Fledhyris

If you are unfamiliar with Tofu, please read this post or watch this playlist about the snake who hates Markiplier. tl;dr- under the Markiplier gif.

From the videos you can see she tries to figure out what is upsetting Tofu, and found that it's not just streamers, or just his voice, or the stream. This specific snake

He does not like Markiplier specifically which is demonstrated by him squaring up with Mark, striking, and tail buzzing at him. He recognizes Mark specifically as a scary threat.

Animals have been shown to recognize human faces, and Tofu's reaction to Markiplier's face (and only his face as shown by the printout) is strong evidence that he recognizes Mark's face and differentiates him from other faces. With crows, they've been shown to hold grudges and have that grudge extend to other crows.

So Tofu has a negative association with Mark, and specifically Mark. The question is why? My theory is: perceived threat after a perceived dangerous situation. Some have theorized Tofu was mistreated by someone who looked like Mark- if they were while in his keeper's care she'd know. If it was his breeder, he'd more likely be afraid of all humans and need to first get over this negative perception (basing this on how Sakura reacted with massive trauma that took years for her to overcome, and to this day she's still jumpy. A breeder doesn't socialize their snakes so they'd only know humans to be abusive before being adopted, and his current keeper would very much notice that terrified trauma behavior to herself.)

One thing important to know about snakes is they are not only capable of learning from each other, but are protective of each other. I've seen this with my girls interacting with each other (yes snakes have friends and remember their family), learning from watching the other and copying her actions, as well as behavior I've observed on the Rattlecam with wild snakes. Adult snakes teach younger snakes, as well as are protective of them- even if they aren't their own babies. A female was shown on the rattlecam watching over a group of slitherlings that were obviously not her offspring as she was heavily pregnant. IIRC that same female ushered babies to safety after a hawk attack before worrying about her own safety. I've seen it in person as well with my girls, who have shielded each other from perceived danger, and scoria also squared up to something scary in the hall as though she were protecting me. And when it left she immediately went back to being relaxed and cuddly and happy. Snakes have friends that are snakes. It's an outdated belief snakes cannot bond with their keepers, as many do and seek them out for attention. These observations of snake behavior are part of what play into my theory basis.

So what could Mark himself have done? If you watch streamers you'll know Markiplier is known for playing jumpscare games with his FNAF let's plays being some of his most well known. Tofu's owner knows Markiplier, and is actively watching Markiplier with Tofu. More than likely she regularly watches Mark, has watched jumpscare videos, and had Tofu around while doing this.

It's a reasonable assumption. And if Tofu's keeper reacts to Mark's jump scare videos by flinching, looking frightened, or making frightened sounds, it's quite likely Tofu's sees Markiplier is involved every time... and blames Mark. Seeing his keeper get startled, Tofu doesn't understand it's a fun video or that humans enjoy being jumpscared (honestly I don't think I could explain it to him either) so he's learning from his human that Markiplier is a scary threat.

And from Tofu's point of view? He's right! Markiplier is a regular threat that not only (probably) scared his human, but regularly appears to stare him down and even went after him in his own home! And when his keeper scolds him? It's likely the same misunderstanding that dogs have when their owners yell at them to be quiet- they think the human has joined in! Clearly his keeper is joining him in being upset at Mark!

Peacock spiders performing mating dance.

About what "Protect the youth" has become. Idk what it was like in other countries and I know that it very likely could have been stricter than it was in my country back then. But generally:

He was like "When I was 16, there were two kinds of adult content: Horror movies and explicitly depicted sexual content. The first made me have nightmares, the latter generally wasn't of much interest to me because it wasn't something I, as a 16 year old, could relate to. And other sexual content that was helpful and interesting WAS freely accessible. So whenever I saw an "18+" label somewhere, I just completely ignored that content because I knew it wouldn't be interesting at all to me.

But NOW, what's declared 18+ is even an excessive amount of swear words in streams! NOW, when I see an "18+" label, I don't know if it's horror movies that'll give some 16 year olds nightmares, if it's completely unrelatable porn, OR if it's educational sex ed, a 20 year old talking about their really healthy relationship with their partner (that includes intimacy), education about consent in BDSM (which affects 16 year olds as well, there's no age limit to curiosity), a live stream of wholesome musicians who happen to drink a couple of beers during kind of therapeutic talks, or simply people who aren't puritans and say "fuck" a lot! An 18+ label isn't worth anything anymore!"

And yeah... That's just it.

People who talk about body changes during their (first!) puberty are even labelled adult content. Even though puberty very much happens BEFORE adulthood. It's helpful content for minors. And it's labelled "adult" to "protect the youth".

Note: this post was originally made in 2010 in response to Diana Gabaldon’s epic rant about fanfiction. The original version is still being updated. I’m reposting it to Tumblr by request, but if you have any additions, please feel free to drop a comment at LJ so they can be added to the masterpost!

