#information death of the internet etc

[sunbentshadows]

Hey all, you know how internet searches suck now? When the results are awful, full-of-AI, death-of-the-internet levels of bad?

Start appending date constraints to your searches - "before:2023".

My results have gone from 90% AI bullshit to ~60% usable - which frankly at this point is a huge improvement.

[intersectionalpraxis]

"If a pig catches both a human influenza A virus and an avian influenza A virus at the same time, it can spark a process known as viral reassortment — a genetic exchange in which flu viruses swap gene segments." "Those swaps can introduce dramatic changes, producing a new virus with certain properties of a non-human strain coupled with the capacity to infect and spread between people." "The death rate in humans may be upwards of 50 per cent, World Health Organization data suggests, though it's possible that milder infections are getting missed, skewing the case fatality ratio. Still, in a population that's never been exposed, the global impacts could be dire." "More human cases could also be happening under the radar among farm workers who've moved to the U.S. from abroad, don't speak English as their first language, and may be hesitant to seek medical help, he added." "So I think there's probably underreporting on both sides," Armstrong said." "If [H5N1] gets into a population where there's constantly animals going in and out … it might not ever leave."

I've been watching this develop for the past several days, and apart from being terrified most people will not take this seriously (I've seen a handful of people already shout conspiracy on social media and it's alarming to see, as always). What I wanted to point out is that pandemics are going to continue to be our 'normal.' I watched a great video on YouTube a while ago (I believe it was by Vice?) that touched base on how this is going to become our new reality because of multiple factors (such as our proximity to animals, and environments/etc). It was when Covid hit and they did a piece debunking some of the misinformation floating on the internet. If I can find it I will post it here because it was informative and relevant to pretty much any world crisis we will see around any virus that spreads among a human population.

This post isn't trying to fear monger anyone, I just hope more people are aware of what is happening because this is important to talk about. There are already cases (of cows getting this bird flu) in the US, and I won't be surprised if there will be instances in more countries around the world. As usual, keep washing your hands/keeping good hygiene practices, masking up (and if you aren't I hope you consider it), and taking precautions if you do happen to visit/work or go near a pig or poultry farm too:

I'll keep track of this here of course, but please stay informed folks. And also FU to any governments who will try to minimize this or try to diminish the severity until it's too late and community spread happens like Covid because their actions are influenced by capitalistic interests.

Update (April 7th, 2024, 9:32pm EST): to anyone wondering where some of the source information originates from -here is a link to the CDC. They are tracking documented avian virus outbreaks in the US and the public can access it here:

[clownsnake]

reading because internet. The linguistic hyperfixation is winninnnnnngggg. ..hey did the tag limit get shorter or do I need to chill on the ranting ?

Edit: ironically all of my typos in the tags were unintentional haha

[lobautumny]

So like, the Reddit strike going on right now, yeah? I've been seeing a lot of people comment on how they appreciate the protest and then go on to say that this has the notable downside of them constantly looking up questions and not being able to easily find the answers because all of the easily-findable answers are exclusively on Reddit. I am not sure if most of the people making this observation are within the line of thought of "man, maybe this protest isn't such a good idea after all" or "man, it really sucks that we've let the internet get so consolidated," and I'm really hoping its the latter.

Like, all of this? This right here? Reddit making a shitty, anti-consumer grab for money and control over how people are allowed to access the information on their servers, and the website going dark in protest causing tons of people to not be able to access important information? This is exactly what people mean when they say that it's bad that the internet has shrunk down so much and is mostly comprised of, like, 10 websites. It's a fucking problem that one company making one bad decision and causing their website to crash and burn can jeopardize so much of humanity's cumulative information.

This two-day glimpse into the internet without Reddit is the warning shot. Imagine what will happen if Reddit actually goes down for good for one reason or another one day. Imagine what will happen if/when Discord or Fandom bites the dust, or gets rendered practically-unusable without paying an ever-increasing premium because they're owned by blood-sucking corporate leeches.

Another big thing is Twitter clamping down really hard on your ability to DM people if you don't have Twitter Blue. If this goes through, it'll put a ton of artists and sex workers who rely on Twitter DMs for their business operation into a shitty situation. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be the end of the world for them, but once again, it feels like a warning shot to me. Twitter is a sinking ship, and unless something changes and it starts to course-correct, I worry that it'll go under and all of the creators who rely on it will suddenly be in an extremely precarious situation.

These are the sorts of things that we, as the users of the internet, need to seriously think about as time goes on, and if we don't find an adequate answer sooner, we're going to pay for it later. I still hold that the best solution is to start making and using more individual, niche websites. Things like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. have their place, of course, but I seriously think a lot was lost through the death of things like individual forums and the existence of many different wiki-hosting sites.

We need a concerted effort, not just on the side of larger creators, but on the users themselves, to stop exclusively using these larger websites and support the creation and growth of smaller, more niche websites, and prevent a catastrophe before it actually happens. I simply hope that people with larger platforms than my own pick up on all this and start talking about it and swaying people to act sooner rather than later. I know it's possible to correct the problem of the mysteriously tiny internet before a modern Library of Alexandria moment happens, I just don't know if that correction will actually happen in time.

[aceing-on-the-cake]

Compulsory Heterosexuality Info Dump

So because a friend of mine didn't know what comp het was and their internet history is monitored by their parents so they can't just use google, I'm doing a very quick research dive and giving you guys the results in case there are others out there who are in the same situation. I'll also be tagging blogs bigger than me because again, there might be fellow queers out their who are in the same boat as my friend and I want them to have access to this information.

So what is compulsory heterosexuality (or comp het)?

Comp het is in essence the societal belief and enforcement of being straight.

What does this mean?

In basic form it means that the only options presented to everyone, from the moment of birth, is that of a cis, amatonormative, heterosexual lifestyle.

You are given two gender options, these gender options determine the two roles you're allowed to fulfill, husband and wife, and you are told that these two roles are what will make you happy and are what you are supposed to strive for.

Meaning society, if you are born AFAB, tells you you're going to one day get married, it's going to be a boy, and this is what will make you happy. Almost everything in life is then seen through this lens. How attractive your are, how you are supposed to talk, how you're supposed to behave, etc is all considered through the lens of if a man will be attracted to you.

