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catierambles · 5 months

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Alternate Instincts Ch.5

Pairing: The Rogue’s Gallery (Geralt, Syverson, Mike, August Walker, Walter Marshall) x Stephanie Daniels (OFC)

WC 787 (sorry for shortness)

Warnings: Uhhhhh *vague I dunno sounds*

The house was quiet and dark, everyone having gone to bed. Stephanie was laying on the couch, politely declining the offers the others made for her to take their bed while they slept on the floor. Jordan wasn’t going to kick the door down of a cabin filled with Alpha wolves (and one Beta, as Mike had let her know), so she was good where she was. She looked up from her phone briefly as a figure moved past the couch into the kitchen. She heard the fridge open then close and they came back through, stopping behind the couch.

“What?” She asked, looking up briefly again at August standing there, a bottle of water in his hand. “Being kinda creepy right now, my guy.”

“You need to leave.”

“Tried that.” She said, resuming her doomscrolling. “Sy is kind of adamant that I not leave, as I’m his, Geralt’s, and apparently Mike’s Mate. They would rather I not die a horrible death, and I’m not too keen on the idea either, actually.”

“All three of them?”

“That’s what they told me.” She said and there was a pause.

“Sure got them pussy whipped, don’t you.” He said and she looked up at him slowly.

“Fuckin’ pardon?” She asked, “I actually haven’t had sex with any of them. So, you know--” She flipped him off with her free hand. “Fuck you.”

“Classy.”

“I’m just matching your energy, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Asshole.” She said and while he didn’t say anything, he didn’t leave either, and the weight of his eyes was starting to make the skin between her shoulders itch. Hauling herself off the couch, she put her phone in the pocket of the flannel sleep pants Mike loaned her. Sy and Walter had gotten her things from the campsite, Jordan’s were already gone, but it was colder than had been forecasted so the shorts she had packed weren’t going to cut it.

“Where are you going?”

“You care now?” She asked, and went to the front door, flipping back the locks and heading outside. The night air was cool, filling her lungs as she breathed in deep. She needed to call her boss, let her know what was going on. Heather was a wolf, too, and it made sense now why Jordan always avoided meeting her. She probably would have known right away that he was a Feral and contacted the Pack Council.

A deep growling filtered through the night air and she looked over, seeing the massive black wolf walk slowly out of the shadows from the back of the house. Glacial blue eyes glowed at her through the darkness, lips curling back away from sharp canines.

Don’t move. Don’t run. Run and you’re prey. Keep looking at them, maintain eye contact.

It kept advancing on her and she wanted to look around for a stick, or something, but that would require her looking away. It stopped in front of her, ears pinned back, still growling. A self-superior look passed through those eyes. Wait.

“No.” She said, holding his nose and the growling stopped, ears perking up in surprise. “Really? This is how you try to throw your dick around? Fuck off.” She pushed his muzzle away and he pressed in closer to her, sniffing around her, making her lean back a little. “August…” He shifted back, the sight of his limbs contorting and body reforming making her stomach turn a little. “And you’re naked.” The plain, somewhat boring, shirts he wore hid how absolutely massive he was in musculature, his shoulders broad, his chest and stomach that was covered in a layer of dark hair defined but not overly so, making him look strong, not dehydrated. Only Geralt was bigger, and not by much. She didn’t let her eyes go any further south than his belly button before she turned them back up at him, the look in his eyes making her swallow heavily.

“Motherfucker.” He hauled her against him and almost off her feet with an arm around her waist, weaving his fingers in her hair, his lips crashing down on hers hard. The cut on her lip from earlier reopened making her wince, but he didn’t seem to notice. His mustache rasped over her upper lip, the force of his kiss making her toes curl and she found herself responding to him as the image of his wolf flashed over her mind, the phantom feeling of fur sliding over her skin making her shiver. “Goddamnit.” He growled as he broke the kiss. “You’re not leaving.”

“But you--”

“You’re not going anywhere until that Feral is in the ground.”

“August,” Stephanie said, her hands curling around his biceps. “Am I--”

“You’re my fucking Mate.”

#henry cavill #captain syverson #walter marshall #august walker #hellraiser mike #geralt of rivia #alternate instincts

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bettsfic · 9 months

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Hi betts! Hope you're doing good! Do you have any advice on how to distance yourself from social media? I saw that you've done so with success and the older I get the more I feel a bit trapped by the internet.

social media certainly has benefits: keeping people connected, giving a voice to those who otherwise wouldn't have a platform, and it allows you to meet new people in the context of interest rather than location.

at least, these are the things social media set out to be, and over time those benefits, to me anyway, haven't been able to outweigh the drawbacks: compulsively checking apps, doomscrolling, content appearing by algorithm to attempt to cater to my interests, and just generally a lot of wasted time.

i don't necessarily believe that if you stop using social media, suddenly you'll be able to devote every minute of your day to a higher pursuit. the brain doesn't work like that. it always needs downtime. before phones, we had television. before television, we had radio. lacking glowing screens and people telling us things from far away, i think we'd all spend a lot of time looking at the things humans are built to look at: fire, water, mountains, sky. we'll listen to stories or read them or watch them.

