#but there are links to my blog on the post

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools

In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a "mirror world" of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

For example, Qanon's obsession with "child trafficking" is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about "immigrants stealing jobs" is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about "decentralization" is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.

Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as "working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers."

The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they'd understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word "systemic"):

https://mamot.fr/@Lazarou@mastodon.social/113943287435897828

This also explains why the "tropes" of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German "progressive" who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was "structurally antisemitic." Nonsense like this is why Klein's "mirror world" is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that "progressive" just means "defending anything the right hates."

Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674293601

In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the "multilevel marketing systems" that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-the-entrepreneurial-ethic/

MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel ("God rewards virtue with wealth"), atomization ("you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer"), and rabid anti-Communism ("solidarity is a trick to make you poorer").

The rise of the far right can't be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).

Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the "sure-fire" Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer's gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/amway-america/681479/?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZxYkntna5M_rYEv4707Zqqs

Amway – and MLMs like it – don't just bleed out their members by convincing them to buy mountains of useless crap they're supposed to sell to their families, while enriching the people at the top of the pyramid who sell it to them. The "toxic positivity" of multi-level marketing cults forces members deep into debt to pay for seminars and retreats where they are supposed to learn how to repair the personal defects that keep them from being "successful entrepreneurs." The topline of the cult isn't just getting rich selling stuff – they're making bank by selling false hope, literally, in Hilton ballrooms and convention centers across the country, where hearing an MLM scammer berate you for being a "bad entrepreneur" costs thousands of dollars.

Amway destroyed so many lives that Richard Nixon's FTC decided to investigate it. The investigation wasn't going well for Amway, which was facing an existential crisis that they were rescued from by Nixon's resignation. You see, Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was the former Congressman of Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel, who was also the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobbyist in America.

At Ford's direction, the FTC exonerated Amway of all wrongdoing. But it's even worse than that: Ford's FTC actually crafted a rule that differentiated legal pyramid schemes from illegal ones, based on Amway's destructive business practices. Under this new rule, any pyramid scheme that had the same structure as Amway was presumptively legal. Every MLM operating in America today is built on the Amway model, taking advantage of the FTC's Amway rule to operate in the open, without fear of legal repercussions.

MLMs prey on the poor and desperate: women, people of color, people in dying small towns and decaying rustbelt cities. It's not just that these people are desperate – it's that they only survive through networks of mutual aid. Poor women rely on other poor women to help with child care, marginalized people rely on one another for help with home maintenance, small loans, a place to crash after an eviction, or a place to park the RV you're living out of.

In other words, people who lack monetary capital must rely on social capital for survival. That's why MLMs target these people: an MLM is a system for destructively transforming social capital into monetary capital. MLMs exhort their members to mine their social relationships for "leads" and "customers" and to use the language of social solidarity ("women helping women") to wheedle, guilt, and arm-twist people from your mutual aid network into buying things they don't need and can't afford.

But it's worse, because what MLMs really sell is MLMs. The real purpose of an MLM sales call is to convince the "customer" to become an MLM salesperson, who owes you a share of every sale they make and is incentivized to buy stock they don't need (from you) in order to make quotas. And of course, their real job is to sign up other salespeople to work under them, and so on.

An MLM isn't just a pathogen, in other words – it's a contagion. When someone in your social support network gets the MLM disease, they don't just burn all their social ties with you and the people you rely on – they convince more people in your social group to do the same.

Which brings me back to the mirror world, and Erik Baker's conversation with the Know Your Enemy podcast. Baker starts to talk about who gets big into Amway: "people who already effectively lead by the force of their charisma and personality many other people in their lives. Right? Because you're able to sell to those people, and you're able to recruit those people. What are we talking about? Well, they're effectively recruiting organizers, people who have a natural capacity for organizing and then sending them out in the world to organize on behalf of Christian capitalism."

Listening to this, I was thunderstruck: MLM recruiters are the mirror world version of union organizers. In her memoir of growing up in Amway, Andrea Pitzer talks about how her mom would approach strangers and try to lead them through a kind of structured discussion:

Everywhere we went—the mall, state parks, grocery stores—she’d ask people whether they could use a little more money each month. “I’d love to set up a time to talk to you about an exciting business opportunity.” The words should have seemed suspect. Yet people almost always gave her their number. Her confidence and professionalism were reassuring, and her enthusiasm was electric, even, at first, to me. “What would you do with $1 million?” she’d ask, spinning me around the kitchen.

This kind of person, having this kind of dialog, is exactly how union organizers work. In A Collective Bargain, Jane McAlevey's classic book on labor organizing, she describes how she would seek out the charismatic, outgoing workers in a job-site, the natural leaders, and recruit them to help bring the other workers onboard:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Organizer training focuses on how to have a "structured organizing conversation," which McAlevey described in a 2019 Jacobin article:

“If you had a magic wand and could change three things about life in America [or her town or city or school], what would you change?” The rest of your conversation needs to be anchored to her answers to that question.

https://jacobin.com/2019/11/thanksgiving-organizing-activism-friends-family-conversation-presidential-election

The MLM conversation and the union conversation have eerily similar structures, but the former is designed to commodify and destroy solidarity, and the latter is designed to reinforce and mobilize solidarity. Seen in this light, an MLM is a mirror world union, one that converts solidarity into misery and powerlessness instead of joy and strength.

