#Accessibility Resource Centre

[akwyz]

AccessibleEU Launch: Revolutionizing Accessibility Across Europe - A Comprehensive Resource for Inclusion

🚀 The #AccessibleEU launch was a game-changer! 🎉 A one-stop-shop for all things accessibility, it's paving the way for a more inclusive Europe. 🌍 Let's celebrate this milestone in #accessibility and #inclusion! 💪 #EuropeForAll

The European Commission launched AccessibleEU, a comprehensive one-stop-shop on accessibility, on July 4, 2023. The event took place at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Belgium, and was also accessible online. AccessibleEU was designed to be a cutting-edge resource for a wide range of actors, including policymakers, legislators, and representatives of accessibility…

[clowngremlin]

it's kind of like amazing what being properly medicated and like leaving ur house and doing things with other people and like being a part of ur community can do for ur mental health.....

[spaghettioverdose]

Hello usamericans. Before you are permitted to engage with me on how much of a condescending and rich and gross European I am, I would like you to very quickly answer a quiz about my home country of Romania. Don't worry, this is an open book quiz. You may not use Wikipedia articles full of "citation needed".

Question 1. Point the location of Romania on a map. Where in Europe is it? [10 points]

Question 2. List three basic facts about this region of Europe and how it differs from the rest of the continent. [15 points]

Question 3. What happened during the 1989 coup? What reason might there be to call it a coup instead of a revolution? Hint: it has to do with the National Salvation Front and the length of its existence. [12 points]

Question 4. Was the CIA involved? [1 point]

Question 5. What were the immediate economic effects upon the general population and on national industry? [10 points]

Question 6. How much involvement did the US have in "advising" the early post-socialist Romanian government? What reasons did the US have to encourage the Romanian government to adopt a policy of 100% foreign ownership of investments? [10 points]

Question 7. Why are Romanian wages kept so low? [ 2 points]

Question 8. Why have Romania's resources and industry been bought by foreign companies so cheaply? [5 points]

Question 9. If Romania had a powerful industrial base of industrial production, where did it go after 1989? [5 points]

Question 10. In your own words, describe why you believe your country is the centre of the universe and people hate it for no reason, why you are so incurious about the world around you as an adult with internet access, and lastly, why do you get so mad when someone refers to you as usamerican instead of just American (a demonym that applies to two whole continents)? [30 points]

[hesitationss]

anyone can make a zine, regardless of skill level or access to materials or design programs. all you need is paper, scissors and drawing utensils (although many people enjoy collaging!) web search "8 page 1 sheet zine how to".

everyone SHOULD make a zine too, you will feel so good about it ♡ it's about putting the power of production into the hands of the people! also you don't have to sell it or anything, you can just make one for yourself or trade/give some to friends!

i really love julia grofrer's guide to analogue self publishing aka making zines on 8.5x11 paper

and jaydragon/jdragsky's thread on staple's self serve print centres (if you're area does not have a local print shop, they probably have a staples or fedex print centre)

if you can't draw, here is twitter thread for public domain art and also a mini summary of when thing enter creative commons (generally 70 years after artist death in the US and CAD)

i also have a DIY zine page on my art blog that i am dedicated to updating as i find more resources! (not accessible through tumblr mobile app, mobile friendly, just open the link in a browser)

go make some zines!!!

[forsakeofabetterusername]

I made a zine about adjusting cheaper wheelchairs, after adjusting my NHS wheelchair.

Notes: Your wheelchair ‘service manual’ is a good resource for adjustments! You can often google them. Also, with the wheel adjustments, be prepared to move the breaks. Google how to measure for a wheelchair to find your seat width, and if you want to get extra, look at seat depth. Leg length is usually done by adjusting the footplate height.

Image description and printable version under the ‘read more’ .

Image Description:

An 8 page zine. Both images have the same content but the first one is arranged to be read on a computer. I am going to describe each page.

First page reads “A cripple’s guide to.. making a cheap(er) wheelchair work for you” and in smaller writing “by Sock - who uses an Invacare Action 2NG”. There is a drawing of a wheelchair in the centre.

Page 2 reads “Choosing a wheelchair. Look for adjustability (can you change wheel height? COG?), seat width (as close to your size as possible), and arm rests that can be lowered/removed.” Each item has a small drawing illustrating the point.

Page 3 reads “Adjusting a wheelchair. You will need… Allen key set (bike ones are good!), Pliers (for holding bolts) and Phone (for access to manuals, taking photos at each step.” Each item has a small drawing of it.

Page 4 reads “1. Adjust Wheel height. This can be done where the wheel “plugs in”. Your fingers should touch the wheel hub centre. If you can, move the wheel forward too (centre of gravity adjustment).” There is a small drawing of the wheel base, an arm reaching down to touch the centre of the wheel and a wheel base with an arrow pointing to the right showing it being moved.

Page 5 reads “2. Arm rest adjustments. Get your armrests as far down and as far back as they go. I keep mine on because of muddy weather/to protect clothes from spokes but you can also just remove them!” There is 2 drawings of a rounded and straight arm rest.

Page 6 reads “3. Modding castor wheels. Adjusting the height will change the seat angle. Smaller castor = easier turning, but makes rough pavements harder.” There is a drawing of a tilted chair with big castors and a straight chair with small castors, with a double pointed arrow between, with the caption “Play around!”

Page 7 reads “4. Footplates. You can take the footplates off and toe propel. You can make a foot sling out of a belt/luggage strap/paracord.” Both have an accompanying illustration. Then there is a note saying “if you have poor circulation, weakness, etc. oh might just want to keep the footplates on”.

Page 8 reads “5. Cushion. You need a cushion for your chair. Depending on how long you sit/how bony you are, you might need to spend a little more” then “£: Foam. ££: pressure relief cushion. £££: EBay/second hand for jay, invacare, low zone etc.”

End.

Printable version:

[enbycrip]

One common experience of disability all across the board - relating to everything from learning/intellectual disability to neurodiversity to physical impairment to chronic illness - is the way that “one little thing” can make everything - work performance, school performance, ability to communicate etc - go right off the rails and collapse.

This is an issue I frequently see abled doctors, therapists, psychologists, teachers, social workers etc speaking about in terms of “poor flexibility”, “need to teach resilience” etc etc, focusing on this as an issue *with the disabled person.*

And that illustrates absolutely *perfectly* why a) disabled people are the experts in disability, not abled “specialists”, and b) why the social model of disability *needs* to be taught and centred.

