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guardiandae · 2 years ago
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We need to embrace the fact that the tumblr userbase is aging. What’s everybody’s favorite kitchen appliance?
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simptasia · 2 months ago
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LOST: Season One
#lost#abc lost#lost one cap per ep#this was a project i was gonna do anyways but the timing worked out that i could post the first one on the 20th anniversary!#this is one cap per ep every season. from left to right. and this is important: its not a cap that sums up each ep#its a cap that REPRESENTS each ep. the way i choose them varies every episode#sometimes its an utterly iconic moment. sometimes it reps the theme of the ep. or it hits with a theme of the character themselves#sometimes the cap i use won't even involve the character whose centric episode it is. trust me. this makes sense#anyways i'll give a good example: for outlaws i was so tempted to use a shot of the judgemental soulful gaze of the boar#or perhaps sawyer in the rain after he shot that man#but! i used that shot of sawyer's dads legs as sawyer is hiding under the bed. i feel it worthy because this moment. this scene#is literally a core part of sawyer. it's a defining moment of his backstory. of his character. so yeah. makes sense yeah?#anyways some eps had Too Much going on (lord i could make one of these for exodus part 1 alone) and some not enough#or well they DID but like lacked in caps that Hit in the way im thinking. thank heavens charlie shot ethan cuz i was worried about that ep#i was like ''aw shit what am i gonna use'' and then an iconic lost moment happened kjhfdsjkhfd#anyways. there are 25 eps in season one. so im really glad that the last ep contains one of the moment iconic visuals/moments in all of los#oh i should add that these caps are unedited. i did not fuck with the colours or saturation in any way#i found 'em and i pieced them together. this is harder than it sounds. i browsed through all the screencaps of every ep of season one#and i will do so the remaining five seasons#some of these were super easy like i knew what cap i'd be using before i even started (eg. do no harm. the moth. in translation)#but some took some real Thinking. and some eps even had several caps that would have worked. this has all been quite interesting#also yeah. y'all already know damn well what cap i'm using for the very last episode
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wheekingpig · 7 months ago
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the fnv brotherhood of steel being such an intense parallel to being stuck with an abusive conservative family explored largely through a lesbian character whose constantly making excuses for them gighhrggurughh
#censoring so stuff doesnt appear in tags to specify#but the elders have a very specific type of control over the rest of the bunker thats very reminiscent of#the amount of power parents have over their children or fathers have over their general families#where they could be harming you and the people around you terribly#but despite#you have to remain neutral and calm and kind towards them to not risk being#the person who yelled at your beloved parent#and how elijah was able to#take on the role of veronicas father#simply because he chose too and then was able to isolate veronica from her lover likely using the bunkers homophobia#is actually a very terrifying thought#because he held the power to do this because he simply claimed ownership over a young girl as her father#and how veronica is often spoken about with exasperation#which is probably warranted in a way because all of these people are stuck with each-other and see each-other at the worse#they have very little privacy and if you look at the bunkers they all sleep in you can see that they likely have no opportunity to privatel#explore their sexuality in any way#which is especially terrible in an environment where homophobia can be weaponized on a whim#and the casual mentions of inc-st being necessary to keep the bunker running and how their x-nophobia is leading to this inc-st-ous abuse#is especially disturbing when you consider how easy veronica was isolated by an older man in the brotherhood#even if it wasn't for those intentions#it always could be with someone else#veronica santangelo
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whatwillyousing · 9 days ago
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vsynth has long since been trending towards the uncanny valley of singing but i feel like its been especially pronounced the past few years now that a higher proportion of banks sound nigh indistinguishable from human people. you can only really tell if youre already deeply familiar with each bank's respective engine
#its stunning the amount of progress vsynth tech has made within the past few years#and its been really interesting too seeing like adachi rei rise in popularity almost as a counter to ai vsynth#its admittedly kind of saddening that the industry preference overwhelmingly pushes realistic vocals over mechanical robot vocals#and i mean i know they do come equipped with parameters you can edit to make them sound robotic again but its genuinely not the same#when you have the concatenation ai built into the software and the phoneme transitions are automatically smoothed over#this isnt to say that ai vsynth has like completely overtaken or threatening the Future of Vocalsynth though#there is a significant portion of people who largely prefer the clunky/mechanical/robotic sound of early vocalsynth#which is why i think rei has gotten as popular as she has#and the cryptonloids in particular are forever stuck in the piapro