#08/09/2020

[boreal-sea]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[anonmanz]

Man, the 2010’s was peak life

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I have spent a quarter century obsessed with the weirdest corner of the weirdest section of the worst internet law on the US statute books: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that makes it a felony to help someone change how their own computer works so it serves them, rather than a distant corporation.

Under DMCA 1201, giving someone a tool to "bypass an access control for a copyrighted work" is a felony punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine – for a first offense. This law can refer to access controls for traditional copyrighted works, like movies. Under DMCA 1201, if you help someone with photosensitive epilepsy add a plug-in to the Netflix player in their browser that blocks strobing pictures that can trigger seizures, you're a felon:

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0005.html

But software is a copyrighted work, and everything from printer cartridges to car-engine parts have software in them. If the manufacturer puts an "access control" on that software, they can send their customers (and competitors) to prison for passing around tools to help them fix their cars or use third-party ink.

Now, even though the DMCA is a copyright law (that's what the "C" in DMCA stands for, after all); and even though blocking video strobes, using third party ink, and fixing your car are not copyright violations, the DMCA can still send you to prison, for a long-ass time for doing these things, provided the manufacturer designs their product so that using it the way that suits you best involves getting around an "access control."

As you might expect, this is quite a tempting proposition for any manufacturer hoping to enshittify their products, because they know you can't legally disenshittify them. These access controls have metastasized into every kind of device imaginable.

Garage-door openers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Refrigerators:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

Dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

Treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

Tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

Cars:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty

And even printer paper:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#dymo-550

DMCA 1201 is the brainchild of Bruce Lehmann, Bill Clinton's Copyright Czar, who was repeatedly warned that cancerous proliferation this was the foreseeable, inevitable outcome of his pet policy. As a sop to his critics, Lehman added a largely ornamental safety valve to his law, ordering the US Copyright Office to invite submissions every three years petitioning for "use exemptions" to the blanket ban on circumventing access-controls.

I call this "ornamental" because if the Copyright Office thinks that, say, it should be legal for you to bypass an access control to use third-party ink in your printer, or a third-party app store in your phone, all they can do under DMCA 1201 is grant you the right to use a circumvention tool. But they can't give you the right to acquire that tool.

I know that sounds confusing, but that's only because it's very, very stupid. How stupid? Well, in 2001, the US Trade Representative arm-twisted the EU into adopting its own version of this law (Article 6 of the EUCD), and in 2003, Norway added the law to its lawbooks. On the eve of that addition, I traveled to Oslo to debate the minister involved:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

The minister praised his law, explaining that it gave blind people the right to bypass access controls on ebooks so that they could feed them to screen readers, Braille printers, and other assistive tools. OK, I said, but how do they get the software that jailbreaks their ebooks so they can make use of this exemption? Am I allowed to give them that tool?

No, the minister said, you're not allowed to do that, that would be a crime.

Is the Norwegian government allowed to give them that tool? No. How about a blind rights advocacy group? No, not them either. A university computer science department? Nope. A commercial vendor? Certainly not.

No, the minister explained, under his law, a blind person would be expected to personally reverse engineer a program like Adobe E-Reader, in hopes of discovering a defect that they could exploit by writing a program to extract the ebook text.

Oh, I said. But if a blind person did manage to do this, could they supply that tool to other blind people?

Well, no, the minister said. Each and every blind person must personally – without any help from anyone else – figure out how to reverse-engineer the ebook program, and then individually author their own alternative reader program that worked with the text of their ebooks.

That is what is meant by a use exemption without a tools exemption. It's useless. A sick joke, even.

The US Copyright Office has been valiantly holding exemptions proceedings every three years since the start of this century, and they've granted many sensible exemptions, including ones to benefit people with disabilities, or to let you jailbreak your phone, or let media professors extract video clips from DVDs, and so on. Tens of thousands of person-hours have been flushed into this pointless exercise, generating a long list of things you are now technically allowed to do, but only if you are a reverse-engineering specialist type of computer programmer who can manage the process from beginning to end in total isolation and secrecy.

But there is one kind of use exception the Copyright Office can grant that is potentially game-changing: an exemption for decoding diagnostic codes.

You see, DMCA 1201 has been a critical weapon for the corporate anti-repair movement. By scrambling error codes in cars, tractors, appliances, insulin pumps, phones and other devices, manufacturers can wage war on independent repair, depriving third-party technicians of the diagnostic information they need to figure out how to fix your stuff and keep it going.

This is bad enough in normal times, but during the acute phase of the covid pandemic, hospitals found themselves unable to maintain their ventilators because of access controls. Nearly all ventilators come from a single med-tech monopolist, Medtronic, which charges hospitals hundreds of dollars to dispatch their own repair technicians to fix its products. But when covid ended nearly all travel, Medtronic could no longer provide on-site calls. Thankfully, an anonymous hacker started building homemade (illegal) circumvention devices to let hospital technicians fix the ventilators themselves, improvising housings for them from old clock radios, guitar pedals and whatever else was to hand, then mailing them anonymously to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Once a manufacturer monopolizes repair in this way, they can force you to use their official service depots, charging you as much as they'd like; requiring you to use their official, expensive replacement parts; and dictating when your gadget is "too broken to fix," forcing you to buy a new one. That's bad enough when we're talking about refusing to fix a phone so you buy a new one – but imagine having a spinal injury and relying on a $100,000 exoskeleton to get from place to place and prevent muscle wasting, clots, and other immobility-related conditions, only to have the manufacturer decide that the gadget is too old to fix and refusing to give you the technical assistance to replace a watch battery so that you can get around again:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255074/former-jockey-michael-straight-exoskeleton-repair-battery

When the US Copyright Office grants a use exemption for extracting diagnostic codes from a busted device, they empower repair advocates to put that gadget up on a workbench and torture it into giving up those codes. The codes can then be integrated into an unofficial diagnostic tool, one that can make sense of the scrambled, obfuscated error codes that a device sends when it breaks – without having to unscramble them. In other words, only the company that makes the diagnostic tool has to bypass an access control, but the people who use that tool later do not violate DMCA 1201.

This is all relevant this month because the US Copyright Office just released the latest batch of 1201 exemptions, and among them is the right to circumvent access controls "allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment":

https://publicknowledge.org/public-knowledge-ifixit-free-the-mcflurry-win-copyright-office-dmca-exemption-for-ice-cream-machines/

While this covers all kinds of food prep gear, the exemption request – filed by Public Knowledge and Ifixit – was inspired by the bizarre war over the tragically fragile McFlurry machine. These machines – which extrude soft-serve frozen desserts – are notoriously failure-prone, with 5-16% of them broken at any given time. Taylor, the giant kitchen tech company that makes the machines, charges franchisees a fortune to repair them, producing a steady stream of profits for the company.

This sleazy business prompted some ice-cream hackers to found a startup called Kytch, a high-powered automation and diagnostic tool that was hugely popular with McDonald's franchisees (the gadget was partially designed by the legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang!).

