Oh gosh!! My webcomic, Amphiox, launches this Friday on the 16th! It is about magic doom eels.

It will update one page per day until the story is complete. Each page includes a full text transcript so everyone can read along.

[img id] Image depicted is the cover to the webcomic, Amphiox. It's a black cover with criss-crossing blue serpent coils taking up most of the background. The coils writhe around each other with faint glimmers of scales highlighted, before vanishing into darkness. This is a teaser for the beast that will be encountered and explained within the webcomic.

Layered over the writing coils of the Amphiox is its tail, oddly centered and still compared to the rest of its body. An amphiox's tail ends in a fin with rounded tips. The fin's color is a bright, bioluminescent gradient composed of yellow fading into bright skyblue, before tapering into a darker cerulean. The tail has vibrating red highlights. It casts a rainbow of highlights onto its own scales. Attached to this tail are two more, lesser pectoral and dorsal fins, in cerulean blue. The pectoral fin pokes out near the tail, and the dorsal fin is further up, and larger. Layered onto the tail is a vertically-aligned title text: AMPHIOX. Beneath that is 'H. McGill' and 'http://amphiox.hmcgill.art' in white. [/id]

Take this dialect quiz! X

Lived in AZ most of my life, but even at age 40 I still have a few linguistic traits inherited from my parents that are either Specifically Chicagoan or just not a western U.S. thing, such as the cot/caught difference but especially GYM SHOES. It took me an absurdly long time to realize that people calling them "sneakers" and "tennis shoes" were not calling them that ironically, but in fact it's me that's been the weirdo this whole time?? And I need to double check that this is right about GYM SHOES being a fairly unusual localization and not what most USians call them. Did I just read the map wrong? Why is THIS my linguistic blind spot??

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

Our queer employees designed a special Watcher-themed Pride Collection that you can check out at https://society6.com/wearewatcher 100% of all earnings will be donated to the Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project and the Central Florida Emergency Trans Care Fund!

"And most importantly: Fuck Ron Desantis!"

they know exactly what the queers want to hear

now that I'm done imagining a jar of peanut butter, can I just say that I love that Shane and Ryan have shifted away from traditional true crime to just shootin' the shit about weird-ass mysteries?

I always liked the "let's talk about weird mysteries" aspect of buzzfeed unsolved, but being real with you, I'm uncomfortable with true crime and the culture surrounding it. like... as someone who lost a loved one to a violent (and temporarily unsolved) crime, I've seen firsthand how internet theorizing can make a traumatizing time even harder and like. it's fucking rough, man.

I get that it makes money and all (which... is a whole other can of worms) but when you view human suffering as entertainment, it's so easy to forget about the real people who will actually be affected by what's put out there on the internet.

so I'm happy that Shane and Ryan seem to be leaning a lot more into "wow, some unhinged shit happened! how fucked up is that?" on mystery files. more of this, please!!

#I hate that people feel entitled to the worst moments of strangers' lives y'know?

PEER REVIEWED AND APPROVED TAG

This is why I always preferred BFU Supernatural to True Crime despite being a skeptic.

I appreciate that there seemed to be an emphasis on the dysfunctional processes and pitfalls of law enforcement (something I am genuinely interested in), but talking about that aspect of a crime while trying not to be too voyeuristic about the details is too fine a line to walk and I'm happy that they seem to have just abandoned the effort altogether. There are plenty of other mysteries in the world to pick apart.

BARBIE (2023)

ENDLESS LIST OF FAVOURITE HORROR FILMS [1/∞] ANNIHILATION (2018) dir. Alex Garland

the duoest duo to ever duo

The Spokane Press, Washington, August 27, 1910

Encounter: not just a skeleton, but specifically a naked skeleton

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

(202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

I read that certain senators and congressmen may co-op the UK's Child Safety Week of awareness (largely about protecting children from physical hazards in the home) to push this through in June, using their favorite dog whistle for anti-trans and anti-queer rhetoric. During Pride Month no less.

If you are able, call and sign.

