Huh, I always wondered to myself what making one of these posts would be like, what goes through a person’s mind, why they do it.
Guess now I know!
Hi guys gals and non-binary pals it’s me, Amemait, your third-favourite Internet cryptid!
And I’m here to tell you I’m taking a Break.
Not just from Tumblr. I’m taking a Break from the Internet. The uh. Welp, pretty much all of it, actually.
Why? Mental Health. It’s the worst and for me it’s the literal worst. I’m trying to repair myself and I would like to see if I can do it without the need to scroll tumblr/twitter/discord/skype/emails looking for something to help me feel something.
My mental health’s meant that I’ve been waking up in tears since November 2021 and it wasn’t great before that point. It wasn’t actually all that wonderful before the plague either. This month’s seen me go spiraling straight down into exceedingly regular panic attacks. I spent three hours crying on the phone to my mother on Sunday and I knew it was ridiculous and I also knew I couldn’t stop. I hate myself, so incredibly much, it’s breathtaking.
I’m taking the store-bought neurotransmitters, I’m seeing a talky-talk person, I’m drinking the clear splashy stuff, I’m trying to remember to eat, to get dressed, to feel something.
The Internet isn’t helping with any of that.
The Internet is this beautiful shiny thing that lets me hide from…. a lot of problems. A lot more problems than I’ve ever let on, especially here. I go out of my way to maintain a, if not entirely sfw/‘family-friendly’ blog then at least a blog that people can follow and not be hurt by viewing. I’ve made a few mistakes along the way on that level - reblogging misinfo without doing my research because welp, the queue-reblog button is fast on mobile, it’s a swipe of a finger, and doing my research before that point would only lead to me pausing in my mindless scrolling, looking to feel something. Lead to me actually having to think about something.
Anything.
Maintaining this kind of blog also means that I… well, I don’t say a lot of my personal life on here. A lot of that’s by design. Sure, I’ve reblogged for friends’ fundraisers and so forth but I’ve tried to keep my real self off the Tumblr. Probably a good thing; blurring the lines between brickspace and internet is never a good thing. I’ve learned that quite thoroughly and unfortunately I’ve learned it the hard way. It’s been where I’ve failed to keep myself off the Tumblr and off the Internets that I’ve wound up hurting. A lot. In fact a great deal more than I will ever discuss with the Internet because frankly, I’m a dumbass.
I’ve deleted a lot of apps from my phone, and it’s been disturbing how frequently I’ve just picked up a phone by muscle memory and tried to open an app that’s just not there now. Disturbing, and, dare I say, freeing?
Do I recc this for everyone? Absolutely not. Like it or not there’s a lot of Internet in our daily lives. Some of us make our entire living from it. I’m lucky in that I don’t, and can therefore afford to take the steps back from it that I need to. I can afford to walk away from the things that I enjoy about the Internet, to give myself space to be a person who isn’t Terminally Online. And I know I’m Terminally Online, and I know that it’s nearly becoming a literal concept.
Do I recc taking a couple of steps back? Yeah maybe. It’s been about a week or so since I took tumblr off my phone and it’s been pretty good so far.
Do I miss it? The connection feeling? Oh yes.
There it is again.
Trying to feel something.
On to what this means for this blog!
First up, I have a Queue. It is a Long Queue. It is set to keep going and being a Queue. I will not be turning this off. I may reduce its posting frequency.
I might pop in, add some things to my favourites, and then leave. Every now and then.
I may even add some things to the reblog queue, every now and then.
What this means for my fic (for anybody reading it):
I’m attempting to maintain writing about 1k/week as a form of mental exercise. Fic may get weirder in the near future. That’s about as much interaction with the Internet as I feel I can handle for the foreseeable future. I will log in, post fic, and then hide like this is dialup days.
What this means for me:
Maybe I’ll get better and find myself in an emotionally-stable enough position to return to the Internet. I expect to find a landscape changed when I do.
What this means if I’ve commissioned something from you:
Please post it! Post it everywhere, your glorious glorious art!
