#both the tumblr/twitter breed and the reddit breed

[radmista]

Imagine being a jjba fan and also a terf 💀💀

Imagine being a jjba fan and a believer in gender identity 🥴🥴

Jjba is one of the coolest shows that dresses males up in flashy, gaudy, and unreasonably complicated outfits and still calls them men. Araki drawing these characters 30+ years ago was somehow still more progressive than 70% of the fanbase that participates in his content who see Josuke or Giorno being unabashedly flamboyant and colorful and says they could only be that way because they had to have veen born women. Rather than just men who don't gaf.

[plumsaffron]

mangasstuffcomics and few of their cult of rebloggers are Overly Sensitive Crybaby Dweebs. Y'all pathetic excuses now wanna be incapable of handling joke(s) and looking beyond the cover.

Talk about nearly confirming. Shall I say the same for you? But youwasbored, not me LOL.

Since you or other zoebody wish to call him a like a wanker for chloe and lila.

Allow me to talk about imagining how horny Lila was or the lore of Tomoe and Gabriel's breeding times because iwasbored.

777 and your deluded friend(s) at certain times chat berserk whenever an episode arrives. Maybe you two and friends like role playing. IDK. Though really seem to have a shipping of thirst for Lila and Chloe or more likely a fetish of Tomoe and Gabriel breeding sessions at the expense of Natalie or his wife. Well I guess the least bizarre one is the canon ship. What now? you think Lila is possibly older than she claims?

Nearly 5000 people are likely amused at that Barbie Marinette Post cause it was a J O K E. If they don't get it or care ordecide to think like y'all, that's their problem or desired take.

Something you do, that your homeslices enjoy of you but now ya want to suck at it but now you SEETHE despite that the waifu thing is a joke

Congrats tho

Malding much lol?

Oh no, he's a defender of chloe and lila (in their heads) that means you should assume he'll go watch nsfw of either or wants lila to have a onlyfans and do things imaginatively.

Hmm do y'all feel y'all selves with your lovelustsquare or ships or things y'all try defending too according to that logic?

Now you say he has a love hate relationship towards Lila. Now you think he's responsible for Ms Bustier being pregnant. YOU ATE MARINETTE'S HAIR? That might be why you're so confusing and unconfusing.

Do you realize OnlyFans is not a nsfw only thing. Kind of like ya know TWITTER, REDDIT, or Formally Tumblr aka the other site besides YouTube you use.

GGs ya Marinette emulation.

Aye this is like when deluded beings thinks others are deluded and should be targeted.

Another of you though however, said you weren't gonna take him serious. Now you wanna or think what you said is true now faust?

*Shrugs* So quick to switch up lanes eh?

Aw filthy rat wanna gag and claim he's the worse. WA WA WA.

Poor horn-headed filly, why you mad again? She's not the only one on the hit list. It's just Marinette exists in I think every single episode. It's like asking to be thrown darts at when she has been doing a lot of crap. Yeah things are I guess dying down in S4-5 but that's like saying Lila is the ultimate evil when Hawk Moth done torment for 5 seasons. Would this change if this was the science teacher or both andres being on the main hit list instead?

Joke turns y'alls thoughts obsessive. Ah that sounds familiar to a character we watch. Look, your projectium.

Why does he think? It was a joke. Why don't you think?

People do that. And too far for the most part is relative. Certain ones just wanna claim the line was crossed of a sudden. Make a line then later you make a line at a lower point when still inside the previous line and then whine at them because you changed without their knowledge. Entertained that you say someone's has broccoli diarrhea feet but then you say they smell like SPAM and it's too much.

You could also ignore.

Not all jokes are funny to everyone or one day may be viewed as stale.

I'll just end it with this.

Spoiler he actually doesn't like Lila at all and thinks she's garbage like Marinette and irrelevant. Disappointing hype. I don't agree but hey, you can say a lot of things regarding Lila that even I won't be able to defend or respond against or towards. Hands at characters but mostly master (FUhq) o Zoe Su Lee or NINO are E for Everyone I've been seeing from his videos. He says frozen 2 is Garbage I don't think so. People think Elsa of both movies is garbage, I think considering everything that goes on, she is not. People think Angry Birds 2 Movie is better than 1. I think Angry Birds Movie 2 is lame unlike 1.

Can people change on what they like or dislike in time?

SPUNK YES

Oh yeah he pulled a Lila on you people but be disbelievers like Marinette with Lila in the Sphinx Game. I might take a clip to confirm he was bsing with y'all.

If you are undeterred after viewing the truth or still think that's who he truly is what ya or others claim,

Oh well.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

Conclusion jumping has devastating effects. Memes and context ignoring, makes a fandom turn against a character or mark them for mockery forever. Diego Armando, Uchiha Clan (mostly Sasuke outside of Boruto or any that aren't for the malicious state (will of fire)), Princess Elise, Wallflower Blush, Shadow 2005 or The Legendary Super Saiyan in a nutshell and more.

Wait a minute, y'all some complain about Alya Cesaire's failure in the Lila Marinette situation for so long but y'all apparently not seeking too. You say Marinette or Alya should do this but look at you. Even Kagami managed to view both sides. Fictional beings ahead of you :)

Talk about what you wish character to do but viewers of the show can't step forward and find the truth themselves and avoid it or take what one says or sees at face value? You're not suppose to be badly written in this world as you claim ML Characters Are.

Guess what he's right Caline Bustier is a delicious

SEEEEEEEEEEEE

[kevinwillpkgd]

here at the buggy-whip factory: (I write + music. since the 50s, dying breeds. AI get prises in both these days.

actors + writers? can you say dodo bird?

----------

plus tumblr, reddit, youtube, facebok, twitter, google+. all crash+burn. no money in monetizing DBs.

girlfriends attempt to hustle relationships spending too.

--------- free speech got nickel+dimed to death?----

Vandals. People up the valley in small towns are disappearing. Who is to blame? One of the ones left.

