#points you have to vote

[aarchimedes]

for context: I read the hobbit first over the course of two years when I was like 13, but I'm only now starting to read lotr. having a blast tho!

anyways, reblog if you feel like it 🙌🏻

[starflungwaddledee]

some rather strong first impressions were made.

required reading for the magical "voice" headcanon and another for starstruck's signature in particular. asked by @trainerbob23 !

[ohmyarda]

Wife who murdered husband seeks to murder reincarnation as well.

[whos-hotter-jjba]

JoJo Showdown - Final Round

[fiercynn]

otw july 2 board meeting: what the hell was that

so the otw (@transformativeworks) board had their Q2 meeting yesterday, which was highly anticipated given everything that's gone down in the past months:

the @end-otw-racism campaign demanding action from otw on their own commitments made three years ago to better address racist harassment in otw and on ao3 (btw, support end otw racism's current campaign #Vote To End OTW Racism!)

recent revelations about how otw has mistreated its volunteers, regarding azarias and how the org reacted after the CSEM attacks on volunteers last year, as well as how the policy & abuse committee (PAC) is overworked and treated by the legal commitee overall (documented here)...

...and ongoing mistreatment of chinese, chinese diaspora, and chinese-speaking volunteers, particularly regarding an incident last year that put volunteers in mainland china at risk, and the board's recent unilateral decision to close the otw weibo account without input from the weibo account leads or any chinese-speaking volunteers

the AI shit

and probably more that i've missed, honestly. so! this is my summary of the meeting, focusing mostly on the issues related to racism; i have screenshots of the whole meeting but will at this point only share those i find most relevant/interesting! alt text will be included for every screenshot in the image, not below it.

and hold on, because this is going to be LONG!

pre-meeting ableism in #help channel so shit actually started going down the previous day in the otw board discord's help channel where there was a pretty ableist resposne to a person who asked if the board could consider adding the pluralkit bot to the server. i wasn't there, but hojarasca on dreamwidth posted about it, and i believe some other folks who were there will post screenshots soon too.

all of that conversation was deleted from the help channel by today, which is not unusual but did mean that a majority of people at today's meeting might not know what went down.

board meeting starts; immediate chaos the board meeting started at 8pm UTC, and it was clear almost immediately that the board was unprepared. what you have to understand about otw board meetings is that they are not really meetings where the board members discuss anything with each other. basically otw board members show up, share an agenda , give written updates on the items on the agenda, take votes on board decisions (but without any discussion publicly), and take questions. none of the materials like the agenda or relevant documents were shared ahead of time, and the board did not offer a way to submit questions ahead of time specific to the board meeting. (otw does have a contact us form to email their board or committee chairs, but i've never gotten a response lol.)

another weird thing that happened before the meeting started was that board member alex tischer was active answering questions in the help channel up to five minutes before the meeting, but didn't stay for the meeting. i don't think a reason was shared for this. this is relevant because alex has been criticized for racist responses to chinese volunteers, particularly those that ran & interacted with otw's weibo account, both in the past & last month when they closed their weibo account without any notice to the volunteers. this will also come up again later in the q&a section...

anyway. the meeting starts. all of the discussion directly about the meeting is supposed to happen in one discord channel called #public-board-meetings; the #help channel is supposed to be for tech issues etc. there is no separate channel for asking questions to the board - those are supposed to be posted in the main board meeting channel. and as far as we can tell, there are no mods of either of these channels apart from board members.

at the start of the meeting there are at least 209 attendees. for context, the last board meeting in march had 31. i've heard from people who have attended board meetings for the past couple years that there are usually 10-40 attendees per meeting. but again, given what's been going down, it's not surprising that so many people showed up!

and because there are a lot of people who haven't attended these meetings before, attendees immediately start asking questions, both process questions about the meeting and actual questions they want to ask the board. which again is understandable because there haven't been many answers given in the #help channel, and the board immediately muddies things further by giving confusing instructions about when to ask questions. they first say this - that they are going to proceed through their agenda, so people should hold questions that are NOT about any agenda items until the end. they imply that questions that are about agenda items are okay as they go through the agenda, but there will be conflicting instructions about this later...

agenda is posted & actual meeting content begins...kind of here's the meeting agenda that was shared. not...terribly descriptive lol

- Decisions taken since the previous meeting - Strategic Plan vote - Update on OTW's Diversity Work - AOB (Any Other Business) - Time for questions

people immediately start asking questions about various agenda items & also procedure questions. very few of these are answered. the first agenda item is posted - decisions taken since the previous meeting.

the board gives us "a couple minutes to read the above". everything's getting a little muddled already because people keep asking questions (reasonably!) about agenda items. there are several questions about the specific agenda item of "decisions taken since the previous meeting". some of the questions are getting answered by otw volunteers but none by board members at this point.

