#and I suspect it won't get any notes considering my posts usually don't and on top of that

[chrysanthemumgames]

Hi again!

This time I come back after re-reading the entire thing! Of course, aside from fixes to small continuity error and other stuff like that, it didn't change much from the last time I've read it, so I won't be saying anything new in terms of how much I love it and so on! It's just awesome as usual!

But I have a few questions I'd love to delve into, that I just didn't ask when the book wasn't finished, either because I didn't think of them or because I sort of preferred to wait for it to be actually done.

Sorry in advance for the long post though! It seems I'm unable to keep things short!

On a Hades romance playthrough, especially with a reserved MC who doesn't overtly flirt… Who among the other ROs and other people close to the main cast notices or suspects that there's a spark of "something" between Hades and the MC at the end of book 1? Considering just how much of a slow burn this route is, there isn't much to see yet, romance wise, but I feel like some people may realize something is starting to "shift" there.

When dining with Hera during her visit in chapter 6, if the MC tells her they like the Undeworld and what not, she ends up commenting "A shame". This line always had me reeling, but I didn't re-ask about it after first reading the entirety of the book so I'll do it now. Did she know what Demeter had planned to do? I always wondered why she'd think it's a shame, and it's pretty clear from the climax of the story that Zeus prefers the MC to stay in the Underworld, so I don't imagine it would be something like Hera knowing her husband wants to bring the MC back against their will. And there is no reason for her to have wanted MC to be unhappy for whatever reason. So it only leaves the option of her knowing about Demeter's plan in my mind, but maybe I'm missing something?

After the whole Eurydice and Orpheus thing, Hades says "There are some fates which very much deserve the fight. I know not what yours is, but if it turns out to be one you don't want, I am glad you have the power to change it. Not that this means I wouldn't do everything I could to help as well, of course." - it makes me wonder… Since for the duo of lovers their fate should have been for Orpheus to fail and that changed in my playthrough's case with my Dionysus' influence, I was wondering if in the scope of this story, the MC's "fate" should be the original outcome of the Persephone myth, with the "spending half a year in one realm the other half in another", and any other outcome is a result of having changed fate? Or is this not a part of their story that's truly decided by Fate in this interpretation of the myth? Also side note if it's the case, I think it's funny and kind of poetic that my MC basically traded his fate with Eurydice? Because his fate should have been spending half a year here and half there, and her fate should have been being separated from the one who came for her again after he failed and returning to the Underworld alone. But here, she managed to make Orpheus sort of succeed thanks to MC and now THESE TWO will spend half a year in one realm and half in another, while my MC managed to make Demeter fail and make it so he could go back and stay in the Underworld full time.

And final one! How much did Pirithous and Theseus get to know about what happened after Demeter dismissed them? At the very least in a scenario where they actually kidnapped the MC, not one where MC followed willingly. Not only I'm curious of Pirithous reflected upon his actions, but I'm also intrigued as if Theseus was "satisfied" of sorts that MC managed to go back (if that was indeed the case), considering he seemed against the kidnapping at least to a degree. If they even COULD keep informed, since they are demi-gods living as mortals as far as I understand their situation. I was just always interested in these two since they only appear in that short part of the story but what they do is HUGE.

And that's it. Sorry again for such a long post, and thanks for indulging me if you decide to answer even only some of the questions!

So!

I think a few of the others have picked up on things. I would say Charon and Hekate definitely know something is going on there, and friend!Hermes might have picked up some vibes as well. Even Alekto might have had a passing suspicion, though she doesn't quite consider it her business, and so doesn't devote much thought to it. People will tell her things when they want her to know them, you know?

Hera didn't have specific information about Demeter's plans, but she did know that it was likely she would take some form of drastic action. From her point of view, the arranged marriage was something Zeus did to screw with her (Demeter), and he was likely to reverse his decision once he'd had his fun with it/gotten some kind of concession from Demeter. So to Hera it seemed likely the PC had just found someplace they enjoyed, but their being taken away from it was basically a given.

