beige flannel

very normal person they/them 23

[dogweapon]

the author's barely disguised longing for a kinder world

[ms-demeanor]

Things that will make your computer meaningfully faster:

Replacing a HDD with an SSD

Adding RAM

Graphics cards if you're nasty

Uninstalling resource hogs like Norton or McAfee (if you're using Windows then the built-in Windows Security is perfectly fine; if you're using a mac consider bitdefender as a free antivirus or eset as a less resource intensive paid option)

Customizing what runs on startup for your computer

Things that are likely to make internet browsing specifically meaningfully faster:

Installing firefox and setting it up with ublock origin

adding the Auto Tab Discard extension to firefox to sleep unused tabs so that they aren't constantly reloading

Closing some fucking tabs bud I'm sorry I know it hurts I'm guilty of this too

Things that will make your computer faster if you are actually having a problem:

Running malwarebytes and shutting down any malicious programs it finds.

Correcting disk utilization errors

Things that will make your computer superficially faster and may slightly improve your user experience temporarily:

Clearing cache and cookies on your browser

Restarting the computer

Changing your screen resolution

Uninstalling unused browser extensions

Things that do not actually make your computer faster:

Deleting files

Registry cleaners

Defragging your drive

Passively wishing that your computer was faster instead of actually just adding more fucking RAM.

This post is brought to you by the lady with the 7-year-old laptop that she refuses to leave overnight for us to run scans on or take apart so that we can put RAM in it and who insists on coming by for 30-minute visits hoping we can make her computer faster.

[ms-demeanor]

There are people saying "what does this mean" so:

Meaningfully Faster

HDD means "hard disk drive" SSD means "solid state drive." An HDD has a spinning platter and a mechanical arm that has to wiggle back and forth very quickly to read the information written on the platter, while an SSD is a silicon chip that has the information "flashed" into it (basically it takes a snapshot of bits with electricity - it's unimportant how it works, just that it doesn't require mechanical movement to access data, and is therefore MUCH faster).

Installing an SSD does *not* require an M.2 slot and does *not* require a ton of expertise on most computers. There are many SATA SSDs available and if you want to replace your HDD all that you need to do is clone your hard drive and look up how to install your new SSD on ifixit (link in a bit).

Your storage drive (SSD or HDD) is the drive that stores the files and programs on your computer. People often confuse long-term drive storage with "memory" and when they get low-memory warnings they think they need to delete stored files. This is inaccurate because:

RAM is Random Access Memory - if is basically the "working memory" of your computer, it keeps track of all the things that your computer does/is doing. For example: if you are working in your browser, the browser is not saving everything that you're doing to your desktop so everything that is going on in your browser is using RAM to remember what pages you've got open and what images are on them, etc. Same if you're working in any other program: if you're writing a word doc and you haven't saved it in a while, all the changes are being tracked by the RAM but are not yet saved on your storage drive. "Low Memory" doesn't mean you're out of room for your computer to hold onto files, it means your computer is low on memory to think about stuff. Because programs are written to use more and more memory as time passes (which is a good thing, for the most part, but causes frustrating problems for people with older devices) older computers will struggle to run modern programs with the amount of RAM the older computers have in them.

RAM comes in different speeds, and the speed of your RAM does matter but if you get RAM that matches the speed of your installed RAM you should experience better speeds from your computer. Some computers have the RAM directly soldiered to the motherboard and cannot have RAM added (this is pretty much true of all macs. I do not recommend buying macs.) but if your computer DOES allow you to add RAM it is generally an easy process - check IFixIt.Com for instructions: just search the model number of your computer and look at the replacement guide for RAM and you will be able to see if you can replace your RAM and see the steps to follow along if you want to do that. There are a large number of tools to look up what RAM will work in your computer. Personally I like the Crucial RAM Configurator tool. Just look up your computer and it will recommend compatible RAM. You don't have to buy the Crucial RAM, you can use the Crucial RAM configurator to get the specs you need and then search for yourself by Size, Memory Technology, Speed, Format, and number of Pins.

