Bridgett Babble

[artsekey]

I post on Reddit. Someone says it’s AI. I tell them it is not. They say, “sure, buddy”.

I post on Reddit. “AI slop,” they comment. “and if it isn’t, it’s bad, mediocre writing.”

“No, I am not a bad writer.” I have the audacity to say. “Writing is part of what I do professionally. I get paid to do this.”

Someone else posts on Reddit. A chat from Bumble, where a man has the gall to use the unnatural em-dash. “No one uses the em-dash,” they say. It’s a trope at this point, I know. “The hypen is much more common. I don’t know where to even find the em-dash. Plus, he said you were “elite”. No one would say that.”

“The hypen isn’t grammatically correct.” I tell them, looking over the chat log. It’s a real person on the other side, their personality obfuscated by the nerves that come with reaching out on a dating app. There’s subtle humor, missing punctuation. Still, 100 people condemn it as AI. It’s more feasible to them that someone would edit those human elements back in manually than type it themselves.

I post on Reddit. I tell them my writing keeps being called AI slop. They say it is, it is. Use fewer periods. Capitalize less. Ignore the rules. A real person wouldn’t write like that. A real person wouldn’t use those words, or say it like that. I’m a real person. I can’t prove it to them.

Someone, finally, says that the tone of my post matches how some books are written. That maybe it would be good for those who doubt that the writing is man-made to read more man-made books.

“You think we don’t read?” They ask. Then something more incendiary: “You think you’re better than us?”

And, hey? Bad news, babes. This isn’t hyperbole. This is all real shit that has happened in the last week.

What the fuck is going on???

[mostlyvalid]

A proposal

Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.

It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”

For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:

[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]

The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”

(more at KnowYourMeme: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-dont-know-what-i-expected)

[lazy-universes]

WHOA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THE POST THAT SPAWNED DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT

[yourlocaltinsmith]

Happy dead dove do not eat birthday!

[hamletthedane]

I think about British Airways Flight 5390 a lot

[hamletthedane]

OKAY STRAP IN because this is one of the WILDEST stories in aviation history.

In 1990, a British Airways BAC One-Eleven, captained by Tim Lancaster and co-piloted by Alastair Atchison, was cruising at 17,000 feet.

Around 15 minutes after take-off, flight attendant Nigel Ogden entered the cockpit to bring the pilots something to drink. One second everything was fine. The next second, the pilot's side window blew out from the force of the pressurized cockpit. Even though he was strapped in, the force of the explosive decompression ripped the captain out of his chair and pulled him though the window.

The flight attendant immediately leapt forward and grasped the captain's belt. The force was so strong - due to the plane's speed - the captain slipped and was pulled almost entirely out of the plane, but the flight attendant caught his leg. The captain laid on the roof, then the side of the fuselage (the above image is an inaccurate recreation - the side window was smashed) and the flight attendant's entire arm was soon outside of the plane, gripping him.

(Recreation from the show Mayday at the point of decompression)

At the same time, the event caused the autopilot to disengage, and the captain's body hitting the flight controls caused the plane to enter into a deep dive. The throttle was set to full power and could not be accessed due to debris, meaning the plane was descending rapidly. The co-pilot, experiencing hypoxia, fought to control the plane's dive while allowing it to continue descending to a level the passengers/crew could breathe at. He attempted to contact air traffic control, but the wind made communication impossible, so he broadcast a mayday signal. Finally, he was able to re-engage the autopilot and level the plane out at a breathable altitude.

Soon, the flight attendant's entire arm was burned from wind shear and frostbite, and his grip began to slip. The other attendants entered the cabin to see what was wrong and took over holding the captain's body. Seeing the blood covering the windows from the captain's severe wind sheer burns and frostbite, the attendants and co-pilot knew he was dead. However, they could not let his body go because it could smash into the wing, horz stabilizer, or engine, and bring the plane down.