The MLM movement doesn't just make men like Rich De Vos and Jay Van Andel into billionaires. MLM bosses are heavy funders of the right, a blank check for the Heritage Foundation. Trump is the MLM president, a grifter who grew up on the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale – a key figure in MLM cult dynamics – who tells his followers that wealth is a sign of virtue. Trump boasts about all the people he's ripped off, boasting about how getting away with cheating "makes me smart":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The corollary is that being cheated means you're stupid. Caveat emptor, the motto of the cryptocurrency industry ("not your wallet, not your coins") that spent hundreds of millions to get Trump elected.

Tech has its own mirror world. The people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and make delightful and wonderful things are mirrored by the people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and call for fascism, ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps.

In Picks and Shovels, my next novel (Feb 17), I introduce readers to a fictitious 1980s religious computer sales cult called Fidelity Computing, run by an orthodox rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Mormon rabbi:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Fidelity is a faith scam, a pyramid scheme that is parasitic upon the bonds of faith and fellowship. Martin Hench, the hero of the story – a hard-fighting high tech forensic accountant – goes to work for a competing business, Computing Freedom, run by three Fidelity ex-employees who have left their faiths and their employers to pursue a vision of computers that is about liberation, rather than control.

The women of Computing Freedom – a queer orthodox woman who's been kicked out of her family, a Mormon woman who's renounced the LDS over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and a nun who's left her order to throw in with the Liberation Theology movement – are all charismatic, energetic, inspirational organizers.

Because of course they are – that's why they were so good at selling computers for the Reverend Sirs who sit at the top of Fidelity Computing's pyramid scheme.

Hearing Baker's interview and reading Pitzer's memoir last week made it all click together for me. Not just that MLMs destroy social bonds, but that within every person who gets sucked into an MLM, there's a community organizer who could be building the bonds that MLMs destroy.

[rilli-luci]

Also reporting the bots with fishy links as Phishing is more effective than reporting as spam. They are phishing for your info, tumblr usually nukes those immediately from my experience. You'll know if it's a phishing blog if the same link is on every single one of their posts.

For those who’ve migrated from TikTok: there’s no reward for harassment on Tumblr. You won’t gain a heavy amount of likes, reblogs, and followers for leading harassment campaigns; if anything, it’ll make people block you.

On Tumblr, there’s no popularity contest because many don’t care about the amount of followers, likes, and reblogs you have. A lot of users even hide their likes and who they're following. Users heavily encourage blocking people and filtering out tags. This is why online discourse is more confined to its bubble instead of being so widespread on this website: because people curate their experiences.

If you want to have an enjoyable experience on Tumblr, then you need to use the block button and filtering system. If you don't, then you're going to be extremely miserable.

EDIT: Interesting additions to the post-

[reasonsforhope]

Withdrew the post on a revolution in Alzheimer's and dementia treatment due to significant issues with data and evidence.

I am not trained in neuroscience enough to fully evaluate - as the below articles point out, these drugs have been receiving a lot of hype for a few years now - but the issues outlined in the below links are definitely persuasive enough that I'm withdrawing the link anyway.

Thanks to @burnishedvictory (I'm 98% sure, I accidentally deleted the post before copying the username) for pointing that out to me.

Here are the articles they linked about the issues with the data:

https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2024/03/13/why-alzheimers-plaque-attack-drugs-dont-work/

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/faked-beta-amyloid-data-what-does-it-mean

Anyway! Yes as a reminder/info for new followers, I do retract posts when presented with compelling evidence. If you ever need to fact-check something, you can usually hit up my ask box (tho it's closed right now) or put it in the comments/replies of the post - I'm usually pretty thorough about checking those.

I have to retract something pretty rarely - a few times a year, generally - but I try to be transparent about it when I do.

Finding a new post for today to replace it with now!

[c-u-c-koo-4-40k]

You don't need powers to be a Hero. Cheesy but roll with me. This is a post for @dr-anas96 who is verified Here

(TW for medical images/gore further down)

The lack of medical care has led those like Ahmed in a lurch. He's literally fighting cancer amid the shortages and rebuilding in Gaza.

Final Warning I've Censored these but they are still brutal as Anas has been vomiting blood. (He asked me to use these images to show how dire his situation is.)

Please don't forget Anas! Give what you can, when you can, if you can. And share no matter what. It can make a difference.

