#just because you recognize someone's url

[smute]

whenever a news story starts trending on here it becomes obvious how deep the lack of critical thinking and media literacy really goes. we all love to make fun of people's misinterpretations of fictional stories and constantly joke about the lack of reading comprehension skills on tumblr but the sheer number of people on my dash who are more than happy to reblog baseless claims and posts that are full of misinformation is truly astonishing. it's stuff that can be fact checked by clicking on the first google search result as well. you don't need to be an expert. and yet no one bothers to do their own research. or to simply shut up about something they don't know anything about. that's another great alternative!

[hl-obsessed]

.

[theresattrpgforthat]

How To Find Cool Games: On Itch.io!

As I drift into a reduced posting schedule, I figured I’d give everyone a peek behind the screen for how I cultivate ttrpgs for recommendations! Some of these tips might even help you find your next favourite game.

This is a long read so let's put most of this beast under a read-more. Keep in mind that many of these strategies work best when you're checking itch.io a little bit every week, and when you're engaging with the platform as more than just a store page. There's a lot of features that you can choose to engage with if you want to find the game for you!

browsing physical game recent releases. This helps me see what’s new and happening, and it helps with a number of things. First of all, I get to see new games pretty much every time I browse recent releases. Secondly, I get a good sense of what’s currently popular in the design space. Thanks to my weekly browsing, I recognize Cy_Borg, Shadowdark and Mausritter as games whose content shows up rather regularly - if you see a lot of products attached to one game at once, that’s a good sign that there’s a related game jam going on (in this case, Shadowdark), or that a game is really resonating with its player base.

sorting games into collections. I personally organize by genre, system, player configuration and (in Games That Intrigue Me) games that I’m personally really hyped about. This works for me because of the nature of my work, but a few collections sorted according to level of interest or game style might work better for you.

Depending on the need, I might have a collection that works specifically for the request - Neon Lights & Cyber Nights is perfect for cyberpunk games, but I might also reference this folder for combat, inventory mechanics, resistance themes, or interesting tech rules. LUMEN is great for folks who want fast-paced games, folks who are looking for certain kinds of video games, or folks who want to feel powerful. If you follow other people on Itch, you'll probably also be able to see their collections, which is a great place to browse.

searching game tags. I don’t typically use the regular search feature, although recently the website did update the toggles to restrict your results to physical games, video games, etc. Instead what I usually do is type what I’m looking for into the url: so in this case, [deck-building]. I might use a couple different wordings, such as [deck-builder] and [deckbuilding] (no spaces). You’re not going to find everything that includes the thing you’re looking for, but you’ll definitely find places to start.

Game Jams! I find these either by looking at the “Jams” tab (although you'll have to wade through video games here) or by noticing that a number of games being published recently have the “for the _” jam in the description. Alternatively, I might be reading the page for a game and see the little “Submission” badge in interaction buttons. There’s game jams for specific systems, game jams for various themes, game jams with special restrictions, and game jams that are titled things like “finish your damn game jam.”

Bundles. I typically buy big-ass bundles and then sort through the games in my downtime. These games are sorted into collections for future reference, and if a game really pops out - into the Intrigue Me folder it goes! And the best part is that I already own it, so if I want to learn more, I can just download it and start reading.

following game designers that I like. This way I’ll get notifications if they release a new game, update an old game, rate someone else’s game, or sort games into their own collections. I also get to see what other folks in the space are excited about - on the day I was browsing, Plasmodics by Will Jobst was really hot.

If you follow me on Itch, you’ll get a notification every time I add a game to one of my non-private folders! Also - you can interact with designers on Itch by liking their updates, and even commenting on their posts, which is a great way to get involved in the design community - and also just make a designer’s day!

[palms-upturned]

Hello this a long shot call, am a citizen of Palestine. I am here to request for your support to help get my insulin (Humalog), just an injection for today to save my life please I beg.I was diagnosized with type 1 diabetes and due to current situation in Gaza I'm unable to get my insulin injection as a result I'm here begging for little financial support to help me purchase insulin for this week. Am sorry if am sending you again this request, kindly donate any amount please. My donation link is in my pinned post🇵🇸

Everyone, keep your eyes peeled. This user is a known scammer. If you get any asks with this copy/pasted message, or from an account using this profile picture, it’s not real.

This person’s main donation post has “verified/vetted” in big red letters at the top. It is a lie. That’s why they don’t tag the person who supposedly verified them or provide a link. Even if a user claims to be verified, it’s important to double check. Cross reference el-shab-hussein and nabulsi’s spreadsheet and the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet, and search the url/keywords from the fundraiser title in tumblr’s search bar. I have links to both spreadsheets, as well as gazafunds.com, in my pinned post. When answering an ask like this for a user that’s actually legit, linking to the verification will make it a lot easier for people to donate and share without hesitation.

I recognized this person immediately because el-shab-hussein has posted about this scam several times. I don’t have a link handy to any of Hussein’s posts about them, but people have been very kindly linking to these two users/posts so that when you search this url, you find proof of the scam.

