#...and i'm absolutely not using facebook either

[deanthe]

"man, i really should post to tumblr more, it's a much better place for--"

"...welp, guess i have no choice but to follow my own plans!!"

[unproduciblesmackdown]

speaking of your coming of age movie that never happens & your narrative non-narratives, shoutout to the arcs that’d be supposedly “worse” lmfao like posts about people-pleasers being like “i’m in my villain era” when it’s just consciously prioritizing themselves at all / noting when boundaries for their own wellbeing are being trampled, and the like. wherein i’m like, well i like talking to people i suppose, i can do the hours of monologue at a wall for one mode, got chatterbox mode, funny guy theatrical mode, etc, but in actuality also, i do not like talking to people lmao. the “yeah, that’s me” movie ending with another voiceover while upbeat music plays & you’re cheerfully walking along in 0.75x speed through some picturesque arena filled with socializing people like =) putting on headphones, turning up the volume, ignoring everyone, dodging people according to the berth one wants to maintain,

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[sirfrogsworth]

Frogman's Camera Buying Guide

A few weeks ago someone asked if I could recommend an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) to supplement their smartphone photos and hopefully get better pictures of important things like vacations and pets.

I decided to go very extra with my response and due to that... I'm still not finished with it.

I'm worried I am letting this person down because they did not ask for a giant post explaining every detail about cameras in the history of forever.

So I am going to do a camera recommendation post without as much explanation and hopefully I can finish the giant post at some point in the near future.

If you want to take better pictures you are probably going to need a camera with a decent sized sensor, a fast lens, a tripod, and a flash.

The bigger sensor gives you more dynamic range so you can capture brighter and darker things in the photo.

A fast lens has a giant hole in the front that lets in a ton of light. That hole is called the aperture and the bigger it is, the better your photos in dark environments will be. So you will want something that does f/1.8 or f/1.4 (lower f-stop number = bigger hole = more light). This can also help you get a lot of cool background blur.

A tripod will help get you longer exposures without any blur from camera shake. Especially good for landscape photos.

And a flash is for taking photos of pets and other moving subjects when you are indoors and don't have a lot of light. A flash is an absolute game changer for indoor photos.

HOWEVER, never point it directly at your subject.

Point it at a large white ceiling or wall. The flash happens so fast that it freezes motion. It is how I got all of my indoor photos of Otis.

Here he was playing and being rambunctious and he is not blurry.

I used no special settings. I just stuck on a flash and pointed it at the ceiling and suddenly sheep are sticking to things.

Oh, and one other huge benefit of using a flash... you can take much better photos of pets with dark fur. So if you have a cute little void in your home, a flash can help you capture detail in their fur.

Just lift the shadow slider in your image editor and that beautiful fur will reveal itself.

If you get an ETTL or TTL flash, it will output the correct amount of light automatically. You can literally just put your camera in automatic mode, aim the flash at the ceiling, and press the shutter button.

Before I talk about recommendations I want to make one thing very clear.

GETTING A GIANT CAMERA WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY GIVE YOU BETTER PHOTOS.

Aside from my flash aimed at the ceiling trick, a big boy camera is not a magic solution for better photos. In some cases, you might actually get *worse* photos than your smartphone. You need to learn the basic fundamentals of photography and you also need to learn some basic photo editing skills.

Smartphones employ powerful algorithms and computational processes to make every photo you take look as good as possible.

ILCs say, "Here is your RAW data, you figure out the rest."

You don't have to become an expert, but if you watch this free 6 hour photography course, that will ensure you have the knowledge needed to improve your photos.

Okay, let's get into the nitty gritty of buying a nice new old ILC.

If you are on a tight budget and cannot afford a fancy mirrorless camera, I would highly suggest a used DSLR. You can get them for very reasonable prices. And unlike just about every other modern technological gadget, cameras and lenses are built to last for decades. So I have no qualms about recommending used photography gear.

However, I do highly recommend using either KEH or MPB, as they have a long trial period and decent customer service. If something goes awry with your used gear, KEH has a 180 day warranty and MPB has a 6 month warranty. So there is much less of a risk than eBay or Facebook Marketplace. You pay a bit of overhead, but the piece of mind is worth it.

Before I start my recommendations I want to quickly explain the difference between APS-C and Full Frame camera bodies. (For brevity's sake I am going to omit Micro Four Thirds bodies as they are not typically geared toward beginner photography.)

APS-C has a "crop" sensor. It is a bit smaller than full frame and does not perform as well in low light (more noise). However these bodies are cheaper and can still produce great photos. You can see above the sensor is still significantly larger than a smartphone. APS-C adds a 1.5x zoom to all lenses. This can be annoying in small spaces but advantageous for outdoor photography like wildlife and sports. You can use full frame lenses on a crop sensor body (within the same brand). APS-C lenses are usually cheaper but of lower quality.

Full frame has a larger sensor that will give you less noise in low light. It is also much easier to get background blur. Full frame also allows you to work in more cramped spaces. You *cannot* use APS-C lenses on a full frame body. However, the lenses meant for full frame cameras tend to be better quality in general.

If you can save up a little more and get a full frame body, I would recommend it. These bodies used to be geared more toward professional use, but since mirrorless cameras became popular, used full frame DSLRs have become much more accessible to those on a budget. Full frame cameras make it easier to get better results in challenging circumstances. And challenging conditions are really the main area where ILCs still kick a smartphone's ass.

For tight budgets I would recommend the following...

Canon or Nikon APS-C DSLR camera body

50mm f/1.8 lens (Nifty Fifty)

18-55mm APS-C lens (good for landscapes and portraits)

Yongnuo ETTL Flash

There are lenses called "superzooms" which can go from (as an example) 18-200mm or 70-300mm and other crazy focal lengths. That sounds fantastic and very versatile... but these are usually utter shite. You may be tempted to get one of these lenses hoping it can do everything you need, but there are no free lunches in lens land. Unless you are spending many thousands of dollars, the wider the focal range, the worse the lens will be.

When you stick to the 18-55mm range, you can be assured the images will be decent. And if you find yourself really needing a telephoto lens, you can save up and add it to your collection later on. The 18-55 will give you wide angle for landscapes all the way to slightly telephoto for portraits and moderately close wildlife. This lens cannot be used indoors or at night without a flash. Which is why I recommend the Nifty Fifty for that purpose. $100 for a moderately sharp low light lens is a no brainer.

Also, stick to Canon, Nikon, Sigma, or Tamron lenses. You can try exotic 3rd party lens brands when you know more what you are doing. And always make sure the lens has autofocus before buying.

It's hard to give you exact recommendations as used items are not reliably in stock. So I'm going to show you an example of the above, but I am not necessarily saying you should buy this *exact* combination. You might be able to get something similar with Nikon as well.

Canon 60D APS-C DSLR

50mm f/1.8 lens

Canon 18-55mm APS-C lens (EF-S mount)

Yongnuo TTL Flash

(I wouldn't recommend getting a used flash, as the Yongnuo is already a great price and you can't know if someone used the flash 100,000 times or 20 times.)

Altogether that is about $500. You can start with the 60D and the 50mm Nifty Fifty for $330 and add on the other two items later on.

My recommended full frame setup...

Full frame Canon or Nikon DSLR body

50mm f/1.8 lens (same as before)

24-70mm full frame zoom lens (full frame equivalent to 18-55mm)

ETTL Yongnuo flash (same as before)

And an example from KEH might be...

