetic. I'm a lazy piece of garbage that likes doing things once so prosthetic it was. I mean, I know how to ventilate wig lace. It'll be reusable and take 4 minutes to apply. Smart! I got the Jett in Light Grey from Arda Wigs, a ventilating hook, matching wefts and the lace. I had a plan, I was ready, it was going to look great. And then I spent 40 hours tying individual strands of plastic hair on a wig lace mesh. For a total surface area of maybe 3 square inch.

(Pictured above: A Fool.) It was hell. I might've incurred a stress injury from the process and then had to let it rest for a week because I did it all over a couple days. Would I recommend doing it? If you're patient, sure. I love the result. But this was, by far, the worst part of the entire project. 40 hours. The entire coat took me like 6 hours. 40 fucking hours.

After painstakingly tying individual hairs to a mesh and realizing I might've reached the Ninth Circle of Hell along the way, I took my couple squares of ventilated wefts and trimmed them to the proper length. The result was awesome, and I don't regret it at all. It looks exactly how I pictured the idea of sideburns would look like. But it also took 40 hours of me just tying some fucking hair to a mesh. Maybe there was a better solution, but there's so little ressources about the process online that I just went with the methods I could find, really. I pray someone starts offering squares of pre-ventilated wig lace someday so no one else has to suffer like I did. As a sidenote, I didn't even bother with the balding hair since I wasn't gonna go through all the effort of heavily modifying a wig and wearing a bald cap if I wasn't even gonna take the hat off.

40 hours.

Station 8: Bits And Bobs From Under the Subway Bench

Honestly, after the absolute nightmare I went through making the sideburns and goatee, The final touches were a cakewalk. After all, the costume is complete! What's next? Warden Ingo uses Pokéballs like a cool guy, so I wanted one. I usually make pretty much everything myself for costumes because it's fun, but after the ventilating adventure I just wanted to rest. I'd been following NisuzCraft's work for a while now, and I loved the wood grain effect on their Hisuian Pokéballs. I wholeheartedly recommend them, their work is awesome.

As a final touch, I grabbed some red cord I had lying around from a previous project to craft a little loop to hook my convention badge onto. I don't really like having the badge show up on photos, so it was a clean way to have it easily accessible while having it be easy to slide out of sight. I based the idea off of the knotted ropes the Galaxy Team member hang their Pokéballs from on their uniforms.

Lastly, though it's not necessarily part of the costume itself, I made an overly indulgent ita bag panel for the first con I took Warden Ingo out to. The collection's grown since then, but here it is:

Chandelure: JellyBearDesigns Ingo & Lady Sneasler: AstroTeenyArts Warden Ingo, Emmet&Ingo Duo: Cynniarts Ingo & Emmet with fingers crossed, Hanging Ingo, Emmet & Warden Ingo: Zhampip Rubber Straps: Official Pokémon Mate Merch Go show them some love!

Terminus: You Have Reached Hisui Station

So, first con wearing Warden Ingo came and went. What's the verdict? Pretty great experience, honestly. It was relatively comfortable to wear despite record heat in the middle of summer. The only real issue was that having a wig and a hat together trapped heat real bad, therefore some wig breaks were needed. I also initially used spirit gum to stick the facial hair on, and I struggled to remove the residue afterwards from the lace mesh, so now I just use body tape to keep it on. Nothing broke, nothing hurt, so I'd say it was a success! I haven't had to modify or repair anything for the future, so I'm very proud of the results. To anyone who read this Build Log to the very end, thank you so, so much for your interest. I hope this may have given you some insight into the process; especially if this helps your in future cosplay projects! If you don't cosplay, I hope it was still an entertaining read.

Hoping to see more wonderful Submas cosplays in the future!

[margridarnauds]

Sometimes, I think about how, when I was about.... 15-16 or so, I went on St*rmfront for the first time.

I wasn't looking up white supremacists, I wasn't looking up anything overtly racist, I wasn't looking up anything antisemitic or homophobic. I was a sheltered teenager; I didn't even realize that websites like that EXISTED.

