“our teeth and ambitions are bared” is a zeugma

and it’s a zeugma where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical which is the BEST KIND

I didn’t know about zeugmas until just now! That is so awesome, everybody: 

#in english class in high school my teacher had us write our own zeugmas in class#and one guy came up with ‘he fell from her favor… and the window’#i am forever looking for opportunities to use that one

She dropped her dress and inhibitions at the door.

What’s this? My favorite rhetorical device showing up on my dashboard?

IT HAS A NAMEEEE!! OH MY GOD!!!

I LOVE THIIIIIS!!!

One I’ve loved was “on their weekend trip they caught three fish and a cold”

I love these they’re like a pun and a metaphor wrapped up into one neat phrase

scrolling twitter today and then coming over here is like walking out of a burning building and then walking into the calm remains of a building that burnt down 5 years ago and has been reclaimed by nature.

every culture has a little dish that just translates to “we threw everything into that fucking pot we’re poor”

And some of those dishes are the best things in their given culture.  :)

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That's pointing to the left

I've actually seen the update to this post. The two talked it out and she brought up her concerns not only for him spending nearly all his time digging, but also concerns about his safety while digging (gasses, the tunnel collapsing). He hadn't realized he had been spending so much time in the tunnel and hadn't thought about the possible risks. So what does he do?

He starts making time for his partner, and also starts looking into stuff to make the digging a safer thing to do. He doesn't stop digging, but he limits how much of it he's doing so it isn't consuming all of his time.

I was so happy to see that the two of them talked it out like adult. That's something that rarely happens on the internet.

Mole Instinct

Much respect for the fact that she's comfortable with his fossorial lifestyle as long as his habitat is structurally sound and he's still getting healthy social enrichment.

Hey, let's talk about anons like this, because I know some people haven't been in a position to see the patterns these play out in on broader scale and may indeed not spot the trap.

And it is a trap.

An ask like this has several purposes.

First, it uses social justice language in passive aggressive and manipulative ways to try to coerce a behavior. In this case, the desired behavior is usually for the recipent to participate in community shunning and/or harrassment. The language above is intended to put the recipient on the defensive where, in the haste to disassociate themself from the Bad Thing, they quickly disassociate themself from the bad person, often with no particular fact checking or evidence.

The message is also intended to create a sense of being surveilled and judged by an unknown amount of people with unknown amount of social power and an unknown amount of relevance to your life.

Notice that these asks are usually framed as if they are coming from a follower or potential follower, someone who is addressing you personally and who cares about your opinion and who your blog has an effect on. However this is usually.... very much not the case. If you've ever had the misfortune to watch a gossip campaign from like this from the outside, you will very quickly notice that messages like this get sent in mass batches to dozens and dozens of strangers. (You can often turn these up with a tumblr search, if you look.)

The sender does not know you and probably does not follow you. They have a person they don't like (possibly for their stated reason and possibly not), and they are going through the reblogs of a post from that blog and mass messaging *everyone* with a form letter. They will not see your response and they will probably never even see your blog again.

Which brings us to the second goal of whisper campaigns like this:

Notice that I blacked out the names above? That's because when the recipient answers anonymous asks like this, they provide a platform for the opinion on their blog. An anonymous message like this that gets posted doesn't just spread gossip and apply pressure to the recipient, it is spread to the recipient's entire community.

The *goal* is to get access to your community. The *goal* is to use you as a soapbox.

Is the information accurate? Did anyone check? Does the anon have an ulterior social motive? BIG SHRUG

If you go into the comments on one of these whisper campaigns you will see that *most people never bother to check.*

They assume good faith from a follower, they're off balance defending themselves, and they jump straight to conciliation.

It's a really, really effective form of social manipulation, and really really commonly misused.

This is what bullying on social media can look like especially in left-leaning/social justice minded circles. This is how otherwise caring people get roped into participating in harassment campaigns.