Direct Link to Campaign

13,280 / 25,000

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[theinternetarchive]

I adore the blog and I adore internet archive, but I have trouble searching the archive. It feels a bit daunting to explore more. Do you have any tips and tricks for scouring it? Thanx <3!

hi! yes. i have a few tips.

firstly, if i search using this formula, it will come up with far more specific results than if i just typed in stained glass. the internet archive is quite unpredictable at times (and there's porn on there lol) so be wary. you can also search in a similar vein with the command creator:"[insert creator here]" using either of these tools can narrow down your search incredibly.

you can also sort search results (for specific OR more general search queries) by media type which is incredibly helpful for me, as i primarily post photos on here. this is under the filter settings on the sidebar, really easy to navigate! you can also search by year or a range of years, or the subject tags (clumped by most commonly used within your search results).

one really helpful thing, too, is using google. sometimes i'll search like this:

and tons of results will show up with links similar to or matching your search.

other strategy would be to look through the featured collections:

the met and the cleveland museum have both made their collections public, and there's tons of art/artifacts/objects/etc that are all tagged with the metropolitan museum of art tag & are grouped together if you click under the images tab.

my general strategy for perusing the archive is a mix of all these methods, but also just clicking around. let's say you're on the page for this work:

if you click the date, it will take you to everything that originated on that date, and if you click the indicated tag, it will show you everything tagged 'woodwork' on the archive. then you can filter those searches by media type/year/subject or whatever depending on your initial search.

hopefully this was somewhat helpful!

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

Lorna's blog sadly isn't there anymore, but here's a link to the Fanlore page about Lairport (Feb 2015, LA to Sydney) and the Uptown Funk section (it also mentions @twopoppies, too hehe). Here's posts about/including Lairport 2.0 (June 2015, Sweden) - post 1 from Rena @larryobsessed28 + post 2 from Allie @skepticalarrie

also just bc i feel like it, let me end this with one of my fave Larry cuddle gifs ‧⁺✧(˶´⚰︎`˵)⁺‧

sorry if i’m being oblivious but what does uptown funk have to do with the lairport events? what were they hinting at or whatever

No, not oblivious at all if you weren't around then. Basically, larries just adopted that song as the anthem of Lairport and were memeing the shit out of it––the whole "Stop. Wait a minute" line when something crazy happened (like finding out Liam left LA and HL where there together). Then the "Fill my cup. Put some liquor in it" line when we were being fed Larry realness (like when we got the first pictures of them landing in Australia together). Then "Don't believe me, just watch!" memes like Antis: Larry won't travel together. Harry and Louis: Don't believe me just watch!

So, yeah... larries were non stop uptown funking and yelling about lairport, and then the band went and performed it two days later, basically confirming that they see everything.

Here's @lornasaurusrex's uptown funk tag in chronological order so you can live vicariously.

in reference to this and this

[y2sims]

Six TsminhSims Hairs in The New Hair System.

colors by pooklet.

textures by remi (straight) & poppet (wavy)

binned, familied, tooltipped and compressed.

all four colors are in one .package file.

all the meshes are included.

... since simfileshare has been super slow to upload stuff to, i've also posted these to my simblr.cc account, and they can be downloaded from there, too, since my other alternative, which is mediafire, is a bit shady with the amount of ads and such, sorry about that. make sure to use ad-blocker! 😅

↓ more info + download links ↓

Tsminhsims Bella

ages cf - ef

12k~ polys

mesh conversion by entropy-sims

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

Tsminhsims Binz

ages tm - em

9.7k~ polys

mesh conversion by profesionalpartyguest

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

Tsminhsims Cory

ages tm - em

5.7k~ polys

mesh conversion by @profesionalpartyguest

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

Tsminhsims Pure

ages cf - ef

11k~ polys

mesh conversion by @antoninko, smooth bones added by @osab

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

Tsminhsims Sunlight

ages cf - ef

4.9k~ polys

mesh conversion by grecadea

note: the mesh is a little crunchy and there are some transparencies, if that bothers you, just skip this one!

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

Tsminhsims Surge

ages cf - ef

two versions of the mesh included, remember to remove the one you won't be using!!: a) 11.7k~ polys (pictured above) or b) 23.3k~ polys

mesh conversion by @redsimmer-blog

DOWNLOAD: sfs // mf

💜 like my content and want to support me? please consider leaving a tip or requesting some hairs through my ko-fi! 💜

[cupidhoons]

it's weird how you aren't speaking out for the fact that you are using a zionist for your fics. shouldn't you be apologizing or at least acknowledging it? the lack of maturity you have 😭 girl just deleted it and didn't even apologize for it.

perfect timing actually anon! i have a whole post drafted on it in my google docs but i can assure you it's not me apologizing for defending myself against writers accusing me of such things. while i do acknowledge my mistake of not being educated enough on lana del rey and her practically begging the president to fund the genocide, i hope you guys do realize that equating me to being a zionist from this situation is just as insensitive and ignorant.

i urge you guys to read my side on this & understand why me and my two other mutuals are upset.

hi guys! as you all know (or assuming that many of you know) that recently i am being accused of supporting zionism/being called a zionist in general by multiple writers on tumblr. before i go on to defending and dropping screenshots of what actually happened & going on to explain my side of the story, let's take a look at the definition of zionism & why it is absolutely NOT okay to throw it around so lightly.