during your mind's downtime, i don't think anything you decide to do is fundamentally better or worse than any other thing. but i do think social media is designed to manipulate our attention toward it during that downtime (and honestly, all other times) and that pisses me off. it also pisses me off that even though we impose cause-and-effect sequences to our interaction with social media, it doesn't often provide us with a narrative the way reading, watching tv, or listening to a podcast would. stories are a psychological necessity; without the mind's ability to perceive sequences of events and connect them, we wouldn't have memories. we would have no concept of time, of thinking into the past or casting our thoughts into the future. social media, in its drive to keep us scrolling, looking at posts with no narrative connection to one another, deprives us of the stories our minds seek during our downtime.

this got super long so i'm putting it under a cut. tl;dr you need to remove social media as a positive stimulus and build immediate positive stimuli into other aspects of your life. in other words, social media feels good immediately but neutral or bad over time; most other things like reading feel bad or neutral initially but good over time. so you have to find ways to make the latter feel good with the immediacy of the former.

i don't mean to be "old man shakes fist at cloud" about this. i'm a millennial. from facebook's widespread release through the beginning of the pandemic, i raced to every new social media platform. i was an early myspace adopter. my high school graduating class was the very first year people outside of college could use facebook, and so we're the first cohort to have all befriended each other before graduation and never lost touch, completely removing the appeal of a reunion. i joined twitter in 2008 but never used it, and i joined tumblr in 2012 and never stopped using it.

i remember the day i got a smartphone. i was a few years behind everyone else. it was 2010 and i'd just gotten my first office job and i was desperate to be able to look at social media, scroll through stuff or read something, when i was bored. it was an iPhone 4. and as soon as i got it out of the box, i sat and played on it for 10 straight hours.

for those of you who are too young to remember a time before smartphones, i can't emphasize enough how much they changed things. in my life, i went from waking up and eating breakfast and reading for a little bit, to waking up and eating breakfast and getting on my computer to look at facebook and read my daily webcomics, to waking up and reaching over to my nightstand and looking at my phone.

and i don't know, i just decided i didn't want that anymore. last fall i was at this artist residency with no cell service and barely any wifi. and one day the wifi went out. i had a visceral negative reaction to that, which made me step back and go, oh wow, i am way too tethered to the internet. that day, wandering around the property with nothing to do, i got this intense urge to read an old paperback novel. you know, the mass market paperbacks with the pulpy yellow paper and the misaligned typeface. and so i found a very old copy of fellowship of the ring, cracked it open, and read it all day.

the thing about getting away from social media is that it's slow. i don't think you can really go cold turkey. when i got home from the residency, i went on a long hiatus and had all these strict rules for myself about when i was allowed to look at my phone and when i wasn't, but that didn't really work for me. but i did delete all the social media apps from my phone, and on my computer i logged out of all of them and deleted my saved passwords, so if i wanted to check them, i had to go to that extra step of logging in and even typing in my password. and that doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're checking social media out of habit, muscle memory, something to attend to that might give you a brief blip of dopamine, having to type your password is just one step too far. the brief pleasure i would get from checking my notifications was less than the hassle of logging in.

and that's what it all comes down to: feeling good. in the moment, it feels good to check a social media app, to see that somebody has interacted with your content or maybe with you directly. it's that tiny subconscious exclamation point, the feeling we get when somebody politely smiles or waves at us, when a dog comes up to us wagging his tail, when a well-meaning stranger compliments your outfit. that's the social part of social media. but that's also the part that keeps us cycling through our apps out of habit and boredom.

so you have to take away that stimulus from yourself, and you have to create positive stimuli elsewhere. to take away the positive stimulus of social media, you have to stop posting content on it. content is the mind killer. when you tweet something, your impulse might be to check that someone has interacted with it. but if you step away from the great conversation of social media, nobody speaks back to you, and you develop more patience for the longer-term good feelings of reading a book.

of course, that's complicated. i guess the first step that i did a long time ago was losing interest in traffic and developing the internal validation skills that make interaction on social media a bonus, not a need. before that, though, i had a drive to be seen and listened to. i think i just grew out of that. regardless of the existence of the internet, all people throughout history have spent their lives developing their relationship with themselves, learning who they are and coming to accept it. i'm not sure there's a way to rush that inner journey along.

creating positive stimuli is a matter of adopting a kind of little-treat attitude toward things. you have to really pay attention to yourself. the day i picked up the fellowship of the ring, i remembered that paper is important to me. vitally important. i like to write on it. i like to read from it. and it's kind of weird to say "paper is my special interest," but it is. all tools of writing interest me. so acknowledging that, accepting it and choosing to accommodate it, was my first small goal of building immediate positive stimuli.