Canon 6D Full Frame DSLR

Canon 50mm f/1.8 Lens

Sigma 24-70mm Full Frame Zoom lens (EF mount)

Yonguo ETTL Flash

And that would be about $800 total.

Again, you can start with just the camera and 50mm lens and add the other items later. So invest $500 initially and go from there.

And just to give a Nikon example as well...

Nikon D600 Full Frame DSLR

Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Lens

Tamron 24-70mm

Yonguo ETTL Flash (Nikon version)

I highly recommend researching any camera body and lens before purchase. I can vouch for the items above, but you should definitely check out some YouTube videos before buying.

All of the stuff on KEH and MBP is marked down in price for aesthetic reasons. They do test everything to make sure it is functional. If you care if the camera or lens looks pristine, it will cost a little extra. But if you don't mind if it is beat to hell, you can save some money. Ugly or not, you will get the same photos out of the gear. As I said, photography stuff is built to last for a long time. Almost all repairs are due to user damage and not defects. And usually defects manifest when the product is brand new.

Oh, I forgot about the tripod!

Amazon's $35 tripod is surprisingly decent. It even got a good review on a very picky tripod review site. I recommend starting with this and then upgrading when you know more what you need out of a tripod.

Amazon 60 inch Tripod

I worry I'm leaving out a lot of important information, but hopefully I can expand in the other post I am working on.

That said, if anyone is thinking of buying a camera and you are not sure about the items you selected, please feel free to message me and I will help you assess your choices. Please make sure you include a budget range when asking for buying advice.

I hope that helps. I will try to finish the more in depth post soon. And it will include tips for how to get better photos from your smartphone if you cannot afford an ILC at the moment.

Further resources...

Recipe for Landscape Photos Froggie's Encyclopedia of Lens Terms

[circular-bircular]

I think there genuinely is an enormous problem in online spaces, I think in part due to the whole concept of purity culture, where everything people say and do online is scrutinized — not just in the case of “Is this person a good person,” but “Does this person represent the values we wish to see 24/7.”

Nobody is perfect, dear lord, and this place is not the place to seek perfection regardless. This is tumblr, home of the go nuts, show nuts rule; tumblr, which is as invaded by fandom and was originally meant to be a pseudo Facebook. People who use this place didn’t come here originally to be activists. And if you did, I'm a little concerned, genuinely, for your mental health and how well you're distancing yourself from difficult subjects and giving yourself the time you need to decompress.

And yet, we keep holding people up to this frankly impossible standard of representing a movement, regardless of what their blog content originally was for. Suddenly, every system on tumblr has to represent a certain Ideal for System Rights! They have to have the right views on system accountability, endogenic systems, plurality as an umbrella, littles, dormancy, fusion, functional multiplicity, parts language, the ToSD-

This is fucking ridiculous. A laundry list of topics that people have on their shoulders, along with every other laundry list of things that people need to care about. Fuck you if you're oppressed in any single way, you need to form opinions on every single one of those things, and if any opinion is out of place, then You Are Not A True [IDENTITY].

Somewhere along the way, many of us (I’m including myself here for a reason) managed to either convince ourselves or be convinced that we need to be Correct in some way about how this all works. That’s prideful and haughty at best, but typically moreso just… so detrimental to healing. None of us will be perfect… and so, when those of us who aren’t perfect are imperfect publicly, we are often harassed or attacked — or some of us attack others, for whatever reason it may be. And somehow, someway, we accepted that this is just how it works.

It's okay to discuss those things you disagree with online. It's okay to look at someone's take about, say, system accountability, or plurality, or littles, and reblog with your corrections and even anger! But you must be doing this with acknowledgement that people will be in different places, healing in different ways, and that there is nothing wrong with that. They're their own person!

But moreover, that's a whole ass blog. That's not a reflection of a person as a whole -- hell, it's rarely a reflection of the person at all. It's just a blog that they can put anything on. Have we not all heard the stories of people who've "Completely Changed" online, becoming people who others cannot recognize? People lie on the internet, intentionally or not.

Even me. I try my best to be who I am in real life here, and I share a LOT of myself with you all. You know I'm a teacher, and engaged, and have the most perfectest little cat in the world. But do you know me? I recently just got to visit an online friend in person (It was absolutely fucking incredible and I can't wait to do it again), and the entire time, I felt like I was just so awkward; I really struggled to stay present and talk more, which is something I don't struggle with nearly as much online. Believe it or not, I am not this long-winded in real life.

Maybe that's not lying, but it's not who I am. It's me being fundamentally different online than in real life. You all see me entirely through just the blogs you know me through. Maybe it's circie bircie, maybe you know my D&D blog, maybe you know me through positivitycombopack, or maybe this just shows up randomly on your dashboard. Maybe you don't know me at all.

And that goes for every person you see online. Do you actually know them? Do you know their beliefs? What they stand for? Why they believe those beliefs?

Or are you just seeing a blog?

[brainless-moe-white-lotus]

It's so frustrating the way everyone who pushes back at tumblr for like, profiting off the content made by it's userbase, failing to moderate basic hatespeech, beginning to implement data collection for ad revenue, suppressing LGBT content etc are always met with these baffled fluoride stare idiots who are like "huh but the site needs to make money? Why don't you just leave if you don't want that?" Like we haven't all grown up watching the entire internet change so dramatically from conception to its current state of trying to monetize absolutely fucking everything, like we are wrong for being resentful that every update to this website we've grown up with has made it more and more like the cesspool of Facebook/twitter where users are treated as money cows first and foremost. "Don't like it just leave" and go where exactly? "Don't you want corporations to make money?" No, in fact I don't want there to be any corporations at all because I'm not a liberal bootlicking cuckold.

What the tumblr forever stans can't possible comprehend is the fact that some of us want society to be fundamentally different including this fucking website and we are right to be mad at the ways it has been made progressively worse with every update. And the reason we are coming for marketplace specifically is because this site is trying to be our friend to sell us crap products when it has don't nothing to support its userbase in years. And if you're falling for it you're either deeply stupid or fundamentally politically different from me, regardless Im not bothering arguing with you anymore.

So yeah Im never going to like this website again and if staff wants to fucking ban me for that they can, it would be a fucking blessing.

[groenendaze]

Do you have any tips for getting into dog sports? I've got an 8-month-old dalmatian/gsd/pit mix (my absolute best friend and also the bane of my existence, teenagers are a menace lol) who's crazy smart and athletic. The stuff you do with your pups looks awesome and I think we'd both really enjoy it! I'm just not sure where to start to look for clubs/events/etc. Any advice is appreciated!

Dog sports are one of those things where you either just happen to accidentally fall into it or you fight tooth and nail to find a place.

Some of the best ways to find places are to reach out to trainers/competitors in your area or close to you (FB and instagram are the easiest for this imo - if you have found any!). The rest depends on the sports you want to do and where you're located. A good way to try and find more sports would be to see if there are any in your area: google your city + "dog training club" or the sport you're looking for. See if any places offer classes (classes are a GREAT way to get started and test the waters!). Or look for events in your area and go watch! I wouldn't recommend trying to volunteer my first time watching an event, but it's a great place to get started and look for people who might know more people in your area that could help you. Most people are nice and like helping newbies out, but there are always some bad eggs in the pot!