In response, Taylor played dirty, making a less-capable clone of the Kytch, trying to buy Kytch out, and teaming up with McDonald's corporate to bombard franchisees with legal scare-stories about the dangers of using a Kytch to keep their soft-serve flowing, thanks to DMCA 1201:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Kytch isn't the only beneficiary of the new exemption: all kinds of industrial kitchen equipment is covered. In upholding the Right to Repair, the Copyright Office overruled objections of some of its closest historical allies, the Entertainment Software Association, Motion Picture Association, and Recording Industry Association of America, who all sided with Taylor and McDonald's and opposed the exemption:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/us-copyright-office-frees-the-mcflurry-allowing-repair-of-ice-cream-machines/

This is literally the only useful kind of DMCA 1201 exemption the Copyright Office can grant, and the fact that they granted it (along with a similar exemption for medical devices) is a welcome bright spot. But make no mistake, the fact that we finally found a narrow way in which DMCA 1201 can be made slightly less stupid does not redeem this outrageous law. It should still be repealed and condemned to the scrapheap of history.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[iraot]

Hi everyone! This is my new masterlist. I wanted to edit it ( 05/31/2025 ) and give it a fresh look! I've had the previous masterlist since 2020, I do take requests & commissions, and I will be making a post about that then link it here once it's posted!

Currently I write for Love && Deepspace. I am open to other things but its on a case by case basis, if I don't write your request its nothing personal. Here is a link to my archive

The Alpha Equation | Alpha Zayne x Omega F!R x Alpha Caleb | 18+ Empire of Devotion | Prince Caleb x Maid F!reader | 18+  From Here to Forever | College AU Caleb X F!reader | 18+ A Kiss | Caleb x F!Reader | F Everything | Caleb x F!Reader | 18+ In the Heat of Desire | Caleb x f!OC x Xavier | 18+  ( COMM ) Annotations in Desire | Zayne x F!r x Caleb x Sylus | 18+ ( TRADE )

Inescapable Tide | Rafayel x F!Reader | 18+ Heat Haven | Alpha!Sylus x Omega F!reader x Beta!Rafayel  | 18+ Tethered to The Tide | Treasure Hunter Rafa x Marine Bio. F!R | 18+ Toxic Vow | Dark! Rafayel x F!Reader | 18+  Thalassa | Eldritch Horror Themes | Sea God Raf x F!reader | 18+

Heat Haven | Alpha!Sylus x Omega F!reader x Beta!Rafayel  | 18+ The Art of Submission | Massage Parlor AU | Sylus x Xavier | 18+ Annotations in Desire | Zayne x F!r x Caleb x Sylus | 18+ The Sound of Staying | Sylys x f!reader | Mature The Third Thread | Snowcrow x F!reader | 18+ Poly

No Turning Back | Alpha!Xavier x Omega F!reader | 18+  The Art of Submission | Massage Parlor AU | Sylus x Xavier | 18+ Prove It | Big Dick Xavier x F!Reader | 18+ In the Heat of Desire | Caleb x f!OC x Xavier | 18+  A Garden of Promises [01] | [02] | [03] | [04] | [05] | [06] | [07] | END

The Alpha Equation | Alpha Zayne x Omega F!R x Alpha Caleb | 18+ Every Answer, Always | Zayne x Overthinking F!reader | M ( no smut ) Covalent Bonds | College AU Zayne x Sorority Girl F!Reader | +18 Swallow | Dom Zayne x Sub F!reader | 18+ Annotations in Desire | Zayne x F!r x Caleb x Sylus | 18+ Poly Dead on Paper | Assassin Zayne x f!reader | 18+ The Third Thread | Snowcrow x F!reader | 18+ Poly

The Weight of Roses | Lord Rafayel x Caleb x F!Reader | 18+ [01] | [02] | [03] | [04] | [05] | [06] | [07] | [08] | [09] | [10] | [11] | [12] | [13] | [END]

A Garden of Promises | Xavier x f!reader | 18+ [01] | [02] | [03] | [04] | [05] | [06] | [07] | END coming soon - sylys x zayne x f!reader

Burn Protocol | Alpha Gideon x Omega F!reader | 18+ coming soon ... greyson ( heat haven series ) ... luke & kieran not together ( heat haven series )

  𝐒𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧

James “Bucky” Barnes Faded (a)(f)(s) 18+ Soldat (a)(s) 18+ Aplinee Has Logged Off (s)(f) 18+ Locked In (a)(s)(d) 18+

Lee Bodecker Disingenuous (d)  18+ You’ll See Darlin’ (a)(s)(d) 18+ What I Want (s)(f) 18+

𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐬

Steve Rogers Did You Even Think | 18+ The Small Things  (f) Illusion of Warmth (d)(s)  18+ No Use Waiting (d)(s) 18+ Don’t Go (a) Stay (a)(f) Unwavering (s) 18+ On Your Mind (s) 18+ Not Like Drowning (a) 

𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡

Thor Of Direwolves & Thunder ( series; incomplete )  Intro || One || Two || Three  18+  || Epilogue

𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐡 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐧

Eddie Munson Contentment (f) [pt2]

𝐏𝐞𝐝𝐫𝐨 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥

Joel Miller Whiskey & Wine (a)(f)

𝐆𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐋𝐮𝐧𝐚

Tommy Miller Wild Hornets (f)(s) 18+ Until I Found Her (a) (f) The Way You’ll See Me | d 18+

[iristhelegendofthestorm]

@spliffyfuckingmcjingles666

Did you know that Trump tried to ban transgender people from serving in the military? Because he did.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40729996

Did you know that Trump revoked protections for transgender students, allowing schools to force them to use bathrooms matching their sex assigned at birth? Because he did.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/22/516290661/trump-administration-rolls-back-protections-for-transgender-students

Did you know that Trump’s administration argued that businesses should be allowed to fire LGBTQ employees simply for being LGBTQ? Because they did.

Source: 6https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/09/trump-administration-wants-legalize-lgbtq-discrimination-just-call-it-religious-freedom/

Did you know that Trump appointed anti-LGBTQ judges to the federal courts, many of whom have a history of opposing same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights? Because he did.

Source: https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-on-trumps-dangerous-anti-lgbtq-judicial-appointments

Did you know that Trump’s administration eliminated LGBTQ health care protections, allowing discrimination in medical treatment? Because they did.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-administration-ends-lgbtq-health-care-protections-n1231018

Did you know that Trump refused to recognize Pride Month while in office, breaking a long-standing tradition set by previous presidents? Because he did.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730707866/president-trump-not-officially-recognizing-pride-month-advocates-say-that-speaks

Did you know that Trump supported “religious freedom” policies that allow businesses to deny services to LGBTQ people? Because he did.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/08/supreme-court-expands-religious-schools-hiring-rights/5395015002/

Did you know that Trump’s Department of Justice stopped advocating for LGBTQ rights in court cases? Because they did.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/politics/justice-department-gays-workplace.html

Did you know that Trump’s administration cut funding for HIV/AIDS prevention programs and dismissed an entire panel of HIV/AIDS advisors? Because they did.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/29/health/hiv-council-trump/index.html

Did you know that Trump stopped U.S. embassies from flying Pride flags during Pride Month? Because he did.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/state-department-tells-u-s-embassies-they-can-t-fly-n1014501

don't tell me that I don't have sources, or that trump loves LGBTQ people. You are being misled. If this doesn't change your view, regardless of everything else I have said, you are obviously too self righteous and dense to understand and recognise that there are possibly facts that are true and opinions that aren't yours that are also valid. Please see that trump is not running for you, he is tricking you into thinking he is for his own personal gain. I'm not saying I love Kamala either, because I don't and the 2 party system sucks and all politicians are garbage people. However, I would rather vote for someone who might not make good on a few good promises, rather than someone who has promised to make ny life hell on his next term.