Undesirables are getting targeted by malicious. Fun, fun, fun! Once they taste blood, etc...

Disagreements about wars spreading, too. The passionate response.

Gangers? Ottawa is allergic to shootings too. Political town assignations, all that. That won't be tolerated long.

Another park chewed apart for developers. Mooney's bay, Landsdown. Prime locations. Out-of-towners, betcha.

Recession couldn't break the land-banks, so Ottawa is converting extra buildings into housing. Cross country.

International students getting refused at foodbanks; (80% of FB users are students?) In favor of over-whelming record local use.

[mariaiscrafting]

see that's the trouble with dream., most of the criticism from Outsiders is in bad faith misunderstandings, sometimes even straight up lies.!,? saying he "normalized rpf shipping" (?? HELLO??), saying he's a groomer, saying he approves of making NSFW content abt underage ccs. it's all bullshit!

and also there's this added element of all mcyt fans being dream stans in their eyes. if he does some shit it reflects badly onto all of us even if we don't even fucking like the guy

so it's easy to get defensive, perhaps. but it's more like they criticize him for the wrong reasons. whilst we can criticize him for the more substantial reasons, ykno? but maybe a lot of mcyters or dream enjoyers get wrapped up in defending him from the wretched antis (which is like fair or whatever) they end up not noticing when it crosses over into defending him from criticisms that are both in good faith and coming from the community itself. idk. it's weird . I wish philza was the face of modern mcyt and not dream, drea. should be like a 10k andy , it suits him better

Honestly, you probably accurately summed up at least part of the reasoning for why this fandom super defends Dream. I honestly never thought it was because he was extraordinary in any way, compared to other CCs; it does seem to be because his antis are a whole other breed of their own, unparalleled by haters of any other MCYT CC, and as such, garner a sense of defensiveness among Dream fans that is unparalleled among other CC fans. 

That’s basically why I mostly only listen to criticism that comes from within the MCYT fandom. They’re much less likely to be clouded by a hatred for all things related to Minecraft, they don’t buy into the whole “MCYT fandom is taking over Twitter” mentality, they know the MCYT fandom can’t be painted with one, misogynistic/homophobic brush, etc. So honestly, I never really listen to the shit antis say (that’s why I didn’t for a second believe the “Dream said the n word” bullshit, but I did believe the Reddit posts, like, a few minutes after hearing about them; because one I heard of from an anti wave on Twitter, and the other I heard of from SBI fans on Tumblr), and would much rather go with MCYT fans’ criticisms.

Also, yes, Phil should absolutely be the face of Minecraft, he deserves it

[shithowdy]

I realize this is a personal question from a rando stranger, but: do you mind explaining a little about what made you pull back from being a 4ch raider/participating in lulz culture? a friend of mine works for twitter's abuse dept and she is really struggling how to figure out the best ways to fight online trolling - any anecdote would be useful? (i recognize this is a big ask - feel free to ignore this if it's too much/private to talk about)

No it’s fine to talk about! I prefer to be open about my abhorrent behavior in the mid/late aughts since it was pretty impactful on both people I hurt and my own way of dealing with that kind of culture.

Trolling online these days is so much more organized, methodical, and scientific than it was back then. Social media was still a new concept, and websites had a lot more focus on niche audiences. Peoples’ online presences were scattered across several websites– their art would be on DeviantART, their private musings would be on their Xanga, their most social activity would be a forum attached to an anime fansite, and their different interests would be spread across several messageboards, LJ communites, Yahoo/MSN groups, etc.

Site names have changed and this isn’t 100% untrue now, but for the most part, segmented online presences are a dying breed. Most people share ALL of their work and thoughts on tumblr/instagram/twitter/reddit, all with one account, all very easy to learn about somebody. Things like DA still exist but are tertiary and not a primary method of interacting online. Reverse image searching, google maps, facebook, and people-finding tools also make hunting down someone to harass or impersonate them a lot easier.

I start by saying this because it’s important to observe the evolution of trolling, both in methods and intent. The internet is a completely different animal– before, to use an unsettling analogy, it was almost more about the hunt, now it’s about the kill.

Nothing in particular made me leave the subculture overnight. There was no conscious revelation that I could share in the hopes that others have it. I began roleplaying in World of Warcraft in 2009, and if I had to offer a turning point, that would be it. I went from being an angry little internet elemental to somebody meaningfully involved in a creative community that needed to work together to make each other happy instead of constantly trying to one-up one another. I played a character that was friendly, charismatic, and loved to help people. Between having to be in this constant mindset for roleplay’s sake and just in general getting to know people, I developed empathy for my fellow internet inhabitants.

As time went on it helped me explore more facets of myself, namely my very closeted queerness. RP communities are an extremely mixed bag and I encountered a lot of people openly sharing points of view I’d never considered about the world, eloquent people using a written platform where they can say everything they want to say in one place and consider it as long as they need before putting it out there.

I didn’t leave behind cruel behavior because I was stricken by shame. I just lost interest in it because I found more positive outlets, and listened to people with opinions counter to ones I’d held.

But how does this tie in to preventing abuse? I’m not sure that it does. Obviously there are plenty of cruel, manipulative, dreadful people in RP and other creative communities that have no intention of working as a team or considering others’ viewpoints, so it’s obviously not a result of the environment. But I think the empathy is an important factor– people behave as they do online because anonymity dampens empathy. Even if someone’s Twitter handle is their real name and their icon is their real face, their feelings are ultimately just a bunch of words on a screen, a person that in no way impacts your life. You don’t have to be privy to the devastation on their face as you tell them they’re broken and deserve to die. Bullying is a senseless but perpetual aspect of human nature and the emotional disconnect makes it worse.