Unfortuently, I'm not super great at finding non-American events, so I apologize if you aren't in the US! But if you are, there are a couple websites that you can check out. For AKC sanctioned events (FastCAT/AKC agility/Rally-O/Confo/etc), AKC has an event calendar.

For things like disc, you can check out UpDog's event page, Skyhoundz event page, USDDN (international), UFO (international), Quadruped, or AWI.

Agility has a couple besides AKC: UKI, CPE, NADAC, and USDAA.

Dock has a few with the main one being NADD and Ultimate Air Dogs.

For flyball, UFLI has a tournament list page. NAFA also does tournaments but I only do UFLI and NAFA's website looks like hasn't been updated since, like, the 90s.

There are other sports, like bitesports (PSA/IGP/Mondio/French Ring) or racing (AOK9, etc) but I know nothing about the racing world and bitesports are one of those sports (much like Flyball tbh) where you'd need to reach out to a club first because a club will make or break a dog.

I got into agility back in like, 2019 or something because I took classes from a local facility and went to some AKC events and asked around. I got into PSA because I googled "bitesports [city]" and found the closest club was an hour a half, so I emailed them. And then made that drive every weekend for 10 or so months haha (I put so many miles on my car). Moved to Wisconsin and reached out to a disc club local to me asking for a private lesson in disc on Facebook, ended up accidentally getting invited to play Toss & Fetch and my disc obsession spiraled from there. Ended up getting into flyball because I made friends with a lot of flyball people at disc. Everything else I've tried (like barn hunt/herding/etc) was a combination of looking on the AKC event page and going "I can do that", a friend going "you can do this, come to X event", or me frantically googling locations or sports or classes or private lessons.

When I first started out, I struggled a LOT. In Texas, there were quite a few places and clubs around me, but I only had about three months of that before I moved to Arkansas, which was a dog sport dead zone. I didn't have the connections or knowledge to even know where to look to get access to those places. It took me months to find the one single place where I could rent an agility field. I spent most of my time throwing a frisbee in a park not even knowing that disc was a dog sport I could compete in. Luckily, where I am now is pretty dominated by the sports I love and I've made a lot of really amazing connections which helps with knowing the who's/what's/how's of everything!

Good luck and I hope this helps!

[multimuseticles]

You know... I've been drawing ever since I was like 5 years old. It's something I've spent pretty much my entire life doing. The longest I'd ever really go without drawing is like a couple of months maybe, and lately I've been drawing on an almost near daily basis. But if I'm being honest, I'm fairly close to actually quitting.

I still love to draw and I don't really want to stop, but it's getting to a point where AI slop is just entirely taking over the internet. Finding even reference images these days is so difficult because google is filled with AI crap and a lot of actual art sites allow AI art(looking at you Pixiv and DeviantArt).

I used to get a couple of commissions a month just a few years ago. Then covid hit and I got a little less work because people didn't exactly have the same amount of money to spend, which makes perfect sense. But getting closer to the end of covid when people could actually go back to work etc, AI decided to creep its head up and now I'm lucky to get one commission every few months. Originally, AI art was laughable and it was only able to make really stupid shit that was basically illegible. Like that Dall-e thing.

Putting the rest under a read more because it's somewhat long.

But nowadays, a lot of people prefer to use AI than give actual artists attention. Especially now that a lot of big companies are pushing their own AI crap(looking at you Adobe and Meta). Instagram used to be a great place for artists, now its filled with AI crap that Instagram seems to fucking love and is basically training their AI on your own posts. They say you can opt out, but if you live in the USA? You seemingly can't. In the EU you can because of laws, so I was able to opt out. However. I don't trust Meta not to train off my shit anyway.

Then you've got Adobe, which y'know, was a thing for artists to create stuff, be that through Photoshop, Illustrator or even their video editors. But now they're just pushing their lame AI crap to do everything for you, and still charge a ridiculous amount for their service.

Now I'm not just complaining because I'm getting less work. It's just depressing that creativity is dying. Generative AI is being used in video games, movies, tv shows, music, youtube videos, voiceovers and pretty much EVERYTHING else. It's impossible to avoid these days. Sites that allow AI but ask you to tag it so people can hide it doesn't work either, because people just don't tag that shit.

Due to all this AI crap, artists are being accused of using AI to create their art, regardless of if they show proof or not. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I feel it's inevitable simply because I absolutely suck at drawing hands and I can just barely get the hang of them most of the time. A ton of actual artists have been essentially bullied to the point where they don't post their art online anymore, or are forced to change their art style.

It's so much harder for artists to get their work out there anymore because AI is taking over all of these sites so the majority of the stuff you see is generated bullshit. It has led to people being like "Why would I pay someone to do this when I can just write a prompt and get what I want in seconds?" and no matter what you say to people with this line of thought, they just do not give a single shit.

I'm fine with AI to an extent. I think it's fine to just use it for dumb shit between friends, or helping to get a design idea for an OC or something. But the moment you start making money from AI or posting it online and claiming it as your own(and saying that people should credit you if you used it???) is the moment I think it's not okay. Have you seen Facebook or Twitter lately? Filled with really messed up AI images and AI responses. Facebook is rampant with weird and disturbing looking AI generated images and Twitter is 90% bots these days.

This whole post was spurred on by a conversation I saw between two of my friends. One of my friends wanted to get into graphic design, and being the artist of the group and having experience in graphic design, he came to me for advice. He got some very basic stuff done and he was really proud of it. He was showing some of the stuff he made to our other friend who simply responded with an AI generation of the same thing saying "Just use AI man, it's quicker and looks better." It was super depressing to see, especially since I've had conversations about how much I hate generative AI with these same friends.

So at this point I'm on the edge of just stopping. I probably won't, but I'm starting to lose motivation because I feel like there is no safe place to upload my art anymore. Will I stop? Probably not, but the temptation is there. I dunno, fuck generative AI man.

Sorry for the long ass rant, but I'm just getting so fed up with this crap.

[ingravinoveritas]

Hello there! I hope you are doing well (as well as someone who has completed watching season 2) First of all congrats on moving into a new house! I'm still having lots of Feelings™ to process after finishing the second season.. oh god the acting, the genuine emotions on the faces of both Michael and David this time around... I'm simultaneously radiating happiness and being utterly destroyed. And the increasing intimacy between them in the interviews is not helping matters either... I think (this has been marinating in my head for a while) one of the reasons they are doing this is to physically reassure each other that they are not apart, they are still a team and still on their side, because after the heart wrenching ending of the season, it would have been very hard for them to come to terms with it, as they had put their whole beings, their whole souls into playing Azi and Crowley, which might have made it difficult to draw a line where the characters ended and they begin... So the touches, their body language became a sort of coping mechanism, something which said 'hey, don't worry, I'm still here.. I have not gone away, we're still together' and this makes me wanna cry again 😭

I hope my word vomit makes an iota of sense (English is not my first language by a long shot, so) and I hope you do find some time to rest and have a warm beverage of your choice while unwinding. Stay safe and blessed!!

Hi there! Thank you so much for the congrats on my move, I truly appreciate it. I've actually had a very rough couple of days, as on top of the move, my Facebook account was hacked earlier this week, and it essentially pushed me over the edge and I was crying for much of Monday and felt like I had a crying "hangover" all day Tuesday.