An unverified fundraiser doesn’t always mean that it’s not legit, and I’ve been contacted by a lot of people who may not have been vetted at the time, but later on someone did verify them. It’s not necessarily a good idea to block unverified users right off the bat. I keep a list of users to search periodically for verification (or confirmation of a scam, if that is the case). But this person is a very well known scammer. If they contact you, just keep on sharing the proof of the scam and tell your followers to beware.

[creekfiend]

it's so fun seeing the epistolary story of you and ship in real time. you write about falling in love with someone you've known a long time. ship mentions travelling. you post excited about ship visit. ship tells an anecdote about a date. you're sad when ship leaves. ship tells an anecdote about a hickey. it's adorable, your names are even too similar for a portmanteau (sphipp?). i'm happy for you guys

this is a very sweet message but a little strange to receive anonymously! I'm sure you must have followed us both for some time to have made these observations and be invested in them, which I expect would probably mean I would recognize your URL if it had been attached here. I'm sure that sending this anonymously made you feel a little safer and less exposed, but receiving it anonymously makes me feel a little less safe and a little more exposed, even if logically I'm aware that it's a sweet and friendly message. I assume that like most of the anonymous messages I receive, this one is anonymous because you are a little bit shy. that is fine if someone is telling me a cute story about their dog! but it kinda gives unbalanced levels of privacy vibes if it's stuff like this. I am not saying this to scold you, just because I think it's something that you might want to take into consideration when sending messages in the future -- sometimes having a URL attached to a message renders that message Safer Feeling to receive. especially for people who have been Creepily Surveilled on this website in the past haha 🫠

[ambiguous-semicircle]

⚠️BEWARE: ZOUTIG/SALTY PUPPY⚠️

TW: GROOMING, CSA,  PEDOPHILIA, NECROPHILIA, BESTIALITY, LOLICON, HARASSMENT

Viewer discretion is advised. DO NOT harass this person, please.

If you’ve been in the Cyborg 009, Tezuka, or Showa era anime community, it’s inevitable that you’ve encountered Zoutig(he/they)- even if you didn’t realize it. They own the majority of Cyborg-009 related fan blogs on Tumblr and a discord server. This is a problem because they are the most active member of an extremely small fanbase, making others that want to participate in enjoying Cyborg 009 inevitably interact with them without knowing, and it can also make people that know about their behavior avoid the fandom entirely just because of them. They do not explicitly state who they are on most of their accounts and many have interacted with them by accident. This can also risk putting others in danger of being accused of being friends with a bad person. 

The purpose of this document is not to send harassment or threats their way, or even to deplatform them- but to bring awareness to their behavior which includes underage NSFW art, harassment, and grooming. This is not a doxx and we do not hope to find anything about who Zoutig really is, and neither should you. Everything is publicly available information. If you have had a bad experience with Zoutig, please DM us and we will update our document.

Zoutig, also known as Salty Puppy, Salty pupcake, or Prince Sorao, is an artist that focuses on showa-era anime and manga (showa meaning japanese cultural goods from the 50’s-80’s mostly). They are a shotacon, babycon, and toddlercon* and identify as a proshipper*. They particularly focus on the Cyborg 009 ship “47” (ship between Albert Heinrich [004] and Great Britain[007]) , which isn’t inherently strange, but they prefer using 007’s child design in their ship art. They can usually be easily recognized from their art style, obsession with Cyborg 009 and Fujio Akatsuka, and they occasionally speak in the Dutch language. 

Before we dive into their history, we will list all the accounts they own so you can block them. We will NOT link their nsfw accounts, since we do not want to distribute possibly illegal material (although it is not real CSAM). 

*Shotacon - male equivalent to Lolicon, attraction to young boys. Babycon and toddlercon - pretty self explanatory. 

*proshipper is usually vaguely defined as someone that people shouldn’t be harassed for what ships they like in fandoms, however it usually means someone that thinks any form of ships or nsfw content is okay including content that sexualizes minors or incestuous or abusive ships in a (usually) fictional setting. Not all proshippers are the same or agree on the last part, but the majority do.

Accounts

Tumblrs

Main: Salty Puppy https://www.tumblr.com/salty-puppy 

Personal: Salty Pupcake https://www.tumblr.com/salty-pupcake 

70s-cyborg-009-caps: https://www.tumblr.com/70s-cyborg-009-caps 

2001-cyborg-009-caps: https://www.tumblr.com/2001-cyborg-009-caps/ 

Just-cyborg-009-screencaps: https://www.tumblr.com/just-cyborg-009-screencaps/ 

The-wunderkind-cyborg: https://www.tumblr.com/the-wunderkind-cyborg 

Twitters:

Personal: Saltypupcake https://x.com/saltypupcake 

Art: ZoutigeKunsten https://x.com/ZoutigeKunsten 

Old username (deleted): Prince_Sorao https://x.com/Prince_Sorao 

Old art username (deleted): SoraoDoesArt https://twitter.com/SoraodoesArt 

Deviantart:

Prince-Sorao (old url) / Salty-Pupcake https://www.deviantart.com/salty-pupcake 

Instagram:

Prince Sorao (inactive) https://www.instagram.com/prince.sorao/ 

Pixiv

Zoutig (ID:29912163) https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/29912163 

(there is also a possible old Pixiv account besides the nsfw one mentioned later that is now inactive that I can’t find anymore. It’s pretty obvious to spot their art style so you’ll know when you see it.) 