The issue in such circumstances is not some sort of “innate preference for rigidity” (you may laugh, but that’s a phrase I sadly *still* see used about autistic folks far too often) or even “innate widespread lack of capacity” in the disabled person. It is a symptom of a system - in this case, a disabled person’s *life* - that is under immense strain and operating without spare capacity available to be used to respond to unforeseen circumstances.

Disabled people are, almost universally, *master* adapters. Incredibly adept at adaptive thought; incredibly resilient and incredibly dogged. We are that way because we *need to be* to survive in a world that is incredibly ill-adapted for our needs. The reason we are *perceived* as “inflexible”, “rigid”, “fragile”, “incapable” etc etc is because we are, very very frequently, *already* operating at the limits of our capacity just to survive in a world that is incredibly hostile to our needs and to our existence.

The medical model of disability judges all people to exist in the same world under the same circumstances, and thus judges the disabled person to be “lacking” when we struggle. Thus the onus is put on *us* to “correct” this “lack”. “You need to build resilience”.

It is the exact same mindset that blames people living in poverty for their lack of available resources, and suggests “budgeting classes” or “stopping spending money on avocado toast and Netflix” instead of recognising the need to raise wages to liveable levels in low-paid work and provide genuinely affordable housing. Focusing on, and *blaming*, the individual rather than recognising the systemic injustice and the desperate need for systemic change.

“Resilience” as long-term quality more or less means “having the resources to put into dealing with unexpected difficulty while still maintaining other functions.” Whether those resources are time, energy, money, family or community support - if a person does not have access to enough of them, the system - in this case, their life - *will* become overstretched, and they *will* fail on one, or, very often, on multiple points.

That does not represent a personal or moral failure. It represents having access to insufficient resources to meet needs. It is genuinely that simple. And that is what needs to be addressed for disabled people to live and thrive.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI is a WMD

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (TOMORROW, May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (TOMORROW, May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Get that? If control over a key resource is diffused among the people who rely on it, then (Garrett claims) those people will all behave like selfish assholes, overusing and undermaintaining the commons. It's only when we let someone own that commons and charge rent for its use that (Hardin says) we will get sound management.

By that logic, Google should be the internet's most competent and reliable manager. After all, the company used its access to the capital markets to buy control over the internet, spending billions every year to make sure that you never try a search-engine other than its own, thus guaranteeing it a 90% market share:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Google seems to think it's got the problem of deciding what we see on the internet licked. Otherwise, why would the company flush $80b down the toilet with a giant stock-buyback, and then do multiple waves of mass layoffs, from last year's 12,000 person bloodbath to this year's deep cuts to the company's "core teams"?

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

And yet, Google is overrun with scams and spam, which find their way to the very top of the first page of its search results:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The entire internet is shaped by Google's decisions about what shows up on that first page of listings. When Google decided to prioritize shopping site results over informative discussions and other possible matches, the entire internet shifted its focus to producing affiliate-link-strewn "reviews" that would show up on Google's front door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

This was catnip to the kind of sociopath who a) owns a hedge-fund and b) hates journalists for being pain-in-the-ass, stick-in-the-mud sticklers for "truth" and "facts" and other impediments to the care and maintenance of a functional reality-distortion field. These dickheads started buying up beloved news sites and converting them to spam-farms, filled with garbage "reviews" and other Google-pleasing, affiliate-fee-generating nonsense.

(These news-sites were vulnerable to acquisition in large part thanks to Google, whose dominance of ad-tech lets it cream 51 cents off every ad dollar and whose mobile OS monopoly lets it steal 30 cents off every in-app subscriber dollar):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Now, the spam on these sites didn't write itself. Much to the chagrin of the tech/finance bros who bought up Sports Illustrated and other venerable news sites, they still needed to pay actual human writers to produce plausible word-salads. This was a waste of money that could be better spent on reverse-engineering Google's ranking algorithm and getting pride-of-place on search results pages:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

That's where AI comes in. Spicy autocomplete absolutely can't replace journalists. The planet-destroying, next-word-guessing programs from Openai and its competitors are incorrigible liars that require so much "supervision" that they cost more than they save in a newsroom:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

But while a chatbot can't produce truthful and informative articles, it can produce bullshit – at unimaginable scale. Chatbots are the workers that hedge-fund wreckers dream of: tireless, uncomplaining, compliant and obedient producers of nonsense on demand.

That's why the capital class is so insatiably horny for chatbots. Chatbots aren't going to write Hollywood movies, but studio bosses hyperventilated at the prospect of a "writer" that would accept your brilliant idea and diligently turned it into a movie. You prompt an LLM in exactly the same way a studio exec gives writers notes. The difference is that the LLM won't roll its eyes and make sarcastic remarks about your brainwaves like "ET, but starring a dog, with a love plot in the second act and a big car-chase at the end":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Similarly, chatbots are a dream come true for a hedge fundie who ends up running a beloved news site, only to have to fight with their own writers to get the profitable nonsense produced at a scale and velocity that will guarantee a high Google ranking and millions in "passive income" from affiliate links.

One of the premier profitable nonsense companies is Advon, which helped usher in an era in which sites from Forbes to Money to USA Today create semi-secret "review" sites that are stuffed full of badly researched top-ten lists for products from air purifiers to cat beds:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

Advon swears that it only uses living humans to produce nonsense, and not AI. This isn't just wildly implausible, it's also belied by easily uncovered evidence, like its own employees' Linkedin profiles, which boast of using AI to create "content":

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg

It's not true. Advon uses AI to produce its nonsense, at scale. In an excellent, deeply reported piece for Futurism, Maggie Harrison Dupré brings proof that Advon replaced its miserable human nonsense-writers with tireless chatbots:

https://futurism.com/advon-ai-content

Dupré describes how Advon's ability to create botshit at scale contributed to the enshittification of clients from Yoga Journal to the LA Times, "Us Weekly" to the Miami Herald.

All of this is very timely, because this is the week that Google finally bestirred itself to commence downranking publishers who engage in "site reputation abuse" – creating these SEO-stuffed fake reviews with the help of third parties like Advon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

(Google's policy only forbids site reputation abuse with the help of third parties; if these publishers take their nonsense production in-house, Google may allow them to continue to dominate its search listings):

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation

There's a reason so many people believed Hardin's racist "Tragedy of the Commons" hoax. We have an intuitive understanding that commons are fragile. All it takes is one monster to start shitting in the well where the rest of us get our drinking water and we're all poisoned.