Unfortunately empathy is not something Twitter, or any website, is capable of instilling in its users. That is something that needs to be addressed offline. People need to be made more acutely aware of their monkeyspheres, and be asked difficult questions like, “Why do you perceive X as unworthy of compassion? Who are they hurting? What is your goal? Why do you think that needs to be a goal?”And you can’t ask these questions online. You can’t make somebody uncomfortable with their worldview if they can hit backspace at any time and ignore it. But maybe asking the right questions often enough will eventually force them to think about it whether they want to or not.

Regardless, most people who bully do so because they have a perception of what’s “right”. This isn’t always a deep social issue such as racism; sometimes it can be something as simple as not liking how they spend their time, or the way they dress. One of my lowest moments in my teens was against a fanartist who traced various artwork to instead be their OC and a canon character. That’s it. That was their crime. But I was determined to make them stop doing it by any means necessary, and this meant impersonating them on /b/, alerting them to their existence. They figured out pretty quickly that it was me impersonating but they had already fixated on their artwork and I received no backlash, and they continued to hound them across various accounts. For what it’s worth, I did reach out a couple years back to apologize– but the damage remains.

Take that mindset and apply it to anything, from the notion that the bully has been denied something and is lashing out against a perceived cause, to a genuinely devoted moral crusade. The belief that they are “doing the right thing” (teaching a lesson, attacking somebody “bad”, thickening someone’s skin) is a unifying factor. Nobody sits there chuckling about how evil they’re being– they’re thinking, “this will show them”, and they get a rush out of having some control over this perceived slight.

What can websites do? They can take a more active role in moderating their community. They can ban hateful accounts and personally reach out to victims.

What can victims do? It fucking sucks, but don’t engage. I see a lot of debate on this but standing up to bullies online is a lot different than in real life. With a lot of media being based on “sharing”, retaliation opens up the potential for a wider audience of scum and they absolutely thrive on distress and watching people spend their time acknowledging them. You are not showing that bullying won’t be tolerated by refuting their words, you’re just giving them more shit to screenshot into their group chats before they roll in and call you more slurs that you publicize for them yourself by engaging. I say this from the perspective of someone who did that. A blocked/deleted insult is no fun. An insult with a “get a load of this guy cam” reaction image followed by several reblogs of people insulting the anon or saying how unacceptable this is is successful.

What can trolls do? Find a better outlet, you guys. Honestly. It’s a rush to feel like you have some kind of control and power over people by drawing reactions out of them but making people happy feels even better. Cruelty impresses only people that will have no qualms hurting you too.

[kavaeric]

So my own personal take is that like 70% of this phenomenon is explained by the fact that reblogging with a comment (as I am doing now) is framed as inherently cooperative and contributive, whereas on the reply function on other sites like Twitter, it's framed as a competitive act.

On a site like Twitter (or comment systems like Reddit's), a conversation thread is:

Treated as a series of individual posts/replies

Each post has their own individual metrics that are independent of the other posts, practically keeping score on the success of each individual post

Cannot be shared as a "whole" conversation; users are inherently forced to pick and choose which Tweets in a thread to share

Hence, if you are trying to Make Success Number Go Up, then you are predisposed to think of anyone replying to you as competitors for likes and retweets

Conversations feel more like battles between two sides on these sites because the site design presents it as so. The framing of conversations as individual, separate replies that are competing for metrics incentivise the competitive and hence uncooperative attitude that permeates a lot of social media.

On Tumblr, the opposite is true:

Anyone who likes or reblogs this reblog with my added comment will, also by default, reblog the whole conversation as a package rather than individual reblogs, thereby reinforcing the idea of the framing of conversations as a "whole" unit

Despite the fact that I am replying with a reblog comment, there isn't a separate note counter for this reblog independent of OP's notes. They're pooled together, reinforcing this idea of a singular post with multiple contributors

Hence, I am predisposed to think of replying to a reblog as an inherently constructive act; to be reductive, subconsciously I am adding this to help this post as a whole's (including OP's) Success Number Go Up

This also means that when I go and make a post, even if I am approaching it from the angle of wanting to Make Success Number Go Up, because I know that people's reblogs will contribute to "my" note counter, I am also inclined to welcome or even write with the intent of other people pitching in

I think it's very telling that due to the design of both sites, when it comes to the competitive act of "ratio'ing", you can ratio someone on Twitter, but "ratio'ing" someone on Tumblr is a concept that inherently incoherent.

Not to say that Tumblr is all sunshine and rainbows, but I think it's worth appreciating the profound impact that seemingly simple changes posts and metrics are presented can make. Because Tumblr just...frames its posts as a single thing with multiple collaborators, that just breeds a site culture that is inherently interested in collaborating to the point where something like Goncharov happens.

The Goncharov meme has exposed several really interesting things:

1) It highlights tumblr as actual social media based in community effort rather than status

2) It shows what tumblr as a whole values in media (in particular, queer representation, strong relationships between characters, emotional catharsis, and dichotomy of themes such as spending one's life building a legacy versus just living life)

3) Tumblr humor is based primarily in improv "yes and-ing" and commitment to the bit, and people will put 200% effort into pushing the bit even further if the bit keeps being fun

4) More than anything, people want to entertain each other, and being in a community that values entertaining others leads to incredible collaborative works of creativity that don't even feel like work to make

[retro-hime]

The Ask Arcana Questionnaire

an awesome ass thank you to @fireflytrio for making this~!!

I have two apprentices so I’m filling this out for both of them. Essa and Valstyne. Essa’s will always be in bold and Valstyne’s will be italicized 

Part 1.) Characterization. Use these questions as a way to flesh out some of your character’s personality, background, likes/dislikes, etc.

Their surname?

Decesare

Castle

Halloween costume?

Devil/Satan but in like that scary attractive way. Could still kill you, but looks hot while doing it

Fairy

Familiar/animal friend?

Owl (or albino miniature dragon if lore allows)

Fruit Bat

Big spoon or little spoon?

Physically little spoon, emotionally big spoon

Both

Religious?

Not really, no

A little bit

Favorite fruit?

Blackberries and raspberries

Pomegranates

Idea of a nice date?

