The Great and Powerful Salem @magiksalem - Tumblr Blog

female-presenting vitruvian

i appreciate the amount of people reblogging this despite me not really tagging this at all. im glad many of people feel the same anger i do.

randalltier-deactivated20230711

dumpy-dump

nociceptrix

finding out you spent most of your life dissociated is a HUGE bummer

nociceptrix

i thought shit didnt stick to me cuz i was slick but its cause i wasnt there #LAME

so-many-ocs

no dude it's so cool how attached you are to that character who is singled out and ostracized due to the external monstrousness that clashes with their internal spark of humanity. and i love how drawn you are to themes of horror and love, nature versus nurture, otherness, isolation, and the abject. i bet you have normal feelings about your own personhood

immaplatypus

“so this week my town made the news for—” nope

“there’s a restaurant two miles from my house called—” nope

“today I learned [celeb] went to my high school—” nope nope nope nope nope

these are all real posts I’ve seen on the internet that allowed me to identify a user’s hometown instantly. if it’s a small town, that’s doubly dangerous, because a bad actor could trace you just by a unique first name or selfie you once posted. in an age where doxxing and stalking are some of the worst I’ve ever seen it, you HAVE to think twice about what you’re posting online.

i once saw a 13-year old post an image they noted as being “a few miles from their house.” it had a theater in the shot with a unique enough name to be local. one google maps search, now everyone knew not only what city they lived in, but the possible neighborhoods in that radius too. and they had a HUGE following…who all knew this was a 13-year-old child.

so yeah. not to sound like a 90s internet safety PSA…but I’m gonna be that PSA for a minute.

if you’re posting an image, there is NO need to say that you live there. you could just be traveling. “saw this in Montana” is better than “saw this by my house!”

before you post about a venue, especially a restaurant or small store, check and see if it’s local—CRUCIALLY if it has only one or two locations. people might travel to arenas or convention centers, but they’re far less likely to be traveling to Bartleby’s Fish and Chips. if it’s an anecdote and you still live nearby, you can honestly just leave the name out entirely.

if you’re sharing a news story, it can just be a story you found and wanted to share. you don’t have to clarify “it happened in my town,” because even if you don’t mention your town name, an easily-googled news article will.

if you’re seeing a concert or meeting a celebrity on a tour that’s stopped locally, wait until they’ve hit a few more venues before you post about it, or at the very least wait until you get home. this is honestly a smart move for any event you attend: unless you’re marketing yourself, there’s no need to advertise your location in real time.

check your selfie backgrounds for anything identifying. this includes city names on venues, school names, street signs, and house numbers.

this stuff is flexible if you no longer live in your hometown, or if your city is particularly big, but there’s STILL no reason to tie yourself to your school, your workplace, or your street. you can call it paranoid, but as someone who’s seen my friends get literal death threats over fictional characters before, the last thing I want is someone willing to act on those threats finding out where they live.

anyway. PSA over. does a kickflip or whatever

cbk1000

As a society, we need to go back to understanding that strangers on the internet are, you know, strangers. I feel lately that I'm seeing a rise in 'An author I love blocked me because they took my comment the wrong way' posts on the ao3 subreddit, and then the comment is them calling the author a fucking bitch or something like that.

Don't do this. Tone doesn't translate well in text, and if you don't have a rapport with that author, they are not going to interpret, 'You're a fucking bitch' as, 'Author I hate you for being so talented and making me feel so keenly.' They're going to interpret it as you being an asshole. You can shit talk with your friends because you have an established relationship with them and can distinguish between playful banter and genuine anger. You do not have this with a stranger, no matter how much you like their fics. You will have a much more pleasant time in fandom and not get cockblocked from interacting with your favorite writers if you remember this.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#I don't often see comments like these when I'm reading a fic but there have been a few that made me raise an eyebrow#I don't know if I would block over someone calling me a bitch on a fic I wrote but I'd probs try to gently tell them it's not right#coz honestly I feel like this is an issue with younger age groups who are new to reading fics and might not understand fandom culture#or at least I hope it's younger people who simply don't know better 😬#otherwise... yikes

