marysuperwholock

[marysuperwholock]

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

[marysuperwholock]

oh shit, it's 3/21/23, 32123, palindrome day

[marysuperwholock]

happy 420 and day i reserve a spot in hell

[marysuperwholock]

Explaining why singers conceive faster

I now have the lore (I am reading through the illustrated guide) and would like to do more Vampire Biology.

It is noted in the Guide that Joham "had noticed that the more appealing an individual woman smelled to him, the more likely she was to conceive quickly." pg294

I can explain this.

Some people think it strange that such a thing would occur. Surely, it would be evolutionarily favoured to promote reproduction by enabling sex with potentially fertile partners, if such a thing were in fact detectible to vampires. However, sex is not the primary method of vampire reproduction. In fact, the continued existence of vampires is disfavored by sex, because it requires such careful control of bloodlust. This control makes it significantly less likely that the vampire would accidentally turn a human, in the way Carlisle was turned, and thus any mutations that favored such control would be less likely to propagate.

Anyhow, this explains why it would not be evolutionarily favoured to make sexually compatible partners less appealing than others, but not why the opposite might be true. The answer, I believe, is immunological.

Vampirism is a retrovirus. It is a condition, spread through fluid, which cannot reproduce without a living host and which inserts DNA into that living host. It is not specified if it's actually a virus, in the sense that it is unclear if venom contains actual virus particles, however, this would explain how vampire bodies have "venom-like" fluid throughout them; they have venom with the virions removed, thus those substances are not infectious.

Now, since we know that vampire sperm contains some, but not all, of the viral DNA (since hybrids exhibit vampire traits but clearly the egg is not infected in the same way vampires are or it would never be able to develop), it is reasonable to assume that the single copy of the extra vampiric chromosomes is having some effect on the presentation of the sperm cell. This could mean that some viral proteins are expressed by the sperm.

If this is the case, the female's immune system would pick them up, triggering chain reactions that notice pathogens. However, if the cells were more similar to the female's, fewer of those defenses would be triggered, as your body trains it's immune system not to recognize itself.

This is not normally as relevant when fertilization is possible, because the more discriminating parts of the immune system are suppressed when the body expects foreign material (sperm, then maybe a baby) to be present. However, this window is based around the life expectancy of human sperm, which is not very long. If we are assuming the sperm cells are presenting enough vampiric traits to be recognized as a pathogen, it is quite likely that they would be more able to survive the harsh environment of the vagina for longer than human sperm, leaving a larger window where fertilization is possible. This would mean that for two partners having regular sex, more of the vampire's sperm would be in the fallopian tubes when the egg passes, increasing the likelihood of fertilization, if the vampire's sperm was presenting more cellular structures that closely resembled those of the female.

This still doesn't explain the smelling good thing. That one is pretty simple though. Things tend to smell good if they are good for you. This has been somewhat broken as a heuristic by humans' ability to manufacture taste as a separate thing from nutrition, through cooking and chemical synthesis, but in general, the reason a corpse stinks is because it's really hazardous for you to eat it, and so on. This would indicate that singers, which we established above are people more biologically similar to the vampire, are more nutritionally advantageous. This makes sense. Vampires have no digestive tract, no way of processing and extracting nutrients from varied food sources. This is why they cannot eat food, they must consume blood. This would indicate that biologically similar structures are more accessible to the vampire, in terms of nutrition, that the more similar parts can better be incorporated into their bodies. They don't have a method of disposing of waste, so particles unfamiliar to the vampire would simply be used, but less efficiently.

[marysuperwholock]

"Immune to propaganda"

Imagine there's some kind of machine that's really really good at convincing people of things. Give it a random person and a random topic, and it'll output a series of convincing arguments that will make this person change their mind on that topic. It does this regardless of what side it has to argue for: true and false positions can be made to seem equally compelling.

Imagine you, knowing all this, saw an opinion written by this machine. And imagine it said you should believe X, and did so with incredibly compelling arguments. What should you do?

If you want to believe true things, you should probably dismiss it entirely. After all, the argument's position is completely uncorrelated with the correct position on X. If you're a spiteful sort, you might even try and double down on your original position, reasoning that someone, somewhere, is profiting from you believing X, and they shouldn't get to.

I feel like some people consider the manufactured consent/PR/propaganda machines of the powerful to work... basically like the above model? And that view encourages a mode of critical analysis where questions like "Is the presented information true" become wholly irrelevant in favor of questions like "What is the writer trying to convince me of, and why?". I'm trying to push back on that a little.

(Quite recently I saw a reblog chain that started with a politician retweeting a study that claims gas stoves cause asthma, and immediately devolved into "the government wants you to use induction plates to increase your dependence on their electrical grid". Whether gas stoves do cause asthma, or, if so, what kind of tradeoffs between Life and Liberty are acceptable to make, was of course not a discussion worth having.)

A number of counterarguments against this mode of analysis: -Much of manufactured consent is about deceptively presenting true facts, rather than fabricating false ones, which means you're discarding relevant (but skewed!) information that could be used in more optimal ways when combined with further research. -The above thought experiment assumes high personalization and high competence of propaganda: realistically, the argument won't be superhuman and not tailored to you specifically. -"Recognizing convincingly presented but incorrect claims" is a useful skill that can only be honed if you're willing to engage with the truth value of the message. You won't always have the luxury of going "this is propaganda, so I will disregard it". -If you are wrong, you want to have a way to change your views, and 'everything from a big enough source I disagree with is suspicious' has some innate tension with that ideal. -You are an adult human: you can consider things without being insidiously corrupted to their cause, ideas can be wrong and causes of harm but they aren't brain poison.