A rooftop picnic watching the sunset

She’s not too picky. Honestly any date is a nice date when you’re with the right person. But if she had to pick, it would be walking the beach barefoot and talking

Favorite season?

Winter

Spring and Winter and Fall and Summer... She can’t choose they’re all really nice

When is their Birthday?

April 12th (Aries)

January 23rd (Aquarius)

Favorite carnival ride?

Rollercoasters and drop towers. Anything that is scary as shit, like the zero gravity spinning thing

The spinning swings and hang gliders

Favorite emoji?

Devil emoji (Im on my laptop so I cant put them)

Any heart emoji and the eggplant and peach emoji 

Like to do in their free time?

Helping around town, eating, herbology/herbs, picking herbs, Underground fighting, sitting on the roof tops and throwing harmless stuff at passerbys

Astronomy/Constellations, astrology, people watching and then coming up with elaborate stories about them, helping the baker, walking/hiking through the forest

What sports would they play?

Kick-boxing or MMA

Track and field

What kind of car would they drive?

A big ass truck, preferrably Ford

SUV, those ones with three rowed seats. Or one of those rv’s or buses that were made into a cool mobile home.. So a mobile tiny home

How do they treat their significant other when they’re feeling unusually affectionate?

Lots of hugging and hand holding. She’ll go out of her way to get the person food (excessive amounts)

She would do a lot of amsall stuff, she’s already insanely affectionate, getting them their favorite flowers and giving them more kisses in random places than usual. Cooking/baking their favorite thing. Elaborate ass compliments

Favorite manga?

One Punch Man and Boku No Hero Academia

Ouran Highschool Host Club, Reimei No Arcana, and Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama... and Say I Love You

Main store to shop for clothes (if they lived in our world)?

Forever 21 or Hot Topic

Earthbound or any hipster thrift store and Platos Closet

What were they like growing up?

Very rough. She got into a lot of fights growing up. She was very protective of her mother and got into a lot of fights when the local kids and their parents would try to talk shit about her mother being a ‘witch’. Kinda like “call her a witch all you want Karn but you were just in the store yesterday getting a salve for that itch where the sun dont shine” 

She was a very sweet and quiet kid growing up and would make money helping everyone out around town. Her father was a surgeon and she would sometimes be required to help him out during his surgeries. So she doesn’t mind gore too much and started to really have a fascination with skulls. She has her mother and her fathers skulls in a glass case on a shelf in the shop.

What kind of drunk are they at a party?

Will kiss the person they secretly have a crush on, get more honest than usual, and will start fights. “i’ll kick your ass! i’ll kick my own ass!”

Dances on tables, becomes less reserved, the wholesome friend drunk where she’ll tell you how much she loves you. (Yuuri from Yuri On Ice when he got drunk. nuff said)

Reaction to someone telling a dirty joke?

"Oh shit that was good! Wanna hear a better one?!”

She would blush and snort/laugh at the same time. 

Reaction to stubbing their toe?

Creative ass curse words and then blaming the thing she stubbed her toe on.

“I curse you and your childrens children!” she screams at the table

Favorite color?

Dark colors, black red, black green, etc. 

Pastels~

Favorite See’s chocolate?

Dark chocolate

Chocolate and peanut butter

Favorite poptart flavor?

Gingerbread

Smores

Favorite hobby?

fighting for money

Singing and baking

How they sing at karaoke parties?

Refuses to sing, is only there for the alcohol

Sings loudly and seriously is drunk. She sings too well when shes not drunk but picks songs that people will hate. (Like Barbie Girl or any song by Aqua)

Preferred social media platform?

Reddit and Twitter

Tumblr

Opinion on puns?

Pun’s are the devils work, but god damn theyre funny. So shitty but so great. 

Has dad jokes/puns of her own

How do they typically deal with their problems?

Ignore that shit as much as possible until it is eminent

Push it down if it’s emotional problems. Other problems she tries to tackle head on because she doesn’t like putting off the inevitable

Spice girl nickname?

Death Spice

Honey Spice

Personal hygiene routine?

She showers every night because she always comes home dirty and her mom was big about being clean at night. She washes her hair every night as well

She showers twice a day and likes to make sure she always smells good. She washes her hair every other day and has a whole routine for it so that is stays moisturized and healthy.

Favorite alcoholic drink?

Fireball Whiskey

Rumchata

Favorite genre of music?

Any form of rock or rap/hip hop/r&b

Jazz or video game type music

Modern AU job/career?

MMA fighter

Vet

Favorite musical?

Hamilton and Sweeney Todd

Les miserables

How would they celebrate their significant other’s birthday?

Would spend a week planning and overthinking it. She would attempt to cook (which she can NOT do) and she would try to be romantic and would clean herself up and look really nice. It would be a personal dinner and a day spent doing whatever their SO wanted to do. 

She would wake them up with breakfast in bed and kisses. Then they would spend the day visiting their favorite places no matter the price and it would end with an elaborate picnic on the beach. 

Would they rather turn into a tiny rhinoceros or a giant hamster?

Giant Hamster

tiny rhinoceros

What would they do for their significant other for Valentine’s Day?

She would go to every a week in advance and would order a dish from each one to be delivered to the shop. She would send her SO out on errands all day so she could prepare it and would reward them with a surprise extravagant dinner.

Would wait until the day after when everything is on sale and shower her SO in the sweets that she binge bought. End the day in some intricate lingerie

Pros and cons to having them as a roommate?

Pros: Brings in money, can kick someones ass for you, knows how to take care of you when you’re sick, is good at cleaning.

Cons: Bullheaded, stubborn, is messy, sometimes won’t come home for days, cant. cook

Pros: Can cook, is homely, nicely decorates the house, house always smells good, makes sure everything is where it should be, likes to help

Cons: Skulls and bones (it usually makes people uncomfortable), superstitious 

On a scale from 1-10 how Extra are they?

8

5

Favorite meme?

