#and i was born in early feb :)))

[orbitsuns]

[conjectureand-gloom]

if you get this, answer with three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs! anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog <3

(alex, i think you’ve already done this so feel free to ignore if you want to lmaoooo)

(yea i’ve already done it twice lmfao it’s fine)

i’m absolutely horrible at coming up with facts about myselffffff

1. i really want to learn how to crochet, but i don’t know where to start lol

2. my first concert was ed sheeran, in march last year (unless you count the one my parents took me to when i was like. 3 months old. and i slept through it)

3. i was born over 2 months early :))

[justlikebart-allen]

saw a couple posts about today (Aug 9th) being Damian Wayne's birthday, but when I looked for a source I couldn't find one for the life of me. which of course sent me down a rabbit hole of batfam birthdays. so.

Official Birthdays

*official as in they appear in canon and seem to be the most popular amongst fans. a bunch of these knuckleheads have multiple birthdays.

Cassandra Cain was born on January 26th according to Batgirl (2000) #33, though in that same issue she celebrates it some time in June because fuck her dad.

Bruce Wayne was born of February 19th according to the Detective Comics #494 fan letters column. Or April 7th, if you're looking at Star Spangled Comics #91 (Golden Age), or October 7th in Legends of the Dark Knight (2021) #10. Feb 19th seems to be the one that's used most often.

Dick Grayson was born on "the first day of spring" (aka March 20th) according to Robin (1993) Annual #4, or November 11th according to the Super DC Calendar of 1976, or a week-ish before Halloween according to Secret Origins (1986) #50, or December 1st according to Young Justice (2011) #20. March 20th fits into the robin origin story though, so we're gonna go with that.

Alfred Pennyworth was born on April 8th according to the Super DC Calendar of 1976, or August 16th according to Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Five #26 (side note: double colons in titles should be illegal). Neither of these are anywhere near real canon, but Injustice is supplementary material for a fighting game, and I'm always more inclined to go with a pure comics source. Plus this way he and Jason don't have to share.

Tim Drake was born on July 19th according to Robin (1993) #116. He's only got the one birthday and in that issue he totally forgot about it.

Jason Todd was born on August 16th according to Detective Comics #790. No information on when exactly his rebirth day is.

Barbara Gordon was born on September 23rd according to the Super DC Calendar of 1976. That's the only source we've got so that's what we're gonna use.

Unofficial Birthdays

Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, and Damian Wayne have never had their birthdays stated in canon, so most people have assigned them birthdays based on either their debut date (Duke) or some other criteria that is a mystery to me. Those dates (from what I have gathered) respectively are:

Steph: August 11th, Duke: August 13th, Damian: August 9th

WHY ARE THEY ALL AUGUST??? THAT'S 4 (or 5 if you count Alfred) BIRTHDAYS IN THE SPAN OF A WEEK! WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE TO BE LEOS???

anyway that's the fruits of my afternoon/evening. if anyone has corrections with sources or dc canonizes a birthday in a comic I'm not reading (which is most of them, my comics taste is stuck in the 90s/early 2000s), let me know.

[antiporn-activist]

A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html

Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more.

Feb. 22, 2024

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller

The ominous messages began arriving in Elissa’s inbox early last year.

“You sell pics of your underage daughter to pedophiles,” read one. “You’re such a naughty sick mom, you’re just as sick as us pedophiles,” read another. “I will make your life hell for you and your daughter.”

Elissa has been running her daughter’s Instagram account since 2020, when the girl was 11 and too young to have her own. Photos show a bright, bubbly girl modeling evening dresses, high-end workout gear and dance leotards. She has more than 100,000 followers, some so enthusiastic about her posts that they pay $9.99 a month for more photos.

Over the years, Elissa has fielded all kinds of criticism and knows full well that some people think she is exploiting her daughter. She has even gotten used to receiving creepy messages, but these — from “Instamodelfan” — were extreme. “I think they’re all pedophiles,” she said of the many online followers obsessed with her daughter and other young girls.

Elissa and her daughter inhabit the world of Instagram influencers whose accounts are managed by their parents. Although the site prohibits children under 13, parents can open so-called mom-run accounts for them, and they can live on even when the girls become teenagers.

But what often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children, an investigation by The New York Times found. 

For this investigation, the reporters analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, monitored months of online chats of professed pedophiles and interviewed over 100 people, including parents and children.

Thousands of accounts examined by The Times offer disturbing insights into how social media is reshaping childhood, especially for girls, with direct parental encouragement and involvement. Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos, exclusive chat sessions and even the girls’ worn leotards and cheer outfits to mostly unknown followers. The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing the underage relationships.

The large audiences boosted by men can benefit the families, The Times found. The bigger followings look impressive to brands and bolster chances of getting discounts, products and other financial incentives, and the accounts themselves are rewarded by Instagram’s algorithm with greater visibility on the platform, which in turn attracts more followers.

One calculation performed by an audience demographics firm found 32 million connections to male followers among the 5,000 accounts examined by The Times.

Interacting with the men opens the door to abuse. Some flatter, bully and blackmail girls and their parents to get racier and racier images. The Times monitored separate exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app, where men openly fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily available.

“It’s like a candy store 😍😍😍,” one of them wrote. “God bless instamoms 🙌,” wrote another.

The troubling interactions on Instagram come as social media companies increasingly dominate the cultural landscape and the internet is seen as a career path of its own.

Nearly one in three preteens lists influencing as a career goal, and 11 percent of those born in Generation Z, between 1997 and 2012, describe themselves as influencers. The so-called creator economy surpasses $250 billion worldwide, according to Goldman Sachs, with U.S. brands spending more than $5 billion a year on influencers.

Health and technology experts have recently cautioned that social media presents a “profound risk of harm” for girls. Constant comparisons to their peers and face-altering filters are driving negative feelings of self-worth and promoting objectification of their bodies, researchers found.

But the pursuit of online fame, particularly through Instagram, has supercharged the often toxic phenomenon, The Times found, encouraging parents to commodify their children’s images. Some of the child influencers earn six-figure incomes, according to interviews.

“I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet,” said Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia, who like Elissa and many other parents interviewed by The Times agreed to be identified only by a middle name to protect the privacy of her child.

“But she’s been doing this so long now,” she said. “Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?”

In investigating this growing and unregulated ecosystem, The Times analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, monitored months of online chats of professed pedophiles and reviewed thousands of pages of police reports and court documents.

Reporters also interviewed more than 100 people, including parents in the United States and three other countries, their children, child safety experts, tech company employees and followers of the accounts, some of whom were convicted sex offenders.

This is how The Times found its sample of 5,000 mom-run accounts.

The accounts range from dancers whose mothers diligently cull men from the ranks of followers, to girls in skimpy bikinis whose parents actively encourage male admirers and sell them special photo sets. While there are some mom-run accounts for boys, they are the exception.

Some girls on Instagram use their social media clout to get little more than clothing discounts; others receive gifts from Amazon wish lists, or money through Cash App; and still others earn thousands of dollars a month by selling subscriptions with exclusive content.