the board moves on to the next agenda item without answering questions about the "decisions" item. people are asking for a separate channel for questions but none is created. board members tell us they will try to get to all the answers at the end, but that we should send any additional answers to the board through the otw contact us form. many people point out that they've rarely gotten responses that way.

board gives a brief update (that was NOT on the agenda) from the finance committee chair, who was not at the meeting, to say that the 2023 budget was posted earlier this year, and that people can send questions via the contact us form. i'll note here that i sent a message to the finance committee with a question about the 2023 budget two months ago and have not gotten a response.

strategic plan update + question procedure still unclear the board then starts to give an update on the strategic plan, which board members are to vote on today. attendees ask if the full strategic plan draft was shared publicly before this meeting and we are told it was only shared with volunteers, not with members or the public.

they do share an infographic summarizing the strategic plan. hilariously, the first version they upload is so blurry that it's unreadable. they then share a gdoc with alt text. if you are new-ish to otw stuff, this infographic and the jargon in it are probably pretty confusing.

the board keeps giving us "a few minutes to check things out". people ask them to not do that and proceed because we can read while they are typing. questions to the board keep going unanswered and various other people say that we're supposed to hold questions until the end. we again get told conflicting things about how to ask questions. a board member asks us to hold ALL questions until the end, but an otw volunteer points to an earlier statement from a different board member & says that questions on the current agenda item are allowed.

at 45 minutes into the meeting, when most questions are going unanswered (and a lot of only being answered by otw volunteers, not board members), the board disables messages in the main channel so that they can proceed with the agenda. this is not usual board meeting procedure and was unannounced until they did it. people start getting really creative with emoji reactions because they can't ask questions. the board admits that they were unprepared for the number of attendees at this meeting.

attendees then start asking questions in the help channel, which has been put on "slow mode", which means each user can only post every thirty minutes. multiple otw volunteers share in the help channel that they warned the board about preparing for the meeting, and the only change the board made in response was to make it 30 minutes longer than usual.

in the main channel, the board does not have any public discussion on the strategic plan (which has not been shared, only the infographic has), and votes unanimously to approve it.

diversity work update, aka a glorified otw news post the board moves on to the "diversity work update", which is now a standard section of every board meeting. they share two updates - firstly, that caste has been added as a protected class in the code of conduct, and secondly that they've heard the concerns coming from @end-otw-racism supporters and others. both of which were already shared a month ago in this OTW news post from a month ago, which they link to.

seriously, nothing new is shared in this part of the meeting that wasn't in that post. some update!

q&a part one the board asks for emoji reactions again to see how many people are in attendance. unclear why they do this unless they were hoping people might have left? but alas for them, there are still 182 people that emoji react saying they are in the meeting!

the board FINALLY starts answering questions, but they do not yet re-enable messages so that users can ask more questions. they start by addressing the pluralkit issue from yesterday, but they don't give any response about the ableism that was allowed to go unchecked in the channel.

then, BAFFLINGLY, they start with answering questions from someone who wasn't able to make the meeting. how did this person submit those questions beforehand? NO ONE KNOWS. fortunately this person had (imo) good questions, but again, why were their questions given preference? unclear.

okay there were a LOT of questions and responses, so i'm going to stick to sharing the ones that were most important to me, which were about addressing racism within the otw and on ao3. hopefully someone else will summarize other issues!

we finally get our FIRST REAL NEW RESPONSE on a diversity/racism issue! the board says they plan to hire a diversity consultant by the end of the year.

we also hear that changes to otw's terms of service are being proposed to give the policy & abuse committee more tools to address harassment, including "racially-motivated" harassment.

board says the best way for people other than otw volunteers to get involved with anti-racism issues is...to stay up to date on what otw is doing, attend public meetings, and send questions through the comment form. what.

the board does not answer how they have reached out to fans of color in their work to address racism, which i assume means they haven't; they instead say that fans of color are free to provide input/feedback via the contact us form. emoji reactions explode

the board says that the strategic plan has initiatives to combat racism including improving diversity in recruitment (of...who? volunteers, board members? potential future paid staff?), hiring a diversity consultant, & forming "volunteer coalitions"

slight digression from my focus on racism issues because of how many times the board has told us to submit questions via their contact us form: very little clarity on how long it will take for answers to be questions, or how long people spend on responses

the goals for the future diversity consultant are to do an audit of the organization and offer recommendations on how to proceed. couldn't be vaguer lol

otw does not currently have plans to have an internal committee for diversity, equity, and inclusion work, since they're relying on the external consultant, but if the consultant recommends it they'll consider

by the time they've gotten through these responses, there are only five minutes left in the meeting! remember, messaging by attendees has been disabled for the past 40 minutes, so everything the board has answered so far is from people who got their questions in during the first 45 minutes (or, apparently, one person who managed to get in questions before the meeting).

