#but feel free not to reply

[lured-into-wonderland]

((OOC: This one will be a bit shorter since there isn’t much for me to go off of interaction-wise, but this is for ‘Seth’ to Nunnally))

-

Seth had continued to frequent the hole in the wall shop as per his usual habitual ways permitted, and he noticed that on occasion the young miss who had gifted him a treat a month ago would drop by from time to time.

Their schedules didn’t seem to line up much considering they’d only crossed paths again only a mere handful of times.

Though the shop advertised Valentine’s day for couples, it didn’t advertise much for White Day for reasons he could only fathom.

He’d spoken to the owner of the shop that the next time Nunnally came in, her order would be his treat, along with her choice of a dessert that the store had to offer. It wasn’t necessary to state that he was the one gifting her.

The owner would simply give her a message that: [A grateful patron had paid for your order in advance as thanks for last month]

It wasn’t very personable, but their relationship was essentially that, practically strangers. That said, Seth wasn’t one to not return favors or goodwill, so he chose to go about it in this roundabout manner.  

She liked that café. It wasn't one of these posh places that were popular among her friends, but it served one of the best coffee in the city. At least in Nunnally’s opinion. So, she was a frequent guest there. Sometimes she would just take a coffee to go, sometimes sit inside and read a book or sketch, and sometimes take a seat outside and watch people passing by. She had perhaps noticed Seth once or twice, but didn’t think about him too much. Sharing a coffee and something sweet with him on Valentine’s Day was more of an accident than a planned action; it didn't last long and she was quick to forget about it.

And there was Nunnally standing more than surprised when she was offered a free drink and a desert. As a thanks for last month…? What did it mean?

She stood there a bit puzzled; unsure if she was not mistaken for someone else. But that would be odd. She knew she stood out (not only in this particular place but also in general), always giving the vibes of not fitting there. Whatever that “there” was. In addition, the older lady, who was an owner of the place and had talked with Nunnally more than a few times was sure it was for her. Indeed, there were little chances Nunnally could have been mistaken for some other young woman.

She hesitantly accepted the coffee and chose yoghurt with fruit as her sweet treat; still wondering whom she should thank for this unexpected gift. And then she realized it! The double treat for the Valentine’s Day she shared with a lonely stranger. She laughed gently when she understood, and looked through the patrons to see if that man there. But he was not. Slightly disappointed, Nunnally started to wonder if he was a frequent guest here, but she didn’t ask. Perhaps he would not like her to pry. She had a small chat with the lady behind the counter as the café was almost empty at this time of a day, and then she chose a table far in the corner (but close to the window) and started to sketch something in her notebook.

When she was almost ready to leave, Nunnally noticed the door opening and someone entered the still empty café. Surprisingly enough that someone was the man that got her the treat. She was watching him from her place as he placed his order and sat by one of the tables. She chuckled gently, stood up and walked straight to the man: --

“May I join you?” – she asked taking a seat without waiting for his invitation or even giving him a chance to answer– “I guess it is my turn to say thank you to you.” – she laughed – “Perhaps it should become our custom to leave small treats for each other from time to time.” – she was not truly serious, but she was curious about him. Nunnally didn’t expect most of the people doing what he did.

“How did you know I am coming here? Do you perhaps also like the place?” – he must have seen her here at least a few times before (how otherwise would he know she'd be back?), so it was embarrassing that she didn't notice him. To cover for these feelings (or perhaps embarrassing herself even more) she opened her notebook and pushed it towards him: --

“I did a pretty good job, didn’t I?” – Nunnally said pointing to the drawing in her notebook depicting Seth himself – “I was trying to remember how you looked after getting the treat earlier today.” – she explained to make the situation less awkward. At least in her own eyes.

“By the way, my name is Nunnally. Do you feel like giving me yours?”  

@fangsofdestruction

[daisywords]

btw I know ppl on this site go on abt mutuals but if you are someone that shows up in my notes regularly who I don't follow, I do notice and I am fond of you and if you reblog something from me I do think "YES I have pleased the follower with good taste"

[fairydriver]

if you post an image in discord itll round the corners, but once you hit a certain smallness it rounds into a circle. so basically if you make an image that is 32x32 and you post it in discord itll go from this

to this.

so you basically can just draw a little face in mspaint or something and paste it into discord and itll look like a little emoji. you can potentially mess around with this a lot, its proportional to your image going smaller and it doesnt have to be a square either.

