I love monsters okay

I've noted before that my favorite punchline on Tumblr is "hang on, gotta look something up/okay that's funny."

Let me explain why:

It is a way to say "I don't get it" without blaming the joke or the teller.

It is a tacit admission of ignorance without shame or judgement.

It assumes responsibility for acquiring the knowledge the respondent doesn't already have.

It cues other people who Don't Get It to do the look-up themselves, allowing them to get that full impact of Getting It without derailing the post with explanations.

It gives subsequent readers, whether or not THEY got the joke, a little frisson of good feelings when they realize that someone else is now In On The Joke.

A new option for anyone with a veeeeery long doc or complicated outline (and no desire to look at all of it at once) -

Collapsible headers! 

Turn them on in your Editor settings (Toggle headings), then click / tap the arrow beside any H1–H4 header to tuck that section away, safe and sound.

When you create a new header, just hit Enter, and it’ll become collapsible too.

Collapsible headers work in both the editor and on Reader links, so you can use them while writing, outlining, and editing; or to help your readers stay focused on one section at a time. We particularly love them for temporarily pretending the previous 86,491 words in a doc don’t exist (at least, not until the editing phase). 🙂‍↔️

Free for all, woohoo!

And another smol but mighty update this week: You can now change the email address associated with your account directly from your Settings page.

Just enter the new address via Change email under Account details. Done n' done!

It is important to consider the culture of the person who created the piece, absolutely; but the different perspectives offered by the viewers is fascinating in and of itself and does not always detract from the message.

As an example, when I was younger, I watched Schindler's List. This movie is famously shot in black and white except for one section, concerning a little girl in a red coat. The camera follows her until her eventual death.

I am Turtle Island Indigenous and I was always taught that the only color spirits could see was red, because it is the color of life and blood.

So the second the girl in the red jacket came on screen, something inside me chilled with fear.

The only color in the movie was that red. At some point, I, the viewer, had died.

I remember sobbing at the sight of the burning human piles that were shown, convinced I was buried in there somewhere. The reason I had only seen red on the girl was that my death was recent. I was the ash in the air mistaken for snow. I had died before her and had followed her, helplessly, until she followed me.

The message I got for that was maybe not what the creator had intended: that there was no "being clever enough" or "good enough" or "kind enough" that would shield or protect you from such a massive tidal wave of evil.

You are not exempt from tragedy, that red jacket whispered. You are not special.

When I told some of my white friends about my experience with viewing Schindler's List, some were shocked and the rest just out-and-out mocked me for my "media illiteracy".

"it was just a filming trick to make you feel something," I remember one saying, which terrified me. How had he not felt anything even before she showed up?

TLDR: In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike in solidarity. The Foundation is sitting on $296 million in reserves and a freshly profitable AI revenue stream. This is a confrontation with global implications.

"You hold more leverage than a cancellation could ever give you, and it works in the opposite direction. A donation that disappears is invisible. It shows up as one anonymous line in a spreadsheet, gets blamed on the economy or a bad fundraising email, and teaches the institution nothing.

"A donor who speaks up is much harder to wave off, because donors are handed a door that the Foundation’s own staff and volunteers aren’t. You should walk through that door instead of slipping out the back.

"In practice, that means writing to the Board of Trustees, whose job is to hold leadership to account, and telling them in your own words that your support has always been a matter of trust, and that trust depends on how an institution treats the people who build it.

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

having OCs is bourgeois

people who write erotica should be considered sex workers

only americans believe in aliens

it's misogynist to draw touhou characters with big boobs

the "godzilla" franchise is harmful because it teaches children that they should be afraid of lizards and other animals

"This includes prisoners! They are not suddenly property of the state when they're convicted!" - *a little less cheering*

"And that includes children who are not their parents' property!" - *almost no cheering*