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libermancer · 7 months
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🤔
10/10, no notes
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libermancer · 7 months
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i used to work at a used bookstore and there was an insect anatomy book for sale that was over $8000 im not even kidding. and i just found it at my school library. its mine for the month.
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libermancer · 8 months
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At least at my library, the worst that could happen is the women are banned, that's it. I believe the library in question here has our same policy of no late fines, which is amazing for our communities and really how it should be done, but also means people pulling stuff like this only get a slap on the wrist
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Phenomenal news. Just what the people ordered.
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libermancer · 8 months
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When an Ur guy / sells Nanni things / but the copper’s bad, / He simply records his complaint for all time / “I got a bad deal / I’m maaaaad”
My Favorite Things [Explained]
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libermancer · 8 months
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libermancer · 8 months
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A thing about working in public libraries that I think doesn’t always get discussed quite as often is how very much of it is interpersonal relations work. I have been party to and engaged in such personal, emotional conversations over the course of my career and have been trusted with such sensitive, deeply private information. It really is such a privilege to be able to serve a community in that capacity. It’s about so much more than just providing books. For a lot of smaller, rural areas, it’s about providing a space of safety and community.
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libermancer · 8 months
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For #GuineaPigAppreciationDay, the two earliest examples I've found of guinea pigs in the European visual record:
1. Painting attributed to Giovanni da Udine, n.d., artist active early 1500s to death in 1564
2. Drawing from the Felix Platter album, collected sometime between 1546-54
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Attributed to Giovanni da Udine (Italian, 1487–1564) Head of a Guinea Pig oil on canvas laid on panel 6.5 x 7 in. (16.5 x 17.8 cm.) From Duke's Fine Art Auction catalog, 11th April 2013, Lot 215
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Drawing collected by Felix Platter, to be used in Gessner's Historiae animalium. The drawings were made by several artists, mostly anonymous, and were collected between 1546 and 1558 (this one must date to no later than 1554 as it served as a reference for Gessner's woodcut published that year). Bijzondere collectie Universiteit van Amsterdam collection.
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libermancer · 9 months
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I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again
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libermancer · 9 months
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libermancer · 9 months
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Synovus: Siren Call (2)
[Synoverse? In the year of our lord 2023? It's more likely than you think! This one is in third person, set after Villains Never Retire. No idea what I’m talking about? Check out the first of the Synovus works here! I've still yet to do it as of posting, but both episodes of Siren Call will be on Ao3 here. Happy reading!]
A week after first arriving at her parents’ house, Minerva made the journey back to her own.
It wasn’t terribly far - a half-hour drive with no traffic, maybe - from where her parents now lived, still placed near to the coast. It wasn’t actually a ‘house’ either, more of a condo built in a line to save costs. It would’ve been cheaper to live further inland, but…
She’d had enough of that.
Besides, the place wasn’t actually hers. When she’d divorced Albion and come back to the coast, she’d also quit her job. With no contacts, no friends, and no savings that weren’t tied up in litigation, she would’ve had nowhere to go in her civilian identity. She also wasn’t sure if she was going to have to deal with a super-powered ex husband knocking at all hours, which was something most renters disapproved of, as a rule.
But where Minerva had no one, Athena had a lifeline. When she and Legionnaire had done volunteer work in the past, she’d always felt it was just part of her duty. An obligation that came with having superpowers. Sometimes you put the costume on to hit something, and sometimes you put the costume on to build something. Since neither of them had been dependent on their hero identity 24/7, they’d always declined any offers of compensation.
But that didn’t mean they’d been forgotten. Shepherd Flight was a volunteer group who specialized in organizing super powered individuals for rescue and relief operations - they mostly focused on the initial crisis, but weren’t afraid of working to help rebuild things too. Minerva had gone through floodwaters and hurricanes under their direction, and also used her strength to help hold up beams for building shelters. One of her favorite memories was helping plant a garden in a refugee camp.