On the flip side, if you are born AMAB society tells you there are roles you have to fulfill as well. You are told you will one day want a wife, that you have to be able to have a job to provide for her, that you have to behave in a certain emotional way to be strong for her, that if the things you like are too feminine well then you're gay or a girl which is a problem because at the end of the day you're supposed to want the girl-fiance-wife.

This literally just sounds like the patriarchy.

Yes, it does, because it's caused by it. Nowadays people commonly know about compulsory heterosexuality from the Lesbian Masterdoc, but the term actually originated by Adrienne Rich in 1980.

Adrienne Rich in her article Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence put forward three ideas, 1) that heterosexuality and lesbianism were institutions themselves/possible political ideologies, 2) that heterosexuality as a system if not constantly maintained and upheld would eventually crumble and 3) that heterosexuality as a system could be opted out of and actively fought against whether or not you were actually attracted to women/non-women.

This is very different from the way we currently think of and define those terms, I am aware of that, but her point does still stand to some degrees that comp het, cisnormativity and amatonormativity all crumble when we stop rigidly enforcing the structures that uphold them, i.e., the patriarchy, misogyny, classism, and racism.

Ok but like what does that actually look like?

It can look like a lot of things, for a lot of different people. In the Lesbian Masterdoc you see comp het presented from a straightforward lesbian lens (of a 19 year old figuring out and defining their own sexuality guys, I'm not gonna sit here and critique it and rip it to death, go do that somewhere else).

This is therefore presented through things like women/non-women who were raised/socialized as women possibly having crushes on men, but they're always unattainable in some way (celebrities, fictional, someone real but they wouldn't actually ever be able to truly be in a relationship with, etc). It might also show up for lesbians as liking the idea of a man but being uncomfortable when one actually wants to move forward in the process. Or even sometimes it might show up as sexual fantasies with men but they're faceless, they're more an idea, or you're actually viewing another woman sleeping with him.

This presentation of comp het has made a lot of bi/pan/mspec people uncomfortable because they feel they too have experiencing comp het and when reading the Lesbian Masterdoc it's presented as if experiencing this is a straight shot towards being a lesbian.

And they're right that comp het isn't experienced by just lesbians. For mspecs who present feminine/as women this could be in the feeling that they have to dress a certain way to be presentable, but presentable is based on appealing to men. This can mean something as simple as women are expected to wear makeup, always, regardless of if they're looking to seek men's attention or not, because that's the base standard.

For mspecs who present masculine this can look like the inability to express themselves in an overly emotional manner because that doesn't make them "strong" and if they're not "strong" then they won't attract women, and that's what they're supposed to be doing.

For mspecs in general that can look like their queer looking relationships to be seen as a phase even if their mspec-ness is respected because of course they're eventually going to get married to a man/woman.

This can affect polyamorous cishet people in that they're seen as doing heterosexuality wrong because you're supposed to have the one partner and the 2.5 kids.

This can affect aspecs because they're told they'll never truly feel fulfilled if they don't have that boyfriend/girlfriend/partner to love them in a way that's so special nothing else could match up.

This affects all of us guys is my point.

How is this helpful to me?

Well for sapphics and lesbians (or sapphics/mspecs confused on if they are actually lesbians) this can be a helpful concept to consider because it can help you determine what relationships you truly want to pursue, which is the main point I feel is to be gained from the Lesbian Masterdoc. As she's put it "it's way more important to ask yourself if you can be truthfully happy with a man than if you’re attracted to them"

So if you're a sapphic who experiences attraction to men but you honestly can't ever see yourself willingly entering into a relationship with them, consider the idea of comp het.

If you're Achillean the opposite of this can be true, if you've been attracted to women before but honestly can't ever see yourself willingly entering into a relationship with them, consider whether comp het is working on you.

For mspecs this can be a helpful term to throw over the table back at your parents when they ask when you're going to get a "real relationship".

This can be a helpful term to consider when asking "am I forcing myself to wear mascara because I feel this is the only way I look presentable or do I actually like mascara."

Or it can be a helpful concept to look back on when undermining our internalized ideals of misogyny, towards ourselves and others.

This is a helpful term to put in our tool boxes to talk about the harm the systems of patriarchy, classism, and racism impose upon us.

Comp het can help us to understand why so many people look down on polyamory as a legitimate way of life.

It can be a helpful term for aspecs who are trying to figure out if they really want to date/have sex, or if they just believe these are the only things that will make you happy.

In general

Compulsory heterosexuality is just another term to describe a system we are all intimately familiar with. But by giving us the words to describe our experiences, it gives us the power to communicate those experiences more effectively, and to possibly understand why we're experiencing them.

This is just a bare basic knowledge post.

Honestly if you have the ability to, as in your internet history is not monitored in the way my friend's is, I encourage you to go on the deep dive through the sources listed below. Many of them are honestly only 30 pages long, that's a relatively short read, and understanding queer theory like this not only helps you to understand your own identity, but the ways in which you are connected to the rest of the fellow queer community.

Sources

Lesbian Masterdoc

Queer Theory 101: Compulsory Heterosexuality

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence

Normativities Defined

Taglist

I'm tagging blogs bigger than me so that this has an easier time getting passed around as I mainly talk about aspec issues because I am aspec, but as stated above, I wanted to make sure that queer people who's internet histories are monitored and are only able to find information through tumblr safely could do so.

@our-queer-experience @our-sapphic-experience @our-lesbian-experience @our-aspec-experience @our-polyamorous-experience @our-pansexual-experience @our-unlabelled-experience @our-aroace-experience @our-mspec-experience @our-questioning-experience @our-bisexual-experience

[astroismypassion]

Astrology tea 🍵🍵🍵

Credit goes to my blog @astroismypassion

Trigger warning mentions of de**h, d***s

🍵 You know how Sagittarius Sun truly express their feelings? It shimmers through just a bit when they exaggerate a story. If they exaggerate a piece of information, you bet they were very surprised, too stunned to speak at the time it was happening. And them being surprised, shocked often equals exaggeration of a story.

