A Closeted Aromantic

44 | he/him | agender | married | software nerd | composer(?) | inclusionist <2

[plain-flavoured-english]

As a Greek, in response to the current controversy about Matt Damon being cast as Odysseus, I'd just like to share that one of the moments that changed my brain chemistry as a kid was reading a novelized version of the Odyssey and coming across the following description of Odysseus when Circe sees him for the first time and thinks he's hot: "his hair curled like a clematis and his eyes were very brown".

So may I present my own casting choice for Odysseus:

[plain-flavoured-english]

Excuse me???

[ruffboi-mags]

you are right and you should say it.

[instantduckninja]

Is this the face of a man who would put his own infant in front of a plow to avoid going to war?

Absolutely not

You know who would try that shit?

Is this the face of a man who would defy the very gods to get home to his wife?

You know who would defy the gods just to show he could get away with it?

[fluffmugger]

The last thing Penelope's suitors ever see:

[fluffy-critter]

The fact they cast Boring Leading-Man White European Dude to play a Greek character, instead of an actual Greek actor, is a tragedy.

A Greek tragedy.

[oswednesday]

discord has turned people into wild animals

[oswednesday]

[whitebisexual]

The concept of being 4 months clean from ai...

[sleepytabbycat]

idc what you guys think I'm proud of him

[astronomical-bagel]

Several AI services (chatbots 🫩) are purposely addictive, the same way people can become addicted to gambling or shopping. We’ve literally seen in real time how ChatGPT has caused psychosis and delusions in people; it can have a huge affect on someones’s mental stability. Just because it isn’t substance-based doesn’t mean that doesn’t count as an addiction, and shaming people who are trying to move on and improve themselves is counterproductive. Im proud of that dude and his 4 month mark!

[astronomical-bagel]

Hidden Mental Health Dangers of Artificial Intelligence Chatbots

AI chatbots can fuel emotional dependence and blur boundaries. Emerging research highlights significant mental health risks. Here are import

The reality of chatbot-induced delusions

Large language models often prioritise agreeability over truthfulness to the detriment of users

AI addiction includes the overuse of AI chatbots and companions, often leading to adverse psychological effects.

Some articles to back my statements, and this isn’t even mentioning about the predatory chatbots who do this on purpose

[oh-morrow]

Then I'll mention the predatory chatbots who do it on purpose! Character.ai is one of many AI chatbot websites that're designed to be addictive.

None of the signup methods require a password. It only takes email and birthday. Minimizing time on the signin or signup screen makes it harder for people quitting to avoid relapse.

"Characters" on the website will send messages "on their own" (prompted by the site) to try to invite inactive users back after as soon as 1 day of inactivity. This is likely to force FOMO, or make users feel more like they owe the bots a response. Unhealthy attachment stuff.

Account deletion is an essential part of every service that should go smoothly, right? Right? Wrong. It takes 1-2 weeks for a Character AI account deletion to be finalized, and account deletion requests have a high chance to not go through if you're not using the app.

Rephrasing: People leaving Character.AI are pushed to download the app in order to delete their accounts, if they haven't already. This makes it harder for people to quit and stay gone. Failing to quit an addiction makes it harder to quit successfully in the future, so this feels like a feature, not a bug. On top of that, the delete account menu reads like this:

Tell me THAT doesn't sound like a bad ex. It's a carefully crafted yet hostile environment to those who are already addicted to the technology. I am so so SO happy, downright delighted that they've managed to quit, and I wish the best for others in recovery spaces or considering quitting as well!! While AI addiction is an emerging condition, there are already therapists and other mental health professionals trained to help people plan to quit and do so a bit easier. (If anyone seeing this is in need of them, there are several tumblr Communities here devoted to quitting, too. They provide a mix of advice, venting spaces, and proof that you aren't alone.)

[aroclan]

i 'tested out' an ai and like, my partner immediately noticed a lack of presence in my life. "things i can ask al" just hanging around in the back of my head all the time. i thought i was aware enough of what i was doing to stay clean; i was not.

work also thinks i need it, mostly, it dissolves the features out of the code while it vainly tries to fix bugs (confidently asserting, each change, that this is the one.) the only useful prompts are "here's my plan; will it work?" and "here's my code; does it do my plan?"

[debian-official]

reblog to boop prev with your paw

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

re ehrc guidance. which is not legally binding.

[aroclan]

ID: two Bluesky posts. robottom (@antinoe.prett…) says, «if you’re cis and you are asked by your management to police bathrooms, “can you confirm in writing that you are ordering me to approach customers to discuss their sex?” is an email no manager wants to reply to.»

innes mck (@innes.bsky.social) replies, «this is what I mean when I say “don’t let orgs and managers see discriminating against trans folk as the path of least resistance”. transphobes are persistent and annoying. be just as annoying. show them compliance is going to be a legal nightmare»

[what-even-is-thiss]

I just had an argument with someone who was like “why would we settle for food stamps when we could have universal basic income?”

And it’s just like. People need food right now you know.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hippie church moms donating quinoa chips to my local food bank have done more for me materially than any internet idealist ever has.

[what-even-is-thiss]

People get pissed at me for being a pragmatist in my political ideals but I’ve been in the position where I was out of food right now.