The financial markets love these monsters. Mark Zuckerberg's key insight was that he could make billions by assembling vast dossiers of compromising, sensitive personal information on half the world's population without their consent, but only if he kept his costs down by failing to safeguard that data and the systems for exploiting it. He's like a guy who figures out that if he accumulates enough oily rags, he can extract so much low-grade oil from them that he can grow rich, but only if he doesn't waste money on fire-suppression:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

Now Zuckerberg and the wealthy, powerful monsters who seized control over our commons are getting a comeuppance. The weak countermeasures they created to maintain the minimum levels of quality to keep their platforms as viable, going concerns are being overwhelmed by AI. This was a totally foreseeable outcome: the history of the internet is a story of bad actors who upended the assumptions built into our security systems by automating their attacks, transforming an assault that wouldn't be economically viable into a global, high-speed crime wave:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/24/automation-is-magic/

But it is possible for a community to maintain a commons. This is something Hardin could have discovered by studying actual commons, instead of inventing imaginary histories in which commons turned tragic. As it happens, someone else did exactly that: Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom:

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons/

Ostrom described how commons can be wisely managed, over very long timescales, by communities that self-governed. Part of her work concerns how users of a commons must have the ability to exclude bad actors from their shared resources.

When that breaks down, commons can fail – because there's always someone who thinks it's fine to shit in the well rather than walk 100 yards to the outhouse.

Enshittification is the process by which control over the internet moved from self-governance by members of the commons to acts of wanton destruction committed by despicable, greedy assholes who shit in the well over and over again.

It's not just the spammers who take advantage of Google's lazy incompetence, either. Take "copyleft trolls," who post images using outdated Creative Commons licenses that allow them to terminate the CC license if a user makes minor errors in attributing the images they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

The first copyleft trolls were individuals, but these days, the racket is dominated by a company called Pixsy, which pretends to be a "rights protection" agency that helps photographers track down copyright infringers. In reality, the company is committed to helping copyleft trolls entrap innocent Creative Commons users into paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to use images that are licensed for free use. Just as Advon upends the economics of spam and deception through automation, Pixsy has figured out how to send legal threats at scale, robolawyering demand letters that aren't signed by lawyers; the company refuses to say whether any lawyer ever reviews these threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

This is shitting in the well, at scale. It's an online WMD, designed to wipe out the commons. Creative Commons has allowed millions of creators to produce a commons with billions of works in it, and Pixsy exploits a minor error in the early versions of CC licenses to indiscriminately manufacture legal land-mines, wantonly blowing off innocent commons-users' legs and laughing all the way to the bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/02/commafuckers-versus-the-commons/

We can have an online commons, but only if it's run by and for its users. Google has shown us that any "benevolent dictator" who amasses power in the name of defending the open internet will eventually grow too big to care, and will allow our commons to be demolished by well-shitters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

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/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/#advon

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

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

--

Catherine Poh Huay Tan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/68166820@N08/49729911222/

Laia Balagueró (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/lbalaguero/6551235503/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[txttletale]

Hi! Do you think you could link me to some resources about the problems/ evils of the EU? Would love to find some but it's hard to know what's reliable when I have no base knowledge in this area + you seem very well informed :)

sure. let's start with what the EU does to its own member states--in 2009, the EU bailed the greek government out of severe debt on the condition that they establish brutal austerity measures, cutting public spending and welfare. these measures served to immiserate and destroy the lives of thousands of greek people:

Greek mortality has worsened significantly since the beginning of the century. In 2000, the death rate per 100,000 people was 944.5. By 2016, it had risen to 1174.9, with most of the increase taking place from 2010 onwards.

[forbes]

Since the implementation of the austerity programme, Greece has reduced its ratio of health-care expenditure to GDP to one of the lowest within the EU, with 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than in 2009. This reduction has left hospitals with a deficit in basic supplies, while consumers are challenged by transient drug shortages.

[the lancet]

The homeless population is thought to have grown by 25 per cent since 2009, now numbering 20,000 people.

[oxfam]

the most brutal treatment, however, the EU of course reserves for migrants from the global south. the EU sets strict migration quotas and uses its member states as weapons against desperate people fleeing across the mediterranean. boats are prevented from landing, migrants that do make it to land are repelled with brutal violence, and refugees are deported back to countries where their lives are in lethal danger. these policies have led to many, many deaths--and the refugees and migrants who do survive are treating fucking inhumanely.

After a perilous journey across the desert, Abdulaziz was locked up in Triq al-Sikka, a grim prison in Tripoli, Libya. Why? Because the EU pays Libyan militias millions of euros to detain anyone deemed a possible migrant to Europe [...] A leaked EU internal memorandum in 2020 acknowledged that capturing migrants was now “a profitable business model” [...] in Triq al-Sikka and other detention centres, “acts of murder, enslavement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are committed against migrants”, observed a damning UN report.

[the guardian]

Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries.

[the guardian]

Refugees and asylum seekers were punched, slapped, beaten with truncheons, weapons, sticks or branches, by police or border guards who often removed their ID tags or badges, the committee said in its annual report. People on the move were subject to pushbacks, expulsion from European states, either by land or sea, without having asylum claims heard. Victims were also subject to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, such as having bullets fired close to their bodies while they lay on the ground, being pushed into rivers, sometimes with hands tied, or being forced to walk barefoot or even naked across a border.

[the guardian]

In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

[the guardian]

i could go on. i could cite dozens more similarly brutal news stories about horrific mistreatment, or any of the dozens of people who have killed themselves in the custody of border police under horrific conditions. the EU is a murderous institution that does not care about the lives of refugees and migrants or about the lives of the citizens of any member state that is not pursuing a vicious enough neoliberal political program

[yaksha-lover]

cw: vampires, blood drinking, gn but reader wears feminine clothing, making out, suggestive/implied content, 16+ please

Vil said he hated to share, but he seemed to make an exception for Rook.

The vampires caged you in, Vil in front and Rook behind. Where else would Vil be, but where you would be forced to look directly at him, to worship his every move? Rook was satisfied in the back, watching the two of you but keeping his arms around your waist. He didn’t have to be the centre of attention like Vil, but that didn’t mean Rook was willing to step aside completely.

Vil’s hand holds the back of your neck, keeping your lips locked with his. The kiss is needy and desperate; you think he’s trying to put on a performance of sorts, in front of Rook. To show him that no matter what, you’ll always be his first.

Rook is unbothered, content to hold you on his lap, hands drifting from your waist to your smoothing over the top of your stocking-covered thighs.

It was Vil’s idea to dress you up, but Rook was equally as delighted for you to play doll. They’d both agreed; white was your colour. You wondered if it was because of their vampirism; the desire to corrupt something pure, to see you as something opposite to their darkness.

