I try to pet every dog I see

Hi, I'm An Tho and this is an account where I post my art! / The Arcana and a lot of anime / All are welcome!/ Request & Commission: open/ Talk to me pls

[an-tho]

i wish we care about putting in care and passion in your work, about craftsmanship and about humans again

[justsomeguycore]

ya being kafkaesque isn’t about turning into a bug it’s about how if you turned into a bug your boss would still be like “ok but we’re short staffed can u still come in”

[rosemarythunder]

while i understand that this is meant to be a joke about hellish capitalism, again, we cannot erase an important dimension to his work: franz kafka was a jew. he and his families were jews during a time period where traditional, religiously-based jew hatred was being replaced with a new pseudoscientific belief that jews were to be hated and oppressed because they were a subhuman race. this transition to race-based hatred of jews meant that even assimilated jews- who considered themselves citizens of states before they were ever jews- were now being irrationally targeted and hunted.

the term “anti-Semitism” was created specifically to name this new racial hatred of Jews. it was coined in 1879- 4 years before Kafka was born. 

in “the metamorphosis”, Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". in kafka’s real world, jews woke up one morning, in their country that they were told was now enlightened and accepting of all people, and found out that they were now considered “monstrous vermin”. and then 6 million jews of his generation were exterminated. 

i am giving the simplest analysis to this right now, but we need to understand that you cannot just blanketly universalize his work. you cannot remove the context of kafka’s jewishness or that he lived at a time when antisemitism became fervently racial. yes, discuss how his work comments on capitalism, society, etc. but to only use ONLY these lenses and to ONLY universalize his work is dishonest, whitewashes his work and life, and further exhibits how little non-jews know or care about the jewish history and how antisemitism has impacted jews for over 2000 years.

[mockiatoh]

I’m going a step further and saying Kafka’s work—including the metamorphosis—is impossible to really interact with on any but the most surface level without an understanding of Kafka’s identity as a Jew and the social setting that placed him in.

If you didn’t know Kafka was Jewish, you did not study The Metamorphosis, you just read it. The amount of people saying they covered it in class and had no idea Kafka was Jewish… your teacher dropped the ball

[athingofvikings]

Literally the only reason Franz Kafka existed was because his Jewish ancestor was allowed to have a family.

In short, between 1745 and 1859 in the Kingdom of Bohemia (what is now the Czech Republic), there was a law that limited the number of Jewish families. A census taken in 1787 showed that there were 8,541 Jewish families in Bohemia; preferring round numbers, the government increased the limit to 8,600. And for close to a hundred years, that was the limit. If a Jewish man wanted to get married and get a marriage license, he had to emigrate from the country. Otherwise, they had to wait until an existing Jewish father died. Usually, this meant that a son inherited the spot from his father (and wouldn't that cast a fun pall on a wedding, knowing that you can only have it because your father is dead?), but when a married Jewish man died without a son, the spot went up for someone to acquire.

But to apply for the spot, you needed to pay three years taxes, prove that you possessed at least 300 florians, had a school education, pass some exams, and be at least 24 years old.

Franz Kafka's grandfather passed those requirements.

If not for the fact that he did, and that another Jewish man had died without leaving a son behind, there would be no Franz Kafka.

[changelingchilde9]

Well that's fucked up.

[rosalesbeausderholle]

One thing that worries me about the use of AI is whether or not it can worsen people's dementia and alzheimer's in the future. When my grandmother was first diagnosed, we got her math activity books. Now, my grandmother never had a formal education, but we did our best to keep her sharp, get her to do math and writing activity books, sudokus, playing board games that required some level of strategizing with her. Her family is prone to alzheimer's and dementia (both her siblings had it and deteriorated very very very quickly, which yeah, scares the shit out of me being her granddaughter) but she was the one whose mind lasted the longest, she only passed away two years ago, at 88, ten whole years after her initial diagnosis and sure, she had forgotten things, recipes and where she put her glasses and appointments, but she never forgot any of us, ten whole years in, she still remembered us. Now, this may have been luck, but doctors always said the constant mental work + companionship + medicine helped her a lot. So I'm thinking, these people who are now relying on AI for everything, from email-writing to thinking what's for dinner to casual conversations, I've even seen people rely on it to calculate what time they should leave their house if they need to be at a place at a specific time and their commute lasts X number of minutes. As if that's not... the simplest math operation possible? You shouldn't even need a calculator for that!!! Idk I don't know how long it'll take us to see the effects of this + exposure to brain-rotting short form content that is completely meaningless + people addicted to right-wing conspiracy style media. Idk I'm very worried. Please, read, read complicated books! Take up a book on philosophy and try to decipher it and make your own opinions on it, please buy a maths activity book and relearn how to do math, please get a hobby that involves lots of thinking and concentrating. PLEASE!!!