You do not at all have to apologize for your Ask--your English is very good!--and I'm glad to read your thoughts as I make my way through all the Anons still residing in my inbox. Truly, we are fortunate to have GO 2 and Michael and David to focus on, as well as the abundance of interviews we've gotten after months and months of little to no content.

To start: I absolutely agree with you, re: the intimacy between Michael and David in these interviews. It's been so fascinating to see them get more flirty and touchy-feely with each progressive interview (I know we don't know the order in which they were done, but I imagine the flirting/touching increased as the day went on). And while I can definitely see them doing what you described--reassuring each other, touching and being close as a coping mechanism--my feeling is they already did all that last year, probably right after filming That Scene. (There is actually a gorgeous MS/DT fic on AO3 right now that depicts exactly that, and it's definitely worth reading.)

But in terms of all the intimacy and touching in the more recent interviews (from last month), I think what we're seeing is something else. I think Michael and David are beyond the need for reassurance because they are so comfortable with each other and know they're still together, permanently. There's no more of the uncertainty of parting ways after the promo interviews end--only the promise of seeing each other again as soon as both their lives and schedules allow it.

There have been so many moments of telling body language and touches and expressions, but if I had to pick a favorite (well, a few), one would be them walking arm-in-arm onto The One Show:

And the other would be David leaning so far over and draping his arm around Michael in the Amazon Q&A video:

...And of course (and possibly most notable), Michael and David seemingly unconsciously moving closer to each other in the TV Insider interview:

It's so telling that there is no urgency or desperateness to any of this--only comfort and very much that sense of "on our side" that you mentioned. Walking out arm-in-arm as they did in particular adds to that "us against the world" feeling and the not-so-subtle implication that while they were Michael Sheen and David Tennant on the season one press tour, here, now, they are Michael and David. Inseparable, always intertwined, and having so much more of themselves in the characters of Aziraphale and Crowley than in the first season.

So yes, everything you wrote absolutely did make sense, and I appreciate you writing in to share your thoughts with me. I have a lot more thoughts/analysis about GO season 2 still to share, which I hope to do in response to the numerous Anons still waiting in my inbox. Thanks for writing in! x

[worlds-worst-ships]

After somewhat popular demand... here is an absolutely obscene fanfiction I wrote in 2021. This will either go down great, or horribly.

*BEEP**BEEP**BEEP**BEEP*

How exciting. My alarm clock, once again, is going off right next to my head. Using my genius level ingenuity, I put four alarm clocks on my bedside table, all of which have a different unique design to them, forcing me to wake up and sort through each one until I turn the offending alarm clock off. I have my boyfriend set them for me, and this time he seems to have gone with the clock that has Hannah Montana's face plastered all over it. How very empowering. While still dazed, I groggily picked it up and knuckleballed it against the wall, obliterating it into a thousand pieces, as a real man would. 

"I'm sorry Hannah, but as empowering to me as you are, you've got nothing on Bo Peep from Toy Story."

"Babe, I swear to god, if you destroy another alarm clock, my wife's boyfriend is gonna kill me... he only gives me five dollars of allowance a month, I theoretically can't keep replacing your alarm clocks" said a softy, nasally voice from behind me.  

Of course... how could I forget? My boyfriend Ben was asleep right next to me. I felt bad. I knew he was always replacing the countless alarm clocks that I destroyed, but eventually, Chad was going to catch on and send him to his room with no dinner and no Fortnite for a week. Such a cruel man... A cruel, chiseled, strong, gorgeous unit of a man. Chad, Ben's wife's boyfriend... God, I wish I could leave Ben for him, but Chad would absolutely pop my skull like a grape between his mighty pectorals. I am not worthy. Thus, I turned to Ben and asked: 

"Today is the day. Are you ready?"

"Yeah.. yeah, I am" he replied, a confident look sweeping over his face. 

"Whats the name of the place you're getting it done again?" I asked

"Uhhh... Claire's, I think? I mean, I saw on a conservative Facebook page that thats where people usually go to get the surgery. The guy had a MAGA hat and a beer in his profile picture, and he works at a junk yard, so he must know what he's talking about" said Ben, climbing out of bed and putting on his spray-on jeans. "Hurry up and get dressed, we have to leave in an hour."

Yeah... today was the day that Ben would get his top surgery. I was so proud of him for getting one step closer to completing his transition. I know that Chad would just flick him in the chest, break all of his ribs instantly, and tell him to get back to raising his Chad-babies while he ate metal and drank beer, but I was going to support him all the way through. In the least gay way possible... I love him. Chad, not Ben. I actually hate Ben. He's so annoying, never just saying what he thinks, always saying "hypothetically" and dumb shit like that before everything. What an annoying little prick. If I didn't get views from his fans, I'd dump him straight away and stop agreeing with everything he says. 

"Alright, alright" I said, flicking through my side of the closet, looking for the best possible outfit to suit the situation. Hmmm... the closet.... it looks very comfy in there. I'd love to climb in and stay there forever to hide from my support group, but that would be the easy way out. So, after a minute or so, I chose the cutest floral blouse, some jean shorts that really hugged my glutes, some platform boots and a floppy brimmed straw hat adorned with fake flowers. I thought about using real flowers, but thats way too girly, which is offensive to my masculinity. 

After a breakfast of lucky charms, raw eggs and a whole turnip, Ben called us an Uber and we got ready to set off for Claire's. 

"Steven... I'm scared." Said Ben, tightly squeezing my hand. 

"Hey, hey, hey... whats the worst that could happen?" I said, forcing a confident smile. "It'll be fine! I'm here with you!" 

"You just ate a whole raw turnip five minutes ago Steven, I, in theory, highly doubt I can rely on you in the worst case theoretical scenario" said Ben in a snarky tone.

I nearly picked Ben up and Rikishi'd him through the front porch for that little comment, but then I remembered who the top was in this relationship... Chad. I'd be in big, big trouble if Ben came home with a porch wrapped around his neck. Either way, the Uber, who was interestingly named Guiseppe, arrived to pick us up.

"MAMA MIA!!! Look at the glutes on that thing!! My Grandma has made PIZZA DOUGH thats not as thick as that!!!" Guiseppe yelled, slapping his thigh and starting a small fire in the front seat, gesturing to me and saying "Come bay-bee, put it out for me"

I was extremely confused. Guiseppe was an extremely... "forward" man. I certainly didn't want to put a fire out with my dump truck of a batty crease, but at the same time, I desperately wanted to go off on him for harassing me and go on a tangent about how men deserve better than to be treated like this by Italian taxi drivers every day. But then I realised that I'm full of shit, and that I know I'm not actually a victim because this has never actually happened to me, and I climbed in the trunk instead with Ben tightly squeezed under my armpit. Then we felt the car start moving. 

"Steven... Why are we in the trunk?" asked Ben. 

"Well, thats because it's pointless trying to make myself a victim since I'm really not that bothered by it and we're not on camera anyways, and if the fire burns my booty, how will I ever please Chad?" I replied

"How will you... what?" Ben inquired in a serious tone

"Oh, uh, nothing, babe" I said, blushing as the thought of Chad running a rocket on my hips and confining me to a wheelchair forever. 

"Oh, fair enough." said Ben, letting out one of the loudest burps I've ever heard in my life. Then something hit me. 