[thealieninhiding]

The Katie McGrath Archives (WIP)

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BTS - 2008-10-08 Blue Peter Merlin BTS

Events - 2009 TV Choice Awards Digital Spy interview

Events - Getty Videos of 2009 TV Choice Awards, 2010 Merlin Series 3 launch, 2011 W.E. premiere, 2017 King Arthur Premiere

2024-05-17

Archived interviews

2008-12-07 Tribune Magazine - What Katie Did

2011-10-14 What's on TV - Merlin's Katie McGrath- 'Bad girls have more fun!'

2012-12-03 Fanhattan Blog - Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Bradley James on Season 5 and The Series Finale

2018-08-01 The TV Junkies - Supergirl SDCC 2018 Interviews- Lena’s Impractical Lab Outfits, the Return of Reporter Kara and a More Grounded Season 4

Audio

HHush samples

Interview - 2009-2011 Sci-fi Talk rewind merlin the series specials episode 1

Interview - 2011? Merlin S4 Sci-fi talk byte katie mcgrath on morgana

Interview - 2013 BBC Radio 1xtra part 1 & part 2

(Un)likeminded 1x02 While You Were Dreaming

Trees a crowd- Irish folklore segment

Magazine scans

2008-09-20 Radio Times

2009-06-08 TV Week (Aus)

2010-09-05 Sunday Express

2010-09-30 Totally Merlin Magazine

2011-12 Total Film

2012-03-14 Sci-Fi Now

2012-10-06 Radio Times

2013-04-06 Irish independent

2013-09-02 Marie-Claire (UK)

2013-12 Instyle

2013-12 Total Film

Video:

Fans - 2012-04-16 Merlin4 [carlospyrrhus]

Fans - 2017-08-30 Supergirl cast together on set [Joyce Law]

Interview - 2009-09-?? Merlin S2 audio interview with Katie McGrath [BJsRealm] part 1

Interview - 2010-09-06 Merlin Series 3 - BBC Radio 1xtra Interview with Angel Coulby & Katie McGrath [BJsrealm]

Interview - 2011-10-14 Merlin S4 Colin Morgan, Eoin Macken Katie McGrath on The Late Late Show

Interview - 2012-07-15 Colin Morgan and Katie McGrath at SDCC 2012 - innerSPACE [merlinnetwork2]

Interview - 2012-07-18 Katie McGrath Talks Merlin At Comic Con 2012 [ThinkHeroTV]

Interview - 2012-10-25 BBC Radio 1 Breakfast - Colin & Katie part 1 & part 2 [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Merlin S5 Katie McGrath interview international press day [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Colin, Bradley, Katie phone interview [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2013-11-09 Katie McGrath on BBC One Saturday Kitchen [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2019-07-22 ENTREVISTA SUPERGIRL Elenco fala sobre a nova temporada [Warner Channel Brasil]

Interview - 2019-07-23 Melissa Benoist Teases Directing An Episode Of 'Supergirl' [ET Canada]

Interview - 2020-02-21 ‘Supergirl’ Celebrates 100th Episode [ET Canada]

Panels - 2011-07-28 Merlin Comic Con 2011 Panel [ThinkHeroTV]

[staydandy]

The Lost Tomb 2: Wrath of the Sea (2019) - 盗墓笔记2 - Whump List

List by StayDandy Synopsis : The group of heroes are pulled into another tomb-raiding expedition that takes them beneath the sea. In an ancient Ming Dynasty ship, they encounter monstrous creatures and puzzling traps. Wu Xie opens the box that he obtained from the Seven Star Coffins of Lu Wang's Palace to discover a snake-browed copper fish. Uncle Wu San Xing recounts the strange occurrences over ten years ago when they went on an archaeological expedition to Paracel Islands. Wu Xie leads a team down to the same place to explore a sunken ship where hidden dangers await. (MDL)

Whumpee : Wu Xie played by Neo Hou (center right) • Zhang Qi Ling played by Cheng Yi (center left) • Wang Pang Zi played by Zhang Bo Yu (2nd from right)

Country : 🇨🇳 China Genres : Action, Adventure, Mystery, Supernatural, Bromance

Notes : This is a Full Whump List • Adapted from books 2, 3 and some of 4 of "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles" (Daomu Biji) by Kennedy Xu • Suggested watch order of series (not including movies & spin-offs) : -- 1. Mystic Nine (2016) -- 2. The Lost Tomb (2015) >> 3. The Lost Tomb 2: Wrath of the Sea (2019) -- 4. The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (2021) -- 5. The Lost Tomb 3: Ultimate Note (2020) -- 6. Adventure Behind the Bronze Door (2024) -- 7. Tomb of the Sea (2018) -- 8. Reunion: Sound of the Providence (2020) -- 9. Reunion: Sound of the Providence 2 (2020)

Related Lists : The Lost Tomb (2015) - Full List • The Lost Tomb 2: Explore With the Note (2021) - Full List • The Lost Tomb 3: Ultimate Note (2020) - Full List • Adventure Behind the Bronze Door (2024) - Full List

Episodes on List : 25 Total Episodes : 40

*Spoilers below*

01 : Wu Xie shocked awake, sweating, from a layered nightmare (nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare) … Wang Pang Zi knocked out

02 : [nightmare] Wu Xie choked

05 : Unsteady … entrapped in a trance, strangled, broken out of it … Pang Zi knocked over from an explosion … Wu Xie attacked, thrown to the ground, Pang Zi thrown into a wall, Zhang Qi Ling fights; choked & lifted off the ground

06 : [flashback] Passes out

07 : Wu Xie dizzy, entranced … [flashback] head pain, pushed into water … [present] Zhang Qi Ling head pain, recalling forgotten memories … Wu Xie, Zhang Qi Ling, & Pang Zi escaping a collapsing underwater building, stuck on the way out.. Wu Xie unconscious, receives chest compressions, spits up water, knocked to the ground

08 : Recovering from fever (not really shown) … [flashback] cut his own hand

09 : Shocked awake, sweating, from nightmare

11 : (near end) Wu Xie & Pang Zi captured, tied up

12 : … continued from previous ep. ...Wu Xie still captured, tied up … imprisoned.. dehydrated, breathing hard, unsteady.. passes out.. helped to walk

17 : Pang Zi attacked, Wu Xie attacked.. attacked again, knocked out, drowning.. spitting up water … Pang Zi bit by insect

18 : Wu Xie Hit with the butt of a gun, knocked out.. wakes tied up … Pang Zi having a reaction to bug bite; unsteady, arm in hives & paralyzed, passes out … Wu Xie falls, nightmare; wakes trapped in a casket, choked

19 : Drugged, unsteady, passes out, arm nicked & blood taken

21 : Falls, knocked out briefly … Pang Zi entranced into almost killing himself … rolls down a slope

23 : Wu Xie cuts his own hand … dizzy

24 : … continued from previous ep. ... Dizzy … unsteady, holding his head … attacked, choked

26 : Blown back by an explosion, briefly knocked out … falls, hits head, blurry vision, unsteady … cuts his own hand … blown back by an explosion, drowning … wakes in hospital (comedic: with a high-pitched voice from concussion)

28 : Pang Zi's arm in a cast (tho I'm confused as to why)

