I have thousands of shitposts, rants, and essays sitting in notebooks, left over from decades of not using social media or having many friends. Hold on tight.
166 posts
Latest Posts by idrawtooslow - Page 2
This is not a god-emperor.
This is a god whose name is "Emperor."
Long-dead, he was the last ruler of a once-powerful empire whose cultural influence outlasted it.
Was he deified in his lifetime? We no longer know. But he is deified now.
While his memory lives on, his true name has been lost. At some point, the word "emperor" ceased to have meaning except when referring to him, therefore his name is now Emperor.
Whatever else you want to say about Jill Bearup, she called Kylo Ren a "murderous pouty-faced space numpty," so she can't be all bad.
I've expanded the instructions I gave for apologizing into a detailed listicle. I hope it'll be helpful. Some of the points, however, are very specific to the English language.
1. Don't explain what happened, it will sound like you're justifying your actions. And because of the way our brains work, you're likely to actually start justifying your actions. At that point, you're no longer apologizing. Remind yourself that the apology needs to have priority right now, and that there will be time later to identify causes and solutions.
2. Be specific, or at least use more words than "I'm sorry." "Sorry" is used so often as a polite noise, nearly meaningless, that it's difficult to be sincere, or even sound sincere when using it for a formal apology. Again, this ties into what @theconcealedweapon wrote: we're trained to say "sorry" when we don't mean it, so that becomes the core of the word's meaning, without our even realizing it. And if you're Australian, it gets even worse!
Personally, I use "I apologize" or "My apologies," or in dire circumstances, "Please accept my apology." This allows me to break my conditioning and focus on my genuine contrition, as well as making it clear to others that I'm taking the apology seriously.
3. Apologize for what you did, and absolutely NOT how it made someone feel. The latter is often used for manipulation.
Other things not to apologize for:
that the consequences of your actions happened
what you don't like about the person or group you're apologizing to
being right
being better than the people you're apologizing to
allegedly not having any idea what you're supposed to be apologizing for
...you'd think all this would go without saying, but it can be subtler than you might expect, and sometimes we do it without thinking, because we picked it up as children, from the nastier adults around us.
Instead, take a moment to focus on what you did, and how to describe it clearly in a way that accepts your fault and/or responsibility for the situation. Again, don't bring anything else into the apology, lest you make it seem less of an apology. People are so used to hearing the above crap from unrepentant people, that they will not give you the benefit of the doubt.
4. Watch your tone of voice. This is actually two separate points.
First, yet another thing we unconsciously pick up as children is the obviously sarcastic mock apology. It's not always a bad thing, it can be a joke or a verbal gesture, but you have to make sure you don't let that habit find its way into a genuine apology, and ruin it. This is where the bit about "Say it like you mean it" comes from. The easiest way to say it like you mean it is to mean it. See next paragraph.
Second, if you can't be respectful and express regret, you shouldn't be apologizing just yet. You're not ready. Leave the art of convincingly faking an apology to the con artists and cult leaders. You will probably need to just keep your mouth shut for a while. Acknowledge (to yourself) the possibility that you might change your mind later. In some rare cases, it may be possible to tell people, "I'm not ready to apologize just yet," but don't count on it.
5. (optional) If necessary and you can do it honestly, either characterize what you did, or agree with others' characterization of it, or promise to/ask how to not do it again, or multiple of the above. Say that it was wrong or inappropriate or a failure or whatever. Name people who called you out, say they were right, and repeat what they said about what you're apologizing for. If you promise not to do it again, don't pivot to talking about how great you will be in the future, keep it focused on the apology.
This might be a bit too much for less dire apologies, and you may not be able to manage this if you apologize the minute you can bring yourself to be sincere, but otherwise, you can build yourself some credibility by immediately seeking to improve yourself and make sure that YOU never do whatever-it-was again. It's more for privately apologizing to your direct supervisor, or to a friend.
On the other hand, beware of doing this if you're the authority figure, or are apologizing to a large group, because politicians routinely pivot away from making actual apologies by making big promises for the future. People are wise to this, though, and your whole apology is liable to be dismissed as bullshit if you try to use it for self-promotion.
