television history

i’ve been trying to explain this sketch to people for years

there is literally no way to explain this sketch it’s just a thing you have to see and even then I’m not sure why it’s so funny

god tier dramione fanfics

Manacled by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454174/chapters/33390198}

Isolation by bexchan {https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461513?view_full_work=true}

Rights and Wrongs series by LovesBitca8 {https://archiveofourown.org/series/1007625}

Remain Nameless by HeyJude19 {https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875939/chapters/57393508}

Breath Mints / Battle Scars by Onyx_and_Elm {https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/35668776?show_comments=true}

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love by isthisselfcare {https://archiveofourown.org/works/34500952/chapters/85870804}

Wait and Hope by mightbewriting {https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818646/chapters/54531817}

Bring Him to His Knees by Musyc {https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481312/chapters/59089624}

Dragon’s Heartstrings by pinkinku {https://archiveofourown.org/works/46585585/chapters/117313114}

Cherry Mint by dirtymudblood {https://archiveofourown.org/works/21053894/chapters/50081633}

Love In A Time Of The Zombie Apocalypse by rizzlewrites {https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137807/chapters/68944698}

All You Want by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153092/chapters/35140268}

Apple Pies and Other Amends by ToEatAPeach {https://archiveofourown.org/works/8156101/chapters/18691246}

The Gloriana Set by ThebeMoon {https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821571/chapters/39485710}

Love and Other Misfortunes by senlinyu {https://archiveofourown.org/works/14380728/chapters/33204618}

This World or Any Other series by olivieblake {https://archiveofourown.org/series/502333}

Panda having fun in the snow

Somehow through my hatred of crypto and NFTs I’ve become a person who knows a lot about crypto and NFTs. Possibly as much as one can know without actively participating in the system in some way or learning how to code. I’m not sure what exactly I’ve become or why but I’m a walking encyclopedia of crypto knowledge that hates crypto. What do I do?

I saw that 2 hour folding ideas video about crypto and NFTs and had the sinking realization about halfway through that there wasn’t gonna be any new information in it for me. The only new info to me was the names of a couple of NFT collectible projects I hadn’t heard of. I’m going insane. I know too much.

I can’t even use this knowledge to bring down crypto. It’s trying to work its way into the institutions of the world. And I hope it fails but at this point? At this point? The only people that can bring the system down have more money than God. And even if it does go down there’s still thousands if not millions of people that will cling to the sinking ship until they’re literally dead because that’s how all in they are.

Okay, I need to do something with all of this knowledge so here's a guide to NFTs.

1. Cryptocurrency/blockchain

So, to understand what NFTs are, you need to know what cryptocurrency is and why. Very basically, in 2008 an anonymous individual that goes by Satoshi Nakamoto invented "electronic cash" or "bitcoin". This was an anarcho-capitalist idea that if cash was made digital that eventually the need for banks would vanish.

The way bitcoin and most "proof of work" cryptocurrencies work is through a "blockchain". Basically, any computer in the world that holds a bitcoin "wallet" helps keep track of transactions. So if one computer fails, the whole system doesn't fail. Every time a transaction happens it is recorded in this network and grouped into a "hash" of other transactions. You can think of this as a digital piece of paper that has a bunch of receipts written down on it. So if Sarah sends 3 bitcoin to Lee and then Lee sends those 3 bitcoin to Alex, those transactions are recorded by all of their computers.

This system, by design, wastes a lot of power. Every time a transaction happens all of the computers involved have to solve some computations that get harder and harder to do the longer the blockchain is. So every time a transaction happens thousands of computers are wasting a ton of energy working to keep track of the coins. The reason it's like this makes sense if crypto is happening on a small scale. It makes it nearly impossible to hack, which eliminates the need for something like a central bank.

Once this scales up beyond just a few hundred anarcho-capitalist activists and hobbyists and becomes mainstream though, it causes a lot of problems. The most obvious one being electrical power consumption. Yes, a computer hooked up in, say, Iceland, where most if not all power comes from geothermal energy isn't making a huge impact, but the blockchain has to go through thousands of computers every time a transaction happens. And a lot of those Computers will be somewhere like certain areas of the US or India which still use a lot of coal.

And, if you have an older or less powerful computer, it might completely destroy your computer. Which financially hurts people and increases the demand for chips which increases the demand for lithium and silicone which puts strain on manufacturers and mining companies which makes the price of certain products go up which over time eventually makes crypto less accessible unless you want to use it through a third party company that makes money off of you, thus effectively creating a bank, which bitcoin was designed to skirt around.