🍵 Try to see where Juno and asteroid Groom overlap. If you have a Cancer Juno, yet Groom at 28 (Cancer degree), it could be a Cancer Sun that ends up proposing you.

🍵 But when you look at your own asteroid Briede (19029) sign, this is the Sun sign YOU might be the most serious about and who you would propose to.

🍵 Cancer Venus always gives a thoughtful, yet small, sometimes a cheap gift that relates to both of you, connects you two. For example you both like drinking tea and they buy you a tea cup and tea bags. Or you both really enjoy vinyl records and they buy you one. It’s always something that connects you two. 😀 You guys are really thoughtful gift-givers!

🍵 Aries Mercury gets really bored of one way of communicating for too long. For example, if you were sending each other audio messages for too long, they will want to change it and do phone call instead or video call etc.

🍵 Gemini Chiron and Gemini Lilith often gets scars, bruises on their fingers, hands. Or they may get skin on their hands, fingers easily burnt when cooking, when starting a fire.

🍵 Virgo over the 5th house might develop a crush on any person that they share the same ideas, viewpoint. If they like someone’s arguments, life philosophy, habits. They might develop a crush on someone when they think “This (wo)/man thinks just like me!”. They could also strongly relate to certain book authors and writers, because of the way they think, they might have a strong liking of their work. They might be prone to cheating mentally, if this would exist. When they are starting to agree more with someone else’s viewpoints, opinions than their partner’s, you might be losing them. 😬

🍵 Sagittarius Suns with Scorpio Mercury are oddly preoccupied with the idea of death and them dying and how they will die. Some have special requests on how they wish to be buried or which song they would like to be played at their funeral.

🍵 I noticed Scorpio Mercury are controversial, but for some reason Taurus Mercury seem to be too. Like Taurus Mercury celebrities Kanye West, Megan Fox, Kristen Stewart, Lena Dunham, Miranda Kerr, Donatella Versace, Abigail Breslin, Cher, Kirsten Dunst, Renée Zellweger. They had some controversial views and opinions throughout years. They are just likely to be canceled on the internet or just really disliked due to jealousy, envy they evoke in others as much as Scorpio Mercury. They could also receive public dislike online.

🍵 If you have Aries Part of Fortune you might find yourself in struggles in life (difficulties in college, financial issues etc.) that not even your family members will be able to advise you on or support you. In times of conflict and stress you will often be alone to find the real courage and strength needed.

🍵 People might not believe Pisces Moon when they say they don’t do drugs. Also, they could experience random drug tests.

🍵 However, also on Pisces Moon: they have weird fascination with psychedelics, yet dislike weed and drugs. Some believe psychedelics could heal their trauma. 🤷🏼‍♀️

🍵 I noticed Aries Moons often have a female sibling. They grew up around strong women in their family who are very independent, unmarried or career driven.

🍵 Sagittarius Sun when younger might have often been the butt of the joke in their friend group. This is one side of Sagittarius Sun that hasn’t been talked enough. People have made fun on their expense often times when their were feeling insecure enough on their own. That’s why they try to not show much emotion, appear unfazed and diffuse things back with humour.

🍵 Aquarius Venus might date their friend, or multiple people until committed or could ghost. But Uranus in the 2nd house?? These guys don’t participate in hookup culture (and rebel against it), don’t entertain multiple people (doesn’t have a roaster), don’t do ghosting.

🍵 Taurus Venus has a love language of gift giving and this is also how they flirt, they just start buying you things or food. Yet, sometimes this can come across trying to buy their loved one’s love. 😬

🍵 Venus in the 6th house looves using hand cream. People compliment them for their soft hands more than they would any other placement.

🍵 Asteroid Kiss sign in the Kiss Persona chart could indicate the Sun sign of the person you will share your first kiss with.

Credit goes to my blog @astroismypassion

[askdeoxys]

Community PSA

[ This is only part of the full PSA (including evidence) which you can find here ]

Content Warnings

Grooming, Victim blaming, Harassment, Sexual abuse, Suicide / Self-harm mention, Emotional / Mental abuse mention

Introduction

Some of you may know about the PSA that circulated a few months ago regarding The-House-of-Hemingway’s relationship and unacceptable sexual interactions with someone who was a minor. Hemingway now goes by C-a-l-y-p-s-o. This post will discuss the details of the PSA, as well as this user’s concerning past and present behavior. 

To the best of the ability of those responsible for this document, the username will continually be updated so that this person cannot interact with members of this community again without disclosing who they are, regardless if the interaction is safe-for-work or not.

The following post is intended to bring awareness to someone who is

Confirmed to be a groomer.

Attempting to convince members of the pokeask community that they have “changed” but is clearly trying to win favor with you.

A risk to the community, cannot be safely trusted, and needs to exit community spaces.

Disclaimers 

Harassment of Calypso in any form is unacceptable behavior. The purpose of this post is to inform. This is not a call for hostile action beyond a block on every social media possible. 

Please respect the victim’s boundaries and do not badger them for further details than what has been disclosed. While disagreement and discussion is OK, please keep your comments outside of tumblr and public discord servers. 

If harassment occurs, the names of any individuals who dogpile, send death threats to, or doxx those involved with this situation will also be listed (with concrete evidence only) on this document. 

TL;DR

Tumblr user @C-a-l-y-p-s-o, previously known as the mod behind the pokeask blog “house-of-hemingway,” is a confirmed groomer who has deleted their admission of guilt to save face.

Calypso has violated a boundary that is expected between a victim and an abuser by leveraging themselves into positions of authority (server moderators, event leaders, etc.)

Calypso has broken promises made to their peers over the course of their internet presence, changing names and website profiles/identities in order to escape the responsibility for their actions.

Calypso is attempting to fall back into good graces by sending copy-pasted positivity asks on mundays to sweep their notoriety under the rug. 

This document will contain proof of the above in exhaustive detail under the “readmore”, or if you are viewing this in the public google document form, it will be under the resources.

We are using this as an opportunity to take a firm stance against grooming in the community, and to express our support for survivors. Our goal is to address the circumstances under which it happens with preventive guidelines and trauma-informed resources.

Resources & Education

What does grooming look like? A quick guide written by survivors of abuse within the Pokeask community:

The adult may not approach you with the intention of grooming you. 