In interviews and online comments, parents said that their children enjoyed being on social media or that it was important for a future career. But some expressed misgivings. Kaelyn, whose daughter is now 17, said she worried that a childhood spent sporting bikinis online for adult men had scarred her.

“She’s written herself off and decided that the only way she’s going to have a future is to make a mint on OnlyFans,” she said, referring to a website that allows users to sell adult content to subscribers. “She has way more than that to offer.”

She warned mothers not to make their children social media influencers. “With the wisdom and knowledge I have now, if I could go back, I definitely wouldn’t do it,” she said. “I’ve been stupidly, naïvely, feeding a pack of monsters, and the regret is huge.”

Account owners who report explicit images or potential predators to Instagram are typically met with silence or indifference, and those who block many abusers have seen their own accounts’ ability to use certain features limited, according to the interviews and documents. In the course of eight months, The Times made over 50 reports of its own about questionable material and received only one response.

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, found that 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions every day, according to an internal study in 2020 quoted in legal proceedings.

In a statement to The Times, Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, said that parents were responsible for the accounts and their content and could delete them anytime.

“Anyone on Instagram can control who is able to tag, mention or message them, as well as who can comment on their account,” Mr. Stone added, noting a feature that allows parents to ban comments with certain words. “On top of that, we prevent accounts exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior from using our monetization tools, and we plan to limit such accounts from accessing subscription content.”

Influencers use TikTok, too, but Instagram is easier for parents to navigate and better suited to the kinds of photos that brands want. It is also home to a longstanding network of parents and brands that predated TikTok.

From time to time, Instagram removes child-influencer accounts for unspecified reasons or because people flag them as inappropriate, The Times found. In extreme cases, parents and photographers have been arrested or convicted of child exploitation, but barring evidence of illegal images, most of the activity does not draw the attention of law enforcement.

Like many parents, Elissa, who received the threatening messages about her daughter’s photos, said she protected her daughter by handling the account exclusively herself. Ultimately, she concluded, the Instagram community is dominated by “disgusting creeps,” but she nonetheless keeps the account up and running. Shutting it down, she said, would be “giving in to bullies.”

The account’s risks became apparent last spring when the person messaging her threatened to report her to the police and others unless she completed “a small task.” When she did not respond, the person emailed the girl’s school, saying Elissa sold “naughty” pictures to pedophiles.

Days later, the girl tearfully explained to her mother that school officials had questioned her about the Instagram account. They showed her images that her mother had posted — one of the girl in hot pants and fishnets, another in a leotard and sweatshirt.

Elissa had reported the blackmail to the local sheriff, but school officials only dropped the matter after an emotional interrogation of the girl.

“I was crying,” the girl said in an interview. “I was just scared. I didn’t understand what was going on.”

‘Walking Advertising’

In today’s creator economy, companies often turn to social media influencers to attract new customers. Giants like Kim Kardashian, who has 364 million followers on Instagram, have turned the phenomenon into a big business.

Young girls strive to do the same.

In the dance and gymnastics worlds, teens and preteens jockey to become brand ambassadors for products and apparel. They don bikinis in Instagram posts, walk runways in youth fashion shows and offer paid subscriptions to videos showing the everyday goings-on of children seeking internet fame.

“We costumed somebody for ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ thinking that would be huge P.R., but we ended up finding out the bigger return on investment is these microinfluencers,” she said. “We have parents that will spend thousands of dollars to buy styles that no one else will have. That’s our best market.”

The most successful girls can demand $3,000 from their sponsors for a single post on Instagram, but monetary gain can be elusive for others, who receive free or discounted clothes in exchange for their posts and have to pay for their own hairstyling and makeup, among other costs. Even youth fashion shows, including events in New York that coincide but are not affiliated with New York Fashion Week, charge the girls to participate and charge their parents to attend.

In interviews, parents defended spending the money to promote their daughters’ influencer ambitions, describing them as extracurricular activities that build confidence, develop friendships and create social media résumés that will follow them into adulthood.

“It’s like a little security blanket,” said a New Jersey mother whose mom-run account has led to paid modeling jobs for her daughter and invitations to work with sought-after choreographers. “She can help pay for college if she does it right,” she said.

A mother in Alabama said parents couldn’t ignore the reality of this new economy.

“Social media is the way of our future, and I feel like they’ll be behind if they don’t know what’s going on,” the mother said. “You can’t do anything without it now.”

One 12-year-old girl in Maryland, who spoke with The Times alongside her mother, described the thrill of seeing other girls she knows wear a brand she represents in Instagram posts.

“People are actually being influenced by me,” she said.

In 2022, Instagram launched paid subscriptions, which allows followers to pay a monthly fee for exclusive content and access. The rules don’t allow subscriptions for anyone under 18, but the mom-run accounts sidestep that restriction. The Times found dozens that charged from 99 cents to $19.99. At the highest price, parents offered “ask me anything” chat sessions and behind-the-scenes photos.

Child safety experts warn the subscriptions and other features could lead to unhealthy interactions, with men believing they have a special connection to the girls and the girls believing they must meet the men’s needs.

“I have reservations about a child feeling like they have to satisfy either adults in their orbit or strangers who are asking something from them,” said Sally Theran, a professor at Wellesley College and clinical psychologist who studies online relationships. “It’s really hard to give consent to that when your frontal lobe isn’t fully developed.”

Instagram isn’t alone in the subscription business. Some parents promote other platforms on their mom-run accounts. One of them, Brand Army, caters to adult influencers but also has “junior channel” parent-run subscriptions ranging from free to $250 monthly.

“Message me anytime. You will have more opportunities for buying and receiving super exclusive content😘,” read a description for a $25 subscription to a minor’s account. For $100 a month, subscribers can get “live interactive video chats,” unlimited direct messages and a mention on the girl’s Instagram story.

The Times subscribed to several accounts to glean what content is being offered and how much money is being made. On one account, 141 subscribers liked a photo only available to those who paid $100 monthly, indicating over $14,000 in subscription revenue.

Some of the descriptions also highlight the revealing nature of photos. One account for a child around 14 years old encouraged new sign-ups at the end of last year by branding the days between Christmas and New Year’s as “Bikini Week.” An account for a 17-year-old girl advertised that she wasn’t wearing underwear in a workout photo set and, as a result, the images were “uh … a lot spicier than usual.”

The girl’s “Elite VIP” subscription costs $250 a month.

Brand Army’s founder, Ramon Mendez, said that junior-channel users were a minority on his platform and that moderating their pages had grown so problematic that he discontinued new sign-ups.

“We’ve removed thousands of pieces of content,” he said. “The parents’ behavior is just disgusting. We don’t want to be part of it.”

‘The Wealth of the Wicked’

“You are so sexy,” read one comment on an image of a 5-year-old girl in a ruffled bikini. “Those two little things look great thru ur top,” said another on a video of a girl dancing in a white cropped shirt, who months later posted pictures of her 11th birthday party.

For many mom-run accounts, comments from men — admiring, suggestive or explicit — are a recurring scourge to be eradicated, or an inescapable fact of life to be ignored. For others, they are a source to be tapped.