Shepherd Flight was also known for its discretion. Several capes worked exclusively for them, staying out of hero or villain business in the traditional sense. Some of them maintained a separation between the mask and the civilian, but others didn’t.
So Minerva had gone to them, intending to ask if she could rest on a couch in their headquarters or something while she figured out her next move. Instead, a man named ‘Sun Dog’ had checked their records, asked her a few questions, and then handed her the keys to an address. Apparently, Shepherd Flight also aided ‘capes in distress.’
Minerva had scowled, but couldn’t really argue the point.
She’d looked into it since - the space they’d given her was most frequently used for helping move displaced persons who needed to travel, or temporary housing for other members of Shepherd Flight who needed a place unaffiliated with any identity. One of the questions she’d been asked was how she felt about potentially having a house full of strange guests on little-to-no notice. Minerva had grown up dealing with the Pacific Northwest’s forest fires, and had told Sun Dog she knew exactly how fast they could go. If refugees needed a place to stay, she’d gladly vacate.
So far, that hadn’t happened, though Sun Dog had also told her that someone would stop by occasionally with groceries, to keep the place stocked. And to check in on her.
She probably should’ve told them she was fine when she was whisked off to a supervillain’s private island. She hadn’t.
So she wasn’t surprised, per se, to open the door and see a stranger in the kitchen. Startled, perhaps. But neither of them attacked each other, so that was a good start.
“Uhm.” Said the person in the kitchen, holding a spoon awkwardly poised between their mouth and a pudding cup.
“Wrong door.” Minerva said automatically, holding the keys that had unlocked the front door and the guard mechanism.
“Is it?” The stranger asked hesitantly.
Minerva sighed, “No. I… lived here for a bit. As a… guest.”
“Oh!” The stranger lit up with a smile - and a touch of phantom flame that Minerva watched cautiously. “You must be the one who went missing! Yeah, they told me you might come back - hey, I’m Wi-Fire, by the way.”
They moved forward to offer a hand, slowing their approach when Minerva instinctively leaned away. Still, it wasn’t like she needed both hands to hold her bag, and once upon a time she’d been… better, if not exactly ‘good’ at this. So she took the offered hand, clasping it rather than shaking.
“Athena.” She returned, the introduction automatic. Instead of giving herself time to think about whether that was the right name to give, she forced herself onwards, remembering there were other details she was supposed to give on greeting. “She/Her.”
Wi-Fire’s grin broadened, and they bounced a little in place. “They/them!” They returned, even more cheerfully than before. “It’s the third bedroom that’s yours, right? I haven’t touched it, since he said you might come back, but I’ve only been here for about a week. That reminds me - have you called him yet? Sun Dog? He’s super worried about you, pun unintended.”
Minerva was, abruptly, reminded of Alexandria. “… No, I haven’t called him yet. I was just here to-“
She paused. What was she here to do? Spend a few hours staring at a wall, unobserved? Get the rest of her things and go? It wasn’t exactly much, just a few extra changes of clothes, a few books. She did want to make sure the space she’d used was clean, but given how little time she’d spent here, that shouldn’t take more than an hour. Two, if she stopped to do laundry.
Minerva had paused for too long. Wi-Fire just nodded, sympathetic. “Yeah, I feel that. I’m up in the attic - the other rooms are still empty, there’s nothing wrong with them or anything, I just.” They cut off, simply ending the sentence, as though a signal had been lost between one word and the next. They shrugged.
“Yeah.” Minerva echoed, thinking of how she’d chosen the room with the best view of the ocean, even if it was just a sliver.
Wi-Fire winces, “Crap. Sorry. Forgot we’re not supposed to really, like. Fraternize. I didn’t see anything?” Their last sentence is hopeful, as though an offering they want Minerva to take.
“It’s fine.” She assures them, readjusting her grip on her bag. “If you’ve seen me, you can pass on to Sun Dog that I’m fine, right?”