This isn't some esoteric niche aspect of fandom culture, strangers at the potluck also do not like being called a fucking bitch.

derinthescarletpescatarian

People in the comments like "you just need to add a /pos tone indicator to your comment!": strangers at the potluck do not like being told "You're a bitch!" with a smile and a thumbs up.

lovrboyx

The Last Unicorn really said “There will be times when you can’t find other people like you and there will be times where you'll wonder if you're really the only person experiencing the world as you are and others will even try to take advantage of you through commodification and exploitation to the point where it starts to dilute your own sense of self and will make you question if you were ever you to begin with but it’s important for to resist the urge to assimilate and find community because there will always be people like you who will understand and have experienced these same things and the only way to combat a dark world who wants to smother your light is to FIGHT FIGHT RAGE AGAINST THE RED BULL DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT OCEAN.”

And I just think there’s something beautifully and inextricably queer about that

iguanamouth

I really like winnie the pooh, Can you draw winnie the pooh pleaseeeeee

thetyrannosaur

Happy 10 year anniversary to this absolutely foundational post

skiingcows

#really cannot emphasize enough how much iguanamouth changed the site’s sense of humor and therefore the timeline of the western world

#I say “pull the trigger piglet” so much

ofools

not gonna say it again!!!!

a BOG is a wetland that is acidic

a FEN is a wetland that is alkaline

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

FINALLY someone said it!!!!!!!

quasi-normalcy

a SWAMP is a wetland whose vegetation consists of trees or other woody plants

a MARSH is a wetland with other forms of vegetation

lesbianshepard

#A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

villainessbian

a MANGAL is a swamp whose soil concentrates high amounts of salt and very low amounts of oxygen, supporting little else than mangrove trees

a PEATLAND is a wetland whose soil concentrates decaying organic matter, becoming peat

big-smiling-monkey

Oh yeah baby, keep coming at me with watery environmental states

yume-fanfare

i think it's really fun when a rly specific trope is super popular in one particular medium but in other ones it's just totally unheard of. it's the time knife. visual novel players are suuuuper used to death games but many others encountered them for the first time in squid games. the other day my mom showed me all excited the summary of a super original novel she found and it was about a girl who got reincarnated as the main character in her favorite fantasy book

paperjoshi

what the fuck is a time knife

bramblepatch

strawberrylovely

undeadentropy

Time knife is a form of time knife

scribeherself

“they never explicitly looked at the camera and said ‘i am experiencing immense grief’ so how was i supposed to know??” i don’t know what to tell you, man. if a story doesn’t spoon-feed you the character's internal emotional state like a jar of mashed peas, you guys just willingly starve. subtext is not a myth, i promise it won't bite you.

beaft

this website is so funny because every couple years we repeat the discourse of "which marginalised group is it morally okay for us to shit on?" and somehow nobody ever learns from it. we just look back and go, "hey, remember that time when everyone was joking about how ace people should all be put in meat grinders? that was so messed up. we should not have done that. anyway, here's my topical joke about how polyamorous people should all be put in meat grinders."

beaft

this post is still getting me anon hate pretty much on the daily btw. in case you were curious about the state of things

bunniboiz

"it's ok to show (x) in fiction as long as the bad guy gets punished!" the bad guy doesn't have to get punished. in fact the bad guy can win altogether. the bad guy can entirely get away with it. hope this helps

bunniboiz

and this part might make some people's head explode but: characters can be written to forgive things you personally wouldn't ever forgive. not everything is written as what you'd perceive to be the right choice. not everything is a self-insert & protagonists don't have to be relatable.

prokopetz

You know, when I've remarked that a lot of the responses to my posts feel like people are just plucking out keywords they think they recognise based on the shape of them and replying to what they imagine the post says based on that, the possibility never occurred to me that this is actually how many American schools are currently teaching kids to read.