ether so the most we'll ever see of a miku ai#is just ppl messing with the rvc ai voice cloner LOL#i think if ai truly was causing Creative Bankruptcy or whatever then utau would not remain as wildly popular as it is#and part of the reason why utau still remains so popular is because [teto image] FREE SOFT its free!! anyone can use it & develop their own#vb on it too. so like yes you have the matter of industry pushing out these hyperrealistic voicebanks at an overwhelming pace#but individual fans will remain using/developing their own voicebanks (aggressively points to adachi rei again) so long as public interest#stays. hence why i dont think ''big ai'' in vocalsynth is a real threat or anything#referring to them as ai banks in the first place anyway is such a misnomer bc its not the same as generative ai#i do think that the relative simplicity at which realistic vocals are synthesized now does somewhat obscure the monumental amount of skill#it takes to tune older voicebank because that shit is HARD!!!!!!!!!#like with how synthv works it obscures the technical tuning feats of older engines and how massively massively massively impressive it is#to get anything to sound good let alone Realistic on smth like vocaloid2#synthv got popular because its ui made tuning a genuinely intuitive process rather than something that makes you want to throw#bricks at your head so its easy to forget tuning (albeit Still hard) was Much much harder#but at the same time.... ai doesnt automatically make tuning better either#actual plain vanilla ai voicebanks often sound very flat and lifeless if no actual tuning is applied i.e. vibrato pitch change tension etc#its such a beautiful complicated lovely artform#anyways my original thoughts. you unfortunately cant get that mechanical/clunky/robotic sound with. any commercial voice synth#released within the past 3 years#i hope more overtly artificial in nature banks along the same genre as rei catch on in popularity
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aroacettorney · 3 months ago
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morally grey characters are great and all, but sometimes i do feel like ppl who genuinely think lawful good-aligned redeemers are comparatively much more boring overlook/underestimate the amount of effort and conviction required from them to remain kind and also unwaveringly believe in the second chance / potential of goodness in each and every person despite the injustice that the rest of the world has been done unto them.
#rambles#aup#casey selmore#its very easy to become corrupted; to succumb to your dark emotions; to curse at those who've wronged you; to hurt those who've hurt you#but could you easily forgive someone who has mistreated you? would you continue to put trust in someone who has repeatedly lied to you?#how could you remain the way you are after knowing that you are explicitly being used? that your kindness is blatantly being exploited?#why sparing the enemies despite knowing for certain that they will come back biting you the moment they regain their strength?#why still playing fair when life is full of unfairness? why risking your life for a world that has no hesitation in taking it?#for those who show no signs of appreciating it? only then at the very best to be branded as stubbornly naive and insanely stupid?#why do you keep giving in exchange for nothing in return when no one is asking/expecting you to? why are you having no self preservation?#tbh its also a tad concerning that caseys selflessness is lowkey self-destructive#girlie is only living in the moment and carefree to the point of caring v little for her own life#if ur very first response to any life threatening situation is that u dont care for ur life thats not normal and shouldnt be normalized#even if that “any situation” involves ur desire to save the world and humanity#one does not associate the worth of their life with how much they could give themself away without being somewhat passively suicidal#both ludger and casey are willing to fight and die for their cause#but ludgers admiration for casey is in the fact that to him her cause is much more honorable and selfless than his ever be
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drinkingdeadpeopletea · 8 months ago
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i think what's really getting me about kozma claiming to have blown up the moon and also claiming to "be" the breach and basically equating "breach collaborators" and "my allies" in the same speech is that. the breach operative we've known since season one, the person who "is" the breach as far the story's concerned, is saskia. and midst is saskia's HOME! she built the black candle with her own two hands (metaphorically, at the very least), she LOVES it there and she loves those people :( and if we take kozma's story at face value, she just threw the "centerpoint" (according to imelda) of her own operation entirely under the bus and endangered the lives not only of innocent people but also of a bunch of her own operatives without their knowledge just to destabilize the trust and frankly that makes me kind of hope she IS telling the truth simply because that's the kind of betrayal i find absolutely delicious,