ZIONISM is not only the general term of supporting israel, but also the term that supports the national ethnic cleansing of palestine, which equates to killing all muslims. (defined by @pshbites or more known as kaia & her other muslim friends who grew up knowing that this is what this word meant.) 

READ ANOTHER DEFINITION FROM JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE (LINK): “While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. Our own history teaches us how dangerous this can be.

Palestinian dispossession and occupation are by design. Zionism has meant profound trauma for generations, systematically separating Palestinians from their homes, land, and each other. Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls, and children holding onto the keys of the homes from which their grandparents were forcibly exiled.”

i also urge you to check for more information on kaia’s blog & her personal take on this.

so, now that we know what it means & why it's such a loaded word, let's take a look at what the situation at hand looked/looks like:

the other day i posted a sunghoon fic titled “ultraviolence” inspired by lana del rey’s song (it's now changed to “pictures of us, which was my original title for the fic but thought it didn't quite fit the vibe). now, why is this a problem? because i'm apparently “promoting” an artist that begged the president to fund the genocide in gaza, when NOWHERE in my work stated that you should stream lana’s song, become a fan of her’s, and also support/fund a genocide. 

while i do admit that i handled the “anons” (and i put in quotes bc i know for a fact they were ppl who i knew sent them in) terribly and also explained my own personal thoughts and feelings on this topic badly, my words should not be twisted and blown out of proportion to the point where people can freely accuse me of being part of such a horrible and disgusting group of people.

however, that's only the general situation. the real problem for me was when yesterday morning at exactly 7:22am (this timestamp is important for what i'm about to say later on), okwonyos or better known as jiah, texted me, letting me know that she saw the way i responded to the anon & accused me of “actively supporting” someone who “begged the president to fund the killing of millions of children, women, and men of palestine.” (see screenshots below)

now, you guys may think that she's only doing what's right & willingly called out a mutual for not having her morals straight, but to be blankly accusing someone of being a zionist when i've been it clear that i stand with palestine & basically saying i'm stupid does not sit right with me. 

her saying that she “isn't going to try and make me gain common sense” was so off topic & so unnecessary to bring up & could've left it at me having my own take on separating the art from the artist, which to many people on blr, “does not exist.” but if separating the art from the artist does not exist, then shouldn't we boycott enhypen too? shouldn't we also stop writing and supporting enhypen too? because last time i checked enhypen, and along with many other groups/artists, are underneath zionist companies. so with that logic, should we just stop consuming content from enhypen and our favorite groups/artists all in all? because if we are going by this logic, then we’re ALL zionists and we are all PROMOTING zionism. 

another thing is when she says “it's weird that you barely talked about what was happening in palestine until it was to defend a zionist.” ??? defending a zionist WHERE exactly? i told the “anons” i received a day before this conversation that i am not a hardcore lana del rey fan, and again, nowhere did i say that i was defending lana & her actions of again, wanting the preseident to fund a genocide. keep in mind also, that she DOES NOT know me personally & that i was NEVER close to her nor did i EVER consider her a FRIEND, so she (along with other writers) has no right to accuse me of “not speaking up about palestine” enough. 

so the fact that im being known as a supporter killing innocent lives of people in the enhablr community when the fact is that i've spoken up about it numerous times in my personal life & have encouraged many people in my life to donate and spread the daily click all because i don't “reblog enough” about it sits weird to me. not only that, but it also gives me the vibe that many writers on tumblr—weather it's true or not—thinks of this genocide as a trend and does it as “preformative activism” for the sake of not wanting to lose followers. (kaia’s post touches more on this too)

now obviously, i did reply to her message and did go back and forth with her for some time while i was present in school. me, being offended & GREATLY angered by her choice of words & going as far as associating me with such people, rightfully called her out on it & brought up the fact that her saying that isn't “cute” or right at all. but clearly, this was all read wrong & i wasnt able to explain or expand on it properly because i was simultaneously also in my homeroom speaking with my friends! 

and i know, someone is going to bring up the fact that i shouldn't have responded immediately or that i could've responded later in my day, but keep in mind that if i didnt, i probably would've been blocked anyway without getting the chance to explain myself properly. i cant help but feel that they messaged me purposefully during that time because they know i would be defenseless either way. 

im going to tell it straight now and say that i know i am in the wrong for not being able to explain myself properly & not touching on these points more in the moment, but i had absolutely NO time throughout the day to explain myself as i was blocked almost immediately by everyone, which says a lot, especially when one of the mutuals who blocked me right after that conversation was close to me & who i even considered my friend. 

besides that however, i will say this once more & once again that i am NOT what numerous people on tumblr think i am & none of you guys know me at all personally either. you guys can believe what you want about this situation, but i urge you all to get to know both sides at the very least before following what bigger writers say. im not doing this to maintain my following or even gain more followers, i just don't appreciate people calling & associating me with a group of people that i am so against. i don't at all appreciate people assuming they know me and my character all so well when absolutely none of them have ever bothered to reach out to me and even get to know me. 

but yes anon, go ahead and tell me how immature i am & say it with your full chest how i am a zionist for simply using a popular song that everyone has heard one way or another as my title on my fic!

