disturbing

know how, so i'm posting about it instead, it's not like a blog i can link to, it's their fucking automated suggestions i can't opt out of, if i type it now it doesn't come up, because i have no idea what criteria they use for this, it's clearly contextual in some way, what are they analyzing idk, what about my blog led their shitty algo to decide i'm into that, idk but it's upsetting as fuck, and here we are worrying about fictional depictions of shit omg

via https://ift.tt/XUCyPIe

I was writing a post and at the end I was adding tags, as I do, and I typed the singular first person pronoun, I, and a list of tags popped up as suggestions that took me the fuck out. It was so disturbing I took a screenshot.

[image ID: a list of suggested tags, screenshotted. It’s titled “popular” and the list is “I want to [star emoji]ve” “i wanna lose weight” “i sell content” “i love him”]

I wanna star-emoji-ve???? Well there’s some pro-ana shit for you.

I don’t know if the kids these days remember this but back in Livejournal around the era of strikethrough (the ‘07-'09 time period is where I remember noticing it) there was a movement to censor pro-self-harm blogs, that were support groups mostly supporting one another in more and more extreme anorexic/self-destructive/eating-disordered behaviors.

This is absolutely that. And they were like “it’s self-expression” and everyone else in the world was like “it is actually a toxic encouragement of self-harm” because they were like, concretely instructing one another and recruiting vulnerable people to join them in ways to literally starve to death, they were support groups for killing yourself more or less, and so those tags would occasionally get banned or delisted or removed from search or whatever, but remember this was very early in the history of such things, and there was no algorithm. But people did use the browsing of blogs’ “interests” to find one another, it was a feature of how Livejournal worked, and there wasn’t a lot of moderation but the deactivation or delisting of those self-harm-encouraging tags were a hotly-contested bit of debate.

And so they got more creative, and found other ways to find one another, and people starved to death or otherwise irreparably damaged their bodies and their mental health and so on. I cannot emphasize enough, this was not fiction. These were not fictional stories depicting fictional scenarios that weren’t happening, these were real people posting stories and encouragement and photographs of their real selves, showing off how much damage to themselves they were doing, concretely encouraging one another to do the same. This was not fiction.

But they kept finding new ways to talk about it so it couldn’t be censored.

And then LJ deleted blogs for posting about fiction instead, and we all kind of forgot about it and moved on.

Highly displeased to find that it’s all alive and well on Tumblr, to the point that it’s the number one suggestion when I type the fucking first-person pronoun into the tag field, and I can’t opt out of seeing that. COOL. (Your picture was not posted)

writing

via https://ift.tt/uFwBZnp

So this whole time I’ve been on break– farm work ended at Thanksgiving and I came home and have been doing basically nonstop house work since then– I haven’t done much writing. I’ve sat down a few times and banged on things but have achieved little. But yesterday was a snow day and Dude was wfh set up in the kitchen, and so I couldn’t really do work on that room, and it was fucking Freezing so i wasn’t going to do tidying work in the attic (which is where I need to tidy next so things can get moved), and I said y'know what I’m gonna spend it writing. so I posted myself at the desk in the back room for like twelve hours and I have managed now to join up some disconnected bits through what I think will be the actual end of FFT, and begin the sequel. (I’m trying not to have any one work be like, So Huge, and I always try and always fail but. Listen there should be story breaks.)

I might change my mind, but as it stands now FFT is nine chapters total, of which I’ve posted uhhh four or five, and then the next thing I have a bunch of and am excited to get to the next part of.

so I have promised myself I can post a snippet (and a chapter tomorrow!) so let me find something. Probably something short so it’s not spoilery.

This is likely from FFT’s sequel but again let’s see where the chips fall.

“What are you doing?” Luliana asked. Ciri grinned, then darted a glance at Morvran. “Now, that’d be telling,” she said. Geralt sighed eloquently. “Please don’t make the head of the Intelligence Bureau think you’re engaged in subterfuge,” he said to the ceiling. “His job is hard enough.” “It is,” Luliana put in, a little reproachfully. But Morvran rolled his eyes, an uncharacteristically unrestrained gesture from him. “It’s not sedition if you do it,” he said. “Subterfuge all you want. It’s none of my business to tell you what’s in the national interest or not. It’s just that when I don’t know about it, it’s hard for me to make coherent reports to prove we’re doing it on purpose, which is my job. And I certainly can’t requisition you military support if I’m not informed of the need for it.” (Your picture was not posted)

interested in your thoughts on the casting of Laurence Fishbone as Regis ? As someone who likes the

that invested in actors, and despite being a fan i'm not that invested in the series, genuinely they can do what they like and i hope it's entertaining, asks answered

via https://ift.tt/kQh2v5B

I am a fan of Laurence Fishburne and have been impressed by him in every media property in which I have seen him perform. In terms of his appearance and demeanor-- well, Regis is only pretty minimally described in the books, and i think the most vivid description of him is at one point when he's at a dinner in a black velvet coat "looking very much like a vampire". I will say I'm glad they're casting people of color for not just villain roles (is it a spoiler that Vilgefortz is a huge villain? no we're to that point now in the show right?)-- I mean, in their defense, basically everyone in the novels is morally gray at best but it was a bit yikes to realize that the whitest actors are playing the characters we're most supposed to sympathize with and they both racebent Yennefer and gave her more morally-dubious things to do at the same time. Thanks guys. Regis is... has his dark past but at least he's unambiguously A Dude The Narrative Likes. You know? It's kind of a relief.

But my attitude toward the Netflix show is very much that I've taken what I needed and they can do whatever they like and I will probably watch it and enjoy some of the things, and I will probably hate some of the things, and that's just how it goes.

I'd love if he went more of a Cowboy Curtis direction with this than Morpheus, but again, they'll do what they want with this, and I'll enjoy what I enjoy and be annoyed by what annoys me and that's that. I'm not very like.... normal in my fannishness, but I also don't have a great visual imagination, so I have no concrete notion of what I expected Regis to look or sound like. Laurence Fishburne may well wind up fitting it perfectly and being my headcanon henceforth when I reread the books! I do like when that happens.

(Speaking of show stuff, I recently reread my whole Trust series with Keira and Lambert and man now that I've seen show!Keira I regret that she wasn't introduced until after I wrote all that, because I love her look SO much more than the video game character. However, the video game character being so obviously a male fantasy (and a boring one, at that) of what a sorceress might look like is kind of integral to the characterization in that series, so it's not like I could change it if I wanted. Ha maybe I should have Keira settle her appearance on show!Keira's as she's learning to like herself, that'd be kind of funny.) (Your picture was not posted)