30 : (near end) Wu Xie knocked out from an explosion … falls into a pit

31 : Pang Zi found unconscious

32 : Found unconscious, head sore from being knocked out

35 : Wu Xie & Pang Zi in a fight; Wu Xie coughs up blood … head pain from noise

36 : Digs out from being buried in snow, head pain.. [flashback] buried in rubble from collapsed tomb, unconscious … [present] rolls down hill, arm hurt.. exhausted, passes out.. headache, collapses … headache … drugged asleep … caught in a trap, hung upside down

37 : Headache … captured … Pang Zi captured, tied up, mouth gagged … Zhang Qi Ling head pain, drugged unconscious

38 : Drugged unconscious … Zhang Qi Ling & Pang Zi trapped in a net, both tied up & hooded

39 : (near end) Wu Xie exhausted, collapses, hypoxia (not enough oxygen), slaps himself, passes out … hallucinating

More Whump Lists for this show: love-me-a-lotta-whump

[descendantsramblings]

Descendants Rambling Masterlist

♡Welcome to my page/Master list♡

My Requests are always open

I'm willing to write readers with she/her, he/him, or they/them pronouns

I'm willing to write 1-2 love interests

I only write for villains/vks unless it's a VK x reader x Ak situation (ex: mal x reader x ben, Jane x reader x Carlos)

I'll make suggestive comments/make out sessions but I don't write smut, these characters are all underage regardless of their actor's age

𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

Key:

♡ personal favorite

✎ least favorite (i might eventually rewrite)

⋆ head canons

♤ AU

𝓒𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓕𝓸𝓾𝓻

Mal Bertha

Game Planner (He/him) After finding out how much she misses Halloween on the Isle, Mal's boyfriend does everything he can to bring her a slice of home. - Written 10/2021

Evie

Candy Apple (She/her) Evie's family history leads to her trying to back out of a chemistry project. - Written 09/2021

Carlos de Vil

Saved ♤✎ (She/her) Going back to the Isle leads to the Hook!Reader being kidnapped by her own brother, leavig Carlos to save her. - Written 10/2017

Carlos Having a Crush on You ⋆(she/her) Ben's Twin!Reader x Carlos -Written 12/2017

I've Got You✎ (She/her) Carlos has a nightmare about his mother. (Trigger Warning!!)- Written 07/2018

PB&J (They/Them) Finding out their boyfriend hates their favorite holiday leads the reader to graveling to give him a good Halloween. - Written 09/2021

I Loved You First ♡ (They/Them) Inspired by "Loved You First" By One Direction. Carlos didn't expect them to wait for him to come back to the Isle, but that doesn't make it easier to see them with someone else. (minor Gil x reader) - Written 10/2021

Jay

Dating Jay ⋆ (no pronouns used but the reader wears leggings) Jay x Cheerleader!Reader - Written 10/2018

Spidermonkey (she/her) Gothel!Reader has Jay surprise her when he sneaks through her window. Loosely inspired by twilight- Written 04/2020

Stuffed Spook (They/Them) Jay's partner gets excited by a stuffed bat and he's determined to win it. -Written 09/2021

𝓢𝓮𝓪 𝓣𝓱𝓻𝓮𝓮

Uma

Letters to the Sea♤♡ (They/Them) Soulmate AU: everything you write on your skin appears on your soulmate's skin too. Uma and the Reader write letters until they can meet. - Written 07/2021

Baking (They/them) Uma watches her partner try to prepare for the Halloween escape room. Evie's Sibling!Reader - Written 10/2021

Gil

Hook's Daughter ⋆ (She/her) Harry's younger sister is Gil's closest friend (minor Gil x Jay) - Written 07/2021

Orchard (They/Them) Gil's partner takes him apple picking during his first September in Auradon - Written 09/2021

Harry Hook

Jafar's Child ⋆ (They/them) A flirty joke leads to Harry dating Jay's sibling - Written 07/2021

Fever ♡ (She/her) Harry and Captain take care of his sick girlfriend (requested) - Written 06/2021

Haunted Castle (He/him) Harry drags his scaredy-cat boyfriend to a haunted castle - Written 09/2021

Making a Splash (she/her) One wrong move leads to two people panicking and one person hurt on the docks. Jay's Sister!Reader. (Requested) - Written 12/2021

Flirting Pirate (She/her) She only hangs around the fish and chips shop to watch after he brother, it would be easier if she didn't have to deal with the flirty first mate. Gil's Sister!Reader (Requested) - Written 02/2022

Sealed With a Kiss ♡ (She/her) Ben's twin gets kidnapped with him by a pirate who's had a crush on her his whole life. Ben's Twin!Reader (Requested) - Written 04/2022

𝓓:𝓡𝓸𝓡 𝓥𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓼

Morgie le Fay

Sunday Night ♡ (She/her) After his friends let him down, Morgie runs to his girlfriend for comfort. - Written 08/2024

In Another Life (he/him) When Rapunzel's son gets thrown back in time he finds himself to be the object of two villains' affection. Minor James Hook x Reader (Requested)- Written 08/2024

I Would Be Yours (he/him) He never thought the lips he spent years thinking about would appear to him again 3 years later. Sequels to “In Another Life” (Requested)-Written 09/2024

True to Heart (he/him) Without the pressure of parents and villains, how hard is it to be true to heart? Especially when you’re holding a book that tells you your truth. (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Tree Bark (they/them) Everyone deserves their time alone, sometimes though that well deserved time alone has to be interrupted by the sound of animal noises coming from a tree. (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Crushing (they/them) Morgie had never been good at hiding when he had a crush on someone, and they don’t mind playing the long game with his affections (requested) - Written 08/2024

Win You Over (they/them) Magical history had always been their favorite class, but this assigned partner situation had the ability to dampen that. (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Mindless Touch (she/her) Morgie hasn’t meant to upset her, he only wanted to have his hands on what was his. (TRIGGER WARNING: body image issues) (requested)-Written 08/2024

The Dominant Type ⋆(no pronouns used/GN reader) Hook x reader x Morgie head canons with a dominant leaning reader (requested) - Written 08/2024

Warm Greens (she/her) Red discovers she has a secret aunt when she sees her face next to the people who ruined her mother’s life. (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Cool Reds (she/her) She would do anything to keep him, wouldn’t she? Prequel to “Warm Greens” (Requested) -Written 10/2024

One Sided (he/him) If he has to listen to Morgie talk about Uliana one more time, he’s going to be sick (requested) -Written 09/2024

Love Letters (he/him) Morgie was growing far too attached to those little silver envelopes (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Babydoll ⋆(no pronouns used/GN reader) Hook x reader x Morgie head canons with a submissive leaning reader (Requested) -Written 09/2024

Scales (They/them) Morgie could think of 100 things he would rather do than parent a dragon with the sweetheart of Merlin Academy (requested)-Written 09/2024

Doesn't Matter (he/him) Morgana le Fay is coming to Merlin Academy's family day, and she has no idea that her son's boyfriend is a prince (Requested) - Written 09/2024

Second Place (he/him) Just once he wants to feel like his boyfriend’s first choice (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Emerald Comfort (he/him) Morgie might just be dating the sleepiest boy to ever live -Written 09/2024

Snake Eyes (she/her) Lions, tiger, and bears; just anything but snakes (Requested) - Written 10/2024

Flash Photography (She/her) Who would have thought that they would make such a good pair? (Requested) -Written 10/2024

James Hook

Call of the Sirens (She/her) As Hook sells his ship to Uma, he and his wife recall a time that she had to save him back in their prime. (Requested)- Written 08/2024