For 30+ minutes the co-pilot flew a jet plane with an OPEN WINDOW and his co-worker's body hanging along the side of the plane. Finally, clearance to land from ATC came across over the sound of the wind and the flight attendants were able to dislodge the captain's ankles from the flight controls without letting him go. The co-pilot successfully landed the plane.

(tw below for blood)

(Taken same day as the incident)

BUT HERE'S THE KICKER: when they reached the ground and evacuated, they realized THE CAPTAIN WAS NOT DEAD.

He SURVIVED being outside the fuselage of a jet airplane traveling 550mph at 17,000 feet. His only injuries were extensive - but mostly superficial - frostbite and windshear burns, bruising, fractures in his hand, and shock. He has since stated that he remembers the event and was conscious for much of the time he was outside of the fuselage. The only other injury was the flight attendant's frostbitten/windshorn arm. Captain Tim Lancaster returned to flying five months later.

(Captain Tim Lancaster in bed several weeks after the incident, with flight attendant Ogden (+ Ogden's wife) above him and co-pilot Alastair Atchison to the far left, along with the two other flight attendants)

Why did this occur? Because the plane had received maintenance the day before, and the maintenance supervisor did not check he was using the correct screws in re-installing the windscreen.

(Recreation)

So yeah: you can apparently survive clinging to the side of a jet airliner traveling 500+mph at 17,000 feet.

[hamletthedane]

Wow! Didn't expect this many likes for an aviation post.

Just a note that I was wrong - it was the front pilot's windscreen, not the side-window! I'm used to looking at Boeing windows with different positions :)

If y'all want the full story & more analysis of what exactly went wrong, Mayday: Air Investigations did a pretty decent special on the incident. It's free on YouTube here (and here on dailymotion if you're outside the US).

[desmoscatghost]

Adding some stuff:

The ‘maintenance supervisor did not check the bolts’ is technically correct but ignores the amount of stuff that had to go wrong for that to happen.

1: the supervisor was the one doing the bolts (I think there was a staffing issue) and so did not have to check the work that he did

2: the window was not on the list of vital components that need to be checked by someone else even if the supervisor does it.

3: the parts store where he had to go to get the bolts was badly lit and had bolts in the wrong drawers.

4: the wrong bolts and the right bolts are almost indistinguishable by sight.

5: the correct tool to put the screws in was not available so they had to do some lite bodging to get the screws in. By this I mean it was still a torque wrench and they checked it released at the right point but the correct socket did not stay in place or something like that.

6: any slight differences between the right bolts and the wrong bolts were hidden because of the tool they were using (which would have worked perfectly if they were using the right bolts).

If one of those things had not happened then the plane would have had the right bolts when it took off.

[hamletthedane]

^ absolutely critical edition and a great example of what’s known in risk analysis as the Swiss Cheese Model.

From Wikipedia:

“The Swiss cheese model of accident causation illustrates that, although many layers of defense lie between hazards and accidents, there are flaws in each layer that, if aligned, can allow the accident to occur. In this diagram, three hazard vectors are stopped by the defenses, but one passes through where the "holes" are lined up.”

Accidents in complex systems are very rarely one person’s fault and my original post indeed oversimplified the incident for the sake of telling a straightforward story. This was not the case of one bad maintenance worker; this was a systematic failure. The holes lined up and a tragedy nearly occurred because profit (short staffing, poor maintenance facilities, poor training and tools) was prioritized over safety at several layers. Any additional degree of safety would have prevented this from occurring.

[uglygreenjacket]

If you're not old enough to have once stored your favorite fan fiction on a floppy disk after spending an hour clogging the phone line with dial-up internet and then hiding it in your room so your parents wouldn't find out about the fact you read fanfiction, we are not the same.

[gulistan-blog]

㋡🥀

[namk1]

[rj-abacura]

I am obsessed with this.