Damn daniel and legally blind

Kermit self to self meme

Favorite three pokemon?

Gabite, Misdreavus, Haunter

Milotic, Sylveon, Staraptor

How tall are they?

5′4″

4′11″ and 3/4

Part 2.) Scaling. Using your best judgement, where does your fan apprentice fall on these scales?

[Example: Shortest to tallest?

Portia, Asra, [MC name here], Nadia, Lucio, Julian, Muriel]

Most to least superstitious?

Portia, Julian, Essa, Nadia, Lucio, Asra, Valstyne, Muriel

Most to least excited to be at a WWE event?

Essa, Portia, Lucio, Valstyne, Asra, Julian, Nadia, Muriel

Worst to best at handling children?

Nadia, Lucio, Muriel, Asra, Essa, Portia, Julian, Valstyne

Worst to best alcohol tolerance?

Muriel, Asra, Lucio, Valstyne, Julian, Portia, Essa, Nadia,

Best to worst at keeping secrets?

Asra, Valstyne, Muriel, Nadia, Lucio, Essa, Portia, Julian

Best to worst dancers?

Valstyne, Asra, Portia, Julian, Nadia, Lucio, Muriel, Essa

Most to least likely to slap you for stealing a mcnugget?

Essa, Nadia, Lucio, Asra, Portia, Julian, Muriel, Valstyne

Least to most likely to eat something weird on a dare?

Nadia, Julian, Valstyne, Muriel, Lucio, Portia, Asra, Essa

Least to most old?

Asra, Valstyne, Portia, Muriel, Essa, Julian, Lucio, Nadia

Part 3.) Extra characterization tidbits (whether you want to make a description or insert a photo for these is up to you!)

MC as a:

•MCR song

Mama

Sing

•vine

Kiss my ass (Summerella)

Any of the Thomas Sanders Vines of him narrating peoples lives

•a piece of furniture

Shelf (that way no one can fuck with her)

China Cabinet

•character from the Labyrinth

Hoggle

Jareth

•character in a cliche Noir film

Bad Cop who slaps the suspect around and uses unconventional ways to get answers. Has ties with the underground/black market in the city so they can get reliable information

 Knight in Sour armor, believes the world is good but keeps being let down. And Sympathy for the Devil, realizes the bad guy is no so bad after all 

•Tarot card

The Tower

Wheel of Fortune

•Micheal Jackson song

They Don’t Care About Us

Remember The Time

•character in the play “Cats”

I have no idea honestly

•Panic! at the disco song

Lying is the Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

House of Memories

•cliche high school student stereotype

The delinquent that is actually really talented/smart

The eccentric weird girl that is friends with everyone of every friend group

•furby

•flight rising dragon breed

Mirror Dragon

Skydancer and Spiral Dragon

•deadly sin

Wrath

Envy

•DnD class

Barbarian

Warlock

•character from Mean Girls

Janis

Ms. Norbury

•hogwarts house

Slytherin

Hufflepuff

•cryptid

Jersey Devil

Shadow People

•monster factory character

Way too complicated for me to get into

[morganhazelwood]

A Starter’s Guide For Fiction Writers Trying To “Establish A Social Media Presence” Part 5

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 5: Tumblr and Reddit (The Dark Side?)

Four weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting on the internet. Three weeks ago, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting a blog. Two weeks ago, I discussed Facebook, Twitter, and hashtags. Last week was all about the visual social medias, Pinterest and Instagram.

Today? I'll be discussing DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET: Tumblr and Reddit

Or are they?

Tumblr and Reddit are given a lot of grief about being breeding grounds for social justice mobs, trolls, and dank memes (in which dank means something between dark, cynical, and cool).

For older web denizens: they're where the teens are, and honestly? where 90% of the Facebook content comes from. Look at where all those reshared thought experiments, story inspiration, and other screen-shots come from.

 A LOT of them are screenshots from Tumblr. 

Or made popular on Reddit. 

Or both. 

If you wait for them to come to Facebook, you're gonna miss a lot of content and it's gonna be old before you see it. 

https://youtu.be/a-DSwtzoXJU

Tumblr

So what IS Tumblr? Is it a blog? Is it a quote sharing site? Or is it for reblogging memes? 

The quick answer is... yes. 

For the longest time, I didn't really know what I was doing with it. I reposted stuff from my Instagram since Tumblr seems to like pictures, and I reshared my blog posts from here over there. (Or over here, if you're reading on Tumblr...) 

But, it's just as much for resharing your favorite webcomics or your not-character-count-limited mental contemplations. And GIFs are super popular.

NOTE: It's also very popular for...um... archives of adult imagery. Luckily, safe-search is a thing. I've yet to end up somewhere I didn't intend. A big advantage to its compartmentalized set-up.

It's a social media network, like Facebook, that's not geared towards a specific media (unlike Instagram or Twitter), which can make it more visual, but it supports anonymity--which can make it more attractive to teens (or Russian troll farms). 

There's definitely a part of it that's socially progressive. Tumblr's the sort of place that encourages defining your pronouns and can be very accepting of any sort of identity that doesn't espouse hate.  That said, the admins are struggling with censorship issues around LGBT tags as well as antagonistic alt-right groups gaining a presence on the site. 

Tags are important here if you want people to find you. And if you look around, you can find Tumblrs groups to join (sort of like the 'blog hops' of olde...). The communities are like islands, but they share resources. 

If you like something, heart it. Reblogging stuff is VERY encouraged, and shows support for the original poster -- and also means that the original poster gets credit -- very awesome for the artists and writers and singers on here.

Note: If you add a comment to a reblog, it's now permanently attached to that reblog.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and their posts/reblogs show up on your feed. Don't be intimidated, most people are quite welcoming on Tumblr.

Reddit

Here, everything is a popularity contest. It's like middle school. 

No. Really.

Getting Started

You create an account, you join forums called 'reddits' and 'subreddits' (or 'subs'), named /[whatever] that are organized by areas of interest, and then you either share text or links to content. 

