diamondpython00

[diamondpython00]

I suddenly got why Dr. Venture misunderstands his sons so much: because he’s treating them like they’re him. For Rusty, Dean acting like he wants to do anything else besides super science is a sign that he’s meant for it -because that’s what Rusty did when he was a boy adventurer. Similarly, Hank would be totally fine doing super science or anything else, but because he doesn’t show the disdain for it that Dean does, Rusty thinks Hank doesn’t want it, because if you don’t fight against it, you must not want it, right? I’m thinking of the therapy scene between Rusty and his dad, where he’s told that his negative feelings about his life are from a lack of gratitude. He’s internalized that message and applied it to his parenting - and this is a common pattern for him. Without any frame of reference for moral behavior or for good parenting, he’s backslid into neglectful parenting and immoral behavior. But, despite all that…

“Dean, I promise you that the one who gave birth to you…loves you. Very much.”

[diamondpython00]

I haven’t said it before, but Endwalker is my absolute favorite of the FFXIV expansions, and it might be one of my favorite stories every, thanks to one simple trick.

Endwalker spoilers under the cut.

Endwalker is a story about finding purpose in life. Although despair may raise its head again, as long as we keep sight of our purpose, we won’t be destroyed by it like Hermes was. Like many other stories about finding purpose in life, EW’s answer is that you have to create your own. In any other story, I probably wouldn’t like it as much. I do like that answer, but in many other stories, it feels like a copout - the answer is whatever you want it to be. But in EW, the story tells you that the answer is to make your own purpose… and then it shows you how to do that. While the MSQ shows some of the purposes people find (Sharlayan, Thavnair and Garlemald) EW drives the point home the best with the side content, specifically the allied societies. The journey that the Loporrits and the Omicrons take from listlessness to newfound purpose is a perfect “show don’t tell” of why finding your own purpose is a more complicated journey than just figuring it out. Each one of the NPCs we interact with in these quests has to grapple with themselves, try things out, and even dip back into despair at times, only to eventually reach that self-actualization, and have it materially improve not only themselves, but the world around them. EW, unlike other stories that tell you to find your own purpose, makes me actually BELIEVE that finding that purpose is achievable. God, I love this story so much.

[diamondpython00]

Posting a donation link for a friend:

If you have some extra cash Rasha (and my friend) would appreciate it.

[diamondpython00]

It can be really hard to learn to engage in positive self talk, but sometimes it's easier to start by pretending it's coming from a friend, first 💜

[diamondpython00]

*NOTE: in this case, phobia refers to a very strong irrational fear, not being a little scared of something. if you can handle snakes but they make you nervous, that's not a phobia.

[diamondpython00]

Huh. Guess it’s literally just me and my friend that had this weirdly specific childhood experience. Weird.

[diamondpython00]

NOOOOOOO, MY IMMERSION!

*casts curse of dnd session delayed by another week upon you*

[diamondpython00]

man you just put me on full blast? in front of the entire internet? i can’t believe you’d do this to your butual (boop mutual)

HAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAH

[diamondpython00]

One line I haven’t seen talked about much that is relevant to this is in Literal Monster when Max says “Don’t need no one to tell me/High school will be my peak/So I’m willing to take advantage”. Coupled with his reaction to the prank, his comments about his dad, and his interactions with the rest of the school, a picture starts to form of a kid who has been told his whole life that he’s going nowhere. At the Waylon Place, we get a glimpse of what Max could have been if he had the right influences in life. Treated with something vaguely resembling respect, he returns it, and notes that he was probably wrong about these guys. And then he dies, thinking that they betrayed him, and the rest of the show happens because he’s so obsessed with his social order that it lasts into the afterlife. Max is a literal monster, but he’s very much a manmade one, and that makes him very interesting.

Reason number 2636185372 I love Nerdy Prudes Must Die-

Max is humanized without being absolved of his actions. Maxwell Jägerman was undoubtedly a piece of shit. He was a controlling prick that refused to let anyone have control over their own life, abusing his "friends" and his enemies alike. He took real joy from punishing the people around him when they tried to sidestep his arbitrary rules, enforcing them with the threat of violence. He knows he's physically stronger than everyone around him, and he takes advantage of that. He's 100% eager to fight before considering other options. Even the other jocks are scared of him, because he defaults to beating the hell out of people. (Also note that he's stronger than all of them too. When they do the chest bump Jason falls backwards and has to catch himself, and he knocks Kyle senseless with just one hit, to the point that he has to be carried out by his friends.)