some of the connection we have to social media (and phones in general) is the physical habit that develops from it. when smokers quit smoking, their hands feel empty. they're used to having something between their fingers, and so they replace that with something like a pen or a straw.

for me, i replaced the physical habit of phone-checking with paper-holding, either in the form of a book, or a notebook and pen. i set about finding my perfect notebook: the one that feels best to hold, the one i'm eager to fill, the one whose paper is quality enough that i love to write on it. the one i found and that kind of changed my life was a Rhodia A4 spiral bound. i take it everywhere with me. in fact i went to the doctor earlier this week and because i was holding my notebook, it didn't even occur to me to look at my phone while i was waiting for the doctor to see me, even though it was in my pocket (and i did download tumblr again, and instagram to support my sister, who is kind of a local influencer). the positive stimulus of looking at it had become less than the positive stimulus of holding my notebook. the potential to easily write something or doodle felt better than the distraction of social media.

did my doctor probably think it was weird that i was taking notes? maybe. did i look weird sitting in the theater before seeing oppenheimer, brainstorming barbie fic ideas? definitely. but i just don't care anymore. sometimes making healthy choices for yourself in a world built to manipulate your attention makes you look weird.

my advice is to spend a week without social media apps on your phone, logged out of them on your computer, and pay very close attention to the things that make you happiest. find ways to interact with those things continuously, and see what happens.

#writing advice #reading advice #social media

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raccoonfallsharder · 5 months

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I’m really excited for your “drink some goddamn water” chapter because water has all of the sudden become too boring for me to drink. I’ve been drinking everything except water because it just isn’t stimulating enough. My anti-depressants sure are anti-ing my depression, but it makes my adhd way worse.

✩࿐࿔ drink some goddamn water [new 12/10]

smut-free| no use of y/n | gn reader | drabbles | word count: 1,209.

✩࿐࿔ take what you need.

࿔ eat somethin. at least grab a frickin’ snack. (wc: 576) ࿔ go to frickin bed already. (wc: 737) ࿔ get outta bed & get your shit done. & stop doomscrolling (wc: 925) ࿔ take a damn bath. (wc: 1,375) ࿔ leave your frickin skin alone. (wc: 1,579) ࿔ take a fuckin study break. (wc: 1,020) ࿔ drink some goddamn water. (wc: 1,209) ࿔ stop destroying your frickin clothes. [est 12/19] ࿔ just buy the damn thing already. ࿔ did you take your meds today?

how much water you should drink depends on your body mass, activity level, and the amount of hydration you get through other foods and beverages - but you almost certainly need more than you're drinking. this is your sign to go hydrate, babe.

this is about as wholesome as it gets (for me) i think. can be read platonically or romantically. mcu-based, meant to take place post-volume 3, but headcanon however you want ♡

“You all right, kid?” Goddammit. The Captain’s caught you squeezing the spot between your brows, eyelids crushed closed and forehead creased. “I’m fine, thanks,” you say quickly, with a pale attempt at a nonchalant smile. His nose twitches and he eyes you consideringly, leaning against the wall. “Busy day?” It has been. Trying to balance maintaining some semblance of a life you can go back to on Terra – just in case – with your admittedly-far-more-enjoyable Knowhere responsibilities always feels like the equivalent of at least two full-time-jobs. Plus, regular life-stuff doesn’t stop either. There’s still laundry to do and an apartment to keep clean. “So busy,” you deadpan. Rocket is being awfully empathetic right now – which usually means he has an agenda. “Did you need something?” He raises a brow. “What, I can’t just check in on my favorite local Terran?” You snort. “It’s a well-documented fact that I am currently the only local Terran, dude.” He shrugs. “All the more reason to check in. You’re practic’ly frickin’ endangered out here.” “Well, thanks for your care and concern,” you say dryly. “I’m fine.” “Really?” His second brow joins the first and his tail flicks – annoyed, or entertained. You can’t tell for sure. “‘Cause you look like you got a headache.” You sigh and flick off your datapad, then slide away from the empty bar. “I just need to get some more caffeine,” you tell him tiredly. “Uh-uh,” he says cynically. “I don’t think so. Sit down. I’ll make you a drink.”

read more on ao3

if you find any of these at all helpful, they're meant for you.

feel free to ✩ request reminders ✩ via reblogs, asks, and tumblr or ao3 comments if they would be helpful for you. it may take me a hot minute to get to them depending on life n stuff, but i will do my best

if you’d like to join my fanfiction taglist, please comment or send me a message or ask! ♡

@suicidalshitstick ✩ @glow-autumz ✩ @evolvingchaoswitch ✩ @wren-phoenix ✩ @pretty-chips (total word count: 7,412)

#thanks nonnie!#this one was actually really hard to write #stay hydrated #drink some fucking water #rocket raccoon fluff #rocket raccoon fanfiction #take what you need #rfh fanfic #rfh fluff #self care reminder #self care tips #gotg fanfiction #gotg fanfic #guardians of the galaxy fanfiction #rocket raccoon

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maxilsmaster · 5 months

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MY AMAZING DIGITAL HEADCANONS