Graphics cards are for graphics processing and they're "if you're nasty" because adding a dedicated graphics card is kind of a big hurdle these days: computers are smaller inside than they used to be and graphics cards are big and they are also very expensive right now. Unless you are using a gaming laptop you likely cannot add a graphics card to your laptop, and unless you have at least a couple hundred dollars to spare you can't add a graphics card to your desktop either. But also they will only speed up a very specific subset of applications; if you don't do anything that requires a GPU to get shit done (video rendering, really complicated math, etc) then it isn't going to make your computer faster.

Norton and McAfee run in the background of your computer at all times and can suck up a lot of valuable memory, especially if they decide to randomly start a scan or check back in with the mothership to make sure you've paid for another seven years. They are annoying and they can slow everything else down - McAfee in particular is notorious for this. Modern Windows Operating systems (10 and 11) have a lot of security features built in at baseline and Windows Defender is a perfectly functional whole-device antivirus for almost all users. It was never true that macs couldn't have software infections or couldn't be infected with malware, it's just that *people used to write fewer malicious softwares for mac( and NOW there are a lot more infections written for OSX *and* mac users often think they don't need antivirus. Buds. You do need antivirus. Since Bitdefender only has a free virus scanner for Mac, not antivirus, and Sophos Free is only good for a month, and Avast has recently sold customer data, try Avira.

If you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on "task manager" you will find a list of applications that run on startup. Programs that run on startup are turned on and active every time you start your computer, regardless of whether you use the program or not. So, for instance, let's say you have an HP printer and there are drivers for the printer on your computer but you only print things maybe twice a year. If your HP Printer Print Utility is set to run on startup that means that every time you start your computer it wakes up and turns on this program, which slows down your startup time and takes processing power in the background. So just disable it on startup and only start the program when you need it. The only difference here is that it'll take a few seconds to start the utility when it's time to print. Things that I've got disabled on startup include: Microsoft Edge, Adobe, and Cortana.

Faster Browsing

You should be using Firefox anyway because Firefox rules and in literally hundreds of tests performs as well or better than chrome. If someone says that firefox is ridiculously slow it is because they've either set up a really weird configuration, have had the install go wrong, or just don't understand what they're doing. But ASIDE from that you should use Firefox with Ublock Origin because Ublock Origin is an *amazing* adblocker that doesn't whitelist ads and lets you do things like manage cookies and block annoying popups and a bunch of other stuff. And as of 2023 it will be impossible to install Ublock Origin on Chrome so you may as well switch to Firefox now and live that ad-free life. Ad-blocked browsing speeds up your browser because your computer isn't spending extra energy on loading ads and less shit loading means less RAM utilization means faster computing.

Auto Tab Discard is an extension that allows you to set tabs to sleep after an amount of time that you determine. You can customize your experience so that it doesn't sleep tabs with partially filled forms, or doesn't sleep tabs with media playing in them, or doesn't sleep a specific tab for a session, or doesn't ever sleep tabs from a specific website. Many people use OneTab, which basically turns your tabs into a bookmark list that opens the page when you click in OneTab, but I personally prefer Auto Tab Discard - neither of those are "better" than the other, it's just a question of what works for you.

Faster if you are having an actual problem

Open tabs eat RAM. Your computer is expending memory thinking about what's on all of those pages and even if most of them are slept you probably have more awake tabs than you need.

Malwarebytes has a free virus/malware scanning and removal tool that you can download and run to identify and remove malware or viruses that may be stealing your information and running background programs that are fucking up your speeds. If you think your computer might be slow because you might have a virus, go to malwarebytes, download the free version, run a scan, and follow the instructions that it gives you.

Disk utilization errors happen for a number of reasons and they will all slow down your computer. Here are some of the reasons they happen and some ways to fix them. If you hare having a persistent disk usage error issue *DO NOT* replace your HDD with an SSD until it is resolved because these errors can destroy an SSD.

