cacklingcorvids

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While I am unfortunately too busy to have had the chance to play the demo yet, in late celebration of Blood of the Living being released I decided to redraw my Persephone from @chrysanthemumgames Fields of Asphodel.

Happy late release and can't wait to find the time and play the first three chapters!!

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🚨 Help Save Shada’s Family and Baby Adam! 🚨

My name is Shada Kassab, and I am a 24-year-old mother living in Gaza. Every day is a fight for survival for me, my husband Hussein, and our baby boy Adam, who is just five months old.

Our lives have been turned upside down by war. My home has been reduced to rubble, and my husband lost his water truck, which was our only source of income. We’ve been forced to evacuate twice—from Deir el Balah to the Nuseirat camp—and now, we live in constant fear of what the future holds.

To make matters worse, Adam was born with clubfoot and urgently needs surgery. The cost for his treatment and specialized medical boots is at least $3000, but this surgery isn’t even possible in Gaza.

I recently graduated as a nurse, and I dream of building a better life for my family. But to do that, we must leave Gaza and start over in safety.

💔 I need your help to save my family and give Adam a future. Even a small donation 5$ can bring us closer to safety, and if you can’t donate, sharing our story means the world to us.

I dream of living in safety, of seeing Adam grow up healthy, and of building a better life for us all. Please don’t give up on us. Your kindness can make all the difference.

❤️ Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your support and compassion give us strength to keep going.

[cacklingcorvids]

Tumblr, why isn't Palestine trending anymore?

I'd like an answer please @staff this isn't right

Recent posts in the current top trending tag: 1k

[Image ID: A screenshot of the header for the trending "The Amazing Digital Circus" tag on Tumblr. It shows that it has 1.5k followers and 1k recent posts. The featured image is fanart. /End ID.]

Recent posts in the Palestine tag: 1.3k

[Image ID: A screenshot of the header for the "Palestine" tag on Tumblr. It shows that is has 17k followers and 1.3k recent posts. The featured image is a tweet about BDS and the Great March of Return at the Gaza strip from 2018 to 2019. /End ID.]

For reference, Ukraine has been permanently featured on the trending page for over a year

At this time of uncertainty and when community & pro Palestine activism is needed more than ever, Tumblr users, Palestinian ones, deserve to have their voices heard as well as have better accessibility to the Palestine tag

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they should have left dorian and the inquisitor in the in hushed whispers timeline for like a month just because it would’ve been funny

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Warden, Champion, Inquisitor

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I just can't help feeling that Solas taking Lavellan's vallaslin and then leaving them is so cruel. I know he doesn't mean to be cruel. I know he doesn't even mean to do it like that; he wants to share the truth about himself, and he just can't, and it's that realization that pushes him to end the relationship, because of how close he comes to telling everything to this person he loves. I know that he loves Lavellan and wants to share just one piece of the truth, even if he can't share all of it.

He sees right away how much the revelation about the origins of the blood writing has hurt Lavellan. And if Lavellan pushes back on the idea of removing them, he drops it immediately. He never forces the issue.

But it's still such a sudden decision for Lavellan to make, after such a painful revelation. And what if they do end up regretting it? What's going to happen if they return to their clan, or try to make contact with another if Clan Lavellan has been lost? How will they begin to explain this to their fellow Dalish elves (keeping in mind that they don't yet know who Solas is)?

"I met a lone elven apostate, and it turns out he's a Dreamer, and he told me that one of our most sacred traditions is actually a mark of slavery. And I believed him. And I let him remove my vallaslin."

I think the decision might be easier for Lavellan whose clan is still alive and well, if they know they still have a home and a family to return to. For a Lavellan who has lost everything, their home, their family and friends, who has probably had to fight to maintain their identity and their beliefs in the Inquisition even if they've also made friends and found community--the choice is heartwrenching.

In taking the vallaslin, Solas takes from Lavellan the most obvious sign of Dalish identity, community, culture, and tradition. And then he breaks up with them. Lavellan can't even say "I've lost everything but at least I have you."

Every time I see gifs or videos of that scene, of Solas gently saying, "Ar lasa mala revas," literally I give you your freedom, it just breaks my heart, because I know he means it. I know he wants to give them that.

But what kind of freedom is it? And at what cost?

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My Persephone from @chrysanthemumgames​ The Fields of Asphodel. Jokes on you Zeus I'm goth now

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Drew Ithlennea Absolution style, kinda got lost in the sauce while drawing but is it really a Ithlennea drawing if it isn't angsty?

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Accidently deleted the original post so here it is again :)

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Part 2 to my Family Lavellan drawing (Now with vallaslin!)

I think I'm wanting to draw all the members of clan lavellan I have so far but for now I've drawn all of Ithlennea’s immediate family in her clan. 

Top row is Ithlennea, her son Adahleni, and Solas,

Second row is her sister Ashavise, her partner Barteral, and their son Davhalla,

and the Third row is Ithlennea and Ashavise’s parents Fenghi’lan and Eolaselan

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Family Lavellan (Ignore the lack of vallaslin)

[cacklingcorvids]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 tumblr's nsfw ban hitting the entire internet this spring 2022

February 1, 2022

I’m so so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

WHAT IS THE EARN IT ACT?

The EARN IT Act has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal's EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.

What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of "protecting kids" to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids.

The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works -- without fear of liability for any "failure." Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on "obscenity" as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill?

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don't know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the "make child pornography worse" bill, but here we are.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.

I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.

It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.

202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

More sources to read about this bill:

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-earn-it-act-is-anti-evidence

Fight for the Future’s Statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678EW8v09z8&t=1s

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20220131/22423648395/senates-new-earn-it-bill-will-make-child-exploitation-problem-worse-not-better-still-attacks-encryption.shtml

EARN IT Act treats Myths as Facts.

https://surviveearnit.com/what-is-the-earn-it-act/ From 2020, but little has changed about the bill.

https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/earn-it-act-back

Center for Democracy and Technology’s Statement

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven't seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

[cacklingcorvids]

My Mordred from @llamagirl28 The Bastard of Camelot with her dragon Belladonna and a few keepsakes.

Left to Right-Seashells from the walk with Nimue, the carved dragon from Arthur, Le Fay pendant, and a scale from Scaly.

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so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

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A New Version, changed the lineart and halo colour and added some more highlights.

A tarot card inspired drawing of my Gabriel from the cog wip @sosthemortalcoil . Originally wanted to draw a more stained glass inspired piece but it didn’t work out.