q&a part two at this point, the board FINALLY re-enables messaging for new questions, but clarifies that they will only take them until 9:30pm UTC. which means anyone who did actually wait to ask their questions now only has five minutes to ask them! questions start rolling in immediately. again, going to focus on the ones about racism.

i'm listing questions in chronological order that they are asked, but please note that the corresponding answers from the board are coming WAY later than the questions. the board took until 10:20pm UTC (almost an hour after the meeting was supposed to end) to answer all the questions. mostly i'm telling you this because the emoji reactions on the answers by the board get more limited as people understandably have to leave the meeting lol

the first question of round two is about how chinese & chinese diaspora volunteers have been treated re: the weibo account closure, & board member alex tischer's role in this.

board response is horrifyingly empty, only promising the creation of a new "anonymous form" to receive feedback from chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers on the situation.

an attendee asks for better prioritization of racism & equity issues in the meetings, and better preparation from the board. (note that the addition of "diversity work update" to the agenda is not new, i believe it was instituted late last year)

in response, board admits they were unprepared despite volunteers warning them, says they will take advice from this meeting forward. emoji reactions are out in full force

an attendee asks more details about how the diversity consultant research officer (who is NOT a hired diversity consultant, but an otw volunteer in charge of the hiring process for a consultant) engages with the board & what goals they have for the future consultant

response from board is that they meet weekly, and that the research officer is herself in charge of identifying goals for the future consultant

an attendee points out that "curate your space" tools are not enough to protect users from targeted abuse, including racist abuse, and that asking fans of color to reach out to the board instead of the other way around is bullshit (my words haha)

the board's response to this is to offload that onto the future diversity consultant. SERIOUSLY.

an otw member asks if the diversity consultant will also look at accessibility for disabled users across the otw

board essentially says "yeah, sure" lol

an otw member asks how otw will remove barriers to becoming a voting member and diversifying membership & committee leadership

board's response is that they don't know the demographics of their members or volunteers, which...somehow means they can't remove barriers that would help fans of color or non-western fans from becoming members and volunteers? lmaoooooooo

an attendee asks for accountability in ensuring that the incoming board keeps the current board's promises re: DEI, pointing to improvements made by the 2015 board that were later reversed by a new board make-up

board does not seem to understand this question so answers an entirely different one! (seriously, i double-checked which question they were responding to.)

an otw volunteer asks what the plans are to deal with the "ongoing exclusion and alienation of chinese-speaking volunteers"?

the board repeats that they have opened a feedback form for chinese-speaking volunteers. that's it.

so those are all the questions i saw on racism; as i mentioned, there were TONS more good questions on board transparency and communications, protection of volunteers, moderating board meetings better, lack of feedback collection on the strategic plan, etc.

at PRECISELY 9:30pm UTC, messages are disabled again so that no more questions can be asked. all of the otw board responses that i shared above are from after messages were disabled again.

takeaways this meeting was a complete mess. the process was extremely unclear and made things inaccessible; while the board did (from what i can tell) answer all the questions posted, people were not able to ask all the questions that they'd planned because of the unannounced disabling of messaging.

and then, of course, there's the fact that the majority of the answers are bullshit, which is probably the least surprising thing about this meeting.

it's just ridiculous that they weren't prepared for this. given everything that's gone down in the past months, why on earth wouldn't they assume that people would show up with hard questions? the mismanagement and incompetence is frankly astounding. which i guess is the story of the last few months re: OTW anyway!

so...see you at the next one in a few months, i guess? 🤷🏾‍♀️

[kyluxtrashpit]

Been hearing from multiple people I know and trust in the fandom that apparently people have been botting that hottest man poll that everyone’s been yelling about? And that kylux fandom specifically is the one guilty of it

And honestly I’m extremely disappointed in anyone who thinks that’s appropriate. These are supposed to be fun and you’ve gone and ruined it for everyone participating AND made all of us look like assholes in the process for being unable to be normal about a harmless, just-for-fun poll

Hope you’re proud of yourselves. Genuinely pathetic behaviour. I expected better from the fandom I’ve called home for nearly 10 fucking years

[coolaidstain]

TIL that theres aphobes on Tumblr trying to claim that Jughead Jones has actually been gay coded the whole time and that saying he's ace is homophobic I fucking hate it here

[joelletwo]

[ID from alt: natsuyuu matonato fanart done with sketched-in shading. natori, casually dressed, is slouching back onto matoba, who kneels behind him in his usual kimono and leans in close to smile at him.]