For a heartbeat, she thinks she’s pulled it off, and she’ll be able to just get her things and leave. But Wi-Fire just laughs.
“I mean, sure - but you’ll have to scram if you wanna avoid him.” They scrape at the bottom of the pudding cup. “He’ll be here in like. Twenty minutes?”
—-
Minerva is not done packing in twenty minutes. Actually, she’s not done in fifteen, which is when Sun Dog actually arrives. She can hear him greeting Wi-Fire from where she’s working upstairs, meticulously folding towels to be stored in the bathroom before she leaves.
Minerva snaps the final towel free of wrinkles, places it on the pile, and goes to meet him. Better she doesn’t get cornered.
Sun Dog and Wi-Fire aren’t talking, when Minerva arrives. No, that makes it sound like they’re in a stand off, and really, it’s more that they don’t need to be. Minerva catches the end of a fistbump-into-a-shoulder check, and an exchange of smiles, before Sun Dog’s eyes flick up and see her on the stairs.
“Ah!” In civilian clothing, Sun Dog looks like a Bay Area hobbyist come north. His reaction to seeing her is surprise, but also something positive. Joy? Excitement? Delight? “M-“
“Athena!” Wi-Fire cuts in, overriding Sun Dog with their own exclamation, and avoiding accidentally learning Minerva’s real name. Not that it matters, anymore.
Minerva’s spine could be used as a flagpole. “Sun Dog.” She replies, voice cool, as though their excitement at seeing her had been an embarrassment rather than an open welcome. It isn’t on purpose. “Wi-Fire.”
She doesn’t apologize for interrupting, or claim she didn’t mean to, because there’d be no point. Instead, Minerva meets Sun Dog’s gaze, “I’m cleaning up after myself, then I’ll be out of your way.”
“You don’t have to do that-“ Sun Dog starts to assure her, then backtracks. Minerva must have looked offended. “- but we’re grateful that you’d take the time.”
He glances at Wi-Fire, who gets the hint. They give Minerva a double thumbs-up, and another near maniacal grin, and then scamper off. Minerva is distracted, briefly, by the mental image of a young Synovus, gifted with fire instead of shadows.
Terrifying.
Still, thinking of the one problem won’t rid her of the other. Minerva descends the rest of the stairs to stand even with Sun Dog, her arms folded. Her expression must’ve shown something (or maybe Sun Dog just gauged the depths of the bags under her eyes) because instead of saying anything else, Sun Dog just tilts his head towards the door.
“How about a walk?”
—-
With the ocean not far, there was plenty of beach to walk along. It was too late in the season to hope for much sun, but again, it didn’t really bother Minerva. And, with both of them in nondescript windbreakers, they seemed no more suspicious than anyone else ever did.
She wished she didn’t feel like she needed to worry about being suspicious.
They walked in silence for a while, just the sound of sand crunching beneath boots, and the ever present roar of the ocean’s movements. The wind blew in from off the coast, sharp and cold. It whipped her hair around her face, but she mostly ignored it.
Eventually, Sun Dog broke the silence. “Did you know I didn’t actually intend to go by ‘Sun Dog’?”
Minerva glanced around, as though the wind and general absence of other people wasn’t enough to ensure they weren’t overheard. Sun Dog waited.
“Then why did you?”
“Media.” He answered simply. “I wanted to name myself Parhelion. Its the… let’s call it scientific word for a Sun Dog phenomena. They thought one had a better ring to it.”
“So you’re a scientist.” Minerva kicked lightly at the sand on her next step.
“Amateur, sure. But I don’t mind admitting that the name scared the hell out of me at first.”
Minerva hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I can understand why.”
Sun Dog. In a world still recovering from the sudden disappearance of Sunhallow, any sun imagery was suddenly circumspect. It could be viewed in a hundred different lights, none of them favorable.