“The first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do when I go to bed is block accounts,” said Lynn, the mother of a 6-year-old girl in Florida who has about 3,000 followers from the dance world.

Another mother, Gail from Texas, described being desensitized to the men’s messages. “I don’t have as much of an emotional response anymore,” she said. “It’s weird to be so numb to that, but the quantity is just astounding.”

Meta does not provide public information about who uses Instagram, so The Times analyzed data from the audience firms Modash and HypeAuditor, which estimate follower demographics based on their own algorithms.

The proportion of male followers varied greatly in The Times’s sample, according to the estimates. Many accounts had a few thousand followers who were mostly female. But while men accounted for about 35 percent of the audience overall, their presence grew dramatically as accounts became more popular. Many with more than 100,000 followers had a male audience of over 75 percent, and a few of them over 90 percent, the analysis showed.

To be sure, not all men following the accounts have bad intentions. Some are grandparents and fathers of the young influencers. Many have inoffensive profiles and simply post compliments or greetings, and mothers react appreciatively.

“In responding or even hitting ‘like’ on it, it boosts your algorithm,” said a mother in Florida whose 16-year-old daughter has been an Instagram influencer for six years. “We tried shutting comments off at one point, and some of the brands didn’t like that.”

Brands that feature children from mom-run accounts face similar challenges.

Dean Stockton, who runs a small clothing company in Florida called Original Hippie, often features girls from the Instagram accounts, who earn a commission when customers use personalized discount codes. After initially deleting many male followers, he now sees them as a way to grow the account and give it a wider audience because the platform rewards large followings.

“The Bible says, ‘The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous,’” he said. “So sometimes you got to use the things of this world to get you to where you need to be, as long as it’s not harming anybody.”

Mr. Stockton said he deleted male followers who were disrespectful or sexual in their interactions. An examination by The Times of the three dozen brands that are popular among mom-run accounts found inappropriate, predatory or pornographic followers in almost all of the brands’ accounts, including Original Hippie.

Many of the men posted pornography, or their bios included sexual language and emojis that child protection experts say pedophiles can use to signal interest in children. For instance, one follower of a children’s dance wear brand described himself as a “thong & anl sx lover.” A user named “sexy_69nazi” followed a children’s apparel company and exclusively posted pornography.

Chixit, a brand selling swimwear and other clothing, describes itself as “an International Sorority,” but business records show that it was run by Philip Russo, who advertised himself as a tutor operating out of his home in the Hudson Valley of New York. Other websites registered to Mr. Russo’s email are a tutoring business and inactive domain names describing sex with animals.

After The Times reached out to Mr. Russo, the website for his tutoring business went offline. He did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment.

‘Girls Become a Currency’

The vast world of child-influencer followers on Instagram includes men who have been charged with or convicted of sex crimes, and those who engage in forums off platform where child sexual abuse imagery, including of girls on Instagram, is shared.

The Times traced the account of one follower, who goes by the moniker “jizzquizz,” to a man named Joshua V. Rubel, 39. He was convicted in 2008 of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and is listed on the New Jersey sex offender registry. (Instagram’s policy bars sex offenders from using the platform, and the company said it removed two accounts after The Times pointed them out.)

Another account belongs to Daniel Duane Huver, a man in Lansing, Mich., who told law enforcement in 2018 that he had “top fan status” on girls’ pages, a designation bestowed by Instagram’s sister company, Facebook. The police searched Mr. Huver’s cellphone after it was confiscated by his probation officer and found hundreds of images and videos of children, including many considered inappropriate and sexually suggestive and two believed to be illegal (showing minors engaged in explicit acts.)

Mr. Huver told officers he was sexually attracted to children and masturbated to images of them, according to police records. He was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material, but the prosecutor in Eaton County later dropped charges, citing insufficient evidence because of the poor quality of the imagery.

Mr. Rubel did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Huver said that the police mischaracterized his words and that the lack of prosecution was evidence he had done nothing wrong.

In monitoring multiple Telegram chat rooms, The Times found men who treat children’s Instagram pages and subscription services as menus to satisfy their fantasies. They trade information about parents considered receptive to producing and selling “private sets” of images.

A group with more than 4,000 members was highly organized, with an F.A.Q. page and a Google sheet that tracked nearly 700 children, identifying them by hashtags to help members find them within the long chat history. The group’s logo showed a child’s hand in an adult hand.

The Times asked the Canadian Center for Child Protection, an organization that monitors online child exploitation, to review links and other potentially illegal material posted by the Telegram groups and elsewhere. The center identified child sexual abuse imagery involving multiple underage Instagram models from around the world, as well as sexualized videos of others, including a preteen girl wearing a thong and a young teenager raising her dress to show her bikini bottom.

Men in these groups frequently praise the advent of Instagram as a golden age for child exploitation.

“I’m so glad for these new moms pimping their daughters out,” wrote one of them. “And there’s an infinite supply of it — literally just refresh your Instagram Explore page there’s fresh preteens.”

A small group of men go even further and cultivate business and patronage relationships with mothers.

One man posts videos and photos on Instagram of girls thanking him for shopping sprees, gifts like iPhones and iPads, and cash. If he does not receive a message of gratitude quickly, he sometimes shames the mother and daughter on his private Instagram account.

Another makes recommendations about increasing visibility by using specific hashtags and photographers. But two mothers said they became suspicious, and stopped working with the man, after he suggested they make certain their daughters’ nipples and other private areas could be detected through their outfits.

A third man tried to persuade a mother to sell her daughter’s used leotards because many men, including himself, were “collectors,” according to a recording of the conversation.

“In retrospect I feel like such a stupid mom, but I’m not stupid,” said a mother of a young gymnast, who dealt with similar men before she realized they were predators and received threatening messages from several of them. “I didn’t understand what grooming was.”

Sometimes the men flirt or try to develop virtual romances with mothers, offer to protect them and become possessive and angry if they interact with other men.

“It’s almost like the girls become a currency,” said the gymnast’s mother, who did not want to be named.

This feeling of ownership and jealousy can drive attempts at blackmail, The Times found.

Instamodelfan, who sent threatening messages to Elissa, sent blackmail threats to at least five other mom-run accounts. When one mother responded, he demanded that she sexually abuse her child and send him photos and videos, emails to the mother show. She refused and contacted law enforcement.

The Times communicated with a person identified on Telegram as Instamodelfan who said that he lashed out at the mothers because he believed other men got illegal images of children and he wanted them for himself.

Reporters also received information from an anonymous tipster, who they later found was linked to the blackmailer, indicating that some parents had produced explicit imagery of their daughters.

The Canadian center reviewed the imagery and said it included illegal nude photos of two girls. One girl’s mother said she was shaken to learn of the photos and did not know who could have made them. The other girl, now 17, said in an interview that the photos were for her and a girlfriend and that she told law enforcement that they had been stolen.

Others images either were borderline illegal, were too poor quality to be conclusive or were digitally altered, the center said.

