synthetic-blanket-hairs - Tumblr blog

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

abandoned space elevator

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

i can't get over how evil it is that "gap in your resume" is considered a valid reason to not hire someone like "hmmm sorry you weren't working constantly every day of your life we need people who do nothing but work until they drop dead for us we just don't think you're right for the job" fuck youuuu

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

Naked and wild are basically the most classic ways to be buck

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

Can you imagine suing Boeing and coming home to find Boeing's faulty plane parts washed up in your backyard?

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

in guarani there's a standard greeting that literally translates to "are you happy" (ndevy'apa) and the natural reply is "i'm happy" (avy'a) and as americans learning the language we were so distressed like "but what if we're not happy....." and our teachers were like "that's so not the fucking point"

we kept trying to think of any other way to reply but our teachers kept trying to get it into our brains that it's an idiomatic greeting, it literally is not the time or place to traumadump, and as usamerican english speakers we are not some special exception for saying "what's up" with the reply being "not much" instead of "the ceiling"

but anyway while i was working in paraguay -- the country with the largest population of guarani speakers -- i got sent an article by some friends back home like "look! they're saying that paraguay is the happiest country in the world!"

and the methodology was "we went around and asked paraguayans if they're happy and recorded their responses" and i was like. oh. of course you did. and of course you got a 100% positive response rate.

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

do you think insight can be gained about an author from the stories they write?

no. authors are like squids and can only be understood through spirited but ultimately futile combat

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

I think people often underestimate the potential educational value of senseless memes. For example, thanks to Spiders Georg, literally every teenager on Tumblr has a reasonable grasp of what a statistical outlier is and the sorts of problems that outliers can introduce into a naïve analysis. There are grown adults who don’t get that - I deal with them on a daily basis.

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

In writing, epithets ("the taller man"/"the blonde"/etc) are inherently dehumanizing, in that they remove a character's name and identity, and instead focus on this other quality.

Which can be an extremely effective device within narration!

They can work very well for characters whose names the narrator doesn't know yet (especially to differentiate between two or more). How specific the epithet is can signal to the reader how important the character is going to be later on, and whether they should dedicate bandwidth to remembering them for later ("the bearded man" is much less likely to show up again than "the man with the angel tattoo")

They can indicate when characters stop being as an individual and instead embody their Role, like a detective choosing to think of their lover simply as The Thief when arresting them, or a royal character being referred to as The Queen when she's acting on behalf of the state

They can reveal the narrator's biases by repeatedly drawing attention to a particular quality that singles them out in the narrator's mind

But these only work if the epithet used is how the narrator primarily identifies that character. Which is why it's so jarring to see a lot of common epithets in intimate moments-- because it conveys that the main character is primarily thinking of their lover/best friend/etc in terms of their height or age or hair color.

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

Are you trapped on tumblr right now?

Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Consider this your save point.

Put tumblr down, stand up, stretch, and go do the thing you planned to do. Future you will be incredibly grateful.

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

helpful diagram for anyone who needs it

[synthetic-blanket-hairs]

this dog walked on stage during a biden rally and joe had his campaign team bury and seal the dog underground with bricks. this is SO fucked up, are some of you really voting for this ‘nice guy’?