“I almost gave up being a hero entirely.” Sun Dog confided. “I was too scared that one day someone would show up, and tell me I was encroaching on their brand.”
Humor, but not enough to hide that neither of them speak his name. Minerva knows he’s dead - she’s seen the grave, spoken to his killer. But there is the thought that lingers. Just in case.
“Why didn’t you?” Minerva asked, staring forward at the tree line.
“Letters. One in particular, that told me he’d never be dead so long as we let him hold that much power over something so ubiquitous as the sun. They said they knew how much it must cost me, but that the world needed people like me to rebuild it, to heal over the scars.”
“And was that one from the Dalai Lama or the President.” Her voice wasn’t bitter so much as it was… dry. Humor. She’s learning how to use it again.
Sun Dog squinted into the wind. “Could’ve been either, I suppose. It was signed, but with a moniker. Eclipse.”
He glanced at her, shrugged. “I’ve never known anyone to go by that name.”
Minerva was silent for a step. Two. Then, “No. Neither have I.”
—-
They wind up stopping at a picnic table tucked just under the tree line, out of the worst of the wind. It’s one of those weather-worn gray contraptions, the kind someone placed years ago and forgot, leaving it for hikers or curious children.
They’ve talked about a few things, here and there. Sun Dog keeps offering small bits of himself, trying to draw Minerva out again, and slowly, she becomes part of the conversation. Childhood pets. Obnoxious commercial jingles that stick even after the company and product are long gone. Nothing pressing. Nothing political.
But after they’d spent a few minutes in a comfortable silence, a natural lull in the conversation, Sun Dog has pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket.
“Hope you’re not looking for poker.” Minerva said with barely a glance. “I don’t have anything to bet.”
Sun Dog laughed, “These aren’t those kind of cards. But if you’re willing, I’d like to do a reading for you. Tarot.”
“Wait.” Minerva raised her brows, leaning back slightly. “You don’t actually believe in those, do you?”
She realized, approximately half a second too late to stop herself, how offensive that likely sounded. Luckily, Sun Dog laughed again.
“You could use a tank as a baseball bat.” He said, corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. “And have dealt with clairvoyants, shape-shifters, literal magic users - but ‘some cards’ is where you draw the line?”
Minerva ducked her head, submitting to the teasing. “Alright, you have a point. I don’t really know how they work, though.” “You don’t need to.” Sun Dog assured her. “You just need to shuffle and draw the cards. Three of them, face down, left to right. We’ll go over what they mean one by one.”
She felt, suddenly, unaccountably nervous. She managed a murmured thanks as Sun Dog handed her the deck, no longer stiff from newness, but not quite well-worn either. For a moment, she simply spread the cards in her hands, sliding them with her thumb, and studying the backs. They were larger than she remembered most playing cards being. She hoped she remembered how to shuffle correctly.
A few cuts of the deck, and a reassurance from Sun Dog that it was alright to bend them, and Minerva fanned the cards apart, couching them back together into a bridge. Another few cuts, another bridge. And the third time, to keep them balanced.
“Three off the top?” She asked. Sun Dog shrugged, “If that’s what speaks to you.” He laughed again at Minerva’s displeased expression, but nodded encouragingly. “Go on. Three cards, face down. That’s all.”
Minerva sighed. She pulled the card from the top, one from the bottom, and - fanning the cards again - slipped one from the middle at random, laying them each face down on the table in front of her.
“Good.” Sun Dog said encouragingly, accepting the rest of the deck back. “So, this is something of a ‘past, present, future’ spread. Go ahead and flip the first card.”
Minerva rolled her eyes, and moved to place her hand on it - then paused. This trepidation was unlike her. She had no reason to be nervous, because this was a pre-generated deck of cards. It held no personalized information, and could not reveal anything about her of substance, because it was a randomized card. 
That argument wasn’t holding up the way it normally would’ve. Some part of her resolve crumbled.