So because parkour is such a ridiculously male dominated sport, the "correct technique" for a lot of these movements that you're taught when you become an instructor plays to a male body's strengths: upper body strength, higher center of gravity, etc.

She demolishes this course by moving in ways that make sense for her body. She doesn't muscle her way up to her over a wall, she just throws a leg up over the wall. She doesn't use upper body strength to do the salmon ladder, she uses her hips!!! And it's fucking incredible.

So many girls and young women walk away from parkour because every movement caters to the strengths of men, because doing what makes sense for their bodies is seen as "bad technique" to be trained away.

If pre-transition me had seen this I would have cried tears of joy.

[fuckin-man-suit]

Behind a Little House, by Manuel Cosentino

[zenpencils]

BILL WATTERSON ‘A cartoonist’s advice’

[xiueryn]

Summary: As their friends announce their engagement, Adrien asks Marinette to fake date him. His plan is to eventually ask out the girl of his dreams, though Marinette’s too oblivious to realise he’s talking about her. AU. Rating: Explicit.

(adrien’s seduction tactics are questionable.)

a smutty commission for the lovely @brinja!!! ψ(｀∇´)ψ

one-shot

“My confidence is high right now, but one stutter and it’ll plummet again,” Adrien replied, brushing his hair out of his face. “What if I panic? Or—or what if we’re just talking and I get the wrong idea and try and… hold her hand?”

She glanced down to where he was holding hers.

“Not like this!” he spluttered, taking his hand back.

“You go with the flow,” Marinette said, snatching it back and linking their fingers together. Gazing into his eyes, she explained, “You pay attention to her responses to see if it’s okay.”

He swallowed. “How do I know?”

“Well, you could ask,” she replied. “Consent is sexy.”

“Ask?”

“Ask,” she confirmed with a nod. “You can handle that, right?”

He didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Try it,” she suggested, giving his hand a little squeeze. “Ask me.”

His eyes grew wide.

She smiled.

“Do you—would you kiss me?” Adrien questioned.

Marinette leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I’d suggest phrasing it differently.”

He made a choked noise.

“Words are better,” she teased.

read more on ao3

[brinja]

I LOVE IT THANK YOU!!!!

[ampervadasz]

[squiddoodle]

how what???

[tandicoofficial]

I’m not good with the science of this or anything (someone who knows more feel free to add) but fish can play??? Fish can play like any other animal?? People saying it couldn’t breathe, do human kids not hold their breaths to go under water for fun? It’s just the opposite. Air is water, water is air. In the same vein as a kid being thrown up and into the pool and enjoying it, the fish is playing.

[shiekah]

okay… as someone who studies marine biology I need to clarify something:

fish are unable to hold their breaths. They literally cannot take a deep breath like mammals do.

We have lungs that can take in a specific volume of air, fish have gills that work when they are ventilated enough. There are different kinds of gills, yes. Some fish have something called ‘operculum’ which is like a cap on top of the gills, helping to protect them and increasing the water circulation through the gills. Some fish DONT have this structure and need to swim in order to be able to breathe.

But the fact that they cannot hold their breaths doesnt mean that they cannot survive without water for a while - in fact, fish can (usually) survive being without water WAY LONGER than we could survive being without air.

I cannot tell if this fish does this for fun, but it sure looks like it. But I am not a behavioural biologist, so I can’t tell for sure.

[dovewithscales]

It is abundantly clear the fish is a willing participant. It’s sort of arrogant to assume animals other than humans don’t play like humans.

[slimedivine]

Im not a behavior biologist either, but I have spent a lot of time around fish and ive spent a lot of time talking to and helping people that care for fish. (Former petstore fish guy that took his job too seriously)

That fish is having fun, and fish absolutely DO have fun!

There was a regular who came into the store I worked at a lot, and he kept several varieties of chichlids, a very smart, aggressive type of fish.

