wander-wren - Tumblr blog

[wander-wren]

my name's cougar but my friends call me mountain lion and my mama calls me puma and today's my first day at big cat high. i'm so nervous i hope they don't realize i'm not panthera >ܫ<

[wander-wren]

Stop trying to be productive

[wander-wren]

Every single fic update there is an author trying frantically to find the right balance between a nonchalant aside of "leave a comment if you enjoyed =)" and clinging desperately to the coat tails of a random stranger, dragging along behind them on the street wailing "Please, please! I have to know what you thought! I'm desperate to talk to people about this! Ask me about the alliterative repetition! Ask me about the symbolism!"

[wander-wren]

“I can’t be vegan, I love cheese”

Dairy industry is as evil as meat. No less harm for animals. Does it look natural that calf can’t drink milk so you can taste your piece of cheese? 

GO VEGAN. 

[wander-wren]

thinking about the poll about canon vs non-canon ships that didn't define terms, and the current fandom focus on things "going canon," so i made up a scale.

this is NOT a question about whether canon matters to what you ship (or matters at all), just how to define the phrase "canon ship."

many ships start low on the scale and slow burn their way up, so vote for the point when you would have called them "canon." i agonized over the order (especially #4-6) for a day and a half, but i went with the order in which i think joe random with a nielsen ratings box and no tumblr account would notice/call something a romantic relationship.

[wander-wren]

goodnight everyone (:

do your daily click

spreadsheet of families in Gaza you can help today

donate to:

Buy an e-sim

Help diabetics in Gaza

The PCRF

Anera

UNRWA

Taawon

Help Gaza Children

Sudan Tarada Initiative

Help a Sudanese family escape conflict

Darfur Women Action

Ramadan for Sudan

Period products in Sudan

Sudan Emergency Appeal

[wander-wren]

the arguments about palestine that changed a zionist's mind in real life:

THIS IS RHETORIC. IT WAS DESIGNED TO CHANGE SOMEONE ELSE'S MIND, NOT TO PORTRAY MY FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS AND UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE CONFLICT.

stressing equal rights as the solution to political violence. i usually start w "the single most influential factor to joining a terrorist group or a gang is hopelessness, the idea that there is no other way for them to create a livable future in which their family can eat." in this, the progression from the peaceful and unarmed 2018 Day of Return (emphasize injuries and casualties; opening fire at protestors attempting to just walk out of an "open air prison," half of whom were under 18. if they had been allowed to leave and seek political rights, october 7 never would have happened. every escalation is a result of lack of human rights. "everyone deserves human rights without qualifier, and everyone deserves equal legal rights under the law. most problems are actually side effects of this initial problem. who lacks legal rights in Israel?"

sidestep Hamas completely. refuse to engage. "there is a geographic region in the middle east whose border touches the mediterranean. Jewish people and Palestinian people live here. the government of this geographic region must then care equally for Jewish lives and Palestinian lives because that's who lives there, and just democracies give equal rights to everyone, right?" americans will be HARD PRESSED to say no. "you're pro-palestinian"

"Ethnostates are bad. We know that ethnostates are oppressive goverments that choose permanently harming a portion of second-class citizens. The whole world already has people in it, and there is nowhere to establish an ethnostate that does not require the violent removal of people who already live there. You Also Don't Need An Ethnostate to Be Safe. You need equal rights." Excerpts from Ch. 3 A Theory of Genocide from Scott Straus' Making and Unmaking Nations explaining the inherent genocidal risk of founding narratives that serve one group to the exclusion of others was very effective coupled with current death tolls.

Israel puts Jews in more danger by associating them with real human rights abuses and telling the world they're doing it in the name of Jewishness. "My neighbors have nothing to do with the violent actions of a nation-state. Additionally, you are my community member and this is already your home. The base requirement of your community members here is to make your home safe for you, not chase you halfway around the globe where we won't have to "deal with you" anymore. Your fight is here by my side making our real current community safe for everyone, not millions of miles away using bombs on civilians."