Colors Live 

(no clue what this is, a drawing app i think?)

Anilist

Teirlist

Retrospring

(not linking as it could lead to harassment via anon asks.)

Discord Server

(no link provided for obvious reasons, just be sure not to join this and leave if you're in it)

To read the rest of this document, please click the link that goes to the full Google Doc. It goes into NSFW territory and grooming accusations, but nothing explicit is shown, viewer discretion is advised.

Full Document

[the-nameless-wacky-inventor]

heads up!

I'm sure by now some of y'all have seen this post of someone's kid oc-

and I would like to inform you- most if not all of these images are traced! :) I recognized most of them, and because I can't remember the urls of all of the actual ops I've tried to track them down.

What i've found so far is that the art here belongs to @yukdaruminha, @some-dumb-lesbian-bitch, @maxlovespigeons, @winterpower98, lechepop, @darkwingownsthenight, and @lethalhedgehogs-archive, in that order. If anyone else recognizes any of the other artists, please let me know! Currently the 3rd, 9th, and 11th drawings are unaccounted for.

(Do not! Go harass this person, I will bite you. I'm just trying to spread awareness and shut this down before it gets worse)

[scoobydoodean]

In my experience it's been bc deancrit cas/destiel girls can easily ignore most samgirls (at least hardcore ones) because they usually either ship wincest or don't really give a fuck about cas so they're in an entirely different "fandom circle". Whereas deangirls tend to have more crossover because the main ship in our circle is still destiel (while I'm personally kinda meh about romantic ships but I definitely see the appeal), so unfortunately they feel the need to get mad at deangirls they disagree w bc we "affect their fandom experience more".

I agree there's the wincest/samgirl/deangirl sphere and a destiel/casgirl/deangirl sphere and our posts generally circulate within those separate spheres among a completely separate audience. If I was hanging out with bibros, I'd get a lot more complaints from samgirls than I do in the destiel sphere (and many people in this "sphere" are meaner about Sam than I am tbqh).

In addition to that, samgirls and deangirls have been fighting since day one, so while we don't tend to view the show the same way and don't tend to get along, there's a pretty well-established 'Dead dove do not eat" situation between us. Of course squabbles still happen, but I think I tend to write meta in a way that makes our complete lack of interpretive common ground immediately apparent when samgirls do stumble across me. When you realize you can't agree with someone on the interpretation of dozens of basic facts, you often deflate before ever trying to start an argument.

On the other hand, I'm expected to display a certain amount of "loyalty" toward Cas. I actually do recognize this and I do actually respond to it to a certain degree (at the very least for the sake of a few casgirl mutuals). At the same time, I firmly believe that the expectations of deangirls and casgirls in the destiel sphere are not symmetric. In fact, most of the negative experiences I've had were a result of me disagreeing with popular deancrit takes rather than speaking critically of Cas. This is because among destiel shippers, there's an unspoken agreement to blog about Cas and Dean in a certain way, and it isn't all about hiding criticism—it's also about agreeing to accept certain criticisms that I... don't agree with. Me not agreeing with those criticisms is seen as "stirring up drama" by some destiel shippers. The thing is, I think most of the people who think of me that way are basing their expectations of my behavior on the constraints that they face themselves. How we behave on our own blogs is largely informed by who is mutuals with who (i.e., people don't want to upset their mutuals). Destiel shippers who follow hundreds of other blogs have a very collectivist mindset and tend to assume all destiel shippers follow the exact same mix of people that they do, when that is not the case. I follow maybe two dozen supernatural blogs.

I understand that some destiel shippers/casgirls don't want to see my opinions on their dashes, but I have a right to my opinions and I am literally not sharing a community the people who complain the most about me. I'm not going to obscure or change my opinions to make strangers I don't follow and whose posts I am in most cases not even cognizant of happy. Some casgirls avoid me or block me and move on with their lives and that works just fine for me, but others seem to have trouble accepting that I am over here blogging about things they don't agree with and get angry that they can't control what I post. At the end of the day, seeing my posts is a choice that a person has to actively make. I don't use generic fandom tags. I don't even tag my gifsets. I don't skulk around on the blogs of people I don't know looking for things to bitch about, and I never interact negatively on other people's posts. If a beloved mutual is putting my posts on someone's dash and they don't want to see my opinions, they can filter my url. It's literally that simple.

[tangibletechnomancy]

How To Use AI To Fake A Scandal For Fun, Profit, and Clout

Or, I Just Saw People I Know To Be Reasonable Fall For A Fake "Ripoff" And Now I'm Going To Gently Demonstrate What Really Happened

So, we all know what people say about AI. It's just an automatic collage machine, it's stealing your data (as if the rest of the mainstream internet isn't - seriously, we should be using that knee-jerk disgust response to demand better internet privacy laws rather than try to beef up copyright so that compliance has to come at the beginning rather than the end of the process and you can be sued on suspicion of referencing, but I digress...), it can't create anything novel, some people go so far as to claim it's not even synthesizing anything, but just acting as a search engine and returning something run through a filter and "proving" it by "searching" for their own art and "finding" it.

