#go into all the world

[never-quite-buried]

Nope now it’s at the point that i’m shocked that people off tt don’t know what’s going down. I have no reach but i’ll sum it up anyway.

SCOTUS is hearing on the constitutionality of the ban as tiktok and creators are arguing that it is a violation of our first amendment rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble.

SCOTUS: tiktok bad, big security concern because china bad!

Tiktok lawyers: if china is such a concern why are you singling us out? Why not SHEIN or temu which collect far more information and are less transparent with their users?

SCOTUS (out loud): well you see we don’t like how users are communicating with each other, it’s making them more anti-american and china could disseminate pro china propaganda (get it? They literally said they do not like how we Speak or how we Assemble. Independent journalists reach their audience on tt meaning they have Press they want to suppress)

Tiktok users: this is fucking bullshit i don’t want to lose this community what should we do? We don’t want to go to meta or x because they both lobbied congress to ban tiktok (free market capitalism amirite? Paying off your local congressmen to suppress the competition is totally what the free market is about) but nothing else is like TikTok

A few users: what about xiaohongshu? It’s the Chinese version of tiktok (not quite, douyin is the chinese tiktok but it’s primarily for younger users so xiaohongshu was chosen)

16 hours later:

Tiktok as a community has chosen to collectively migrate TO a chinese owned app that is purely in Chinese out of utter spite and contempt for meta/x and the gov that is backing them.

My fyp is a mix of “i would rather mail memes to my friends than ever return to instagram reels” and “i will xerox my data to xi jinping myself i do not care i share my ss# with 5 other people anyway” and “im just getting ready for my day with my chinese made coffee maker and my Chinese made blowdryer and my chinese made clothing and listening to a podcast on my chinese made phone and get in my car running on chinese manufactured microchips but logging into a chinese social media? Too much for our gov!” etc.

So the government was scared that tiktok was creating a sense of class consciousness and tried to kill it but by doing so they sent us all to xiaohongshu. And now? Oh it’s adorable seeing this gov-manufactured divide be crossed in such a way.

This is adorable and so not what they were expecting. Im sure they were expecting a reluctant return to reels and shorts to fill the void but tiktokers said fuck that, we will forge connections across the world. Who you tell me is my enemy i will make my friend. That’s pretty damn cool.

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[bookwyrminspiration]

god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[dwuerch-blog]

Celebrate the Good News!

Don’t you love those words, “Good News”? I remember my early years as a Christian and how difficult it was for me to share God’s “Good News” to those around me. Sure, I did my best to be a reflection of Christ’s likeness in my words and deeds in everyday life, but I wasn’t what I thought a disciple was — the one who queried “Are you a Christian? Do you want to go to heaven when you die? Do you…

[rooniearts]

love love love the headcanon that theyre siblings fr. no i dont care about the lore implications i think its cute and thats all that matters to me <3

[tootkin-goblin]

Just remembered, as I was cooking some potato, about that time I went on holidays at my (now ex) girlfriend's grandma and met her whole family on this side.

All of them, the uncles, the aunts, the cousins of all age and gender, all of them told me about the legendary mashed potato that the grandma does. How good it is, how they can't reproduce it, and how the grandma has never told the recipe to anyone ever. A mystery, a secret she's going to take to the grave!

And like, it's a very good mashed potato. The recipe is simple, you boil some big potato, then you mash them with salt, pepper, herbes de Provence (a mix used almost everywhere in the south of france made of rosemary, oregano, thyme, basil, chervil, tarragon, bay leaf, fennel, marjoram, sage, and wild thyme), a good chunk of butter and a dollop of olive oil.

I know because she was very happy to show me how it's done when I, alone, went to help her in the kitchen (:

[viragfold]

POSTCARD FROM VIRAGFOLD

20 éve indultunk el Szombathelyről.

We moved away from Szombathely 20 years ago.

[caterjunes]

i'm the girl who makes up all the fake folk etymologies. it's fun and easy for me. nobody pays me, i just do it for the love of the game.

[lil-lemon-snails]

sometimes you just need to hear it v some stills below the cut v

[cardo-de-comer]

things i drew after listening to absent moon

[pangur-and-grim]

every time I say “starting nooooow I won’t have any major expenses” something HAPPENS! there’s raw sewage backing up from my drains, and apparently the plumbers will need to break the floor and the wall to get to the pipes and fix it.

if the cat stuff hadn’t wiped out my bank account, this would be annoying but manageable. as it is…..I’m going to try to get everything up in the store for Friday.

[o-wild-west-wind]

While I’m still a bit bummed that they didn’t go with a more book-aligned POC Fiyero for the Wicked movie, I’ve been thinking (heheh) about how his being white highlights the really interesting foil relationship between him and Glinda (and, in many ways, the audience yourself).

At its core, Wicked is a cautionary tale about propaganda, (literal) scapegoating, and what it means to uphold the status quo. The audience is watching through Glinda’s eyes—it is through her, arguably the most beautifully tragic character of the show, that we learn how lonely life becomes when you forfeit your values in favor of systemic power and likability (“No One Mourns the Wicked” is, in many ways, about HER).

Now, this is where Fiyero’s whiteness can get interesting—if you consider him and Glinda to share roughly equal footing at the beginning in terms of privilege/how much they have to lose (applying our real-world lens of race and power here, where whiteness is the apex), his storyline essentially represents what could have happened if Glinda had made the brave (and arguably wise and loving, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down 👀) choice to go with Elphaba and fight the good fight (this is also why I feel like a queer reading of G&E’s relationship is almost implicit to the story, but I digress).

As the POC/marginalized allegory, Elphaba has much less of a real choice in her curtain-pulled-back turning point. But Fiyero and Glinda—both representing privilege—get to choose. So in Act II, we see the consequences of both the choice to stay (Glinda) and to go (Fiyero). In Fiyero’s case, his ultimate rejection of his own power, privilege, and even beauty leads to immense physical loss—including his own body—but that is then compared to the loss of love, community, and identity that we see Glinda left with by the end. And this brings us to the question that the audience is left grappling with: in an unjust system where loss is inevitable (a.k.a. our own world, as the Wizard himself represents), which of these things are YOU more willing to give up?

It’s important that Glinda is an empathetic character because, in reality, most people are going to be Glindas (obvi this is nuanced among us Elphabas of marginalized identities, but I’d still argue that there’s some level of Glinda in us all)—and it’s important to be rattled by the end of the show when you realize that she is the one who has the sad ending. But it’s also so important that Fiyero is empathetic (which I’m SO glad this movie leaned into)—because he’s ultimately who Glinda—and thus we, as the audience—should have been.

And especially given the state of US politics right now…this is just all more relevant than ever.

[lonesomedreamer]

ALIEN LANDSCAPES of STAR TREK

[dwuerch-blog]

We are Messengers

With all the text messaging we do, we can officially declare ourselves “messengers”! We’ve got it down well – just a quick message to announce: “On my way home!” “Running late – home by 6!” “Thx for the info!” “What’s for dinner?” But, today, I’m referring to being “life” messengers because we ARE the message! Check out this scripture:“And because of you, the Lord’s message has spread everywhere…