Dear Author of the Week, You think fanfic is a personal affront to the many hours you’ve spent carefully crafting your characters. You think fanfic is “immoral and illegal.” You think fanfiction is just plagiarism. You think fanfiction is cheating. You think fanfic is for people who are too stupid/lazy/unimaginative to write stories of their own. You think there are exceptions for people who write published derivative works as part of a brand or franchise, because they’re clearly only doing it because they have to. You’re personally traumatized by the idea that someone else could look at your characters and decide that you did it wrong and they need to fix it/add original characters to your universe/send your characters to the moon/Japan/their hometown. You think all fanfic is basically porn. You’re revolted by the very idea that fic writers think what they do is legitimate. We get it.  Congratulations! You’ve just summarily dismissed as criminal, immoral, and unimaginative each of the following Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and works:

The moon’s not white! It’s concrete-gray! It only looks so shiny when compared to the void of space!

Hit the “thumbs down.” It’s like, what’s wrong??? Was our summary wrong? Were there offensive words? Thank you for helping us improve our AI tools :)

I selected “other.”

Text box popped up. Please elaborate!

Wrote in “I can fucking read” submit comment

Then had to spend several minutes torching all my settings with a flamethrower. Let me be clear: I’m (a lawyer) notoriously picky with my words FOR GOOD REASON (lawyering) so I overwhelmingly reject Gmail’s “helpful” little assistance. My privacy settings were set to “full paranoia” a little less than a year ago when I saw the writing on the wall and knew public defenders could become a target in the future. Better to lock it all down now.

Gemini had crept in there and turned ALL that shit back on. And showed itself by saying “Jane Doe says she’s so sorry for your loss and offers to reschedule for Thursday at 3” over an email from Jane Doe saying “I’m so sorry for your loss. We could reschedule for Thursday at 3?”

Why would I possibly need this. In what universe would I need this. I have eyes and a brain and a reading speed that twenty years ago was measured at 1500 wpm with full comprehension on dense scientific text. Furthermore! If I read a summary, I’m not reading what they actually wrote. If I’m not reading what they actually wrote, I’m not using my own judgment on the words and phrases that they used.

I literally don’t understand why this is helpful at all. This is just avoidance. Using LLMs to write is specifically Not Writing. Using LLMs to summarize is Not Reading. Using them to make art is Avoiding Making Art. Just READ! Just WRITE! I was not put on this fucking planet to not read and not write and not make art! Avoidance is an anxiety symptom and indulging it gives it more power.

If I had an AI to do my most dreaded task, answer the phone for clients, I wouldn’t use it. Because an AI cannot help them. An AI cannot hear the facts of their case, make appropriate noises, be thoughtful and insightful, and then give them a realistic estimate of what could happen in court. I am unique. I cannot be replaced by machine learning. I have style. I have expertise. I don’t hallucinate unless I’m having a really great Friday night and I’m off the clock.

When I need to outsource tasks from my own brain, I give them to people I know can do them and that I trust to do them right.

MBTI has been proven completely ineffective at predicting anyone’s success at a particular job, and half the people who take it twice will get different results. Reputable psychologists do not recognize it, and the company that owns the rights to it uses it to scam people. People don’t adhere to strict binaries in basically anything. Very few people are going to be exclusively introverted or extroverted. It’s just astrology repackaged as pseudoscience. Shockingly enough, you can’t boil the complexity of the human experience down to a dozen Types of Guy.

The concept of IQ is flawed from the start— “intelligence” is an abstract concept that encompasses many different skills, from social intelligence to emotional intelligence to the very narrow kind of problem solving intelligence IQ tests generally measure for. It cannot predict how fast you learn, how much you know, or how logical and well read you are. It mostly measures how good you are at solving puzzles. Coincidentally, it’s also a pretty good predictor of income and education level, take a guess why. Most people’s IQ will change throughout their lives, because it’s inconsistent bullshit we’ve only held onto this long because we’re still kinda hoping we can breed the ubermensch. IQ tests and the way they attempt to categorize people are explicitly eugenicist and racist.

BMI was developed by a man known as the grandfather of eugenics, who first of all was a mathematician, not a doctor, and second never intended the formula to be used to categorize individuals. It’s intended to give a rough estimate of obesity in populations, and it’s not even good at that. It hangs around because of fatphobia and insurance companies who want it as an excuse to charge fat people more.

The study which determined people’s prefrontal cortex was still developing at 25… stopped measuring at 25. Evidence suggests your brain probably never stops developing. Stop infantilizing grown adults. This is a branch off from the larger mess of misinformation surrounding fMRIs.

The reason people tend to feel validated in their belief in learning styles is because teachers are encouraged by the myth to teach the same content in multiple ways, which is also just called "differentiation", and is widely understood to be best practice in education for a number of unrelated reasons.