That’s how you’d ended up dressed in this fancy lace. Between Vil and Rook’s resources, no expense was spared on your little outfit. The scarlet silk robe they’d given you had already come off as soon as Vil insisted you move from the couch to the bed.

Vil finally pulls away, giving you time to breathe. The reprieve doesn’t last long, as he demands Rook shift so he can have better access to your neck.

Rook moves you off his lap to sit in between your legs on the edge of the bed. Vil gently pushes your shoulders so you’re laying down.

He leans in close to your face, dropping a kiss on your cheek and whispering, “Are you alright, my dear?”

You look between Vil and Rook, both awaiting your confirmation, before nodding.

“Stop us if you need to, mon ange. I’m afraid vampires have a difficult time realizing we’re being too rough when dealing with such an adorable human.” Rook, still sitting by the edge of the bed, bends down to kiss your ankle cheekily.

“Not just adorable.” Vil says, a hint of something unidentifiable in his tone. “Someone we love. Have I ever told you that? This part…it’s different when we care.”

“You’ve mentioned it,” you reply. “Tell me more?”

“Perhaps we can save this discussion for later. I’m sorry, darling, but I feel I must have you now. Only if you feel the same, of course.”

Your cheeks flush, and you mumble an affirmation of your enthusiasm for what he desires.

Vil brings a silk pillow and uses it to prop up your head comfortably. You close your eyes as he begins to press gentle kisses along your throat.

You feel Rook settle between your legs. He turns one of them onto its side, giving him access to the inside of your thigh.

“May I taste your blood as well, MC? Two vampires biting you at once is quite the sensual experience but, of course, we will not take too much at once.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Vil adds on.

“Please,” you breathe.

With your closed eyes, you miss the invigoration that lights their faces at your words. They return to peppering kisses onto you; Vil on your neck, Rook on your thigh.

When they can’t hold on much longer, Vil pulls away, breath hot on your skin as he mumbles into your throat: “Ready, darling?”

At your confirmation, the two place one last sweet kiss on you before they finally sink their fangs deliciously deep into your flesh.

The pain and pleasure swirl in your head - all you can think about is them. The way their fangs are nestled into you like they belong there. They hold you tightly to them, eager to feast on every part of you. There’s a sense of urgency and desperation, as though they’ll never be able to satiate the hunger that draws them into your flesh.

You writhe beneath them, unable to stop quiet breaths and moans from spilling from your parted lips. The feeling of two vampires having you at once is almost unbearable, but instead you find it utterly intoxicating.

Vil moans shamelessly against your neck, too engulfed in pleasure to be able to remain prim and proper like he always insisted on being.

Rook’s arms shift, circling around your waist from below and pulling your entire lower body closer to him as he continues to drink passionately from your thigh.

Once the pain fades, all that’s left is the rush. It washes over you like a wave, pleasure rolling down your body from where Vil feeds from your neck to where Rook drinks from your thigh.

It’s not just the physical feeling, either.

There’s a pleasure of sorts that comes purely from the thought of two beautiful men drinking your blood. Your men. Your vampires. Their voracious appetites left no doubt about their love for you.

You wouldn’t have it any other way.

[reasonsforhope]

"An international research team has found almost a million potential sources of antibiotics in the natural world.

Research published in the journal Cell by a team including Queensland University of Technology (QUT) computational biologist Associate Professor Luis Pedro Coelho has used machine learning to identify 863,498 promising antimicrobial peptides -- small molecules that can kill or inhibit the growth of infectious microbes.

The findings of the study come with a renewed global focus on combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as humanity contends with the growing number of superbugs resistant to current drugs.

"There is an urgent need for new methods for antibiotic discovery," Professor Coelho, a researcher at the QUT Centre for Microbiome Research, said. The centre studies the structure and function of microbial communities from around the globe.

"It is one of the top public health threats, killing 1.27 million people each year." ...

"Using artificial intelligence to understand and harness the power of the global microbiome will hopefully drive innovative research for better public health outcomes," he said.

The team verified the machine predictions by testing 100 laboratory-made peptides against clinically significant pathogens. They found 79 disrupted bacterial membranes and 63 specifically targeted antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.

"Moreover, some peptides helped to eliminate infections in mice; two in particular reduced bacteria by up to four orders of magnitude," Professor Coelho said.

In a preclinical model, tested on infected mice, treatment with these peptides produced results similar to the effects of polymyxin B -- a commercially available antibiotic which is used to treat meningitis, pneumonia, sepsis and urinary tract infections.

More than 60,000 metagenomes (a collection of genomes within a specific environment), which together contained the genetic makeup of over one million organisms, were analysed to get these results. They came from sources across the globe including marine and soil environments, and human and animal guts.

The resulting AMPSphere -- a comprehensive database comprising these novel peptides -- has been published as a publicly available, open-access resource for new antibiotic discovery.

[Note: !!! Love it. Open access research databases my beloved.]"

-via Science Daily, June 5, 2024

[djuvlipen]

Every hour, a woman in Afghanistan loses her life during childbirth

It was midnight when another wave of pain struck. Begum, 35, thought it was finally time for her child to be born, but there were no signs of the baby coming.

“I woke my husband and told him to get a car to go to a hospital. He rented one from our neighbours,” Begum said.

The mother of four travelled while in labour from Ridkhord area in Badakhshan’s Zibak district to the Shahid Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani Hospital in the provincial capital Faizabad.

Her fifth child, struggling to be born, did not survive the journey.

Begum lived, but many mothers in similar circumstances do not.

Abdullah is currently waiting to hear if his wife will survive their child’s birth.

He and his wife, residents of the province’s Yafta-e-Bala area, came on foot to the central hospital in Faizabad when their baby was due to be born.

“In Yaftal-e-Bala, there are four health centres. However, because of inadequate medical facilities and no doctor available, we had to walk for four or five hours to Faizabad for delivery,” Abdullah said.

“We encountered many challenges along the way, but I couldn’t do much until we reached the hospital.”

Doctors said that because his wife had walked a long distance, it led to severe bleeding and possibly harmed the baby in the womb.

“The mother’s condition is not good and there is little hope for the baby to survive,” Abdullah said doctors told him.

Afghanistan’s deadly statistics for mothers

According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) report, each day 24 mothers and 167 newborns in Afghanistan lose their lives due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth.

It’s the highest rate in the world.

“The condition of mothers is highly alarming, particularly for those who travel from remote areas and cover long distances,” a specialist at the Shahid Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani Hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Having worked in Badakhshan for 22 years, the doctor said that the shortage of healthcare services, especially in remote areas, leads to significant health risks for women.

He recalled a patient who arrived at the hospital from Darwaz district about a month ago after travelling for three days.