(under cut so people doomscrolling don’t see an unwanted million foot long text wall)

Pomni’s real life name was Martha, Kinger’s was Arthur, and Queenie’s was Elizabeth

Kinger and Queenie are Pomni’s parents

Pomni is transfem

Jax is transmasc

Queenie was everyone’s mom figure in the circus before she abstracted, including Jax’s

Gangle has written fanfiction about everyone’s backstories

Zooble was an unrealized trans person before he wound up in the circus

Kinger has been in the circus for 10 years, Ragatha 7, Jax 5, Gangle 2, Zooble 6 months, and Pomni… well, just arrived

Jax was the youngest of four siblings, and prays for the day when someone younger than him enters the circus (his hopes got crushed by Zooble being half a year older than him)

Zooble has figured out how to get weed in the circus (Bubble is her supplier)

Jax liked Kaufmo’s humor

Jax can take off the purple part of his head, and he uses this to fuck with people

Caine doesn’t like it when people abstract because he develops his own form of emotional attachments

Kinger is Caine’s favorite and Caine regularly supplies him with insects

Kinger can command his bugs as if they were an army

Queenie abstracted between the arrivals of Jax and Gangle

Ragatha, Kinger, and Jax all regularly visit Queenie’s room

Bubble is intentionally chaotic, while Caine is unintentionally chaotic

Gangle’s favorite Pokémon is Sylveon

Everyone in the circus needs therapy for reasons other than being in the circus, especially Jax, Pomni, and Kinger

Yes, Bubble and Caine also need therapy

Jax used to write things down in a diary he got from Queenie, but he ran out of space in it, so he got Caine to give him another one, and he’s currently on his third because he doesn’t write every day

Jax actually writes a lot of things down, partly to remember things so he can fuck with people, partly as a coping mechanism

Every human in the circus writes things down to some extent

Jax’s real world mom was a piece of shit

Gangle is pansexual

Zooble is bisexual

Kinger is bisexual

Jax is asexual and aromantic

Pomni is bisexual

Ragatha is lesbian and biromantic

Caine is hella gay (hey, if Moon can have feelings for him, he can have feelings for men)

Moon is the only straight character

Kinger is autistic

Pomni is also autistic (with an anxiety disorder)

Queenie, I’m not sure about

Jax has ADHD

Jax is the one who wrote the theme song for the circus

Gangle has figured out a way to watch anime in the circus (definitely not legally), and Zooble joins her if they’re feeling bored

Ragatha was a model IRL (please don’t ask me why I headcanon this, I don’t know either)

I’d say more of my Jax headcanons, but they’re pretty dark, so I might put them in a fanfic instead. May or may not post that fanfic I may or may not write. No promises.

#tadc #headcanon #headcanons #tadc headcanons #tadc headcanon #the amazing digital circus

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mulderscully · 1 year

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ngl sometimes at this point in my life i have crisises about being too old for fandom maybe, but i also understand that this is an intergral part of who i am. if i were a man and were into a sport this wouldn't even occur to me, i'm sure. but here i am at my late 20s thinking i'm too OLD to ENJOY things? it's such a weird war to have with yourself!!!!

i also just think, if i didn't have fandom my life would just be work, grocery shopping, seeing friends every few weeks and doomscrolling? i honestly cannot imagine that life!!! sure today was boring and i still have errands to run after work but i've got my blorbos with me.

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kazutakas-pinch · 3 months

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Sleeping Habits

Yuiji

Yuiji regularly deals with insomnia. If he can't fall asleep, he'll go bug Azuki until he's bored or go on walks in the dead night. It worried his mom when he started doing that as a middle schooler, but she's been ignoring the door creaking open and close at 2am once he graduated to high school.

Yamato

Entirely depends on his day. Normally, he falls asleep pretty easily and he likes to stick to a regular sleeping schedule even when he doesn't have school because he's naturally so bad at waking up. However, any embarrassing or anxiety-ridden incident will keep him up as the memory runs again and again in his mind.

Hongou

Hongou knocks out immediately. He'll promise to videocall Mayu, but he'll get too comfy on the couch and accidentally ghost her. He'll lay down on his bed to take a nap and fall asleep with his phone on his face. He's the type of person to wake up with the sun though and doesn't need to use an alarm clock.

Nacchan

Nacchan has a really bad sense of time. She'll tell herself that she's going to sleep at a certain time but will inevitably get distracted by something like a capybara hot springs compilation video or get carried away with crocheting a daisy coaster and have to scramble to brush her teeth and sleep an hour after she was supposed to. Like Yamato, she's also naturally bad waking up, but she has five alarms set to wake herself up. Her brother is a light sleeper and hates them.

Seki

Seki usually has a pretty set sleeping schedule and just wakes up with a ring of an alarm on his phone. However, occasionally, he gets really invested in a new video game, and his sleeping schedule will get absolutely demolished. His hyperfixation usually only crests for about a week though before he returns to normalcy.