And those are blatant lies.

The thing is, the reason AI is such a breakthrough - and the reason we memed with it so hard when DALL-E Mini and DALL-E 2 first dropped - is because it CAN create novel output. Because it CAN visualize the absurd ideas that no one has ever posted to the internet before. In fact, it would be a bigger breakthrough in computer science if we DID come up with an automatic collage machine - something that knows where to cut out a part of one image and paste it onto another, then smooth out the lighting and colors to make them fairly consistent, to make it look like what we would recognize as an image we're asking for? That would make the denoising algorithm on steroids that a diffusion model is look like child's play.

But, unlike the posts that claim that they're just acting as a collage maker at best and a search engine at worst, I'm not going to ask you to take my word for it (and stick a pin in this point, we'll come back to it later). I'm going to ask you to go to Simple Stable (or Craiyon, or the Karlo demo, if Google Colab feels too complicated for you - or if you like, do all of the above) and throw in a shitpost prompt or two. Ask for a velociraptor carousel pony ridden by a bunny. Ask for Godzilla fighting a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man. Ask for an oil painting of a capybara wearing an ornate princess gown. Shitpost with it like we did before these myths took hold.

Now take your favorite result(s) and reverse image search them. Did you get anything remotely similar to your generated image? Probably not!

So then, how did someone end up getting a near perfect recreation of their work? Was that just some kind of wacky, one-in-a-million coincidence?

Well - oh no, look at that, I asked it for a simplistic character drawing and it happened to me too, it just returned a drawing of mine that I never even uploaded, and it's the worst drawing I've done since the fifth grade even just to embarrass me! Oh no, what happened, did they change things right under my nose, has digital surveillance gotten even WORSE?? Look, see, here's the original on the left, compare it to the output on the right - scary!! They're training on the contents of your computer in real time now, aaaagh!!

Except, of course, for the fact that the entire paragraph above was a lie and I did this on purpose in a way no one could possibly recreate from a text prompt, even with a perfect description.

How?

See, some models have this nifty little function called img2img. It can be used for anything from guiding the composition of your final image with a roughly drawn layout, to turning a building into a dragon...to post-processing of a hand-drawn image, to blatantly fucking lying about how AI works.

I took 5 minutes out of my day to crudely draw a character. I uploaded the image to this post. I saved the post as a draft. I stuck the image URL in the init_image field in Simple Stable, cranked the init strength up to 0.8, cleared all text prompts, and ran it. It did exactly what I told it to and tried to lightly refine the image I gave it.

If you see someone claiming that an AI stole their image with this kind of "proof", and the image they're comparing is not ITSELF a parody of an extremely well-known piece such as the Mona Lisa, or just so extremely generic that the level of similarity could be a coincidence (you/your favorite artist do/es not own the rule of thirds or basic fantasy creatures, just to name one family of example I've seen), this is what happened.

So from here you must realize that it is deeply insidious that posts that make these claims usually imply or even outright state that you should NOT try to recreate this but instead just take their word for it, stressing ~DON'T FEED THE MACHINE~. It's always some claim about "ohhh, the more you use them, the more they learn, I made a SACRIFICE so you don't have to" - but txt2img functions can't use your interaction to learn jack shit. There's no new information in a text prompt for them TO learn. Most img2img models can't learn from your input either, for that matter! I still recommend being careful about corporate img2img toys - we know that Facebook, for instance, is happy to try and beef up facial recognition for the WORST possible reasons - but if you're worried about your privacy and data harvesting, any given txt2img model is one of the least worrying things on the internet today.

So do be careful with your privacy online, and PLEASE use your very understandable knee-jerk horror response to how much extremely personal content can be found in training databases as a call to DEMAND better privacy laws ("do not track" should not be just for show ffs) and compliance with security protocols in fields that deal with very private information (COMMON CRAWL DOESN'T GO FAR OUT OF ITS WAY, IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET ANY MEDICAL IMAGES THE PATIENTS DIDN'T SHARE THEMSELVES HOLY SHIT, SOME HOSPITAL WORKERS AND/OR MEDICAL COMMUNICATIONS DEVELOPERS BETTER BE GETTING FIRED AND/OR SUED) - but don't just believe a convenient and easy-to-disprove lie because it aligns with that feeling.

[transman-badass]

Which Image - A Chzo Mythos fanfic

Title comes from the song Witch Image by the band Ghost. If there's interest I'll write more and explain to my followers what this game series is.

Apologies to the people who wanted to be tagged in this, Tumblr isn't recognizing your urls. I'll try to tag in a reblog. Also apologies to the British if my American ass screwed things up. I'll make edits as needed.

London, 2015

In between the crackling thunder, a young man screamed in agony, sweet as the music of a harpsichord.

Footsteps pounded like the rain through the stolen, repurposed corpse of a building. An office, once, now a shell like any other mortal body. Down the many stairs the footsteps carried, sneakers squeaking wet on dirty tile. Down the stairs and through the halls, she ran.