Several mothers who had been identified by the tipster said they reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, they said, had conducted an investigation. The F.B.I. declined to comment.

Ultimately, the gymnast’s mother said, a federal agent told them to stop talking to men online.

“They told everyone to get off Instagram,” she said. “‘You’re in over your head. Get off.’ That’s what they told us.”

‘My Limit of Pedophiles’

Meta failed to act on multiple reports made by parents and even restricted those who tried to police their own followers, according to interviews and materials provided by the parents.

If parents block too many followers’ accounts in a day, Meta curtails their ability to block or follow others, they said.

“I remember being told, like, I’ve reached my limit,” said a mother of two dancers in Arizona who declined to be named. “Like what? I reached my limit of pedophiles for today. OK, great.”

Mr. Stone, the Meta spokesman, said “there are lots of reasons an account might face limitations or restrictions based the account’s activity,” and therefore it was difficult to know why parents encountered these problems.

Ms. Pastore of LA Dance Designs said it was “very much overdue” for Instagram to add the ability to filter by age and sex to help identify suspicious followers. “If you’re starting to gain a following, there needs to be some sort of way to control it,” she said.

Even some egregious violations led to no action by Meta.

One parent reported a photo of erect male genitalia sent in a direct message. Another reported an account that reposted children’s photos with explicit captions. A third reported a user who propositioned her child for sex, offering $65,000 for “an hour” with the girl.

In response to those three reports, Meta said either that the communications did not violate “community guidelines” or that its staff did not have time to review them. In other cases, Meta told parents that it relied on its “technology” to determine the content was “probably” not a violation.

Separately, The Times found comments that included links to sites identified by the Canadian center as trading illegal, nude imagery of children. None of those reports received a response from Meta.

Former Meta trust and safety employees described an organization overwhelmed despite knowing about the problem for years.

“You hear, ‘I reported this account, it was harassing my daughter, why is he back?’” said a former investigator for the company who requested anonymity. “There are not enough people, resources and systems to tackle all of it.”

In recent years, conspiracy theories like QAnon, which claims Democratic politicians are trafficking children, have led to an excess of unfounded reports that have muddled the evaluation of child abuse tips, three former Meta trust and safety employees said.

A 2020 document that surfaced in a lawsuit described child safety as a “non-goal” at Meta. “If we do something here, cool,” the document said. “But if we do nothing at all, that’s fine too.” The lawsuit was brought against Meta and other companies claiming damage from using social media. Lawyers for the plaintiffs declined to provide more information about the document.

In documents from 2018 included in a separate lawsuit making similar claims of harm, a top Facebook executive told Instagram’s chief executive that unless changes were made, Facebook and Instagram were “basically massive ‘victim discovery services,’” an allusion to the considerable evidence of abuse on the platforms.

Mr. Stone, the Meta spokesman, disputed the suggestion that the trust team was understaffed and underfunded, saying that 40,000 employees worked on safety and security and that the company had invested $20 billion in such efforts since 2016. He also referred to a previous statement about the lawsuits, saying they “mischaracterize our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

In addition, he noted that Meta reported more suspected child abuse imagery to the authorities than any other company each year. In December, it announced plans to encrypt its messaging services, which would reduce the reports.

‘It’s All Over Instagram’

Experts in child protection and development say young people should never be made to have negative feelings about their bodies. But clothing that is appropriate in a gym or dance competition may take on an unintended meaning when shared online.

Children’s dance attire regularly features strappy bra tops, sheer fabric and bikini bottoms, and popular cheer outfits combine sports bras with little skirts — part of a long-term trend toward more revealing clothing for girls.

“In the dance world we’re in, they’re half naked all the time and their legs are in the air,” said a mother in Massachusetts who declined to be named. “And if you’re not used to seeing that, maybe it’s different.”

Lynn, whose granddaughter in Texas is an ambassador for a cheerleading brand, said there was no logic to the reactions her posts received. Photos of the girl’s feet attract the most extreme comments, she said. “You can’t stop weird people, I guess.”

Still, many of the would-be influencers suffer. In some instances criticism of the posts, and accompanying bullying, becomes so severe that mothers turn to home-schooling.

“She got slaughtered all through primary school,” said Kaelyn, the mother in Melbourne. “Children were telling her, ‘We can’t play with you because my mom said too many perverts follow you on the internet.’”

In the United States, parents have substantial leeway in making decisions about their children. But people who suspect illegal behavior on Instagram quickly discover that the authorities are overwhelmed and typically focus on the clearest-cut cases.

Even the most unsettling images of sexualized child influencers tend to fall into a legal gray area. To meet the federal definition of so-called child pornography, the law generally requires a “lascivious exhibition” of the anal or genital area, though courts have found the requirement can be met without nudity or sheer clothing.

There have been criminal prosecutions against parents accused in child sexual abuse cases.

In Louisiana last year, a mother was arrested and charged with working with a photographer to produce illegal images of her daughter in a thong bikini. In Texas, a mother was sentenced to 32 years in prison in December for producing nude photos of her 8-year-old daughter with the same photographer. And in North Carolina, a mother is awaiting trial on charges that she took her 15-year-old daughter to a photographer who sexually abused her and she failed to get medical help when the girl tried to kill herself, according to court documents.

Still, those prosecutions are rare, and some male followers of the mom-run accounts openly welcome the windfall.

“As long as this stuff legally exists, I just enjoy it :),” one of them wrote on Telegram.

“Exactly,” another responded. “It’s all over Instagram.”

[obbystars]

// SEBASTIAN BACKSTORY SPOILERS

I never realized how young Sebastian actually was when he was “found guilty” of 9 murders.

The wiki says he was born on Feb. 3 1993 and by 2013, he was either 19 or 20 when he was falsely charged and Urbanshade snatched him up. Early 2015 when Urbanshade decided to use him as an experiment, he was probably 21. 22 when they found out he wasn’t actually the murderer as it took place in the same year, just late 2015.

The game takes place in 2025, so that mf was there for 10 years.

Honestly shit dude, I’d do the same thing he did and causing the site-wide lockdown.

[kate-inhaler-1975]

IDK if you've mentioned it before but what era was Matty in when girly gave birth to Rosie?

Like I think you might have mentioned 2020 Matty but I could be imagining things 😭

But if you have or even haven't mentioned it before can you do a bit of a blurb about having a new born during lockdown and how they coped with it and stuff xoxo

(yes this is the era that Matty became a dad, i didn't make the rules 💅)

I'M SO READY TO TALK ABOUT THIS!!! DAD!MATTY BLURB IN COMING!!!!

Rosie was born in October 2020 (I think that's what I wrote anyway) so when girly found out she was pregnant it was like, EARLY 2020 MFC tour days. She 100% found out she was pregnant on one of the Australian dates in Feb 2020 (I could do a full oneshot on that one fr) . Every doctors appointment once lockdown started in March she had to go to on her own even though they obviously went completely private with the birth but in my head girly 110% had a home birth. So all the appointments were really hard and nerve wrecking for the both of them because they just wanted each other to be there.