[notalotgoingonatthisinstant]

As a neurologist, I’ll give you the pretty name for it: cognitive reserve.

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

TLDR: Yes. From the knowledge we have today, AI will increase the number and severity of dementia cases.

[steelycunt]

is there anything more humiliating than filling in the 'preferred salary' bit of a job application. grubby victorian workhouse child cap in hand oh guvnah ill work for anyfink! oh if youd be so kind, just a tuppence for me troubles sir, honest only a tuppence!

[twobeesornottwobees]

printers behave like that because the medieval monks they put out of work are haunting them

[thestuffedalligator]

Night Watch is a masterpiece and Hogfather will always be a personal favourite, but to me, to me, Going Postal will always be as close to perfect as a Discworld book can be. It introduces a new protagonist who immediately knocks it out of the park and establishes himself as one of the most iconic and fantastic Discworld protagonists in a pantheon of heavy hitters. He's a weasel. He's touched by divinity. He keeps getting himself into trouble because he has an unshakeable need to escalate. He's killed 2.338 people. He's apparently very attracted to women who smoke.

He's paired off against the perfect villain, his equal and opposite who has learned to cheat and swindle and con behind the language of corporate speak, "we hope and trust that our valued and loyal customers will bear with us over the coming months as we interact synergistically with changed management and our striving for excellence." It's a story about the capital-fuelled enshittification of a technology that can be good and improve the lives of thousands and how monopolies will literally strangle innovation.

It's a story about delivering a message from the dead.

[thestuffedalligator]

His name is Moist. I just realized that I spent this whole post without mentioning that his name is Moist and it’s important to me that you know this if you don’t

[iamyounicorn]

[guy whose bedtime is approaching fast] I need to write one billion words right now. and draw everything that has ever existed.

[rabbitscreams]

we need to invent a way to explain how deep running and pervasive and subliminal racism and antiblackness is without immediately sounding like an insane conspiracy theorist

[rabbitscreams]

female characters are always lighter than male characters. strong characters are almost always dark. aggressive characters are almost always dark. peaceful and intelligent characters are almost always light. even amongst darker characters the lightest one is usually either the leader or the girls. dark is evil and light is good.

[rabbitscreams]

if you try to explain this to a white person they look at you like youre insane

[gay-milton-quotes]

briefly pursuing a career in animation radicalized me on this. So many stories from the industry about how you have to start with your character design as dark as possible, because INEVITABLY you'll get "notes" from higher-ups asking you to make them lighter.

In a class about making a pitch bible my teacher once role-played as a shitty executive with a classmate, pressing them in intentionally abrasive ways about why they made their characters diverse. He emphasized that we had to learn to defend these things, because the racism in the industry is extremely deliberate.

[vforvalensa]

Ronald Wimberly's comic essay, Lighten Up, stays evergreen

[rongzhi]

English added by me :)

[laboradorescence]

[jelloapocalypse]

This is what the vertical video format was invented for

[sphyrne]

she

[kactusnz]

#oh SO true#discworld#you've nailed it op that's it exactly#she is a prophet of retribution set aglow from within by the fury of her righteousness#and he's in the dictionary next to the word 'scrungly'

[maryellencarter]

this captures their kermit and miss piggy energy better than anything else i've ever seen

[autumngracy]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

Muppets Discworld would go so fucking hard

[ltwilliammowett]

This video depicts a moment that is nearly impossible to observe: a sperm whale surfacing with a giant squid clenched between its teeth. These predators hunt at depths exceeding 800 meters, where light does not penetrate, and only biosonar directs the pursuit. Consequently, clear surface images are exceedingly rare.