Why the persistence? Too late, far too late, to save her friend. But the young woman resisted the obvious. Dark of hair and pure of heart, he could not harm her yet. He watched the sweat drip down her warm brown skin, how she brushed the strands of hair from her face. Standing, kneeling, struggling, suffering.

He watched and he wondered. Yes, he did wonder.

It'd been a strange choice, to offer up an American for a sacrifice, but Chzo was not a picky god. This young woman could not have looked more different from her light-haired friend. But in her eyes, a desperate fire burned, and looking away proved a challenge.

That fire… She reminded him of someone. How distasteful.

Of course, of course, too late for her friend. She opened the door to strangers standing over the remains. Of course, of course, too late for her. The cult would spare her, when they caught her, he would ensure it…

They did not catch her.

They did not even notice her, too consumed with their own escape. The Ministry agents closed in, fortune smiling upon them once again. She fled, they fled, and it had all gone wrong.

He could've been furious.

He could've been.

Instead, he stood upon the old building, his shadow stretching long in the light flashing overhead. He stood, and he watched her race into the darkness, her parcel, their parcel, clutched to her frail body.

He watched, and yes, yes he wondered.

She reminded him of someone… Cabadath wasn't sure he liked that.

It'd been almost twelve hours before anyone realized the girl was gone. Far too late to save her life. The Order of Blessed Agonies worked fast. But so did Trilby.

The Order must've been desperate to prey on tourists. They had to have known who they were choosing. The accents on these kids weren't subtle. Five of them came overseas on spring holiday, bright eyed and oblivious. Three headed home tonight. The other two would follow in coffins.

“Trilby,” one of his supervisors said, “I know what you're thinking. Don't put yourself at risk to try and save this kid.”

“I'm already at risk,” he'd said. “What's a little more?”

“We need you alive - and so do they.”

And that was the thing, wasn't it? The Order wouldn't keep this girl, this Jillian Taylor Cortez, alive, but he couldn't say they'd do the same with him. Damned prophecies…

Her name was Jillian Taylor Cortez. She just turned 19. Mexican-American mother, British father. Got her middle name because the latter died before she was born, so said her friends.

She looked nothing like Simone Taylor. If she had, Trilby might've lost it again.

Twelve hours, they found the boy, or what was left of him. They'd followed the muddy footprints from the ground floor all the way to the altar. Trilby followed them back up, frowning. Pretended he didn't see the glances between the ones around him.

He had a hunch.

Just a hunch, but he'd been doing this for almost twenty years now. Just a hunch, he'd say later… but he'd been right before.

“Don't you dare!” Someone shouted at his back. “Damn it, Trilby! Get back here! It's not worth it!”

He ignored them, ignored the rain soaking his suit. Wasn't breaking the rules if nobody up top told you not to. Besides, he was just following a hunch. Just giving a quick check around the buildings. No harm in that.

No harm on her, when he caught her dead center in the light of his torch.

He stared at her and she stared right back, her eyes wide and hollow. The rain soaked her right through, plastering clothes to skin and hair to her cheeks. The bow in her hair, half undone. The fear in her eyes, too painful, too real.

Trilby raised a hand.

“Jill-”

She bolted.

“Wait! No!”

Trilby followed.

The kid knew how to run. Ran through the streets like the world was ending. Trilby kept up. He wasn't young anymore, he'd feel it for the next few days, but he kept up. So did the rain.

Only took a few wrong turns. She didn't know anything about the area - neither did he, to be fair. Was only a little bit of a surprise to find themselves in another alley, to come across the fence blocking their way. Was a very big surprise when the girl ran right for it.

“Jillian!” He shouted over the thunder. “Jill!”

Did she even hear him? She didn't stop. Lunged for the fence, one hand grasping the chain link metal. Trilby moved faster than her.

He grabbed her around the waist. She screamed. They both hit the ground, he let her go and she scrambled backwards. He shifted, sat up, looked her in the face again.

Terrified eyes, wide and wild. It wasn't just the rain soaking her cheeks, the spring weather shuddering her shoulders.

Trilby raised his hands.

“Jillian,” he said. “It's alright, Jill. I'm with the Ministry of Occultism. We're here to help you. I can't believe you're still alive…”

She breathed. She held the book in her arms tight. Book? He looked down at it. Heavy, large, leather bound. Some kind of writing on the cover.

Oh my God, he thought. Did she steal that from the Order?

Trilby looked up to her face again. Her eyes locked onto something over his shoulder.

Trilby jerked out of the way. The blade buried into the ground he'd stood moments before. Trilby moved, backed away as far as he could go, the blood draining from his face.

“Oh, hell,” Trilby said.

The featureless face of the Prince of Pain tilted towards him. Cabadath had not changed at all in the last twenty years. Bone chilling, even after all these years and all their meetings. Still ever the same, nine feet tall and dressed in black, the rain coursing down his long coat and leaving the fabric dry. The Prince straightened in slow motions, raising the four pronged scythe and resting it by his side.

