Please for the love of god, if you value whatever media or whatever you're creating a wiki for:

DO NOT USE FANDOM WIKIA

Not just because Fandom wiki is just straight up adware. But because they will happily take all your rights as a wiki owner away and give it to a corporation in the name of profits, like they did to the McDonald's wiki or y'know, completely destroy LGBTQ+ wikis on many identities (including removing nearly every aroacespec labels including demisexual, greyromantic, and many other labels, including many more I used!) all without the permission or consent of the admins of the wiki to "make LGBTQ+ identities easier to understand" and replaced the admins with their own chosen ones, of which iirc were very questionable in their behavior.

"What are alternatives then?"

Fandom Wikia runs off a FREE open-source software known as MediaWiki, it's the same thing Wikipedia, Bulbapedia, and many others use.

This means that you can host your own wiki, or use any other wiki farm such as Miraheze, which is what the wiki I help run uses.

The best part about WikiMedia is that something made on one wiki can be cross-compatible with another. We often use and base our templates off of other wikis, and it makes it somewhat easier to transfer from FANDOM if necessary.

Stop FANDOM's monopoly over wikis, they'll stab you in the back as soon as it's a choice between the user or profits.

Also utilize breezewiki and antifandom to browse fandom wiki pages/sites!

Please for the love of god, if you value whatever media or whatever you're creating a wiki for:

DO NOT USE FANDOM WIKIA

Not just because Fandom wiki is just straight up adware. But because they will happily take all your rights as a wiki owner away and give it to a corporation in the name of profits, like they did to the McDonald's wiki or y'know, completely destroy LGBTQ+ wikis on many identities (including removing nearly every aroacespec labels including demisexual, greyromantic, and many other labels, including many more I used!) all without the permission or consent of the admins of the wiki to "make LGBTQ+ identities easier to understand" and replaced the admins with their own chosen ones, of which iirc were very questionable in their behavior.

"What are alternatives then?"

Fandom Wikia runs off a FREE open-source software known as MediaWiki, it's the same thing Wikipedia, Bulbapedia, and many others use.

This means that you can host your own wiki, or use any other wiki farm such as Miraheze, which is what the wiki I help run uses.

The best part about WikiMedia is that something made on one wiki can be cross-compatible with another. We often use and base our templates off of other wikis, and it makes it somewhat easier to transfer from FANDOM if necessary.

Stop FANDOM's monopoly over wikis, they'll stab you in the back as soon as it's a choice between the user or profits.

Also utilize breezewiki and antifandom to browse fandom wiki pages/sites!

🚨⚠️ATTENTION FELLOW WRITERS⚠️🚨

If you use Google Docs for your writing, I highly encourage you to download your work, delete it from Google Docs, and transfer it to a different program/site, unless you want AI to start leeching off your hard work!!!

I personally have switched to Libre Office, but there are many different options. I recommend checking out r/degoogle for options.

Please reblog to spread the word!!

Crypt Pad can be an option too!

I don’t use Docs very much at all, but this looks like a good moment to take a sweep through my account and delete anything that’s in there.

An Angel

just feel like sharing some trivia since a lot of ppl seem to like this drawing. This creature's appearance was inspired by bomb chipped concrete I saw a lot when visiting a friend in Irpin :0

sometimes I wish that every article naming how much a public service would cost (or how much it would cost to repair needed infrastructure for the service or to make the service more accessible to disabled people and poor people) would explain that number in terms of how much time it takes a billionaire to earn that much.

like "it would cost $8.6 million (or, a little under one hour of Bezos's earnings) to build a new public library building in this area which would serve 45 thousand people."

money is literally a social and political representation of how we are choosing to allocate resources. I wish these direct comparisons were made so people who haven't yet made the connection might at least start asking "huh... why should we allocate these resources to one person to do nothing with them instead of to 45 thousand people in the form of an essential service? why do we allocate this amount of resources to this one person every single hour of every single day but it's unthinkable to provide it to tens of thousands of people just once? why are tens of thousands of people (of which I am one), all of us collectively, less valuable than this one guy?"