He would come in and talk to me about all the drama his fish get into. The different territorial disputes they were having, who had paired off with who, who broke up (yes chichlids are like this)

But he had a jack dempsey in particular that LOVED to chase his hand around the tank, not his wife’s hand, not his friend’s hand, it HAD to be him. He said that as soon as he entered the room where this fish’s tank was kept, the fish would TEAR UP the tank decor, knocking things over and acting a fool off his shits until this dude stuck his hand in there and let the fish chase it around back and forth.

He theorized that his fish learned that if he knocked the tank decor around, his owner would obviously have to stick his hand in to fix it. So when he wants to play “chase dad’s hand” thats naturally how he knows he can get the hand to appear. He wont do this behavior for anybody but this one guy and he won’t tear up the tank anymore after he had received sufficient “play time”, usually once a day when the guy got home from work. He likened it to having a dog that wont leave you alone till you play tug o war for a bit.

I had a betta that would spend twenty minutes at a time just swimming up to the waterfall of the filter, letting it push him down to the bottom of the tank, only to swim back up and do it again, like it was a fucking slide.

Bettas are weak swimmers, and they dislike strong currents, but this guy was using the filter current like a slide. Kinda like how we don’t really like getting thrown around, but we still enjoy rollercoasters.

I also have countless stories about goldfish trying to “give hugs” (re: shove themselves into their owners hands during tank maintenance)

My betta knows how to lie and he will only beg for food in front of those he knows have not fed him yet.

There is so much evidence I’ve seen that fish are waaaay smarter and affectionate than we think. They absolutely have fun and I honestly don’t think enough studies have been done on fish brains and fish behavior in general.

And honestly, having worked in a pet store, fish are generally treated like they don’t have brains by even the fish care brands that claim expert knowledge.

Its definitely worth noting that hard scientific evidence presenting that the very opposite is true would probably lead to more robust animal welfare laws that would definitely upset the aquatics industry. Food for thought.

[dovewithscales]

I think you’re absolutely right on that last point. The misconception that fish are too thoughtless to have feelings facilitates the abhorrent conditions in which they are kept and ways they are treated by the industry.

I used to have a lovely tank, I think it was 50 gallons, and among other things I kept glass catfish. All the research at the time said they were hard to keep in captivity and prone to refusing to eat and starving themselves, and that they did not live long in captivity. But I was fascinated and had to try it. It took me about three days to realize none of the literature said a word about them being nocturnal. I started feeding them at night right before bed, and had zero problems getting them to eat, saw they were incredibly active as soon as the lights went off (I have exceptional night vision) and I kept them in excellent health for years. Exponentially beyond their captive life expectancy.

I think the commercial pet fish trade is abysmal in terms of actual working knowledge of fish.

[abadbadbrujah]

[gothiero]

why are christian bale and patrick bateman the exact same person

[gothiero]

like. ok

[gothiero]

who was going to tell me that christian bale is the actor that played the fictional character patrick bateman. and who was going to tell me that patrick bateman is not an actor that looks like christian bale. who was going to tell me this.

[gothiero]

STOP REBLOGGING THIS IM DELETIMG MY BLOG

[catchaspark]

According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.

[timefortigers]

sheds a single tear

[catchaspark]

every august 18th my notifications break and i go, fuck, tumblr has failed me once again, but it hasn’t. it hasn’t failed me. it’s just the taking the hobbits to isengard-iversary. happy 12 years

[gholateg]

Lil Early, but fuck it! I’m not missing it this year.

[woundliqour]

[aggressivewhenstartled]

This is why I get meal kits. Do I need them? No. Can I easily make them myself? For way cheaper? Yes. WILL I??? No.

Other tips: if you are going to buy things that aren’t pre-taxed, you need to make a habit of always doing the prep AS SOON AS YOU GET HOME. it will NEVER HAPPEN if you don’t.

Get the bulk pack of steaks! But you are never gonna eat them before they go bad. If you freeze them in individual ziplocks as soon as you unpack you probably will?