[maggotmuncher0]

hello I'm maggotmuncher

I'm 17 years old

MY SOCIALS:

2nd Blog: @wheresmaggot

Telegram: @ilovemaggots (ALL REFERENCES ARE UNDER MY TELEGRAM POSTS)

Pinterest: @maggotmuncherr0

Bluesky: @maggotmuncher

TikTok: @maggotmuncher00

PLEASE DO NOT:

•Trace/copy

•Post my art anywhere without links

• Use my arts without my permission(u can put it on your pfp btw)

•Print it and sale my works (you can print for personal use)

• Make a tattoo with my design without permission

COMISSIONS ARE CLOSED!

Please don't dm me if the topic isn't necessary and ask me personal questions!

𓆣 Brush i use:

[biowaredisasterbisexual]

Alright y’all, I’ve decided to throw this out here as a thing I’ll be doing:

FIC/ART SHARING SUNDAYS!

Newer to fandom, or just feel awkward advertising your creative works? I’m happy to help!

How does it work?

Throughout the week, you send me a link (AO3, tumblr, etc.) and a short blurb for something you made that you want blasted into the Wild West of whatever is happening on this blog. Each Sunday I will put all those links and blurbs into a single post labeled Sharing Sundays and do my part.

Deadline to get in each Sunday will be Saturday at 10:00 PM PST, so that I have time to get it all together. Only content limit is that it should be from the BioWare pantheon of games, though it needn’t be DA. I will accept all Baldur’s Gate stuff, including BG3, on the technicality that BG1 and BG2 were BioWare properties. Anything that is NSFW, or would merit an archive warning on AO3, needs to be labeled as such but is welcome.

Otherwise, send it all! And I’ll share it for you!

It’s free advertising!

Edit: feel free to DM me or send an ask with any questions!

[matchalovertrait]

Apologies for the little power outage, but the party will resume soon! Thank you for staying put 😉

That's right, we are back! 🥳

For anyone who wants to catch up, mobile-friendly "previous and next" links have been added to every single post in Generation One AND Generation Two.

For those with time constraints, the Generation One chapter summaries should be live in the next day or so. The summaries, unfortunately, will be optimal on desktop as they will only be available on my Tumblr blog.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ron Deibert’s “Chasing Shadows”

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group

Since 2001, Ron Deibert has led Citizen Lab, the world's foremost "counterintelligence group for civil society," where they defend human rights activists, journalists and dissidents from the digital weapons deployed by the world's worst autocrats and thugs:

https://citizenlab.ca/

Citizen Lab's work is nothing short of breathtaking. For decades, this tiny, barely resourced group at a Canadian university has gone toe to toe with the world's most powerful cyber arms dealers – and won.

Today, Simon and Schuster publishes Chasing Shadows, Deibert's pulse-pounding, sphinter-tightening true memoir of his battles with the highly secretive industry whose billionaire owners provide mercenary spyware that's used by torturers, murderers and criminals to terrorize their victims:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Chasing-Shadows/Ronald-J-Deibert/9781668014042

Mercenary spyware companies are based all over the world, but the global leader in providing these tools is Israel, where the signals intelligence Unit 8200 serves as a breeding ground for startup founders who grow wealthy serving dictators around the world, thanks in part to Israel's lax export standards for cyberweapons.

Most notorious of these companies is the NSO Group, whose Pegasus malware has been deployed by corrupt, narco-affiliated Mexican politicians, murderous Saudi royals, and dictators in Central Asia, Latinamerica, and all around the world.

The NSO Group's founders told their customers that they were invisible, as ethereal as shadows, so their products could be deployed without fear of detection or consequence. At the same time, NSO ran a disinformation campaign for the broader public, insisting that they have the highest ethical standards and closely monitor their products' use to ensure that it is only deployed against terrorists and serious criminals. This latter strategy is backstopped by harassment and intimidation of journalists who investigate this narrative – I have personally been threatened by lawyers retained by the NSO Group.

Diebert and Citizen Lab disprove both of NSO's narratives. Their technical staff developed incredibly clever, subtle methods to detect malware infections all around the world and identify who had been targeted by NSO's products (they were greatly aided in this by farcical blunders in NSO's products).

In so doing, Citizen Lab not only showed that customers for mercenary spyware will someday be discovered – they also thoroughly disproved the company's narrative about its squeaky-clean image and high morals.

Much of Deibert's book is a true-life technothriller recounting the technology, the politics, and the human cost of a largely unregulated industry whose protectors are among the most powerful people in the world.