Still the Prince stared at him, though he had no eyes to do so. He raised a hand and pointed to the girl.

Jill. She'd gotten out of the way just in time. Trilby couldn't risk looking away from the Prince for longer than an instant, Cabadath moved too fast, but she still breathed, standing against the fence. Her eyes, still wild, locked onto the terror between them.

Had Cabadath been chasing her too? The Prince had powers like no human ever could. Hallucinations were a favorite, Trilby knew that from experience.

The Prince waited.

Trilby took a breath.

“Jillian,” he said. “Give him the book.”

She did not move but her whole body shuddered with her breath.

“He's playing nice right now,” Trilby said, eyes locked on the Prince, “but he doesn't have to. You don't know what he's fully capable of, you've just seen part of it.”

Jillian did not move.

“There's nothing in that book that can help you,” Trilby said. “You don't want to get involved with this more than you have been. I don't know how you got it, but you need to give it back. Before he takes it from you.”

Her body shuddered. Jillian blinked, hard. The Prince did not move. He did not look away.

Her arms unlocked. She took another deep, shuddering breath. Holding the book in careful hands, she laid it upon the ground at her feet, and stepped away. And away. And away.

Trilby watched the Prince. He did not notice where the young woman moved to, until she stopped. Stopped between him and Cabadath, facing the Prince, her arms stretched out as if she could protect Trilby from the monster watching them.

Protect him from Cabadath. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry at the thought.

The Prince tilted his head. His gaze shifted towards the girl. Trilby placed a hand on Jillian’s shoulder. Cabadath’s shoulders shook, as if in silent laughter. But of course, no sound came from the Tall Man. They were not worth the effort.

Turning away from the mortals, Cabadath stepped toward the book. He knelt, and with one long free hand, picked it up. Turning fully back towards the two humans, he bowed a mocking thanks. Trilby set his teeth, held Jill's shoulder as she flinched.

As the Prince straightened, he vanished. The rain poured down over them and the tension disappeared from Trilby's body. Cabadath truly was gone. For now.

Jillian sobbed.

Trilby's focus snapped to her again. Shit.

“Jill?”

She placed her hand over her mouth as the sobs shook her body.

“Cal,” she whispered the name of her friend. “Cal, I'm sorry.”

He couldn't think of anything to say. Trilby wrapped an arm around her and pulled out his phone with the other. How long had it been ringing?

“Yeah?” He said. “Yeah, I'm alright. Yeah, we're both okay. I found the girl, she's alive. It's… it's a long story. I'll explain everything back at headquarters.”

Trilby held the young woman against his body as he led her back into the light. He glanced uneasy at the roofs above them, expecting a tall shadow staring down, but only the rain waited overhead, the drops falling down between her tears.

[moodr1ng]

repeating it periodically: the majority (though not all!!) of mutual aid fundraisers spread via massively copypasted asks to random users i have seen have been scams, and theyre usually easy to spot if you take a minute to check.

(edit: i forgot to say this specifically, but palestinians are one of the few exceptions where most of the fundraisers being spread through asks ive seen are legit and not scams. the following criteria does not apply; many palestinians have very recent blogs with little information, but are still legitimate. fundraisers vetted by palestinian users are trustworthy.)

signs to look out for:

- the blog is very recent, usually a couple days old (presumably, the scammers need to keep creating new blogs each time one loses momentum from being recognized as fake), and there are no indication that this is because the user just remade or lost their previous account.

- the blog has been filled with one, two, or maybe a small handful of pages' worth of reblogs. the reblogs are all directly from the source and are either of popular posts or posts all on the same subject - the scammer is filling up the blog with innocuous-looking posts so it won't look brand new at a glance, either by reblogging whatever is on the trending page, or reblogging from a couple of tags (usually fandom tags).

- the blog either has no bio, or has a very short, sterile, impersonal bio: a name, an age, maybe some slogan like 'blm', but no other indications of a personality or identity present.

- there are no personal posts whatsoever on the blog, aside from the post promoting the fundraiser.

- information about the fundraising is vague and non-committal: the reason given for needing funds lacks any details (or the details make no sense), no updates are ever posted regarding the situation, and/or the amount needed is never specified.

- the photos used as the blogs avatar or as "proof" in the fundraising post are stolen from somewhere else. this one is blatant, but back-searching a stolen image unfortunately doesnt always work and you may not find the source that way.

- you were sent an ask about this fundraiser despite being a small account with no particular reach: why is this person sending hundreds and hundreds of the same copypasted ask to random small blogs rather than going for popular blogs or relying on their mutuals and followers?

- the fundraising is being done through paypal and the name of the paypal is completely different from the one used on the blog (while many people on tumblr dont use their legal name online, you may still notice stranger discrepancies, like the fundraising blog giving a last name which isnt the last name on the paypal account, or the scammer claiming to be a person of color and using a clearly non-white name on their blog while having a very white name on paypal) - and if you look up the paypal name on tumblr, you find post after post warning people about this being the account of a repeat scammer.

while some of these alone may not mean someone is scamming, if most of these are there... its a scam. just looking up the persons url on tumblr is a quick way to find out if this person is being called out for scamming all over the place, as well.

if youre tempted to assume a fundraiser is probably real without checking because the story being told is so serious and no one would be fucked up enough to make up such a heartless scam, please know i once had to contact a father on facebook to tell him someone had stolen a picture of his toddler currently suffering with a life-threatening illness lying in a hospital bed, switched out the little girls name while copypasting her actual story, and had started a gofundme to make money off her and spread it on tumblr, while the real parents were themselves trying to raise money to keep their child from dying. there is no degree of depravity that these scammers will not stoop down to. just take a minute to check.