I also like framing it in terms of what it saves, eg, this tram line will cost 5.6 million, reducing traffic congestion by 20%, save 500,000 per year in wear and tear on roads, save 0.8 million a year in health care costs related to pollution, in addition to incalculable health care savings by reducing stress of heavy commutes, increase tourism income by X, etc, etc, etc. We can't just talk about the costs of changing. We have to talk about the costs of continuing to do things the same way

'The machines we have now are not conscious', Lunch with the FT, Ted Chiang, by Madhumita Murgia, 3 June/4 June 2023

Thank you if you reblog and please consider learning more about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other stigmatized mental illnesses!

Image descriptions start.

A series of six infographics titled, “Understanding NPD Part 1.” Each image shows some simple line art with text.

1. A person with a confused expression has question marks floating by their head. A thought bubble coming from them shows a heart shape. The text says: As a narcissist, I often question how I experience love and how to express love properly.

2. The text says: After all, 2 common ways NPD develops are from: 1) Being shown excessive love as a child and/or never being told no – unintetionally overwhelming your ego. Spoiler: Your child won’t get NPD from “being loved too much,” the above is referring to excess entitlement. The drawing shows a smiling person surrounded by hearts. 2) A significant lack of love or praise given to the child, ultimately making them feel worthless. From there, a heightened ego develops to protect the person from feeling this way. The drawing shows a child trying to talk to an adult, who simply says, “I’m busy.” The child then thinks, “Fine I don’t need them.”

3. The text says: I experienced the latter. The drawing shows a frowning child whose eyes are hidden by their fringe. Under this is text that says: My parents never gave me much attention as a kid. The art shows the child playing with blocks alone More text says: And getting praise was an uphill battle. The art shows the child showing their parent a paper that says A+. The parent is tapping their chin with lowered eyebrows.

4. The text says: And now that leaves me a little unfamiliar with love. The art shows someone approaching the grown-up version of the child. The other person has a heart coming from their moth, and the now-grown person looks uncomfortable. Several question marks float above their head.

5. The text says: Often I am too preoccupied with supporting myself (the same way I did when I was a child( that I forget to extend support to other people. It was not something I was shown how to do, so I struggle with it now. The art shows the person thinking with their hand on their chin. They say: I look awesome today. There is a small sparkle by the words.

6. The text says: Even though it does not come easy to me, I am learning a lot about how to show love to other people (and to myself). Ongoing support and kindness from my friends has helped me a ton. The art shows the person standing in between to other people with speech bubbles. One has two exclamation points, and the other has squiggly lines. Text under this says: Even if I recover enough to no longer meet the critera for Narcissistic Personality Disorder someday, I am happy right now that I can teach people what it is really like and I will continue to do so in the future. Advocating for people like me goes a long way towards helping end false assumptions about the disorder and allows people to get the treatment they need.

The final image at the bottom of the OP is a purple userbox. The icon is a stethoscope, and the text says: This blog advocates for those with NPD, ASPD, DID, Psychosis, and any other marginalized disorders. Description end.

ALSO. on the concept of funky genders. "socially unacceptable" genders or "genderweird" people i love you. transmascs who are girls i love you. transfems who are men i love you. transmascs who feel transfem and transfems who feel transmasc i love you. everyone who feels like their gender is too "weird" or "complicated" or are an "oxymoron or self-contradictory" i love you and we are all trans and good and community and perfect ok.

I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.

Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)

But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.

I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.

So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.

(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)

Kokobot is incredibly predatory and exploitative. I wrote a post about how it exploits minors' empathy and gamifies "giving mental health advice", resulting in an unregulated mess that can only do harm to teens' mental health in the long run.

There are young people on tumblr that actively seek support from KokoBot right now, if you check the tag for recent posts. Those people did not get paid to promote it, so do not harrass them. If you can, direct them towards resources about Kokobot (like this post) that are more transparent about what this company is up to.

This... is DEEPLY DISTURBING.

help a disabled trans guy stay afloat

we need to pay off the last of the rent we owe and we also need money for electric, wet cat food, and cat litter.

we owe £80 on rent and need at least another £30 for basic necessities on top of that.

we owe £80 on this months rent and we’re going to owe another £135 in two weeks

the real protagonist

hey. when kim dokja became the outer god king during the final scenario arc (still reading it btw might edit this later) and no one could understand what he was saying? and we got chapters from jung heewon, han sooyoung, lee gilyoung, etc.'s pov? and they were all taking about how he wasnt a villain, there was no way he could be the enemy of the story, but they couldn't understand him?

and outer gods, man. all they want is to be understood.