#midst spoilers#midst#midst podcast#i DO think she's probably bluffing about all or most of it. i bet she was collaborating with the breach but not as closely or with as much#authority as she just claimed and i no longer think she blew up the moon#but MAN those claims leave a nasty taste in my mouth for the exact reasons outlined above.#and it certainly COULD make sense! it's a smart move to encourage/fund/organize an insurrectionary movement within your political rival!#and easy to sacrifice them--especially when it's not even all of them and you've got bigger plans now--to make an even bolder move!#she's a collector! she can move her pieces around the board!#and the scheming of it all only makes her threats have more credibility to the upper trustees she's threatening#except of course that hieronymous is sitting right there having the full perspective & caring about the breach and about saskia specificall#just one more crazy layer to what must have been going through his head during that dinner#frankly. WEEPE has the full perspective too although whether he cares about any of it remains to be seen#i do think kozma is probably going to get killed by the trust/weepe pretty quickly here. but i would LIKE for saskia to get to confront her#if kozma IS telling the truth#it's nuts even WITHOUT the breach component considering she OWNED midst until literally last week. ma'am those were YOUR people.#like to be very clear blowing up that moon was a callous and fucked up thing to do regardless of personal connection. whoever did it.#but the closer the relationship gets the crazier it feels as a thing to do or to claim to have done#i just think saskia deserves revenge or justice on SOMEONE for her home being used as a piece in this stupid game...
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fideidefenswhore · 6 months ago
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His 'merciful inclination and princely heart' meant he was always ready to 'take pity and compassion on all offenders repentantly crying'. In the case of his daughter, since she was, 'frail, inconstant and easy to be persuaded,' he would be glad to remit some of his displeasure.
The King’s Pearl: Henry VIII & His Daughter Mary, Melita Thomas
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arolesbianism · 8 months ago
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Thinks oh so hard abt the spiraling upwards clan founders, especially the birchclan founders. Silly lil kitties who's pasts are drenched in blood with the primary regret of not drawing it sooner
#rat rambles#oc posting#warriors posting#spiraling upwards#long story short they had a shitty awful terrible leader who sucked absolutely ass and they tore him to shreds#I mean that literally they pinned him onto the mountain side and slashed and mauled the shit out of him so hard that his lives evaporated#and several of the cats involved in that scene are sill alive and major parts of the story and I love them#oh also the cat that pinned him through a stab through the throat was his own daughter btw everyone hated his ass so much#and for good reason get his ass#alas in the main story I dont rly get to go too deep into how he harmed everyone involved mostly just three main ones#aka bristlestar because shes murtlepaw's ghost mom dawncrackle because hes also haunting murtle and gullspot because shes bristle's kit#so basically all the flashbacks we get involve those three in some form or another#honeystar was also there and involved but Im not currently planning on having her rly talk abt that#most of her more modern angst is the fact that she was forced into leadership against her will#and shes been alive long enough that shes been leading birchclan far longer than she ever lived in her old clan#but she did go through a lot of shit before birchclan was founded and it definitely shaped her a lot#she used to be a very determined and high spirited lil kitty cat who tried to be optimistic#but her family began to slowly be picked off one by one by both the old leader and the one whod later get evicerated#some of the older cats around her hoped it make her back down from her revelutionary ideas but she noticed that and it backfired on them#instead of being worn down to submission she became absolutely Furious and began to lash out more and become more demanding#it got to the point that she really only had two friends in the entire clan and one of them was her aunt whod later also die after coming#out abt having witnessed the leader killing his own kits#that was the final fucking straw for her and she was fully on board when bristle and dawn started looking for cats to join their rebellion#she did get rly frustrated with them as they waited patiently for the right moment but her remaining bestie kept her from going apeshit#so once the big fight finally broke out she was more than eager to join the hoard of cats chasing the bastard upwards#now unlike some of the other cats involved this legitimately actually made her feel a lot better for a while#for the first time in ages she finally felt like she could be optimistic abt smth again and was excited abt the idea of leaving this place#she had lost so much in this damn place since she was an apprentice and just wanted to finally be able to rest easy#but once they got to their new territory and set up camp things went south real fast as a flood fucked everything up#and after losing the only cat she had left in her life and losing her tail and being made deputy on top of that she deteriorated quickly
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laserbread · 2 years ago
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The 4am urge to write a story about IDW Soundwave falling for a multi level marketing scam
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redgoldsparks · 7 months ago
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My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza by Maia Kobabe
instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books
Full transcript below the cut:
Cover:
My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza 
Project organized by @ connectinghumanity_
by Maia Kobabe @redgoldsparks 
Page 1 
In Fall 2023, I saw instructions on instagram for how to purchase an eSIM card and submit it to be distributed to someone in Gaza. 