Superficially Faster

Your browser cache and cookies are the things that your browser remembers between sessions: it might be logins for various sites or the logos of your homepage or a bunch of other stuff. If your browser is running super slow because you haven't cleared cache/cookies for a long time, doing this can help because it will basically make your browser forget about the cookies it has been carrying around for five years for a site you haven't logged into since four years and seven months ago. These are tiny pieces of data but they can add up over time which is why they will make your browsing experience faster if you haven't done it in years but won't make a difference if you clear your cookies and cache monthly. Doing this will log you out of all the sites you're logged into (which shouldn't be a huge deal, but you do need to be ready to log in a bunch, so you should HAVE A PASSWORD MANAGER TO MAKE THAT EASIER). This will make your browser run a bit faster, but if your computer is slow for non-browser reasons or if your cache/cookies have been cleared recently it will have no impact on your computer speeds.

Restarting your computer will speed your computer up for a bit because it will shut down all the programs you had running and clear your computer's RAM of all the stuff it was remembering for as long as you had those programs open. This is, again, a superficial improvement, and if you have, say, restarted your computer three times today it is unlikely that restarting again will do anything for you. But yeah if it's been a couple weeks, friend, restart your computer it is tired and it wants to run patches and it needs to forget the twenty docs you're editing for a minute so it can get its head on straight.

Reducing your screen resolution can make your computer run a bit faster if you're doing graphics-heavy stuff and have really shit built-in graphics support, but realistically all it is likely to do is make your computer look weird.

Your browser extensions run on startup and cause your browser to use more RAM at baseline; you should be installing minimal browser extensions and uninstalling any that you don't need. If it's been a while since you checked your extensions go uninstall the unused ones right now and restart the browser and you may speed up a bit. But the majority of people in the world run pretty minimal extensions so this is unlikely to fix most people's problems.

Will not make your computer faster

Unless your storage drive is within 10% of its maximum capacity it is in no way fucking up your speed. If it is within 10% of capacity go delete whatever's in your downloads folder, clear out your temp files, and empty your recycle bin. If that doesn't take care of it, use a backup drive or a thumb drive and copy off the photos, videos, and music you don't use very often, and only keep what you're using on your computer. If you've got an SSD having too little storage available can fuck with the lifespan, so aim to keep at least 10% free.

Registry cleaners are supposed to clean your computer's registry; basically they're supposed to look at the index of all the stuff your computer knows and delete redundant or outdated entries on the index. However it has been literal decades since a registry cleaner would be able to meaningfully improve performance while they can still absolutely fuck your computer up bad enough that it needs a reinstall and a lot of them are just straight up malware, some of them are actual for-realsies ransomware, a bunch of them sell your data, and you don't need ANY of them. If you don't know enough to fuck around with your registry by hand you shouldn't trust some random ass software that has a history of data breaches and virus infections associated with it. Fuck all registry cleaners.

Manual drive defragging has been obsolete on Windows Machines since Windows 7 shipped with an automatic defragging utility in 2011. In the past when you saved a file to a hard drive it might save that file in a bunch of little pieces scattered all over the platter, so accessing that file meant accessing all the *fragments* of that file and "defragging" meant taking some time every once in a while to put files together into whole files instead of fragments. But then eleven years ago Windows made that process automatic, so unless you have *seriously* fucked up your computer somehow it shouldn't be an issue, and if it is an issue you can run a defrag and then make sure automatic defragging is enabled. But that whole conversation is probably moot since SSDs don't need to be defragmented (and defragging them actually adds to the device wear). So basically if your computer actually DOES need a defrag it is probably more fucked than you initially thought and unless that is the case then it is already defragging so doing an additional defrag won't make anything faster and/or might cause extra wear to an SSD.

[ms-demeanor]

If you are using an older computer and it is tortuously slow and you can't upgrade the RAM or swap in an SSD but you *can* install software, I would strongly recommend installing Linux.

The vast majority of people these days use computers primarily for web browsing and occasionally use an office suite. Most people don't even store their music or photos on their computers these days. If your computer is basically an internet machine that you don't use for anything other than browsing and basic word processing/spreadsheets, then there is no reason not to switch to Linux.