Side Effects (she/her) If Hook knew the side effects that came with those Malibu sprites, would he take them? (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Red Dress (she/her) He hadn’t meant to upset her when he picked the dress out, now Hook was set on making her see how good she looked in it. (TRIGGER WARNING: Body Image issues) (Requested) - Written 08/2024

The Dominant Type ⋆(no pronouns used/GN reader) Hook x reader x Morgie head canons with a dominant leaning reader (requested) - Written 08/2024

Eyes on Me (They/Them) The fairy wasn’t thinking about the pirates past when they excitedly called for him. They definitely didn’t mean to upset him. (TRIGGER WARNING; animal attacks and panic attacks) (Requested)- Written 08/2024

Wake Up Slow ♡ (she/her) Everyone needs a place to fully relax, and he found his in a heavy duvet and needy hands (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Babydoll ⋆(no pronouns used/GN reader) Hook x reader x Morgie head canons with a submissive leaning reader (Requested) -Written 09/2024

Bloody Charming (they/them) Hook’s flirting leads to an argument being blown way out of proportion (TRIGGER WARNING: just, yeah. I got a little too silly) (Requested)- Written 09/2024

Studious ♡ (they/them) Hook might not mind tutoring, as long as it’s for them. (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Hades

Body Better (he/him) Sometimes the weight of life can lead to your insecurities coming out in peculiar ways. (TRIGGER WARNING: Body image issues) (Requested)- Written 08/2024

Let me See (she/her) Her need to be independent keeps getting her hurt, and she really did it this time. (Requested) - Written 08/2024

Play With Fire (they/them) their mother warned them not to play with fire, now look at them getting burned (requested) -Written 09/2024

Hitting Every Mark (she/her) Turns out she had nothing to worry about, her fans love him (requested)- Written 10/2024

Uliana

Family Lines (she/her) After seeing Bridget's sister at Family Day, Uliana will do anything to earn the girl's affection. Even being nice to her ray of sunshine sister. (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Rivalry (She/her) It was only a matter of time until the two groupd of VKs either came together or tore themselves to shreds. (Requested) -Written 08/2024

Double the Trouble (she/her) Uliana might be able to date Hook’s sister, but that doesn’t mean she’s able to make Hook like the whole ordeal. (Requested) -Written 08/2024

Breathe (they/them) Sometimes the biggest villain is not knowing how people see you. (TRIGGER WARNING: Anxiety attack) (Requested)-Written 09/2024

Strongest Tides (she/her) When the leader of their crew is emotionally taken out of commission, it’s up to her girlfriend to pick up the pieces (requested)-09/2024

Maleficent

Stylized (she/her) Artistry is the highest form of flattery and Maleficent has found herself as a princess’ muse. (Requested)-Written 08/2024

Play (she/her) watching your girlfriend study can get just so boring (requested) - Written 09/2024

𝓝𝓸 𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮��

Descendants, Not Made for Kids ⋆ Changes I'd make if I made the Descendants movies as a series for teens or adults. - Written 06/2021

Style Headcanons ⋆ How I'd restyle the main characters from the OG Descendants movies - Writen 06/2021

[boxboxluckybird]

List of articles and books that are about Motorsports or Motorsports adjacent

Idk if y'all will have total access to these- I get to them through my university's library database- I'll give titles so you can find them- and if i have links to pdfs, ill put them in too

i will continue to update this list as i continue to read more books and articles :3 also i need to go on my uni laptop to get all the crash and safety books i have on there to put on this list

Motogp-

article about Franco Morbidelli and Joann Zarco's crash in 2020- gives full analysis with the numbers and a discussion of everything (link) Name of Article: Descriptive Kinematic Analysis of the Potentially Tragic Accident at the 2020 Austrian MotoGP Grand Prix Using Low-Cost Instruments: A Brief Report by Marco Gervasi et. al. (2020-10)

article about the myth surrounding Valentino Rossi- (it is in french but there is also an italian version) Name of Article: Valentino Rossi : la construction médiatique du mythe by Charlotte Moge pp. 363-383 (DOI link)

Book Chapter Valentino Rossi: A Uniquely British Look at an Italian Motorsport Legend by Sean Bell in "More than Cricket and Football: International Sport and the Challenge of Celebrity" (2016)

this one is all about the economy and how motogp affects tourism in Indonesia-

Do Satisfied Visitors Intend to Revisit a Large Sports Event? A Case Study of a Large Sports Event in Indonesia by Pahrudin Pahrudin Link to PDF (Article) (2024-12)

Formula One-

Book about racism in sports- (i used this as a main secondary source when researching historic racism in f1) it has an article about Lewis Hamilton and other racism in formula one Title- Race, Racism and Sports Journalism by Neil Farrington (2012) (i recommend his other book about racism in sports social media)

"Technology Innovations and Consumption of Formula 1 as a TV Sport Product" by Christopher Schneiders (2022-09)

Analyzing Brand Strategy on an International Scale: The Sponsorship Performance Cycle in Formula One Racing by Jonathan A Jensen, et. al. (2024-09) (Article)

When Success Is Rare and Competitive: Learning from Others' Success and My Failure at the Speed of Formula One by Micheal A Lapre (2022-12) (Article)

Green Light or black flag? Greenwashing environmental sustainability in Formula One and Formula E by Annals of leisure research(2025-01) (Article)

Technological Discontinuities and Competitive Advantages: A Historical Perspective on Formula 1 Motor Racing 1950-2006 by Mark Jenkins (2010-07) (Article)

Sandwiched Between Sport and Politics: Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, Formula 1, and Non-Democratic Regimes by Hans Erik Naess (2017-05) (Article)

The age-productivity gradient: Evidence from a sample of F1 drivers by Labour economics (2011-08) (Article) pdf link

Book Chapter Chapter 10: Aryton Senna, Alain Prost, and the Spector of Death by Becquer Medak-Seguin, et. al. in "Cultural Exchanges Between Brazil and France" (2016)

Smoke and mirrors: new tobacco products and Formula 1 by The Lancet (2019-05) (Article)

NASCAR-

"If It Ain't Rubbin', It Ain't Racin'" Article about Nascar by Lawrence and Barbara Hugenburg (2008-08)

A comparison of college football and NASCAR consumer profiles: Identity formation and spectatorship motivation by Shaughan A Keaton (2015-03) (Article)

"Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism" by Joshua Newman (2011)

Book Chapter Louise Smith: The First Lady of Racing by Suzanne Wise in "South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times" (Volume 3) (2012)

Book Chapter The Most Southern Sport on Earth: NASCAR and the Unions by Dan Pierce in "Southern Cultures : The Fifteenth Anniversary Reader" (2008)

Special interest ones-

"Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness" by Ewan Thomas- pdf- link (2022)

"The future of motorsports: business, politics and society" by Hans Erik Naess, et. al. (2023)

"The Green Transition in Motorsport: Purpose, Politics, and Profit" by Hans Erik Naess, et. al. (2023)

More than "just a driver": A study of professional women racecar drivers' agency in motorsport by Jill Kochanek (2021-01) (Article)

'What on Earth are They Doing in a Racing Car?': Towards an Understanding of Women in Motorsport by Jordan J.K. Matthews, and Elizabeth C.J. Pike (2016-09) (Article)

tag list: @raikkonens @caleb-is-existing @books4ever03

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Marshmallow Longtermism

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this week!