Mayu

Mayu has a Type A pre-sleep routine. She has all her steps of skincare to go through and doesn't let herself surf on her phone right before she sleeps. If she ever sleeps through her alarm or goes to sleep accidentally later than she intended, she'll be a bit grumpy for the rest of the day. She definitely relies on caffeine to get through these days.

Sakura

What is a sleep schedule? Sakura sleeps when he wants and wakes when he wants. He begrudgingly sets an alarm on school days, but other than that, does not abide by any regular schedule. If he's in the middle of a riveting drama, he will sleep when the birds are chirping and wake up at 4pm with no remorse. He hates taking naps though; they give him headaches.

Akiyama

Akiyama is a doomscroller. Social media algorithms have him on lock and he just can't escape scrolling through instagram reels of impressive skateboard tricks, thirst traps, and cute dogs. Miyano had to force him to delete TikTok when it was first released because Akiyama just couldn't escape. Other than staring at a blue screen for a little too much before he sleeps though, Akiyama's got a pretty standard sleep schedule. He'll wake up and sleep regularly for school and wakes up a bit later on his weekends.

#kazu content #headcanons #yuiji #yamato #hongou #nacchan #seki #mayu #sakura #akiyama #sleep #sleeping habits #HI gosh ive been absent from here for awhile #ive been deteriorating from the koi wait #but also work and life have been pretty jampacked lately #preparing for uhhhh three different projects at work rn #BUT hope yall are doing okay #with everything going on rn #hang in there

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l3rking · 3 months

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I deleted 90% of my social media. The only things left are Tumblr, YT, and a couple of Discord servers with IRL friends.

I just got so fed up with the doomscrolling, egregious misinformation, grifting, and constant advertisement.

Trying to read whenever I find myself bored and reaching for my phone. Also going to pursue my hobbies more intensely and try to develop some new skills.

#text post #personal post #srs

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wanderingnork · 11 months

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Things I did while on social media hiatus:

Listened to a 17-hour audiobook on the Cambrian period (Cambrian Ocean World, very dry and a little poorly structured but if you like trilobites, bizarre beasts, and rocks you will have fun)

Watched three new horror movies! Phase IV, a 1974 horror movie about sentient ants, Body Bags, a John Carpenter horror anthology featuring such chaos as Mark Hamill the baseball player and an evil treatment for hair loss, and Final Prayer, a marvelous found footage horror movie that got screwed over by its awful title with an ending that gave me nightmares

Listened to another audiobook, Empire of Ants, immensely readable and a manageable 8 hours long, made me feel deeply passionate about ants

Posted four fics, wrote another as-yet-unposted, worked on original horror fiction

So much offline stuff to include going to a concert, doing volunteer work, hanging with friends in physical space, and having professional development (and when the hell did I become someone who has actual professional development???)

Got another castle in wizard101 and got absolutely roasted by multiple people for it because I said I was done buying more castles after the last one

Reread a couple old and beloved fiction books that I haven’t touched in a while and came to some revelations about why I have so much trouble with fiction these days: I keep trying to read things that are outside of my preferred genre because social media tells me I’m supposed to, and trying to read things that have a style that bores me to tears because a lot of current books are forced by large publishers into styles that fit what’s saleable, not what’s good

Took an unbelievable number of pictures of lichen and moss, my camera roll is packed

Most importantly: Improved my mental health by leaps and bounds because it turns out that tumblr is an absolute NIGHTMARE that encourages doomscrolling even if you’re careful to curate your dash and block tags! Everything above is stuff I’d have done even if I was logged in on tumblr, but hot DAMN did I ever have more fun without social media in the back of my head. I was present in the moment.

I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff on my corkboard and queue up some fun stuff then I’m leaving again because I logged in to reblog things people sent me and IMMEDIATELY got upset by a chain of doom-laden posts. Going to be posting a series of horror movie recs because I do miss ranting about movies online, but I am NOT staying on. It’s absurd how much better I felt without social media—and how much I absolutely did not miss it, except for the desire to share amazing art and yell about good movies.

Highly recommend taking a big break from social media. You can get your news other places. Go discover other places on the internet. Go touch grass. Do something other than doomscroll. It feels good.

#nork rants

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hoursofreading · 6 months

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One evening not long ago, I was doomscrolling on social media, wading through the detritus of our present moment: Videos of terrorists in Israel decapitating a man with a garden hoe. A clip of Donald Trump being cruel and narcissistic. Footage of mobs physically assaulting some lone stranger they disagree with, pummeling him as he lies prone on the ground. These are all products of the rising tide of dehumanization that has swept across the world. The famous dates of our century point to this great unfolding of barbarism—September 11, 2001; January 6, 2021; October 7, 2023. The causes of this rising culture of dehumanization are almost too many to count: tribalism, racism, ideological dogmatism, social media. All this amounts to the steady evisceration of the moral norms that can make our planet a decent place to live—and their gradual substitution with distrust, aggression, and rage. Dehumanization is any way of seeing and acting that covers the human face, that refuses to recognize and respect the full dignity of each person. Then, as I was scrolling, I came upon a short video of an interview that the author James Baldwin gave many decades ago. “There may not be as much humanity in the world as one would like to see, but there is some,” he said. “There is more than one would think.” He spoke with gravity and moral conviction, his eyes boring into the interviewer, who was off-camera. “Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you,” he continued. “What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide for yourself not to be.”