In my mind she chose a home birth because if not she would’ve had to do it alone because of the restrictions and Matty is practically her life line so she couldn’t do it without him being there 24/7, literally every step of the way.

Once everything after the birth settles down everything is kinda quiet and peaceful. Like, girly was meant to be a mother so she's practically a natural, it's Matty who I think has a bit more of a difficult time getting used to things but over time (and pretty quickly) he adapts to everything and all of Rosie's needs. He also struggled with feeling pretty useless when it came to certain things, so when girly gave him the task of baby proofing the concrete bunker he fully jumped at the chance.

They didn't really get an extra hands from Denise or Tim because of all the Covid restrictions, so they did and learned everything together, just the two of them.

But now that Rosie is a few months away from turning four in present time, they definitely feel like if they started trying soon for baby number two they'd be super parents and they'd have everything under control lol.

[imaginespazzi]

I've been letting your story marinate for a few days. Perfection as always.

I'm very interested in this timeline because Paige getting married after a year dating and Azzi being very pregnant got my braincells firing. And I wonder if one is an (in)direct result of the other. Sorry this is long but I had to write it out.

Feb 2033 - Present day, Stephie is 5. Paige and Azzi not really spoken in 8 years.

2030 - P and Olivia divorce.

September 2029 - Stephie about 18 months. Paige married. Found it interesting that Paige wears an engagement ring...

Jan/Feb 2028 - Stephie born.

December 2027 - Paige's wedding, very Azzi pregnant (the timeline is timelining for me around this). Paige and Olivia been dating 'barely a year.'

Early 2027ish - Azzi flies to Dallas sees Paige and Olivia together, leaves.

Late 2026 - P and Olivia start dating. Paige hid the relationship for the first few months.

May 2024 - End of school year, Paige going into her final season in 2024-2025, appears Azzi is planning on staying until 2026.

September 2017 - Baby Pazzi being adorkable

Other thoughts as I re-read hunting for clues.

I feel like when Azzi's not around and Stephie is over Katie and Tim talked about Paige, she seemed to know a lot about her beyond just seeing her play a handful of times.

The fracturing seemed to happen while still at UConn judging by comments by Jana/Ice. And it was clearly pretty bad from the way the UConn girlies still react to it.

As a side note I kinda don't blame Azzi for feeling so off kilter, Paige parachutes back into her life after barely speaking in a decade, and slides back into how she's so pretty and all this like she didn't have a whole ass WIFE in between. I'd also feel whiplash from it tbh.

Paige doing all those little things that aren't her for the wedding she so wants to love Olivia as much as Azzi but can't. Feels like a massive red flag to be thinking about the girl you wish you could have married on your wedding day.

8 years and it seems like Paige has no idea why Azzi said no?

Azzi feels so guilty but part of me thinks she had a reason that made sense at the time that Paige couldn't/wouldn't try to understand.

I have a partial theory but will save it so as not to put out any potential spoilers (not saying I'm super confident lol).

OMG babes you're pretty much spot on with your timelines. Here's my timeline (literally written on a sticky note on my laptop) for cross-reference (spoilers crossed out obvi)

Yes absolutely, Katie and Tim have definitely spoken about Paige in front of Stephie and especially since Stephie would be with them at Wings vs Valkyries games, they'd make sure she knew

Whiplash + residual guilt, like Azzi's definitely got some valid concerns at the moment

You know how Azzi has warning bells? Paige reeeeeally needs some of those or maybe she does have them, but when they were ringing like crazy on her wedding day, she did an incredible job of ignoring them

Paige and Azzi have had their moments over the course of 8 years but they've definitely never addressed anything they should...

OMG please send me your theory and add like a clue/emoji or something so I can confirm if you're close or not without posting it cause I really wanna hear it.

[libbee]

My astrology observations Part 1 (Feb 2023)

⚘ Scorpio placements

They cling to their emotions for longer than it is needed. Even if they are consciously aware of their rumination, it is very difficult to shake off the extreme feelings. They tend to revisit the memories from past. Even when life is good, they remind themselves of the bad that happened in past.

Sense of injustice, unfairness of life, revenge tendency exist. My mom as venus in scorprio keeps ruminating everything that offended or triggered her.

Tend to be very aware of human psychology since childhood. Their spirituality is not "everyone is love and compassion" but it is through psychology that they spiritually grow.

⚘Aries placements:

Short tempered. Leaderly. Quite confident even if they are in the wrong. Their confident and self assuredness can be an obstacle when they refuse to take responsibility for their wrong.

On the upside, aries placement is go getter and life up the spirit with their confidence when otherwise the situation is pessimistic. Their heatedness and mars energy also makes them hardworking. They are far from lethargic.

⚘Gemini placements:

Teenager energy. Emotional maturity is that of a teenager. **It is my insight that Gemini people talk a lot because it helps them ease their anxiety. Since they are so detached from their core and feelings, their anxiety builds up as a result of ignoring their true emotions - this is released through communication and especially verbal output.

I would not be surprised if most of the comedians, talk show hosts, chatty people have one gemini placement. Gemini needs to talk like it needs to breathe.

They are actually quite flaky. They remind me of youtube shorts section - going from one thing to the other throughout the day. I would bet most influencers have to have an air placement to be putting themselves out there in a public display. They are the only ones who can brainstorm ideas and content creation. Especially the memes, comedy, skits section. For eg, I used to watch Ryan Higa a lot and he was born in 6 June 1990. I dont have his birth details though I can figure out he must have some gemini placement and his youtube channel in early days was proof of that.

Not that gemini cannot mature but they must have a water placement in D1 or D9 chart to outgrow their flakiness eventually.

⚘Libra placements:

They actually avoid conflicts. But if their other placement is fire sign then are go from short tempered to conflict avoidant back and forth. Conflicting placements in the chart create a mess. For eg, water and fire placements together cannot be stable with either. Similarly, water and air placements - they are either feeling to the extreme or jumping emotions like it is nothing.

Yes they are charming too. Something about them makes them very charmful. Also people pleasers and codependent. Insecurities are a hell of a thing. Who is not insecure in this world? It can take a lifetime to outgrow an insecurity but the person has to be willing to work on it.

⚘Moon sign and mother connection:

Moon sign and placement shows how the mother actually behaves with you. Two siblings in one house can have different perspective of their mom. I have gemini moon and I perceive my mom as a friend like, funny, jokey but it is in 8th house so the eggshells, volatility, shadow projection is also there. My brother has pisces moon so he views mom as emotional bag and thinks her energy is attractive but it is also in 8th house so he dealt with eggshells and projection too.

My cousin has moon in scorpio and his mom is the hallmark sociopath and it is in 8th house so as a grown up he is low contact with her. The most striking theme is that for the other external world their mom is a different person but only the child knows that mom is not consistent and stable.

These moms project their shadow on the child and think their child is all those insecurities they have in themselves. For eg, if they think they are stupid then they project it on their child too and think their child is stupid too.