What was I looking up?

"medieval Irish hairstyles" (maybe it was "Celtic hairstyles", given I wasn't exactly up to date on the field's lingo at the time.)

And I was hit FULL IN THE FACE with these chucklefucks talking about the superiority of "the Celts", wanking over a world that had never existed, using slurs that I won't repeat.

Teenage!me wasn't stupid and clicked out immediately, but like. That's why sourcing "Celtic" or "Norse" images are important, even things as seemingly mundane as cottagecore, because it isn't just that white supremacists happen to use these things, it's that there are groups of white supremacists that have a vested interest in using these things for their propaganda and are actively disseminating these images online. They LOVE aesthetic, and not just the skinhead aesthetic that we generally associate with them, but pastels, medieval European women in conservative, Victorian-inspired clothing, Slavic traditional clothing, Norse runes, Irish manuscripts....anything, ANYTHING that they can use to evoke a feeling of nostalgia for a less progressive time, particularly involving white supremacy and a strict gender binary. I found one on here posting art of Lugh. The Irish god Lugh, who I've been researching for over a decade now. Like, these things are not always OBVIOUS -- I wouldn't have known about the one if I didn't know that the source they mentioned in their description was an outspoken ethnonationalist.

[r-tawen]

Rating Thought Experiments by How Annoying They Are

It's finals week and I'm procrastinating because I've decided my sanity outweighs the slavering need to academically perform that's been drilled into me by the education industry over the past two decades. I have no other basis for these ratings other than how much each thought experiment annoys me on a molecular level. All Thought Experiments here listed taken from GCC Libraries website. Here goes:

Trolley Problem - 8/10

Starting off with a Certified Classicᵀᴹ

I think we have bigger problems to deal with, namely that we have someone routinely strapping random people to railway tracks AND that random civilians can just up and reroute entire trains on a whim

Like why the fuck would I ever be in this situation

"you notice a very large individual whom you can push in front of the train in order to stop it" first of all, is this a philosophy major's idea of a fat joke? Second, if you had a guy big enough to bring 130 kmph of screaming metal to a dead halt at the distance pictured, they would be big enough to pick up the train and spare us all this nonsense. Thank you, Waybig from Ben 10 Alien Force

Oh, the individual is a "close relative" now? You think you've got me roped into your ethical dillemma now that it's personal? Fool. Dullard. Wipe that unsexy smirk off your smug little face because I don't love anyone stupid enough to get caught strapped to what is actually a very efficient mode of public transport like that

The Ship of Theseus - 3/10

Actually really fun to consider the little sailors milling about and fixing up the ship

They liked sailing on that boat so much that they lovingly replaced each little bit as it gets worn down over time, whistling sea shanties, making sure the parts fit just right and snug to make her seaworthy again

Doesn't matter if it's the same boat or not, it is their boat and that's all that matters as far as I'm concerned

Only downside is it brings up the weird teleportation thing, which makes all the weird sci-fi nerds (derogatory, as opposed to the good weird sci-fi nerds) come crawling out of the metalwork

As if the philosophy nuts weren't bad enough

Patient Refusing Treatment - 90000/10

Hits a little too close to home bc this shit just happens irl

Brings up the fact that people will straight up choose to die rather than offend their religious teachings

And also that said religious groups will straight up turn their backs on you as soon as you step a toe out of line

So much for loving your neighbor, divine morality, community and all that pretty shit they like to preach

Just try and come at me for this, bitches, I'm a colonized POC in the third world in a pre-dominantly Catholic country and I'm spoiling for a fucking fight

The Drowning Child and the $1000 Suit - 9/10

You honestly think the average asshole who would wear a $1000 suit to the beach has any morals?