[stargazerlily7210]

Hey! Bridgerton fans! Especially LGBTQ Bridgerton fans!! I feel like you should know about this?!

I just stumbled across this petition on change.org and it gave me really bad (homophobic) vibes.

Look, full disclosure, I'm not one of you yet, so I don't know what's going on in the show, therefore this could be nothing, but it gave me bad/homophobic vibes so i figured I'd share, just in case. Please know that I dont have any problems with the show, I just haven't watched it cause interpersonal/social/backstabbing/miscommunication types of drama stress me out too much, and as far as I can tell, that's a solid 80% of the plot. The Bridgerton fans who know me have already warned me that I'd have a bad time for those very reasons, and I trust them with my life, so please forgive my lack of Bridgerton knowledge.*

Anyway. All that to say, I haven't seen a single episode of Bridgerton. Literally, all I know is it takes place in a fantasy version of Regency England, the soundtrack is for the Lindsey Stirling/Piano Guys crowd, that Penelope is Gossip Girl/Lady Whistledown, and what can be gleamed about the season 1 plot from that one tiktok sound about newlyweds burning for eachother and suicidal ideation in mazes.

I am a Doctor Who fan, however, and therefore was made aware of the lack of/hope for LGBTQ rep in season 3.2 and beyond (I'm just assuming that word of Doctor Who's "Gay Bridgerton" episode has made the rounds on Bridgerton tumblr by now).

(I don't want to add the url because it just asks you to sign the petition, but if you want to find it, I figure it's easy enough to look up)

If you don't see why I worry this petition is fundamentally homophobic, here's a glimpse of the review section (where only those who have signed the petition can leave a comment):

Now, I recognize that this might be a misunderstanding and a 'not my pig, not my farm'/'stay in your lane' situation as someone outside the fandom who hasnt seen the show. But as a whovian who lived through superwholock, I know a thing or two about queerbating and how showrunners can respond/succumb to pressure from the fandom, this feels like the wrong kind of backlash, that's all.

[beif0ngs]

someone has kindly informed me that tumblr user @jim-bei (now @soranatus) might've been reposting some of my gifs, and wow i'm actually speechless...

original post:

repost:

original post:

repost:

original post:

repost:

and they have the absolute f*cking NERVE to include tags like these on reposted gifsets containing MY gifs: #I know this episode came out a while ago but I wanted to try and make my own edit of it / #I know I’m very late to gif this but I wanted to give it a try like listen, i can recognize my gifs from a single damn glance because i take the time & effort to make them. what tumblr user @jim-bei/@soranatus is doing here is simply f*cking 'cropping' and stealing my gifs and passing it off as their own.

[UPDATE]

found ANOTHER one of my gifsets that they reposted

original post:

repost:

they conveniently cropped out my watermark and then proceeded to oversaturate the gifs in a pathetic attempt to pass it off as their own gifs... like wow, i am actually f*cking pissed.

[ANOTHER UPDATE]

ALRIGHT... this is making me more mad by the minute. so, not only are they LYING, they're trying to spin it in such a way that their reposted gifs containing my gifs is simply 'editing it similarly'. dude no, there is NO f*cking way. when i make gifs, i not only crop AND resize the scenes the way i want it, i also recolor and sharpen them using my own settings. yes, gifmakers can make similar sets but never the EXACT same. their so-called 'editing it similarly' is literally cropping MY gifs, and reposting it as their own.

[ADDITIONAL UPDATE]

someone else just messaged me to let me know that they've apparently changed their url to @soranatus

[euniexenoblade]

About 'transandrophobia' one of the trans men who is vocal about it, is nothorses who has been found to use source from terf, terf lingo, etc. Nothorses also admits to being a former 'changed' terf, but he still sources from terfs. Let's not forget his frequency at calling trans fems baeddels when they disagree with him, in addition to trans women and other trans people of color (including t mascs of color) radfems and terfs for disagreeing with him. There have been literal terfs in the transandrophobia tag and when you source back to what they are saying, it is always nothorses.

Now, as someone who is an older trans masc, I'm not just pissed at nothorses for the transmisogyny, but he is literally in a way, grooming young trans mascs to fall for a lot of extremely harmful, terfy rhetoric that is going to not just get them hurt but pit them against trans fems and other trans people. There are so many young trans mascs, minors who eat up the gender essentialist bs he says, and reinforce his harmful views on trans fem and literally, trans people who don't agree with him. It's sad, because I know that if i were younger and looking for a community I would've easily been manipulated by that.