Download an eSIM app-> Select Middle East as the region-> Purchase-> Screenshot the QR code-> Do not activate-> send to [email protected] 
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. “That sounds easy, I’ll buy one.” 
I emailed an Airalo eSIM QR code to gazaesims on Nov 17 2023. 
Page 2
By January 2024, it hadn’t been activated yet. I bought a second one from Nomad and sent my new QR code and resubmitted my old one. 
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. “How long does this usually take, I wonder?” 
By February neither had been activated, but Connecting Humanity kept posting about needing more. I bought a second Nomad and resubmitted all of them on February 15, 2024. 
Page 3
The Nomad eSIMs are much cheaper than Airalo, but what I didn’t realize is that they expire even if they haven’t been activated. At the end of February I decided to try a third company, Simly. Here’s a price comparison: 
AIRALO: $39 USD for 3GB, never expires 
SIMLY: $22 USD for 3GB, never expires 
NOMAD: $16 USD for 3GB, expires after 8 weeks even if unused, only offers in-app refunds 
Page 4
Connecting Humanity asks folks to wait at least 3 weeks before resending a QR code that hasn’t been activated yet. On March 7 Mirna Elhelbawi posted: 
We send EVERY esim we receive. Bear in  mind that we are dealing with people at a war zone. They might take it and get killed before activating it, they might take it and their phone gets lost or destroyed. They might take it and search for days for stable internet connection to activate it, and some of them activate it unsuccessfully due to lack of knowledge and the horrific situations they are in. ~Connecting Gaza 
By early April, my first Nomad eSIM expired unused. I resubmitted my three remaining eSIMs. 
Page 5
Suddenly, two of my eSIMs were activated on the same day! The Airalo I’d purchased 4.5 months earlier and my second Nomad. 
Image of Maia looking happy and surprised. 
Image of Maia looking very intensely at eir phone. “I have to make sure these don’t run out!” 
I began buying top-up packages immediately. 
Page 6
I felt like I had planted a seed in the fall and waited all winter for it to sprout. Seeing it activated was like watching the first new leaves break the soil. 
Image of Maia with a watering can labeled “data”, sprinkling water on two little sprouts. “Watering my eSIMs!” 
Sadly, only .07 GB of data was ever used on my Nomad. It was never used again after that first day. 
Page 7
But my Airalo has been in constant use for over a month now. I check on it every day. 
I will never know the person I am buying data for and they will never know me. But we are connected by the same strings of hope and grief that connect us all. 
Image of two hands holding a phone, which is connected to a flying kite. 
Page 8
On April 5, 2024 Connecting Humanity reported they had sent more than 250,000 eSIMs to Gaza, equivalent to approximately $6.3 million donated! You can visit gazaesims.com for more info, instructions, and discounts. Here are my referral codes: 
MAIA5367 for $3 off Airalo 
MB772 for $3 off Simly 
MAIA66GF for $3 off Nomad 
If you need more incentive, the Cartoonist Coop is doing art rewards. Visit cartoonist.coop/esims4gaza 
Page 9
Image of Maia, weighing two options. “Buying an eSIM is easy and can make a very direct impact. It can also take a lot of patience and could get expensive over time if you commit to keeping the eSIM topped up indefinitely.” 
If an immediate one time donation is more your speed, I recommend Operation Olive Branch and Gazafunds, two places to find Gofundmes aiding Palestinian families. 
gazafunds.com
@ operationolivebranch on insta
linktr.ee/opolivebranch 
-Maia Kobabe 2024 
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nataliedecorsair · 13 days ago
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I wanted to give you some of Pticenoga's Borderlands AU backstory, how she was raised by Shade and before starting her shenanigans with Vaughn.