The objective of grooming is for an adult to turn their bond with a minor into a transactional relationship; circumstances in which the minor is providing something for them— whether that be emotional support or sexual gratification— and normalizes breaking boundaries to do so.

Though they may not realize they are blurring or overstepping your boundaries, the effect is still the same; they are desensitizing you to unfair and inappropriate treatment.

Many adults deal with mental illness, go through hard times, and struggle with loneliness. If you’re acquaintances or friends, you naturally might want to support them, “fix” their problems, or do them favors because they’ve been nice to you or because they’re not being malicious.

But ultimately, prioritizing their wellbeing compromises your own, well-meaning or not. That is what an imbalanced power dynamic looks like, and it is up to the adult to realize this, acknowledge it, and seek out other outlets, resources, people, and help available to them. 

A responsible adult does not take advantage of your availability when given the opportunity to do so over other appropriate choices, no matter what. 

The adult may expect you to be available at all times.

Guilt-tripping when you do not respond to their messages, spamming your DMs, or demanding that you spend most of your online time with them. 

Making time for them might mean you end up spending less time with your friends and become distant from others in your social circle. 

A red flag to look for is if they call you their “best / closest friend” over other adult relationships in their life.

The adult may put the burden of their mental health or well-being on you. 

This can include constant venting / oversharing, validation seeking, or coming to you when they are in a mental health crisis. This can happen in private dms or in public servers. 

Remember, no one individual is responsible for managing a loved one’s mental health, and it is not OK to expect a teenager to intervene when someone is threatening suicide or self-harm. That is for a trained professional to handle.

The adult may invite you into unmoderated spaces with other adults. 

They might have “lighthearted” conversations with you or in front of you about sexual content, flirt with you, share explicit images / memes where you can see them, ask to role-play erotic scenarios with your ocs, or draw NSFW / suggestive art of your ocs / sona. 

Red flags to look for are adults telling you that you are mature for your age, asking you to keep their interactions with you a secret, or interacting inappropriately with you in voice call so that there is no chat log of what they’ve said.

You do not owe your followers or fans your attention if you feel uncomfortable.

A friendship between two artists or between you and a fan of your work should not involve any pressure to reciprocate gift art, respond to asks, or role-play.

If someone crosses your boundaries based on a perceived parasocial relationship with you, or makes you feel guilty for not interacting with them, you are in your full right to block them.

If you suspect an ask is a covert fetish, such as asking you to draw an overly specific subject or situation, report them to an adult in the community.

Similarly, if someone you are a fan of is crossing your boundaries, take a step back to evaluate whether you would be OK with it if they were not someone you admire. 

Just because someone is popular, skilled at art, widely respected, or well-liked does not give them the right to treat you in the ways listed above. 

Listen to your gut; if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but are doubting your feelings because you look up to the person you’re interacting with, take a step back and tell someone you trust. No friendship is worth being treated this way.

If you suspect you were groomed in the past, or are wondering if a relationship you have with an adult is inappropriate, please look through the information linked in this section. Hotlines, counseling and self-help resources for survivors are listed here as well. 

List of Hotlines by Country | 1, 2 

Global Online Image (CSAM) Removal | 1, 2

Education & Resources | UK, CA, AUS, US (eng, esp)

Online Image Removal | UK, CA, AUS

LGBT+ Specific | UK, CA, AUS, US

BIPOC Specific | UK, CA, AUS, US

United Kingdom

Crisis Support & Counseling (Email, Phone, Text, Video Call; Eng & BSL)

Canada

Counseling (Phone, Text; Eng, Fr, Indigenous languages, Other languages, ASL)

Crisis Support (Phone; First Nations responders available)

Australia

Crisis Support & Counseling (Phone, Text, Other; Several languages available; Aboriginal responders available; Auslan)

United States

Crisis Support & Counseling (Phone, Text, Other; Several languages available; Indigenous responders available; ASL)

About the bill to pressure American corporations to remove reported CSAM from their websites

Coming forward about abuse can be re-traumatizing and difficult, but it can also be healing and liberating— It allows for a survivor to be in charge of their narrative and to lead the conversation surrounding their trauma. 

Sometimes, it takes years to recognize trauma or past abuse, let alone to be ready to publicly talk about it. It is validating to finally be able to say, “This happened to me. I survived it. I deserved better.” to the world. 

Trauma follows us for a long time. No matter how much time has passed, a victim has the right to disclose their abuse and hold their abuser accountable. It is our responsibility to listen. https://metoomvmt.org/

Full PSA with evidence continued here...

[ruizpizzaria]

DIGITAL CIRCUS THEORIES & THOUGHTS PT 2

SPOILERS BE WARNED ! ! ! !

link to part 1 : https://www.tumblr.com/ruizpizzaria/731120968635940864/digital-circus-theories-thoughts-o-part-1

Kinger might've been scared of gangle breaking her face because it reminds him of someone abstracting / getting deformed / reaching their breaking point

if Kinger has been in the digital circus the longest he has encountered the most abstractions hence why he's so paranoid and gets frightened by gangle too (?)

Kinger wife?? Queener?? did she have a connection to him in some way

She's the only one to have a consistent avatar design I wonder why?

I'm 99% confident all the crossed out character doors are for those who got abstracted

Maybe her death or abstraction was most impactful on Kinger fueling his paranoia

ive also seen people point out how the flooring of the digital cirucus looks like a chess board soo coincidence????????/

Both Kinger and Queener ( you cant convince me otherwise it wouldnt be ) are both regal characters and there are notable castle walls within the tent

Pomni resembles a jester which could also tie into this royal theme

theres also a dragon queen / gloink queen but that might have been a one off thing

The exit maze labyrinth thing is an office but why?

I feel like making an exit or escape look like an office is ironic seeing how work and generally office work is seen as very enslaving or repressing

youd think an exit or freedom would be something like blue skies

in general the internet or virtual realities are seen as forms of escapisms from reality ( an escape from work school etc etc ) but here its basically switched and I find that rlly interesting

I already said this in my pt 1 theory post but the office might resemble the company building for C&A

The painting in the back of this shot almost looks like the ones from the hallway jax, pomni and ragatha were walking through making this the only asset caine reuses from the digital circus maybe?