Do I smell... turnips? Has that little pixie shit been eating my turnips?!

In a rage, I flung open the trunk, grabbed Ben by the head, and yelled an order at Guiseppe. 

"DO SOME DONUTS!! DO SOME DONUTS!!" 

And Guiseppe did so. As we spun around, I shoved Ben's face into the road below, grinding his entire upper body down to nothing. It looked like someone smeared tomato puree all over the concrete. Ben was reduced to an ass and a pair of legs. Sorta like this. 

"Hows that for top surgery, you turnip-stealing fuck?" I yelled at Ben's now burnt behind, spitting into what remained of his spinal cord. 

Then, as if on cue, Ben's remains bubbled and expanded, and he reformed into his original shape, and looked me in the eyes as if he'd just woken up. 

"What happened?" he asked. 

"What the-"

I was amazed. I'd just turned Ben into pizza sauce and he just grew back like a zit during high school. 

"I think my brain got destroyed, so I lost some of my memory. What happened?" He asked, scratching his new head. "Oh I should mention, I have Resident Evil powers, since this is an ideal world, and the creator wanted to add in a hilarious moment where you turned the freeway into a bloody pizza by grinding someone down to nothing. Is that what happened?"

Regaining my senses, I said "No, I just farted and you passed out from it. See? you can smell the turnips."

"Oh, ok, cool." said Ben, nestling back into my armpit. "do you think you have regenerative powers too? You should get top surgery right after me and find out. Although I heard they're a one-time thing, so be careful."

Unwilling to find out, I stayed silent for the remainder of the journey until we felt the car come to a violent halt. Turns out Guiseppe decided to drive his car through the doors to the mall, and park right outside Claire's. 

"Finally!" we both said in unison, stepping out of the trunk. 

"You know, if you want to pay me, you could always let me get a lick of that dough ball behind, big boy" said Guiseppe. 

"No, I think I'm just going to leave and never talk to you again" I said, flipping Guiseppe off like a bad boy. I should really film a 'why do good girls like bad guys' TikTok after that one.

In the chaos of the crash, it would seem that all but one of a group of protestors were reduced to paste under the car. The one remaining, a soccer mom looking woman with a scowl on her face, stood up, dusted herself off, and looked at us in disgust.

"You'd better not be going in there" she hissed, pointing at Claire's. "you know they operate on kids in there, right? You know they mutilate kids? You know they manipulate young girls into getting their bodies ruined forever??" 

I walked over to the door, gestured to a 'no kids allowed' sign and said "Bitch, please. Show me some proof". 

"Whatever. I'm still right. Have a nice day. I'm nice really, even though I'm not. Trust me." she said, rolling her eyes and turning away with no proof to give. "You guys are just... I dunno, sexist or something, I really don't feel like putting actual effort into finding an appropriate buzz word to call you."

Then what she did next will haunt me for the rest of my days. 

She knelt down and... picked up her picket sign. But... how?!

She's a woman... how could she be so strong?? That power... in a woman's body... anything heavier than a cooking pot should be impossible!!!

"Who... who are you?? Who the heck are you???" I yelled

"Arielle. Ally to trans people, and supporter of having their healthcare rights taken, supporter of groups that hate them, and supporter of authors who write uninformed bullshit books on them, as well as long-time transphobe. I love trans people! I just show no respect for them and block people who call me out unless they have followers. I'm so nice! Wanna try my apple crumble? Don't worry, saying I support them immediately erases anything bad I've said or done to them. Jeez, isn't the existence of Bon Ninary people so sexist? I'm only saying that because I feel personally attacked that female-bodied people anywhere are becoming trans rather than dating me, because I'm entitled to that, but yknow. Hmmm, I wonder why so many people hate me... Oh well. I'm a genius. I'm gonna go cry into a frozen microwave meal for one now."

While I wasn't surprised that a woman had just said something stupid and oxymoronic, being as I love looking down on them, I was surprised at her insane power. I... I had to fight her. 

But then I remembered that I'm not on camera, realised I don't actually think like that, and walked into Claire's. Jeez, I really need to grow up. 

The room we were in was... strange. There were way too many cameras. I mean, of course everywhere has cameras, but this many? There were even some on the floor aiming upwards... lucky I didn't wear my favourite skirt! That would be extremely gay and stupid and probably lower my strength stat by a few hundred points. 

We walked past the ear piercing section, and straight through the black curtain at the back to the surgical department. 

Ben's hand clasped mine even tighter, as if to say "daddy, I'm scared". But I know he wouldn't be stupid enough to show me any fear, unless he wants to be evaporated into nothing but an ass and some legs again. Stupid boy. Be a real man. Pathetic. 

Once we entered the lobby, things just got stranger. There were even more cameras, and the windows almost seemed... fake. Nonetheless, we approached the front desk where a rather snooty looking young man was sitting watching a lacrosse game on his phone. I almost wanted to tell him to stop pouting and flexing, but I felt like he was on the cusp of a meltdown if I offered him any sort of criticism. We stood there awkwardly for a moment in the silence of the lobby, where only the three of us and a man hidden behind a newspaper were sat, until Ben broke the silence.

"Um... excuse me?" he stammered

"Holy shit, you're fat and ugly" said the receptionist, looking up from his phone. "Why do you look like your wife has a boyfriend who treats you like a son? You look so stupid. Jeez. Probably a trender."

Blown away from his rudeness, I grabbed him by the collar and stood up, dangling him like a saveloy on a fishing hook. I looked him dead in the eyes, and spoke from the heart. 

"Listen here you antagonistic little cretin, if you ever talk to my boyfriend like that again, I'm going to fold you into a paper cup and drink from you on my podcast where I talk about things I don't understand, got it, you soggy onion boy?"

Seeing that I wasn't a 13 year old non binary kid on TikTok, or someone with half the testosterone he has, he backed down with nothing to say like a rat retreating into a hole. That was... way easier than I thought. Looking at his name tag as I dropped him into the waste paper basket by his desk, I saw his name was Kalvin. 

"So, uh... I have an appointment" said Ben. 

Kalvin pressed three buttons on his keyboard, and then reached under his desk and dumped what looked like a crate of milk bottles in front of us. 

"Um... what?" I said, puzzled. 

"There you go" Kalvin said, his eyes flicking back and forth from the security camera above his desk. 

"Explain, you wet flannel" I demanded 

"Oh, do you want me to actually organise a boxing match with you that I will totally train for and turn up to?" he spat back at me.

"Listen, Mr Inferiority Complex, I'm not a tween non binary TikTok user with no fight experience and less than a third of your testosterone, you're not gonna lay a finger on me you fucking pathetic clown cunt, even if there was someone who would actually take you seriously enough to organise a fight sports event for a sack of shit like you, you wouldn't even train properly for it you baton-wielding prick, so stick to your little games of lacrosse where you get ten times the protective gear you do in boxing anyways and explain why you've just put this in front of me before I fucking wrap the front door around your skull, alright you soft little sugarplum fairy wannabe tough guy dickhead?" I said, while menacingly flexing my muscles under my floral blouse.  

"Its testosterone" said Kalvin, on the verge of tears after being stood up to by someone his own size. 

While I was baffled that anyone actually found a sensitive little softie like me intimidating, now I was even more confused.

"But I didn't come here for testosterone, I came here for top surgery" said Ben. 