David Brooks

#quote

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lemonous-snake · 11 months

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Somehow the "best stuff first" button got switched on and I assumed tumblr was broken because I kept seeing the same ten posts at the top of my dash. This ain't it y'all. I thought I was in the fucking Twilight Zone and that Twilight Zone was just the same boring-ass posts I had to doomscroll to get to the new content. 0/10

#hellsite #this hellsite is free

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waynesadie · 6 months

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16th November 2023

01:12 - i went down to the study space so i could try and get some work done but i didn't. i hope y'all appreciate my little ziploc bag of grapes that is my snack

02:22 - i got bored so i switched to be sat in a different seat here i could look out of the wondow which was nice but i was tired at this point so it was off to bed. still no assignemnt but i can do it in the morning im sure

12:34 - the assignment took 2 hours, nice and easy, off to do a bit of actual studying now

14:20 - yeah so i had a nap... lunch was out of date reduced section cauliflower cheese which was actully really nice. i have to go to uni for a whole 1 hours today at 4pm so im killing time by doomscrolling on tiktok

21:36 - the lecture was boring and someone was sat in my seat so i had to stave off a meltdown. full on earplugs in, fidget toy in hand, reduced brightness on my screen, awful. i literally did nothing all afternoon and i'm off to make a processed chicken sandwich for dinner

song of the day - still sticking with taylor but going forward to lover for this iconic song that is unfortunately tarnished by a certain someone

#university #study #student #studyblr #study blog #chaotic studyblr #Spotify

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2xplusungood · 9 months

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To me the whole Twitter/X thing is hilarious for many reasons, but the biggest one is like...

Okay, so like, for better or for worse, Twitter, as both a brand and name is incredibly recognizable to the general public. The light blue colorscheme and the bird have cemented themselves as one of the biggest social media sites in existence. Any time social media is brought up in art, media or news, Twitter is there. I would even bet money that more people recognize the blue twitter bird than the Mona Lisa.

Elon is given this on a silver platter and not to be outdone by his own blunder of completely missing the point of verification, or his other one of limiting doomscrolling on the doomscroll app, decides to completely do away with all the work twitter has done building its brand.

So skipping right on past the legal NIGHTMARE it is, calling any brand "X" is the fucking worst idea you could come up with. Its absolutely anathema to advertising. Like look buddy, I get you got away with SpaceX because the first part of that name was SPACE, but the concept of "Brand X" in the world of advertising represents the generic, the boring, the bland, the very thing YOUR BRAND steps ahead and away from.

Elon seriously looked at the movie Food Fight, saw Brand X and said "I gotta do that"

#twitter

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francostrider · 1 year

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Are Players Too Award-Focused?

So, let’s skip the usual preamble and just dive in. What is award-focused? Well, presumably, it is a mercenary attitude in videogaming where a player will not do something unless a tangible award is at the other end. This could be at the end of a quest, or a long arduous set of events that leads to an award. Or it could simply be killing an NPC because they got good stuff, if you are a complete psychopath.

This has come up in MMO circles a number of times. Namely, the “Josh Strife Says” video on MMO Doomscrolling. In this stream, Josh makes the point for level scaling players in MMO, down scaling them, in order for them to participate with lower level friends without outright carrying the whole task. His friend, Callum Upton, states that there is no award or purpose to that. That there is no tangible award, and therefore players won’t do that. He also argues that it has the other effect of making a player’s level “meaningless”. The “award” he argues is being able to one shot any enemy in a given area.

So, to counter point Callum’s argument, the level objectively is not meaningless. To give an example, Guild Wars 2 does level you DOWN to an area in raw stat points and numbers. However, you still carry the abilities and manuevers to you unlocked via leveling up. In Elder Scrolls Online, everyone is basically at the same base power range, but, again, your abilities and tricks and other things you have unlocked makes leveling up meaningful.

Second counter point, bulldozing enemies is, frankly, kind of boring. You have all these abilities for spell interruption, defense debuffs, buffs for yourself, speed and so on. But those become utterly pointless if you’re one shotting enemies. Therefore, you’re “award” is just boring gameplay where nothing challenges you. A good RPG, in my mind, is strategic, requiring you to think, not just plow through.

Side note: I do respect Callum Upton. He is a game designer with experience I likely will never have and he is one of many people doing good work calling out the crypto-bros for their collective bullshit. I recommend his channel wholeheartedly.

