something funny... or not.

Lokius writing prompts Lokius writing prompts 2 Lokius writing prompts 3

[sonypraystation]

white people have the sauce sometimes and dont even know it

[sonypraystation]

i just saw a youtube short of brandon sanderson on a podcast. the whole time hes talking hes doing book signings. what a flex. so many bitches on my dick i gotta multitask

[if-i-was-a-wyrm]

brandon sanderson is actually just built different. once on a podcast with patrick rothfuss they were talking about tools to write better and he said "i try to limit myself to 8 hours of writing per day." he took time off of writing during the first year of covid and accidentally wrote four unplanned books. he teaches a class at byu. his wife has a codeword to get him to stop writing in his head because at any given moment you might think he's doing something normal but no he's also writing another novel. stephen king said he's insane

[impormable]

Old dude came in the shop and when I said "lemme know if you have any questions" he goes "what was the name of Alexander the Great's horse," thinking he was so funny. I told him Bucephalus, and he was so disappointed. Like his whole day was hanging on beating me at trivia. He says "you're only the second person who knew that" and I said "well, probably the third if you count Alexander the Great." He left without buying anything, and did not say goodbye. I think I honestly hurt his weird little feelings! Sorry I'm a bitch, old man!

[sonnetscrewdriver]

I had one of these once, bookshop customer randomly challenged me to name, quote, ‘the only word in English where two u’s are next to each other’, and when I immediately said ‘vacuum’ he looked disappointed and when I pointed out it isn’t even the only word with two u’s next to each other in English and offered ‘continuum’ as an example he looked like I’d just punched his ribcage out his back like a Mortal Kombat character

[captainclickycat]

People claiming this didn’t happen have never worked a day in retail

[my-fav-tiktoks]

[charlesoberonn]

[parlezvousladybug]

[leviathan-supersystem]

internet politics and real-world politics have gotten so separated, and pretty soon all this internet weirdness is gonna come crashing into real life and politicians are gonna start throwing around words like “SJW” and “anime communist” and “dark enlightenment” and it’s just gonna be the most ridiculous fucking thing

[heritageposts]

date of origin: 13th of april, 2015.

[leviathan-supersystem]

happy 10 year anniversary!

[august--and-everything-after]

[headspace-hotel]

This post.

This fucking post.

It is in some ways, the only piece of evidence I have that there was a time Before.

[daco-showman]

why can rockstar games institutionalise you for life like nikita kruschev for being autistic

[ivy-michaels]

He didn't steal 10 million dollars. They made that number up as a loss, they never fucking had it. Rockstar has spent more than a billion fucking dollars on GTA VI and will likely make billions more when it gets released.

Uber is a fucking shell game of a company designed to leech investor capital and output bootleg cabs.

Nvidia posted a profit in 2023 of $4.37 billion. This is like someone stealing less than a penny from me.

And they lock this kid in a prison hospital for LIFE?

Capitalism is disgusting.

[fuckblast]

Nobody should buy GTA til they free Arion Kurtaj

[blasting-the-bee-movie-script-d]

he didn't even get to stand *trial*. because he's autistic. he's in an institution for life for hacking while autistic, without trial.

[bisexualisopod]

hey yall remember this

[sprinkledsalt]

I mean like............the exact same man who was breathlessly shitting his pants every day over BIDEN OLD and who sold a book THIS YEAR about Biden being too old for the presidency is out here like "lulz the president falling asleep during meetings cuz he's old is fine and normal :)"

The term "gaslighting" gets misused on the internet a lot but it really does feel like a significant portion of pundits and the press are gaslighting the nation about their own behavior last year and Trump's obvious decline. Let's put it this way: if all of these people like Jake Tapper really believed Biden was unfit for the presidency due to his age and physical and cognitive health, then why wouldn't they be sounding the same alarm on Trump? Why wouldn't they also be taking this very seriously and treating this as a code red scandal, the way they treated Biden's cold and stutter during a debate? Remember, these are the same fucking people who yelled at Karine Jean-Pierre about whether Biden was hiding Parkinson's disease just because a Parkinson's expert visited the White House for their input on a bill. But Trump actively decaying in front of our eyes and getting secret MRI scans? "Smmmhhh you silly lib, that's normal :))" This is actually insane.

But it all makes a whole lot of sense if you consider that they knew they were lying about Biden for the explicit purpose of ratfucking him out of the White House so they could get Daddy Trump back, doesn't it?

tl;dr

[socialistexan]

I've rarely seen a more validating sentence in my entire life.

[rivendellrose]

High fives all around, friends. If we’ve accomplished nothing else today, we still have this.