What this means if you want to get in touch with me:
Oh man that’s a hard one. I’m going to say ‘don’t’. Even if we know each other super-well. Even if you’re my ex. Even if we used to talk every day. Even if you need me (trust me you don’t need me you’re fine without me… that sounds way worse than it is, but I’ll repeat: You’re fine without me. Promise. I also promise I’ll be fine). I solemnly promise that if anything actually happens that the Internet needs to know about, I’ll let the Internet know. I’m aiming at something approaching a clean and absolute break here because I can feel myself starting to panic just looking at this blog post as I type it. I can feel myself panic when I open certain apps. I needed to take an anti-panic pill and call my therapist just to look at emails yesterday. Emails!
Other notes:
Hey there, I’ve fucked up a couple of times like I said. Some of those ways I’ve fucked up, I’ve hurt people who weren’t just me. I’m sorry. I’ve probably hurt way more people by hiding this level of mental struggle than I’ve wanted to, or by pretending it wasn’t happening (unhealthy coping mechanisms, I’ve probably got way more than I realise). And there’s going to be a couple of people who’ll be hurt by me saying ‘please don’t contact me’ like I did just there. To those people: I’m sorry. In a couple of weeks or months or so I might be mentally able to send a line to let you know I’m okay, and in the meantime I’m sorry about the incommunicado bit.
I’ve lost the ability to can, and now I only can’t.
I’ll be back, Internet. When I’ve got myself back.
Minor announcement, late November 2022: don’t take my current reblogging presence as a sign I’m back I’ve got a lot to work through still but my queue is at 1k posts and I am loving the Goncharov meme in all its unreality and I’m letting myself enjoy that. I can actually feel myself slipping into my previous bad habits - and that is in itself a good thing to be aware of but a bad thing to be doing. I’m literally just here for Gonch posting.
The hero’s identity was accidentally revealed, but it turns out they are moderately poor, have no friends or family, and their civilian life is frankly…sad.
The news break rocked the city 30 year old Greg was their first line of defense. The Hero Starsplitter was just, some Guy. In an age of information, many who knew of or supported the hero were curious and able to dig up his story.
Only, there wasn’t much regular guy working an office job at a transport company Kemper Co., no family, unmarried, or a guy. Thinking he might be wealthy, they looked for where he might live going on to find he lived just outside of town. One bedroom in a luxury apartment building.
At least he did until the news broke. Gregory was hiding, and disappearing seemed became easier as the public eye shifted away from him.
- He’s a nobody! How can he know what’s right for our city?
- We should sue for all the damage he’s caused in the past few years, ripped a hole through Jameson Street fighting that Helix guy 😑
The comments and commentary on his abilities needing to be studied began shortly after. All he had to take all he’d done for his city - erased in the matter of days as they learned how he lived and where he came from. He’d never had much, and losing his parents young made it… harder.
Sometimes, he felt like his only friend was ‘His City’. Only that city sees him as a Nobody, and that removed any respect they had for him. He’s fired as the news breaks and sends ripples through the city. He’s evicted and living out of his car shortly after. Seemed he’d burdened them more than he thought.
“Go back where you came from!”
As if home thrown unwavering contempt in his face, he felt stricken by the words. Alien.
That became the new view they’d taken of him, an outsider. It gave him flashes of how he’d been embraced by his community as Starsplitter. Invited to charity functions, called for in their time of need. Respected. Held in the palm of their hands only to be found unthinkable and dropped at the thought of his true self.
The feeling that rushed through sent his heart crashing to the surface, his world in disarray.
He needed to stay in the wind. That’s what he was.
Walking away might be hard, but they’d be better off.
This post is your reminder that you are not obligated to blog about current events.
Things are bad. Really bad. Do not let people guilt trip you into tormenting yourself even further over the fact that things are bad. Doomscrolling is not activism.
If you’re just on tumblr to blorbopost or reblog pretty pictures, you are not harming people by inaction.
You are not a bad person for not dedicating every aspect of your life and leisure space to whatever disgusting mask-off attack on human life and dignity some government has decided to enact.
Take action where you can, but don’t confuse doomscrolling and digital self harm for action.
If you need to lose yourself in blorboposting, go for it.
If you need to log off for the day, whether it’s to take irl action or to protect what little sanity any of us have left over the past 7 years, then by all means, do.
Morale is important. Hope is important. Small joys keep us from burning out completely in times like this. Do not let any “if you don’t reblog this I’m judging you” guilt trip convince you otherwise.
