fandomseverywhereassemble

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a feel like the new generation of fanfic readers NEED to understand that clicking on a fic (interaction) does nothing. ao3 has no algorithm. your private discord discussions of fic do not reach the authors. if you do not actively engage with writers they will stop posting. this isn’t social media this is community.

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"Two Paid Ads And A Trans Girl's G-Rated Selfie" (tumblr, 2025)

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PSA: Credit Card Phone Scam

(Or, how Tumblr just saved my ass)

I saw a PSA recently about a scam going around with spoofed official numbers calling and asking for information, and how you should hang up and call back using the correct number rather than just go along with what the caller is telling you. But this is Tumblr, so I'll never be able to find the post again.

I decided to make my own, because this literally just happened to me an hour ago. Hopefully my story can spread some more awareness and save other asses the way mine was saved.

Around 7:30pm tonight (Friday), I got a phone call from a 1-800 number. I almost didn't answer it, then I saw it was 1-800-465-4___, and I recognized that as the start of the CIBC phone number, so I picked up.

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, is this [MrsD]?"

Me: Yes.

Guy: Hi, [MrsD], this is _____ from CIBC, how are you tonight?

I thought, okay, this is a sales call. Right before I'm about to sit down for dinner. Typical. Mentally, I'm already putting together an exit strategy, preparing to say no to everything and get off the phone ASAP. But then—

Guy: We've just flagged suspicious activity on your CIBC Visa card. It was an online BestBuy transaction for $980.00. Was that your transaction?

Me, flustered: Uh. What? Sorry, how much?

Guy: $980.00 at BestBuy, was that you?

Me: Oh. At BestBuy?

Guy: Yes, your card was used at a BestBuy in [town nearby]. Was that you? Did you go to [town nearby] today? You don't live in [town nearby], right?

Me: Uh. No?

Guy: Okay, so I need some information to verify this transaction.

By this point, my brain had caught on that something about this was hinky. First of all, I thought he said it was an online purchase, then he said it was in person. But maybe I'd misheard, he was talking fast. My second thought was that every other time there was a suspicious transaction, I got an automated phone call and a text message with instructions to call back. I've never had a person call me directly.

My third thought was, well, the phone number on the caller ID was right....

THEN! I remembered a Tumblr post I saw recently, and I remembered what it told me to do.

Me: I'm skeptical about this call. I'm going to call CIBC myself and look into this.

Guy: What? Ma'am, you can just tell me, I can verify—

Me: No. Thank you, but I'll call the number on the back of my card.

Guy, getting more agitated: Ma'am, if you look at the number on your card, you'll see it's the same number.

Me: You know that can spoofed, right?

Guy: Uh— but ma'am—

Me: Sorry, but I need to make sure. I'm going to call CIBC directly.

The guy kept sputtering, but I hung up on him. In that moment, I really didn't think that he was a scammer. In fact, I thought I was being paranoid and was maybe kinda rude to the guy. I wondered if I was being overcautious, and I felt a bit guilty.

I called the number on the back of my credit card, waited 15 minutes for an agent, and told him what just happened.

IMMEDIATELY—

Agent: You didn't tell him anything, did you?

Me: No. I said I wasn't in [town nearby] today, but that's it.

Agent: Good. You did the right thing by calling us, let me look into the transaction for you.

Then, a minute later:

Agent: I'm not seeing any transaction like that. There's no flags on your card, nothing suspicious at all.

Me: So it was a scam?

Agent: Yep. Entirely fake.

I was honestly surprised. I really thought that there was some kind of mix-up and that I would be apologizing to this guy for being rude to his colleague.

Looking back on it now, I can see all the telltale signs of it being a scam call:

Time of day. Early evening on a Friday, chances are people are either sitting down for dinner or in a hurry to get somewhere. In this situation, a lot people probably wouldn't think twice about giving "the bank" some information just to get off the phone. (Joke's on them, I have no life!) But the way that I reacted to his introduction did evoke the desired reaction of Ugh, what now? Leave me alone! that the scammer was banking on (pun intended).

Sense of urgency. The scammer spoke fast, threw details at me quickly, and made sure I knew that I had to give him my information right away. This honestly threw me off. It was overwhelming, and I felt concerned and a bit frantic for a few seconds until I thought about what I know about scams and what I'd just read in that Tumblr PSA.

Complete lack of empathy or understanding about my skepticism/anti-fraud precautions. The last time I had to get a new credit card number due to fraud, the agent I spoke to said things like "I know this is frustrating", "I'm sorry this is a hassle", etc. And of course the CIBC agent I spoke to tonight was immediately grateful that I'd called them directly and reassured me that CIBC would never ask for information. By contrast, the scammer was outright dismissive of my concerns and got agitated when I wouldn't just trust him right off the bat.