Plus a bonus comic about how she decided to set up a meeting for Vaughn and Shade, but didn't tell Vaughn who is supposed to be there x) Mostly because Vaughn has met Shade before in his macabre World of Curiosities museum and thought that Shade is too weird for him. Well, that's the kind of person that would raise a feral harpy siren, gotta deal with it!
When she was very young, nothing bothered her much as she was just a wild baby exploring the world x) And Shade was a good father figure to her. However, as she grew older, she realized that she doesn't really "fit in": yeah, Pandora is a crazy planet, but not every person there is crazy. There are plenty of "regular folk" like Shade or other people from their town - and many others. And she was frequently called a monster, a mutant and many other things by the regular kids and even adults. She was wild though, could bite them or fight with them in a pretty feral manner, and, even though she protected herself, it didn't help the situation much. She wasn't crazy enough (and too small) to fit in with the psychos or bandits, was "too human" for actual monsters living on Pandora, and for a long time she had no idea she was a Siren, as even for Sirens she looked too different. Only when she hit her teens, she was able to confirm that she is one, started using her powers, and in her human form she could see the full extension of the glowing pattern she had on her skin. She still, however, didn't know why she wasn't born "normal", and there were no older Sirens around.
At some point, she decided to become independent and live on her own. Her "wild" upbringing was helping that a lot, and she felt fine being away from people. She'd still visit Shade frequently, of course, and at some point she'd even met Zer0 and could hang out with him for some time. As Zer0 is a mystery himself, they had some common ground between them (though constantly listening to his haiku were exhausting xD). Sadly, Vault Hunters attract attention, not always positive, and that was the reason why she got spotted by a big bandit gang (could be the beginning of Vallory's gang, but before she took over). And local scientists like Tannis already declared that there may be some connection between Sirens and the Vaults. And they noticed that she's a Siren, but also pretty young (and dumb). After the first Vault on Pandora was opened, there was plenty of weird and valuable stuff around, but it wasn't so easy to get it when you're just regular bandits. And when Eridians, the aliens that are guarding the Vault, are everywhere. The Sirens like Lilith were too strong for them, and hiring a Vault Hunter is expensive, so they decided to wriggle into her favor and use her to gain access to the area. She didn't know she was dealing with bandits first, she naively thought it's a rare case of nice fellows just wanting to be friends and such, plus the Vault could have answers about her origin, and the new "friends" confirmed it.
At some point, she realized she was being used, and got into a fight with the bandits - and lost, as there were too many of them, and she had too little experience, and they knew about Shade. She got kidnapped and told that she'd do everything they told her to do, or they'd kill Shade, so she had to obey. She helped them to fight the way to the Vault and get some of the riches, and during the process she felt that she really does have a connection with Eridians - they boosted her powers and helped her to get free, and kill every presenting member of the gang. She was worried about Shade though, so she left immediately to find him before the remaining members found out what happened and could harm him. But she was too late - the water source in their town of Oasis was poisoned, and every single person there died. Except Shade though - he lasted longer, but dehydration made him insane, and he turned corpses into the stuffed dummies he could talk to (though she didn't have much of a problem with this part). As she was gone for at least several months, he didn't believe she's real, and she had to adapt to the new reality.
She never got back to the Vault after that as she felt it was a source of more trouble than anything good (in her view, the price was too much for a bunch of physical stuff).
That lasted for years, and became a bit easier as her powers, enhanced by the Eridians, wasn't only serving the destruction,  but could eventually "heal" some part of Shade's mind, so the moments of clarity became more frequent (she didn't know it's the reason, though). And you still need money, whether you like it or not, so, when Shade decided to use his World of Curiosities as a spot of illegal deals and smuggling, she didn't resist, but would watch over him in the shadows in case something goes wrong.
Eventually, she calmed down and just embraced herself. And, after some time, she met Vaughn, whose personal struggles she could sense right away, as she had to experience "being different" herself.
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getvalentined · 1 year ago
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An open letter to @staff
I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.
The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.
Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.
This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.
This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.
Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.
You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.
Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.
This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.
You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.
The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.
You can do so much better than this.
Response to the Update
Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.
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I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.
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Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.
People read it that way because that is what you said.