There isn't really an assumed or default end for the story (or rather, not one that is more mechanically likely than another), but sort of yes! The PC ending up with a different outcome from the source story could be seen as their fate-subverting power at work. :)

Pirithous and Theseus are basically aware of the trajectory of events after they left, and this is because they're eventually brought to the Underworld for trial by the Erinyes. This is dealt with in the first chapter of the sequel.

Thanks as always for your kind words, and no worries about the questions!

[riddlemaster101]

Ok I'm going to add a bit of experience from when I did this, in 2018 and 2019, based on this post. Heads up, it does refute a lot of the above, at least for where I lived at the time (central Illinois)

1. the prescription you get from an eye exam is a lot more subjective based on your doctor's opinion than you think it is. I've had eye doctors who meticulously changed the prescription for every tiny variation every time I went in (insurance covered once/year for a while so I got a lot of prescriptions). I've also had eye doctors in the same office who noted the change but thought it was too minor to put on the prescription and that your eyes can't tell those minor variations anyway, so unless I came in with a specific complaint, I wound up with the same prescription as last time.

Both of these approaches are fine, it depends on what you need and if the eyedoc is willing to work with you. One of the "oh a slight thing changed we need to fix it" prescriptions gave me a blinding migraine behind my right eye and I had to roll it back; some of the "don't adjust" prescriptions didn't fix a problem that I needed fixed. For your appointment, you should just be upfront if you're having any issues with your vision and try and describe them as clearly as possible.

And, at least with the people I worked with, if your prescription is wrong/doesn't work, you can usually get a new one free of charge in the next month/two months. (note: if you suspect something is wrong with your prescription, don't put this step off! after six months your eyedoc will generally consider it to be "your eyes just shifted again" and you'll have to pay for another prescription. but your prescription should be somewhat guaranteed for like a month or two)

2. while places like walmart absolutely will give you a prescription for relatively cheap, they do not adjust glasses or check prescriptions from glasses you ordered online for free (anymore). This is a somewhat recent policy change in direct response to how many people are buying online glasses and using the local business to get them checked (it also depends who specifically is there on that day), but the official word from most eyedoctors/glasses sellers is that if you didn't buy from them, they won't deal with their glasses.

3. I have bought eight pairs of glasses (reading, bifocal, distance, sunglasses and their backups) from EyeBuyDirect and every single prescription has been wrong by a lot. They do have a "return" policy (they'll send you new ones for free and send your old ones to be donated), but after the third attempt they start charging you. That's right: they get your prescription wrong, get the replacement wrong, and then charge you to fix it for the third time. I have had the actual wrong prescription (nothing like my one on file), the "right" prescription but off axis/mag by enough that I couldn't use it, and the two prescriptions listed in my file being mixed up. Getting this straightened out was a pain (see point number 2), since I couldn't check the prescription myself and no where in town would do it for free (I checked something like 10 separate stores/locations, including walmart). I eventually paid $20/pair to get my eyedoc to check them, which was a lot but notably still cheaper than buying through the eyedoc. Because of this, I cannot recommend using EBD to get glasses.

I can't speak for the other online stores, but I will say that a lot of the glasses sellers I spoke to in 2019 (trying to get the prescription checked) said that they are seeing so many people coming in these days with the wrong prescriptions from online glasses. Yes, they're biased because they want to sell you much more expensive glasses through them. This doesn't change the fact that, between the eight original pairs I bought and the eight replacements and the 5 re-replacements (21 total), the prescription was wrong about 2/3 of the time.