“Due to the long journey, the patient’s womb had ruptured along the way, leading to the loss of the baby. The doctors only managed to save the mother’s life with great difficulty,” he said.

Discrimination leading to more deaths

There are concerns the situation is only getting worse as the Taliban place more restrictions on women’s mobility and access to support, and the weakened economy sees healthcare facilities struggle to deliver services.

The WHO reported that in 2023, about 428 health centres were closed because of budget constraints.

Dr Suraya Dalil, WHO’s Director of the Special Programe for Primary Health Care and former Minister of Health in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2014, said that Afghanistan has become one of the most perilous countries for mothers due to insufficient healthcare resources.

Dr Dalil told Rukhshana Media that the Taliban’s discriminatory policies make women more vulnerable in accessing healthcare.

“There is a regime in Afghanistan that systematically discriminates against women. For instance, a few months ago, a directive was sent to the central hospital in Ghazni province stating that women without a male companion would not receive treatment,” she said.

“Similarly, in Herat, a directive was issued prohibiting ultrasound services for women at the central hospital.”

She said that ultrasound examinations are crucial for diagnosis and timely treatment decisions, services that have unfortunately been restricted for women.

Recently, the Taliban supreme leader issued an order for all female employees to receive a reduced monthly salary.

“Recently, we’ve witnessed female employees being allocated a monthly salary of only 5,000 afghanis (US$70), disregarding their rank, experience, and job responsibilities solely because they are women. This is systemic discrimination,” she said.

“The impact of the Taliban’s actions on women extends beyond just health issues. It has multidimensional implications.”

Health professionals strike over reduced salaries

This month several doctors, nurses, and midwives in Kabul hospitals staged a strike in protest of this decision by the Taliban leadership.

At least four female doctors and staff from hospitals such as Wazir Mohammad Akbar Khan, Shaikh Zahid, and Sehat-e-Tefl, speaking to Rukhshana Media,  said they cannot meet their basic living needs with the salary recently set by the Taliban for all female employees.

Homa*, a physician at Wazir Mohammad Akbar Khan hospital, said their protest lasted only three hours after the hospital’s Taliban-appointed director dispersed them with threats.

Orphaned children left to raise each other

Hanifa, 21, a resident of Sarjai area of Panjab district of Bamyan province now takes care of her two younger sisters and two younger brothers after the death of their mother.

She said that there are no clinics in their village or nearby areas, which is why her mother had to give birth at home.

“My poor mother cried in pain, clutching her back, yet she continued to bake bread. With my father and two brothers away working on farmlands, there was no man at home. My mother, assisted by our neighbor, who was a local woman, gave birth at home,” she said.

“She always delivered her children at home and was used to it, but this time, one of the twins didn’t come out, and her bleeding was so severe that the entire house was stained with blood.

“After giving birth, my mother survived only two hours. Despite our efforts, we couldn’t deliver the second twin because there was no accessible vehicle, and my father wasn’t home to help us.

“When my mother realized her bleeding wouldn’t stop, she urged us to take good care of her daughter, who was a baby girl. She remained conscious for two hours, growing weaker with each passing moment until she eventually lost consciousness.”

Karima Sadiq* a gynecologist specializing in obstetrics in remote areas, said stories like these are increasingly common.

“Sadly, since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, I have witnessed a rise in maternal deaths during childbirth, particularly in villages and districts. Every 24 hours, 24 to 26 mothers are losing their lives during childbirth, highlighting a disturbingly high maternal mortality rate.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently reported that one-third of women in Afghanistan give birth without access to essential healthcare facilities, and only around 67 percent of deliveries in Afghanistan are supervised by healthcare professionals.

According to UNICEF’s report, it is recommended that pregnant women visit a doctor at least four times before delivery, but only a third of women in Afghanistan adhere to this recommendation.

UNICEF stated that that if a mother gives birth outside of a healthcare facility and without access to a skilled health professional, her life is significantly endangered.

Note*: Names are changed due to security reasons.

[ladydeath-vanserra]

Inequality + Slums in Velaris

kinda 👀 at the people who think slums and designated Poor™️ areas are supposed to be normal, especially in acotar w Velaris. They *shouldn't* to be normal especially for VeLAriS

The UN Definition of a slum:

.... individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure

Slums form and grow in different parts of the world for many different reasons. Causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration, economic stagnation and depression, high unemployment, poverty, informal economy, forced or manipulated ghettoization, poor planning, politics, natural disasters, and social conflicts.

Rural–urban migration

Many people move to urban areas primarily because cities promise more jobs, better schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than subsistence farming in rural areas.

this doesn't really apply to Velaris as it is a closed in separated city from the rest of the night court

Urbanization

Some scholars suggest that urbanization creates slums because local governments are unable to manage urbanization, and migrant workers without an affordable place to live in, dwell in slums.

Rapid urbanization drives economic growth and causes people to seek working and investment opportunities in urban areas.

However, as evidenced by poor urban infrastructure and insufficient housing, the local governments sometimes are unable to manage this transition. This incapacity can be attributed to insufficient funds and inexperience to handle and organize problems brought by migration and urbanization.

again, I don't see thus happening due to it being a private and secluded city unless they're taking in a rapid amount of SA survivors- the only outsiders brought into the city

Poor house planning

Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government bureaucracy are two main causes of poor house planning.

This would mean that Rhysand is not paying attention to evenly distributed wealth or mindful government oversight in poor house planning. If there are low income folks, adequate housing is not being provided

Colonialism and segregation

Some of the slums in today's world are a product of urbanization brought by colonialism. For instance, the Europeans arrived in Kenya in the nineteenth century and created urban centers such as Nairobi mainly to serve their financial interests. They regarded the Africans as temporary migrants and needed them only for supply of labour.

The housing policy aiming to accommodate these workers was not well enforced and the government built settlements in the form of single-occupancy bedspaces. Due to the cost of time and money in their movement back and forth between rural and urban areas, their families gradually migrated to the urban centre. As they could not afford to buy houses, slums were thus formed.

I wouldn't say this qualified for Velaris, internally, but as for the Nightcourt as a whole, the separation of the CoN and Illyria from the golden city that is Velaris is very telling

The citizens of the CoN aren't allowed to leave the city and as we have seen from Rhysand, they will have businesses turn CoN citizens away in Velaris

Illyria is full of war torn camps where inequality thrives and there is not adequate housing or supplies, as we see when Cassian said he fought other children for supplies. We also see it when Cassian brings blankets for the Illyrians

Poor infrastructure, social exclusion and economic stagnation

Social exclusion and poor infrastructure forces the poor to adapt to conditions beyond his or her control. Poor families that cannot afford transportation, or those who simply lack any form of affordable public transportation, generally end up in squat settlements within walking distance or close enough to the place of their formal or informal employment.