I would recommend installing Linux Lite, which is a well-supported, widely-used distro that most computers built within the last twenty years should be able to run. It's called "Lite" because it is an operating system that requires minimal processing, storage, and memory to run.

To do this you will need:

A 4GB USB stick or a blank DVD to create installation media

An internet connection to download the software

Another computer or phone that you can use to follow the instructions, or a printed/written copy of the installation guide

A computer on which to install Linux. Installing Linux as the sole operating system on this computer (which is my recommendation here) will mean that everything else on the computer is deleted. Save all of your files/movies/music/etc. to a backup drive or another computer before you install Linux, because installing a new OS will delete literally everything on the computer and make it impossible to get back.

Here is where you can download Linux Lite.

Here is the Linux Lite help manual, I've linked you directly to the step-by-step installation guide. If you get to a step that you don't understand, search the terms that you're unfamiliar with phrased as questions like "why do I need an ISO to install linux?" or "how do I enter UEFI BIOS on my version of Windows?"

Follow the instructions for installing Linux Lite, and then you can install software on your new OS. Linux Lite comes bundled with Libre Office, which is a free office suite like Microsoft Office that has programs similar to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. It installs with Chrome, so I would recommend installing Firefox and uninstalling Chrome as soon as you're able to get on the internet.

After that you can pick and choose from a wide variety of linux-compatible software and you can use your computer as a regular computer. I'd say that it's probably a good idea to be picky about what software you install, and to try to keep your computer as lean as possible if you're trying to get a longer life out of an old device.

There are a lot of people in the notes who are saying "my computer can't even load four tabs" or "my computer can't even open the software I need to do this" and if that is your computer I think you've pretty much got nothing to lose from installing Linux. If your computer is essentially unusable in Windows then it's probably not going to be *less* functional in Linux, unless you're keeping the computer the way that it is for some very specific software you're using.

A lot of people think that they can't uses Linux because it's entirely in the command line or doesn't have a graphic interface or something, but most linux distros only look about as different to users as windows does to mac or vice versa.

This is what the Linux Lite default desktop looks like:

It's got a start menu and a task bar and folders on the desktop, same as any other computer. It's very easy to use and has the help manual installed right there as soon as you're up and running so that you can troubleshoot your way through any issues.

Really, seriously: if your computer is slow as fuck and all you use it for is web browsing, this will make your computing experience significantly better without having to buy anything but a thumb drive.

[ms-demeanor]

People are reblogging just the first section of this post and asking what these things mean, so I'm reblogging this in hopes that they'll see the comprehensive update in the notes.

[ms-demeanor]

I want everyone reading this to know that importing bookmarks from any other browser to firefox is a very simple process that will take just a few minutes. Here are some step-by-step instructions from Mozilla on how to import your bookmarks: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-browser

[ms-demeanor]

Hey there, if you like this post you might like it even more as an organized page on my website that can be easily printed into a PDF and shared with people without having to send them to a tumblr link and a weird thread to get the information.

The page is a little more in-depth and technical and has a bit more info on troubleshooting and diagnostics.

[lovely-abeille-deactivated20241]

holy things in this world, emery allen // tonight i'm someone else: essays, chelsea hodson // the last days of judas iscarlot, stephen andy guirgis // intimacy, angelica alzona // for your own good, leah horlick // the second elegy, rainer maria rilke; tr. by C.F. macintyre // from the old man to the sea, earnest hemingway

[nessimaki-deactivated20141106]

[dialupmodern]

Babe, you okay? you reblogged “and we were nice to each other” like 12 times again

[celestial-fang]

3 components of worldbuilding:

1. The author’s kinks

2. The author’s power fantasy

3. The author’s political agenda

Plot and logic optional

[lttrsfrmlnrrgby]

4. The author's formative trauma(s), unrecognized until after they hit post and then reread it for typos, only to blink in shock and say, "Oh. Oh. Oh fuck."

[moniquill]

5. The author's personal grievances with other works in the same genre. (May relate to #3 but not always)

[baddywronglegs]

6. The author's favourite bit of historical, cultural or scientific trivia or other academic obsession that they only stop talking about to eat and maybe breathe in if they can't get circular breathing down

[isawiitch]

everybody got mad

[chelseahotel2004]

mathematics, god + predetermination // arcadia, tom stoppard.