I go back and forth between this all the time. It is fundamentally difficult to be human and live in a world that is so full of grief and sorrow and absurd violence.
But remember, there are healthy ways to consume news and make up your mind without having to witness someone else’s agony. I’d also argue that, ethically, another human doesn’t need you to consume the worst moments of their life in order for you to be empathetic. You should have some right to privacy while in the midst of turmoil and loss.
Listen, its ok to be overtly political, and passionate, and care deeply about an ongoing issue. It means you are human, and if you are offended by others suffering, that means you have empathy and you are right to be offended.
BUT, you need moments of levity, of softness, of emotional absurdity and drama. You need things, and people, and stories that ground you back to the present and enjoy being alive.
If you feel like the problem that hurts you is too big, or so overwhelming you drown in it, please, step back, consider how you consume news, and whether or not that’s a healthy diet, and take action in whatever small way you can. Donating money to aid organizations is better than apathy. Simply volunteering at a local school or shelter is better than falling into despair. Even if you cant directly address the issue you feel most anxious or upset by, doing something to help others, and narrowing the amount and kinds of news you take in allows you to be more effective and healthy.
At several points in my life news cycles would put me in an emotional tailspin (the Earthquake/tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the Haitian earthquake, Fukushima). And at some point I realized I was just watching the same helpless images over and over.
Reading or hearing news without a visual component is one way to make a news diet healthier. Visuals are often recycled and chosen to illicit the most emotional response. (Also I want to circle back to my earlier point about privacy in suffering, if my home had just been destroyed, a camera filming me isn’t ideal).
Most news outlets offer short podcasts now, or radio updates. If you need more information on a story you can seek it out, but realistically that 15 minute “general and local news update” is enough to keep you informed without swallowing you up.
(blue is average of people’s estimate of percentage of population of which x is true, and red is the actual percentage)
I appreciate how it’s perceived jews are 30% of the population, muslims are 27% of the population, and atheists are 33% of the population. nobody wondered why christians were 10% huh
I honestly don’t even think this is as much “minorities being extremely visible”, and more just that the most people don’t understand fractions and statistics.
To most people, anything less than 10%, in any context, is basically “insignificant, not even worth your attention.”
The idea that Asians could be “only” 4% of the US population, and yet you still see a couple Asian people every day of your life, is deeply counterintuitive to most people. People don’t truly grasp that they pass by hundreds if not thousands of strangers every day and about 1 in 25 of them are going to be Asian.
Right now annual inflation is at a pretty high 9%, which is more than triple what the usual inflation rate is. But I guarantee if you asked the average person on the street what the inflation rate is right now, they’d think prices have gone up by anywhere from like 30-100%, because “9%” just doesn’t feel like a substantial or noticeable amount in their minds, even though it is.
Obsessed with the fact that 92% of people live in NYC, California, and Texas
This reminds me of a different post I saw recently, wherein OP was - understandably - irked that so many professionals will characterize something that affects 1%-2% of the population as “a rare illness”. In actuality, if you’re in a lecture hall with 300 people, that means 3-6 of people who are in the same room with you. It means you might meet people with [disorder] every day, and not realize it.
reblogging for that last comment. I’ve been saying this for years
same thing with “only” 1% of the world is trans, and “only” 1% of the world is ace. I saw somewhere on here that if you do the math, there’s more trans people than there are Canadians. This is where the jokes about aces conquering Denmark/Belgium/the Netherlands come from. There are more aces than the populations of some countries.
yknow ever since people realized tumblr isnt dead and have decided to flock here from twitter and tiktok ive seen a huge influx of people in fandom spaces who dont reblog anything. at all.
like, i used to have an art blog with 340 followers. not a ton but not a small amount either given how this website works with creators. and in my experience back then even the ones who only left likes still reblogged other things or at least posted their own stuff. literally the only empty blogs were clearly bots.
but on this New art blog, i’ve had so many people with fandom-specific headers and icons with actual usernames as urls and some kind of title or description, but have. Nothing. no posts. all they do is like things. and it’s always public, too. their following list and their likes list.
and honestly all it makes me think is that these people are New and also don’t know how tumblr works. how likes don’t give exposure. not even in a “oh, i know it doesn’t give exposure, but i’m still going to reblog anyways” way, but in a genuine honest to god straight up doesn’t realize tumblr likes don’t work like twitter’s.