This overall I feel best exemplifies Velaris. As far as we're made aware there aren't vehicles in Velaris and we don't make notice of any other forms of transportation besides winnowing. The closest we get is flying and we've only seen Cassian, Azriel, Rhysand and Feyre. With Winnowing, it's only Mor and Rhysand and Feyre.

Winnowing is not a common practice ability that all faeries have. There does seem to be a suggestion that there are people who can Winnow, though this is based on Rhysand telling Feyre about his dad being unable to Winnow into the HoW

This leaves many people being unable to have any form of transportation outside of walking.

Informal economy

Many slums grow because of growing informal economy which creates demand for workers. Informal economy is that part of an economy that is neither registered as a business nor licensed, one that does not pay taxes and is not monitored by local, state, or federal government.

There are very few businesses we see in Velaris. We see Rita's, the dive bar and some art studios. There isn't enough shown about legitimate businesses to really show much about an informal economy

Poverty

Urban poverty encourages the formation and demand for slums. With rapid shift from rural to urban life, poverty migrates to urban areas. The urban poor arrives with hope, and very little of anything else. They typically have no access to shelter, basic urban services and social amenities. Slums are often the only option for the urban poor.

Poverty has been witnessed with especially the Illyrians. But within Velaris, it stands to reason that the "grimy part of the city" where Nesta lives, and the bar she frequents, does not have the adequate infrastructure in place for proper wages- which would be Rhysands responsibility to make sure a minimums wage where people could thrive would exist

tldr: Velaris has slums and it's through Rhys' shitty job as a high lord by not creating adequate social systems or infrastructure where poor folks can live without being designated to the "grimy parts of the city"

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Former and current educators say Alberta’s already flawed education – around human sexuality, sexual orientation and gender – will only get worse under Danielle Smith’s proposed parental rights policies. Last month, Smith said parents would soon need to opt-in to any formal instruction on these topics. She also said all third-party material would need to be pre-approved by the Ministry of Education to ensure they’re “age appropriate.” “I worry about, if third parties aren't allowed in, if it's restricted on what you can talk about, where do those youth get the support or the resources they need if, for example, they're part of a sexual or gender minority?” said Pam Krause, president and CEO of the Centre for Sexuality.

Continue Reading

Tagging @abpoli

[earthstellar]

Currently combing through the Transformers Exodus novel, as I often do.

Some notes, by which I mean, this is going to be long:

Using an Abandoned Hydraulic Mining Facility as a Battle Arena: This Sort Of Happened in Real Life -- Know Your Labour History

The building in Kaon that is used by Megatron for gladiatorial battle is an abandoned hydraulics works, and on the page prior to this it refers to extremely deep slag pits, which indicates this hydraulics facility was almost certainly used for mining. The location is given specifically as "to the south of Kaon's centre".

This makes me wonder if the now-abandoned Orgreave Coking Plant may have been some inspiration to someone somewhere in building the backstory; A coking plant uses massive amounts of hydraulic machinery and components, and the location of this specific facility is to the south of the centre of Rotherham.

Plenty of Brits work on Transformers, and I wonder if any English people who may have been on the team for developing the Aligned Continuity bible/character backstories might have thought of Orgreave as some kind of inspiration.

It's worth noting Orgreave Coking Plant was famously the site of a huge labour dispute which turned into a borderline Battle of Harlan situation, called the Battle of Orgreave in 1984.

Which makes it excellent potential inspiration, both visually and in terms of historical significance in union/labour and working class struggle against the oppressive upper class- A significant theme in Transformers.

Nearby, there is also the abandoned Orgreave Colliery, and while all abandoned collieries would fit the mechanical and dark, heavy design of Kaon, Tarn (the location, not the bot) and so on, it's still worth pointing out that Orgreave has plenty of industrial ghosts (abandoned industrial facilities).

That having been said, hydraulic mining works could also refer to actual hydraulic mining methods rather than just any hydraulic machinery present, which would also explain the large pits that Orion Pax sees at the site in Kaon, and would add another level of horror: Using fluids to carry out this type of mining would be a huge hazard to bots. I'd imagine rusting was a common problem, not to mention gradual armour/frame wear, increased fall/slip hazards for most frame types, etc.

CONTENT WARNING: Here's where some medical conjecture begins, you might want to skip this section if you're sensitive to medical discussions! There is no detailed comparison to any particular real world cases in this segment, however there is brief mention of ableism in a fictional context.

This would also account for the description of optics and audials needing more frequent repair even prior to suffering any gladiatorial damage--

--In some frame types, these components/sensory systems may be more exposed to the environmental pollution as mentioned in the text, but also, would be sensitive to abrasive damage from spray back/high pressure soil/stone/crystal like particulate materials present in Cybertron's surface and sub-surface layers acting essentially as sand paper against their bodies as they worked in any such hydraulic mining sites.

This is the type of shit Kaonite workers in these mining facilities were likely exposed to on a regular basis, because they are Cybertronians and could physically tolerate this kind of thing without dying-- At least, not right away.

A combination of repeated extreme wear, chronic overwork, likely poor medical resources, and complicating factors like questionable access to healthy fuels etc. would have inevitably resulted in a generally very unwell population with high workplace casualty rates.

This was the type of life most low class/caste heavy labour designated frame types were assigned to, under the Functionist system.

I've talked about my headcanons re: hearing disabled Megatron before, and it's kind of interesting to see that canonically here, that's very much possible. Audial damage from mining, audial damage from the fighter's ring.

But in general, the Kaonite population is seriously at risk, especially medically. Same deal with other low class/caste designated regions across Cybertron. Much like many Appalachian mining populations, where COPD is as common as flies in summer, the chronically poor health of this population would be staggering in comparison to better-off polities like Iacon.

Rust in their optics, rotting their optical components from within, likely leaving many workers sightless--

--At which point they were probably deemed "useless" under the ableist Functionist system, as they would then likely be unable to work their prior jobs or would only be able to work in limited or different capacities; Any system that determines worth by perceived functionality is inherently ableist, and Primus knows there were almost certainly no disability accommodations provided or available potential repairs/treatments in places like Kaon on Cybertron.

As a result, these newly disabled bots were likely left unemployed and therefore without any income source for Shanix, therefore left to their deaths via fuel deprivation etc.--

--Unless they fell in with mob-controlled sources of materials or aid, as a last resort...