But the point I’m trying to illustrate here is the overt focus on some kind of objective award gets in the way of what is supposed to make an MMO fun: Playing with friends in a fantasy world. A friend of mine, once she is done with her dissertation, is planning on getting back into ESO, and I’m excited because it is a game where I already have a character and it does not matter what level she is. I can just do whatever she is doing. Being at max level, with only the Champion Point system giving me anymore buffs, I’m not really looking for a new item anymore. I just want some friends to play with.

And my motivation for going into ESO was never the big weapons or whatever. My goals are thus: 1) Creating a character through look and ability so I can dream up a narrative in my head between him and the main story 2) See the story to its end, 3) Enjoy the combat and some bosses, 4) Do the dungeon raids because they are just good loud fun 5) Check out Tamriel from a time before the “main series”.

Now, I’m NOT saying I’m looking for NO tangible awards. Obviously, I want my equipment to keep up in order to do all those things, but that is a means to an end, not the award I’m shooting for. And little things I would like come up here and there. I wanted my first character, a battlemage take on the Sorcerer class, to have a daedric greatsword. And not just any daedric greatsword: The best I could conjure up. It’s not part of an equipment set, but I cherish that sword because of what it represents: The character’s mastery of sword combat and daedric arts.

Are there better weapons? Probably, if I dig deep enough, there is a more fitting weapon for my build. But the game, for what I’m trying to do, does not require that my numbers are absolute tip top. For me, what is more important, is the look and feel of the character, and part of that is the weapon he uses. For now, I am more interested in how any given story plays out along with the gameplay that comes with it.

But then comes another question: am I still being award focused? After all, I’m expecting SOMETHING on the other end of what I’m doing. I want to play as a hero in a fantasy setting, and I want at least a fitting end to the adventure. I want to see new sites, fun characters and a good note to end a character’s narrative on. I want to see the legendary items and weapons, even if the numbers behind them hold little meaning to me.

I put up with this grind once, redoing dungeons to get the right equipment (the right award) for the Raid Finder during WoW’s Cataclysm expansion. And to be honest, it was the worst part of that whole experience. Dungeons were still fun for the madness that can occur, but it also became infuriating because there were no more sidequests to break them up. Once I GOT to the Raids via the Raid Finder, it was a blast. I threw on my Nightwish playlist and then, during the last Deathwing section, threw on their song “Fantasmic”. There is very little that can top stuffing a giant death dragon into the abyss to symphonic metal. It was such an end, that I knew I could not top it, and so with that, plus my blooming relationship at the time, I decided that was the end of the story. Further experiences in games have veered me away from that game ever since. But my point is that the number crunching award system was a means to see the big ending, not because I needed the Deathwing Axe and it’s accompanying dagger.

(Side note: I lucked out and got both in the same loot role. So not only did I help save the world, I managed to piss off 24 WoW players in the process. It was an objectively complete victory.)

Perhaps it is more a question of what motivates you. If you do not care for number crunching, World of Warcraft is not the game for you. I’ve heard people say that the constant build of numbers is part of the fantasy, and I guess it is not my place to naysay them. I want story completion, character arcs (even if they are just mostly in my head), cool weapons because of what they are and not because of numbers, and nice scenery. Perhaps I am setting/story motivated rather than numbers motivated?

Yet, there is another part of the constant award that does not sit well with me. In short, it is abusive. In length, the constant skinner box design of games abuses award addiction. It encourages the tossing out of relatively new gear for SLIGHTLY newer gear because of a value that the developers just, well, MADE UP. As I have said before, there is literally no mechanical difference between using a level 5 knife in WoW versus a level 30 short sword. The actions will remain the same. The award is not so much a new toy to play with, but a slight variation of the SAME toy. The backstory weapon/armor is meaningless next to its numbers.

The other problem, as illustrated in Folding Idea’s video: Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft. Because everyone is so performance focused with their numbers, the world might as well not be there. The design of WoW is so numbers focused that it became more optimal to have the graphical settings as low as possible to not have any distractions. So art assets that a whole team put a lot of work into basically gets tossed out the window because of how the game was designed. The world might as well be a blank page.

And that is what this kind of number crunch boils things down to: A blank page covered in numbers. Why even have the world at all? This is why the constant focus on “objective number awards” disgusts me. The fantasy is gone, and just numbers. The same numbers at your desk at work. The same numbers a bunch of CEO ghouls want you to keep increasing. Just numbers and numbers and numbers, in order to get higher numbers and numbers and numbers.

Forget the actual lore of Azeroth. Forget the characters and motivations. Forget the music. Forget the artwork. Forget story telling. Everything is just numbers.

But here’s the ultimate kicker: Players are enabling this design. It is a constant cycle of addict and drug dealer mentality. There’s a bit of “chicken-and-egg” here: We are told from birth that having more is better. So games are designed that way, and therefore encourage that behavior. And need I go over how toxic their relationship with other players can get, all for the sake of “optimization”? It is a constant pissing contest over made up value. It is an excuse for this award system to keep going.

For players, I encourage that you step back from the usual number crunch, skinner boxes and whatnot and really ask yourself the following questions:

- Why did I play this game in the first place? - Am I still having fun? - Do I understand the greater context?