The story of the Golem, in which something created to protect Jewish communities from antisemitism grew too powerful and too violent and had to be destroyed before it destroyed the community itself in its uncontrollable rage. this actually should have been number 1 because this is used to structure the entire thing. the Golem is the last argument I brought up, but I knew I was going to bring it up the whole time and every single argument was structured to reinforce it. Continuously through the conversation, I stressed trauma responses, fear, and conservatism. they've done studies where they asked people for their political opinions, waited weeks, brought them back, shared recent headlines (divided between positive/hopeful and negative/fearmongering), and found that after being shown fearmongering headlines, the second round of responses were more conservative no matter where the subject started. there's a reason zionism was invented well before the holocaust but didn't gain widespread support in Jewish communities until after. I approached from a fundamental position of empathy. I used rising antisemitism as my lead-in to the topic, I talked extensively about how Jewish people always have Israel in the back of their head as a refuge and escape-- "if it ever gets too bad here, i have somewhere safe to run to"-- and as a result feel an intense sense of existential fear when asked to criticize or challenge it. I talked about how there are no moral dimensions to feeling (you just get to have them) but by the same metric, it means your feelings are not indicative of political truth. Being scared doesn't mean you're really in danger. All of it specifically chosen to reinforce this idea of Israel as a Golem whose violent rage must be addressed by Jewish people for the sake of preserving their own community.

that's what worked. coming at it from a fundamental position of empathy for my Jewish community members and asking them to give Palestinians the same unbending demand for human rights and safety that I am giving to everyone in this moment. showing them that their safety is not mutually exclusive to each other. part of it is capacity creation. massaging their perspective of the conflict and balming some of their most immediate and disruptive fears for themselves so that the space created by relief can turn to empathy. which is easier to do when someone is modeling it right in front of you.

[wander-wren]

some of you may remember that post i made about a new kind of bot comment--a request to upload my fic to youtube. like a podfic, but read by a crap ai with an ai thumbnail and a clickbait-y title. i appreciated the getting-permission bit, but was otherwise not a fan.

yesterday i was alerted by a different, much kinder bot that a very similar content farm stole my fic for the exact same kind of youtube video:

[description in alt text]

i checked it out, and it was indeed true. according to the article linked in that comment, this team uses a bot to read transcripts of thousands of videos and compare them to ao3's public database, then manually confirms any videos that the bot flags. it only works for ao3 fics, unfortunately, since there isn't the same kind of database for ff.net or wattpad.

i honestly care a lot less about the ~thievery~ (my feelings on copyright are complex, moreso in the fandom realm) and more offended by the lack of courtesy or integrity or any kind of care for the work. shame. they even LIED in the video description and said they have author permission! the gall. disappointed but not surprised. also, according to the linked spreadsheet, this channel was monetised, which is just ugly.

i've submitted a DMCA complaint form as suggested, which feels a bit weird, but whatever gets the job done. we'll see if it pans out.

in the meantime, the fic in question is here, if you want to check it out

(side note: this is part of my bnha bdsm au, and is a story about sexual assault and recovery with a hefty dose of dealing with constant surveillance and the way the media twists a narrative and the stress of trying to have a functional relationship amidst both those things, so it's....very funny to me that this one specifically was stolen to put alongside videos like "what if deku had an animal quirk" and "what if deku was a rockstar")

also we should all laugh at the video. look at this shit

i'm offended, tbh. anyone who has read the fic should know why but also just, like, in general. it makes no sense for the story! i know i shouldn't be upset over the lack of integrity a content farm youtube channel has, but i am! i am upset! put in some goddamn effort, the disrespect, for real.

if you are so inclined, you can read more about the project that is working to get these videos taken down and even join them here. the google sheet is not being publicly updated anymore (it appears they are working on a new system that hasn't been fully implemented yet), but if you want to check for your own fics that may have been caught pre-april 3rd, look here.

additionally, this is a good time to point out that podfics (fanfic audiobooks) are a very valuable form of fan creation and this could be your sign to get into it! i'm not a podficcer myself (yet; who knows), but there are plenty of guides here on tumblr and on ao3 to help you get started.

[wander-wren]

are you and your bestie yknow... accustomed to fighting as a team?

[wander-wren]

I’m having a spirited debate and need a larger sample size

[wander-wren]

My friend just made me feel weird for asking so now i gotta know.

If you do have a favorite bird please please tell me in the tags, i want to see some Birds!!

[wander-wren]

Blackwhip can be useful on so many occasions~