This has eventually led me to buy frames with clear glass from EyeBuyDirect and get the eyedoc to put their own lenses in the frames. I only do this because EBD makes the lightest weight frames in a style I like that I've ever found, which helps me wear them for a very long time, otherwise I think I would drop them entirely at this point. This is not cheap, but it is cheaper than buying both the glasses and frames from your eyedoc, and gets you around the prescription check/fitting issue.

tl;dr: if you're having issues with your prescription, go back to the original eye doctor who prescribed it and have them re-check (should be free if done within a month). and be a little cautious of EyeBuyDirect (and other online glasses retail for cheap) because they are cutting corners to keep the price down and sometimes those corners are the accuracy of your prescription.

where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry

[summer-fruits-and-cream]

Tbh this is the best pro-Palestine response I’ve ever seen (compared to all the times before where the narrative was “Israel has no choice” and any and all dissenters in America would be labeled as anti-semitic and it would be over).

But it’s still nothing to how social media exploded over other social issues in the past couple of years, at least not on my dash. It’s nothing compared to the outcries for BLM. There’s a few people I’m following who are speaking up, on Tumblr and other platforms, and the majority of you are silent. Presumably because people are scared to be wrong on this issue. Especially given the pro-Israeli rhetoric that’s surrounded it for almost all of our lives, where the only Americans who heard anything that challenged it growing up were Muslim (and yeah, it’s not a “Jews vs Muslims” issue, but the fact is all the Muslims I know were kept appraised of the atrocities that happened in Palestine which the news media simply refuses to cover- probably because it was easier to see the prejudice against Arabs and Muslims that color how the issue was presented).

Anyways, it’s the best response I’ve ever seen, but it’s still really sad. If you’ve learned anything about privilege in the last year, which a lot of people have in the push to be anti-racist, please understand that silence and “oh I’ll stay out of it” has only ever helped maintain the status quo. It has only ever helped the oppressor. There is no such thing as neutral. If you are neutral, please educate yourself so that you can choose a stance.

I’d be happy to talk about Israel-Palestine stuff with people also. I can’t guarantee that I’ll have the energy for it at any given moment, but if I do, I’m happy to discuss. I also promise to be civil, even if we come away with different opinions.

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

(Urgent) Hello! I really need help, I already searched on the internet but didnt find a satisfying answer so I really hope you'll be able to help. Soo I have to take swimming classes, I've been doing it and it's okay, the problem is that I'm on my period and absolutely can't wear tampons (or things similar) and I obviously don't have and won't get special swimwear. I don't want to tell my parents because I doubt they will understand.

Is there something I can do?

Lee says:

This is a good question! It’s probably relevant to a lot of transmasculine folks with the summer coming up and people being able to return to the pools and beaches since many of us are fully vaccinated now.

Unfortunately, I could come up with only six different (non-ideal) options to solve the problem:

1) Don't go swimming when you have your period

This might be a good option for a casual swimmer, but it isn't ideal if you're in swim classes and can't reschedule a class, or on a swim team and can't miss a practice or meet.

You could always quit and find a new form of exercise / a new job / a new sports team, but obviously that’s sort of a last resort if you can’t find any solution at all.

2) Wear a tampon

Tampons can be worn safely while swimming and prevent the blood from staining your suit when you get out of the pool.

To help prevent toxic shock syndrome, which is rare but dangerous, use the lowest absorbency tampon you can and change your tampon every 4-8 hours or as often as needed. Don’t leave your tampon in for more than 8 hours.

You said that you “absolutely can't wear tampons,” but didn’t clarify why you can’t do it. If the reason is unrelated to dysphoria then you may have a medical condition, or it may be that your hymen is covering the opening to your vagina. A doctor or nurse (either your primary care provider or someone at a nearby Planned Parenthood or similar) can help you figure out why it’s causing pain and figure out what to do about it if you do suspect it’s medical-related and not psychological.

Many trans people like wearing tampons for their convenience and because tampons don’t cause the bloody-diaper feeling that pads can cause; there are a number of anons who have told us that using tampons make them feel less dysphoric than wearing pads.

Putting in a tampon usually doesn’t hurt, but it may take some practice in the beginning. 

