Luna is a Goddess

There is a candidate named Tiffany G. in the current Ao3 board elections with a pro-censorship position for getting Ao3 unbanned in China. This is ship and kink agnostic: the only way to get Ao3 unbanned in China would be the removal of all explicit queer content to bring it in line with the online censorship policies of the CCP Pre-ban, Chinese writers used Ao3 to host LGBTQ+ and explicit content due to being censored on Chinese websites, and writers of danmei (m/m) stories have been sent to prison in China for publishing queer content.

There are 3 seats, and 5 candidates (including her) so she has an actual chance to get elected. If you’ve contributed $10 in the past year and have eligibility to vote in this election, it is essential that you do so. Please check your e-mail for the ballot and vote for everyone except Tiffany in whichever order you prefer based on their stances.

Important context including how essential it is to vote this time if you want to support Ao3s current policies

Chinese fandoms on Weibo are up in arms against this candidate warning about her intention to bring Ao3 in line with the Chinese censored fanfic sites

Chat transcript of her election interview, including discussion of making Ao3 more publicly appealing, complaints about how it was banned in China, and the suggestion of removing ‘illegal’ content besides underage - which, in China, includes queer and explicit content - and avoidance of clear answers about which content would be censored

Oh hey people claiming they just want to get rid of pedophilia but actually want to censor all LGBTQ content I have never seen that before.

(flight intercom) this is the pilot speaking. yeah we expect todays flight to be normal. um if you look out your window you shouldnt see the skull

i wish all “body language experts” on youtube, tiktok, and all social media a very Die

not only is it a stupid pseudoscience that is based on ableism and western centric ideals, these people are ghouls who latch onto every controversial subject or person in the spotlight in order to churn out content about how someone’s quick blinking means they’re really a monster with 590492341 mental illnesses (which is what makes them inherently a monster),  passing off their vibe and clout farming as Scientific Evidence. they literally salivate for a new person to be at the center of controversy so they can make millions of view and thousands of dollars over their babbling that their new target is a Narcissistic Abuser. and you literally cannot convince these people’s fans that this is utterly fake and also abbhorent behaviour to farm money and fame over others’ misery. they + these social media “therapists”/doctors/health and legal professionals who do the same online are utter scum who are gleefully making money off suffering. but i have a special kind of hate for the body language experts.

and this isn’t just about the heard/depp trial either. these fuckers have been doing this in True Crime TM communities for a while now. they’ve also been the ones boosting the harassment of random people on tiktok like the couch guy and that trans woman who was just dancing in her basement. they make money and clout off all of this. they push so many ableist, racist and transphobic ideas onto people who just drone on about how body language PROVES somebody is lyuing or a serial killer. they ruin lives.

i wish all of them a genuine and heartfelt very die

Someone made an engagement map for TERF tweets

Y’all in the notes please be mindful when you say stuff like “it’s time to kill the British.” The people suffering the most from British transphobia are....British trans people.

^^^^^ for serious. British trans folks rarely get to transition at all, and when they don't they're often denied any social transition period. TERFs in the UK aren't here to start laws against people in America, they're trying and succeeding to kill off trans people in the UK. This really isn't the situation to cram on the brits to look and feel better about yourself... the trans body count is tremendous over there. Please have some respect for the people actually effected.

Please do keep this in mind. As much as I find the anti-British memes funny, this is a genuine issue in the UK.

I’m a trans man in the UK, I’ve been on the waiting list to be diagnosed for just over 2 years now, and am expected to wait around another 2 years before I get my first appointment (if the wait time doesn’t increase). I will then wait around 2 more years (at the very least) for my second appointment, and if I’m very lucky and am diagnosed in that appointment (which is not guaranteed in the slightest), I’ll enter another waiting list to access healthcare. The service I’m in is considered around average. There are people waiting 6 years for their first appointment in other services, so I am incredibly lucky with my supportive family (in that I haven’t been kicked out or abused, parents still don’t respect pronouns or name) and I have good friends who respect me, as well as only waiting 4 years for a first appointment.

Maybe you could go private if you had the money, right? Go a similar route to trans people in the US? A diagnosis from a private practice can be rejected by your General Practitioner, and any referral you get for hormones or surgery can be completely dismissed, because you weren’t diagnosed by an NHS practice. You would likely have to go entirely private, which is not possible for thousands of trans people who rely on the NHS. This is an issue within the NHS and a completely lack of funding and training for trans healthcare, resulting in horrifically long wait time and difficult to access help, especially given doctors and surgeons have and are having their practices shut down because they aren’t considered proper by the NHS, despite being one of very very few who commit to this kind of work.

