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the atlantis team suffered more than jesus btw

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The scene in Exit Strategy where people walk into various corporate hell feeds where they are bombarded by ads and everyone just sort of stops for a moment of complete disorientation while they try to pay to get around it or figure out how to navigate it is really just such a good metaphor for opening any website in 2025. Like even with adblockers you have the 12 step program of cookies, decline notifications, no I don't want to sign up to your newsletter no I'm not turning off adblocker, no I don't want to sign up for premium, etc.

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people trying to convince me to have kids feels like a pyramid scheme

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The 2025 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The 12th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 30th August 2025.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

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The secunit

It destroyed it's governor module

Yes

YES

The secunit is out

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reblog if you’ve been personally victimized by the Sanctuary Moon theme song

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Everyone needs to watch this chatty kitty I just found on tiktok. SOUND ON!

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Exit Strategy destroying me emotionally for 172 pages

p. 17

My friend ART

p. 21

Maybe because I'd picked them myself.

p. 22

I just wasn't sure I wanted to see her again. (Or more accurately, for her to see me again.) Thinking about her brought up a whole knot of confused emotion I didn't want to deal with right now.

p. 26

What had happened that had panicked GrayCris so much that... Oh. Oh, shit.

p. 28 - this fanart! (cw blood)

At least humans could cut out their ID markers; I had corporate logos etched onto parts of me I couldn't get rid of.

p. 34

But Miki had died for that information, whether it knew it or not.

p. 41

So that was four of them I had to worry about.

p. 61 - this fanart!

It hit me then, how all those cycles of watching Pin-Lee on our contract had made me trust her judgment. If she didn't want to do it, she probably had a good reason. I had to talk to her, give her another option.

p. 63

"We - she - we were worried, okay."

p. 64

Abene had known I was a SecUnit, but she hadn't known I was me.

p. 79

One reason I was nervous was because it this went well and I wasn't shot to pieces, I would be seeing Mensah again. On the way to RaviHyral, ART had said that PreservationAux was my crew. [...] Okay, maybe I was naive enough at the time to think it might be a little true. [...] But sitting here in a hotel lobby, watching a biozone and running every not-a-SecUnit behavioral code I had, the fantasy fell apart.

p. 88-89

I'm going to touch you, don't freak out. [...] "This is not a deadly weapon. This is a person."

p. 92

Be careful -

p. 96

She answered immediately, Yes.

p. 106

"I'm just ... very glad to see you."

p. 107

She started to laugh, then her face did something complicated and she hugged me.

p. 112

I took Mensah's hand.

p. 113-115

"Why is Sanctuary Moon your favorite?" Yes, that we can talk about. I actually felt the organic tissue in my back and shoulders relax. [...] "It's the first one I saw. [...] It made me feel like a person."

p. 116

That she understood even that much made me melt.

p. 117

"I wish you trusted me, but I understand why you don't."

p. 120

Please, they will kill her.

p. 128

This had started as a way to distract it, but the more I talked the more I wanted it to say yes.

p. 138

I know exactly what you are. You're afraid, you're hurt [...] She wasn't afraid of me. And it hit me that I didn't want that to change.

p. 144

The bot pilot couldn't speak in words like ART, but in my head I felt its terror.

p. 152

And boom, hundreds of thousands of connections blossomed.

p. 152

ART? I tried to ping.

p. 152-153

The only tag I can access on Ratthi is a partial that says my human friend. That's strange and unlikely, but the pre-catastrophic-failure version of me seemed sure about it

p. 160

We set up a little network. I hope it helps.

p. 166

My transport called for boarding, and I didn't get on.

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no actually I do want to go back to Csevet being a Jane Austen (sorry, 'Göelar') fan and Celehar not liking them lmfao. Hilarious character microcosm. Celehar dismisses them as 'delicate intricate courtships amongst the upper classes' because his disinterest in the social sphere he was born into (and then kicked out of, several times) is so complete; he reads them for something to do, but doesn't have an interest in returning to high society even fictionally.

Csevet presumably loves them (he has the new Göelar, he's keeping up) because they're social satires and his whole damn life is social satire. He's an outsider to high society (even as secretary, he's still Aisava as opposed to Celehar) and he literally LIVES the Austen-narrator role of being able to observe all these annoying rich people all the time (without being paid attention to himself) and knowing Exactly what their deal is— the Austen narrator can do this because she invented free indirect discourse; Csevet can do this because he reads their post. I imagine he finds a lot of very familiar situations and people within them. Also frankly I can see him having a weakness for Austenian romance. It's so proper! He loves propriety!

Which is additionally hilarious because he was basically the one who chose Maia's wife for him. You know the task landed in his lap and he carefully closed Ethuverazhin Pride and Prejudice and was like well. I have been training my entire life for this moment. It is time to Make A High Society Match.

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Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

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if there's a screen, ao3 will be seen

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STAY CALM. IT'LL BE OKAY. YOU HAVE MY WORD.

dr mensah you move me

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He said lamely, "She is very beautiful." "And she has the sense not to frighten you," Dach'osmin Ceredin said, and Maia took a step back, wanting to protest her deduction, but unable to deny its truth. "We should take lessons from her, we see."

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is one of my favorite books of all time, and within it, one of my favorite scenes is Maia and Csethiro's first real interaction at Nurevis' party! so i drew it. their slow romance is so delicious.

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The sigil was drawn in salt and ash, the candles lit at the pentagram points, the incantation declaimed.

There was a shimmer - a demon appeared.

"Curious. What ritual is this?"

"I got it from ChatGPT. I included all protections in my prompt!"

"I see," the demon said and stepped out of the sigil.

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