Apparently Megatron Displaced The Local Kaonite Mafia: Pit Bosses Could Be Mob Bosses Too

This is also a real thing, as a lot of productive industrial facilities (not just mining, but textiles etc.) were often tied into in local black market raw material goods and organised crime shit, owing to less than moral site owners and company bosses. (At least in the USA, it may have varied in other countries or from region to region.)

This is because if you have a productive facility, you can make a fuckload of money bypassing any common sense safety rules or proper waste/product handling or disposal protocols etc. and skip the whole regulated market and just go right to making a fuckzillion moneys from whoever will buy this shit illegally.

(This is part of why a lot of Appalachia is polluted to hell and back-- Even at the time, a lot of these industrial works and companies knew perfectly well that dumping coal ash and other horrible shit into every single river and creek available was a bad idea. They did it anyway. Why? It saved money overall and they didn't have to pay for more long distance drivers to reach actual approved waste sites etc.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this USA specific shit, let me introduce you to the concept of a Superfund Site. It's depressing. Most are former industrial illegal waste dumping sites. These places are so fucked up that even the American Government was forced to acknowledge how bad it is. Some of them are straight up literal nuclear waste sites.)

This has been a huge problem in American industrial history, because America can turn out some very, very productive sites using very, very unsafe and cruel means to force workers to work. Paying in scrip etc. were all methods to ensure a workforce could not leave. And so on.

Not to mention the horrendous impact on Native populations, the poor in general, immigrants in general, etc. who were all subject to the worst possible treatment throughout.

And there are many modern examples too-- Not just in the USA, but in many places around the world, such as Peru. Note that capitalism is often the facilitator of mistreatment, pollution, etc. and serves as the motivating factor for much of this fuckery worldwide. This also includes factors like western companies wanting to appear more "green", so they simply go abroad to abuse people in other nations and exploit their labour and raw labour products instead.

Capitalism is the root problem, on Earth and evidently, likely on Cybertron as well.

Can you imagine the amount of Shanix these fucking Kaonite mob bosses were making, possibly from selling raw materials and energon crystals mined in Kaon to other polities with fewer natural resources, arranging illicit under the table deals with large energy distributors etc. in other regions? Depriving Kaon of its own natural goods and stealing the near-entirety of their labour, constantly, endlessly?

(If this all reminds you a bit of Marx's Theory of Alienation, you are correct.)

Much of Kaon is, essentially, a Superfund Site. Dangerous industrial waste, materials, and abandoned facilities, all affecting the population in all sorts of ways into perpetuity even long after one industry dies and another rises-- Or a new industry never comes along, and you end up with even worse off sections of an already brutally deprived area, living in the remnants of an equally hellish past that was just marginally better enough to make some bots yearn for the good old days of having a job to be worked to death at.

If this is relatable or frustrating to you, you are correct. These are all real world problems. It's easy to relate to the plight of the Kaonites-- Megatron, at this time, is still largely a sympathetic figure to many.

Because of course, even from the outside, it is clear that this degree of suffering cannot be sustained. Even Orion Pax recognises this, despite his own total lack of exposure and lack of class awareness at the time in which he initially starts speaking with Megatron.

Anyway. Briefly back to our real world example, because it's important here:

All of this capitalist corruption is another example of systemic level rot; A lot of the time regulators knew that facilities were engaging in illegal dumping and worker rights abuses etc. but couldn't do anything about it due to a lack of federal involvement and lack of means or resources to raise a larger case or investigation on the scale that would be needed.

And of course, some regulators and investigators were paid off. Sigh.

It's genuinely impressive that Megatron was able to run off an industrial crime syndicate, because that shit goes very deep and has lots of tendrils that tie into pretty much everything else going on in a given area, especially in towns or regions where only one or two industries make up the entirety of everything.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Megatron gained such a large following so quickly.

Nobody else in Cybertron was willing or able to acknowledge (let alone try to address) the horrible abuses going on in Kaon.

Endless, brutal labour, often resulting in horrible deaths. No reward for any of their work, with much of their meagre pay going to the mob and likely to companies based in other polities around Cybertron, so none of the materials or money ever stayed local. No care was put into their living conditions or standard of living, with most bots being used up and worn down with nothing to show for it but the industrial hell that consumed their own region.

And by getting the organised crime rings out of the local industries and community, by turning this abandoned facility into a gladiatorial ring, that provided both a more personally rewarding use of their physical skills developed through hard manual labour and gives an opportunity to gain legitimate funds and potentially fame-- Granting a social status previously completely unattainable to Kaonites, while clearly being built up on the legacy of all of their prior labour.

No wonder the appeal to follow Megatron was so strong, even in the early days.

Not even Primus helped these people, none of the Primes helped these people--- But Megatron did.

And that is powerful, to be liberated by one of your own, someone you know truly understands the difficulty and suffering and misery of a cruel, unending grind.

All that most of these bots could ever look forward to previously was dying in a hopefully not-as-painful way.

Now, there is potential for a genuinely tangibly better future, quite possibly for the first time in Kaon's history. Certainly for the first time within living memory.

Megatron turned an immiserated local population with no hope and no prospects beyond being worked to death into up-and-coming athletic stars with a burgeoning sports industry, using their local culture and previously disparaged frame types to prove the inherent wrongness of the class/caste system to a literal mass audience.

Megatron essentially took waste from the Cybertronian equivalent of colliery spoil tips and used it to forcibly create some kind of real hope and better future for every Kaonite, both individually and gradually on a larger regional scale, while living under an oppressive system that was just as likely to kill him in the same way as it had been killing everyone else around him his entire existence.

Megatron turned an industrial hell into a revolutionary city-state.

And he started local, he started with the injustices closest to him, what was visible rot to him in the environment he grew up in. Start small, strategize, your morals are your fuel-- In part because they keep stealing the fuel we mine. Does that seem fair? Does that seem just? What sense does it make, to have a system in which your most important workers are kept deprived and struggling into perpetuity?

He is the perfect Cybertronian revolutionary, he is the figurehead the people of Kaon needed, and his words were heard planet-wide from an arena he facilitated the building of himself, that he reclaimed from decay and loss.

From the bare frame structure of an abandoned mining pit, Megatron spoke words that inspired the downtrodden and lifted up countless impoverished populations through solidarity, the collective power of the working class, the low caste bots, the low class frame types.

The people that were previously discarded, were now using their means and their frames for their own purposes, gradually weakening the grip of the Council, gradually proving to more and more bots that this system is broken and this world can be better and we deserve better, and by any means, we will obtain better. We will make it better, with or without your permission.

No wonder Megatron became so powerful, so quickly.