This book contains many never-revealed revelations from Deibert's distinguished career, like notes from a meeting where Stephen Harper's top spooks and Privy Council officials threatened and intimidated Deibert over Citizen Lab's reports on Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's use of spyware on Canadian residents.

Deibert also reveals some juicy bits of less consequence, like the fact that it was he who tipped off the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones that Research In Motion was helping Middle Eastern autocracies and India's far right government spy on dissidents' Blackberry devices, just minutes before RIM co-founder Mike Lazardis was to sit for a televised interview with Cellan-Jones for the BBC's Click. When Cellan-Jones asked Lazaridis about the matter, Lazaridis at first denied it, then demanded that the camera be turned off before halting the interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6iGe7vuGeQ

But the majority of Deibert's book is a string of horrifying stories of dissidents, activists, journalists, opposition politicians and the people around them having their lives peeled open by companies like NSO Group and their competitors. They run the gamut from multiple, successive presidents of Catalonia to the US-based children of activists agitating for limits to sugary drinks in Mexico.

On the way, Deibert is hounded by all kinds of dirty-tricksters, like the bumbling ex-Mossad spook that Black Cube – whom Harvey Weinstein hired to harass his victims – hired to discredit the organization:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/black-cube-nso-citizen-lab-intelligence.html

He's also chased by troll armies working on behalf of South American despots, the corrupt Modi government of India, and middle eastern autocrats in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. While most of these trolls are anonymous jerks, a few high-profile serial online harassers-for-hire are singled out by name, their deeds publicly connected for the first time.

Deibert shows the human impact of mercenary spyware: the connection between these companies' products and intimidation, arbitrary detention, punitive rape, torture, and murder – for example, he painstaking lays out the role that the NSO Group's products played in the murder and dismemberment of the US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

This is a dirty business, but it's also a lucrative one. Citizen Lab goes eyeball-to-eyeball and toe-to-toe with farcically wealthy, well-resourced attackers, who've waxed fat by abetting corruption and sadistic greed.

But this isn't mere rage-bait. Deibert's story is an inspiration, both in how it shows how principled, decent, hardworking people can make a difference – Citizen Lab researchers repeatedly discover and burn the vulnerabilities exploited by mercenary spyware, a process Deibert likens to disarming them – but also in the bravery and resilience of the subjects who trust Citizen Lab to analyze their devices, risking everything to come forward and tell their stories.

Citizen Lab is enmeshed in a global, digital community of human rights defenders – a community that wouldn't exist without the internet. Deibert's life's work is to create an internet that is fit for human thriving – and to wrestle control of technology away from the monsters who project their greed and sadism around the world through our devices.

[shaymincafe]

Ask Karma

Okay so since we're dispensing advice into the community for our newer members, I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring with an ask blog etiquette item that I think people have somewhat neglected recently: ask karma.

Ask karma is the practice of sending asks back to people who have sent you one. When someone sends you an ask, it is generally expected that you will send one back in return. It is to your mutual benefit to do this since now not only do both of you have asks in your inbox to work with, but it also exposes your blogs to each others' followers and can potentially gain you new readers.

Ask Calls are a Two-Way Street

Generally speaking, when someone makes an ask call, you should view it as a quid pro quo situation. Unless the person explicitly states in the post otherwise, they usually wants asks back in return for the ones they're sending out. While this is not always the case, like with me where I have way too many asks already and don't need more, more often than not, this is the expectation and it's bad form to not do so.

It's the equivalent of borrowing someone's pencil in school and never giving it back. At the end of the day, it's not super consequential, but the person whose pencil you just took isn't going to be super happy that they gave that to you and got nothing in return. You feel me?

This is especially true for written blogs, who I have noticed tend to get hit by this the most. Written blogs can get through their posts a lot faster than most art blogs and therefore need asks more often. But they also tend to get a lot fewer asks!

I experienced it myself during the PokeAskMagi event where I sent out around 20 asks from @askthewhiterocket and got back 7 in total for the entire event. By comparison, Shaymin Cafe also sent out around 20 asks and got approximately 12 in return. Not a lot more but it's still a better ROI especially consider Shaymin Cafe was the far less active of the two blogs during the event.

Everyone who sent an ask to Ask the White Rocket also sent one to Shaymin Cafe, despite the majority of the blogs I interacted with getting asks from BOTH of my blogs. In addition, during my final ask call for Ask the White Rocket, I got 1 ask in return for like 5 sent out, even after explicitly stating that the inbox was empty and I wanted asks.

I realize Shaymin Cafe is a popular blog and since I had two blogs, people probably ended up just sending an ask to the more popular blog of the two since Shaymes is a fun character and such. But the same thing happened last year when Shaymes wasn't even an active character and I was really only answering asks from Kyo's blog. To be quite frank, that's unfair to the written blogs, and unfair to me too.