So many people seem completely unaware of what a genuine apology is.
And that's because children are forced to say sorry on command.
Before they ever had a chance to process what they did, why they did it, what effect it had on others, or what they should have done instead, they're expected to say that they're sorry. And they're expected to "say it like you mean it" with no indication of what that even means and with no time to figure out how to phrase it correctly.
Sometimes, even when the child's actions are justified by any logical reasoning, they're expected to apologize because an authority figure demands it.
The goal of saying sorry ends up being solely to avoid punishment. And they phrase the apology in whatever way the authority figure will accept.
The result is an entire society filled with people who give completely useless apologies that appear like they're only trying to avoid punishment.
YES!*
*no.
rudolph the red nosed reindeer
Overheard last summer in the Downtown Tourist Trap:
(1) "He used, in an hour and a half, a whole can of propane."
(2) (while one of the best-known marimba bands on the West Coast is playing in the park) "There's some odd music over there. Do you wanna come?"
LOCAL: "How did you fake that so convincingly? You can barely even speak the language!"
EXPATRIATE AMERICAN: "I'm American. We learn to fake things before we can even walk."
I think the number one worst piece of traditional advice people give about being bullied is to "stand up to the bully."
This only works if you can make a convincing show of force to the bully, if you can convince them that there will be consequences to further attacks.
If you try to bluff a bully and fail (as is very likely, bullies generally have enough social awareness to pick their targets and to get away with bullying), the bully will punish you. Severely. Standing up to a bully with no credible defense or threat gets you pounded.
Instead, gather allies and confront the bully together. Cultivate authorities and destroy the bully's ability to get away with crimes or prohibited actions. Devise asymmetrical ways of retaliating, using any advantages you might possess. If possible, find ways to make your show of force without making an actual counterattack on the bully. That way you can maintain the moral advantage.
Don't escalate. Keep your responses proportional, even restrained, and your mind focused and calm. If you're more aggressive or harmful than the bully, you've either opened yourself up to being seen as the problem, or given the bully a justification to take even more harmful actions against you. Bullies often try to provoke this exact mistake, by getting their targets angry.
If the bully is a powerful group, which can't safely be confronted or resisted, it may be necessary to suffer some retribution, some punishment, and continue to confront or resist anyway, to send the message that no amount of retribution, however violent, will stop your resistance, or change your behavior.
@whyisthereacentaur No idea what this bumper sticker is there for, but I insist that technically, this qualifies as goatposting.
As a matter of fact...
A well-known fixture of the Arcanokinetics department of the College of Arcana at the University of Celestial Secrets is a stuffed plush rabbit, of the kind colloquially called a "bunny friend," the Haradine cultural equivalent of a Teddy bear.
It sits - or rather, slumps - on a plinth in the middle of the main lecture hall, and is used as a demonstration and practice target for spells. Many, many spells. It is patched and fraying and threadbare and stained, and has a small embroidered College of Arcana emblem sewn to its chest where a Reader would have his badge. All and sundry call it "M'lord Bun," and address it and refer to it as if it were a fiefholding lord and member of the faculty.
M'lord Bun is occasionally repaired or reverted, from his many misadventures, by members of the Temporal department of the College. Only very rarely is he mended in the mundane fashion by skilled service staff.
The Lord Bun legend has grown over the centuries, to the point, in the 5th age, which the various funerals and "retirements" of unrecoverable Lord Buns are important historical landmarks in College lore, and M'lord Bun is now a senior member of the faculty, and officiates over certain ceremonies (notably the Japery in mid-March), and often joins the Deans in their viewing box or at high table for special occasions. A chain of office is nowadays embroidered around M'lord Bun's fluffy neck.
It is not strictly true that the Wizard Brismeister was given a Dire Notice of Censure for beheading Lord Bun in year 197 of the Fourth Age. The stated reason was, in fact, for "failing to maintain the decorum required of his position." Brismeister never again read arcanokinesis, or any other subject, at the University, despite remaining a Senior Reader of Arcana, and he resigned from his post in 201. His eponymized Whirling Blade spell, although adopted immediately at Sloeberries, was not taught at Celestial until 210.