( edit : i said formerly it mightve been bc it the office had a tie to the game but also i mean no duh caine made it ; but then again if thinking this is a direct replica of an office that exists in the narrative reality outside of the digital circus then tied to the game company yes )

Most likely the computer Pomni used to enter the digital world

could it be she was a worker or beta tester for this company? and maybe everyone else was too

we also see the headset she used here

in the previous photo/scene it looks as though Pomni recognizes the computer in the distance and at the beginning pomni is aware she is wearing a head set ; this begs the question : how much can be remembered before entering the digital circus? what can be remembered and what is forgotten?

It's made clear general information like their identities are forgotten

Ive noticed that the longer they stay the more they forget about themselves and ease up to their character roles -> Pomni is the least concerned with being a jester while someone like Kinger who's been there the longest refers to himself as royalty and plays into his character

foreshadowing when jax says to kinger "since when are you an expert on the digital world" hinting that they might be devs or beta testers for the game

[justaturtleindisguise]

TMNTOSNS Masterpost (WIP)

Thirteen years ago a big explosion assaulted the ears of millions of New Yorkers. Debris destroyed entire neighborhoods, Green Clouds of toxic gas covered the streets for weeks, and terrible monsters were born.  Mutants, the volatile and dangerous, completely unpredictable. Some of them were feral, violent, and crazy; others were smart and talkative, but still crazy. It didn't matter what type they were however, they were all a threat to society, to humanity. Segregated from humans into the streets ruined by the tragedy, or hunt down and killed, it didn't take two years for mutants to disappear from the city that never sleeps, but they weren't actually gone. And humans were proven fools for thinking they were. After a decade-old silence, the dangerous, scary mutants are on the news again and this time they wouldn't stand the violence against their kind. A particular group of turtle siblings and their crazy redhead human friend are set in the case to change people's minds about mutants, while also falling head first into the mystery behind the actual creation of mutants. Who owned the destroyed lab? Who created the mutagen? How are the mystic Yokai involved in all this mess?

...how is Dad involved in all of this..?

人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡

!! THE TURTLES !!

RAPHAEL HAMATO 濱戸赤

DONATELLO HAMATO 濱戸紫

MICHELANGELO HAMATO 濱戸オレンジ

LAVINIA HAMATO 濱戸青

人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡

Thales finally giving his little AU a name?? AND a masterpost ???? what a miracle,,

This au is heavily inspired in ROTTMNT and TMNT 12 with almost invisible sprinkles of Bayverse (believe it or not lmao-), and it will focus mostly in family bonding, self-discovery and friendship, while also focusing a lot on the mystery. Elements of mystic weapons and reincanation are here too.

It's still very undercooked for now I know, but I created it mostly for fun and just started giving it lore now, so I'm taking my time :_)

I'm not a very good writer and my english is a bit wonky, but I'm trying my best.

I'll be updating this post with links with other important informations like character sheets, comics, writen snippets, etc.

I'm already working on Splinter's character sheet and doing concepts for other characters as well !!!

Any questions about them are very welcome too, so don't be shy if u have one !! :)

Some things I have to say too are:

I'm not a japanese speaker, so if u notice any name or Kanji are writen wrong/awkwardly I'd love you to death if u warned me about it <3

heads up about Donnie/Raph: I'm not a doctor of any kind and the research about their disabilities was done by me alone using just the internet during a lot of hours. I want them to be good rep and if anything I say/draw about them feels ofensive or wrong, don't feel afraid to tell me!! I want to learn more and improve.

heads up about Lavinia: Diferent from Raph, she starts the history while still being an egg (not out as trans yet), so she will be called by he/him and Leonardo in some comics/writen snippets. I'll probally add a note warning about that in those cases, but wanted to give this little warning anyways :)

人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡人｡｡

!! RELATED LINKS !! will be updated as a work

TURTLE TOTS - Splinter and the tots walk in the sewers - Splinter and the tots being silly.

SIBLING DUOS !! - sugar rush twins - mecha punch duo - lightsaber duo - hotpot duo - bandaid duo - bitter duo

[astraltrickster]

Given that my post about why you are not obligated to blog about Current Events (whatever they are at any given time) is going around again, I'd like to say the same thing from a slightly different angle and state what you ARE obligated to do.

You are still not obligated to blog about ANY specific subject, no matter how serious, no matter how urgent, no matter how grave. You never will be. The impact of social media on real world atrocities has the potential to be great, but it is cumulative. No one is going to die in a ditch somewhere, barely uttering the tragic final words, "if only...if only...tumblr users wormhentaiafficionado and mothmanbutthole...posted about how sad they are...then maybe things would be different..." - nor are policymakers going to change their minds because some tweet has 749,845 cumulative likes and retweets instead of 750,000. Make no mistake, if you have the energy to be sharing these kinds of things, it can be good to do! We live in a society, it's always good to help where you can, even if all you can do is show public support for people who are hurting - but if you can't do that, for any reason, you're not obligated to. Period. End of.

What are you obligated to do?

1. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Social media accounts are not most people's entire lives. Just because someone isn't blogging about whatever tragedy is occurring does not mean they don't care. Sometimes it does mean that, sure, and that sucks - but not only are you not going to change that by yelling at them, sometimes it means they care too much. Sometimes it means they're closer to it than you assumed and need a moment to think about something else, anything else. Sometimes it means it's not safe for them to be blogging about it, be it due to abusive family potentially finding out, being at risk of getting fired and quite possibly dying of poverty sooner rather than later, or even taking very illegal direct action that they do not want to be linked to on record in even the vaguest possible way. Sometimes it means dealing with it is their day job and they're on the internet after a long and exhausting day of trying to make things better. You don't know. You'll never know unless they decide to tell you. No one owes you that explanation. You are obligated to make peace with that fact.