[booklyreads]

“It is very strange [for a writer] to want so much what cannot be achieved in life. The high jumper knows, at the instant after performance, how high he has been; his achievement can be measured both immediately and with precision. But for those of us attempting dialogue with the great dead, it isn’t a matter of waiting: the judgment we wait for is made by the unborn; we can never, in our lifetimes, know it.”

— Louise Gluck, “Education of a Poet,” Proofs and Theories

[grandhotelabyss]

The Intellectuals and the Masses was the most lucid and intelligent statement yet of an English conservative anti-Modernism familiar to readers of the Sunday Times and the Spectator. Carey’s cousins in populism sometimes include Simon Jenkins, Paul Johnson, A.N. Wilson and the late Auberon Waugh. An easy moralism animates this worldview. Picasso was a pig; Edmund Gosse was ‘a bore’; D.H. Lawrence hit Frieda and wanted to exterminate whole races; Virginia Woolf was a pretentious snob who said horrible things about the plebeian Joyce, and about the girls who worked at Woolworths; James Kelman acted like a barbarian at the Booker dinner, and so on.

Most of these commentators imagine themselves to be writing a form of intellectual history when they are only pouring gossip into fancy goblets at London book parties. They experience apparently no squeamishness, indeed no awareness of any difficulty, in moving between these troublesome lives and the troublesome work that was produced by them: the one naturally follows the other, as the overnight cell follows the police blotter. Robert Lowell was a rather unsavoury fellow; therefore we should not be surprised by the ‘irresponsible obscurity’ (Carey’s phrase) of his verse. In The Intellectuals and the Masses, Carey moves swiftly from quoting unpleasant and fascistic comments about the masses by Yeats, Eliot, Woolf, Hamsun, Lawrence and others – most of those comments appearing in diaries, letters and journalism – to the conclusion that ‘the early 20th century saw a determined effort, on the part of the European intelligentsia, to exclude the masses from culture. In England this movement has become known as Modernism … Realism of the sort it was assumed the masses appreciated was abandoned. So was logical coherence. Irrationality and obscurity were cultivated.’

That art demands a scandalous selfishness, and a selfishness which paradoxically isolates the writer from the much less selfish world that is his or her subject, that most serious artists do not live orderly lives, do not merely chew the cud of convention, and are given to not very nice statements, seems to be a surprise only to these commentators. Even the beloved Chekhov, we now know, talked occasionally about ‘Yids’, and serially trifled with the affections of female admirers. Carey was indeed defeated even on his own terms a few months after the publication of The Intellectuals and the Masses in 1992. He ended his assault on the nasty Modernists by applauding the fact that in contemporary poetry ‘obscurity is no longer the rule … The leading poets writing English in the second half of the 20th century, Larkin, Hughes and Heaney, have all written poems that … can be readily appreciated by schoolchildren.’ That was July: in the autumn came the revelation of Larkin’s letters, containing heaped unpleasantnesses beyond anything in Woolf’s diaries or Lawrence’s letters, and the link between vile private statement and lovable public work became suddenly problematic – at least, to those for whom the problem was sudden.

—James Wood, “Cold-Shouldered”

(The Intellectuals and the Masses, by the way, is very good gossip—I’ve read it twice! But Eliot was still, as he well knew, a great poet without always being a good person, and the same goes for Lawrence, Yeats, Woolf, and the rest.)

[metaphrasis]

“I, too, feel the need to reread the books I have already read,“ a third reader says, “but at every rereading I seem to be reading a new book, for the first time. Is it I who keep changing and seeing new things of which I was not previously aware? Or is reading a construction that assumes form, assembling a great number of variables, and therefore something that cannot be repeated twice according to the same pattern? Every time I seek to relive the emotion of a previous reading, I experience different and unexpected impressions, and do not find again those of before. At certain moments it seems to me that between one reading and the next there is a progression: in the sense, for example, of penetrating further into the spirit of the text, or of increasing my critical detachment. At other moments, on the contrary, I seem to retain the memory of the readings of a single book one next to another, enthusiastic or cold or hostile, scattered in time without a perspective, without a thread that ties them together. The conclusion I have reached is that reading is an operation without object; or that its true object is itself. The book is an accessory aid, or even a pretext.”

— Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

[valtsv]

okay but "the symbolism is Real and Trying to Kill You" is my favorite kind of symbolism

[valtsv]

like yeah the monster is a representation of your unresolved trauma and guilt and a manifestation of the sins of your past but it's also a real creature and it's going to fucking Get you

[nagasleeps]

⚔⚔

[judasrpc]

WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS

What’s the lie your character says most often?

How loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen?

What’s their favorite [insert anything] that they’ve never recommended to anyone before?

What would you (mun) yell in the middle of a crowd to find them? What would their best friend and/or romantic partner yell?

How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’?

Do they give tough love or gentle love most often? Which do they prefer to receive?

What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

When do they fake a smile? How often?

How do they put out a candle?

What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?

What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

Who do they love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone)?

What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding?

Who do they like as a person but hate their work? Vice versa, whose work do they like but don’t like the person?

What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

What simple activity that most people do / can do scares your character?

What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Did they take a cookie from the cookie jar? What kind of cookie was it?

What subject / topic do they know a lot about that’s completely useless to the direct plot?

How would they respond to being fired by a good boss?

What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?

How do they respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

When they make a mistake and feel bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

If they committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

How do they greet someone they dislike / hate?

How do they greet someone they like / love?

What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

Who do they keep in their life for professional gain? Is it for malicious intent?

What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell?

What hobby are they good at in private, but bad at in front of others? Why?

Would they rather be invited to an event to feel included or be excluded from an event if they were not genuinely wanted there?

How do they respond to a loose handshake? What goes through their head?

What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

What language would be easiest for them to learn? Why?

What’s something unimportant / frivolous that they hate passionately?

Are they a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

Who have they forgotten about that remembers them very well?

Who would they say ‘yes’ to if invited to do something they abhorred / strongly didn’t want to do?

Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?

What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

What’s a phrase they say a lot?

Do they act on their immediate emotions, or do they wait for the facts before acting?

Who would / do they believe without question?

What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation?

What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?

If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

What’s a simple daily activity / motion that they mess up often?

How many hobbies have they attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

[runespoor7]

I feel like JC has some weird gender shit going on. Not even in the normal sense; in the ‘assigned ruined woman by the narrative’ sense. Like. Wow. JC, you really gonna get called childhood sweethearts with your rogueish evil shixiong? JC, you really gonna be left alone with naught but a single child, a widow in all but name? Wangji is out there trying to assign himself widower vibes but JC is getting constant woman scorned and wronged wife energies forced upon him from get-go.

Even his father was like *looking at an eight year old* “I see my nagging wife in you”

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING

his parents really took a glance at that toddler and decided to project the most unhinged gender possible on him. JC, assigned neglected wife at birth.

JC performs it so conscientiously too! It's so so so important to how he is with WWX and how he views himself. 9yo JC after he's known WWX: "there he is. the cad that will break my heart." and can't ever everrrrrr stop loving WWX or break away from the utter grip WWX has on him. JC has known since before WWX came into his life that he was made to be neglected/scorned, by the person supposed to stand by his side and to whom he's supposed to be loyal.

Also lmao at the left with a child thing. It's totally that, except JC WISHES he was a widow!!! He's not even granted that dignity by society! But nah he's the ruined woman who was seduced and abandoned by someone who promised her marriage and then went off and died after making her look for a fool, while she was making excuses for him, and everyone knows what a chump JC was for it! Was WWX lying all along? Was is ever even real ?