Emotional provocation. Similar to #2 & #3 above, the scammer was very good at making me feel things. Worried and fearful at first, then guilty about being suspicious, to the point where I actually apologized to the guy. (Granted, I am Canadian, but still!)

And finally, I cannot stress enough: the spoofed phone number. I am a pretty well-informed person. I keep up with news about scams and whatnot. I know that phone numbers can be spoofed. I've been in front of my phone when it just starts to ring and I can see the auto-dialler number appear briefly before it gets replaced with a number that has my area code. But tonight—early evening on a Friday—I was cooking dinner and my phone was across the room. It had rung several times by the time I got to it. I only picked it up because I recognized the CIBC number. And when the scammer started his spiel, the fact that the number was the same was enough for me to give him just a tiny moment of trust. Had he actually gotten past that first barrier and started requesting my information, I think I would have caught on, because people asking for sensitive information over the phone is a huge obvious red flag. I like to think I would have caught on, anyway. But maybe not! That fake number almost had me.

TL;DR: No matter what the number on your caller ID says—that it's your bank, your energy company, your internet provider, whatever!—if the person on the other end is requesting sensitive information urgently, don't panic. Stop. Think. Then tell them nothing, hang up the phone, and call your service provider yourself using a verified phone number.

[fandomseverywhereassemble]

I love how in Rhythm of War Jasnah is like "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I could have talked Dad into democracy. He was a political realist, and he wanted a legacy more than anything. He would have seen the value of a stable system of government over absolute but ephemeral power."

Meanwhile in the flashbacks:

Navani: My opinion doesn't matter, does it? Well who do you think is going to be writing your biography, smart guy?

Gavilar: It's cute that you think I'm ever going to die.

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Something I said right after I finished tgcf that I think is wholly correct is. Tgcf is a story where Xie Lian is constantly told that there is no third path, he doesn’t get to make himself another option. Then, of course, he doesn’t it, because both options are bad, so he’ll make another one. And of course it backfires and blows up in his face, because there’s no third path. It’s what we’ve been told this whole time. Xie Lian is foolish for thinking otherwise.

And then we get to the end. And we see that there always was a third path, but it was deliberately hidden from him. And actually, not only was it deliberately obscured, but caltrops were scattered all across it. It was booby trapped specifically for him.

Thinking again about how Xie Lian didn’t fail Xianle because it wasn’t a test but a trap. Every decision in that arc was manipulated to make the war as cruel and soul-destroying as possible. BWX failed his kingdom, and he saw a similarity in XL. So he orchestrated every single moment of that downfall, pulling multiple puppet strings from 5 different angles and adding consequences to XL that only he had the power to hand out. Like he didn’t lose because he was arrogant or naive or wrong he lost because it there was genuinely no way he coulda won. It wasn’t a test it was a trap.

[fandomseverywhereassemble]

Let's talk about mynoise.net

Have you ever been listening to Rainymood and thought, “Yeah, this is good … but it would be nice if I could customize the sound more, or if there was a little more choice.

Let me introduce you to MyNoise.

MyNoise is a customizable sounscape looper with so many options, even within each soundscape.  So say, for instance, you really love rain sounds when you write or study or relax.  Anything.  I know I’m a big fan of rain sounds.  They have a page for that.

But say you like really high, pattery rain, and LOTS of low thunder.  Here’s where MyNoise really stands out: you can customize that.  See those sliders with all the cute colors?  That is your equalizer. You can adjust the levels based on what you want to hear more and less of.  Here’s how it looks when you want high, pattery rain and low, rumbly thunder:

But say rain isn’t really your jam.  Say you want something a little more ambient, a little more background noise-y.  Something with people.  Well, they have customizable coffee house chatter that even has the levels listed for things like “kitchen,” “babble,” and “table”:

Or say you miss the ocean.

Or say you miss your cat.

Or say you miss your spaceship.

Or say you miss the dungeon where you and your team of scalawag adventurers used to explore and face off against, say, dragons.  In the dungeon.

This site is seriously so helpful, and those are just a fraction of every kind of sounscape the site has to offer.  The best part is that if you want to layer it with music (for instance, I’ll layer a playlist + rain + coffee shop if the scene I’m writing takes place in a coffee shop), you can adjust the master volume, meaning all of your layers stay at their respective volumes, just louder or quieter.

Enjoy!

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The Nanowrimo website has shut down.

Without any fanfare the Nanowrimo website has gone offline, after 25 years.

