#in my defence.

[enigmaticbastard]

so throwback to when i did a poorly executed orca closet cosplay on tiktok and to this day i refuse to delete it but i’m hoping and praying no one i know scrolls far enough down my profile to see it.

#listen okay #in my defence.

[arkenstoned]

getting 'so true bestie'-d by my 50 year old glaswegian boss

#he is so unserious #liverpool was a work trip #i was ill but i declined an invite to have dinner with a bunch of people cuz i got really fucking stoned in my hotel room LMAO #in my defence. #i waited for AGES for anyone to confirm evening plans and no one did until after i was already completely out of it #i believe i could have gone and styled it out but i didnt want to risk it

[senseiwu]

...I think I put five sugars in my tea 😅

#in my defence. #i did put the juice of half a lemon in ut #it #needed to balance it out

[purrvaire]

they're so in love im gonna throw up real quick

#in my defence i had warned you i was going to be the most annoying fucker on earth #what the fuck guys this is too much for my brain to process #they're so in love i want to jump from the balcony #LOOK AT THEM #this is after the blitz and aziraphale had the courage to say CROWLEY was going too fast #MY ANGEL IN CHRIST YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO GIGGLE AND TWIRL YOUR HAIR YOURSELF #michael sheen commiting to make the softest warmest most loving eyes every chance he gets #what and i cannot stress this enough the fuck #my dads (real) #tumblr text meme #tumblr text posts #good omens season two #good omens #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #user purrvaire

[keferon]

Ah mmmm well

You know how in mermaid stories, the mermaid is typically the dumber one? I present to you the "and they were both scientists" plot.

Basically the concept is that mermechs and regular mechs can't talk to each other. But luckily even if they speak different languages they still use the same math~

I discovered a bunch of simpatico mer-fics. So. I wanted to do something with this concept too haha. If some physicist happens to read this - feel free to laugh at me. I know nothing about science👍

I don’t know if I’ll continue this thing. Should I. Idk. It’s midnight I might be going crazy lol. I made that cover anyway bc I love making covers hehe

[Next]->

#transformers #maccadam #our language of science #listen #Im not insane I swear #I mean I’m not THAT insane haha #mermaid mechs are fucking weird but l i s t e n Arachnid from tfp is basically the same #she’s like…half humanoid half spider #she has this mode without her humanoid legs #which is basically makes her..like…centaur. But spider. Spider centaur. Or spider mermaid #half of her body is humanoid and half is spider. And I’m going to use this knowledge for my defence okay?? #Because if she can have her spider half then other mechs can do the similar thing. In theory #okay I’m done proving the right of my vision to live #mtmte #lost light #perceptor #tf perceptor #brainstorm #tf brainstorm #simpatico #Chromedome #tf chromedome #yeah the whole world thinks mermaids are stupid but listen #I want smart mermaids okay. I want them to have their whole hidden civilisation. To be scientists #engineers #you know #I’m tired of (oh human need to teach this fish) I want the fish to be teaching the human #Btw Brainstorm basically found a mistake Perceptor made #ahahahehe #okay I’m done I need to get some sleep

[neroushalvaus]

Okay I am going to use the Somerton situation to talk about something that is very important to me. Following the discussion I have seen former Somerton fans being disappointed in themselves and questioning how they can ever trust another video essayist again. I have also seen some people being smug because to them Somerton was obviously unreliable from the start. As a person who also saw the "red flags" in Somerton, I would like to skip the smugness and talk a bit about what the red flags were to me.

Someone else has probably posted something similar and Hbomberguy's & Todd in the Shadows's videos touched a few of these points, but they didn't focus on them or how to spot these things. I think it is a good thing: I think it would have reinforced the idea that Somerton's fans were to blame for being lied to, and these youtubers didn't want to pin any blame on the fans. Also, some of the things I'm going to talk about were not by any means proof of him being unreliable, they were common tropes I personally associate with people who are bullshitting on internet. Think of it as something like spotting terfs: If you consider following a tumblr user and find out they have at some point posted "males will always be a danger to females no matter what they say", it is very possible that they are not a terf. Maybe they were having a bad day and were just wording their post badly – But you should probably search "trans" from their blog before following them, just to be sure.