Upon Lord Bun's magical beheading, the students in attendance declared him dead on the spot, and petitioned the Master to appoint a new Lord. That was the origin of the current M'lord Bun, who has greeted the arrival of the so-called Fifth Age with characteristic inscrutability.
Less magic schools. More magic universities. Unlearn the simplified models of your secondary education. Discover how to reference scrolls written by a wizard possessed by a different wizard. Identify bias in the voices that whisper from beyond the veil. Have your institution be accused of promoting a Merlinist agenda. Become addicted to energy potions.
Well, folks, I'm starting to realize that maybe Bartleby the Scrivener might not have been the best role model for me to emulate...
You are NOT fucking living this down, Gaud.
insanity that they trained us to dislike body hair. body hair. that's just fuzz. that is just FUZZINESS!!! humans being fuzzy, it's one of our most adorable traits????
I still have a hard time internalizing that "Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from" is an authentic quote from ANH.
How about hat racing? You can hat race on foot, or with horses or bicycles, or even in convertibles.
Everyone wears the same kind of hat. If your hat blows off or falls off during the race, you're disqualified.
No trying to knock off each other's hats. No adhesives.
Good morning, fellow Americans! Are you enjoying each having a house and two cars? I like to mow my lawn
ADD Tip: You can change the goals on your to-do list!
As your needs and your situation change during the day, don't be afraid to cross out and replace items on your to-do list.
And if you accomplished something that wasn't on your to-do list, write it down and check it off!
This will help you maintain a more realistic idea of your productivity during the day, as well as identify any particular things that may be hindering your productivity or taking up too much of your time.
This is very close to the original concept behind Anguish Languish: words now have to be rationed, just like other war supplies. We have to make do with the words we have plenty of.
OK so my shitpost R&D department was researching the viability of a jocular analogy between national language regulators, war rationing, and soviet bread lines. This isn't a viable product right now so you'll have to just kind of imagine that it's funny, but the idea is, like, people are running out of words because they offshored development and then a war footing devastated international trade, so now there aren't enough words to go around and the government is publishing all these posters encouraging people not to waste them. The government has stepped into nationalize word production and distribution but because all the best words are going to the Posters on the war front, the public has to spend hours in line just to get a random selection of words that they can hardly use. People have to find a way to smuggle in illegal foreign words or rely on unsafe home-brewed vocabulary while repurposing all the new words for munitions and war strategy to talk about groceries and romance. Barter dominates, especially in the provinces, as people try to scrounge together a functional vocabulary to educate their children.
Anyway I'm dropping it because I realized that while this is hard to make into a good joke, it would actually be a fantastic strategy/puzzle game. Someone go make that!
I actually liked the Australian animated version of Transformers better... It really improved the dynamic of the show, that they made the human characters a group of bush mechanics, who, after every fight with the Deceptacons, fixed the Autobots up with duck tape, scrap metal, and "she'll be right!"
From episode 90 of the podcast "Lingthusiasm":
More power to that guy, he is a kindred spirit, but also
why is nobody talking about the little man-box??
Oh, they know exactly what they're doing.
It's often not even the same crab. Can you recognize individual members of a species you've never seen before?
Why is the crab in danger? So you will keep watching. Creating mortal peril for your subjects is SOP for wildlife videography.
There's more awareness now, and you can't be certain that's what you're looking at nowadays, thank goodness, but there's still a lot of that. Because the networks pay for it.
Mainstream television has this weird superstition that everything has to follow one of a few specific plotlines very closely, or nobody will watch it.
That said, I miss the old school nature documentaries sometimes, because either they prioritized information over their narrative (Nature With George Page), or they went full send with an actually good narrative (Wild America).
You drew that whole thing in only 1.5 hours?
1.5 hours of pain in Rennes, France
Yesterday I deleted most of the reblogs in my queue. I need to either commit to this being a shitpost blog or GTFO. If I can't leave a compliment or comment on something, it's just not getting one. Anyone who cares can browse my likes.
Official Bulletin
It has come to our attention that people are using Government Resources to function as a community. This is an inappropriate use of Government Resources, and must stop immediately.
