Name a conspiracy theory superior in raw power to “there are no actual forests on Earth"
imma need some context on that cause WHAT?
“forests” = minuscule form of what trees on Earth can be, basically saplings “mesas” = not landforms, but petrified ancient tree trunks IIRC the theory goes that all forests on Earth were destroyed ages ago and it takes them ridiculous times to regrow, with those giant mammoth redwood trees just being the oldest ones that have grown the most
I was attempting to add maple syrup themed things to my amazon wishlist because people are practically yelling at me in my inbox to add food stuff to my wishlist that I can eat and I found this gem and I am honestly losing my mind:
It’s a classic [City Slicker Girl] with [fancy glamorous but stressful job] is forced into [Rural Environment By Circumstances Outwith Her Control] where she meets [Rugged Rural Area Man Who Juts Wants To:] *spins wheel* “build barns and make maple syrup and be left alone to raise his coyote in peace”, formula right there and honestly I am HERE FOR IT
Oh god it isn’t properly formatted for ebook, why have the maple gods forsaken me.
{Edit} The main dude’s name is Rick Stannard, he’s a rugged manly man with loner tendencies, a pet coyote he rescued from the woods (pretty sure they belong out there bud) who builds barns with his bare hands and harvests maple syrup for his Aunt Joy’s maple themed store. Aunt Joy is of course, an absolute sass factory. I did not expect to be making a cameo in this book, but there you have it.
It’s also been implied that Rick has medical PTSD so even if he turns out to be a total walnut I’m still going to defend him. He is my nephew after all. He’s also a dumbass who just tripped in the snow by attempting to run in his snow shoes, sprained his ankle, blacked out and nearly froze to death while his pet coyote looked on contemplating the merits of going full feral.
Our main city slicker gal is named Lily Hindsdale and she’s super pissed her grandma died and she has to leave her swanky city slicker job to go to “the wilderness” (aka, Vermont) to take care of her grandmother’s estate. She’s giving off serious corporate villain vibes atm, as she plans to sell her grandma’s land to the resort building company she works for, and “bring civilization to these backward living people”. She may yet have some redeemable qualities but I’ve yet to ascertain any. Frankly I’m hoping the coyote eats her.
Update: Lily has no redeemable qualities.
Just in case any of you were doubting that Aunt Joy is actually me.
[edit]
Okay so Lily also has PTSD related to being in the wilderness. I think she got mauled by a bear or something as a child but we don’t know yet.
Rick is also a poor patient and keeps trying to walk on his busted foot. He’s also dazzled by shiny looking women who look like “they belong in make up commercials” and suffers from “meandering laundry list of descriptor syndrome”
You guys, she’s not like other girls, she’s not one of the wild folk like his rugged Vermont cave people, she’s elegant and refined. With skin. We know this because she’s wearing a cream-colored scarf. Also that’s an odd phrasing I can’t get over, “hung to her thighs”, it’s like the author tried to avoid the cliche trope of describing something as “clung to her thighs” and my brain is just…not parsing it. Hung, hung to her thighs. Surely “skimmed” is a better descriptor? “that skimmed her thighs”.
Actually now that I look at it this whole sequence is out of order.
He starts at her face, goes to her legs, then to her coat, and then her scarf? When surely his gaze could just have easily skipped over her taking in detai—you know what fuck it I’ll just rewrite it:
“A woman stood impatiently in the doorway, brushing the curls of her strawberry blonde hair away from her face as she waited impatiently to be let in. She was not one of the locals who frequented the store—Rick felt certain he would have remembered a face like hers, with her glowing warm tan and piercing blue-green eyes. She certainly wasn’t dressed like someone prepared to brave the Vermont winter, but he couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on the cut of her rust colored dress coat, the fabric hugging her figure and skimming just short of her thighs to reveal long shapely legs clad in skinny black jeans and designer boots better suited to the runway than the mud and snow. She was like no one he’d seen. Not since he’d left New York.”
Like, I mean, I know I’m just a lowly smut peddler who does this for a living and all that, but if the most fascinating thing about the beautiful woman standing unexpectedly on your doorstep is the cream-colored scarf she’s wearing
Or maybe he just has a scarf fetish, who knows. I’d be down with that.
Okay so he invited her in and she’s not sat down three seconds before she insulted his entire home, his business and his way of life and told him she wants to buy up all his land to make a tacky hotel resort and bring some “class” to Vermont and my hard headed fictional nephew did the only plausible thing. He’s going to let the coyote eat her.
Wow great book everyone, so glad it just ends there and there isn’t 300 more pages of this. Yep. Yep.
I’ll say this much, at least the author is aware that her main character is a completely unlikable corporate shill and seems to have an intentional sense of humor about it lmao.
Anyway, I’m off to bed, see you all in the morning when I will likely look at my life choices and still decide to keep reading this sticky maple mess cause gosh darn it, I want to know where the pancakes feature in all of this.
Because there is no option to appeal some of my incorrectly flagged posts, and because Tumblr needs to be reminded of their idiotic policy now and then, I’m writing this post.