and kdj has that wall. the fourth wall. in the other character's povs, outergod!kdj is constantly described as "he looks like a wall". an impossible wall that cant be crossed or defeated.

and then jang hayoung shows up with her wall of impossible communication fragment and things start to turn around!

but also! han sooyoung goes up to kdj and writes on the wall. and kdj responds. the stuff he is saying... it starts to make a little bit more sense now? it's still not completely comprehendable and itll never be completely understood but thats okay. it's okay.

so. i know you've heard it a hundred times but WRITE ON THE WALL. everyone has a wall. everyone is hiding behind something. but everyone--every story--wants to be understood. and while its impossible to fully understand someone, you need to try anyway. write on the wall. it can be anything. hell, han sooyoung wrote "You idiot!" on the wall and even that got through to outergod!kdj. just write something. just try. because that's better than not writing anything on that wall at all.

Solidarity Summer is well and truly ramping up. AS IT FUCKING SHOULD.

And another one! 📢

Barnes and Noble booksellers are working on forming a union as well! 

https://www.reddit.com/r/union/comments/rwczci/barnes_noble_workers_want_union/

Their flagship store and New York has unionized along with 3-4 other stores! This is happening! People are tired of being seen as dollar signs and being made to work just to get to work more, to survive instead of thrive. Keep it UP. 

Time to feed unprofessional managers what they’ve been dishing out for far too long.

Couple things here, for when you do this to people: 

1. if you get the “answer my call” text, NEVER ANSWER THE CALL. 

They are calling you because they want to have the conversation verbally, and be able to lie later about what they said or didn’t say. Force them to continue via text or email- force them to continue the conversation in writing or not at all. 

2. “Lack of 2 weeks notice is unprofessional!” or the other version, “Not providing notice is illegal!”

No it isn’t. Neither is true. 

And in the US, all states except Montana are “at will” employment (though you may hear an employer refer to it as “right to work” to make it sound better, it’s the same thing). Sure, at-will employment means they can fire you without cause, BUT! It also means that you are not legally required to give a reason for quitting, or to give notice of any kind. 

Is it polite to give notice when you can? Sure. Do bosses expect it? Absolutely. But that does not make you legally required to provide it. 

3. The only thing I would change in the worker’s interaction here was their response when initially asked to come in. 

Don’t give a reason for your lack of availability. It may be tempting to. You may feel rude if you don’t. 

DON’T DO IT.

You do not owe your boss any information about what you do off the clock, and any reason you give will only ever be used against you. 

And leave it at that. 

Do not elaborate. 

Do not offer additional information. 

When you boss asks you to elaborate, because they will, be polite but firm. “With respect, that’s personal. I’m sorry, but I’m unavailable to cover this shift/work late/come in early/etc.”

Be a broken record- you’re unavailable. That’s the only information they need to know, and it’s the only information they have a LEGAL RIGHT to know. 

Please stop giving your bosses information they don’t need to know and don’t get to have, because they’re only going to try and use it to fuck you over later. 

My job is HR. The above is completely accurate.

Hello follow up that you need to read your contract particularly about the notice bit! If you’ve signed a contract stating you need to give x amount of notice then you have to abide by it or risk being sued. If you didn’t, then godspeed and fuck your boss.

UK and some other countries have a free independent Citizens Advice service which is useful if you need to chat through something with a neutral party.

[Images description: a Twitter thread by Alisa Lynn Valdés, M.S., @ AlisaValdesRod1. It goes as follows:

“This quote, from the @ nytimes review of the Oppenheimer film: (quote) “He served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near-desolate stretch of Los Alamos, in New Mexico” (end quote)... It was inhabited by Hispanos. They were given less than 24 hr to leave. Their farms bulldozed. 1.

Many of those families had been on the same land for centuries. The Oppenheimer’s crew literally shot all of their livestock through the head and bulldozed them. People fled on foot with nowhere to go. Land rich, money poor. Their land seized by the government. 2.

All of the Hispano NM men who were displaced by the labs later were hired to work with beryllium by Oppenheimer. The white men got protective gear. The Hispano men did not. 3.

The Hispano men all died of berylliosis. These were US citizens, folks. Their land taken, animals killed, farms bulldozed, forced to work for the people who took everything from them, and killed by those people. 4.

For 20 years I have been trying to sell a film based on the story of Loyda Martinez, a remarkable whistleblower whose family's land was seized for the labs. Her dad was one of the men who died from beryllium exposure at the labs. She later went to work there too. 5.