3) Wear a menstrual cup

Menstrual cups are safe to wear when you’re swimming, and function similarly to tampons.

Menstrual cups are great for people who are stealth but still get a period.

They’re small and easy to hide in your bedroom/dorm room/summer camp cabin, they’re reusable so you don’t have to buy more than one, and you can often use one cup for up to 10 years so you don’t have to buy them often.

Menstrual cups are discreet because you can wear a menstrual cup for 8-12 hours at a time, or until it’s full; this is because they hold 1 ounce of liquid, roughly twice the amount of a super-absorbent tampon or pad.

Having to emptying it only 2-3 times a day means you don’t have to carry extras with you that someone might notice in your bag, you never have to change your cup in the bathroom at school or at work, and you don’t have to worry about changing it in the locker room before you go swimming. 

Menstrual blood can start to smell when it’s exposed to air, but your cup forms an airtight seal so there’s less odor to bother you, and nothing for other people to notice either.

Cups may look kind of big, but most people can’t feel them once they’re in.

Putting in a cup shouldn’t hurt, but it may take some practice in the beginning. 

4) Wear a menstrual disc

Menstrual discs are similar to menstrual cups and can be worn swimming as well.

They aren’t reusable and are placed in a different way, but many of the pros are the same as those for cups.

5) Buy swimwear that helps catch or hide the blood

There are swimsuits which are dark colored and have absorbent layers built in to catch blood when you’re out of the pool (Example) but that isn’t very useful if you’re actually in the pool, or if you’re required to wear a certain type of swimsuit as a lifeguard, swimming instructor, or member of a swimming team. So this isn’t an ideal option, and you said that you don't have and won't get special swimwear.

6) Stop your menstrual cycle so you don't get your period while swimming (or at all, in general!)

This post lists a few non-dysphoria-related excuses you can use when asking your parents to stop your period, but saying that it interferes with your swimming lessons should be reason enough.

Everything you need to know about stopping your period with birth control

Everything you need to know about birth control

What You Need to Know About Birth Control and Breast Cancer

What’s up with birth control pills and vaping?

Will the chemicals in birth control mess me up?

What are birth control side effects?

Can I get birth control at Planned Parenthood without my parents’ permission?

Birth Control Your Own Adventure

Does depo-provera cause depression?

Are Low-Dose Birth Control Pills Right for You?

-

Given the information in your ask, you can’t skip lessons so option #1 is out, you can’t use tampons so option #2 is out, you won’t get special swimwear so option #5 is out, and you can’t tell your parents that you want to stop your period so option #6 is out. 

That leaves options #3 and #4, menstrual cups and discs. I would recommend doing some research on each option to see what fits your needs the best. 

However, if you feel unable to discuss menstruation with your parents, I would recommend a cup because they’re reusable you only need to buy one and that’s a good thing because it saves you money in the long term and you don’t need to repeatedly have to buy something that you’re embarrassed to talk about and hiding from them.

Here’s an article reviewing different menstrual cups here and I’d suggest looking at that. 

That article has links to buy the cups online, and this post explains how to buy something online without a credit card and without your parents finding out.

You can also buy menstrual cups in-person at a pharmacy, if there’s one close enough for you to walk or bike to, or if you can get a friend to bring you.

Hopefully that’s a good start for things to consider, but I know that it probably isn’t the satisfying answer that you were hoping for since you won’t like any of the options. 

However, I will note that I had a hysterectomy in 2018 so it’s been a lil while since I’ve had to deal with swimming while menstruating myself, so if the followers have any ideas that I’ve forgotten please feel free to add on!

(And yeah, a hysterectomy will definitely solve this issue for you but I’m assuming that’s a no-go in your situation which is why I didn’t include it in the list)

Anyhow, followers, any advice for anon?