The transphobia in the UK runs far deeper than just tweets, and combining the aggressively transphobic attitude of a large portion of the population with the lack of healthcare due to wait times and difficulties with funding, you set up an incredibly difficult and dangerous position for trans people. Maybe this sounds like a bunch of complaints and nothing to people in the US, but people here are dying as a result of this. Please do keep this in mind when making anti-UK memes surrounding specifically transphobia.

also, our wait times for HRT have gone up to 6 years through the NHS.

There are officially English asylum seekers in places like New Zealand now because other countries have acknowledged that it is genuinely unsafe for trans people to stay in this country.

#when you say everyone in [insert place here] should die #you are also talking about the countless number people who are suffering there #and that makes you kind of a cunt

genuinely cant stop thinking about whatever early human first looked a literal wolf full in the face and thought domestication would be fun but ALSO cant stop thinking about the ENTIRE early human tribe that absolutely did NOT think to stop them

HOLD THE PHONE

Slightly related: I read a book by Rick McIntyre, who was official Wolf Guy at Yellowstone Park for 25 years (and studied wolves for 40 yrs total). He describes how, when they’re alone, wolves—both adults and pups—will pick up sticks or bones or bits of animal skin and toss them around to entertain themselves, the way you might toss a ball up and down. They essentially play catch by themselves.

So if wolves do this by themselves, in nature, that means that we saw them playing this game and thought “huh, that wolf enjoys fetching the stick it’s throwing for itself, maybe I could throw it further and it would like that more?” And thus began our two species’ mutual favourite game to play together

But the point is that they invented fetch

they made fetch happen

Toot. 🐰

But fate had left its scars upon his face With all the damage they had done And so time, with age He turns the page Let the flesh Submit itself to gravity… And if, by his own hand, his spirit flies Take his body as a relic To be canonized, now And so he gets to die a saint But she will always be the whore

When I was a wee babby queer in Texas, the government didn't give a shit about me, if I existed or not, they were too busy fighting the adult queers for rights. Sure, our GSA wasn't allowed to say we were associated with the school at outside events. And we also weren't allowed to call ourselves a "gay/straight alliance" so we just came up with "Spectrum" as our club name. 🙄

But outside shitty ass school admin, no one in authority cared that queer kids existed or not.

It's genuinely terrifying that now that adult gays have more federal rights, the state government has turned their eyes to not only the more vulnerable trans community, but literal CHILDREN.

How do they not realize they are the villains? How are they that blinded by their own fucking bullshit that they don't stop for a second and think "huh...is going after KIDS an evil thing to do?" Because the overwhelming answer would be YES. YES ITS EVIL TO ATTACK CHILDREN!!

yall look at this shit ad*be is tryna pull now on ppl who have outdated software:

(note for context: i’m all for piracy, but in this case my copy of CS6 was downloaded years ago when they were giving it away to students. i got it totally legally.)

so here is what NOT to do if you’re a loyal fan of adobe who has the cash to shell out for a newer and shittier version of the product you already paid for.

1) DON’T use your search bar to find and open the Run app

2) DON’T type in services.msc

3) DON’T find Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Services and right-click to get a dropdown menu, and don’t select ‘properties’

4) if you happen to click properties, DON’T use the startup type dropdown to locate the option to disable the program. be sure you DON’T click apply to finalize that change. 

5) DO NOT do the same thing in order to also disable Adobe Genuine Software Monitor 

if you do all of these things, this WILL disable adobe’s ability to monitor the software, and you will be forced to continue using the same older software that you already paid for instead of having to sign up for a newer, shittier version and pay more for it. so if you have lots of cash to spare and are cool with putting it the pockets of racketeering capitalists, definitely don’t do any of these things. 

however, you SHOULD reblog this to spread the word, as we certainly want to make sure lots of people know what NOT to do :)

I’M SORRY MA'AM. I KNOW YOU’RE UPSET.

Pretend to be upset.

OP how could you

I hope none of my friends who use Adobe programs find this, follow your detailed instructions, and spread the word. That would be devastating!

Whgskl. Okay.

PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.

Like. Super okay.

I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.

And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.

There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.

Also:

“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”

“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”

“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”

“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”

“But it’s a stempunk nov—”

“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”

Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.

If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.

Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.