I feel all of that very strongly. But at the same time? He's like... A full person. Big things can be revealed when a character thinks they're alone, and although him going through the Waylan place shows him being a prick as expected, it also shows him being scared. It seems to me like he's a very fearful person. Scared of ghosts, skeletons, judgement from his dad, even those cheap costumes seem to genuinely freak him out before he forces himself to get a grip (which just means getting aggressive). Or look at how he interacts with Grace. It's easy to assume he's just being manipulative, but there's never a point where it seems like Max is particularly skilled at emotional manipulation. It seems to me like he actually, genuinely likes her in a weird way. He's an ass, but he totally brightens up when he talks to her. He thinks she's funny, he seems a little bit awkward during conversation with her, he doesn't like people picking on her.

"She's such a prude!"

"Yeah, isn't she great?"

I'm sure part of it is that he just wants to get in her pants, but that doesn't seem to be the only factor here. He wants to carry her books, he wants to cuddle, he doesn't see her prudiness as an obstacle the way you would expect an asshole like him would. It seems to be part of the reason he likes her at all. It's not a healthy or respectful dynamic, but it is bizarrely genuine.

The characterization in this show is just so good y'all

[diamondpython00]

FFXIV Fics I Want to Read (Part 2)

1. It’s not entirely unlike Elidibus to attract strays, but this, Emet-Selch thinks, is a bit more troublesome than usual. (Or: Instead of keeping him hidden in some bolthole, Elidibus literally just brings Unukalhai home. All the other Ascians are equal parts curious and unhelpful in the raising of a child. Halmarut always has candy in her pockets. Fandaniel should definitely not be left alone with younglings. Emet-Selch gives terrible parenting advice on purpose. It’s probably for the best that formless aether beings don’t technically need to be fed.)

2. That very self-indulgent WoL/Sidurgu one where the WoL gets a place in the new Ishgard residential district and can’t help but think that a house would be a much better spot to raise Rielle than a bar. Convincing Sid to move is actually the easy part; the real problem is that the idea of living with Sidurgu sounded much less nerve-wracking in theory than it’s proving in practice–just how long can the WoL keep this “roommate” thing up without giving away their massive crush on their fellow Dark Knight? (Unbeknownst to the WoL, of course, Sidurgu is going through the exact same crisis. The domesticity is real and the mutual pining is painful. Rielle has seen dodos with more self-awareness.)

3. Captain Jacke, out of a very stupid sense of propriety, gets it in his head to mentor Oboro on the in-and-outs of Eorzean dashing roguery. He’s determined to teach the lad to woo the dimberest of morts–purely to free himself from the secondhand embarrassment of any more cringe-worthy courting attempts, of course, and not–thank you!!–because the Stray and Underfoot put a mint of gil on Jacke not knowing a thing about wooing the fairer sex himself… Meanwhile, Karasu Redbeak, whose thoughts on Oboro are much closer to proprietary, has determined that this simply will not do. Oboro’s pathetic bumbling is his greatest charm point, after all; turning him into something resembling socially competent? Out of the question! But when Jacke discovers that all his attempts to set Oboro up are being foiled from the shadows, misplaced pride turns the matter into an all-out Rogue versus Ninja skill war… that somehow, quite obnoxiously, goes right over Oboro’s head.

4. The Eorzean high school manga AU but it’s Sanson and Guydelot. Guydelot Thildonnet, resident guitar playing, leather pants wearing, class ditching bard punk realizes he is exactly one more behavior strike away from being expelled from high school for good–he can finally free himself from the incessant boredom of being forced to, ugh, get an education. A normal delinquent might just light a trash can on fire, but Guydelot was always the kind to make a scene. If you want to wash out in a blaze of glory, there’s only one surefire way to do it: pick a fight with your high school’s beloved Golden Boy. (Unfortunately for Guydelot, his school’s golden boy is one Sanson Smythe, who–out of the misguided goodness of his heart–talks the principal out of expelling Guydelot… and into giving them both, heavens forfend, community service together. This is about to be the best worst 250 hours of Guydelot’s life.)

5. Is it weird to ask your new (and only) school friend to help you set up your English teacher with your perpetually single father? Yes. Is Ryne going to ask Gaia anyway? Also yes. This is important. Thancred is lonely. (Well, probably. It seems like he should be, anyway.) And their teacher is really nice! It has to work out; Ryne knows it will! Only, well… Playing matchmaker is hard, but do you know what’s even harder? Sorta-kinda-maybe starting to like-like the friend you roped into playing matchmaker with you. (That cutesy Ryne/Gaia one where the matchmakers turn out to be the best match, with an added bonus of [insert your favorite Thancred ship here] on the side!)