PLEASE please if you’re from tiktok or twitter or whatever please reblog people’s art both fandom and original if you like it!! and maybe actually pad out your blog’s content in some way so people won’t potentially see you as a bot and block you.
REBLOG ARTIST’S WORK. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THEY GET ANY ATTENTION ON THIS WEBSITE OH MY GOD. PLEASE. I BEG of you
Our son Sam has told us that the D&D art file we use for a screensaver on various devices bothers him.
Because it makes him frustrated that he can’t look at some of them longer. He wants to know what is happening in some of them.
I told him that is one of the reasons we play Dungeons & Dragons, so we can go find out together, in our collective imagination.
Not really D&D related- but I feel compelled to add to this that not only are these GORGEOUS pixel arts- they are also in fact not animated. There are no frames used. There’s no extra pieces of art. Just one layer.
These pieces are so old that they stem from a time where animating cost way too much memory and/or only 256 colors could be used at one time, so the motion is achieved by ‘color cycling’. Half the available colors would be reserved for that very color cycling. It’s mchecking bonkers, please go watch this video if you feel like learning the technical details of how these artworks were made! They were screensavers that would match the actual time of day that you were in. Somehow. Just by cycling color palettes. Wild shit.
(Especially relevant time stamps for color cycling: 5:50, 9:55, 37:26, at 49:54 he gets into the technical side of HOW this even works)
Yup.
I’ve always enjoyed how they depicted some of the landscapes at different times of the day/weather/season.
Like these two areas. Daytime and nighttime at the village by the waterfalls.
And the high mountains hidden by rain in one and visible in the other.
yall r gonna post a man’s entire portfolio of art and not give credit?
anyways these images are by mark ferrari, a color cycling pixel art master, you can check them out in their html color cycling forms, with sound effects and ability to change the time of day of the image, here and here
I’m looking for a good carpet washer for cat urine. I do my best but the princess spent most of her life a stray and doesn’t understand litter boxes. It’s just a small corridor. Any recommendations?
For cat urine, or really anything that is trapped in the fibres or pores of a floor, you’re gonna want an encapsulation cleaner. Here’s why;
When you have something trapped in a fibre, scrubbing it can actually cause it to become more lodged in to the weave itself. What an encapsulation cleaner does is take the bad items, essentially eat it, and bring itself to the surface where it can then be vacuumed or swept up. If you’ve ever had to get oil stains out of a concrete floor, you may familiar with this process.
For carpet, you’re also going to want something that is safe and won’t bleach the fibres. But because it is also urine, you want a bio-enzymatic that is going to fully digest the bacteria causing the smell.
Diversey has an encapsulation cleaner for carpet and so does Swish. 3M also has an upholstery spray, however I wouldn’t trust it to get rid of something as strong as cat urine as it isn’t a bio-enzymatic.
A Florida pastor has been charged with running an organized retail crime ring, where he’s accused of pocketing millions from selling items his associates stole from Home Depot online.
Robert Dell, a Pinellas County preacher, is accused of operating a multimillion-dollar theft ring and faces charges including racketeering and dealing in stolen property, per a press release from Florida’s attorney general office in August.
According to the press release, Dell used his former positions as a pastor at The Rock Church and director of a halfway house for recovering drug addicts to threaten and manipulate people to steal for him.
The investigation revealed that Dell’s co-conspirators stole from Home Depot stores five to six times daily, per the press release. The press release added that stolen items were then sold under Dell’s eBay account, “Anointed Liquidator.”
Besides Dell, four other associates, including Dell’s wife and mother, were identified and charged as co-conspirators.
The 57-year-old sold $3 million worth of stolen items online since 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing Home Depot, as well as a search warrant affidavit it had seen.
Scott Glenn, Home Depot’s vice president of asset protection, told The Journal that the number of thefts in Tampa has dropped after Dell and his associates were charged. Glenn, however, wasn’t too hopeful that things would get better from here.
“Somebody else will rise up and probably start doing this in the absence of this group that was busted,” Glenn told The Journal.
Criminal Christian Family. I must have missed that section of the Bible where property theft is condoned by GOD.