prokopetz

Like, my assumption this whole time has been that when folks go "I misunderstood this post that says [thing] as saying [unrelated thing] because I mistook [word] for [completely different word that happens to start with the same letter]", that was a bit. What do you mean they're teaching kids a reading method that's tailored to produce this exact error?

buggyhuman

Three cueing. Once you learn about it, a whole lot of very frustrating online discourse with US Americans makes so much sense 😭

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have

woodsfae

If you were taught to read with the three cueing method, and now struggle to read fluently, you can still learn to read properly!

-> Phonics For Adults <-

If you're a teenager, you can still use this resource.

jheselbraum

Mississippi used to be at or near the bottom national literacy rankings and as I understand, their near meteoric surge in literacy rate ranking is almost entirely due to the fact that they largely still use phonics

jheselbraum

And I want to emphasize here that the poor literacy is the intended outcome.

We've done the research on how to make a good education system and it's been put into practice irl via Finland, who has one of the best education systems in the world and it was built almost entirely using US research.

The lack of reading comprehension is the intended outcome

dollsahoy

back again encouraging people to start using the hobby stuff they've been acquiring for years

reasons to start can include:

the hobby industry wants only for us to keep buying and never use, so using the stuff pushes back

some hobby items do not survive long term storage

if there's some craft or hobby thing that you want to do but feel your skills aren't up to, consider that those skills won't improve if you don't practice on other things

using it allows it to move from the hobby hoard to the [whatever you made it into] hoard, where you may be more likely to enjoy it more often than just when you specifically look at the hobby hoard

making things is good for the brain

curious to see what other reasons people might add

forestcottageart

Me trying to persuade myself to use the foamboard I've been "saving for a special occasion" 😅

dollsahoy

I wouldn't be encouraging people to use the hobby stuff they've been acquiring for years if I hadn't personally started using the hobby stuff I've been acquiring for years, and found out it felt pretty good, actually XD

So, I know exactly how it feels to be saving that thing for something special

and also how--for me--it normally ends up feeling pretty special to use it at all

Not always, though! there will inevitably be hobby projects that don't go the way you expected. I have learned (and am still learning) to acknowledge that nothing's perfect and mistakes happen and then move on to the next project.

While it's true that you can never mess up a project if you never do it, that also keeps you from making the things you end up having fun with and loving, doesn't it?

dollsahoy

Tags from @jupitermoths

#this includes sports/movement hobbies#use your skates your bicycle use the fuckin. soccer ball you have in the back of your closet. go crazy

Yes! Every hobby. The crafty hobbies, the art hobbies, the movement hobbies, the food hobbies, the game hobbies (tabletop and video), the music hobbies, the fashion hobbies, the "it's all done on the computer" hobbies, the "go out in nature" hobbies, and every other kind of hobby.

There are entire industries associated with most hobbies, and each of those industries very often wants you to think the stuff you already have isn't enough, that the next purchase will be what really kicks the hobby into gear for you.

Plastics deteriorate, bugs get into stuff, gaskets leak, electronics fail (or the manufacturer stops supporting them), things fall apart, wild plots of land get developed, things expire or dry up or otherwise become unusable while in storage.

No matter what it is: if you want your skills to improve, they won't get better by waiting for it to happen. You can never enjoy what you don't do.

Using it allows it to be shared more readily--showing it to friends, giving it as gifts, making it part of your daily life, chatting with people who have similar interests. Keeping everything in storage not only isolates the things, but it doesn't do much for your own sense of community, either, does it?

Of course, if you're happy to be a dragon sitting on your hoard, that's great for you! Genuinely! But, if there's even a hint in your mind that maybe you might want to use it...? It could be the time to start.