⚘Saturn in 8th house:

Saturn and 8th house. Sigh. Double patty karma burger. Hard working, disciplined but seems to be a pattern that their hard work is washed by unpredictable detour. They work hard to go from block 1 to 4 but fate pushes them back to block 2. Very fated life.

Unless their chart has inner planets in 8th too they are very resistant to personality change. And unfortunately personality change is the lesson of 8th house. Psychological death and rebirth is the lesson of 8th house and saturn resists that. They have a fear of change even if they are consciously aware that something is wrong in their life. Personality change can reduce a lot of life problems but people resist that.

May have a "started from the bottom now we are here" story. Their grit and saturn's rewards can make them self made persons.

🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

[celticcrossanon]

Hi CC, I hope you are faring well in the heat these days. It must be challenging.

I have questions about MM' pregnancies. If the children weren't birthed by MM, is it possible that she will champion the rights of women who have fertility issues - saying IVF, surrogacy, and even donated sperm/eggs (which I don't believe they used), is the norm. I read years back that Sophie was considering IVF for her second pregnancy.

Another possibility is that Archie was conceived before the wedding. Again she may argue that having children with a partner who isn't a spouse is common these days.

I'm also curious why they got engaged when they did. Was there a rush that was real or pretend? (Eg pregnancy that was faked or really did not go to term.) There has been speculation.

Even though both children look like their parents, something seems off. There's smoke and somewhere there is a fire that has legal ramifications for the BRF. Ultimately she presented as pregnant both times. So if she wasn't, the duplicity would be next level!

Thanks

Hi Nonny,

It was and is challenging, but we have some cooler weather for Xmas, which is nice (it heats up again after the 26th, I think).

Meghan may try to do something with fertility issues to get herself out of the hole she is in, but that will do nothing for the main issue. If the children were not born of her body then they have no place in the Line of Succession, as they were not pushed into the world by the legal spouse of Prince Harry. It is harsh but the law is clear - if the legal wife of a royal does not carry you and push you out into the world (or have a caesarean), then you are not born 'of their body' and therefore you have no place in the line of succession. Making a fuss about fertility issues some 4? 5? years after the event will not make your deception any less of a deception, and it will not do away with the legal consequences of your actions.

The wedding was on 19 May 2018, Archie was supposedly born 6 May 2019. That is about a year between the wedding and the birth. If Meghan was pregnant when she married Harry, Archie would have been born at the most 8-9 months after the wedding, so say Feb 2019. There is no reason why the couple could not have announced a 'honeymoon baby' and then announce the actual birth if that was the case. In February Meghan was still going everywhere clutching her huge bump, so no early birth for her.

I have read on the reason for the rushed wedding. From memory, there were indications in the cards that Meghan faked a pregnancy to get the knot tied quickly. I can read on that again. The other theory that I incline towards is that they were already married in some sort of ceremony somewhere, although in that case I am not sure why they were given the highly inappropriate big white wedding.

I believe that Meghan wasn't pregnant both times. Her physical changes did not match the natural changes of pregnancy, and we actually had some obstetricians and their relatives writing in at the time saying the pregnancy was a badly done fake (I know, take all tea with a truckful of salt etc). What convinced me was the unnatural changes in her baby bump, like the ones below. No one inflates/deflates like that over an hour, or even a day. I also believe she has no morals or conscience that would prevent her from faking a pregnancy and then pretending to give borth. Other people may think differently, of course.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I think M could’ve got an invite in 2019 but her bad behavior was already starting to leak out and her inability to dress properly also made designers not want to dress her and that she was pregnant

I wonder if she was angry that Archie was due then (apparently she was really overdue, but some say she was saying she was near the end in Dec at Christmas… some say Archie was born Feb or Mar) and took attention away from her

I just don’t understand the whole fiasco about the birth and the announcement and then the birth certificate too… and then Waaah saying she was home asap after an epidural & traumatic birth?

Yeah, there are a lot of questions about Archie's birth.

I don't know if I buy the "really overdue" story. I think she was overdue, but it wouldn't have been that overdue because it would've been considered high risk since she was having a geriatric pregnancy - which is what they call any pregnancy for any woman over 35 - and going too overdue would've been even riskier, to the point where she would have been induced.

I'll give her being a few days overdue but if her due date was March, there's no way her doctors would have let her continue to carry for over a month longer.

A theory to consider: (it's easier if I write this out in bullet points so just bear with me)

Meghan and Harry insist that they didn't announce the pregnancy early, that she was already out of her first trimester when they began telling people at Eugenie's wedding. So if she's 12 weeks at Eugenie's wedding (October 12, 2018), that puts conception at the end of July and her due date around April 15.

After the pregnancy was officially announced, Meghan was papped carrying two purple binders. In the virtue-signalling and IVF worlds, two purple items means boy-girl twins. A twin pregnancy would have been due mid-March.

Then there was the too-big-too-soon belly, further contributing to the theory that it was twins.

In January, Meghan famously made her "not too long to go" comment, suggesting that the baby was due sooner, supporting the theory of a March due date for twins.

Also, I'm not sure that the palace ever followed up the "Meghan's pregnant, baby due in Spring" announcement with a second announcement stating which month the baby was expected (as they did for each of Kate's pregnancies). So Spring, in the UK, is March through May.

Around February 20th, the infamous baby shower at the Mark Hotel (i.e., where the celebs stay to get ready for the Met Gala) instead of Diana favorite The Carlyle. This is where it starts to unravel for Meghan: if she had a March due date, then there's no way any doctor would have allowed her to fly a long-haul flight that late in her pregnancy, even if it was a private charter, and most absolutely not if it was a twin pregnancy. So clearly the baby wasn't due in March and it was no longer twins. Then, all the decor at the baby shower was in light pink, suggesting Meghan was having a little girl.

May 6th, Baby Boy Archie is born. But if it's true conception was end of July with Meghan being exactly 12 weeks at Eugenie's wedding, this would put her at 3 weeks overdue and that seems really risky for a geriatric pregnancy, especially one that's being overseen by American-based healthcare at the Portland Hospital.

So here's the theory. Given the inconsistencies in Meghan's shape and the virtue-signalling with purple binders, I think she thought she was having twins and did all her homework on twins. But then they lost one of the embryos (which is normal, it happens all the time) and Meghan never adjusted her thinking or preparations and kept trying to hint at a twin pregnancy for the attention but no one realized it because of all the inconsistencies.

Anyway, all this to say, I think Archie's due date was two weeks before May 6th (given Harry's "babies change so much in two weeks" comment), which is April 22 and they just kept it quiet until Meghan felt 'presentable' enough to appear in public postpartum or the parental paperwork (because I think the UK the parents have to either adopt their baby from or get parental orders to take the baby from the surrogate, right?) was processed.

But long story short, yeah, there's so many issues with their stories of Archie's birth and so many inconsistencies from Meghan's pregnancy that it beggars belief the version presented in Spare is what really happened. (Especially because as many of the moms pointed out around here, no doctor is letting a woman with an epidural give birth in a pool. I always found that suspicous because then wouldn't the Netflix show have photos of Meghan holding newborn Archie in water? (I didn't watch the Netflix series so I don't know.))