*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:
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136,635 votes breaks down thusly:
An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)
Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)
This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)
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hedgehog-moss · 4 months ago
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Last spring my neighbour asked if I could let Pirlouit mow the grass around his barn from time to time, which Pirou was happy to do at first but if I left him there several days in a row he got pretty sad about being alone (lots of wistful, melancholy braying). So this year when my donkey was hired for this job again, I went for a different formula: for the past few weeks I've been bringing all the animals to the neighbour's barn for an hour of landscaping services now and then at apéritif time.
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The fence is extremely not Pampe-proof so I have to have my apéritif while sitting on the road in a strategic position from which I can toss a stick in her direction if she tries to escape, but other than that I've been really enjoying this peaceful evening ritual, just sitting there reading and watching the animals while feeling like I'm doing my neighbour a favour. Pirlouit doesn't get all the grass to himself anymore but I've learnt that he prefers to be rich in friends than in food.
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You'll notice that Merricat is present in every photo, looking alert. She too has been hired, but for the thankless job of Thought Police. She may look like she's just napping on the warm asphalt with not a care in the world...
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... but she is working! Keeping an eye on the llamas, always.
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I've discovered that in a specific context my three cats can act as precogs and warn me of Pampe's future crimes. My theory is that they developed this skill because of Poldine, who loves cats. Any cat who enters the pasture will soon be noticed and (lovingly) chased by Poldine, who wants kisses. Cats not only do not want llama kisses, they don't differentiate between individual llamas. They are all potential kissers. So even if it looks like she's all relaxed, Merricat is constantly monitoring where the llamas are and what they seem to be planning. If we are on the other side of a fence and Pampe approaches it a bit too slyly, Merricat will jump to her feet, ready to flee (and I will toss one of my anti-Pampe sticks, and say NON.)
Merricat and I are a very good team! We've foiled several of Pampe's plots, but we need to be on the road for Merricat to remain wary (if we were in the pen Pampe's escape attempts would involve getting away from us and the cat wouldn't care.) Cars are rare so it's okay (plus it's so quiet you can always hear them coming), and on the few occasions when someone showed up and asked why I was having apéritif on the road, I pointed at Pampe and they were like, "Ah! Didn't see her here. Good luck!"
"Hedgehog-moss, you're exaggerating. Pampe can't be that—"
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She is! She is. And she always seems to notice when Merricat is on a bathroom break and I'm absorbed in a book.
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There was one evening though, when she got distracted by a fascinating new idea. I don't claim to know what's going on in this llama's head (except when she's looking at a fence, then it's easy) but as you can see, once I brought the animals to the barn Poldine started eating flowers, Pirlouit started eating grass, and Pampe started eating the wall.
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After a moment she slowly circled the barn, then stopped and lay down right next to it, settling down in a comfortable position but with focused ears and her head still turned towards the wall. It was suspicious behaviour, but on the other hand she now looked so uninterested in the road that I decided to take a risk and run home to bring back some dinner—and she didn't move while I was away! I even brought Pandolf, who is usually banned from these soirées because he would disturb my Merricat alarm system. He was happy to be finally included.
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It's unclear if Pampe was eating the wall, talking to the wall, or carefully examining various parts of the wall as Step 1 of 27 of a complex plan only she understands, but she stuck close to the barn all evening instead of lying in wait by the fence so I was able to have a picnic in the grass rather than on the road, which felt more bucolic. I know that "Pampérigouste has a new, mysterious project" is a worrying sentence but at this early stage (feasibility study) it felt to me and Merricat like a little holiday!
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sweetnans · 4 months ago
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When Katsuki got hit with a quirk, that made him tell what he actually thinks it felt like the world stopped, well for him.
You were trying so hard to maintain your composure when he sprinted into your room with his hand over his mouth.
"What happened?" You asked, and he wrote it down in a paper you had on your desk. "Got hit by a quirk, and I can't stop saying shit," you read and quirked your brow at him "shit like what?"
Real shit
You read and huffed at him while he still couldn't take off his hand of his mouth.
"Just stay like that and don't move. Did they tell you how long it will last?" He denied with his head, and you scratched the back of your neck. "Well, I'll do the talking then. You just have to listen"
He rolled his eyes at you. He didn't mind listening to you talk, but he did mind making the effort to not answer you back to keep the conversation on. For the last years, he realized that it was easy having a friendship with you, and lately, after you two started a friendship with benefits, fuck buddies, he felt in sync with you most of the time.