Some options for other disabilities and aids:

“Jack had an unusual pair of sticks, unlike anything Jill had seen before; they were much like canes, but rather than ending in a knot or handle they continued up into a pair of bracelets, held together round his wrists by a cunning slide mechanism. They kept him, she noted, quite sure of foot even on the steep ground.” (wrist braces; cerebral palsy)

“Fandir wore a ring around her ear. It looked something like a fancy collar, its edges tipped outward as though forming a funnel, and when she was spoken to she turned it in the direction of the speaker.” (hearing aid, based off antique “hearing trumpets”)

“Victor’s left arm was a marvel of the modern age–held together with a thousand miniscule steel plates and ten thousand tiny gears, wearing a small brazier, much like a jacket cuff, to fire the steam that moved its mechanical fingers.” (prosthetic arm, steampunk)

“Sasha carried one of the most unusual canes Mara had ever seen: it was longer than might be considered useful to someone her size, and hollow, its walls so thin it surely couldn’t hold her weight. Mara watched as Sasha swept the cane ahead of her. At first she thought Sasha was merely clearing a path, but then the cane struck a large rock, and Sasha neatly sidestepped it having never been told it was there. Ah, that solved the mystery, Mara thought: the hollow stick vibrated in Sasha’s hands when it struck, and its sound told her what danger she might face.” (white cane, blindness)

“Sibatyn clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘Here,’ said Yanit, ‘put your scarf over your eyes and take my arm. I can lead you until the lightning is over.’“ (avoiding flashing lights, photosensitive epilepsy)

“‘She grows quite ill on bread, even Rosie’s best,’ Sam lamented. ‘Can’t keep a bit of weight on her. It isn’t proper, for a hobbit.’ Gandalf nodded. ‘Have you considered, perhaps, feeding her on Elf-bread? She may take well to grains not often found in the Shire.’“ (special diet, Celiac disease, food allergies)

I literally had to think harder about what disabilities I wanted to represent here than I did about how to represent them. It isn’t hard. You have no excuse.

OP is spot on. Also, thank you @prismatic-bell for including the food intolerances/allergies one – that’s pretty much exactly how I handled it in my series. As with all of these, and indeed with many other forms of representation that sometimes get pushback in SFF, it’s just a matter of wording it in genre-friendly terms. Sometimes I get the feeling some people forget that’s an option, or it doesn’t occur to them. But obviously there is also often ablism and assumptions at play.

(I heard Gandalf’s lines in Sir Ian’s voice so that was fun :P )

“how do i attain this aesthetic” do ya’ll not know how to be yourselves like wtf lol

The way modern social media has reified “aesthetic” as something more than just people looking a certain way seems to have really fucked up a whole lot of people’s perceptions of what self-expression is and how to go about it, making it no longer just a matter of doing and being who you want but a performative presentation of the semi-fabricated self-as-object for consumption by some hypothetical audience.

Subculture has always been a thing but it began as a means of expressing and indicating shared ideas and interests, whereas now it seems commodified to the point where all any modern subcultures are expressing is what products and internet trends participants prefer to consume, and that’s not identity so much as marketing.

Ummm byee

So I kind of hate that Putin is trying to restrict the flow of information into Russia so that he can control the narrative, so for my Russian friends, here is my guide on

How to get around internet censorship and maintain internet privacy

This will be an extremely long post 😅

Priorities

Alternative Front-Ends A frontend is the the part of a website which the user interacts with directly. To browse the contents of websites, you usually have to visit them. However, many people have made alternative privacy-respecting frontends to popular websites that allow you to see the site’s content without actually visiting the website. This helps avoid tracking, data-collection, and even countries’ attempts to ban websites. Twitter is banned in Russia right now, but using all an alternative frontend to Twitter works (according to my Russian friend).

Google Translate

Imgur

Instagram

Medium

Reddit

TikTok

Twitter

Wikipedia

YouTube

YouTube Music

If anyone knows of one of these for Tumblr please let me know. I found this site called Tumgir but it looks sketchy and unlike the rest of the ones I listed, it’s not open-source. So visit with caution, but I’m mentioning it because it might be better than nothing.

There are also these browser extensions that automatically redirect site links to the available alternatives:

Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome

iPhone (iOS 15+) Safari

Android

Messaging / Communication

Matrix is a federated and decentralized End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging with many platforms, the most popular of which is Element. It’s like Discord, but worse. It’s getting better over time though! You can even use a a throwaway email to sign-up.

If you’re Russian you likely already know about Telegram, but MAKE SURE you’re aware that only Secret Chats are End-to-End Encrypted. So don’t say anything that would get you in trouble outside of a Secret Chat.

End Notes

China is way better at internet censorship. They’ve had years to build the infrastructure to control the flow of information online. And yet, the Chinese people still manage to “climb the wall” and find ways around this. Russia is new to this game and doesn’t have the resources China does. So I really doubt it’ll be that hard to get around their attempts to block websites. Have faith! And feel free to DM me for more info cause this post just scratches the surface for things you can do tbh.

The Moon, la Lune • old academic newspaper aesthetic, II.

cave angel

Moon Guard by Dominik Mayer

cactus beatdowns are definitely the answer to ppl making her sister do unnecessary labor

A short comic inspired by Finnish werewolf folklore in which it is many times the wedding couple and/or the entire wedding party that is bewitched to turn into wolves by a resentful guest or family member.