(JC gets the answer to that question when WWX breaks it off at the temple by telling him nah, it was only duty to JC's family that made stick by JC's side. Probably not how WWX meant it! But wow, way to put it the least personal possible way. WWX's most intimate organ in JC's body had nothing to do with feelings for JC or JC as a person. Way to make sure JC never, ever reaches out for fear of being that nagging, clingy, shrewish, needy embarrassment of a person)

[demoiselledefortune]

OP's tags

[animentality]

[foulserpent]

take some time to notice your vision. see how easily you detect motion. focus on something in your peripheral (without moving your eyes to it). see how it works. look at your hands. pick something up with your fingers. appreciate how ridiculously specialized they are in fine motor skills (even if your personal motor skills are lackluster). think about how you have a body built to be an apex predator through use of tools. think about how the brain of your kind has created a digital hivemind uniting the whole world. now look back at the screen.  look at the tab where you are in an argument about cartoons on tumblr. close the tab. open a new tab. google “tribute to anomalocaris”. watch the video that comes up. leave a like. subscribe even though the channel has been inactive for 8 years. you will need it in the coming times

[foulserpent]

[onadarklingplain]

okay, here's how this is going to go: i'm going to present a bunch of primary sources, and then i'm going to tell you what i think about them. obvs you're under no obligation to agree with me, and i hope you'll find the clips, etc useful regardless.

FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND: for those who need a George refresher, he grew up in Norfolk; his dad owned some kind of seed business and his mother was a hairdresser. he's the youngest of three siblings, and his brother Benjy and his sister Cara are both significantly older than him; George was born when they were 12 and 13 respectively, which is quite an age gap. obviously idk what happened there, but it's interesting! George's dad was 43 when he was born (his mother's age is unclear to me, good for her, etc) both his siblings were very successful in sports. Cara did horse shows and won the Horse of the Year show at Wembley, and Benjy was a karting world champion. Benjy wasn't able to go on and race single-seaters as he started racing too late (he started when he was 11 after trying it at a birthday party). George's dad did a bit of karting when he was younger as well, but never took it as far as his sons would. George started karting at 6 or 7 (following in Benjy's footsteps) and he would practice with his mother after school and on weekends until he was old enough to start competing. when he did start racing, he would go with his father, and he used Benjy's karting number (63, obvs). as a kid significantly younger than his siblings, you'd think that he would have been coddled more, but i think (and the evidence will show) that because of the success of his siblings, more was expected of him by his father and he had to grow up very quickly. NEXT, SOME CLIPS: because tumblr is a hellsite, and i can only upload one video per post, the clips have been combined into one and lightly compressed out of necessity. soz, i'm mad about it too.

FIGURE ONE: George on the high performance podcast talking about his family (0:00 - 4:01; posted 28 November 2022; source) i find this podcast is sooo annoying, but unfortunately George says a lot of interesting things in this interview. frankly, i don't think i need to add anything to what he says, but i will anyways. it's just like, the way that the parental relationship morphs into a professional relationship and the pressure that puts on the child. like, George only seeing his father in a racing context and not at home! and the way that shift has an ongoing effect on the relationship into adulthood. FIGURE TWO: George on the fast and the curious podcast talking about his winter break driving trip with his family (4:01-4:53; posted 27 February 2023; source) George goes out of his way here to mention that he had a bad relationship with his dad. like, it's not what the interview was about and he didn't have to say it. but he did anyways! it's not very PR63 of him, and i think you can tell that how hard his dad was on him when he was a child really stuck with him. i love that he brings up his sister being faster than his dad. good for Cara!! FIGURE THREE: George talking to the F1 juniors about seeing his father in the stands in F3 (4:53-5:23; posted 24 July 2023; source) George specifically being like, yeah, my father would PACE during races and i could see it from the car... of course many ways to read this, but to me, it comes across as his father being worried about the results and worried that George wouldn't 'achieve.' and George being aware of that pressure from him while he's driving.