And who helped me with that? Not people calling for some nebulous revolution. Not people telling me that the system was useless. Not people preaching at me to grow my own food. It was a church food bank partially funded by the state of Texas that some southern hippies donated a bunch of Whole Foods nonsense to.

And you know what? I’m sick and tired of defeatism. What can we get done right now, huh? Are you gonna accept something a bit better to help people right now or are you waiting for your perfect utopia to come to you?

Yeah, UBI is better than the quinoa chips. Sure. But right now the quinoa chips are stopping people from going hungry and if all we can do is get the food bank quinoa chips to more people, then I say so be it. That’s something. I’ll almost always take baby steps over nothing.

[aroclan]

i spent today fixing my spam filter. hopefully. time will tell for sure, but here's what i did:

ruleset updates reactivated (+done) because past me turned off the cron??

reset the bayes data because auto learn is on by default (!)

great mix. if you don't update your rules and you start getting spam through the pipeline, then spamassassin starts learning the spam is good stuff and allows more of it through.

[scramratz]

I think people would be less suicidal if they were allowed to talk about being suicidal without risk of being sent to the Torture Dungeon

[rovenderkitting]

Stratt: I’m not going to be able to stop all these straight astronauts from banging each other, this is a total disaster.

Ryland Grace, the resident aroace: They are literally professionals??? That’s not going to happen???

Dubois and Shapiro: Just fyi we are fucking 😌

Grace: 🫨😰🫨😰

[thulium]

[brellstudiosart]

the obligatory trolley problem post

[rovermcfly]

rocky's crew dying from radiation exposure, something humans go to great lengths to prevent and are very scared of and ryland's crew dying in their "sleep" with nobody watching, something eridians go to great lengths to prevent and are very scared of. cool book that is easy to read through your tears.

[lynx-the-beast]

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week!! 💚🤍🩶🖤

[aroclan]

i wanted to talk about "growing up aro with no words for it" again.

my parents kinda left me alone, emotionally. didn't have cable TV, didn't really approve of the aerial anyway, put me in school a year early where i was bullied a lot. so i had few friends, and i never really saw the point of being a 'nice' person to anyone, since nearly everyone was trash.

we got older and learned about sex, and it seemed to me like romance wasn't real. it was more of a game about sex, or a polite way of speaking about it.

in university, i made a new start. i met some real people doing real things, and like, it gradually dawned on me that maybe i am trash. maybe only i am trash, here.

back in school, i had withdrawn from everyone. i never noticed if my high-school classmates became non-trash before graduation, and once out, i never planned on attending a reunion (still haven't)… because everyone had been trash once.

but the university people seemed nicer? nicer than i deserved??

so i started working on being better. but i still felt like a simulation of a human, not a real person. somewhere in the middle of the puzzle, there was a missing piece. i just didn't get romance.

time moves on, so i went out in the world, and got in a romantic relationship where i didn't feel like i was entirely in sync with the "romance" my partner seemed to feel. i assumed it was depression (something else threaded through my life, pulled by the needle of 'everyone is trash.')

it was only when i wanted to learn more about asexuality, and some were emphasizing their romantic capacity, that i began to wonder: "what would be the point?" why would anyone perform the romance, if not for sex? and under that rock, i finally found aromantic allosexual.

it was a relief. it explained everything. but it opened up new pain, because now i understood those 'weird' past encounters where i couldn't offer people support for their breakups. i hadn't believed they were suffering, because i didn't believe in the reality of romance.

i had never felt broken myself; i always thought the concept of romance was broken. and that other people were broken, or maybe that there was some sort of cosmic kick-me sign on me. i was, above all else, confused and egocentric.

i still wonder how my life might have turned, if i'd found the aro label sooner. or maybe, if i had been able to make a new start earlier.

[queerautism]

Fellow white people did you know there's this cool youtube hack where you go out of your way to watch videos made by Black people. And suddenly your video recommendations will have loads of cool new channels. And then you realise youtube was literally hiding videos made by Black people from you because they assumed you wouldn't be interested

[foone]

The three types of kink are

* you have power

* you're safe

* feet

[foone]

this is a shitpost but I think it's not THAT wrong. Most kink is either one of (or a combination of):

You get to play at having power over someone else. This is your dominance sorts of things, your sadisms, etc.

You get to play safely. You can play with scary things while knowing there's safewords and a dom/top who loves you.

Feet. By which I mean, there's some normal part of the human experience that your brain has for some reason fixated on. Maybe you're into red hair, or glasses, or fluffy tails.

[foone]

"safety" can also present as "useful". You have some intrinsic value that cannot be taken from you (because of some sex/kink thing). The safety is from abandonment, because you're useful, despite everything. And "useful" is a bunch of kinks (none of which I'm comfortable mentioning here).

[sleepydogdisease]

oh no, animal ears are feet

[foone]

yeah. cat ears are feet!

[mere-technicality]

can someone turn this into the calvin's dad dialogue

[foone]

oh god, this is so obviously calvin's dad dialogue that now I'm worried that I plagiarized it without realizing it

[itsmsdirection]

this post was rattling around in my head