On your feed, you're only shown links to reddits and subreddits that you subscribe to. Then, as people read posts, they 'upvote, 'downvote', or [do nothing]. 

Every upvote and downvote affects your karma. The more upvotes you get, the more likely you'll show up in the feed. 

You can check tabs of 'Hot', 'Rising', and 'New'. And karma means a lot.

What is Karma

You earn karma for:

posting

commenting

getting upvotes

Posting new content or sharing external links are typically seen as more valuable contributions, but it depends on the quality of your comments.

NOTE: When you comment, you can reply to other comments -- otherwise known as nested comments.

You lose more karma for every downvote. It's a way of trying to keep people from being jerk-faces. 

Unless the forum is about being a jerk-face. Then, friendly people get downvoted. 

Although there is an overlying sense of 'Reddiquette', each forum has its own admins, moderators, and set of acceptable behaviors. Overall, someone with higher karma is seen as being more of a contributor and potentially someone to watch for new, quality content. The best of them have been given Reddit Gold.

Reddit Gold

You can literally buy virtual gold that is only intended for rewarding, or 'gilding', OTHER people with posts you find valuable. Being gilded (or buying that status) temporarily unlocks:

comment highlighting

ad-blocking

exclusive subreddits

a personalized Snoo (known as a "snoovatar")

WARNING: Reddit values anonymity, tends to be hands-off, and doesn't censor. There can be really dark reddits, and subreddits with a lot of either off-color or outright offensive content.

The communities are typically well-described though, so you know what you're getting into before you click the links.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and keep an eye on their content. So far, I've shared a little in /writing, /writing-tips, and /nosleep.

/AMA (Ask Me Anything) is one you'll see on the news on occasion, with scheduled visits for politicians or celebrities, as well as normal people with unusual experiences offering to talk about them. 

Feel free to explore. I find it best to wade into a Reddit, watching the expected behavior before trying to contribute. But I'm still learning my way around.

So, that’s the basics of Tumblr and Reddit, it’s not really that intimidating, is it?

A little different, but not completely unfamiliar organizational structures. 

Long form? Images? Links? These are the sites where content is created.

[service2client]

New Post has been published on

New Post has been published on https://www.icfiles.net/automakers-cybersecurity/

Automakers & Cybersecurity Pros Collaborate to Tackle Growing Threat

Automakers & Cybersecurity Pros Collaborate to Tackle Growing Threat

What’s New in Technology

Share

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Over the past three or four years, Internet-connected vehicles have become the norm. Accordingly, cybercrooks have turned their attention to cars and trucks, looking for ways to gain access to vehicular navigational systems and to hack into drivers’ smart phones and iPads. Last year, recognizing the ever-increasing potential for breaches, automakers in the United States joined forces to battle the threat, tapping the expertise of some of the nation’s leading Internet security experts. Here’s an update on what these efforts have yielded.

Self-driving vehicles have opened up a whole new area of concern. White-hat hackers have shown – in controlled situations – how vehicles could be hijacked to harm their occupants or generate mayhem on a busy highway. These security specialists have demonstrated how vehicles – especially the new breed of semi-autonomous or driverless vehicles – might be tracked and manipulated remotely by cybercrooks. The demonstrations have shown how cybercrooks could take control of a vehicle’s headlights, navigation, speed, windshield wipers, blinkers and radio. In some instances, hackers can remotely take control of brakes and/or steering.

So far, no vehicle has been hacked into by a cybercriminal, but security experts and researchers have shown automakers how it could happen, and car manufacturers have taken the threat seriously. Cars with advanced connectivity – which includes prototype driverless or semi-autonomous vehicles – are potentially more vulnerable. Twenty years ago, the average car had about 1 million lines of code; today, cars can have 10 million lines of code, or about as much as a modern aircraft. Automakers have already felt the financial sting of this new cyberthreat. Major manufacturers are busy recruiting white-hat hackers to identify potential issues. For example, Fiat Chrysler recalled 1.4 million Jeep Cherokees after white-hat hackers exposed vulnerabilities in the vehicle’s IT circuitry.

There is strength in industrywide initiatives. Nearly all automakers based in the United States banded together last year in an industrywide effort – the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center – to develop best practices to combat potential cyberthreats, to develop secure hardware and software, and to draw up guidelines on how to respond to hacking incidents. The industry group’s membership is responsible for about 98 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads.  

The challenge to strengthen cybersecurity in vehicles extends beyond car manufacturers.  The notable gig economy transport company, Uber, as well as Didi, a Chinese company like Uber, have both been on the forefront of research to develop safer software and hardware and uncover potential security issues. The possible motivations for hackers to hijack vehicles are many and go beyond compromising highway safety. Smart phones and/or other portable computers that are linked to vehicles’ dashboard technology also present a potential entry point into other data centers housing confidential business and personal data.

Savvy consumers will recognize that the vehicles we drive are now a big part of the Internet of Things, and will take measures to shore up security on any personal devices they connect to their dashboards. Automakers will need to be constantly proactive to identify vulnerabilities in computers installed in new model vehicles.

[nandinisniche]

What Sarees Can Teach Cis Feminists About Trans* Solidarity

(This article was originally published on Medium on June 11, 2015.)

Stop Saying Caitlyn Jenner Is Doing Femininity Wrong

In the midst of America’s earnest “trans moment”, a strong call for opposition is making itself heard even in progressive — and feminist — media.

It’s coming from inside the house

Trans* acceptance was never going to be a slam dunk, not even with the stupendous combined charm of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, nor with the help of that old reliable — airbrushed sex appeal — thrust at us from magazine covers to proclaim their inauguration into True American Womanhood™. Nothing about upending gender expectations is ever that easy.

So this is where we are. The more we publicly the celebrate transgender acceptance, the more anti-trans worms continue to crawl out of the patriarchal woodwork. This is no surprise. To do my bit as a cis ally to trans people, I was ready to write to, reason with, and educate the haters. What is surprising is that so many of the haters are fellow feminists.