HELLO. i still love them forever

[sydmarch]

the pockets poll earlier had me wondering is everyone really like. totally unconcerned with the possibility of their phone being stolen out of the back pocket or just living wildly different lives where that isn't even a thing to be concerned about? so now i'm making my own poll

[princessithaca]

gotta hand it to the writers they really did an excellent job of communicating exactly what type of posh brat anthony j. lockwood is through his dialogue. the defense that his london townhouse is 'mortgaged to the hilt, george, i'm practically a serf! is a personal favourite, as is the description of the night watch as 'real salt of the earth types'. as if anyone other than the insufferably middle class have ever used that phrase in the history of ever. bonus points for the fact he has, naturally, never had an actual conversation with his platonic ideal of the working man. hysterical. i know like twenty of this exact same Type.

[izzyspussy]

OKAY i finally know what's happening

i can get care in Illinois

there's a PP right over the border

i can't use my health insurance in another state

an appointment to establish care + blood test will be ~$300

the T itself will also be ~$300 (a month 🙃)

if you don't want to donate but do want to support, i am accepting art/tarot commissions & have postcards and sticker sheets for sale

if you would like to and are able to help me out at all with this, my venmo is @/calicojacket. the name there is Jack Hyde and the profile has this picture:

stickers are $6/sheet US shipping included INTL shipping available but extra, and the designs look like this:

if anyone has suggestions for a better place to post this, i welcome it! reblogs of course also much appreciated & thank you in advance.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

PRELIMINARY POLL 2: THE OWL HOUSE

hello owl house fandom! out of all the ships you guys submitted, soba and i have narrowed it down to these three: aladarius, huntlow, and raeda. as per a previous post where we said we'll only be letting a maximum of 2 ships per fandom into the tournament, we're doing this poll to determine which ship(s) will represent your fandom. we haven't fully finalised the shortlisted ships yet, so based on the results either the top 1 or top 2 ships will be selected

also let us know if you guys have any preferred images for your ship(s)! i just plucked these from the shipping fandom wiki

propaganda for the ships are under the cut!

-mod deli 🎀

Aladarius:

Ahhhhhh, so many thoughts; where to begin? Well, first off, they were absolutely childhood friends and were practically attached at the hip for years and years. When they finally started dating around mid to late teens, they literally only changed labels and that was it. After a falling out and a messy breakup (and y'know alador getting married to someone else), it seemed like all was lost. after all, they were desperately trying to lessen contact with stark animosity between them. but after the day of unity, everything changed. with character arcs and divorce papers galore and maybe they began on speaking terms. and then friendly terms. and then back to where they were before, bickering like an old married couple. and then *being* an old married couple. yeah. gotta love the magical slime dilfs ◡̈

Huntlow:

They’re just. SO CUTE!! Hunter develops a crush on Willow first. When they first met, he was just looking to recruit more people into the emperor’s coven, and he thought she and some others would be a good fit. They played flyer derby together (a sport in the demon realm), and it was the first time he’d actually been able to have fun with people his age. His original plan was still in play so Willow and the others on the team got taken and put into custody so they could be put into the emperor’s coven. However, at this point Hunter felt incredibly bad. In the end, he broke the rules and got them out of there. He was prepared to be hated, but Willow and the others forgave him. I think at this point is when he started developing feelings for her. This guy, who talks so much people can see through his disguises because of his voice, will get SO quiet and blushy when she’s nearby. He knew there was an illusion when the illusion acted scared and shy because he saw her as the strong, courageous witch she is. She saw his cringe outfits and cosplay and took a picture for her scrapbook and called it a look. She winked at him and he blushed and smiled this goofy smile. When she finally broke down after trying to keep a brave face for the others, he comforted her. I think somewhere around here she started developing feelings too. They held hands!!! She said “you mean a lot to me too”!!! They mean so much to me.

Raeda:

NONBINARY REPRESENTATION DISABILITY REPRESENTATION TOGETHER AND HAPPY IN THE END They met as kids and got along from the start. They barely knew each other and still defied the orders of a representative of the EMPEROR so they wouldn't fight each other (they literally DANCED on the face of authority together. They eventually became lovers and broke up. Many years later found each other again and still loved each other so so much. I'm gonna repeat myself, but a disabled, chronically ill character and a nonbinary carachter have a friends to lovers story with a happy ending in a DISNEY ANIMATION. What else could you want?

[andoutofharm]

the thing about the fob healing tour is that it has filled me with so much vindication that now whenever i see Bad Fall Out Boy Opinions (of which so many people are so unnecessarily loud about) it’s literally just like lol okay so you missed the point so bad it makes you look stupid and we are all laughing at you. get laughed at loser we do not have time to entertain your silliness we are busy healing and partying together forever.

[jamesrodayrodriguezpresents]

SAG-AFTRA is officially set to join the WGA in going on strike. No filming, premiere attendence or other promotion of any kind allowed.

I hope to see nothing but support for this decision.

[spiderwarden]

… try not to be offended over a stupid quiz.. try not to be offended over a stupid quiz.. trYING NOT TO BE OFFENDED OVER A STUPID QUIZ.