Get the celery, but you need to cut it ALL UP and store it in the fridge in water or it will rot.

And don’t do all tgese at once, get like, one or two prep things a trip. You aren’t gonna get it started if it’s a huge task.

[randomslasher]

I love tomato soup. But condensed soup that requires me to have a clean pot, milk, and time to wait for the stovetop will never leave my cupboard. 

Those instant campbells soups though? The ones you just open up, take the metal off, then put the cap back on and microwave? (Hell also the ones that are literally just in a cup?) I’ll go through those within a week of buying them. 

Yeah, they cost more. But I will eat them. Since that’s generally my sole reason for purchasing soup (to consume it), that makes it worth the extra money. 

[eds-art-factory]

I just love how pathetic he is.

[campyvillain]

soooo today i learned that back in the early 90s, coca cola tried making this thing called “ok soda” as a marketing stunt to beat out pepsi since they had way more of a hold on the “younger/rebellious” generation at the time, and their way of doing that was naming it “ok soda” so that they could copyright the word “ok”, the most popular word in the world, and at the same time brand it as an…ironic soda??? like the whole thing with it was that they tried to brand ok soda as a counterculture soda but instead of making it about typical 90s RADICAL EXTREME!!! fodder the theme of it was uh. unsettling capitalist brutalist dystopia. instead of being bright and colorful the color scheme was only stark whites, grays and reds and the cans looked like this. bold shapes and labels stating ominous, robotic things with a figure always staring dead into you on the front, no coca cola branding on it at all.

sometimes there would be “prize cans” of this stuff where instead of having soda inside it there would be hats. and they didn’t sell this option in boxes by the way they just put prize cans in random vending machines. and put like 25 cents in it so hey. you could get an actual soda that isn’t just hats. maybe.

did i mention that this soda also had a fucking MANIFESTO??? because yeah it sure had that printed on some cans and it goes as follows

and there’s these things called “coincidences”, which… yeah it doesn’t make it sound any less ominous

and you might be wondering how the soda itself tastes like does it taste good? ok? well apparently it was just a regular “citric” tasting soda but somehow they fucked it up so bad that it was compared to “carbonated tree sap”, and instead of trying to make the drink taste better they included that it tasted like shit, INTO THE ADVERTISING SCHEME ITSELF. they would literally advertise that it tasted like ass as a part of the ironic marketing, no i am not kidding.

but if you thought that’s where it ended there’s one more curveball and without any exaggeration, you will not expect what i am about to tell you.

take a look at this guy.

this guy is the “face” of ok soda, as in he was printed on the most cans and technically served as a mascot of sorts for the entire thing. his face was a major part of the branding, and this design for the cans was one of if not the most common.

okay. cool. no issue there right?

take a guess on who this guy is based off of.

the artist’s coworker? a generic guy? the artist himself? a relative? some random reference model they hired?

CHARLES MANSON. YES, THIS IS REAL. MEANING FOR A BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME, CHARLES MANSON’S FACE WAS USED AS A MEANS TO SELL COCA COLA.

the lead artist himself has even come forward to say this is the case. and now you may be asking wait. how’d he do this? how’d he possibly get away with this, years after the crimes had been committed?

well according to him, it was simple. apparently none of the contracts he signed said anything against putting a mass murderer on the can. so. there’s THAT.

unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, ok soda never really caught on since *surprise surprise!* teens really don’t want to buy soda that looks like a brutalist art museum, and it never had a wide release so it was only a thing for like two years between 1993 and 1995. but from what i’ve heard there’s still people who are giving this soda a small modern following, collecting all the cans and merchandise and even coming up with stand in recipes for the soda formula itself.

so yeah! that was ok soda.

what the fuck

[meantfortheshore]

[moremetalthanyourmom]

Okay but after seeing this I started doing it too and it’s amazing how many men I’ve run into bc they expected me to move

[youcangofindatree-deactivated20]

Gotta try it

[clevermanka]

I work (and walk) on a college campus. I’ve lost count of how many men I’ve smacked shoulders with.