It takes time to send asks. Ask hints make it easier, sure, but not everyone has them. Additionally, not all ask hints are incredibly straight forward. Some require you to read a bit in the blog's backlog if you aren't familiar with it to craft an ask that a person can work with (this is why I tend to link stuff with my ask hints). Some people might also want to double check the rules of a blog first or read up on the characters to ensure they're not sending a human character to a blog that doesn't allow them, or a Gengar to a character with trauma from ghost-types without expressed permission from the creator first. This goes doubly so when you're sending asks out from multiple blogs, like I was during the event.

That effort should not go unrewarded, so the least you can do is send an ask in return! It's just good manners.

This also goes for Munday asks

Admittedly, I am pretty bad about this myself, so we're going a little pot calling kettle black, BUT it's generally good form to also send Munday asks back to people who send them to you. Now if they're not open to Munday asks or w/e then no sweat it's fine, but let's be real, we all like to yap. We all like to talk about our characters. We all enjoy answering Munday asks, so spread the love and send asks back to people who send them to you.

Part of the reason I don't really make the effort to send out Munday asks much anymore and part of why I don't open for Munday as frequently either is candidly I got very tired of sending out like a dozen Munday asks to everyone I saw open for Mundays and then getting like... 2 in return. There were a couple weeks back in like July-August were I quite literally got 0 Munday asks, and it was incredibly disheartening. Like, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed coming up with questions for other people, but it was also a total downer to sit there the entire day waiting for asks to come in and then never getting any. Not even one asking how my day was or how my weekend went. Total and complete silence.

And sure, thinking of questions is hard, I get it! You wanna know my secret? When I was sending out Munday asks regularly, I googled first date questions or improv icebreakers. There's so many great questions to ask people from those. Sure, they can be be incredibly shallow and I'm sure any veteran ask blogger whose been at this a while has probably asked and answered whether they like coffee or tea better. But I'd rather answer that ask for like the fourth time than get nothing because then I'd at least get the opportunity to talk about my thoughts on both for a minute.

This also goes quadrupley so for the memes. There are times where I see people reblogging memes and going the whole day without any interaction because they're a smaller blog. And I'll admit, I straight up have sometimes gone on anon and sent them like three asks back to back because I didn't want them to feel like no one cared about them or their characters. They deserve to get a bunch of asks too, that's part of the fun!

And I think with memes the not sending asks in return is far less excusable because usually there's emojis or numbers that you can literally just copy and paste into the ask box. I cannot tell you how many times I saw blogs I'd never met before reblogging a meme post and it took me all of five minutes to go pick a random emoji and a name from their cast page and drop that into their inbox. It is quite literally that easy.

You should also, generally speaking, send an ask to the person you got the meme from too. Whether they were the one who created it or simply just brought it into popularity, sending them an ask for the meme is a nice way to say thank you for letting you use it too. It took time and effort to create and/or find that meme, and I guarantee you they did not do it simply because they wanted other people to use it on their own blogs. They did it so THEY could answer asks from it on their OWN blog. So give them the opportunity to!

FAQ

The blog I want to send an ask to has (insert species of character) and my blog doesn't interact with that (or vice versa).

That's fine! You don't have to send an ask in character if you don't want to. Sure that's the norm, but if the casts of your blogs are incompatible for some reason, then by all means just don't send an in character ask.

The blog I want to send an ask to doesn't have readily available/up to date asks hints.

You have a couple options here. You can read back through the blog to see what has recently happened to get a feel for what might be a good ask. If you're lucky maybe they'll have a taglist somewhere that'll make backtracking easy. But if not, skimming is fine too. Otherwise, just directly DM the blog and ask them what kind of ask they want. I've done this several times and that can be a great way to get a blog exactly what ask their looking for.

The blog I want to send a Munday ask to is doing a meme I don't want to engage with.

Send them a normal question then! I guarantee you they wouldn't be opposed to answering something opposed to the meme, and even if they don't respond, they'll at least know you tried to return their ask.

The blog that sent me an ask said in their ask call they don't want asks in return.

No need to send one back then! If they said they don't want any, then they aren't expecting any in return. I do this all the time! Sometimes we just like sending out asks for fun and that's a-okay!

The blog I want to send an ask to has closed their inbox.

That's okay! In this instance, it is perfectly reasonable to not send an ask in return. If they've closed their inbox, they're likely not expecting asks back. So you're totally in the clear to not send one in return. No need to go crawling through their submission box to send one in (people actually don't usually like this). Just maybe keep an eye out in the future for if their inbox reopens!

Unless they like explicitly made a post asking for asks within like the last day. In that case please tell them because they probably forgot to open it again (happens more often than you think).

The blog I want to send an ask to doesn't have an organization system making their story, characters, hints, and other materials used in ask crafting difficult to find.

In that case, the burden lies with that blog, not you. Organization is EXTREMELY important. Skins covers this a bit in their ask blog advice post. Having easily accessible tag lists, ask hints, and casts pages can really help with getting asks sent your way. In the same way it isn't fair to someone to not send asks in return, it's equally unfair to make someone scroll through a bunch of meme reblogs just find materials to send an ask with.