She is a computer whiz who rose to the top of her department at Los Alamos. Then she started digging for info on the Hispano men the labs killed, like her father. She filed a class action lawsuit, and won. 6.

The first Hispano governor of NM, Bill Richardson, appointed Loyda to run the state's human rights commission. She then filed a second class-action against Los Alamos, on behalf of women scientists not paid fairly. 7.

But, no. We want more films about the "complex and troubled" "heroic" white men, who conducted their GENIUS in a "virtually unpopulated" place. These are ALL lies. This is mythology in service to white supremacy and the military industrial complex, masquerading as "nuanced." 8.

Because of what the labs did to the local Hispano people in northern NM, our communities now have the highest rates of heroin overdose deaths in the nation. The generational trauma and forced poverty is outrageous. We need the real stories of Oppenheimer to be told. End.”

End description.]

male gaze is not 'when person look sexy' or 'when misogynist make film'

death of the author is not 'miku wrote this'

I don't think you have to read either essay to grasp the basic concepts

death of the author means that once a work is complete, what the author believes it to mean is irrelevant to critical analysis of what's in the text. it means when analysing the meaning of a text you prioritise reader interpretation above author intention, and that an interpretation can hold valid meaning even if it's utterly unintentional on the part of the person who created the thing. it doesn't mean 'i can ignore that the person who made this is a bigot' - it may in fact often mean 'this piece of art holds a lot of bigoted meanings that the author probably wasn't intentionally trying to convey but did anyway, and it's worth addressing that on its own terms regardless of whether the author recognises it's there.' it's important to understand because most artists are not consciously and vocally aware of all the possible meanings of their art, and because art is communal and interpretive. and because what somebody thinks they mean, what you think somebody means, and what a text is saying to you are three entirely different things and it's important to be able to tell the difference.

male gaze is a cinematographic theory on how films construct subjectivity (ie who you identify with and who you look at). it argues that film language assumes that the watcher is a (cis straight white hegemonically normative) man, and treats men as relatable subjects and women as unknowable objects - men as people with interior lives and women as things to be looked at or interacted with but not related to. this includes sexual objectification and voyeurism, but it doesn't mean 'finding a lady sexy' or 'looking with a sexual lens', it means the ways in which visual languages strip women of interiority and encourage us to understand only men as relatable people. it's important to understand this because not all related gaze theories are sexual in nature and if you can't get a grip on male gaze beyond 'sexual imagery', you're really going to struggle with concepts of white or abled or cis subjectivities.

:whispers: also Death of the Author means you have to exercise self-criticism and recognise the bias YOU as the audience bring to interpreting a piece of work. Yes, your reading is valid. But to what extent are you extrapolating from your own experiences, privileges & lacks of privilege, past traumas, etc.? How might this affect your interpretation of the text?

More people need to understand that part, too.

In complete seriousness, they need to make laws about ads that say they can take no more than one, maybe two, clicks/taps to close/skip. No more "wait 10 seconds until you can skip the video, wait 10 seconds until you can skip the fake playable ad, wait 5 seconds until you can close the 'download now' overlay, puts up a half-screen in-app appstore pop-up (which at least you can close immediately)." This should literally be illegal to do.

Edit: this is blowing up so I just wanted to add (haha ad) that this was my "reasonable request" I also think there should be way more and way stricter laws around all advertising in general. I think most advertising as we know it today should be abolished.

"You know how I describe the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there... just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs." -- George Carlin

Karl Marx analysed this phenomenon, which he referred to as “the reserve army of the unemployed” or “the reserve army of labour”.

https://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2017/11/marx-on-reserve-army-of-labor-unemployed.html

also called surplus and superfluous labour

and the poor and other superfluous' people aren't just there to scare the middle class, they also get squeezed for money as much as anyone else via the prison and medical systems

🚨⚠️ATTENTION FELLOW WRITERS⚠️🚨

If you use Google Docs for your writing, I highly encourage you to download your work, delete it from Google Docs, and transfer it to a different program/site, unless you want AI to start leeching off your hard work!!!

I personally have switched to Libre Office, but there are many different options. I recommend checking out r/degoogle for options.

Please reblog to spread the word!!

Crypt Pad can be an option too!

I don’t use Docs very much at all, but this looks like a good moment to take a sweep through my account and delete anything that’s in there.