[adampknave]

I feel the need to add this

[random-chaos-thoughts]

Death Of The Author is out, Bullying Of The Author Out Of A Forum About Their Own Work is in

[mariacallous]

[iamthetruenhaz]

Hoo BOY.

I'm Bulgarian, same as Prof. Popova here. My country was among the least affected by the fallout in the Eastern Bloc but still affected severely enough for us born after the disaster to have to be given mandatory iodine pills at school in the late 90s/early 00s to not "get goiter" (to expel any residual iodine 131, the radioactive isotope released in the disaster).

So my mother told me that not only did the communist top brass (those who didn't flee to western Europe, that is) get food imported FROM HALFWAY ACROSS THE SOVIET UNION, from fucking KAZAKHSTAN, but also that normal people were left completely in the dark to eat local irradiated produce, oh, and the annual May 1st rally? It took place while rain was falling. Radioactive fucking rain.

The communist authorities left the proles to get exposed to radiation while they took all measures to protect themselves. But the kicker? NO ONE KNEW A THING until much later. Rumors, maybe. But there was a complete media blackout. The communist governments kept mum about it.

[snovyda]

My mother, who was a student in one of Kyiv's universities, was forced to attend that May 1 parade in Kyiv. It was mandatory attendance under the threat of being expelled.

However, all the foreign students except for the East German ones left the university (and the country) very quickly.

Oh, and in the following weeks, her university's dormitory had the rule where one of the people living in each room had to stay in the room "on duty" and wash the floor every couple of hours. So in practice, you'd wash the floor by hand with a wet rug, then hang that rug outside the window to dry in the air, and then use the same rug to wash the floor again. Which, should any particles by on it, would have only helped spread them. That's basically all the precautions there were.

And I'm not even going into detail on events like the people in Prypyat, actually going out to watch the sight of the plant burning, because the glow of it looked pretty, having no idea of any danger to them whatsoever... because people knowing about the real dangers would cause panic, and we can't lose face like that, we're a utopia. Not to mention the cleanup....

[spiteswallow]

I humbly suggest that true crime freaks should get into learning about scammers instead of serial killers. I LOVE reading about fraud and grifts and pyramid schemes. true crime ppl have all this paranoid energy about murder, which is rare in the grand scheme of things.....maybe instead that could be channeled into some productive rage toward capitalism.

[spiteswallow]

And u know a side effect of learning about scam artists is that you start to understand certain things about economics, and just how STUPID these systems are and how easily they are taken advantage of....and I'd much rather people gained a passing familiarity with economics than whatever armchair psychologist shit these true crimers get on. We need fewer people who think they're experts on "sociopaths" and more people who understand how people like Elizabeth Holmes and the WeWork guy were able to do what they did

[lindstromm]

Here are some of my favorite books about financial scams:

The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (about the 2008 stock market collapse).

The Caesar's Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry by Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap. (I admit I've never finished this one; the writing is hard to read.)

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, by Zac Bissonette. I bought this book because of the subtitle and I have never regretted it. You must read it.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale. They turned this one into a movie! The book was very different and is worth reading.

The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, by Elliot Brown and Maureen Farrell. I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my tbr pile!

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, by Gareth Gore. I'm reading this one right now. The author is a financial journalist who stumbled onto this story by unraveling a bank failure in Spain.

And here's a list of more non-fiction books about fraud and financial scams. The first book on this list is about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, which I also haven't read yet.

Enjoy!

[narcissuspseudonarcissus]

I want to add, if you’ve got access to it, the BBC Radio 4 series (or podcast) “Scam Secrets” is a fascinating look into scams that are currently running.

[mumblingsage]

OP has a point about capitalism, but actually I want to reblog this as someone who recently answered the phone to a scammer and say: we need true crime to make people more vigilant in their personal lives. You're at way more risk from an unknown number calling you than from anyone slicing your Achilles' tendons as you walk through a parking lot. I don't care so much about the people scammed by Elizabeth Holmes but I do care about worried and confused senior citizens buying thousands of dollars in gift cards because they think they need to help their grandson who's in trouble in another state.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Seconding this. There’s also a lot of crossover between scams and cults, which are also useful for people to be aware of. “Oh I’m not religious so I’d never fall for a cult” “oh I’m smart and savvy I’d never join a cult” oh boy do I have some fun stuff to tell you about cults.

[bipolar-bubbeleh]

Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson is a great intro to MLMs!

She signed up for the sisterhood, free cars, and the promise of a successful business of her own. Instead, she ended up with an addiction, b

[zeelady2004]

It's time for Tiktok video of the day from my stash 🎶

Heh

[cryoverkiltmilk]

"Amore! [derogatory]"

[everydayarsonist]

credit where credit is due, he didn’t fall for it. i was 100% expecting him to make shit up but he knew what he was talking about.