Kalvin leaned in, beckoned us closer, and whispered to us:

"Listen... I know this makes no sense. Literally no clinic anywhere gives out cross-sex hormones this fast. But thats not what *they* believe, and if *they* see me making realistic choices when dealing with trans clients, they'll stab me" he whispered in a shaky voice.

"You are beyond useless. Why are you even doing this?" Said Ben.

"Look, I get it, I'm trans too, I know I'm full of shit. But what matters is that *they* think I'm normal." he replied.

"Who's 'they'?" I asked

But before I could press him further, Kalvin backed off and said loudly "Anyways... since you're a girl, we can't give you the surgery. You girl. Stupid, weak, pathetic girl who listens to people on the internet. But we're libtards, so we're gonna give you the surgery anyways, because we like blending children!" he obnoxiously yelled, winking at the nearest camera.  

"Oh, Kalvin..." said a nearby voice in an Italian accent. "You know there are laws preventing people from getting hormones within 24 hours. You know that nobody is stealing your resources. And you know that gender expression and gender identity are different things. I thought law students were supposed to be smart."

We all turned around to see the man with the newspaper stand up, only to realize it was...Guiseppe? 

Mama mia! What a plot twist!

"G-Guiseppe??" Kalvin gasped. "But... I thought you were dead!"

"Oh Kalvin, sending a few angsty teens over to spam in my comments may be enough to defeat a child, but I'm Guiseppe. I'm not even supposed to be here." 

Then he turned around and left, after slapping Kalvin with his newspaper and starting small fires in each and every chair in the room. 

"Arriverderci, bitch" Said Guiseppe, flipping us all off and walking straight through the glass door, leaving a trail of blood down the street as he tossed bricks of cheese at the police officers chasing him. 

After that weird little episode, Kalvin ushered us down a corridor and into another room where a nurse put Ben into a hospital gown, which offended me because I wanted her to touch me instead, and then told us to wait. 

Then the doctor came in. And hooooooly smokes... Chad who??

"Hello there, I'm perfectly normal doctor Blaire and I believe I'm performing a top surgery later today? " She said in a voice that turned my legs to jelly. 

There was something about this woman... something that just made me obsessed with her. Something that just made me want to grab her and stuff her in my tighty-whities. I just couldn't get over how hot I found her. 

"Uh, yes, thats right, on me." Said Ben. 

"Nervous? You fucking should be, you she-girl" responded the doctor

She just misgendered my boyfriend right in front of me, but I didn't care. I was pitching a tent like my shorts were a homeless colony just from looking at her. But... why? She looks like literally every popular girl that struggled to stay popular after graduation. Like, I could scrape a carbon copy of her off the streets of LA. Why do I find her so attractive??

"But yeah, anyways, don't worry, I totally care about you, you're gonna be fine. I'm trans too, so I definitely understand the struggle." she said with a definitely not fake smile. 

Then it hit me. Trans. That was it. Thats why I was feeling such a desperate urge to squeeze one out then and there right in front of her. All over her definitely not disingenuous face. 

She walked out of the room, and I finally took a breath. Then, ten or so minutes later, the nurse came back wheeled Ben into the operating theater. 

The walls were very clearly made of cardboard, and the doctor's desk was shoddily thrown together. Thats when I noticed... there was a picture with her and a man on the desk. 

"Hey, I know him!" I said. "Isn't he a member of the KKK? You seem pretty cosy with him. I mean, nothing he does really effects me, so in order to appeal to people in the same boat, I can't say anything about him, but thats a very nice picture!"

"Oh, yeah, totally" said doctor Blaire, adjusting one of the sixteen security cameras in the room. Seriously, what is with those cameras? 

"Now, Ben..." she said, walking over to Ben, who was looking like a stupid little fucking sardine in his hospital gown. "Do you want the regular top surgery, or the really good conservative top surgery?" 

"Conservative...top...surgery?" said Ben, raising his shitty eyebrows. Bitch needs some work done, fr fr. 

"Oh, yes. Its really really good. I promise. Its just as good as the regular one." 

She seemed to be shaking and stammering, so I spoke up. 

"Okay, this is weird. Like, seriously weird. Why are there so many cameras? Why is your office made of cardboard?" 

"Ah-ah!" She said, moving closer to us. Then from under her doctor coat, she pulled out... a gun?!?

"You want the conservative top surgery, riiiight?" she said, doing that stupid fucking fake smirk she does. But make no mistake, I'm a chaser, I give zero fucks. 

"Y...yes!" squealed Ben. 

"Thats right. At least I can tell who the top is here." she said, gleefully. 

"Its me" said Ben

"Oh, right, yeah, sure" said Blaire. 

Thats when I noticed... the poster on her wall that I previously thought said 'live, laugh, love' actually said 'If he ain't aryan, I ain't marryin''. And in the desk drawer... was that... a confederate flag?? And a badge that says "I'm latina and proud"??? This bitch is CRAAAZY!!

Before I could call her out, she grabbed both me and Ben, pulled us close, and spoke as if she was terrified of something. 

"Listen... I'm here to sell you out. Yeah. I'm trans. But thats some scary shit. I need to get as cosy as possible with the far right so that when they kill trans people, at lease I MIGHT survive. Yeah, I'm a sellout, yeah, I'm a coward, and yeah they will most likely hurt me anyways, but I don't care. I'll be their token invite. I'll lick their boots. They taste great. I love it. The attention feels great. I've lied, cheated and betrayed my people to save myself, but so what? Terfs are very supportive when you're on their good side. So sit there like a good little twink and fucking enjoy the surgery."

Quick as a flash, she glided over to a nearby cupboard and pulled out... a lawnmower?? 

"ALRIGHT! THIS IS A PERFECTLY NORMAL SCHEDULED TOP SURGERY THAT WE DEFINITELY DO TO CHILDREN! LOOK!"

And then the machine descended onto Ben's chest. 

"IN THEORYYYYYYYYYYY-" Ben screamed, as he was blended like a milkshake in a diner. After a few seconds, the surgery was over. all that was left of Ben was a perfectly presented bowl of spaghetti bolognese. 

"Wow, for once in his life, he actually looks kinda delicious..." I muttered

"YOU SEE? THIS IS WHAT THEY DO TO CHILDREN! YOU WERE RIGHT!! LOOK!! I'M NORMAL!!! I'M ON YOUR SIDE!! THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THESE PEOPLE IS TO TAKE AWAY THEIR HEALTHCARE RIGHTS!!!" screamed Blaire, into one of the cameras. 

Thats when it happened. 

The walls... they collapsed. Revealing a huge audience of thousands and thousands of people. All of them, screaming like animals. MAGA hats, confederate flags, and inbreeding as far as the eye could see. There was so much stupidity in front of me that I forgot my own name. Sven? Sven Coward? Sven Chaser? Ah fuck it, who cares, I'm just a hilarious embodiment of a venomous content genre anyways. My boyfriend is a dinner. I'm surrounded by idiots. Life is good. 

"Do you see? I'm just like you! Please don't hurt me! I'm one of the normal ones! Please, use me as your scapegoat!" the doctor continued to screech. 

But her cries were in vain. The mob of zombies were upon her in seconds, devouring her while ensuring to use proper cutlery, because they might be transphobic, but at least they use a knife and fork. 

And that was it. That was what happened. What the hell was that? 