So, the tropes in James Somerton's content that I consider red flags:

Lack of sources. This one may seem obvious and Hbomb talked about this in his video, but the lack of sources in his videos was outrageous. Video essays are called essays for a reason, they are not supposed to be just a guy talking about whatever comes to his mind, they should be well researched essays. Obviously video essays should contain one's own thoughts and interpretations and those do not need citations. But James Somerton didn't come out of the womb knowing everything about LGBT history, Disney and film theory, if he actually knew something about all this stuff, he should have learnt it from somewhere. There should be sources he could point to. It is very common that even when a video essayist doesn't tell you where they got all their information, they open their video by saying stuff like "when I prepared for this video I read the book Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche and this one thrilling blog post about lesbian cruising in 1960s Sweden". From what I've seen, James does not really do this. From watching his videos you could arrive to the conclusion that James Somerton does not read any books, he just knows everything. There are situations where people don't feel the need to add sources, like when the information is considered common knowledge or when the topic relates heavily to the essayist's actual academic field or profession. This is okay and very understandable, but can sometimes be dangerous, since if the video essayist markets himself as a marketing specialist, people are more likely to take his word for stuff that has to do with marketing, even without sources. It is understandable that in many situations an essayist may think "why should I cite a source? I know this thing!", but doing your research well is partly about checking if the information you are certain of is actually true. Also, as Hbomb pointed out, if you can cite a source, your audience can go learn more about the subject. It's not about anyone doubting you know your stuff, it's about learning. That's why well-respected video essayists usually cite their sources very clearly.

Lack of pictures and screenshots. This is about different kinds of sources again, many things on this list are kind of about sources. An example: When James Somerton made a video about JKR, he mentioned something about Rowling at one time saying that trans students in 30-50Feralhogs (or whatever the wizard school is called) could use magic to present as their gender. If this was any other video essayist, you'd expect a tweet to pop up, or something else confirming Rowling ever said this. Nothing pops up, obviously because Rowling didn't say this, but you can't see anything fishy in that because things rarely pop up in Somerton's videos. He doesn't show you court documents when speaking about a court case, he doesn't show you the comments apparently mad at him for implying the gay anime is gay when he is complaining about people being mad at him. There is a reason people show screenshots and tweets in video essays. When a good video essayist says JK Rowling has tweeted that all people who menstruate should be referred to as women, the video essayist shows the tweet so people know they are not making it up. If there were hoards of annoying bitc-- I mean, angry white women whining about gay sex in HuffPost articles or Somerton's youtube comments, he should have no trouble showing you those. Remember that you should not trust someone just because they show you pictures or screenshots. Pictures can be photoshopped, screenshots can be doctored. Many youtubers are aware that you listen to their videos while cleaning or while walking your dog and don't actually see the screen all the time, and some may take advantage of that by saying something like "and here she threatened to kill me" while showing a text message where someone said "die mad about it". A screenshot alone isn't much but you should demand to see the screenshot.

Passive voice. I am once again bitching about this. Somerton repeatedly says things like "it's been said that" or "it was common knowledge that" or "a legend says that" or "according to most interpretations". He doesn't say who says it, making it very hard to fact check and that seems to be his goal in some cases.

Relying heavily on anecdotes. Writing a dense, analytical video about film theory or history can be exhausting and you may want to pepper in little fun facts. However Somerton seemed to rely on these heavily; he can't just talk about how he has totally bought every lie told by The Pink Swastika, he also needs to tell a cute little anecdote about SS men forcing sexual favours out of men. He can't just tell a story about a court case, he needs to add in ridiculous stuff about the jury booing. This is what I mean by not all the things on this list being necessarily proof of someone being unreliable. Many people use anecdotes and little stories in their storytelling, it makes the videos flow better and it's hard to decide which anecdotes are valid and which are not. A source obviously makes an anecdote a bit more believable, but here are some things that instantly make me fact check an anecdote:

It's a bit too convenient, poetic or ironic. Sometimes real life is weirder than fiction but if an anecdote is "perfect" and has an amazing punchline and you could write twelve poems about it, there is a possibility it was invented by pop science books.

It assumes your political enemies are stupid. Dunking on conservatives, MRAs and transphobes is always fun and after you've seen a lot of this kind of content it's easy to believe anything about these people. You must resist the impulse to believe everything that may make your opponents look stupid.

The person telling the anecdote implies it is an example of a larger, systemic problem. You know what's worse than taking a random happenstance from human history or internet and basing an entire political theory on it? The said random happenstance being made up. You should in general be wary of people telling one story and explaining why it's an example of everything that's wrong in the world. We live in a huge world. You can always find a white woman who loves cute gays but hates the idea of Nick Heartstopper and Charlie Heartstopper getting nasty but that doesn't mean it's an indicator of a larger issue.

Simplifying complex issues. We all know that "only the boring gays survived the AIDS crisis, and that's why gays started to only care about marriage equality and military" is a horrible, insensitive thing to say, but you also have to think about it for like two seconds to realize that it can't be correct. It kind of reminds me of the "roe v wade caused the crime drop of 1990s" claim in Freakonomics. It sounds logical and simple, like a basic math calculation. Societal issues rarely are like that, though. You should never believe anyone who tells you about a huge societal shift and says it happened because of one thing and one thing only.