The best you can do in this situation is message the blog to ask them for what they want. But if the materials to craft the ask aren't readily available to you, that is on them not you.

In short, please exercise Ask Karma. If someone sends you an ask, please send one back! Thank you!

[lifemod17]

This also applies to artwork by the way!!!

If it's not yours, don't steal those because someone spent hours and worked so hard on said artwork. They are not yours to repost just so you can get a few likes.

if you are part of a fandom, no matter how casual or Not Normal™ :

the hottest thing you can do when sharing content, is crediting photographers or adding a source link for something you posted, by the way <3

yes I am aware there are going to be times where its old content or really a lost cause and you're just like "Pinterest showed me this idk" okay fine. but if you CAN, please do the bare minimum.

[domaystic]

4th year of Domaystic: 2025 prompts!

Everything's ready for Domaystic 2025 :D

Domaystic comes from “domestic” + “May” and it's a prompt event that runs throughout May with a list of 31 prompts for its 31 days. And also 5 alternatives are back. The overall theme is that of the domestic trope: anything inside, outside, beside the house or that has that normalcy flavor of everyday life.

Anyone, in their own way of expression, is welcome to use the prompts and create: fics, art, gifs, podcasts, whatever tickles your fancy, there are no restrictions. For any questions or such, the ask inbox is always open :)

Text prompts:

1 Fraud 2 Scattered on the floor 3 Local flea market 4 The dream 5 Withered flowers 6 Sports 7 Story time 8 On all four 9 Black out 10 Stuck with someone/something 11 Scene at the parking lot 12 Colleague's fault 13 Rainbow 14 Pros and cons 15 Doing the dishes 16 National ～ day 17 Scars 18 Back to school 19 Decorations 20 It's full already 21 In the spotlight 22 Bragging 23 Stressful days 24 Embarrassing gifts 25 Picky eater 26 Funeral 27 Infestation 28 VIP 29 Spare set of keys 30 From the other side of the road  31 Home alone?

5 Alternatives:

A. Multiple winking B. Bowing profusely C. Constant yawns D. Mimicking an animal E. Covering s/o mouth, eyes or ears 

-> More details under the cut!

Other languages:

Text prompts in Spanish: click here Text prompts in Italian: click here Text prompts in French: click here

General rules and guidelines

All fandoms or original content are welcome.

Any kind of media is welcome.

No restrictions in ships, size, pixels, min/max word count or language.

There are a 31 prompts, one for each day of the month + 5 alternatives if needed.

If you plan to share your work, and if you want, you can add it on the 2025 AO3 collection; or, by tagging or mentioning this blog here on tumblr, I'll reblog it.

It's okay to combine more prompts together or with another event.

You don’t have to do all the prompts: do the ones you enjoy.

Domaystic runs actively throughout May; tracking #domaystic2025, mentions @domaystic, and previous years tags too; if you tag the blog on a later date, that’s fine too, I just reblog on a lower pace after May is over.

Tags to navigate the blog: tumblr post or page on blog

Tagging your tumblr post:

Mention: @domaystic or use the tag: #domaystic2025

Tell me the fandom name or if it is original content

Tell me if it is sfw or nsfw

Tell me which prompt you used if a day# or an alt#

For lengthy posts, please use the “read more option”: ctrl-shift-k on rich text; [[*MORE*]] on html (remove asterisks)

Please, TAG PROPERLY. If there are any trigger warning, I will base my own reblog on your tags so, please, take even a moment longer to carefully tag it. I hope all participants to stay safe in this event.

Here’s an example:

This is my fic/art @domaystic ! 

#domaystic2025 #day1 #[altA - E if alternative prompt is used] #[fandom name or oc] #[sfw or nsfw] #[trigger warnings that I get from your post] tw

AO3 collection

As the previous years, the domaystic2025 collection will be open from May, 1st. On the profile page you'll find all the info and prompts as well.

Link to the 2025 collection: click here

[z-moves]

⚠️: DINA'S FUNDRAISER as of 2/3/2025

Dina last received funds around 5 days ago, and she only received 3 fundings within the recent month. her campaign has been STAGNATING for around 2 months despite my daily posts. this pace is surely not enough to satisfy the daily needs of herself and her 3 children because prices in her area remain extremely high to afford. please help increase the rate of funds received!

$17,020 CAD / $50K

this fundraiser is #245 on @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi's list of vetted fundraisers. [ link to Google Sheets ]

[ link to Dina's blog ]

tags for reach (please let me know if you don't want to get tagged):

@heritageposts @feluka @timetravellingkitty @rhubarbspring @irhabiya @wellwaterhysteria @junglejim4322 @kibumkim @neechees @mangocheesecakes @kyra45-helping-others @tortiefrancis @toiletpotato @fromjannah @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid @aristotels @komsomolka @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @dykesbat @watermotif @mavigator @lacecap @socalgal @chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq @boobieteriat @tamamita