Meet the TERFs

Like many Tumblr-toting Roxane-Gay-quoting internet feminists, I had been under the impression that the old guard Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists — TERFs — were a dying breed. The internet circles I lurk in are trans-friendly spaces, at least in name. My Twitter feed was full of trans-positive articles even before Laverne Cox hit the front pages of American media. My favorite reddit communities ban on sight anyone who suggests that trans men aren’t really men, or that it would be dangerous to allow trans women into ladies’ toilets.

But about a week ago, I began to see some startlingly transphobic articles being shared on my carefully culled Facebook feed. Several feminists that I admired were openly disparaging the manner and style and details of Caitlyn Jenner’s public transition.

Some of them went the unabashedly bigoted route, linking to articles like Matt Walsh’s screed, “Calling Bruce Jenner A Woman Is An insult To Women”. Such hatefulness and incoherence is easy to refute (though not defeat). It’s difficult for progressives to take a christian conservative cis white man seriously when he says Caitlyn Jenner is “Disgusting, frankly.” Chalk it up to yet another thing Matt Walsh is wrong about today, and move on.

Other feminists have taken the more subtly transphobic path, criticizing Ms Jenner for playing up stereotypes about femininity. Today an NYT op-ed by Elinor Burkett, for example, is outraged at Chelsea Manning for saying she feels more emotionally sensitive since transitioning, and takes Ms Jenner to task for looking forward to wearing nail polish openly in public after her transition. These attacks are so much harder to deal with because they grow from a germ of truth. Most women alive today grew up battling these stereotypical, insulting assumptions about femininity by the world at large: that women are “too emotional”, that women are obsessed with superficialities like make-up and nail polish, that women are biologically hardwired this way and therefore calling women silly or superficial is not sexism!When we see these insults being given new life by the statements of transgender women in the public eye, we wince.

Yes, I admit it. I winced too.

But then I remembered the sarees.

The story of the sarees

This is where I tell you a little about my roots. I am from India. I grew up in Bengaluru in the ‘80s and ‘90s, back when it was still Bangalore and quite a lot more socially conservative than it is today, though much more liberal than many other parts of India. 

One of the fiercest battles I waged then was against the dress code imposed on me: traditionalism first, modesty a close second, to hell with my personal choice, and don’t even dare breathe the word ‘fashion’ for fear of being branded whorish[1]. Even after my family moved overseas, this dress code persisted, made me choke, made me seethe. My parents and I had screaming fights over my tight jeans. My underwear was scrutinized for possible covert sluttiness[2]. I wasn’t allowed to wear spaghetti strap tops even in my 20s.

I became quite the expert in the art of secret outfit changes when away at school and college. I also grew to hate the traditional Indian clothes that were constantly held up to me as markers of good virtue. Enforced modesty taught me to see every saree as a symbol of oppression[3].

Can you imagine my state of mind when I saw my peers both in real life and in the media embrace sarees as liberating fashion statements? I saw many South Asian women ‘reclaiming’ the saree as sensual, religious, feminine, traditional, and kickass all at once (and I doubt they had ever collectively lost their claim to begin with). Many desi girls and women overseas embraced sarees as defiant, joyous expressions of their minority cultural identity. I saw my school friends wear their sarees happily and stylishly, and I got thoroughly pissed off at them.

I thought they were stupid for welcoming their own oppression. I thought they were betraying me, betraying all the battles that I and every other Indian feminist had fought to escape our compulsory-desi-outfit shackles. I raged at them for giving ammunition to all the people who pressured me to dress traditionally: now they were able to point to all these other girls and say, See? See how happy they are in traditional clothes? Why can’t you be like that?

But most diasporan desi girls and women never fought the battles I fought, and don’t have the same associations with sarees that I do. Their life experiences allowed them to take a pleasure in sarees that will probably always be alien to me. For some of them, donning a saree was even something of a defiance. 

I had a dance instructor in junior college who was called to the Bar in London, and at one of the formal ceremonies that followed, instead of wearing the expected black robes, she wore a lace-edged black saree. She said she was telling the British to stuff it. I was stunned. I believe that was the first time I allowed that maybe, just maybe, sarees are not oppression for everyone all the time.

Not just sarees

No doubt other ethnic and religious groups have experienced a similar dissnoance. I have an Iranian friend who chafes under the laws that impose headscarves on her whenever she goes back home, and her journey has been toward understanding why American hijabis exist: to understand that for some American muslimahs, wearing the hijab is as radical an act as it is for my Iranian friend to take hers off.[4]

The moral of the story

What the saree can teach cis feminists is this: context matters. Our life experiences matter. The symbols and methods we choose for self-expression have particular meanings for ourselves, and we should not insist that our meaning is THE universal meaning.

For some women, nail polish is a symbol of all the dreary, expensive, time-consuming hoops women are expected to jump through to adequately perform our femininity. For other women, especially those who have spent their entire lives longing for and being forcibly denied any expression of femininity, nail polish may be a powerful and triumphant symbol of self expression.

How can the former among us take offence at the latter? It is well within our rights to interrogate the patriarchal rules surrounding nail polish from a critical perspective, but how can we justify interrogating trans women like that?

Can we even imagine how it must feel to be ‘officially’ allowed to wear nail polish after 65 years of being denied it? I want to throw Caitlyn Jenner the glitteriest mani-pedi party when I think about it, and I’m the kind of person that’s owned exactly four bottles of nail polish ever in all my life. (So… I guess we will be hiring professional manicurists for the party because I would paint her knuckles as likely as nails.)

Beyond the cis perspective

So far I’ve only considered trans women’s choices from a resolutely cis lens. But what if we tried looking at the performance of femininity from the perspective of trans women themselves? Would we see merely choice and triumph? Or would we see something more nuanced, and decidedly darker?