(and, as I've said elsewhere, if you decide the stuff in your hobby stash isn't what you want to do after all? That's OK! You can give it away, letting someone else figure out if it's for them or not.)

dollsahoy

I've addressed this elsewhere, but, to keep it in one place:

Going through your stash and figuring out what you want to use, where your tastes have changed and you now know you won't ever want to use, and what you didn't get around to using before it became otherwise unusable, and then paying attention to and remembering these things, can help you keep the stash from growing so much in the future

Having your hobby stash be more focused can help you be more likely to use the things, because it's not as overwhelming

Actively using the things can help you see that, quite possibly, it doesn't take as much as you thought to make the things you want to make, and your existing stash--even after you've started using it, given a lot of the unwanted stuff away, and gotten rid of the ruined stuff--will already be able to provide materials for years' worth of projects

And it can help you be more selective when acquiring more--for example, I am now a lot better at recognizing that, yes, I might be able to see the potential in something, but, if it's not necessarily the potential for something I actually want to make, so I am more able to pass on it

It can also help you identify gaps--there might be something you've been making do with that works well enough, but is annoying or painful or otherwise unpleasant to use, so you are far more likely to just not do it at all, and there might be something that would solve that. This is not the same as the thinking that says "If I buy this next New Thing, then I'll really start the hobby!"—this is about already being engaged with the hobby and analyzing what could help with what you're already doing. (This applies to not only tools, but also things like taking the time to get a sewing pattern adjusted to fit the way you want, or re-arranging storage so it works better for you, or making a point of de-linting and oiling and changing the needle on your sewing machine on a regular basis)

Notice I used the auxiliary verb "can" in the paragraphs up there—nothing is universal, and I acknowledge that. What works for me will not necessarily work for you.

For me, personally, though: I gave away so much (I have crafty friends and access to a craft thrift store and that helps), threw away a lot (so much cardboard), used a large amount (including most of what I brought in after analyzing the things I let go), and my craft stash is still enormous.

It is so easy to lack perspective on our possessions, especially when all we do with them is put them in storage with Dreams of Someday, y'know?

bioluminescently-unfolding

And if guilt about unused stuff is paradoxically making you freeze up about using it, it can be really cathartic to find some of your items a new home with a friend. You're left with a less overwhelming pile, from which it's easier to identify projects feel the most approachable. One of my fandom communities hosts a craft swap once or twice a year on our Discord server. Many members are into fibre arts, so there's always yarn, sewing stuff and pattern books on the go, but a few of us are into beading, fanbinding, pottery, painting, and miscellaneous paper/other crafts, so it makes for a nice variety of stuff. Considering how often we do this, it's always amazing how many items get posted, and we have some simple rules like "you can request more than one thing" (the idea after all is to de-stash) and "as a sender, you can ask for postage/limit sending to particular countries" (important in international groups in these days of postal restrictions and tariffs). It could also work to do a crafty day locally with friends. Craft sets that have become aversive despite their intrinsic appeal, just because you've had them for so long still unopened (or - even worse in my experience - because you once partially did the thing and then ground to a halt), can get easier to start when you're next to someone doing the same thing. Or you could host an art/crafts/mending/sorting-my-stash session over Zoom/Discord/FaceTime and chat while you make something, so it's a bonus social thing as well. I've been meaning for years to start doing that on days when I'm too tired to get out but want to see people.

dollsahoy

That ties in with a post I made a few years ago

maybe propose “Craft Friday”–instead of shopping on Black Friday, you get together with friends and make stuff it wouldn’t even necessarily be stuff intended as gifts the only rule is, since it’s an anti-consumerist kinda thing, all craft supplies are things you already have. WIP or UFO? make some progress on it. project you bought supplies for long ago and never tried? now’s the time supplies left over from a project you did finish, or decided you never would actually do? everybody brings theirs and things are freely exchanged people probably do this already

Of course, you wouldn't have to wait until that one specific day! I've just been encouraging stuff like this for a while XD

auttumnleafs

Dall bointed jolls 🥺

heavenpureheart

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