[lordcryosrealmoftrash]

It's honestly hilarious to see all those articles that are titled like "this CEO was able to raise prices WITHOUT backlash 😱😱😱😱! While other companies get boycotted!" about Sam Reich and Dropout cause its like they are trying to sell entrepreneur bros the secret sauce being successful. Meanwhile the secret is just be a decent/good person. That's it. That is all Sam does. He doesn't scam people who pay for Dropout, he treats his employees well, he is open and honest about the rise in price being to make bigger and better content and not to directly line his pockets but to also make it easier for all his friends who work there to keep up with the insane cost of living in LA. All things a decent to good person would do. Like literally just don't be evil. And if you have to be evil, direct it at the one friend you have who will either withstand it or when they can't will set up an elaborate ruse to force you into what was meant to be a torture matrix but you just find fun.

[captainlordauditor]

I feel like there's really three elements to it which is that Dropout is,

open about doing it to try to keep up with the cost of living for the cast and crew

not doing it while canceling shows or cutting features from their product

fine with password sharing

It's not that the CEO is a decent person. It's that they're not taking anything away from what we were already paying for, unlike Netflix which now gets cranky about me using my sister's account on my computer even though it allows multiple profiles. It doesn't come across as charging more for less, because it's not, it's charging more for the same. Which is unfortunately a bar most companies won't clear.

[lostxanadu]

are you actually kidding like are you seriously fucking joking with me rihgt now

[lostxanadu]

"babylon, persia, and rome were not colonialist powers by any conventional understanding" don't make me tap the sign

[smegorl]

Rome isn't a colonial empire? Somebody better tell the romans!

Colony, in Roman antiquity, a Roman settlement in conquered territory. The earliest colonies were coast-guard communities, each containing a

[prismatic-bell]

Well see, before evil white people brought boats into it, it was just conquest, and that's different.

[captainlordauditor]

Now I don't know much about Babylon or Persia. It is possible that they were technically imperialist, not colonialist. Defining colonialism here as moving your own settlers who are loyal to you into the land you conquered.

Alexander the Great, for example, did not really do this. Mostly he killed the local king and informed the masses that they were now paying taxes to him.

But Rome? Rome is practically the blueprint for colonialism. The Roman empire paid its soldiers in land. If you were a Roman infantryman, chances were you'd be stationed in land that was newly conquered or was in the process of being conquered. You'd be paid a stipend to live on and at the end of your service you'd be given a plot of land in the area you served that you would own.

This is a pretty basic fact about how the Roman empire functioned! We have letters written by Roman soldiers talking about this! Any social justice minded tumblrite should know this because it's how we got North Africans living in England in ancient times.

The idea that Rome was not a colonial empire displays a complete lack of thought and inability to actually define the words they're using.

[thebibliosphere]

It’a so funny when people get upset over being called “able-bodied” because you just know what they’re really upset about is not being called “normal.”

“Why do we have to label everyone?” when what they really mean is, “no, you’re the freak, I’m normal.”

Anyway, you can’t begin to imagine the gasket they blow when you start calling them “temporarily abled.”

“Are you threatening me?”

At this point? Yes.

[liberalsarecool]

Wouldn't banks giving mortgages to 30,000,000 undocumented immigrants be traceable?

Are they all paying cash for these homes?

Buyers with decent income and documented credit history have a hard time qualifying for a mortage.

But undocumented buyers are 'taking' houses? That language sure is loaded.

JD Vance knows Blackstone has exploited the housing/rental market for families.

JD Vance knows hedge funds and private equity are buying up homes and rental units.

Using bigotry and nativism to spread lies about hard working immigrants is evil.

Vance's xenophobia and racism have created a complete fictional narrative.

[tittyinfinity]

The US is crazy bc like so many people have intense conspiracy theories about the government like "I think there's a secret elite group of people who control everything" and you can tell them "actually you're not completely wrong, it's just not a secret group of people, it's a bunch of rich people and lobbyists who are doing it all out in the open" and they'll be like "hmmn I don't think it's THOSE people though. I prefer my racist & antisemitic theories"

[tittyinfinity]

They'll be like "I heard there's a powerful ring of pedophiles who are influencing the country" and you'll tell them "I mean yeah that's what the Epstein files are about" and they'll say "no I'm pretty sure this has to do with The Queers actually"

[neovid]

Conspiracy theory no one will ever accept: What if the people secretly controlling the world are the same people obviously controlling the world?

[daughter-of-sapph0]

[anarchistmemedistro]

fortune magazine literally keeps a running tally

[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.

[ladytuarach]

Thank you @posttexasstressdisorder for the complete picture