Well. She reasoned, If it’s in the past, I’ve already survived it once. I can do it again.
That seemed to do the trick. She flipped the card over, and was greeted with the image of someone in what she placed as quintessential peasant’s garb… carrying a bundle of sticks? The roman numeral for ten was placed above it, and the individual’s face couldn’t be seen, buried in the bundle they were carrying as they walked away from the viewer.
“The ten of wands.” Sun Dog identified. “Wands are associated with fire. They tend to be about passion, strengths, and willpower. The ten of wands in particular is a representation of burden and responsibility. It is good to be depended on - but not to be overworked.”
Minerva shifted, but said nothing. Sun Dog gave her a moment, then indicated the next card. “The next one, then?”
This one took little effort to turn - whether it was out of a desire to get it over with or simply because she’d shaken off whatever feeling she’d had earlier, Minerva didn’t know. This time, the card was upside down, and she moved to straighten it.
“No -” Sun Dog stopped her, “I mean, if you want to flip it so you can look at it, you can, but drawing them upside down actually means something. ‘Reversed’ cards invert or change the meaning.”
Minerva pursed her lips, flipping the card briefly to get a better look at it. A figure visible only from the waist up, in what appeared to be mail and plate armor. A star spangled canopy offered protection from the yellow sky, and the numeral for seven that floated just above it. The figure had a staff in one hand, and what looked like two sphinxes in front of it - the left black, the white right, each with a different expression.
“The Chariot.” She read, flicking the card back over to be upside down again.
“Another willpower card.” Sun Dog commented. “The Chariot is triumphant - you see how the sphynxes are angled in opposite directions? They should go nowhere, but the driver manages to drive the chariot onwards. Nothing that they carry is a gift. Instead, they are rewards earned.”
“But it’s reversed,” Minerva said dryly, “Meaning… that I’m currently a freeloader?”
“Or that you feel that way.” Sun Dog countered. “The cards aren’t quite so literal as we might hope, sometimes. Go ahead and flip the third card.”
“Another upside down one.” Minerva remarked, considering the angel depicted on the card. “Sorry, reversed. Temperance.”  She snorted, placing the card on the table with the others, and then shoving her hands into her pockets.
“Ah, I love the Temperance card.” Sun Dog picked it up briefly, smiling at it, before he laid it back down. “It’s a card of transitions, that one. I - is something wrong?”
Minerva hadn’t been able to hide her flinch at that one. She scowled, more angry at herself than anything - but it seemed the last few days had scraped her raw, left her open and readable. And… she did trust Sun Dog. So she forced herself to clear her throat, and spoke quietly;
“I have a daughter.”
Sun Dog made a vaguely congratulatory noise, a positive sympathy for someone speaking of their loved ones. Minerva’s hands bunched in her pockets.
“I spent most of her life convinced she was my son.” She said quietly.
“Ah.” Sun Dog leaned back, head canted so he could look up for a moment, considering. Minerva knew there was a wealth of information in that, and how she’d presented it, and the connections he could even now be drawing. But she’d refused to run from this. So she sat still, and unwavering, and waited for the judgment she deserved.
“I don’t think it means that kind of transition.” Sun Dog said finally, looking back at her again. “Not in this context, though a gender transition is a common reading of the card. My congratulations to your daughter, by the way.”
Minerva let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Then it doesn’t….” She trailed off, mind unwilling to complete the sentence.
“Doesn’t what?”
“This is the future card, isn’t it?” She said quietly, rather than elaborate immediately. “And reversed, meaning an inverse of the meaning. So if it was about - her transition, and how I pertain to it, then… I would be a roadblock to it. I wouldn’t…” She trailed off again, but Sun Dog only waited.
“... get better.” She finished lamely.
“That you’re worried about it tells me how much you care,” Sun Dog said gently, placing one hand halfway across the table. He couldn’t take hers, given she still had them clenched in her pockets, but she recognized the gesture for what it was meant to be. “But no, I don’t think that’s what the card means in this context. Temperance is the balance between remaining practical, and our dreams. Grounded reality, versus the water of our dreams.”