He appealed perfectly to his people and others in similar living conditions, he articulated perfectly the flaws in oppressive Cybertronian society, he showed that different frame types can and do have multiple uses beyond the classist interpretation of their build schematics--

--All Megatron did, fundamentally, was care.

He cared about what was happening around him, he did not buy into the idea that life has to be miserable and this is the way things are and it can never change or get better, he saw and lived the awful conditions and suffered discrimination and understood that working together for each other would improve things for all.

And he acted on this understanding. There is always someone who is first to act, because there must be.

And Megatron does not act in half-measures.

I like that they mention him getting rid of the crime syndicates, here; It gives you a good idea of his morality pre-war.

It would have been easy to collaborate with these crime syndicates for some time, to secure funds for a new gladiatorial ring.

But instead, he took out the crime syndicates entirely and opted to build his arena inside an abandoned facility.

No capitulation to capital.

No money was exchanged, not a single Shanix, no deals made. No fucking around. This is Kaon, and you are no longer powerful here.

Megatron is increasingly powerful, however, because he embodied to the people the collective power of the people; He reflected themselves and their experiences back at them. But actions like this also played a large part in gaining that trust, in proving his skills and worth as a revolutionary and potential leader. It's not enough to be like everyone else. You have to prove you're not just another asshole looking to exploit everyone for influence or other personal benefit.

If you want a collective movement, it has to be about the collective. And for Megatron, it very much was. And things like this helped him prove that from very early on.

The Council and the mobs effectively have no authority anymore; They are losing control. Megatron, very quickly, becomes the accepted authority. Kaon becomes a freed city-state, it escapes the grasp of Functionism.

Standing up to one crime syndicate may not seem significant in the grander scheme of things, knowing how things occur in the story from this point onward.

But it is hugely significant-- It is a very important thing to highlight.

Because it is "smaller" things like this which are actually massively important and impactful.

And each "smaller" thing built up, and improved things for people to the point where Kaon could function entirely independently with a better off population of previously severely oppressed peoples.

Every "smaller" thing counts. Every "smaller" thing is the entire world to someone, or to a lot of someones.

How many lives were saved and debts erased, when Megatron took out this one crime syndicate?

How immediately did that improve a lot of lives, how quickly did that endear those people to him, to his ideology, to his plans for their collective future? How fast did they start listening, when he started speaking?

This is how revolution happens.

--

Anyway, thank you as always if you read any of this-- I know this got very long and it is nearly 2 AM now where I'm at, so it may have lost a bit of coherency here and there.

tl;dr labour history is important, fuck capitalism (this includes fictional capitalism), and intersectional solidarity is key to collective survival in general but especially among the working class and all groups subject to systemic oppression/discrimination in various forms

[transmutationisms]

okay so i’ve never really grasped this, might as well ask now — how exactly does the cyberspace & nft stuff mine resources? i’ve heard the basics (i.e. crypto mining uses energy and what not) but i’ve never been able to understand how internet connects to real resources. could you sort of explain that (along the lines with the spam email post) in a simpler way?

ok, put very simply: it's easy for people who only interact with the internet as users to treat 'cyberspace' or 'the virtual world' as immaterial. i type something out on my phone, it lives in the screen. intuitively, it feels less real and physical than writing the same words down on a piece of paper with a pencil. this is an illusion. the internet is real and physical; digital technology is not an escape from the use of natural resources to create products. my phone, its charger, the data storage facility, a laptop: all of these things are physical objects. the internet does not exist without computers; it is a network of networks that requires real, physical devices and cables in order to store, transmit, and access all of the data we use every time we load a webpage or save a text document.

this is one of google's data centres—part of the physical network of servers and cables that google operates. these are real objects made of real materials that need to be obtained through labour and then manufactured into these products through labour. the more data we use, the more capacity the physical network must have. google operates dozens of these data centres and potentially millions of servers (there is no official number). running these facilities takes electricity, cooling technologies (servers get hot), and more human labour. now think about how many other companies exist that store or transmit data. this entire network exists physically.

when you look at a server, or a phone, or a laptop, you might be glossing over a very simple truth that many of us train ourselves not to see: these objects themselves are made of materials that have supply chains! for example, cobalt, used in (among other things) lithium-ion batteries, has a notoriously brutal supply chain relying on horrific mining practices (including child labour), particularly in the congo. lithium mining, too, is known to have a massive environmental toll; the list goes on. dangerous and exploitative working conditions, as well as the environmental costs of resource extraction, are primarily and immediately borne by those who are already most brutally oppressed under capitalism: poor workers in the global south, indigenous people, &c. this is imperialism in action. digital technologies cannot exist without resources, and tech companies (like all capitalist firms!) are profitable because they exploit labour.

all commodities require resources and labour to make and distribute. digital technology is no different. these are material objects with material histories and contexts. nothing about the internet is immaterial, from the electromagnetic waves of wi-fi communication to the devices we use to scroll tumblr. it is, in fact, only by a fantastical sleight-of-hand that we can look at and interact with these objects and still consider the internet to be anything but real resources.

[a-little-revolution]

Hi! I really really enjoy your blog, it's such a great resource for a perspective check. Apologies of this has been asked before, but I was wondering your opinion of what the bar is for jokes about height? I don't mean anything like saying the m-slur, but rather the common teasing around being shorter than average. As someone who's of shorter stature but not a little person, the teasing I get has never bothered me, but I always wondered if it was harmful to people with dwarfism even if it wasn't directed towards them. Thank you in advance if you do choose to respond, and have a lovely day 💕

Hello! I'm glad you enjoy it!! I may have discussed jokes about my height early on in my blog, but that would be quite a long time now! I personally do not tolerate or accept any humour surrounding my height from anyone outside myself. Usually when I joke about it, it's more centred at pointing out an area of in-access or to make light of struggles I face on the regular. I've found when I've allowed other people to joke about my height, it comes from a much more demeaning and hurtful place. Even when they're trying to use humour to connect with me, they often miss the mark and hurt my feelings in the process. At the end of the day, my body and my experience is mine alone to joke about.

It is also worth noting that comedy has been used to attack bodies like mine throughout history - in everything from circuses, side shows, public display and ownership, humour was the stick people beat us with to make slavery look like "all fun and games".

And it's not all fun and games. The humour around people with dwarfism is different than the humour used towards folks that are 5'5. Cheeky comments turn into belittling and objectification really fact, so I often just nip it in the butt.

Fun Fact: At my last job, one of the first questions one of my managers asked me after our interview was "how are you with short jokes?". Know that this translates to "I find your body humorous, is it okay if I make fun of you?"