"How did you end up getting hit with that? Oh no, don't say anything, " you giggled when you looked at his face. He was actually suffering. It was a mixture between suffering and incredulity.
It was easy for you to have him around. You wouldn't deny the fact that your friendship with him had been growing in a way you never expected. Fulfilling some sort of comfort that you never had with anyone.
"Have you seen the others? Kirishima or Kaminari?" You asked while he was practically dead in your bed. You started folding your clothes, waiting for his response, but it never came. "I think you can answer me with yes or no without spilling something juicy"
He quirked a brow at you, holding his upper body on his elbows.
"Oh, don't look at me like that. If you are afraid to talk, there must be something really juicy on your mind that you don't want us to know. " his eyes got plastered in yours, and your eyes widen in sudden realization. "It's not us. You don't want me to know"
He panicked.
He knew you well. He knew that when you have something in mind, there is no human or extraterrestrial force to take it off. You won't drop the topic, uh-uh, you'll push it out of his system, you will bend him until he cracks, and now, with his incapability to talk, he was clearly in disadvantage.
"C'mon Katsuki, I'm your dearest and longest friend, we've been since high school, you know you can tell me anything." You pushed his buttons. The clothes you were folding laid discarded on the opposite side of the room while you approached him slowly like a predator chased its prey.
He needed to keep it cool. He needed to remain strong. The mantra kept playing in his head, and it worked for a while until he saw you kneeling in front of him in a position he knew very well. Fuck you.
"Don't look at me like that," you faked innocence. "I'm just using all the options I have"
You weren't going to do anything.
The look on his face was the main reason you stepped up your game. You threw your hands above his thigh, touching and squeezing the fat of them in a sexy way, very subtly. He flinched at the sudden contact, and you could swear that you saw a drop of sweat forming in the line of his hair.
"You don't need to talk while I blow you, do you?"
He grew impatiently seeing you there, your doe eyes, and your playful smile, meaning nothing but trouble.
You bit your lower lip in between your teeth at the sight of his growing bulge. It was getting out of hand, and you needed to bail before it evolved in something you wouldn't be able to stop.
"I'm just messing with you, relax." You left a tiny squeeze above his knee cap and pretended that it was just a game you were playing and not something that was getting you in the mood.
You weren't a masochist and he was your best friend.
You were preparing yourself to stand again when he, in a sudden and fast movement, grabbed you by the back of your thighs and pulled you toward him.
Your face was mere inches from his face, and your legs were now straddling his figure.
"What are you-"
The blood on your body rose and accumulated in your cheeks. It wasn't a weird position for you, but it was the intense look of his face that got you trembling under his touch.
"You fucking asked for it" he growled lowly. A tiny but strong spark went down on your spine, making you shiver. "Now shut up and listen for once, I don't know whats happening between you and me but lately I've been craving you even more, your skin, your kisses, when you bite my lip and scream my name when I'm inside of you"
His minty breath was fanning above your lips, and his crimson eyes never left yours.
"But that isn't enough anymore"
That sentence snapped your senses again. You regained control of your factions and your brows knitted together at the sudden feeling of losing him.
"What do you mean with that"
The bold you that was eager to get the information from him at any cost shrinked. It was the end of you two. Memories and images passed through your mind like a movie, and when you were about to tear up, he pinched your hip.
You glanced at him through wet lashes. He took a deep breath and smirked. If he was nervous, he never showed.
"I need more. I need you with me in the mornings, I need you with me throughout the day, I need you chopping my ear off every time you get excited with something, I want to watch every shitty reality you want to watch, I want you to scold me everytime I say something mean about our friends and I need to see you here everyday when I come home. I want you to stay and not leave, " he puked the words to you. His pupils were dilated, moving from one side to another, looking for a reaction from you. You were shocked.
He closed his eyes, thinking he screwed it. It was done, and if it was done, he would leave completely empty.
"I just want to cuddle with you after we have sex, I really like feeling you curled up against my body, it make me feel warm on the inside. I like the smell of your hair and your body, I like the way you laugh and the way you do that weird dance every time you win at something. And it drives me crazy having all these feelings for you. It's killing me that you don't realize that I love you"
You stopped breathing. He blurted the last sentences very slowly, giving everything up, including you. The final act of love it was always letting go, wasn't it? It was regret and hurt, but at least it was off of his chest.