2. Ethereum

Ethereum is another kind of blockchain different from bitcoin in a couple of ways. First, it wastes a bit less energy than bitcoin (but make no mistake, it still wastes a lot of energy) and, you can put stuff on the blockchain that isn't coins. Text. You can put a bit of text in the blockchain and keep it in your Ethereum wallet. This is an NFT. A Non-Fungible Token. A unique bit of text that the blockchain says belongs inside of one specific crypto wallet.

Those pictures that people post aren't the NFTs themselves. The code required to create a picture is too many characters to fit inside the character limit of these NFTs. So what people are actually selling isn't the picture. It's a link to the picture that you then put inside your digital wallet, and when you move that NFT between wallets, everyone on the Ethereum network keeps track of that.

You can also put links to other things inside these NFTs. Like, say, viruses. And almost anyone can put an NFT inside of your crypto wallet if they know which wallet is yours because all of that info is publicly available. So there have actually been a few instances where someone has put an NFT in someone else's wallet and when they got confused and opened the link to see what it was, they let a virus into their computer that stole thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from them, or stole their other NFTs and held them for ransom.

And, if you look at transaction histories on popular NFT collection on OpenSea, you'll also notice that a lot of times the same person will sell the NFT to themself a few times and then sell it to someone else once they've artificially inflated the price. It's very difficult to make a lot of money off of the NFT system unless you already have a lot of cash to burn and most people that are just hanging onto their NFTs and not selling them are (likely) middle class people that can't afford to inflate the price and are afraid to sell their "investment" because they don't quite understand what they've gotten themselves into. They were just told that it's a good investment and they aren't extremely familiar with how financial markets work so they just trusted the people telling them it was good, and the people telling them that it's good are usually the same people artificially inflating the prices.

3. Volatility

The thing about crypto is that almost nobody actually uses it as a currency anymore unless they're buying an NFT. There used to be a place you could buy illegal drugs with it, but that got shut down by the American government and the new marketplaces are much harder to find then that one. Instead, people use it the same way they might a stock. They hold onto it, hoping it'll go up in value so they can sell it at a later date.

Unlike stocks though, there's nothing really backing up the value of cryptocurrencies. If you bought some stock in Microsoft, you're likely doing it because you think it's a good company that will continue to do well and make more money. So you let Microsoft hold onto your money in the hopes that you'll get some more back later. With real currencies, they're backed up by the credibility of the government that mints them. If I have 5 British pounds, I trust that I can spend those pounds predictably because I have a certain level of trust in the British government's ability to monitor its currency.

Crypto is backed by nothing but imagined value. There's no government, no business model, no product. It's just a bunch of code moving between computers at a high electricity cost. So the equivalent of a once in a century stock market crash happens to the crypto market once every couple of years or even twice a year, which has happened since May of 2021. The crypto market crashed and halved in value in May and then it climbed up again and then crashed and halved in value again in November. It can be affected by sudden unexplained panic, Elon Musk making a tweet, Wikipedia no longer accepting crypto as payment. Anything. A whisper on the wind can make it jump up or down in price.

This, unsurprisingly, also affects NFTs. If you buy an NFT for 3 Ether when Ether is worth 2,000 USD you sold it for 6,000 USD. But if you sell it for 4 Ether after the currency crashes to 1,000 USD now you've sold it for 4,000 USD and have lost 2,000 bucks. So now what? You just don't sell the NFT I guess. And will Ether ever go up in value again? Probably? But there's always the real possibility with every crash that this time it won't go up in value again.

And nobody knows when the crypto markets will go down and stay down or if that will happen. Nobody knows. People try to predict but they're rarely correct. So whenever there's a crash, everyone who bought cryptocurrencies at their peak loses like half of their investments. Prices of NFTs go down. Everyone panics. A bunch of people call it the end of crypto. But then it goes up in price again, inevitably crashes again, rinse and repeat. It's gambling. It's unhealthy. It's built on tissue-paper-thin foundations.

4. Why I hate it

For me the environmental impact of NFTs is only part of why I hate it. That's a big part of it. It's awful. Visa can process as many transactions in one hour as the bitcoin blockchain does in one day and at a much lower cost of power. Computers running on renewable energy sources offset this somewhat, but still most of them are running on coal or gas powered electrical grids.

But the biggest problem I have with NFTs and crypto as a whole is that it is just a game of luck and it's hurting vulnerable people. The only people that can safely go all-in with crypto already have money to burn. It's not regulated so scams that have been illegal in many countries for decades are coming back and people with little financial literacy, people who don't understand the system they're getting pulled into, people that are really young or really old, people who are vulnerable to developing a gambling addiction, and people who are operating in their second or third language are getting the rug pulled out from under them and having their money taken from them and it breaks my heart so much.