If you haven’t changed your url in years tell me why as someone in your same boat it’s for science

*plants mint directly in your dash* heehee :3

🌿🌱🌱🌱🌿AIUUGGG🌿🌿HHHHDKD🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌱🌱☘️🌿☘️🌿🌿AUUG🌿GHHHHHHH🌿🌿HHHSHSJ🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🍃🌿🌿🌱🌿🌿🍃🌿🌿🌿

@ruukachoo !!!!

currently, the most delightful reactions to episode 3x06 of Ted Lasso are the Dutch fans getting so excited over every single part of it

Look, LOOK, okay, they had Pastorale playing on that radio in the dutch man's boat. I have never heard that song in any non-dutch piece ever. It's a song about someone falling deeply in love with the sun and how overwhelming and powerful that is. And the Homomonument! And people speaking Dutch! And gezellig!

we are a tiny country that often gets overlooked or mixed in with german and Ted Lasso *understood* the assignment so well. Bless Brendan Hunt for writing a love letter to our itty bitty home he lived for five years!

See? ☝️☺️

Anyway this is my general reaction to Ted Lasso 3.06, "Sunflowers"

Donald in Mathmagic Land (1959)/Ted Lasso Episode 3x06 "Sunflowers" (2023)

This would help a lot of people, and it's one of the reasons it's so important to push back against the "but the parties are equally bad, so you shouldn't bother voting" type rhetoric.

jesus christ this would be huge.

hi! if you see this and think it's a good idea: PLEASE leave a comment. it's super easy & you can do this in <5 minutes:

When a government agency proposes a rule change like this, they legally must have a public comment period before finalizing it. AND they have to read and respond to those comments in the final draft of the regulation. Not enough people are aware of this , but it can really have an impact!!

This link will take you to the Federal Register page for the proposed rule, where you click the big green button to Submit a Formal Comment

Your comment can be as long or short as you'd like- it can just be one sentence! The key is to clearly STATE YOUR SUPPORT for the proposed rule. You can also look at other existing comments for support.

If you have personal experience with disability benefits, especially the reduction of benefits from free meals/groceries, those are great to include. They like to hear from people personally impacted by these changes, or know people who are.

I know it can be intimidating to post a public comment like this but it is SO IMPORTANT to engage with specific policy changes like this. Saying "this is great!" on social media doesn't help governmental officials understand the level of support a change like this has, or how much good it would do.

Adding on to this, as this is important info you might not realize unless you scroll down in the Federal Register page:

The public comments must be submitted by April 17, 2023.

When you write it, make sure to include the sentance: ‘This public comment regards Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ or some variation on it. Make sure to include ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ or else your comment WILL NOT BE INCLUDED. 

[Image ID: Screenshot of a section of the Federal Register webpage which reads ‘Regardless of which method you choose, please state that your comments refer to Docket No. SSA-2021-0014 so that we may associate your comments with the correct regulation.’ /end Image ID.]

The public comments are registered with the record ONLY if they included ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′.

Please, please comment. 

As of now, February 22, 2023, there are 214 comments. I am not sure how many of those comments included the ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ tag, so I’m not sure how many will be included with the public comments that will be registered.  

Remember, when you interact with government bureaucracy, they have their requirements and hoops to jump through. To make an impact you have to adhere to their rules, as much as that stinks. 

[Image description: a screenshot of the Federal Register page for the proposed regulation “Omitting Food From In-Kind Support and Maintenance Calculations”. There are arrows pointing to a green button that reads “submit a formal comment”. End description.]

[Plain text: The public comments must be submitted by April 17, 2023.

When you write it, make sure to include the sentance: ‘This public comment regards Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ or some variation on it. Make sure to include ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ or else your comment will not be included. End plain text.]

[Image description: Screenshot of a section of the Federal Register webpage which reads ‘Regardless of which method you choose, please state that your comments refer to Docket No. SSA-2021-0014 so that we may associate your comments with the correct regulation.’ End description.]

[Plain text: The public comments are registered with the record only if they included ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′.

Please, please comment. 

As of now, February 22, 2023, there are 214 comments. I am not sure how many of those comments included the ‘Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ tag, so I’m not sure how many will be included with the public comments that will be registered.  End description.]

@a-captions-blog

Writing a supportive comment for a rule change like this will definitely help!

The deadline for comments is coming up soon - April 17, 2023

Make sure your comment includes :

When you write it, make sure to include the sentence: ‘This public comment regards Docket No. SSA-2021-0014′ or some variation on it or else your comment WILL NOT BE INCLUDED.