He probably sells babies on WallStreet to fund his twice-collapsed crypto startup in Silicon Valley so he can fulfill his dreams of getting a whiff of Elon Musk's scrotal discharge

If this stark white businessbitch with the physical and moral integrity of paper mache gets anywhere near that water, we'd have two drowning children in the ocean

And how dare you compare the dude who can afford to be in a $1000 suit who can take immdeiate action to save someone, to the random middle-aged dad watching Netflix at 4AM without adblockers on? "how are the two examples different?" I'll fucking drown you in a bathtub that's how

COVID Simulator 2019 - 5/10

Vulnerable people and frontline healthcare workers first, easy, next question

The main source of annoyance is having to remember how fucking horrendously this pandemic has been handled in my country

I Can't Say Pleasure Machine With A Clean Mind - 7/10

You could build a machine that can simulate reality one-to-one, but you couldn't figure out a way to bring people out? How did you test this shit to begin with if every volunteer and the machine they're assigned to is permanently fucking unusable to anyone else on the first go?

And I'm supposed to take your "guarantee" that this will make me happy, when there is literally no one who has actually tried it who can attest to that?

If I put you in there, will it simulate a universe where you make sense and people like you?

There's no fucking way this shit isn't going to get hogged by rich old white billionaires who have nothing left to do in life but evade all of their legal problems by becoming legally fucking dead to the world

Colonized Land Problem - 999999999999999999999/0.1

See Patient Refusing Treatment, paragraph 5

Space Taxonomy - 3/10

Like, a couple thousand lesser known sci-fi writers have beaten you to this premise already

There's just nothing in this to be annoyed at, at all, it's such a Nothing dillemma

The meagre 3 it accrued is just because it reminds me of weird vegans (derogatory, as opposed to the good weird vegans) and PETA, but there's just not a lot of substance here to be annoyed by

Social Media Misinformation - 8/10

Yes? Fucking- regulate your platforms??

A 3 year old could answer this, and those little bastards can't even operate heavy machinery

Do you want more anti-vaxxers? TERFs? Neo-nazis? Sons of former dictators being elected as president?

"bUt i hAve thE RIgHt to Be rAciSt and stUpiD-" I will personally feed your unwashed ass into an old-timey woodchipper

The Merchant Vessel - 9/10

????

Are you the most incompetent sailors ever to salt the raging seas?

It's an island- you can find food there, you can find food in the fucking ocean

Wh-

Do you have no other options?

The best thing you could come up with was to eat, sleep, and shit for the duration of an entire trading season off of the rations that washed up on the beach, doing absolutely NOTHING else productive with your time?

Couldn't come up with any brighter ideas? Okay, sure, have fun out there

Immortality Pill - 10/10

Cool. Why is this my problem again?

Are the people in this universe also completely devoid of thought and agency that I have to decide what to do? I already invented the damn thing for fuck's sake

Just... let people decide if they're taking it or not??

In the first place, the premise says they can straight up still be killed- it's not like there's no way out

The only real issue here is Big Pharma kicking my doors in 0.5 milliseconds after I finish my last test and gunning me down before any of my research could ever feel the fresh breeze of outdoors Manila

I will, however, be selling placebos exclusively to billionaires

"Sorry Mr. Bezos, the pills won't take, Idk what to tell you, byyeeeeee"

Pascal's Wager - 12/10

See Colonized Land Problem, paragraph 1

Equim - 6/10

The fuck kind of worldbuilding is this

You named it "Equim"? Is that what you meant to do?

How about we leave them alone, huh, how about that?

If the North Sentinelese decide that part of their culture is killing the fuck out of any foreign culture-destroying missionaries that land on their shores, then who am I tell them they're wrong? (They're not btw)

But then again I can't expect whatever imperialist white fuck who probably came up with this to understand the concept of keeping one's grubby little hands off of someone else's culture

Wittgenstein's Game - 100000/10

See- this right here is why we don't take you people seriously

At least the above entries had flavor to them, but this? Really?

You're just agonizing over a dictionary

Like Jesus H. Fuck, get a real hobby

Or did you spend too much time agonizing over what a "hobby" truly is and now you're 46 and balding and you've forgotten what it feels like to have a conversation with someone?

Enough of this shit. Procrastination over. Might do a part two if something gets me riled up again.