FIGURE FOUR: an interview with George, aged 14, talking about his racing and his brother's karting success & an interview with George's mum discussing the family's involvement in his and his siblings' careers (5:23 - 8:20; interview from 2012, posted 8 November 2018; source) little George looks so so serious in this interview, and so determined... i could cry. crazy to think that this child had already left school and was starting to do sim days with F1 teams. when George was 14, his father also sold his business, presumably to devote the time and money to George's career. like, the pressure!! and the way he talks about the mistake that he made! like it didn't affect his overall result, but he's still not going to let the interviewer make him feel better about it. that is definitely not a child who's playing football with his mates during break. and sooo interesting hearing his mum talk about the financial pressures increasing as George aged, and about how it was for George growing up with two very successful siblings. really recommend watching the whole thing, as it also features Benjy and it's interesting to hear from him as well. i think it's such a key detail that his mum was his mechanic until he got 'serious', when his dad's attention switched to him from Benjy, who couldn't go any farther in karting. and the way that George would have seen the pressure Benjy was under, and how it would have been two-fold for him, because he was the only one left who could make a proper go of it and who could make all of the family's efforts worthwhile.

TEXT INTERVIEWS: FIGURE FIVE: THE TIMES INTERVIEW (source) in April 2023, the very bad UK publication, The Times, published a joint interview with George and his dad. it's a very rich text. It's behind a paywall at the link above, but you can find the full thing on tumblr. i've pulled out some of the bits that interest me below. THE QUOTES FROM GEORGE:

this really just recaps what George talks about on the High Performance Podcast (see fig.1). how he and his dad didn't really have a parental relationship, and how he felt the pressure of needing to succeed as a child, in order to make his father happy and therefore have a happy home life. i need to type these parts out because it bears re-emphasising: "Dad has always been hard on the ones he loves.... that was difficult to deal with." "Dad is a strong character but he's..... friendlier now." that's honestly just so sad. and then the quote about the flights.... literally why? i feel like it's kind of infantilising in a way, not letting your adult child support you when they can? like, it's not letting him have an equal relationship with his parent as an adult and is making him stay in the child role in the family. even though he didn't really get to be a child in the first place!! i'm going to stop myself there, for my sanity. THE QUOTES FROM GEORGE'S DAD:

so the George's dad section literally starts with a neg. it's the most annoying thing i've ever read. and then he goes on to say that he won't let George get an ego in a national newspaper? for what? and the driving instructor story.... why would you say this about your child in a newspaper. it does not come across well to me!! it's like his father is trying to embarrass him, frankly. ADDITIONAL ANECDOTE:

okay i know there are multiple ways to read this. it could just be supportive or whatever. but given the evidence already considered and the fact that his dad is known to critique him.... i'm going to choose to take this in bad faith and say that, to me, this screams that his dad is rewatching highlights to find places where George made mistakes. FIGURE SIX: BONUS HEARSAY - MARTIN KODRIC (source) as per some rando reddit user

Martin Kodrić is a Croatian driver who karted with George in 2012. he's said some things about the drivers in years past which are, i'm told, of dubious veracity. however his comment about George's dad confirms my priors, so i'm including it here. also, what reason would he have to go after George's dad out of the blue like this if it wasn't true?? years later?? absolutely none whatsoever. he's not getting clout from saying this. therefore i think it's true, good night. THE CONCLUSION: i think a lot of the things George talks about are quite common for people who are put into professional roles as children (child actors, athletes, etc). it wouldn't surprise me to learn that most of the guys on the grid have had similar experiences. but i also think the way George has started speaking about it is really interesting, as i think he's someone who is very aware of perception and how things come across. the way he talks about his difficult relationship with his dad also feels very thought out to me, and i feel like it's really come about after he started talking more about mental health issues. which honestly, great for him! tumblr will crash if i try to put anything else into this post right now, and i need to stop thinking about this for my sanity, but if you have extra info that i missed, i'd love it if you let me know ETA 27/07/2023: additional information from a helpful anon! FIGURE SEVEN: EXTRA BONUS HEARSAY (source)

as per lovely anon, this is a comment on a post from George's facebook in 2020 with his dad. from my surface level googling, the man who commented to have involved in British karting during the time George would have been karting. obviously take this with a grain of salt! who knows what this guy's motive was in commenting on Facebook. commenting on Facebook is always to be viewed with skepticism! still, it does seem consistent with what George has said about his karting days, so i think it's verifiable enough to include here.