[marysuperwholock]

Human Rights don't exist to protect you from other humans, there's the "normal" law for that. Human rights exist to protect you from the State. The State decides what's a crime... so what's stopping it to make anyone into a criminal?

Unpopular opinion but literally not one person in the world should have their human rights violated

[marysuperwholock]

Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're being a huge fucking asshole about it so you can't reblog any of it

[marysuperwholock]

I aways avoid leaving the "update soon". I feel like it pressures writers more than it motivates them.

There’s a fic on fanfiction(.)net that I’ve kept tabs on for years to see if it’s been updated or not. While I’m no longer even in the fandom it’s written for, it just has one of the greatest storylines I’ve ever read. Last time it was updated was 2011.

The other day, I decided to reread the entire thing and leave a very in-depth review of what I thought of each chapter. I also mentioned how I started reading it when I was 13 and am now 21, but always came back to see if it was ever finished because I loved it so dearly.

Today, said author sent me a private message saying that her analytics showed that the story was still getting views even after all these years, but no one ever bothered to leave reviews other than “update soon!!!”, so she never felt motivated enough to finish it. She said that me reviewing every single chapter with lengthy paragraphs made her cry and meant the world to her. She also mentioned that she felt encouraged to write the two remaining chapters needed to complete the story and that she would send me a message the night before she updates the fic.

I’m literally sobbing. I’m so excited :’)

Please always remember to leave a review when reading fanfiction!!! It means a lot to a writer.

[marysuperwholock]

[marysuperwholock]

Real, flesh and bone men dm me every day, and every day, I ignore then to read slash. And then I complain that I'm single. What is wrong with me?

#drarry #scorbus #hannigram #solangelo #fanfic #tony stark #jon snow #miraculous ladybug #harry potter #adrien agreste #doctor who #adrienette

[marysuperwholock]

Guys, so I was attending the mass yesterday, and this week's gospel was about Jesus coming back to life and saying "I told you so"

Anyways. As we know, there's nothing new under the sun, so I was thinking... the prophetised hero usually knows the prophecy and tries to fight it... or he accepts his grim destiny without knowing it will be alright in the end.

Exemples: Percy Jackson first book, the whole deal about a friend betraying him, he doesn't accept it will happen. Or Voldemort, he hears the prophecy and tries to prevent it, making sure, accidentally, that it would come true. The Classic exemple is, of course, Oedipus.

On the other hand, we have, incidentally, Percy Jackson in the last book. He knew the hero would die to protect Olympus. He was prepared to die, but he didn't fully understand the prophecy. It didn't mean that Percy would die. It was Luke the whole time. Similarly, we have Harry Potter, he went to his death willing, believing he would actually die. Jon Snow didn't even know there was a prophecy about him and was willing to die doing the right thing.

My point: none of then have the whole truth of it.

Jesus, meanwhile, had the whole truth, he knew what was going to happen. As he let Judas become one of the 12, he knew. He knew he would die, he knew he would come back. And everyone should know tooo! This just highlights Jesus divine nature. Human nature is trying to change what already is, or only allowing things to happen a certain way because you don't know the entire truth. Jesus was just chill

#jesus prophecy #Jesus #percy jackson #jon snow #harry Potter #harry potter #the prophecy hero #lord voldemort

[marysuperwholock]

Can someone please edit "gay or european" with Hannibal? Can someone please please do this??

#gay or european #hannibal the cannibal #hannibal lecter #hannigram #will graham #hannibal #hannibal nbc #legally blonde musical #is he gay or european?

[marysuperwholock]

Fanfic tiktok is wild... I see so many people saying shit like "I could never read anything below 60k!!", or "What story can you even tell in under 5k words?" or "A oneshot below 10k isn't even a story!" or "I always filter completed fics by 100k< only!"

And I'm like...

A) which fandoms are you reading fics for where you have this kind of offerings on the regular?

B) have you heard of short stories? If you truly think every story NEEDS to be longform to connect with people, I sincerely feel sorry for you.

C) Average novel length is between 50k to 100k. I'm sorry, but CONSISTENTLY demanding fic writers to push out fics of that length is insane. Just think about it: YOU DEMAND AUTHORS TO PUT OUT FICS THAT COMPARE TO COMMERCIAL NOVELS IN LENGTH (AND QUALITY) AS A BASELINE.

Yall are wilding.

[marysuperwholock]

Not just A judge, a Supreme Court judge.

Speaking as a net citzen with no knowledge of brazilian law, YES! Fuck Elon Musk!

Speaking as a law student from the best university in Brazil (UFMG, look it up, it is the best in 2024) what the ST judge did was just wrong. It is not in his power to decide who belongs in the passive pole of a lawsuit. The MP must decide this! The MP are the prosecutors in Brazil, they start the "lawsuit" and the judge decides if it goes foward or not.

I asked my criminal law teacher to comment and she said she couldn't, she had a degree in law, not psychiatrists.

Elon Musk planning to deactivate Twitter/X on Brazil...

In short, he and a judge from Brazil got into a fight, and Elon decided to close down the Twitter/X office in Brazil

I'm glad I have other social media accounts, but I have done SO MUCH there, it sucks to lose it all

[marysuperwholock]

An overwhelming sense of calmness descends upon the Disco.

[marysuperwholock]

this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social caste system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

[marysuperwholock]

hoffman's car