2. Slow the fuck down.

Listen. When bad things happen, from natural disasters, to manmade horrors beyond our comprehension, it's only normal to get scared and desperate to do something, anything about it. That heightened emotional state is very vulnerable, and because of that, there will always be people out there looking to take advantage of the chaos for ulterior motives - and no matter how good your intentions, and in fact no matter how right you are in your values and at the core of your strategy, you will never be immune to garbage-in-garbage-out. Misinformation can be deadly, even in the hands of someone who means well. You need to pause long enough to sort out the garbage. You need to learn to fight the impulse to trust every single post that tells you that your share/comment/etc. is URGENT and WILL mean the difference between life and death for someone, somewhere. Do your fact checks. Scan for dogwhistles before you end up passing around a post that implies [insert group that is marginalized in most of the English-speaking world but has hegemonic power in some other part of the world and is committing some atrocity there] is coming after you next if you stay silent. Vet charity and advice links before you accidentally send scared, desperate, and vulnerable people to a scammer - or worse, hand them over to a honeypot operation or give them a recipe for poisonous "medicine".

Or, to put it another way, you are obligated to make an attempt to stay informed enough to avoid making things materially worse. You are not obligated to doomblog. In fact, doomblogging can be antithetical to your obligation to not make things worse. Choosing neutrality in times of great tragedy and injustice is bad, yes, but you should immediately be wary of anyone who says that simply not blogging about a subject - let alone not sharing a specific post - is inherently "choosing neutrality".

So remember: breathe. Be careful out there. Mourn for the people that whatever atrocity has this or my other post circulating has taken from us or will take from us, and do your best to be kind to the people who are still alive - and remember that kindness includes using social media responsibly.

[austenpoppy]

The spell Ron got hit with at the Department of Mysteries did not just make him "giddy"

There is this common misconception that somehow, the only thing the spell Death Eaters hit Ron with at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries simply made him "giddy", "loopy", "not in his right mind", "delirious", etc. It's so common that even wizarding world.com does it (though is it really that surprising I don't know, they're not the biggest fans of Ron and I saw them directly say things which are just false canon-wise), and the Harry Potter fandom Wikipedia does it too:

"This was another stomach churning and gross moment. Having been hit by a spell that had made him giddy and not in his right mind, Ron decided to use a Summoning Charm in the room full of brains to take a closer look at one of them."

Important moments from the Battle of the Department of Mysteries | Wizarding World

"Ron had been hit by a��curse that made him highly inebriated [...]."

My only guess is that they missed those parts of the text:

Ron's face was very white and something dark was trickling from the corner of his mouth. Next moment his knees had given way, but he still clutched the front of Harry's robes [...] [...] A bubble of blood grew at the corner of Ron's mouth and burst.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling

So Ron was "very white", there was "something dark" (very likely blood, but it could also be another effect of the spell) trickling from the corner of his mouth, his knees "gave way", then "a bubble of blood grew at the corner of [his] mouth", and somehow all you remembered was him "being loopy" ?

Like, okay, let's play Devil's Advocate: let's say that him being "very white" and him falling to his knees were caused by his "inebriated state", because if we make a parallel with drunk people drunk people can indeed not be very well physically due to their intoxicated state.

Let's even say the blood/liquid trickling from the corner of his mouth was the effect of another spell that was akin to blunt force trauma.

How do you explain the "bubble of blood" growing at the corner of his mouth after ? Unless someone contradicts all knowledge I know about blunt force trauma, I've never seen or heard about anything quite like that. I even Googled the Internet to be sure, but found nothing apart from information on "blood blisters" and this definitely does not correspond to what was being depicted.

Here are the only conclusions possible :

The spell Ron got hit with was far more dangerous than what is being let on by words such as "giddy"

Ron was hit with another spell on top of the one that made him act so strangely and this one had worrying effects to his physical health.

Either case, we've been let down by Harry Potter websites. Again.

[realtimefanduboutofcontext]

I suppose we should start with why this strike is happening in the first place.

Here's a rundown of the historical background behind the Global Strike for Palestine.

(note: this is long but very oversimplified, please research the details for yourself! feel free to correct me)

By the way, the details before 1947 aren't relevant to this thread, please read the writeup by Decolonize Palestine about it!

In 1947, the UN split "Mandatory" Palestine into two states along ethnic lines - one controlled by Arab people and one controlled by Jewish people. The choice was controversial, since the border was forced upon Arabs in Palestine.

It brought in a political idea called Zionism. It's the belief that the home of Jewish people is Palestine - not IN Palestine, it IS Palestine. Problem is that Jews and Arabs were already living there together. Zionists believed that they were entitled to it, and so kicked Arab people out. In 1948, Zionists kicked 750k people out of their homes and killed thousands in an event called the "Nakba". They weren't allowed to come back to Palestine.

This process created "Israel", which slowly controlled more of Palestine over several decades, with no plans of stopping. They controlled Palestinian people's food and water, information, travel, job opportunities, etc.

This ideology of Zionism was fed into the US too. Every President since the 40s has recognized Israel, and because of geopolitical interest, has supported it as a key player in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The US gave it weapons and money, and they became besties.

Palestinians tried to resist their homes being stolen again multiple times, with protests ranging from diplomatic to very violent. They tried it all. Military and political organizations (like Hamas) formed to govern Palestine and fight (or make peace, if possible) with Israel. They failed every time, due to the weapons and intel Israel gets from the US, and the trust that it bargained from the rest of the world. All while Palestine had to make do living in an "open-air prison" inside their own country, invaded by Israel.

A lot of unhappiness with Israel and ineffective attacks culminated on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked a temporarily defenseless border and killed 1139 Israelis and keeping over 200 Israelis and foreigners hostage. Israel was VERY quick to respond.

Two disclaimers:

Israel already knew about the attack months ahead and let it happen.

What follows is far worse.

Starting October 7, Israel launched a full invasion of Gaza (which Hamas governs) as "revenge" for the hostages and deaths. But in reality, this was just their excuse to invade what they left over of Palestine to build more colonies and finish what they started. In the following 3 months, Israel would bomb Gaza relentlessly. It would cut off power, fire at phone towers, turn off the Internet, prevent anyone from making or bringing in food, wound or kill innocent people, bomb schools and hospitals, and far far more.