[nerdnag]

Thank you for the questions @wherefore-whinnies 😊 I'll admit I'm not super excited to dig more deeply into Google's various legal documents, because it often feels like they intentionally try to make them as unclear and difficult to navigate as possible. I'll do some basic research to try to answer your questions, but I won't give any guarantees that I haven't missed something somewhere. (See also my final note below.)

Q1: Is the list of data included in any legally binding document? Can Google change it easily?

Generally, there are two (sometimes three) different kinds of documents to keep track of: the Terms of Service, and the Privacy Policy/Notice. Sometimes there are different versions of these for different products/services. (In Google's case, they also have additional pages and documents with various information - see my point about obscurity above...)

The ToS are the "contract", meaning they contain what Google and the user agree upon in relation to the service in question. The ToS are legally binding and can't be changed willy-nilly. In Google's case, they need to give users "reasonable notice" before they make any changes, unless the changes concern new products or urgent circumstances (source here).

Because it can be tricky to update the ToS, and because it's easier for Google to manage the ToS if they don't have to be updated for every little thing, they're usually as non-specific as possible.

Then there's the Privacy Policy, which is not a contract per se but can be viewed more as pure information about how Google process personal data. It's not a contract you need to enter into or agree to. Only when they ask for your consent do you actually need to "opt in" to a privacy notice (and then only to the parts that concern the processing they base on that consent). Still, they can't change the Privacy Policy however they want either. At least according to EU privacy laws, they need to inform users of material changes to the policy. I suspect it's the same in the US, but I can't swear on it.

The Privacy Policy needs to be specific. It has to list specifically which types of data are processed, for which specific purposes, etc. However, most companies (yes! most!) do not fulfill this requirement. They simply don't. (Hoo boy is privacy an interesting field to work in.) Google certainly does not fulfull it.

The third type of document that sometimes comes into play is the Data Processing Agreement, but that's only relevant for businesses, so I won't get into details on that here.

In any case, to answer your question: I have not been able to find the list of data in the Privacy Policy, but I'd consider the page where I found the list as part of Google's information about their privacy practices. That domain is also where they have their specific terms and privacy notice for Google Labs (although they are very brief). Chances are however that they wouldn't actively inform users if they made slight changes to which data they collect (they might update the info page, but not send out any emails about it).

However, even if they were to suddenly count the entire Google doc content as "input" (which I personally wouldn't worry about, it's very unlikely in my opinion), that doesn't mean that they can use that data for whatever they like. They still have to fit their use into what they say they do in the Privacy Policy as well as what they can do according to the copyright license granted to them in the ToS. (And that copyright license is restricted to a small number of use purposes which are all related to the delivery of the service as well as some marketing.)

Q2: Do we know what Google counts as publicly available?

In their ToS and Privacy Policy, they give examples such as newspapers, websites and online search results. I would bet money that they don't consider a shareable link as public - probably not even if you post the link somewhere public. My instinctive guess would be to say that the content itself has to be findable via web search.

This is the best answer from Google I can find (source here), seeming to indicate that my instinct was right:

There's also some related info here:

Q3: Is it common for big tech to do illegal stuff that could damage their reputation?

Speaking from a privacy perspective, it's common to take some risks with personal data. Examples I can give from experience include choosing not to give specific information about certain more intrusive processing (like exactly how much data is used in marketing/profiling), lumping consents together even though consent needs to be specific for each purpose, and using advertising cookies without fully valid consent. These risks are taken because the monetary/business gains outweigh the privacy risks, in the company's opinion. One part of considering the risk is also to estimate how likely it is for them to "get caught" doing this, but that's just one part of it, along with the consequences if they do get caught.