6. (Quick, before Endwalker crushes my wildest dreams…) Fandaniel discovers that Zenos’s personal boundaries are absolutely inexplicable, and while the Garlean prince is prickly as a cactuar about the strangest things, he’s also completely blasé about acts that would unsettle virtually every other normal being on the star. Why not? the Sundered Ascian thinks. Why shouldn’t I do whatever amuses me now that dusty old Elidibus is gone? So, since it somehow doesn’t get him immediately cleaved in two, Fandaniel combs Zenos’s hair and helps undo his armor, drapes himself over the throne and the prince both, sleeps in Zenos’s bed… Nothing ever comes of it, of course, except sometimes when he’s trying his hardest to think about nothing and the whorls of his fingers recall the feel of other misshapen braids, the plate of other armor, the sound of different voices whispering in dreams, 12,000 endless years of other ghosts embraced by other monsters… (Holds up queerplatonic aroace Zenos and Fandaniel. I just think they’re neat!) 

7. In the middle of an incredibly serious political summit related to the fate of the very star, attended by the heads of state of every free territory south of Garlemald, Cid Garlond discovers that at least three quarters of Eorzea’s leaders genuinely believe that he is married to Nero tol Scaeva. After the initial shock of horror, Cid Garlond experiences… an even greater shock of horror, because if you fondly bicker with a man, and joint-own a masterworks enterprise with a man, and invent time travel with a man, and adopt a sentient chocobo with a man, and drink from the man’s coffee mug because his coffee just tastes better, and increasingly often grab the wrong toothbrush and smallclothes because you live with the man–you might actually be married to that man. (Or: Nero tol Scaeva has literally been counting, to the bell, the exact amount of time it will take Cid nan Garlond to realize they’ve settled down easily into the rest of their lives.)

8. “The little ones won’t listen to a bloody thing I say! Always in the way, no matter how many times I threaten to turn them into slippers–” Tiamat, whose children, even in the early days, couldn’t be counted on all four paws, gives a long, commiserating hum. “Have you tried,” she suggests in very serious Dravanian, “just roaring at them?” And “Yes,” Estinien hisses, in a better impression of a tea kettle than a dragon. (Or: The one where Estinien realizes belatedly that, at least as far as the Dravanians are concerned, the dragoon has inherited not only Nidhogg’s power, but also his brood. Fury be damned, if he finds another baby dragon asleep in his boot, he is going to restart the Dragonsong War.)

[diamondpython00]

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

[diamondpython00]

Yup, those are definitely the persona 5 characters Akira and Akechi. I know pretty much nothing about bungo stray dogs, but I do know from mutuals that the bsd blorbos are like enemies? or something? which makes the dynamic here very similar. The inherent homoeroticism of having a personal rivalry ig

summer vibe

[diamondpython00]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m 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 (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT 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. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. 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 EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced 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, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of ��protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

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. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM 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.)

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? EARN IT is 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.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

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.

(202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

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.

[diamondpython00]

Well, spoiler free, but I have just finished The Owl House finale, Watching and Dreaming. Wow, what a good ending to the show! I was excited and nervous for this day to come, but here we are. The end of an era, if you’ll forgive the overly sentimental phrasing. A big thank you to the entire team behind The Owl House for giving us such a fantastic show, and one that so many people, myself included, saw themselves in. I doubt any of the team will see this, but just in case you do, give yourself a big pat on the back from me - you’ve created something beautiful. As for me, I’m sad to see it go of course, and I mourn the fact that season 3 had to be cut short, but I’m so glad I could experience this show. The Owl House meant something to me - weirdos stick together is basically the story of my life, and seeing that on screen, a show telling me it was okay to be weird because people will still accept you, was helpful in ways that I’m not sure I can fully express. Thank you Owl House. It’s been great.

[diamondpython00]

oh I also also went down a minor rabbit hole yesterday reading about this catholic nonprofit that essentially used advertising data tied to hookup apps to out several gay priests, which is super interesting to me both as an affronted homo and someone with one foot in the world of programmatic bullshit, so I'm tempted to share some links on here but I feel like I'd need to include a lot of disclaimers and explainers lest this get twisted into some kind of "advertisers know literally everything about you" hysteria because it's really not like that at all, believe it or not. the privacy implications are still significant (i.e., bad) but I think the crazier takeaway is how there's just so much data being fed through these systems (billions of ad impressions! every single day!) that trying to leverage any of it in a life-ruining way is only possible under an extremely specific and increasingly unlikely set of circumstances. my first thought was to compare it to finding a needle in a haystack but I think it's actually more like combing through a landfill to piece together a shredded credit card statement.

[diamondpython00]

How dare you expose my hunger for power on tumblr dot com! I’ll never recover the social cred I built up!

what 10k notes does to a motherfucker