[pop-punklouis]

On the topic of Taylor, do you think she encourages the hate towards her exes? Like ofc she will write about thing like break ups that have happened in her life but I'm also wondering about her responsibility in the hate her fans send to Joe for example. Like today on twitter I saw that one swiftie wish Joe was dead, which is inanse. Some of her fans are getting way too brave in the name of defending her, but I also think her and her team use this defending to their advantage in the marketing of her new album.

Obviously she can't fully control her fans but some of the stuff I've seen her fans say about a situation they know nothing about is making me less excited about Taylor and her new music.

imo, i believe she more than anyone else in the business is well-aware of her fanbase and their social media habits. her and her team constantly keep up with videos and conversations and posts about her. so, yes especially with the releases of her TVs the past couple years, she’s seen firsthand how her fans are when it comes to her exes. so do i think she actively encourages her fans to send hate to her exes? …..no. but, i do think she does absolutely nothing to hinder it either? …… yes.

certain performances. certain bonus songs. certain actions. certain names of tracks. she knows what she’s doing and she knows how her fans will champion around her for it. i’ve already seen some wild ass confirmations from fans over joe and their relationship just from the song titles of the tortured poets album.

and i dunno to me….. her at 34……. it doesn’t hit the same lol it feels strange to still be so deep in this to know you’re sending a tsunami of hate towards an ex. like….. no matter what happened, naming those tracks and the album that knowing your fans will immediately pin it to joe... it feels so weird to be 34 and utilizing your platform and fans for that. i don’t care about knowing every detail of your relationship’s demise. why does it feel like drama you’d see on facebook of the locals and their relationship timeline 💀💀

but i agree re: “Some of her fans are getting way too brave in the name of defending her, but I also think her and her team use this defending to their advantage in the marketing of her new album.” i think that’s a very valid observation to make.

ANYWAYS. no one can make me hate you, joe alwyn. people can say what they want and try and concoct weird narratives to fit their own opinions over why they broke up but! no one can make me hate you, joe alwyn 🫡

[solarmagickstar]

Not super into Jessie Gender, but I watched their video on "how we talk about trans men" and I've gotta say it was disappointing asf.

As a trans masc/guy I feel like I can't really have an opinion? Like for me it's like I'm too scared to be angry, like if I am it's just gonna be thrown back at me like "oh it must be those testosterone hormones coming out" or "well of course your all angry your a man" like men can't be sensitive at all or something? It's almost always said in a way to "give me euphoria" cause that's how we're supposed to treat men.

At times it really feels like we're being pushed out of queer spaces because we'll if your a guy you wouldn't wanna be a part of the marginalised group ya know cause "we're escaping to get to privilege" right?

I don't feel like our experience with gender is allowed to be expressed openly and we're absolutely not allowed to be GNC. And honestly the same could probably be said for GNC trans fems too, I don't see a lot of them either.

I feel like in Jessie gender's video they kinda didn't *actually* wanna sit with what they said originally? Like when it came to the Barbie movie I wanted to participate in the conversation of girl hood and how that's still relevant to me and how it's shaped me as the person I am today, how much I enjoyed the Ken dolls experience and how they played with masculine fashion in a way I hadn't seen in a while. But honestly I felt like well this movies for the girls so I probably shouldn't say anything.

Sometimes I wonder if we partially do this to ourselves because a lot of us keep to ourselves and don't really wanna be seen half the time. I haven't talked to the trans masc I knew since we all left Facebook, it's so lonely out here and the more I look for trans content the more I see trans fems and basically only white trans masc (with like maybe 2 poc ones but is that really all we get?) It makes me feel like I don't exist. The only places I can see poc trans masc viking or existing is on sites run by a variety of trans people or is run by a trans masc person living free.

When I see that I think, thank god your fucking real. Thank god I see someone like me thriving and existing out there.

I wanna see more of y'all, like actually see y'all, I feel like I'm fading away as more and more content keeps talking about how bad trans fems (oh and non binary but let's not define what you mean or who you're talking about we just throw them in there cause let's be more inclusive right? But only to you? Great) but the amount of trauma that's in the trans masc community is horrific and is not talked about or addressed at all.

In men's spaces there's not room for queer most of the time, so to find a place to belong and essentially get told my issues aren't as important or that trans fems ("and nonbinary" cause again you're lying to yourself by saying this even if your non-binary) then you're fundamentally missing out on our lives. I don't even feel like we have enough data on us because even the trans masc get lumped in with nonbinary or GNC like that's just fucking normal.

I remember a study was out on trans masc and GNC women about how often all of us deal with sexual assault and it's the closest I've seen and it wasn't even good findings it was depressing. I wish I could find it again. But again that study put us with GNC (pretty sure it was cis) women!

Please not this is coming from someone who's been SA'd pre and post coming out as trans. Did you know some people see us as a way to see if they're gay or bi? Like experiment on us, get us drunk and tell us we should just take it because "well you're supposed to be a man right?" We can't even get to these conversations yet and I'm worried we never will.

Do we even exist? Are we allowed to voice our opinions? Are we allowed to be mad? Are we allowed to be upset with our community? Can we do our own studies? Should we be more visible? I'm scared to, I don't wanna show my face I'm a very private person, but do I need to address that? Is that a bad thing? Is it perpetuated by my environment?

I don't know and honestly I just wanna see more variety of trans masc people, I'm scared we're just gonna stay under the radar and continue to deal with the bullshit we always have.

Ps. Jessie gender 100% did the I have a trans masc friend, no matter how much they said "I'm not doing that" they literally were doing it and there was almost no self reflection on that at all. This wasn't really the video I think they thought it was cause all it did was tell me they don't talk to us very often and that at this point I've just seen heart reacts to comments on their video's comments and not any actual responses to what anyone's said on there. It'll be a process I get it but this video was not good at all and I feel like any trans masc who's getting excited about being seen by a bigish YouTuber is like me desperate for anything validation cause that's kinda how starved we are out here tbh.

[tagedeszorns]

I can't get on board with Threads. The sure amount of data-mining Threads does, along with the fact if you delete it you also delete your instragram account as well are instant bad vibes. Twitter might suck but a LOT of indie devs, small businesses and tons of artists relay on it. Having to pack up and try to get the same amount of attention on other social media sites isn't easy, livelihoods would be at risk if it does die.

Absolutely! Threads is just datamining.

But if it is drawing attention to the Fediverse, which has exactly zero datamining and zero ads, because it's not commercial and it's decentralised but connected, it's a good bridge for people still clinging to Twitter, to get off of Musks horrorshow.

The internet needs to go back to being publicly owned and non-commercial. If you are not the product (like you are on Twitter or anything Meta owns), you are independent.

The Fediverse has non-commercial alternatives for a lot of things: Lemmy for Reddit, Pixelfed for Instagram, Mastodon for Twitter, Peertube for YouTube, alternatives for Facebook or Wordpress, too. It's a decentralised internet but you can connect with everybody on any platform that uses the ActivityPub.

For example, people following me on Mastodon can also see, share, comment on my stuff on my Pixelfed-account or my bookreviews on Bookwyrm (the goodreads-alternative). As soon as Tumblr activates ActivityPub I will share my Tumblr-Posts as well. Or my Mastodon-posts on Tumblr. Whatever I want to.