🎬: @lud_adventure

[strawbeary-moonlight]

This is, factually, the first footage of this that we have ever gotten. This has never been observed by a human being before in recorded history. The only reason we knew these whales ate those squids before was the beaks of the squids found in the stomachs of dead whales, and the battle scars on whales consistent with fighting giant squids.

My favorite thing about this clip is that, in the original uncropped footage, you can see her calf is right beside her, ascending from the depths along with her. Whale calves don't dive until they're taught by their mothers. It is very likely that this footage is of a mother whale teaching her calf to hunt on one of its very first dives.

When I saw this footage for the first time, I cried a little tbh.

[isaacsapphire]

Arising from the inky depths with a delicious giant squid snack… with mama.

[future-crab]

I had a dream that people started using the 🪷 emoji as a reaction and it was universally understood to mean “kill [] and you will be reincarnated as a lotus blossom.” Like someone would talk about going to the White House and people would spam 🪷🪷🪷 in the replies, and everyone just knew without having to be told that that meant “hey you should assassinate the president.”

[alkemylabz]

> people say a piece of media -isnt- influenced heavily by the author's personal life and biases > reads about the life and biases of the author to confirm or deny this > influence

[an-tho]

Having a crush on a counsellor at work and this is horrible- is the guy interested in me or is he just being a Counsellor type (listen with intention and ask follow up questions and be naturally calming and very cute)

[thegrimmlibrarian]

GURL, I am going through the exact same thing at my work... he's not a Counsellor, but he is very sweet and kind and helpful. He gives off cosy paladin vibes, ya know? like classic knight in shining armour helping a damsel in distress (me!) type of paladin.

Work crushes are hard man... like what do you MEAN I have to look at his stupid cute face every week? What do you meaaaaaaaaaan?

[an-tho]

oh my god, so true. I just want to hide but at the same time I have to see him and I DO WANNA SEE HIM A LOT. He's super sweet and also a huge nerd, almost witch vibes. We talk a lot solo, out of work hours BUT it's because I initiated it, but nothing more I don't know if he's just being a dear and I'm delusional or is there something???? I go to work with a mess in my heart everyday and have to pretend I'm calm in front of everyone but I just want to chew up a table

[thegrimmlibrarian]

Lol same!

maybe try buying him a cake or something? I brought the paladin a little 'thank you' sweet treat from the local cafe a month or so back with a little note and he REALLY liked that. if he's done something nice and helpful for you, give him a gift to say thanks! let's bring back some medieval courtship techniques

[an-tho]

update is that he is not one bit into me. Sad! But nothing a karaoke night can't fix

[graceashcroft-archive-deactivat]

[an-tho]

Having a crush on a counsellor at work and this is horrible- is the guy interested in me or is he just being a Counsellor type (listen with intention and ask follow up questions and be naturally calming and very cute)

[thegrimmlibrarian]

GURL, I am going through the exact same thing at my work... he's not a Counsellor, but he is very sweet and kind and helpful. He gives off cosy paladin vibes, ya know? like classic knight in shining armour helping a damsel in distress (me!) type of paladin.

Work crushes are hard man... like what do you MEAN I have to look at his stupid cute face every week? What do you meaaaaaaaaaan?

[an-tho]

oh my god, so true. I just want to hide but at the same time I have to see him and I DO WANNA SEE HIM A LOT. He's super sweet and also a huge nerd, almost witch vibes. We talk a lot solo, out of work hours BUT it's because I initiated it, but nothing more I don't know if he's just being a dear and I'm delusional or is there something???? I go to work with a mess in my heart everyday and have to pretend I'm calm in front of everyone but I just want to chew up a table

[supine-ly]

anyways I recently started supernatural, and, wow. Two men w trenchcoats, dark hair, black wings, close connections w heaven. Crazy

[an-tho]

supernatural and orv in one post? on my feed? truly blessed today