hbomberguy’s latest video on plagiarism has made me completely rethink literature and writing. I have never once so much as considered intentionally plagiarizing anyone or anything, but I think there’s something more that has come out of this: the names of the people who created the works Somerton (and others) ripped off.
Plagiarism isn’t only bad because it is lazy and disrespectful, it’s bad because it buries the truth. If you can’t find a source, the conversation is over. Somerton’s sources are fairly easy to find by simply searching his plagiarized lines, but that isn’t true in most cases. Most of the time, the line from statement to source is a lot less clear.
Today, I was writing a report on English Ivy, which is an invasive species here in the US. I wanted to know when it was introduced and I at last found a source claiming it was introduced to the Americas “as early as 1727” on a .net website that seems quite reputable (it has multiple major universities credited in its home page), but there is no citation for where this date came from. I dug deeper and found a pamphlet created by a city government in Virginia that made the same claim, only to discover the first source linked in their bibliography. Another website (a botanical garden’s page) gave the same date with the same source hyperlinked. Of course, I have classes to attend and things to do and probably not enough time to follow the lines back to where this 1727 date came from, but if I had not just watched this video, I wouldn’t have given that date a second thought.
Of course, it doesn’t matter in the long run exactly what year hedera helix was introduced to the Americas, but it makes you wonder how many facts have been so vaguely attributed that it becomes completely impossible to figure out where they originated (and further, whether or not they’re true at all).
23K notes
·
View notes
oc asks: not-so-nice edition
alone: How does your OC deal with loneliness? Have they ever been completely alone before? How do they act when there's no one around to see them?
betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them?
bound: Has your OC ever been imprisoned or captured? What happened? How did they get out? Did the experience leave any scars?
break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?
desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?
failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?
fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?
future: What's the worst possible future for your OC? Are they taking steps to avoid that outcome? Are they even aware it's a possibility?
ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?
guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?
hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?
heartbreak: Have they ever had a relationship that ended badly? Experienced some other kind of heartbreak? What happened?
hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?
hunt: Who or what is your OC hunted by? A person, a feeling, a past mistake? Is your OC able to let their guard down, or are they constantly alert?
mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?
midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?
mistake: What's the worst mistake your OC ever made? What led to them making it? Have they been able to fix it? How have they moved on?
monster: Is your OC monstrous in any way? Is there something that makes them monstrous? Are they aware of their own monstrosity? Do they accept it or reject it?
nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?
pain: What's the worst pain your OC has ever felt? Do they have a high pain tolerance?
secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?
skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?
torture: Has your OC ever been tortured? Would your OC ever torture someone else?
wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?
11K notes
·
View notes
probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
52K notes
·
View notes
To my mutuals or followers, or just anyone who sees this:
Please reblog the kosa bill posts from me and others. This bill is EXTREMELY dangerous to the queer community and especially queer minors. As a queer and trans minor in a bad home situation, I and many others would be in so much danger if this bill is approved. Its actually so horrific. One of the senators who introduced it, Marsha Blackburn, said that "protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture" was a top priority. As a trans minor, I find this disgusting and harmful to my existence, I'm sure many others my age feel the same way. So please: REBLOG THE KOSA BILL POSTS.
EDIT: IT WILL ALSO CENSOR THE PALESTINE GENOCIDE POSTS AND MANY MORE THINGS!!! WE WILL BE BLOCKED FROM THE TRUTH!!! Also I do not know many things about the kosa bill, this is the limit of my knowlege, so I can't answer any questions. I'm sorry!
3K notes
·
View notes
People liking your personal OCs is still such a crazy feeling, I've been doing this for years and ppl asking about them still fills my entire heart with warmth and idk how to handle it
You enjoy this fictional guy I made up for fun?? Whose only content is random artwork or writing made by me and a handful of other artists at most? They have no show/book/game with a large fandom, it's just one person with an art blog?? I love u
2K notes
·
View notes