So this whole decentralised web is a giant opportunity for small businesses to showcase their stuff to a very wide audience. But of course the big companies have not much interest in losing their advertisment-cattle to self-governed places, so there is a lot of marketing-fearmongering going on. It'll be hard to break this chokehold, but it is necessary, else small businesses and artists will be forever at the mercy of big money.

Also, the Fediverse is based on accessibility. It's made with disabled folks in mind - most people over at Mastodon use image descriptions, for example. Lots of space for queer folks, too. Plus - mostly European, so no "no nudity!!111"-religious-crap either! And the privacy-settings of the EU, that are much stricter than in the US.

Yes, I'm promoting this very hard, because I'm believing in the values of a free, accessible, anti-capitalist, non-religious internet. I want anarchy back. I don't want to be the milking cow of some corporations harvesting my data. The Fediverse has lots of risks, too. But they are minimal compared to putting your art, your thoughts, or - in case of a lot of transfolks - safety in the hand of some greedy billionaires.

Some links:

[crmsnmth]

A Letter to Someone I'll Never Talk To Again: Part One

Dear "Muppet"

Most people start off a letter by asking how you are, but I don't want to waste words on something that doesn't affect my life. I hope you're doing well, but it's really none of my bsiness in the end. I wish like hell that that wasn't true, but wishes are for wishful thinking. You know me, always the life of the party.

I haven't changed all that much since our time. Okay, that's a lie. I've changed a lot. See after you left, and everyone watched me go down, I vowed to change. That I would someday change back into the person I was at my happiest. I thougth that's what mattered, being happy.

The problem with this fool proof plan was that I was a fool with guesses. I was at my happiest with you, so that means I'll never be that person again. That person is officially dead and buried and his rotting corpse is why my breath stinks to badly in the morning. It leaves a foul taste too.

I knew you were with him during the last month of our relationship. I always wonder if you ever figured out that I figured it out, playing Sherlock Holmes but with a far less interesting story that you already know. I knew he was there while I was at work. And I bit my tongue because I loved you so much. I loved the person I had fallen in love with.

That person I fell in love so deeply with, was different than the one you were at the end. And I guess that's kind of a given fact since you were fucking someone else while we were in our relationship. I've had some bad relationships, the one after you especially difficult, but one thing i can say is that I've never once cheated on any partner I've had. Even if I wanted to, I never did it. Not even has payback. I didn't really give all thought about it.

Why would I? It never mattered what you did. From the very first time you stepped into that bar to the very last time you walked away from me, I knew I was yours. I was yours and I would do anything for you. So I even forgive you for all of this stuff too.

That doesn't mean I wasn't a problem too. I was caught in a delusional world I had built in my head, and I wouldn't get out of it until you left me. I think that was the shock that snapped everything into place. The catalyst, you could say. I was a liar and a con artist with the charisma of Charles Manson. I could get anyone on my side before you. I used those skills. I did it constantly. Tell a lie, something so far off and unreal that was obviously lie, and I'd wait for sometone to take the bait. Once they took the bair, the game was on and I ould try to convince someone that I was right, even when they knew I wasn't. It worked more often than not, and looking back, that frightens me so much. I was so good at it. Either that or everybody was somehow in on the joke. I did it too twice that I can think, but that number should be higher.

I really lost it after you left. And you saw it. The last phone call I ever got from you was the morning after a very awful evening. I don't remember the evening. I was mixing cocaine and being black out drunk. Somehow, I managed to piss everybody off and was taken outside to get the shit kicked out of me. You called the next morning, after hearing abot the beating and my awful behavior. Yout told me your roommate was super pissed at me. I tried to apologize on Facebook and maybe find out what happened, but he read my message and proceeded to block me/ That was it then. That one less than a minute long phone call.

They'll be letters soon, but for now I'm tired and my eyes itch behind my glasses. Time to start the ritual you loved so much in the beginning but by the end hated. And that's how it goes. People change, and there is absolutely nothing one could do. Our time together meant and still means almost everything to me, and at the way it's going, I'll be seeing you when my eyes close for all of eternity. Even without well-respected no contact clause. I almost broke when I came across your picture in a box of random papers. But I didn't. And the number I refuse to delete from my sim card may not even be your number anymore. I've probably gone through 100 different numbers since yo split.

I have to stop now, or I never will.

Love You Until the Sun Explodes, "Peanut"

[msviolacea]

Thinking about this today, after reading a couple of things across ye olde internets.

There are two specific incidents I often thing of when I come across political and social discourse, both occurred at least a decade ago, but remain eternally relevant. The first was possibly long enough ago that it occurred on MySpace - either that, or the VERY early days of Facebook. An acquaintance of mine - someone very intelligent, very empathetic, very left-leaning - reposted one of those rumors that so many people tend to believe because they sound true, something in the "watch for fentanyl in your kids' candy" kind of vein. When a few people pointed out that it was proven false, she posted something that sounded miffed, to the effect of "what, am I supposed to fact check every post that comes across my feed??"

I didn't have the energy to say that - yes, you do. If you're going to spread something that could be inflammatory, then you do have an obligation to make sure it's true to the best of your ability.

The other thing, I heard from my dad multiple times over the years. If you've been here for any amount of time, you already know that my dad unfortunately drank the right wing koolaid. The statement that always reminded me of a) who he was and b) the fact that I'd probably never actually get through to him was his frequent, angry assertion that he "just want(ed) the TRUTH - there's always truth somewhere, in every situation, you just have to find it."

And, the thing is ... no, there's not. Not in the situations that matter. 2+2=4, yes, that's a truth ... if you don't dive deep into the philosophy and mechanics of mathematics, how we ended up with the numerical system we did, et cetera. And politics, history, and social issues are so much more squirrelly than math. There is very little absolute truth, only points of view that resonate with you. And the more you insist that there HAS to be a single undisputed truth to a situation, the more you're likely to fall for bullshit somewhere along the line.

IDK, today I'm just reminding myself that truth is a subjective monster, and each one of us has an obligation to be careful about what we're amplifying in this cacophonous internet of ours. Beware of things that give you immediate outrage energy. Sometimes they'll turn out to be worth that energy, but all of us only have so much energy to go around. Make sure what you're spending yours on is worth it. And know that whatever you're outraged about, there's probably more nuances to it than whatever clickbait you're angry over.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

do you know if the york bird of prey centre is ethical? they seem to have a focus on education and rescue, which is good, but they also let visitors, including children, pet the birds, which they seem socialised to tolerate but i'm not sure it's something they should encourage. and the video on their website seems to show them passing around a baby bird (it's hard to tell though because of the video quality), which seems like a red flag. here's their website and instagram. http://www.yorkbirdofprey.co.uk/index.html https://www.instagram.com/yorkbirdofprey/

Petting birds excessively removes water proofing oils preened onto their feathers and will damage feathers over time.

Two birds after being misted in the head. The top bird was petted often and the second bird was not. Yes I know it’s a low quality jpg, Facebook killed the compression on the image.

Anyway.

If a raptor facility is letting guests rub their grubby mitts on the birds, they’re either incompetent or just willing to put human entertainment over proper husbandry.

Also, obviously, any raptor is still a wild animal and can absolutely foot someone on a bad day even if they generally tolerate touch. It wouldn’t be life-threatening, but it would hurt and the guest could feasibly sue. There’s many reasons it’s illegal to allow guests to touch wildlife ambassadors in the US.