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "Marshmallow Longtermism"; it's a reflection on how conservatives self-mythologize as the standards-bearers for deferred gratification and making hard trade-offs, but are utterly lacking in these traits when it comes to climate change and inequality:

https://locusmag.com/2024/09/cory-doctorow-marshmallow-longtermism/

Conservatives often root our societal ills in a childish impatience, and cast themselves as wise adults who understand that "you can't get something for nothing." Think here of the memes about lazy kids who would rather spend on avocado toast and fancy third-wave coffee rather than paying off their student loans. In this framing, poverty is a consequence of immaturity. To be a functional adult is to be sober in all things: not only does a grownup limit their intoxicant intake to head off hangovers, they also go to the gym to prevent future health problems, they save their discretionary income to cover a down-payment and student loans.

This isn't asceticism, though: it's a mature decision to delay gratification. Avocado toast is a reward for a life well-lived: once you've paid off your mortgage and put your kid through college, then you can have that oat-milk latte. This is just "sound reasoning": every day you fail to pay off your student loan represents another day of compounding interest. Pay off the loan first, and you'll save many avo toasts' worth of interest and your net toast consumption can go way, way up.

Cleaving the world into the patient (the mature, the adult, the wise) and the impatient (the childish, the foolish, the feckless) does important political work. It transforms every societal ill into a personal failing: the prisoner in the dock who stole to survive can be recast as a deficient whose partying on study-nights led to their failure to achieve the grades needed for a merit scholarship, a first-class degree, and a high-paying job.

Dividing the human race into "the wise" and "the foolish" forms an ethical basis for hierarchy. If some of us are born (or raised) for wisdom, then naturally those people should be in charge. Moreover, putting the innately foolish in charge is a recipe for disaster. The political scientist Corey Robin identifies this as the unifying belief common to every kind of conservativism: that some are born to rule, others are born to be ruled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/01/set-healthy-boundaries/#healthy-populism

This is why conservatives are so affronted by affirmative action, whose premise is that the absence of minorities in the halls of power stems from systemic bias. For conservatives, the fact that people like themselves are running things is evidence of their own virtue and suitability for rule. In conservative canon, the act of shunting aside members of dominant groups to make space for members of disfavored minorities isn't justice, it's dangerous "virtue signaling" that puts the childish and unfit in positions of authority.

Again, this does important political work. If you are ideologically committed to deregulation, and then a giant, deregulated sea-freighter crashes into a bridge, you can avoid any discussion of re-regulating the industry by insisting that we are living in a corrupted age where the unfit are unjustly elevated to positions of authority. That bridge wasn't killed by deregulation – it's demise is the fault of the DEI hire who captained the ship:

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation

The idea of a society made up of the patient and wise and the impatient and foolish is as old as Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," but it acquired a sheen of scientific legitimacy in 1970, with Walter Mischel's legendary "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

In this experiment, kids were left alone in a locked room with a single marshmallow, after being told that they would get two marshmallows in 15 minutes, but only if they waited until them to eat the marshmallow before them. Mischel followed these kids for decades, finding that the kids who delayed gratification and got that second marshmallow did better on every axis – educational attainment, employment, and income. Adult brain-scans of these subjects revealed structural differences between the patient and the impatient.

For many years, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment has been used to validate the cleavage of humanity in the patient and wise and impatient and foolish. Those brain scans were said to reveal the biological basis for thinking of humanity's innate rulers as a superior subspecies, hidden in plain sight, destined to rule.

Then came the "replication crisis," in which numerous bedrock psychological studies from the mid 20th century were re-run by scientists whose fresh vigor disproved and/or complicated the career-defining findings of the giants of behavioral "science." When researchers re-ran Mischel's tests, they discovered an important gloss to his findings. By questioning the kids who ate the marshmallows right away, rather than waiting to get two marshmallows, they discovered that these kids weren't impatient, they were rational.

The kids who ate the marshmallows were more likely to come from poorer households. These kids had repeatedly been disappointed by the adults in their lives, who routinely broke their promises to the kids. Sometimes, this was well-intentioned, as when an economically precarious parent promised a treat, only to come up short because of an unexpected bill. Sometimes, this was just callousness, as when teachers, social workers or other authority figures fobbed these kids off with promises they knew they couldn't keep.

The marshmallow-eating kids had rationally analyzed their previous experiences and were making a sound bet that a marshmallow on the plate now was worth more than a strange adult's promise of two marshmallows. The "patient" kids who waited for the second marshmallow weren't so much patient as they were trusting: they had grown up with parents who had the kind of financial cushion that let them follow through on their promises, and who had the kind of social power that convinced other adults – teachers, etc – to follow through on their promises to their kids.

Once you understand this, the lesson of the Marshmallow Experiment is inverted. The reason two marshmallow kids thrived is that they came from privileged backgrounds: their high grades were down to private tutors, not the choice to study rather than partying. Their plum jobs and high salaries came from university and family connections, not merit. Their brain differences were the result of a life free from the chronic, extreme stress that comes with poverty.

Post-replication crisis, the moral of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is that everyone experiences a mix of patience and impatience, but for the people born to privilege, the consequences of impatience are blunted and the rewards of patience are maximized.

Which explains a lot about how rich people actually behave. Take Charles Koch, who grew his father's coal empire a thousandfold by making long-term investments in automation. Koch is a vocal proponent of patience and long-term thinking, and is openly contemptuous of publicly traded companies because of the pressure from shareholders to give preference to short-term extraction over long-term planning. He's got a point.

Koch isn't just a fossil fuel baron, he's also a wildly successful ideologue. Koch is one of a handful of oligarchs who have transformed American politics by patiently investing in a kraken's worth of think tanks, universities, PACs, astroturf organizations, Star chambers and other world-girding tentacles. After decades of gerrymandering, voter suppression, court-packing and propagandizing, the American billionaire class has seized control of the US and its institutions. Patience pays!

But Koch's longtermism is highly selective. Arguably, Charles Koch bears more personal responsibility for delaying action on the climate emergency than any other person, alive or dead. Addressing greenhouse gasses is the most grasshopper-and-the-ant-ass crisis of all. Every day we delayed doing something about this foreseeable, well-understood climate debt added sky-high compounding interest. In failing to act, we saved billions – but we stuck our future selves with trillions in debt for which no bankruptcy procedure exists.

By convincing us not to invest in retooling for renewables in order to make his billions, Koch was committing the sin of premature avocado toast, times a billion. His inability to defer gratification – which he imposed on the rest of us – means that we are likely to lose much of world's coastal cities (including the state of Florida), and will have to find trillions to cope with wildfires, zoonotic plagues, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

Koch isn't a serene Buddha whose ability to surf over his impetuous attachments qualifies him to make decisions for the rest of us. Rather, he – like everyone else – is a flawed vessel whose blind spots are just as stubborn as ours. But unlike a person whose lack of foresight leads to drug addiction and petty crimes to support their habit, Koch's flaws don't just hurt a few people, they hurt our entire species and the only planet that can support it.

The selective marshmallow patience of the rich creates problems beyond climate debt. Koch and his fellow oligarchs are, first and foremost, supporters of oligarchy, an intrinsically destabilizing political arrangement that actually threatens their fortunes. Policies that favor the wealthy are always seeking an equilibrium between instability and inequality: a rich person can either submit to having their money taxed away to build hospitals, roads and schools, or they can invest in building high walls and paying guards to keep the rest of us from building guillotines on their lawns.