He was still looking down when he felt both of your hands grabbing each side of his face. You were smiling through the tears that were rolling down your red cheeks.
"I can't believe that it took you getting hit by a quirk to confess your feelings for me"
Before he could say anything, you crashed your lips with his in a hungry and passionate kiss that melted all the regret and unpleasant feelings away.
For Katsuki, the world started spinning again.
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samah-h · 4 days ago
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A Confession from the Heart of Suffering: An Unbearable Reality
I hope you read my confession, and thank you. This is the reality of all the people of Gaza.
Whenever I think of the life we used to have before the genocide, I have to struggle to hold my tears so I don't cause my children more pain than what they already feel. Our life, then, was neither easy nor perfect but it was full of warmth and the simple joy of being together under one roof .
We have never felt completely free because we have always been under a siege that has only gotten worse during this war but at least we felt somewhat safe and we had quite a decent life with the means that we were allowed.What kept us going was our belief that the future might be brighter one day.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no better tomorrow for us anymore. Nothing remains of our previous lives but rubble and memories, and the future is so bleak and full of uncertainties.It's not just the walls of our house that were turned into ruins, it's our hopes and dreams that were reduced to ashes. Now, we only dream of things that might seem so trivial to other people around the world like being able to sleep in and wake up in a comfortable bed or having a meal without standing for it in line for hours.
We dream of having enough clean drinking water so we don't have to worry about dying of thirst. We dream of the days we had a home with a regular kitchen and stove, the days we could celebrate special occasions with family in peace. Above all, we dream of not losing the people we love in a split second and of living safely and with dignity.
Instead, we have been wrongfully sentenced to a life of fear, displacement, and humiliation beyond belief. It is a living nightmare here now. Everything needed to ensure the bare minimum of decency and normalcy is denied to us. As you well know, there is no safe place in Gaza anymore and We are deprived of simple rights like having having a roof over our heads or enjoying some peace of mind for even one single day. The airstrikes and the buzzing of drones almost never stop. We live with a very real sense of impending doom day and night.
The water and food scarcity are only getting worse with time. Even regular chores like cooking or doing the laundry have become true challenges. I cannot propely bathe my children because the little water we get is polluted and their sensitive baby skin keeps getting irritated.
Before the war, my nine- year-old daughter was so picky about which outfits to wear; it made me laugh that she acted that way at her age but now we don't even have enough warm clothes for the winter. It kills me each time she says she doesn't need fancy clothes anymore and only wants to feel warm and go back to school. What makes it worse is our tent has recently been flooded by rain.
The whole camp turned into a swamp overnight. The children woke up soaked, shivering and terrified. It was almost impossible to calm them down as the rain kept pouring. We are doing our best but even if we succeed in finding the treatment, it's going to cost almost a fortune. This is why we need your support even more now.
All we do now is fight for survival every day. I never imagined,even in my darkest nightmares, that I would be searching high and low to put food in my children's mouths and keep them warm or that I would be begging the world to literally save their lives but I have no other choice now.
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Despite the unbearable suffering we're daily going through, I still believe in humanity. please keep us in your prayers and help us anyway you can. Donate if you're able to,reblog and share our story as widely as you can.We are grateful to each and every one of you
Vetted by @bilal-salah0
7,464$ / 10,000$
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bixbythemartian · 1 year ago
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usamericans-
this is probably going around here like several times, but you can order 4 more free covid tests starting today. if you didn't order any back in september/october (I hadn't heard about it, so I hadn't gotten more tests), you might be able to get up to 8. it just told me 'hey you can get more' and let me do it again, it was very easy to do.
if you're like 'well, I should leave that for people who need it!' don't. order them. stockpile them. the more the program is used, the more likely it is that it will remain a funded program and send the message that covid-19 is still a concern. use the program. there's no needs testing, no nothing, just put in your name and address. if nothing else, you can give a couple to a friend who has a larger family, since it's a per household thing and some people might need more or less, or a mutual aid group in your area, or something. the more people who do this, the more likely they are to keep reupping this program.
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