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

So I was going through some of your old posts about Io (I'm obsessed with ly) and you mentioned lu has six kids, can we hear about the ones that haven't appeared 'on screen' yet?

there is so much coming about the grampas LAMP era and im very excited about a lot of it,

about 3 years after Mimi and Collie are born come the "triplets" who are equally funny in their arrival

Io wakes up early again in the next particularly hot year, Collie and Mimi are about the equivalent of 7-8

and in rapid succession, The wildflower meadow that functions as their "lawn" spawns

Addy (Addalindis, white trillum nymph, she/lu) in mid-spring,

a month later Rissa (Nerissa, virgiinia bluebell nymph, she/her) in late spring,

and then ANOTHER month later in early summer there's Lucy (Lucius, black-eyed susan nymph, they/them)

at which point they start to wonder if they should maybe pull up the wildflower bed because theyve unlocked an infinite offspring glitch, but another month comes and goes and nothing happens so they leave it. and you have the world most aggressive case of yearling triplets

The last kid, Seren May (fae/faer at birth and eventually she/her) comes when mimi and collie are ~13-14 and the triplets are 7-esque. Fae is Remus and Io's only child born via gestation. Fae is a late birthday present for Roman (birthday Feb 2nd) born February 9th. That birth is significantly less funny :)

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

my parents got married on feb 29th. they were also both born on the 29th of their respective months, and my dad died on november 29th. i was conceived on their anniversary so i was almost a 29er too but i fucked up the streak by being born 2 weeks early :3c #Rebel

[kipperzz]

so I decided to make timeline of @magebunkshelf Mitch's world universe the timeline and notes about it will be under the read more if you want to look

-7 centuries away from current day, Raban is born.

couple centuries later, Aru is born. within this period the Renaru village myth forms.

a few decades before moth 1, kitsune 1, 2 and 3 happens

sept 8 1995 - moth listener is captured by the facility sept 9 1995 - moth 1 sept 22 1995 - moth is released from the facility sept 22 - 23 1995 - moth 2 & 3

feb 4 1996 - Foreman sends a request to the director to look into the moon.

dec 14 1997 - foreman records an apparition linked with the moon

1998 - foreman focuses a lot on the moon.

aug 7 1998 - foreman is reported dead. we do not know how foreman died.

sept 27 2004 - C finds something in the apparition recording that wasn't in Foreman's report

early 2010 - lunar mission Lauren Ipsum also writes an article of a volcanic eruption

before current times [not necessarily in order.] Mitch takes in Hami Lochlan leaves the lake mitch and Hami seperate 9 years before vampre hunter 1 - Bats becomes a vampire

current times [will be some guessing] wild foxboy 1 werewolf listener 1 mitch 1 mitch 2 mitch 3 shark guy 1 incubus 1 old vamp 1 old vamp 2 mitch 4 neko listener 1 incubus 2 shark guy 2 mitch 5 incubus 3 incubus 4 merman 1 merman 2 feral vamp becomes a vamp Lauren Ipsum dies merman 3 vamp hunter 1 vamp hunter 2 & 3 fallen angel 1 vamp hunter 4 mitch 6 mitch & nem minisode dragon village discovered the moon moves closer to the earth neko listener 2

10 years after current day - dragon boy series

notes due to not having an exact period when aru was born, I decided to place Aru second on the timeline. vampire hunter series is pretty late in the timeline due to vamp hunt 5 being the lead in to phase 3 of the world as what Mage has said. so putting it later in the timeline in case other characters show up in vamp hunt 5. old vampire series can be placed where ever honestly. the siren audio can be placed where ever in the timeline. it's impossible to know exactly when the facility had Not contained. feral vamp being converted could also be placed where ever.

[pastafossa]

The last day of 2023.

And holy shit has it been a chaotic ride, one which you all shared with me, or that's what it feels like!

The Major Moments:

Feb: Cato's cancer diagnosis and discovery of weird mutated cells that likely won't be explained until after he passes away. He's still with me, fortunately! No idea how much time he has left but I'm grateful for every second

April: a small leak in my dining room ceiling turned into a bigger leak which turned into a massive hole in the ceiling, at least it wasn't winter???

May: DD Born Again Photos give us all a goddamn heart attack

May: I FUCKING REACH MY OVERALL 1,000,000 WORD COUNT ON AO3. 🎊 🎉 🎊 Next stop is 1mill for TRT!

June: Went to my first con since Covid! Drove all the way down to Philly to see Charlie Cox, WHICH WAS FUCKING AMAZING, HE HELD THE RED THREAD FOR OUR PHOTO, MY FANFIC DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE, AND I TOLD HIM WHAT DD MEANS TO ME AND HE WAS SO NICE I COULD CRY

June: At that same con, I finally FINALLY got to meet my bff @wonderlandmind4 in person after many many many late nights of chatting, and we just CLICKED like we'd been friends for years, which I should have expected, but still! And then I got to meet a bunch of my readers, too! Best con experience EVER

July: enter Whoops Covid Finally Got Me After 3 Years But Charlie Was Worth It ™

July: Finally dusted off my draft of Pasta's First Dark Fic cause even if my brain was too fuzzy to write, I figured I could edit a bit. And I did! And was pretty happy with the results!

August: Shit Now There's A Long Covid Heart Issue And I Can't Be Seen Until Late November Thanks Covid ®

August: leak in the garage leads to me losing about 65% of all the beautiful, special woods pieces I'd gathered over the course of six years for carving. Within a week I am gifted a huge bin of wood from a kind soul at my local witchy shop

Sept: TRT's 6th anniversary!

Nov: I was slowly getting back into the swing of things, doing a bit of writing in between learning to manage whatever was going on with my heart (which we'll hopefully figure out in January when I get all the results of testing in Jan)

Early Dec, and the worst week of my life: mom got sick. Within one day she went from not feeling good to needing an ambulance. By the next day, she was in the ICU - flu induced double pneumonia that was interfering with her breathing and heart issues. And with one more day, she was put into an induced coma and ventilated, without any of us sure if she'd pull through. They told us she'd likely be under for two weeks, potentially longer even if she made it. The amount of messages and supportive comments I got from all of you, the talks I had with @wonderlandmind4 and @shouldbestudying41, just the general sense of having a community to help me means more than I can ever say as you all helped me through that terrible, horrible moment, even if it was just gently messaging me to remind me to try to eat.

Mid Dec: against ALL odds, Mom was off the ventilator in a week. By week 2, she was out of the ICU. By week 3? Off to the physical rehab center. She was there a grand total of 1 week before she was allowed to come home to finish her recovery. Early December was the worst moment of my life, and yet it was also bookended by the best Christmas of my life even if it was spent at the rehab center, because I got to have my mama back, and hug her and tell her I loved her and make jokes, and now she's home and we've been watching Christmas movies and eating grilled cheeses, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what the holiday is to me: not presents and snow and lights, but this moment, this time with her. 'In all the places you find love, it feels like Christmas.'