[leroibobo]

with my nakba posts, here's some website recommendations if you want to learn on the history of specific depopulated palestinian areas:

palestine remembered is probably the most famous and comprehensive website with full documentations of former locations and depopulated villages. it also lists information on palestinian refugee camps, guestbooks, and the ability to submit pictures/info if you know of any. information on each village varies.

zochrot is an organization dedicated to teaching both palestinians and israelis about the 1948 nakba (which is not covered well if at all in israeli schools, as you can probably imagine), which includes documenting information on villages and even an app. information on each village varies.

the interactive encyclopedia for the palestinian question's places page has some detailed histories and a map as well, but doesn't go into the detail of the last two sites, and doesn't have pictures or sources.

some villages also have their own websites, and many of them are also in english (for example, the one i linked for kafr bir'im). honestly just look up (village name) + website and if it's there you'll find it.

wikipedia also has surprisingly comprehensive coverage of the villages, the articles include a little more of the "war" background than the other websites do. (and of course since it's wikipedia you can find further sources on there.)

all that remains: the palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by israel in 1948 is a famous book by palestinian historian walid khalidi which gives a detailed account of what became of 400 different depopulated palestinian villages. it was released in 1992, so it's not current, but many of the things he wrote still hold. a lot of the above links use this book as a source.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

6 Things I Am No Longer Apologizing For As An Autistic Person

Neurodivergent_lou

[queermasculine]

i love gay movies but in order to watch them you have to look at so many white people

[chloesimaginationthings]

This has probably been asked before, but I'm asking because I do not want to go through every post for an answer. Do you allow fanart of your designs?

Yes I do allow fanart of my designs! Just tag me so I can see/share it! Be warned, I will eat the art

[royalarchivist]

Mine: Refer to me however you want!

Mike: Yeah, for me too. I think I use all pronouns too.

[They high-five and fist-bump each other]

Mine:

[via @barbmine]

[raiiny-bay]

some WIPs from the 80s AU i never finished

[ocelotlesbian]

back on my bullshit. obligatory "commission me"

[frownyalfred]

“if readers take the time to leave comments on fics, then authors should at least take the time to reply.”

gently pats you on head. Babe. They already wrote the fic. For free. They gave you thousands of words to be judged and criticized. They don’t owe you anything on top of that.

[kidovna]

question: is there a version of byler I’ve drawn before that you’d like to see again?

[artsekey]

I really hate how ads have taken over the internet. On one hand, I know that hosting a website costs money, right? And ad revenue is one of the simplest ways for free-to-use websites to cover their operating costs.

My question is-- and I would genuinely love an answer-- is this ever going to stop? Tumblr ran for a long time without ads. So did Youtube. I know that the cost of hosting so much media has gone up, but there are a lot of users on these websites that make the content that drives people to use the service that don't see any of the money generated by this revenue. On Youtube, there's at least a way for creators to make some money from what they do. For most, it isn't much, but the opportunity is there. On Tumblr, well... the ability to convert the visibility of my blog into any financial gain practically nonexistent, though they did at one point promise that users would be able to make money from ads run on their blogs (whatever happened to that, Staff?).

"You can pay to avoid seeing ads!" Tumblr says, as if the views on my main blog alone over the past few years have not generated more than enough ad revenue to cover the price they're asking me to pay, the person who is actively making content that brings eyes to their ads.

I'm not mad at Tumblr for hosting ads. I get that it has to happen because it's the easiest way to keep the site free, and honestly, I imagine Tumblr's staunch opposition to monetization has been a real obstacle for the team building Tumblr. But at the same time, it feels like yet another small concession in the usability of the site. I'm tired of ads that auto-play with blaring audio while I'm scrolling. I'm tired of adds that, if I touch them while trying to scroll past them, take me to an external site. Outside of tumblr, I'm tired of looking for information online only to get a webpage that's 95% ads and otherwise illegible. Hell, I recently got an ad on Discord. Was it unobtrusive? Maybe. But it was there, for the first time, and I know that won't be the end.