Israel also pretended to care about the Israeli hostages - however, when asked at the UN if they'll stop bombing Gaza in exchange for the hostages, Israel and the US said no. (Yes, the US said that. The US is also funding this, with YOUR taxpayer money)

The Israeli Defense Forces (pejoratively "Israeli Offense Forces") originally raised a campaign to convince the world what it was doing was fair and just, in the name of revenge. Countless protests across the world have shown them that most of civilization doesn't buy it. They HAVE, however, realized that those in power don't really give a shit and will be happy to cover them in any way, and thus have been bragging about their attacks in very sick and twisted ways through viral videos and propaganda. The United States is mostly the one taking the blame, since it's Israel's bestie and biggest donor. Its biggest businesses are also Israel's biggest profits (I will talk about this another day). Meanwhile Palestinians have had to prove to the world through tragic footage and live accounts of the genocide, that doesn't get mainstream media coverage. Most of the accurate coverage is from Al Jazeera, whose reporters and their families are getting killed in action.

As I'm writing this, 25,000+ people have been killed by Israeli strikes. 64,000+ are wounded. Most of them children.

Most of the population has gotten sick from unhealthy conditions and white phosphorus gas (illegal, no one is supposed to own that).

There are no hospitals left in Gaza because Israel bombed all of them one-by-one, to ensure Palestinians in Gaza can't get medical help and die as soon as possible. All schools and universities were bombed to dust.

Israel has also expanded their war on Gaza to other places, like the other part of Palestine (West Bank), as well as Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt who had nothing to do with it aside from opposing Israel's attacks. They started fighting them too.

And that brings us to today, January 21st, 2024.

One of the most prominent figures in this tragedy, a filmmaker from Palestine named Bisan Owda, who has led us through her reporting of the genocide, called upon the world to strike. Not just for one day, but an entire week. The intent is to halt businesses from funding Israel, divert the conversation to Palestine, and grab the attention of those with the power to stop this; instill fear in them so that they see the negative consequences of funding a war.

That's why this strike matters. That is why it is happening, and why I changed the entire gimmick for it. Because while all of this is due to some geopolitical and racist bullshit, to care for Palestine here is to care for humans. So many humans who are suffering for no reason.

Now that you are armed with this knowledge (hopefully you read this far), I hope you do your best with it and understand the power. I will provide you with more resources and information in the coming days.

Thank you for your understanding.

[merakiui]

Ohhhh I love true crime documentaries and psychological analysis of criminals

Do you have any favorite ones?

I really enjoy watching Explore With Us youtube channel! They cover a lot of very interesting cases through an educational and psychological perspective, which is immensely fascinating to me. The Conversations with a Killer series are all very riveting as well. Listening to the interview tapes is always a chilling experience, and hearing from the people whose lives were impacted by these serial killers and what they were doing at the time or how they managed to narrowly escape death and so on is also very interesting.

I enjoyed Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. It was edited in a way that made me feel so tense,,, like I was on the edge of my seat. But it was so impressive just how many people on the internet were so diligent in their detective work that it managed to help the actual detectives catch the man who likely would have gone on to hurt more people. Worst Roommate Ever was also an interesting documentary series. I highly recommend it.

I like watching Coffeehouse Crime as well!! There are tons of unique and horrifying cases that Adrian covers on there. I like the way Adrian presents the information in each video and goes into details of what the victims' lives were like before tragedy. Sometimes true crime can often focus on the killer(s) or perpetrator(s) and not spend much time on the victim, so it's nice that Adrian is able to shed light on the victim(s) as well as present it in a way that humanizes them and doesn't just reduce them to a corpse. Because before the unthinkable, they were each human beings with their own lives, loved ones, hobbies, interests, goals, etc.

It's been a while since I've watched true crime, but I'd like to watch a documentary soon. :D usually I limit the amount of true crime I consume within a timeframe because if I watch too much it frightens me easily. ;;; aaa but do you have any favorites?

[not-poignant]

Is it just me or is censorship all across social media getting really bad lately? Pinterest just removed a whole bunch of my pins for sexual content - they were all fully clothed queer men and women showing vague intimacy, nothing overtly sexual at all. Like one they removed was literally just two men's heads leaning on each other. That's wacko right??? Have I missed something big going on?

Tbh it's been getting increasingly terrible for a long time, anon, it's not a lately thing, it's been since before the Tumblr purge, and it is at least in some part due to the SESTA/FOSTA law that got passed in the USA, and the increasing passing of laws in many countries that are specifically concerned with removing net neutrality and treating all of us like 3 year olds.

It will get worse, not better. And you've probably been missing a few big things! It sounds like you were most directly impacted by what happened with Pinterest, so you've just noticed it. Many of us noticed it around 2018 with the Tumblr purge. Some of us have been impacted by elements of it way earlier, due to Livejournal's Strikethrough which necessitated the invention of Dreamwidth and helped to really get AO3 off the ground. And this was back even before we now have many laws that scare a lot of big companies into removing adult content.

Steve Jobs famously hated / loathed pornography and was on a mission to literally try and remove it from the internet, and part of that mission was to - as much as possible - make it nearly impossible for apps that have it to get listed in the Apple store. This is partly why AO3 doesn't have an app. This is why Dreamwidth doesn't have an app. This is why the Tumblr Purge happened - so they could continue to have an app. And while some sites don't get targeted, as soon as you do get targeted by the Apple store, it's either 'provide your legal identity to prove that you're the age you say you are' to access adult content or it's 'goodbye adult content.'

We've also had an increasing rise of morally panicked, puritanical TERF-informed anti-shippers who believe that their emotional reactions to fictional content they find troubling are firstly valid moral judgements, and secondly, a valid reason to abuse, bully and send death threats to real people. And these people basically work hand-in-hand (often without realising) with extremely powerful Evangelical Christians who have government influence and a lot of money in the USA and literally work to change laws to make it reflect an extremely puritanical vision they have of the future. You know, the homphobic, transphobic, misogynistic, racist, kinkphobic, bigoted, antisemitic etc. etc. etc. one. (It's highly ironic and tragic that most antis are young and queer and just extremely uneducated).

