My Frequently Used Tag page has stopped working so I'm going to just tag this post with my most frequently used tags. Click and you shall find, etc. I'll try to figure out a better method eventually.
For reasons you don't necessarily care about, I'm re-scanning every single slide I own (or can find because I squirrel them in odd places). This has turned up a few I don't recall having.
Was driving with my grandmother and in broken English she says “no eyes… no nose… no face. Don’t trust.” To which I looked around wildly in search of this omen of ill portend.
There are multiple chapters that are set in hospitals where the characters are attempting to recover from injuries that never fully heal. I must once again stress that my experience in WWI was perfectly normal.
There is a giant horrible mudplain full of unrecoverable and perfectly preserved dead bodies that the characters have to walk through in a land where the air is poisoned gas, and on a compLETELY UNRELATED NOTE: WWI WAS TOTALLY FINE AND NORMAL!!
And why are you all saying lotr was also a way for me to process the trauma and horror I experienced watching my own sons and students fight in WWII. Just because one of my characters longs to fight alongside her loved ones to save her country instead of being told to stay put, keep calm, and carry on while the world around her completely falls apart and all hope seems lost…..made to silently bear witness to the death and destruction of her people and the lands she is unable to protect….
Yes, I began writing these books during WWII while my sons were actively on the front lines, but my experience watching the young people I loved and taught dying to save me and my country from invasion in WWII bc my generation did not in fact end all wars WAS TOTALLY FINE AND NORMAL!!
americans love doxxing their home states more than anything. we hear the name of our home state and everything goes black and we wake up 10 minutes later, having reblogged no fewer than 8 posts featuring the name of our home state
Doing a final project in my stats class, we have to pick a subject and collect data on it. We need at least 100 data points, and I figured this blog is big enough that a poll on here could get to that pretty easily!
Doing my project on if it’s more likely to be born in certain months :]
I have gotten the OK from my teacher to collect data using a Tumblr poll, btw. I’m also going to have to send her this post as proof of where I got the data from / proof I didn’t just make up the numbers. So. Behave
Selections from a 1999 Target newspaper insert (1999)
Lots of kitschy Groovival, mixed with a style of colorful, playful 90s-00s contemporary interiors we've been calling Gen-X Home - I could see that style coming back, its so fun!
Thanks to hangingwithdes on Instagram for scanning & sharing these! They post a ton of excellent Y2K-era media, please check them out!
I’ve been working on discomfort testing. I think it’s important for anyone who grew up super chronically online (or everyone really). Basically I try to put myself in situations where I’m uncomfortable with increasing severity. If you think you’re “lazy” because you just can’t force yourself to walk every day or you just can’t force yourself to clean your room or something like that you might wanna try discomfort testing.
I have big and small tests. A small test can look like: setting a 10 minute timer and cleaning as much as I can within that time. Walking around the block and seeing how many times I can tell myself “just one more block.” Forcing myself to read and pay attention to the most boring book I can find in my local library (they don’t usually end up being as boring as they look).
Big tests are like: forcing myself to go to a party where I know my ride is dependent on someone so I can’t leave until they do. Spending an entire day on a boat with no escape. Giving a speech in front of a room full of people.
Sometimes it’s not things I have to do but am too lazy to do but rather it’s about just testing my utmost boundaries to remind myself that I am strong and I can do things that feel hard or impossible. Last week I dunked my whole body in ice water. It was fucking scary. I lived.
Life is a series of forcing yourself to do difficult things. Start young and small and it’ll be easier to do the bigger things when you’re older.
"everybody wants to rule the world" factoid is actually a statistical error. Alexander the Georg, who lived in Macedon and conquered 2 million square miles every 13 years, was an outlier adn should not have been counted
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!
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.)
Overall, I have less time than ever to be in front of the computer at home or at a coffee shop. This is killing my creative time. I don't want to browse personal sites at work, and I don't want to try to blog on my phone.
But I would like to write more. Because one of the little blessings of putting things in words is that it allows me to connect with different parts of the past. And I sometimes forget that past me had different problems. And that's refreshing, honestly: that it hasn't always been the same, that the past had different monsters and angels.
As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.
FIRST:
The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:
A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi
It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).
Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).
Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.
Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:
No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).
Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.
The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.
Bonus:
Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)
Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)
How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)
Confessions of a Misanthrope Gone Mild @geekagora - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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