These were some of the things I noticed in Somerton's content that caused me to distrust him. I hope these were helpful to you and feel free to add your own "red flags" if you feel like it!

#phew. maybe that's enough salt for one day. #james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #edit:// embarrassingly many mistakes in the original post. in my defence i have a fever and english isn't my first language. forgive me #edit2:// made the text bigger!

[thatswhatsushesaid]

huaisang, do you have spurs that jingle jangle jingle as you go ridin' merrily along--

#to that niche subset of cql/mdzs fans who are also fallout new vegas fans #i am sorry for the song that you now have stuck in your head #but in my defence #if i have to have the jingle jangle song stuck in my head this morning #then it's only fair that you do too #mdzs shitposting #mdzs #cql #the untamed #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #let him have birds!! 🕊️

[newgroundstier]

peace and love on spaceship lost light :)

#nautica #ravage #transformers #maccadam #nautica my love u r so hard 2 draw </3 #ravage was also hard 2 draw but in his defence i did not look at any reference until like halfway thru drawing him #''yeah i know his general shape. alright maybe i dont'' asfjkdfsdk #n i didnt wanna redraw him so i just messed w/ what i done already teehee #also ravage just uses a regular metal bowl 4 drinkin in da comic but i figured glass ones would exist. ............. #idk how well it comes across but i liked the idea so !!!!!!!!!!! i did it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[chomplicated]

#my art #homestuck #john egbert #karkat vantas #couldnt figure out a bg for the life of me #johnkat #i know thats not how you hold a sickle in my defence it looks cool

[floweroflaurelin]

All hail the king! All hail the king! 👑💋

—

“Tumblr’s gonna love that bit” — Pixlriffs

#empires smp #pixlriffs #pixlriffs fanart #empires fanart #empires smp fanart #empires pixlriffs #empiresblr #floweroflaurelin art #mcyt #mcytblr #mcyt fanart #and he was right! #this is the roughest sketch I’ve ever posted to tumblr I think ever but in my defence my sketches look good! hahaha #I’m in finals big time rn but I had to draw this. you understand #also I did have time to include the tan lines from his usual archaeologist skin :P

[kidovna]

I still can’t believe I got about 50% of his outfit colour-blocking right over a year ago

#very far off with what mike’s wearing #but in my defence I didn’t expect him to go back to sweaters and long sleeved polos LOL #stranger things #will byers #thoughts #okay THIS is my last will byers day post #sorry if you’re not interested in him 😔 that’s my child 😔

[overtake]

video from @scuderiafemboy

#losing it. he is SO CUTE #this is not my best work at ALL but in my defence i am in the middle of studying #max verstappen #china 2024 #op #f1

[jaskaaaaa]

welcome to bible study we’re all children of jesus

portrait practice feat. god’s favourite and least favourite kids

#art #tlt #the locked tomb #fanart #gideon the ninth #harrowhark the ninth #ianthe tridentarius #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #there are too many ways of tagging their names send help #anyway uh sorry about the three months since I last posted art #in my defence i experienced a hyperfixation

[hayden-christensen]

GALAXIES OPERA HOUSE, CORUSCANT 19BBY | Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) 9ABY | The Mandalorian - Chapter 19: The Convert (2023)

#swedit #starwarsedit #star wars #rotsedit #revenge of the sith #themandalorianedit #the mandalorian #mando s3 #the mandalorian spoilers #coruscant #starwarsblr #*mine #*2023 #*gifs #[parallels] #2k #the way I jumped they did this for me!!!! #it doesn't get nerdier than making a parallel edit of a fictional building on a fictional planet for tumblr dot com #in my defence I am an architecture student I love the architecture of coruscant haha

[dressfortheslide-nottheride]

essential rosquez quotes from @moonshynecybin's post here (ty!!)

the "accidental contact" can be found here, please tell me ur opinion!

@pgaslys makes an endless list of motogp things found here (its great)

other motogp primers found here, here, and here (kind of). they rly helped when i was getting into motogp so ty sm to their creators.

and in general to anyone trying to get into motogp- everyone on motogpblr is super nice and helpful! i've sent so many anons and i've always gotten lovely answers!

im always happy to chat so feel free to shoot me an ask w any q's or corrections x

#motogp #mine #in my defence i have covid and I'm bored #i say that like i didn't start this pre having covid #this was originally intended for my coworkers bc I'm too deep in this hyperfixation #anyway much love to motogpblr y'all are great and super friendly #once again if anyone has any corrections i am always happy to receive and edit!!! #marc marquez #valentino rossi #i refuse to tag everyone bc im sleeby #uhhhh #rosquez #kind of? #anyway enjoy! #motogp primer #edited 18.12 ty anon! #edited again 9/3/24 ty @unreliablesnake