“So I’m… losing that balance?”
Sun Dog hummed, uncertain, “You might lose that balance, that could be an outcome.” He acknowledged. “But take the cards as they’re important to you. Water is fairly important to you, right?”
Minerva only nodded.
“Then perhaps the reversal isn’t telling you that you’re going to lose your balance. Maybe it’s telling you not to worry so much about that balance - that temperance is not, in fact, what you need to do now.” Sun Dog raised his hands, “I’m no expert. But sometimes we really do need to let loose.”
Minerva stared at the card arrangement for several more minutes. Her mind picked up on patterns, even when she didn’t mean for it to, didn’t intend to read into it. The past, hiding her face from everyone in a mask, carrying a burden she thought she was obligated to take on. The present, lost, her rules turned on their head as surely as the chariot driver was. A canopy of stars, protective shadows against a sky of light… and a being that was neither male nor female, free, offering her the opportunity to move on. 
“I’m not taking advice from a deck of cards.” She heard herself say.
Sun Dog shrugged. “Then take it as advice from me. You see something in the cards - that’s what they’re for. Reflecting what you need to see, to be able to face it.”
Minerva let out a long breath, forcing herself to relax the tension that had settled into her shoulders and spine. She looked up, meeting Sun Dog’s gaze with her own.
“How much do you know about Synovus?”
---
[It's funny - I posted the first of Synovus's story over a year ago. I added onto it, here and there, but the draft to post this was started in... September of 2022? Yet, every day, I get a notification, either through Tumblr or Ao3, that someone has found Synovus, and expressed joy about it somehow. It's... remarkable. I love you all, and thank you for reading!]
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libermancer · 9 months
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Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
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libermancer · 9 months
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I hate the ADHD thing of:
"You need to do X. this is very important" "can't" "oh well. I'll do something else instead and maybe I'll get the motiviation to do X later" "no, X is too important. you can't waste time on anything else" "so I'll just do nothing?" "yeah, and FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT!"
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libermancer · 9 months
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"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit
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libermancer · 9 months
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I was working with an item today that just utterly flabbergasted a part of me (the other was deeply frustrated with the catalogue record AS SOMEONE APPARENTLY THOUGHT IT WAS PRINTED ON SILK, coming back to that in a minute) … but ANYWAYS … said item is a replica of a medieval manuscript prayer book THAT IS ENTIRELY WOVEN out of grey and black silk … WOVEN … text, images, intricate grey scale, WOVEN … NOT PRINTED …
And it’s flabbergasting because it’s from 1888, Jacquard machine, IT USED PUNCH CARDS to weave these intricate pages … something like 400 weft per near square inch … IT looks like a page of textured paper, but it’s not, it’s entirely SILK … F*CK …
Anyways …
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libermancer · 10 months
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You work in a factory that builds intelligent war machines, built and forced to fight in a constant war. Out of either sympathy or habit, you head-pat every machine after every inspection. A seemingly harmless gesture… until men in suits pulled you from work and interrogated you about it.
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libermancer · 11 months
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Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
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libermancer · 1 year
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This is gonna sound like word-salad to some but I need to get it off my chest:
Businesses absolutely compete for your psychology the same way they compete for your wallet. They don't just do this with ads, but also with search results.
To capture your psychology, they must first capture your attention.
They capture your attention by driving you to their website.
They drive you to their website by writing articles that show up first in search results.
Their articles show up first in search results because they have good SEO.
The articles have good SEO because the business paid marketing firms to optimize them.
The marketing firms optimized them by targeting specific search terms, and perhaps even things like specific browsers, devices, locations, age brackets, political alignments, and genders, for the purpose of reaching a specific demographic.
And that's how we get this:
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First result is Gaia Inc. which peddles conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and magical thinking.
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