[emmagrant01]

Recently, I was standing outside my son’s classroom waiting to talk to his teacher. I stood on one side of the hallway, not even close to the center. At some point, a man came walking along. I was standing right in his path, but the hallway was empty, so I logically expected him to swerve around me. Instead he kept walking right toward me, got to me, and stopped, as if waiting for me to get out of his way. I didn’t; I just smiled politely at him. He finally walked around me, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t leapt out of his manly path.

Now I’m wishing I’d leapt aside, taken off my jacket and laid it on the floor before him, then bowed deeply and said, “My Liege!”

[mercurialkitty]

I also work at a college campus. I smack shoulders sometimes, but I find that if I stare straight ahead and follow the advice below, people get the heck out of the way.

[songbirde108]

Honestly this post changed how I carry myself when walking alone in public, or in a situation where I’m the one leading. People definitely move for the murder gaze.

[onethingconstant]

Confirmed. I once had to rush back inside a convention hall as the con was closing in order to a retrieve a sick friend’s medication, and I didn’t understand why people in the crowd were jumping out of my way (literally—one guy vaulted a table) until I realized I was dressed as the Winter Soldier and doing the Murder Walk because that’s just how I walk in those boots. I got the meds, got out, and made a mental note.

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

Moral of the story: wear comfortable shoes, square your shoulders, and walk like you’ve been sent to murder Captain America.

[naeonnoir]

WALK LIKE YOU’VE BEEN SENT TO MURDER CAPTAIN AMERICA

[retroasgardian-deactivated20180]

[spiduhgirl]

It’s called the Murder Strut.

[elegantmess100]

IT’S BACK!!!!!! I was searching for this to show my daughter the other day and couldn’t find it. I’m so glad IT’S BACK!! I will always reblog the Murder Strut!!

[b3gayd0crim3]

A guy on a bike went around me because he could tell I had no intention of moving. Thanks to this post.

[linkedsoul]

One day and I bumped into a guy while doing the Murder Strut and he apologized to me even though I was the one who had bumped into him.

It works wonders.

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

In case you were wondering, yes you can do this in a wheelchair. Same look in your eyes and let ‘em know you will run them down. Just picture yourself in a sports car accelerating towards someone with the intention of flattening them.

If there’s anything more satisfying than watching Abled men leap out of my way when they realize I’m not moving for them, I can’t think of it atm.

[chasing-asterion]

[seperis]

Walk like you’ve been sent to murder Captain America.

Wheel like you’re gonna win the Indy 500 and don’t care how.

Your crutches are short swords; walk like you can see them buried in the bodies of anyone who crosses (in front of) you.

Tumblr: teaching women how to be Moses and part the fucking Red Sea with the power of their minds.

[taraljc]

I had never seen these updates to the Patriarchy Chicken Game before and they are all a goddam DELIGHT

[marithlizard]

Patriarchy Chicken and The Murder Strut, dance names for the new millenium. 

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

OH MY GOD I HAD BARELY SCROLLED DOWN THIS POST AND WAS GONNA SAY “JUST TAKE SOME ADVICE FROM ME THAT I LEARNT FROM AN OLD TUMBLR POST ABOUT WALKING LIKE THE WINTER SOLDIER FROM YEARS AGO” BUT THEN IT TURNED OUT TO BE THIS POST

I first discovered this a few years ago when I was an insecure 14-year-old, and since then I indeed do the “murder strut” and staunch everywhere I go, literally works wonders

[cade-the-god]

murder strut works wonders in the airport and school.

[fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive]

Back in HS, other kids would kinda stream behind me like the tail of a comet because I was several inches taller than most of the student population and the Murder Strut was just…how I walked. Amazingly effective.

[happifying-things]

here’s your damn fish

[ask-swagger-dagger-trolls]

(Y E E T)