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i actually need to know people's thoughts on this because at least in my experience the answer to this has drastically changed since i was on tumblr in the 2010s and its driving me fucking insane

*im talking about fandom takes specifically. not someone being horribly evil about a real-life issue or or blatantly factually incorrect. literally just harmless fandom disagreements or differing interpretations of a text/character/etc.

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binghe in a dress from january

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NEED👏THAT👏MAN👏PREGNANT ROUND 4 POLL 3

PROPAGANDA:

[Megatron]

"Just. Just look at this guy. He's already so big and so mad. He's going to be even more big and even more mad if someone knocks him up and he's going to make it everyone's problem, and he's capable of making himself a big problem for a lot of people. It's the middle of the 5 million year war and the Decepticons are more afraid of 20 tons of cranky warlord with morning sickness than of the enemy. The Autobots don't know what to do. The humans are getting a whole new education. It's a nightmare for everyone. Or it's peacetime and the peace progress and his post-war moral soul-searching just got a whole lot more complicated. Either way, no matter who did it - his deviously treacherous second in command, his loyal and possibly psychic third in command, his life-long Autobot nemesis/ex-boyfriend, his meteor-surfing co-captain, Tarn - there's going to be big drama.

Alternatively, it's Transformers One and he is a precious cinnamon roll who got his heart broken by everyone he trusted and now we can make it worse and make him even sadder!

Alternatively alternatively it's Bayverse and he might already have been knocked up before, we don't know where those hatchlings came from.

Basically what I'm saying is that there are infinite flavors of Pregatron and all of them are peak drama because that's how he rolls. Also you get to call him Pregatron which is always a win."

"He's got birthing hips and a desire to fuel the decepticon cause."

[Luo Binghe]

"I have no desire to see him pregnant I am merely doing this out of the goodness of my heart because I know he would want to be. You know that "I will defy biology and get you pregnant" quote? In his case it would be "I will defy biology and get pregnant". And considering the world he lives in he could do it too."

"I’d love to impregnate him, but I’d get more joy out of him being impregnated by Shen Qingqiu (his husband).

Reasons lbh should be pregnant

I want him to

Anyone of any gender can be pregnant but lbh has some great gender fuckery in svsss and being pregnant would fit great into that. He is referred to as maiden-hearted and given the nickname bingmei (little sister) by his husband. He loves to cook and clean and generally is a lot happier acting as a wife (except for sex). He would lean so hard into being pregnant I don’t think anyone could do it better. He would literally be glowing.

Cute little bingmei with a big belly and the world’s most perfect curls….

In order to even get pregnant, lbh would go out of his way to make it happen via some sort of magic plant sex pollen/curse/etc. I need to see how he makes it happen."

"He wants to be a wife and bear his teacher/husband's child so badly. He lives in dream of the day he will finally get to bottom."

"He canonically wants a period and honey he won't when he learns about the alternative (pregnancy)."

"You guys don't understand how badly Luo Binghe needs this. Due to certain circumstances, Luo Binghe's birth mother threw him into a frozen river to save his life. She herself then died, and his father was chained under a mountain. He was rescued from the river by a fisherman, but he grew up an orphan on the streets, abused by everyone, until a kind washerwoman took him in. However, she was so run-down from working to support him that she died, too. When he's still a child, he becomes a disciple of a prominent cultivation sect, but is consistently bullied and abused by his peers and his master/teacher alike. In the "original novel," before Shen Yuan transmigrates into it as Luo Binghe's shizun, Luo Binghe is thrown into the Endless Abyss, becoming an evil person, hurting everyone who previously hurt him tenfold, and even harming innocents, continuing the cycle of abuse. After Shen Yuan transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu when Luo Binghe is fourteen, in this version of the story, Luo Binghe's shizun treats him with kindness and he falls in love with him. But due to unavoidable circumstances, Shen Qingqiu still throws Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss, forcing him to accept his demonic heritage, and Luo Binghe is left heartbroken and angry, not understanding why his beloved shizun would do such a thing, but he loves him still. At the end of SVSSS, Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu have reconciled and gotten married, and Luo Binghe's crimes are much less than they were in the original version of the story. The cycle of abuse is ended. But Binghe still retains the scars, and has still committed crimes. A child would be the perfect way to heal him, and to end the cycle of abuse entirely. It would be beautiful. Please vote for him to end the cycle of abuse."

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as an aroace person with limited sexual experience, no interest in watching porn, and poor sex ed as a teen, there IS something simultaneously funny and vaguely tragic about being 28 adult years old and realising how extremely tiny your frame of reference is for genitalia and deciding you should expand this to better understand bodies (yours and others). and then you're just there like "okay so what the fuck do I even google right now, anyway"

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If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

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my best tip for anyone trying to get back into reading is to remember that you can read books to avoid other responsibilities in ur life and it can become a vice if you play your cards right