Taking these types of risks is a lot more prevalent in relation to private users. I rarely see such risks taken with regard to business clients - instead, it's not totally uncommon for companies to cooperate with business clients in order to adjust their services in more privacy friendly manners. For example, a group of schools in the Netherlands which used Google Workspace for Education managed to negotiate with Google a couple of years ago so that they would change the content of their contract to be more in line with applicable privacy laws in the EU. (Source)

There are many possible reasons for why this distinction between consumers and business clients exists, but one reason is the controllership of the data. In consumer services, Google is the data controller and ultimately decides what to do with the data and which risks they are willing to take. In business services, Google is just a data processor, while the client is the controller. Google can't make privacy decisions on their client's behalf, and it would be unreasonable for them to take risks without their client's input. If Google took a risk, the client would be liable for it.

However, even for private users, I'd say that a major thing such as using private user content to train AI models without explicitly informing users about it/asking for consent or - even more extreme - develop movies or TV shows based on that content, would be unheard of in the field. I don't have any hard sources on this but I just can't personally believe that Google would ever find it reasonable to do that, or worth the risk it would mean. I don't see how Google would be able to justify it to themselves. I can't make any guarantees, but then again, that's true in all fields everywhere regardless of applicable laws.

Q4: About that tweet

Like I wrote in my first reply, Google does seem to imply that the Labs feature may become more widely available in the future. Still, I wouldn't recommend being hasty about removing your stuff from Google Docs out of fear for what Google might do with your content/data.

Even if they do make the AI feature available for standalone services, I assume you'd still have to actively opt in, and even if you do opt in, and assuming the data list is correct, you'd be able to control which data Google collects by what you enter into the AI. Lastly, even if you were to share more information with Google than you'd liked, they couldn't legally use it for any other purposes than those stated in their ToS and Privacy Policy.

Frankly, if you don't believe that Google would comply with these restrictions and just use your data however they like, then you should also be concerned that they might have been doing that for years. Why implement a new feature to illegally collect data when they could just have had your private documents scraped anyway?

Final note

Before concluding this reply, I'll just take the opportunity to add that after making my first reply to op's post, I discovered that there is an additional type of Google Workspace service that is called "Individual". This also seems to be provided for a fee, similarly to the Enterprise version, and is also marketed as relevant for work rather than private uses, but the ToS imply that the service may be used for private/household purposes as well. Just wanted to add that this service exists since, if Google Labs is available for that service, it may be more relevant to the average Tumblr user to know about it. The ToS for Google Workspace Individual can be found here.

Hey, I usually don't make serious posts, but this one is a big deal to me and many other small creatives, so please read or spread the message, especially in light of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Google Labs is introducing a new ai that will just scrape your documents for ideas, plots, and other things to feed its algorithms. This information is stored SEPARATELY from your Google account. 

Google will be collecting this user data and have at their disposal the ability to have free scripts for any content they want to produce without giving a cent to the original authors of these scripts, novels, character organizers, fics, etc. that the ai would be heavily basing these generated stories on. But that's not all, these ai's are also showing these works to human reviewers in order to "help improve quality of products" sharing works without consent of the author with real actual people to see if the ai is responding well enought to the prompts and imput (aka the intire documents as this is a fully intagrated ai -_-)

The reason this is going to be so terrible is that not if but when Google decides to open a production company (youtube movies will be first but they likely will open another streaming platform) these scripts their ai wrote them are probably going to be almost wholly plagiarized from docs user content that was stolen, without paying an actual writer anything at all.

If you are at all creative in the slightest PLEASE get your work off of docs before the features are fully integrated, scrub your google drive, and move to another program. Mircosoft, Libre (free and open source) ANYTHING to protect your works and if possible move away from Google products generally. Use a different search engine even. I'm going to link two TikTok creators from who I found this information as well as a list of alternative products to use away from Google in hopes to avoid them. Make them feel the backlash. It doesn't matter if they already have your data take charge of your internet person and DON'T GIVE IN

Ecosia (browser)

DuckDuckGo (browser)

Microsoft Products (Not amazing but not drifting yet, I like the free version enough)

Libre Office (free & open source!!)

Waze (maps)

Please add on if you can any information or resources! Stay vigilant and stay informed