I'd say people notice based on what impacted them directly. So some of us realised in 2007. Some of us realised again in 2018. And since then there's been a lot of blows from a lot of sites. In a way, Pinterest is joining an already very bloated bandwagon of sites cornered in the manner. The reason why people say 'unalive' these days instead of suicide, or 'r@pe' these days instead of rape is because of Tiktok censors. The reason so many folks moved their adult fanart and art accounts off Instagram, or they've gone dead, is because of Instagram censors. The reason so many adult writers on Patreon are very careful about what explicit words they write directly onto the site is because of Patreon censorship.

After all this, it's possible that Pinterest has a bug and are implementing a new AI algorithm for detecting adult content, and it's just broken. In those cases, reporting and appealing actually often does help. When Tumblr first implemented their algorithm, it wasn't very well trained yet, and like, pictures of fruit etc. were being banned because the AI algorithm was still figuring out what to do. Tumblr was in a rush in order to keep the app in the Apple store (over 70% of their income is from app users, the site would have literally died if they didn't act quickly), and so they ended up with an extremely overzealous and initially broken (and still sometimes broken x.x) algorithm.

If Pinterest is going through something similar, either with the app store or with having to address a sudden legal change, they may be having algo problems, and reporting will help them train the algorithm better.

Trust me, there will be people behind the scenes - staff at all of these websites - who hate the changes as much as you do, even if they can't say so for professional reasons. But even the new owner of Tumblr got pretty close to saying 'it fucking sucks but we have to do it if you want the site to exist' (which honestly made it a lot more...possible to handle the change, because it's not usually the sites you have to hate/resent, but the laws getting changed around you. Also if anyone here is an adult and can do so - please vote!!!)

[starshinesparkle]

Pythia Asteroid (#432) in the Houses

I discovered the Pythia Asteroid when reading the IG Account: mymoongirlreadings. She defines it as an asteriod that talks about divination tools (tarot, mediumship, astrology etc). Go check out her work :)

Observations are my own. Reminder: asteroids are most important in a conjunction (0-4 degrees apart) to your personal planets. Or in one of the angular houses (ASC, IC, DC, and MC)

☆ Pythia asteroid in the 1st house:Known as the divination tool person or that's what people expect of you. Possibly hard to separate identity from use of these tools, so be careful there.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 2nd house:Could generate money or confidence from using these tools. Your values likely shape your use of these tools. Grounding could be especially helpful.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 3rd house: Written ways of using these tools could be especially powerful. Possibly known as the neighborhood (medium, astrologer and so on). Could be gifted with clairaudience and claircogizance.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 4th house: Could work/ be aided by ancestors in the use of these tools. Could use these tools to comfort oneself.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 5th house:Gets creative with how they use these tools. Could be fun for them. Like 7th house, they could be gifted in using these tools in regard to love or romance, even future children.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 6th house: Could be the type of person to use these tools daily. Often in service to others or for self improvement (in a perfectionist way). Could use these tools as part of their job and their gut could be especially helpful in discerning the meanings of the messages or information that you receive.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 7th house:Could be gifted at things like relationship tarot readings or synastry in astrology. Could indicate successfully using these tools to figure out future partner and or friends.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 8th house:Using these tools as a kind of psychoanalysis tool. May be secretive about use. Tools can be used to forecast death, debt and union (like marriage). Like 4th and 12th house, this could be an indication of intuitive downloads while using these tools.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 9th house:These tools can become your belief system. Searching different cultures for their divination practices. Potential success using divination abroad, depending on aspects. Used as a way to connect to higher power, if positively aspected.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 10th house: Career or legacy could relate to these divination tools. Or one could have felt drawn to them after they were disassuased from using them in early life and or family.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 11th house: Your community and or fans or friends are made up of people who use them. Could find most success with Pythia through the Internet. Could have an abundance of spiritual energy around them when channeling.

☆ Pythia asteriod in the 12th house: Your connection to the other side/spirituality/spiritual beings could be seen quite easily through your divination work. It is possible you dabbled with them in past lives. Or depending on other aspects, you could reject them entirely.

☆Other information:

☆ Pythia conjunct SN: In a past life, you dabbled in these divination tools. Probably have a knack for it/ drawn to it in this life

☆ Pythia conjunct Jupiter: Your work with divination will bring abundance. A potential indicator of you being a teacher of these tools.

[in-the-dark-collabfic]

Sanders Sides AU Information

Title: In The Dark

Ships: Currently none

Rating: Teen (for right now, it might change later, but I hope to keep it as teen)

Genre: Modern Fantasy

Content Warnings: I'm not too sure on these because they will change especially with the prompts but there will probably be, violence, death(no mcd), queerphobia, and fantasy racism/discrimination.

I will update as these change.

Now for the specifics:

This is a modern fantasy au. They don't have the internet necessarily, but other than that they do have some of the technology we have today. Namely plumbing.

There are Twelve Kingdoms, each presiding over different regions. The months of the year are named after them(January, February, March, etc.)

The 7 days of the week are the 7 big meetings that supposedly helped bring about world peace.

Now, there are those with magic and those without.

Those with magic are ranked based on type of magic and how powerful the magic is in that specific user.

Light/life

Fire

Wind/Air

Animal

Plant

Water

Earth

The there's the forbidden magic of shadow/death. All but the Kingdom of December bans it, and even in that kingdom it is prohibited.

How powerful a magic user is, is tested at the age of 16. 1 is the highest rank, and 20 is the lowest.

Those ranked below 20 are considered non magic users.

Those without magic are considered less important than magic users, except in the cases where shadow/death magic is involved.

A lot of active shadow and death magic users secretly meet up in various places to practice, in order to not get caught.

Ranking how powerful someone's magic is not required, but it is strongly encouraged. Those who are unranked are treated like those without magic.

The only time it is required is in certain positions of power where it's needed in order to verify the person's capability of performing the job. In those positions, the person's powerfulness rank is constantly rechecked every year, as it can change. Usually only changing one level lower or higher depending on the circumstances.

For the purpose of this story, none of the main characters have their magic ranked.

For the purpose of this story none of the sides are ranked. Neither are Emile or Remy who might show up. However this next list is to show you what their magic is.

Emile, life

Remy, death

Roman, fire

Patton, plant

Logan, water

Janus, animal

Remus, earth

Virgil, shadow

Pinned Post