And a lot of these crypto or NFT communities have a very toxic high control mentality. They're not cults but if you need something to compare it to, they have a few things in common.

And not al of them are high control groups, not all of them are scams, not all of them run on fossil fuels and coal. But they're all a part of that toxic system. And the people who would benefit most from poor or middle class people buying into crypto and losing their money on it are the people who are controlling the mainstream info on crypto. Because they can afford to hire teams of people familiar with Search Engine Optimization and Public Relations experts who make sure that most of the info you find on the first page of Google is provided by them.

[ID: a reply by the-stars-in-sapphos-eyes, reading

"Plz make a guide or something because all I know about NFTs is i hate them but I barely know why/what they are I need this explained in very simple terms" /end ID]

When people compare the greatness that is The Simpsons to other animated shows like Family Guy it makes me want to set myself on fire

I went on a date last year and jokingly said “Don’t ask me I’m just a girl” and giggled at a 35 year old man thinking he’d get the reference and instead he said “that’s what I like to hear.”

#that is when you start shoving breadsticks in your purse

This episode aired in 1994 and was a direct response to Mattel issuing their first talking Barbie which said phrases like “Will we ever have enough clothes?” and “Math class is tough”

A group that dubbed itself the Barbie Liberation Organization tried to create awareness of gender stereotypes by switching the voice boxes of a few hundred Barbies with those of G.I. Joe dolls, which made G.I. Joes that said things like “What kind of wedding will you have?” and Barbies that said “Vengeance is mine”

I want a barbie that craves vengeance.

Can we talk about this guy for a second? I feel like he doesn’t get enough credit even though he played, arguably, one of the most important roles in Mulan. For those of you who don’t know, this is the Chinese soldier stationed on top of the Great Wall at the beginning of the film.

After his helmet is knocked off and he sees the Huns throw grappling hooks up onto the ramparts, he calls out to the person who is supposed to be on top of the tower to light the signal. We don’t know where that person is supposed to be, but given the fact that several Huns come out from the door in this shot, we can assume they likely killed him.

But does that stop this guy? No. He judges the situation and reacts accordingly. Despite being swung at by a Hun with a large sword and being forced to pull himself up onto the tower, he doesn’t even stop to take a breather. He just grabs the torch and is about to light the signal himself when something stops him.

This guy. Shan Yu is already on top of the tower as this soldier is about to light the signal. Now, Shan Yu is already a scary mf, but I think it’s important to see how our soldier reacts to seeing him because it tells us an important detail that many people may overlook.

Look at his face. This soldier isn’t just stunned because there a massive Hun waiting for him on top of the tower, but because he recognizes said Hun. Or at least he knows enough about what Shan Yu looks like to put two and two together and assume that this is him. He knows this man and his reputation. He knows exactly the kinds of things Shan Yu is willing to do to people who stand in his way. And what does this soldier do? Does he beg for his life? Does he try to escape?

No. This bamf just looks Shan Yu right in the eye and does his duty. He lights the signal, knowing full well that doing so will likely get him killed. But, he does it anyway. And immediately after lighting the signal, he looks up the the Hun leader with this expression.

This is a man who would look Death in the face and say “Fuck you!” He knows he has maybe a few more seconds of life left and yet he stands tall. And why is this important? Because this one act of valor led to this.

The signals are being lit. All of the people of China are being warned of invasion and now they can properly prepare for the war to come. And it’s all thanks to this one brave soldier who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his service.

NOW👏ALL👏OF👏CHINA👏KNOWS👏YOURE👏HERE👏🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

In this house we stan a legend, a nameless hero who will not go unsung

Reblog this every time XD

IM WHEEZING

Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.

Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.

Isaac Asimov.

yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point

If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame

And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.

Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:

Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.

You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905. The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.

Got that?

Stick that in your international pipe and smoke it

I have literally been telling people this for over a year.

the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman

The first autobiography ever written in English is also attributed to a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s).

The day may come when I find this post and do not reblog it, but it is not this day.

Women invented language while men were hunting. I mean…

Men… Just accept it, the girls got this. Sincerely, a man

I can’t believe I made this with my own two hands

If the internet and Tumblr was a thing in 1977, imagine all the anti-Hanleia posts, pages, and arguments there would be after A New Hope is released, about how Han is an asshole and doesn’t deserve Leia. Imagine them arguing that Leia belongs with Luke and anyone who ships Hanleia must hate Luke. Imagine them harassing Hanleia shippers.

Imagine them losing their shit after The Empire Strikes Back comes and when they find out Luke and Leia are actually twins in Return of the Jedi.

more voltron stuff sorry lads i fell in a new kind of hell (bottom pic based from this)