Rich people gobble that marshmallow like there's no tomorrow (literally). They always overestimate how much bang they'll get for their guard-labor buck, and underestimate how determined the poors will get after watching their children die of starvation and preventable diseases.

All of us benefit from some kind of cushion from our bad judgment, but not too much. The problem isn't that wealthy people get to make a few poor choices without suffering brutal consequences – it's that they hoard this benefit. Most of us are one missed student debt payment away from penalties and interest that add twenty years to our loan, while Charles Koch can set the planet on fire and continue to act as though he was born with the special judgment that means he knows what's best for us.

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/04/deferred-gratification/#selective-foresight

Image: Mark S (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/markoz46/4864682934/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[calderacitylovers]

Zutara SlowBurn FanFiction: Personal Favs, part II

·        DESTINY IS A FUNNY THING by Megara Pike | Published: 2020-08-21 | 198K Words | 45 Chapters

ATLA Season 3 rewrite, fills in a lot of blanks between canon scenes. From the Southern Raiders to Sozin's Comet through coronation and aftermath. Growing friendships, bonding, being there for each other, a carnival & a cave, epic spirits' appearance on the Ember island, sparring, nightmares, assassination attempts, political ruses, and covert operations. Lovely, sweet. Exciting plot.

 ·        ATLA Book 4: Ashes by elayne_cypher | Published: 2018-10-27 | 306K words | 34 Chapters

This action-packed story picks up right after Ember Island Players and continues well after the war. Zuko is facing many challenges as a new Fire Lord. Romance, tough decisions, rebels, traitors, out-of-body experiences, secret headquarters, angst, teamwork, fire jets. The story has a bunch of OCs.

 ·        Refraction by caroes3725  | Published: 2020-09-09 | 215K Words | 37 Chapters

After breaking up with Aang, Katara needs to figure out her place and role in the patriarchal world. As determined Katara stubbornly bulldozes her way through Fire Nation political scene, her feelings for Zuko grow. Diplomatic visits, Gaang reunion, bonding with Kanna, insights into the life of Caldera city, stuffy politicians, cute correspondence, tropical storm, women supporting women, assassination attempts, personal boundaries. A sweet well-written coming-of-age story with a healthy measure of slow-burn and mutual pining. Katara and Zuko are both POVs, but the story mostly follows Katara. Bonus: Mai is NOT a clingy resentful idiot, but a smart person and a good friend. Some explicit language here and there, a bit of mild smut.

 ·        I Asked You First by halfhoursonearth | Published: 2020-10-03 | 142K words | 22/? Chapters

Ongoing, incomplete. Post Southern Raiders ATLAS3 rewrite. Mostly canon-compliant with blanks filled in between familiar scenes. Zuko and Katara develop a close friendship built on trust and sharing each other’s fears and hopes. Includes mentions of implied child abuse, Lu Ten’s diaries, exploring Avatar Roku’s legacy, sharing a balcony, heart-to-hearts, a hot spring under the stars, an actual date, and artbending. It’s incomplete, but what we have is bliss. Slowburn, mutual pining. Zutara-centric, but also explores the personalities of Team Avatar and their relationships.

 ·        Katara Alone by cablesscutie | Published: 2020-05-31 | 21K words

Katara is not an “unnecessary accessory to a more powerful man”. After the war, she is willing to forge her own path as she turns to people who need her the most on her journey of self-discovery. Features character exploration, correspondence, exploring outback villages of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, sweet reunions, and new firebending skills.

 ·        THE PHOENIX AND THE DRAGON - THE COMPLETE SERIES by JasmineTeaLatte | Published: 2021-06-11 | 100K words | 31 Chapters

This story picks up after The Ember Island Players. Zuko and Katara get to know each other during a late-night conversation by the campfire. In this story, you will find healthy boundaries, protective Sokka, a dash of Taang, sparring, funny banter & lots of flirting.

·        HESITATE by tiffaniesblews | Published: 2020-07-11 | 22K Words | 12 Chapters

This story picks up right after Zuko's coronation and spans two years afterwards. Zuko & Katara talk, share a few beautiful moments, write to each other, and reunite for the 2nd anniversary of the war ending. Very sweet, fluffy story about two sweethearts figuring out their feelings for each other.

·        LIKE WE'RE MADE OF STARLIGHT by Naladot | Published: 2021-11-28 | 5K Words

Katara leaves her post as the ambassador to the Fire Nation to take up a new one as the ambassador to the Northern Water Tribe. Her absence makes Zuko realize that he's got an unfortunate crush, which he is determined to keep secret. Unfortunately for him, subtly has never been one of his strengths—especially when he arrives in the Northern Water Tribe and she keeps taking him on what seem to be dates.

·        FIGURE IT OUT by clearascountryair | Published: 2021-12-20 | 35K words | 13 Chapters

After choosing not to kill Yon Rha, Katara rethinks her sense of self and others' perceptions of her. Or,    In which Katara learns that there’s a really big difference between being kissed when you don’t want to be and being kissed when you do. Aged-up 3B/Ember Island AU.

-  I FOUND YOU by that_turtleduck | Published: 2020-11-01 Completed: 2024-02-24 Words: 157,541 Chapters: 28/28

After divorcing Aang, Katara uproots her family and travels to Caldera. There she finds comfort, kindness and support from an old friend. Katara tries to find her footing as an independent political figure. Great story & relationship dynamic of Momtara & Dadko in their early 30s (Ember island, diplomatic meeting, dancing, turtleduck pond, letters). Delicious slow burn with rewarding spicy resolution in the end (explicit open door). Titters on the side of Anti-Aang.

Here’s a link to Part I of my personal favorites.

Here’s a link to Wholesome Zutara Short Stories.

[cephalosaur]

Alien thing

08/24/2020 -> 09/29/2024

[kiragecko]

DC Costume Timeline Links

As the internet gets harder and harder to search, I'm losing to access to one of its best features - sites by probably autistic people highlighting every costume a character has ever worn, down to issues where the boots got miscoloured.

I'm going to attempt to archive these sites. And also more normal sites that just provide good information. But I already can't find a lot of my former mainstays, so I'm asking for help if any of you know anything!

They need to actually mention dates for the costumes. Preferably issue number as well, but I'm much more flexible when we get to supporting characters. And, sadly, most of the images need to still load.

This is what I've got so far (***** means the I was praising the authour in my first paragraph, no stars means its normal):

WONDER FAMILY

Diana/Wonder Woman

https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/the-wondie-suit/ *****

https://ew.com/books/wonder-woman-costumes-evolution/

Donna Troy/Troia

https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/donna-troy-costumes/ *****

Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl

https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/cassie-sandsmark-costumes/ *****

https://bookriot.com/wonder-girl-outfits/ (much less complete, but still good)

(And also, since it’s available:

Hippolyta

https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/hippolyta-costumes/ *****

SUPERFAMILY

Clark Kent/Superman

https://www.metropolisplus.com/Superman/ *****

https://www.ranker.com/list/superman-costume-evolution/pierce-nahigyan

https://www.supermansupersite.com/evolution.html (just a picture, but it IS a thorough one!)