I know the first reply I'm going to get on this is "use adblock", and yes, that's a solution, but think about how much the landscape for media has changed in just ten years.

Popular forums are basically gone outside of reddit.

Youtube, without Red, is ad hell. You can't watch more than 3-4 minutes of video without getting sent to marketing hell.

Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter-- it's terrible. I firmly believe they've manufactured a worse experience through the implementation of ads to convince you to buy into their premium services.

Just Check out this video of Penguinz0 trying to watch a video on a third-party site.

There's discussion of putting ads into video games.

Remember when games didn't include micro-transactions? Blizzard is charging $70 for one mythic skin. You could almost buy Overwatch 1 twice-over at that price-point.

Influencers make a living by making their lives into advertisements.

Youtube has retaliated against users using ad-block on non-chrome browsers by artificially inflating the load times of it's videos.

What can we do about this? I imagine companies see it as an infinite money hack; users can't stop companies from hosting ads, and the action they could take to voice their displeasure-- leaving the site, using other competitive services-- has been all but obliterated thanks to the homogeneity of popular social media outlets. If someone is truly so incensed about ads, well-- it isn't like they have to engage with them, right? They can enroll in a cheap, auto-renewing service to get rid of ads entirely. Well, wait, the price of premium might just have to go up. Don't worry, it's auto-renewing! You won't even notice it. Oh, no, it's got to go up again, you won't even notice it.

There's no incentive for them to cap this behavior, and no way for us as users to pressure them to do so. We create these spaces; we fill them with color, art, activism, community, and the companies that ride on the tailcoat of the spaces we create tell us to give them more. What comes next?

[umburgrr]

Art Commissions Open!

Information:

- Contact me via tumblr dm, discord (@umburgrr) or gmail (umburgrr@gmail.com)

- All payments made through cashapp

- Payment must be sent after initial sketch (no refunds)

- I have the right to decline any commission for whatever reason (ex. I feel uncomfortable, believe I am unable to provide satisfactory results, etc)

- I am allowed to post your commission to use as samples

- All commissions are personal use only! Please do not resell the product or use it for commercial purposes :)

- Final product will be delivered via gmail unless asked otherwise

- PLEASE provide reference images and a clear description of what you want. This includes style, poses, type (headshot, halfbody, thigh-up, fullbody), and expressions

- Any additional character is +50% the price (up to 5 characters max)

- All commissioned images will include a white and transparent background. For specific background requests, please inquire in dm’s

- Delivery time: 3-20 days (timing might defer as I am a student, I will communicate if more time is needed depending on complexity)

[kedreeva]

Today I went to a store with Sark, and inside they were unboxing huge Amazon pallets of returned goods. They had long rows of bins with boxes and stuff in them. Some of the boxes were labeled. Some were not but they would open them for you, but only 4 per day.

And then. There was this.

It's two foil packets, completely unlabeled. The texture inside is squishy, either viscous or shifting, it's hard to tell through the thick foil.

So of course we bought it.

We're going to open it in a few minutes. Sark is setting up outside though because, and I quote: "what if it's fart spray or something!"

Taking guesses!

[cinamun]

This is a post about AI... FYI

So i'm really into sciences, most recently nanoscience in biology. I am also someone who follows global plastic pollution. So when I read this headline yesterday I immediately clicked and read the whole thing (because I heard about this study two years ago and wanted to see what was found).

When I reached this part, I had one of those Moments™...

This study is going to be crucial for policy changes, international accords and a slew of other ways the top producers of plastic waste can change practice or be held accountable. A study that used AI.

There has been a TON of talk about AI and the going consensus is that its bad for a multitude of reasons. I think that the beef most have is with generative AI, a very specific type of AI that uses/steals images to create a new image.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the really important study above could have been done without AI but it wasn't. Its also extremely useful in understanding the world's plastics crisis, especially given the fact that everyone reading this likely has microplastics in their livers.

This begs the question: Is all AI inherently bad? Or should we be more specific and say that Generative AI is inherently bad?