I have yet to come across one sensible explanation of how the censoring of female breasts, and the exclusion of sexuality, could lead to a “better, more positive” Tumblr. I can’t see the causality at all. The implication that the depiction of sexuality (nudity, sexual activity) is negative and harmful, logically leads to the question: To whom? And how? Tumblr’s hastily drawn up, poorly worded guidelines from December 2018 lump sexuality, or specifically “female-presenting nipples” in with say drug and alcohol abuse, (gun) violence, gambling, hate speech, antisemitism, and racism as something dangerous—the difference however is, of these, only “female-presenting nipples” are actively sought out by Tumblr bots and censored.
I really would just like to have someone at Tumblr explain to me, in terms I can understand, how this censorship of “female-presenting nipples” is leading to a “better, more positive” Tumblr. We’re roughly six months further now, some change should be visible apart from a decrease in traffic. And also, I’d like to know if the people at Tumblr genuinely believe in this censorship. Because who in their right mind can defend these almost surrealistically pointless guidelines, which seem cooked up by an ethical scatterbrain: Tumblr now is a 17+ app without 18+ content.
It’s a step backwards, is what it is. The thing though about taking a step backwards is that before you know it, you start walking backwards and you end up in a backward place.
Of course, we could say that Verizon really is the culprit. And that they bought Tumblr because that is simply what such companies do, buying up platforms left and right just so they can sell more crap to you and secretly keep an eye on your browsing history so they can sell THAT crap to advertizers, but that Verizon didn’t realize that with Tumblr, they weren’t just buying another platform but a community with lively, diverse, blossoming subcultures, and that Verizon only really learned what Tumblr was when the new draconian guidelines were announced and everyone started protesting, and that Verizon then wanted to get rid of Tumblr as fast as possible and are now trying hard to sell it, which hopefully they will, because such companies sure as hell shouldn’t go anywhere near art—we could say all that, but we’ll let others say it.
In the fishing industry, there’s something called “bycatch”, where certain marine species are caught unintentionally during the catch of specific targets. Every year, thousands of protected and endangered species are killed because of this process. I understand Tumblr implemented its ban because child pornography had been found on its site—fine, but what it’s doing now, by censoring “female-presenting nipples”, is making bycatch a legitimate, indiscriminate part of it its main target. (Also, anything even remotely associated with sex or even erotica is hidden from searches—try to find my post on adult film logos.) If other social media platforms follow, the Internet will become one big trawl net, leaving a sterile, homogeneous lunar landscape in its wake that’s designed for everybody and enjoyed by nobody. This is all especially harmful to the people who already belong to marginalized, sidelined groups anyway, and who so need social platforms like Tumblr pre-December 2018 to be taken seriously, or heck, even acknowledged at all. They found each other here on Tumblr when they were regarded as weirdos, outcasts, freaks; they expressed themselves through art and writing, and formed communities; and then they became people with voices.
Tumblr’s new policy itself is condemnable, the way it’s being implemented is risible. We’ve all seen the random posts that its ridiculously zealous and misguided bots flag as adult content; the following examples though, all part of my archive, seem to have been flagged by staff and can’t even be appealed, even though similar posts have been OK’ed by other Tumblr employees. Let’s have a look:
Image 4, right? Breasts. The caption though says “Mutterglück”. That’s German for “The Joy of Motherhood”. This should give you a clue about what’s being depicted. BREASTFEEDING. Tumblr however doesn’t want you to see this vile and depraved act.
Two paintings by Richard Tennant Cooper. Well, you’re going to have to find a better way to depict breast cancer, Richard Tennant Cooper, you pervert, because Tumblr isn’t having this. Flagged, and back to art school. Those artist types, eh.
Or this one, French illustrator, Jacques Touchet (1887-1949):
And how about the post below about John Wilson, an excellent animator and artist; he did those opening titles for GREASE, for example, and designs for SHINBONE ALLEY that I shared not too long ago. Spot the offending image:
Number 8 of course, which is a still from a music video from the SONNY & CHER SHOW, aired in the 1970s. That’s more than 40 years ago, but in 2019, those two ink dots on the female character have to be censored, hidden from view, because you know how those 1970s kids turned out. Over-sexed, sick degenerates, all of them.
Et cetera, et cetera. Whatever Tumblr is trying to do, this is the reality of their new guidelines. Also, whenever you receive an email about a flagged post, the link to it never leads to the post within the timeline even though it’s supposed to (on mobile devices anyway): it leads to the Review Flagged Posts section, which never gets updated and is only partly complete.
By making sexuality taboo again, Tumblr feeds the fear of it, which leads to ignorance about it, which leads to misconceptions about it: and misconceptions about sexuality are toxic goods. Remember that censorship, and censorship only, creates pornography… (Also, the liberalization of pornography, some studies argue, could lead to reduced rape and sexual violence rates. Something to think about.)
So again I ask: what for? How is flagging these posts leading to a better, more positive Tumblr? I’d like someone with a degree in such things to tell me that.