Kara Zor-El/Supergirl

https://www.metropolisplus.com/supergirl/ *****

https://nerdist.com/article/supergirl-complete-costume-history-from-the-1950s-comics-to-the-flash-movie/

https://maidofmight.wordpress.com/minor-detour-a-dedicated-follower-of-fashion/

Karen Starr/Power Girl

https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/power-girl/ *****

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-power-girl/

http://www.dccontinuityproject.com/power-girl.html

Matrix/Linda Danvers/Supergirl

https://maidofmight.net/history/linda-danvers/costumes/

Kon-El/Superboy

Jon Kent/Superboy

BATFAMILY

Bruce Wayne/Batman

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/the-bat-suit.html

https://batman-news.com/2024/05/29/batsuit-evolution/

https://www.criminalelement.com/the-evolution-of-the-batsuit/

Dick Grayson/Nightwing

https://nightwingology.blogspot.com/2020/09/tools-of-trade-nightwings-costume-gear.html

Barbara Gordon/Oracle

Jason Todd/Red Hood

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/robin-i-ii-graysontodd.html

Tim Drake/Red Robin

https://www.tumblr.com/batboyblog/617193218576154624/tim-drakes-costume-through-the-years

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/robin-iii-drake.html

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/robin-iii---tim-drake.html

Stephanie Brown/Spoiler

https://stephaniebrown.fandom.com/wiki/Costume_History *****

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/robin-iv-brown.html

Cass Cain/Black Bat

https://www.tumblr.com/cassbatgirlblog/650557028479221760/all-of-cassandra-cains-costumes

Damian Wayne/Robin

https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite.weebly.com/robin-v-wayne.html

https://www.tumblr.com/damianwayneoutfits (live archive of clothes Damian has worn!)

Duke Thomas/Signal

Helena Wayne and Helena Bertinelli/Huntress

https://www.tumblr.com/helenawaynehuntress/36967260723/while-there-is-no-easier-way-to-completely-tell

Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael

FLASH FAMILY

ARROW FAMILY

Ollie Queen/Green Arrow

Roy Harper/Arsenal

https://everydayislikewednesday.blogspot.com/2007/08/roy-harper-fashion-history.html

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-roy-harper/

Connor Hawke/Green Arrow

Mia Dearden/Speedy

BLACK CANARY

https://screenrant.com/black-canary-every-costume-otto-schmidt-art/ (just a picture, but it IS a thorough one!)

AQUA FAMILY

Arthur Curry/Aquaman

https://aiptcomics.com/2018/10/06/every-aquaman-costume-from-the-comics-and-movies-from-1941-to-date/

LANTERNS

Hal Jordan

Guy Gardner

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-guy-gardner/

John Stewart

Kyle Rayner

https://bookriot.com/kyle-rayner-fashion-heroes/

MARTIANS

ZATANNA

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-zatanna/

WILSON FAMILY

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke

Grant Wilson/Ravager

Joey Wilson/Jericho

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-jericho/

Rose Wilson-Worth/Ravager

TEENS

Gar Logan/Beast Boy

https://bookriot.com/beast-boy-fashion/

Koriand’r/Starfire

https://bookriot.com/fashion-disasters-starfire/

-

I might make another post when I've got more links and have cleaned things up a bit. (I KNOW there's a Raven page, but haven't looked for it yet, for example.) Or maybe I'll just make this one nicer. We'll see. But my new, possibly spyware, firefox add-on can only do so much work! There are INFINITE "cosplay idea" sites clogging up my search results, and keeping me from finding the correct 30 year old sites designed before frames existed, with tiny images a Windows 95 computer could PROBABLY load!

[nebe1]

Livestream 2020-2023

#40 21.08.2020

Change (start 11:58)

Tom is not in the Show but after the game Tom is for a moment in because Luke called him a brick (17:09).

Dubbed scene (start 23:07)

Bedtime story (start 40:15)

Post apocalyptic antiques roadshow (start 50:34). In this game plays a friend from Luke, she guesses later in the game late for work. Favourite moment.

Couple support (start 59:35). Luke shoots a pilot; his guest looks in the direction he shot, Luke falls out of character and asks him where he is looking, that would be my favourite moment but I don´t know if the person want to appear on Tumblr, he is not an actor or comedian.

Typewriter Terrence (start 1:06:44). The story was soo crazy. Sam knows what an Old Stripey is and Luke called him a fucking nerd for it (1:08:48).

Late for work (start 1:32:24) but not the boys guess, Luke guest is guessing. For the fact that she has never seen the game before, she was really good.

[transspeciesculture]

We keep mentioning how transspecies as a term has existed long before the radqueer & transID communities formed, and started claiming it as part of those communities despite it's actual usage within nonhuman/fictional/unusual human species identifying spaces and objections from said spaces.

As a sort of quick thing to back this up, here are some examples before the year of 2020 (estimated beginnings of the radqueer/transID community)!

All of this excludes troll posting/mockery, and is focused on NH/FICT community's discussions. Some additional content warnings are provided for some of the e-mails, however.

This is not extensive, feel free to show us any other finds (excluding alt.horror.werewolves e-mails, we've already scoured trough everything. There is actually more mentions via that, but all from the same person).

Mentions of term:

01 - "Gender-bender" e-mail, 1999. Included in this section due to the unclearness of if the original author of the e-mail identifies as otherkin or transspecies personally.

[Link] [Link 2] [Archive] [Archive 2]

02 - "On cosmic surgery and personal identity" e-mail, 2005

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

03 - "Da Jakkal's work revisited" e-mail, 1999. Warning: has some outdated terminology/beliefs.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

04 - "Re: Introduction" e-mail, 2002

[Link] [Archive]

05 - "Re: Shifters: in need of Help." e-mail, 1999. Warning: thread has mentions of an un-nameable native American creature.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

06 - "Re: Musing of the Week" e-mail, 1999

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

06 - "Re: define were" e-mail, 1997. Warning: thread has mentions of an un-nameable native American creature. (This is the second time we've have to issue this CW. Sucks.)

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

07 - "Re: Fun with Faith" e-mail, 1997. Same warning as above, unfourtunately.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

08 - "Re: Questions on Were's/Shifting/etc" e-mail 1997. Same warning, a lot of early instances of the word being used seem to all be from this one being, sorry.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

09 - "Re: Slithering into AHWW" e-mail, 1997

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

10 - "Re: Odd Dreams" e-mail, 1998

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

11 - "Shifters: WereBreeds" e-mail, 1999. Warning: has some outdated terminology.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

12 - "On the appropriation of trans narratives by therianthropes" article, 2013. Contrary to the title, it is supportive. It does mention the native creature again due to excerpting an AHWW member's ramblings, so thread with caution.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

13 - "An Introduction to Animality" article, 2009

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

Usage of term for clear self identification (flags and symbols are included):

01 - "Re: A question to everyone out there" e-mail, 1997. Warning once again for mentions of an un-nameable native American creature, and questionable identity that may or may not be considered cultural appropriation (we have no place to say as we are not native). Still, it is an clear account of identification with the label and experiences that'd come to be associated with it.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

02 - "Chewing and biting (and intro)" e-mail, 1999. The poster at the time of posting already specifies that they do not identify with the label anymore, but used to.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

03 - "Transspecies Pride stamp" flag/pride graphic, 2017.

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

04 - "Transspecies Flag" flag, 2018

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

05 - "Why I call myself Transspecies" personal article, 2018

[Link] [Archive] [Archive 2]

06 - "Gender: Furry II (Now With More Scales)

[Archive]

07 - "Real Dragons: Transspeciesism" article, 2001

[Archive]