Consider: violence against transgender women is an epidemic. Even though trans women are only 10% of all LGBTQ people who report incidents of hate directed at them, they are 45% of murder victims in the same group. Passing as female can be a matter of life or death for trans women. In light of this, is there any way to see cis feminists’ criticism of trans women for “trying to hard” to be feminine as anything other than terrifying, hateful, or at least deeply misguided? I don’t think so.

Consider: trans people are more deeply and thoroughly scrutinized for their performance of gender than cis people like myself can ever fathom. The pressure on trans people to surgically feminize their appearance in order to “pass”, or in order to be more acceptable as romantic partners, is extremely strong even when they personally would rather not get surgery. (Yes, that’s right, not all trans people want surgery.) This pressure and scrutiny has extremely damaging effects on trans people — for example, over 40% of transgender people attempt suicide, compared to 4.6% in the general population and around 15% among LGB people. Should cis feminists really be piling on trans people for supposedly “over”performing gender, thus adding to the toxic culture of overscrutinizing trans people? I definitely don’t think so.

A better way to fight

Here’s what I think cis feminists should be doing instead:

#1 (for the Meets Minimum Standards of Human Decency badge) Unequivocally support and encourage trans people’s chosen manner of gender expression. It’s a battle they have fought long and hard for, and feminists of all people should not be in the business of yelling them for somehow “doing it wrong”. They are doing it right, because they get to decide what’s right for them. Period.

#2 (for the Feminist 101 badge) Support the efforts of trans activists who want to build a safer and more equal world for transgender people. This means reading trans feminist writing (good places to start include Laverne Cox, Zinnia Jones, Model View Culture, and if you’re feeling academic, Radical TransFeminist). This means educating ourselves on the specific obstacles to equality faced by the trans community: safety, access to healthcare, equal opportunity in employment, equal access to public toilets, etc.

#3 (for the Intersectional Feminist badge) Recognize that if there is a reason why media portrayals of famous trans people is problematic, it is because of the way this affects THE TRANS COMMUNITY, not cis women! The inimitable Laverne Cox says:

A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections.

In the spirit of #3, I highly recommend browsing the amazing Twitter hashtag, #MyVanityFairCover, where ordinary non-celebrity transgender people are creating their own “Call Me Caitlyn” style cover shots.

And finally, every time we feel anger or outrage stirring in response to something a trans woman says or does about her femininity, we need to remember the story of the sarees.

[1] & [2]: These were the terms used at me, and yes, they are extremely disparaging to sex workers.

[3]: Make no mistake: for hundreds of thousands of Indian girls and women, these clothes are indeed an oppression. Traditional dress codes are commonly imposed on Indian women to this day. I personally know far too many married women living in urban, upper class, highly educated joint families who do not have ‘permission’ from their in-laws to wear jeans.

[4]: Note that I am not suggesting that any choice whatsoever is feminist/radical just because it is a choice. Choice feminism is deeply flawed. What I am saying is, any symbol or act can be radical or oppressive depending upon personal and social context.

[service2client]

New Post has been published on

New Post has been published on https://www.icfiles.net/automakers-cybersecurity/

Automakers & Cybersecurity Pros Collaborate to Tackle Growing Threat

What’s New in Technology

Share

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Linkedin

Google+

Tumblr

Reddit

Stumble Upon

Email

Over the past three or four years, Internet-connected vehicles have become the norm. Accordingly, cybercrooks have turned their attention to cars and trucks, looking for ways to gain access to vehicular navigational systems and to hack into drivers’ smart phones and iPads. Last year, recognizing the ever-increasing potential for breaches, automakers in the United States joined forces to battle the threat, tapping the expertise of some of the nation’s leading Internet security experts. Here’s an update on what these efforts have yielded.

Self-driving vehicles have opened up a whole new area of concern. White-hat hackers have shown – in controlled situations – how vehicles could be hijacked to harm their occupants or generate mayhem on a busy highway. These security specialists have demonstrated how vehicles – especially the new breed of semi-autonomous or driverless vehicles – might be tracked and manipulated remotely by cybercrooks. The demonstrations have shown how cybercrooks could take control of a vehicle’s headlights, navigation, speed, windshield wipers, blinkers and radio. In some instances, hackers can remotely take control of brakes and/or steering.

So far, no vehicle has been hacked into by a cybercriminal, but security experts and researchers have shown automakers how it could happen, and car manufacturers have taken the threat seriously. Cars with advanced connectivity – which includes prototype driverless or semi-autonomous vehicles – are potentially more vulnerable. Twenty years ago, the average car had about 1 million lines of code; today, cars can have 10 million lines of code, or about as much as a modern aircraft. Automakers have already felt the financial sting of this new cyberthreat. Major manufacturers are busy recruiting white-hat hackers to identify potential issues. For example, Fiat Chrysler recalled 1.4 million Jeep Cherokees after white-hat hackers exposed vulnerabilities in the vehicle’s IT circuitry.

There is strength in industrywide initiatives. Nearly all automakers based in the United States banded together last year in an industrywide effort – the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center – to develop best practices to combat potential cyberthreats, to develop secure hardware and software, and to draw up guidelines on how to respond to hacking incidents. The industry group’s membership is responsible for about 98 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads.  

The challenge to strengthen cybersecurity in vehicles extends beyond car manufacturers.  The notable gig economy transport company, Uber, as well as Didi, a Chinese company like Uber, have both been on the forefront of research to develop safer software and hardware and uncover potential security issues. The possible motivations for hackers to hijack vehicles are many and go beyond compromising highway safety. Smart phones and/or other portable computers that are linked to vehicles’ dashboard technology also present a potential entry point into other data centers housing confidential business and personal data.

Savvy consumers will recognize that the vehicles we drive are now a big part of the Internet of Things, and will take measures to shore up security on any personal devices they connect to their dashboards. Automakers will need to be constantly proactive to identify vulnerabilities in computers installed in new model vehicles.