This is a conversation we need to have, because I suspect the awards have become poison. Poison to us as players, the worlds we play in and the stories we witness.

#World of Warcraft #mmorpg #elder scrolls online #skinner box #rpg

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jeggsistence · 1 year

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Emi Jones x Ryan Drummond

When the internet simply cares too much..

Zamn, only one post in and shit’s already devolved into a generic article churning out stupid news about celebrities that never had relevance. I'on even care.

Imagine that you’re like me, ‘doomscrolling’ on twitter like every reasonable Zoomer (slang for Gen Z). Terrifying thought, but you’re also mildly interested in Sonic the Hedgehog. As you’re scrolling through, trying to find something to waste your anger on, you encounter this image:

A meme, they call it. It may be passed off as random flubber, but it’s a sign that your Twitter feed will become unbearable for about a week.

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So, who is Emi Jones?

Basically, Emi Jones is a semi-popular voice actress in the Sonic community, mostly known for her audio series, “Sonic and Tails R”, conveniently starring a Ryan Drummond.

Who is Ryan Drummond?

He used to be the voice actor for Sonic during the “Adventure era” of Sonic, which is around 1998-2004. He’s important to the… story.

What happened?

Zamn they need to fucking paywall you from asking rhetorical questions—

Basically, Emi Jones had a private Twitter account, which gave away the fact that she and Ryan were having a private relationship.

(Editor’s note: A bunch of private Twitter accounts)

This came out just 3 days ago, which means it’s already dead news, BUT LET ME HAVE MY MOMENT.

(Editor’s note: Apparently, information on this relationship came out in 2020, and actual evidence surfaced recently.)

I’on even know why I’m saying it like this. I’m too broke for an editor-

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Anyway, this could be considered an example of a celebrity controversy. However, this is the most milquetoast controversy I’ve personally witnessed.

Nothing actually problematic surfaced, such as Justin Roiland being sued for domestic abuse, or most fittingly, Hunnid P, rapper known for the Knuckles tracks in SA2, attempting to extort Emi for money she didn’t have.

It can be boiled down into people complaining about two consenting adults having sex, or people complaining about people complaining about two consenting adults having sex.

Technically speaking, I’m adding fuel to the fire too, except the fuel is already burnt coal and I’m somehow expecting it to undergo nuclear fusion even though that’s not how it works; and the fire is like a candle’s flame.

Poetic. But basically, terminally online people (like me) should find better ways to waste their time. However, at the end of the day, iss funy doe.

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Aight fuck this shit. It’s fucking boring, so I’m gonna list a Top 5 FUNNIEST EL MEHME from that spawned from this. Unlike how my father de-spawned from my household-

NUMBER 5:

This tweet was posted by the woman herself and ZAMN! It definitely gave a TERRIFYING foreshadowing to what would come out in approximately 2 months and 13 days.

However, I must give it a 6.5/10 because I don’t like Sonic Heroes (2003).

NUMBER 4:

This screenshot is of a Youtube video and Got damh there is so much to analyze. Sonic is characterized to be shrugging as his Sonic Adventure 1 (1998) model, representing Ryan Drummond and how he simply could not resist getting into trouble like the rebel he is!!

The second aspect you would notice is the woman on the right drawn to look somewhat seductive (oooh). However, you’ll be bamboozled to find out that that woman has the manliest voice on the planet. I’m talking full on Dwayne the rock, Tyler, the creator type bass. It’s like if a man and a woman had a child!

The “RANK A” is simply the cherry on top of such a delightful meme!

This would be a 10/10 image, however points must be taken off for informalities as some parts of the image are written in It*lian, so it’s a 6.7/12.

NUMBER 3:

HAHAHHAHA LOOK AT THIS IDIOT! THIS FUCKING DUMBASS WAS TRYING TO CORRECT SOMEONE ON WHETHER RYAN CHEATED ON HIS WIFE WITH EMI, BY CLAIMING THEY WERE DIVORCED IN 2019, BEFORE THE NEWS CAME. BUT TURNS OUT THIS AFFAIR WAS FROM 2015 AND THIS IDIOT WAS SHOT DOWN WITH AN UNRECOVERABLE BLOW!!!

Overall, 7.4/10, it has a little something for everyone.

NUMBER 2:

This one is exceptionally dank!! It uses a snippet from the theme song of Sonic Adventure 2: Live and Learn, but the caption has changed the entire context of the lyric, making it sound sexual, as well as a joke making fun of Emi’s skill in bed!!

8/10.

NUMBER 1:

This cannot continue. The pain is immense

WELL THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY, LIKE AND HIT THAT FOLLOW BUTTON SO YOU CAN IGNORE YOUR TAX EMAILS FOR A CUTIE LIKE ME!

Follow. Now.

#sonic the hedgehog #emi jones #ryan drummond #sonic #tumblog #blog post #pure insanity #magazine #meme humor #humor

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