In just a few hours for me, it'll be 2024. I have no idea what to expect going forward, or even what to plan for, much less a resolution. I know I want to get back to TRT when mom's a bit better (she still needs a lot of help, understandably). I know there are wood carvings I want make; friends I want to visit; witchy events at my local shop I want to go to. But other than that... who knows? If I'm lucky, things will be calmer than this past year. But even if they aren't, at least I know I have dear friends, all of you, and my family, including Pasta Mama, to help me through it.

Goodbye, 2023. Hello, 2024.

[peterlorres21stcentury]

I was going through some past emails and I found this post from my old Yahoo group

On Feb. 6, the "Old Movie Section" blog posted this "tintype" of Peter, written by Sidney Skolsky, taken from a book titled "Tintypes". Peter was working on "Crime and Punishment" at the time:

<<<< 11/27/1935 HCN Tintypes By Sidney Skolsky

Peter Lorre is in his dressing room. It generally takes him an hour to dress for his role in Crime and Punishment. He does this slowly, intentionally. He believes it aids him to portray the character.

He goes on the set and stands in for himself. He is one of the few big actors who do this. He poses under the hot lights while director von Sternberg arranges them and the camera. He does this because von Sternberg, who is particular about lighting a scene and an actor, asks him to do it. It means hard work for him, but he admires von Sternberg.

While on the set he has a favorite drink, a mixture of raspberry syrup and water. He makes everyone sample it. While making a flicker he doesn't eat much. His lunch consists merely of sliced fresh fruit, usually peaches.

He walks about, whether it be in the studio or in a restaurant, much in the same manner as he did in M. People who have seen him in this great flicker are scared when they first see him in person. He knows this and is greatly amused by it.

It was his excellent performance in M which got him a contract with Columbia. Before coming to America, he signed to play in the flicker, The Man Who Knew Too Much, to learn to speak English. He is good at languages and was quite adept at English in six weeks. He spoke better English in the latter reels of The Man Who Knew Too Much than he did in the beginning.

He was born in the village of Rosenberg, Hungary, on June 26, 1904. It was after he completed high school that he ran away from home to become an actor. In one early theatrical job he was given a three- line part. After the rehearsals the lines were taken away from him because he overacted. The director said he would be a standout by merely walking across the stage.

He is five feet 5 inches tall, weighs 160 pounds, has brown prominent eyes, brown hair, and rosy cheeks. A strange villain.

He speaks in a low, confidential voice which cannot be heard very far away. At the studio he will visit different offices. He amuses friends by acting and making faces. When telling a story he acts out all the characters.

He is a mild, pleasant person. He has a house at Santa Monica to which he invites his few friends for breakfast or dinner. He prefers to test by himself in his garden here. He seldom barks. He is not a visitor to the Hollywood gay places.

He enjoys watching tennis and football. His favorite sport is wrestling. He attends the bouts regularly. He once waited until after a match to ask Man Mountain Dean for an autograph.

He is married to Cecilie Lvovsky, an actress. They met when they were both appearing in the German play, "The Candidate," and were married when they met again in London. He was making a flicker. They were married during a lunch hour, and Lorre was in the make-up he used in The Man Who Knew Too Much. They haven't any nicknames for each other.

He makes charcoal sketches, landscapes and portraits, and is a good artist for his own amusement. He likes to listen to classical music. He detests bright red fingernail polish on women.

He insists that if he did not have to act, he would not. Acting, he says, is a child's profession for a grown up. "But," he slyly adds, "I love it."

When he isn't working he relishes a big meal. He likes Hungarian goulash and is especially fond of new potatoes in cream. He will talk about food and give a lecture on why a certain salami is better than another type of salami.

He is not at all particular about clothes. He doesn't try or pretend to be fashionable. He always carries plenty of baggage, most of which he never uses. He claims it looks good when you're traveling.

He likes cold showers and actually takes them.

He seldom carries money with him. Often he has run into a shop to buy a package of cigarets [sic], has found himself without a penny, and has had to write out a check for 15 cents. He sleeps alone in a twin bed. He wears pajamas, and on warm nights he wears only the jacket. He always reads himself to sleep.

He has a clause in his contract. Each day before work he is allowed to run into Boris Karloff's dressing room and frighten him.

[panlight]

I know you did astrological charts and the birthdays of the Cullens a while back (btw I want to see an updated version in case your opinions changed becuz mine have lol) but I'm pondering those of Bella, Edward, and Jacob. (Also if Ren was a "normal" pregnancy what could her sign be?) I know canon has them as Virgo, Gemini, and Capricorn respectively, but I feel like at least one of those signs isn't very accurate. I'm especially conflicted about Jacob as I did research on the 12 signs but it didn't connect. Your thoughts? Any new headcanons for the main trio and/or the Cullens?

I don't really know enough about the common traits of the signs off the top of my head to say. I'm not so much an astrology girl in real life, but I think it's fun in fiction as a tool to help flesh out a character. Pick a birthday and look up the astrological traits and pick some of those for your character, etc. Or, to work backwards when the author didn't give any of the major secondary characters birthdays to try and pick one for them based on traits. That's sort of how I settled on Feb 18 for Carlisle. We knew he "recently" had a birthday when Bella visits the house in March, so his birthday would be presumably in March or the later half of February. Feb 18th puts him on the cusp of humanitarian Aquarius and compassionate Pisces so that seemed like a good fit.

I think Virgo broadly works for Bella; they're practical, useful, hardworking, can be judge-y and perfectionistic. They aren't super creative or artistic, but they get stuff done but are prone to stress for all the pressure they put on themselves.

Edward's a Gemini (Jun 20) but on the cusp with Cancer, so he could have traits of both. From one website: "Gemini-Cancer cusps are playful, sensitive, romantic, and intelligent. They're highly perceptive and are more emotional and sentimental than they outwardly seem." I mean other than maybe playful (he has his moments but overall takes everything Super Seriously) that's not a terrible surface description of our vampire Romeo.

Jacob's a Capricorn (Jan 14). In descriptions I see a lot of words like persistent and loyal, which works. Negative traits like arrogant and controlling, which could fall into his post-wolfening character shift I guess. They aren't conventionally romantic but show affection and love with smaller gestures. He's not saying Bella is his life now or his life has no meaning without her, but he gives her candy hearts and warm sodas and spends time with her when she needs his sunny presence.

If I could assign a different birthday to one of the three it would probably be Jacob. I could definitely see him as more of Leo; loyal, a natural leader, generous, charming, talkative (telling Bella the secret history like, right away). I think that might fit his original sunny personality better?

Renesmee would probably have been born in late April or early May if she had been the product of a typical human pregnancy based on some rough dates I threw into a pregnancy calculator. That would make her a Taurus (like me!). Stubborn, dependable, set in their ways, appreciates the good things in life, gentle until riled, maybe with an artistic streak. I don't think I'm a very good Taurus example (the whole hedonistic thing is not me, lmao), but maybe Nessie would have been? I see some common traits with Virgo, which might complicate the mother-daughter relationship in the future. Sometimes people who are too similar don't get along well (looking at you, Rosalie and Edward).