Any persons deemed to have been using Government Resources to function as a community will be re-educated immediately, and transferred to the Arctic Settlements.
Government Resources are ONLY to be used to submit to, and interact with, the Government. Any use of Government Resources for "social" purposes constitutes Radicalized activity.
if house md were running in 2024 there would be an episode with a patient who identifies as an ‘online content creator’ (cagily) where house agrees to take the case primarily because when he offhandedly refers to her as an onlyfans model both cameron and cuddy get really offended and say it’s a sexist assumption so he doubles down and becomes committed to finding the patient’s onlyfans and proving it. at some point it would be revealed that chase actually is an onlyfans model and started doing it as a stopgap after his dad died and he suddenly got disinherited but he makes so much money off it that now medicine is basically just a hobby. cameron and foreman both disagree with the concept online sex work but it turns out they disagree for different reasons (cameron thinks it’s exploitative and not-feminist, foreman finds it distasteful and thinks people should get ‘real jobs’) and spend most of their scenes together arguing about this while chase gets continually more shifty. they break into the patient’s house and there’s a full ringlight and camera setup which seems to confirm house’s suspicions. while trying to find the patient’s onlyfans house accidentally finds chase’s onlyfans instead and considers publicly embarrassing him about it like he did with wilson’s sex tape but soon realises that most of the staff at the hospital are already subscribed to chase’s onlyfans so makes fun of him for that instead. it then transpires that the reason why the patient is so cagey about being a content creator is that she’s an ASMR artist and all the soap she’s been shaving on camera has irritated her lungs. cuddy is about to make house give her 20 extra hours of clinic duty as recompense but at last minute it’s revealed that the website the patient uses for some of her bonus commissions is, drumroll…onlyfans, because she’s been banned from patreon. how does house know this? wilson is subscribed to her because the soap videos sometimes soothe him to sleep. something by cigarettes after sex plays. roll end credits.
TFW you forget how to Tumblr and just post everything immmediately instead of saving drafts and queuing
What does the asker think "propaganda" means? That's the least weird explanation for this, is that they've never actually learned what propaganda means, but their childhood guess, that it means something like "antisemitism" or "Communism" or "dictatorship" slots in to what they hear people saying close enough that they never realize they're misunderstanding everything.
If the asker doesn't engage with politics or history or social justice much, there wouldn't even be much chance of anyone noticing, until they get confused enough to send this ask.
how are you people alive.
I know I'm not the first to Uno-Reverse the whole humans-summoning-demons thing, but what kind of mundane tasks might an otherworldly being need a summoned human to do? What kind of "powers" might a demon gain from a pact with a human? And what might the human demand in return?
Is spitting on one's hand, then shaking hands, the "humonic binding ritual"?
What happens when a demon calls down that which they cannot send back up?
A. Shipwright on Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/ashpwright
DoodLetMeGO on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ashipwright
On an August afternoon, Pablo stared down at a foam plate sloshing with flavorless pinto beans and a particularly bad version of huevos a la Mexicana. The simple, usually delicious scramble of eggs, tomatoes, onions and jalapeños is difficult to mess up. But if anyone can find a way to make it unpalatable, it’s the cook at his labor camp. Soupy eggs are the last thing the 42-year-old from western Mexico wants to eat. But after a 12-hour day harvesting tobacco in the brutal and sometimes deadly summer heat, he must eat – and this was far from the worst meal he’s been given. A few weeks ago, fellow farm workers got sick due to raw and moldy food they were forced to purchase. On days like this, Pablo can’t decide which is worse: that he’s forced to pay $80 a week for this slop, or that everything about what he eats, when he eats and how much he eats is tightly controlled by his employer. Pablo, who is using a pseudonym due to fear of retaliation, is one of more than 35,000 migrant workers in North Carolina this year as part of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker Program, a guest visa program overseen by the US Department of Labor (DoL). The program enables American employers to hire foreign workers to perform seasonal agricultural work. Employers in the program frequently exploit their migrant employees, and the structure of the program makes easy work of it. Visas are tied to a single employer who must also provide housing, transportation and access to food, creating a crushing power imbalance between American employers and migrant H-2A workers.