The only good thing is that i'm seeing across multiple sites how quickly people just don't take him seriously. In various trans spaces, he is recognized as a terf, because he is. I only hate the hundreds of young trans mascs that are going to have to unlearn the transmisogyny he teaches them as well as unlearn the fear-mongering he and his group are spoonfeeding him about trans women.

I feel so strongly about this and I'm really happy people are talking about this more. He and his group have harassed so many trans people off of this site simply for standing up to them. Especially trans women. And no matter how many flips he does to make himself seem trans-inclusive it's clear he hates trans women and he has yet to unlearn his terf ideology.

Does no one find it strange that he admitted to being a terf, claims he's changed but continues to push anti trans fem ideologies in his group chats and posts?? like --

im just sorta posting this with no comment cuz idk what to say. I'm not really a fan of posting asks that straight up say people's urls, but this guy is an actual terf who preaches terf rhetoric and cites terfs in his writing. So I hope with more upfront discussion about it maybe we can help vulnerable groups get away from him and find an an actual trans community thats intent isnt building bigotry.

[gencrittransvestite]

No, I am not being a troll

As my url states, I have autogynephilia and by common definition I am transfem/TIM, but I also support radical feminism generally and its stance on trans people specifically (I know that a lot of you consider "TERF" a slur, but I picked it as more open, because a lot of people here are trying to make radical feminism trans-inclusive by removing sex-based oppression from it).

Why do I believe in sex-based oppression?

Because it obviously exists and you can see it in how transmasculine people are treated

Because it's the only meaningful explanation of emergence of patriarchy

Because sex of trans people still affects our lives and everyone recognizes it

I went through a brief period of detransition because of severe doubts, and it made me realize that attempts at describing patriarchy as "gender-based oppression" fail to address cases of detransitioners

My stance on trans people

(This has gotten long, but TL/DR: sex and gender are different, and both are valid in different contexts)

I don't think that trans people are purposefully being predatory and inherently wicked, don't come at me with this thing.

I don't think that gender identity is innate the way sexuality is, I do believe that it's constructed, but I don't think that it's not real altogether. It's real the same way ethnicity or religion are - there is nothing in your brain that makes you Swede or Catholic, but this identity has meaning to people and affects their lives. And I don't mean masculinity/femininity by it, I have masculine female friends who I am not trying to trans, and GNC trans people are real.

Some people are trans because of life-long physical dysphoria, some because they detest social expectations, some internalize homophobic or sexist stereotypes, some do it because of AGP/AHE (which is not some dirty perversion), some have culturally-specific reasons, and much more. Obviously, different groups of trans people have different needs, and some of them wouldn't be trans in different societies or won't be in the futue, but they are trans now and that's something you can't dismiss.

However, one's gender identity doesn't erase your sex (though a lot of trans people tend to emphasize with people of their gender rather than sex), and doesn't make you entitled to be included in someone's sexuality. Sexuality is about body as much as it's about personality, and it's bodies that we have innate attraction to. Existence of trans people and especially medically transitioning ones does complicate categorization, because some people may be only attracted to men in daily lives but also wouldn't mind transmasc partner who is on T but didn't have SRS, some would dislike even fully operated partner because other features or even because of their AGAB (and it's fine), and some people may have no preference in bodies but strong preference in gender identity, and so on. But in the end of the day, for a lot of people it's either birth sex that matters or they are bisexual, and it's completely fine.

This attitude is especially gross when it comes to gay people, because on top of trans people simply not being attractive to them it provokes their trauma response.

Why do I call myself AGP?

This is complicated and some of it is just for edginess.

But also I recognize that my physical dysphoria is pretty insignificant and incomplete, and I can't even prove that it won't go away. That's why I decided to not transition.

When I say AGP I mean that I feel a thrill when I think of myself as a girl etc. I don't get hard from it and don't enjoy being degraded for femininity, as transphobic caricatures say, but I think that foundation of my AGP is at least partially in attraction to women.

It also highlights the fact that I am probably not a "true transsexual" or otherwise absolutely inborn woman, and I accept it. Whatever.

Some additional information:

My chosen name is Belle

This blog exists as my attempt to build bridges from transfem side (transmascs both do it themselves and some cis women reach out to them) and to provide insights both about lives of transfems and views of radical feminists to anyone who asks

I am into women, but I don't call myself a lesbian because it feels like too much of an intrusion. I won't describe my sexuality further here, but asks are open

DNI: misogynists, homophobes, racists (including antisemites and zionists)

If you feel uncomfortable about me - just block me, I won't feel bad

I admit being male, but I still dislike it. It's always fine to point how being socialized as a boy or being perceived as male changes my social life, and I recognize sexual dimorphism in reasonable (i.e. real) terms, but I would like you to not go out of your way to trigger my dysphoria. Thank you

[thatswhatsushesaid]

tagged (kinda) by @mingguangsword!

i lost my first draft of this post 😭 let's try again.

1. why did you choose your url? because i am weak for puns, and because i am actually su she. weepy yet defensive lestat de lioncourt at the end of s2 voice, i am him, he is me.

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. a whole whack of them:

@dailyayao which is just daily screenshots and scans of jin guangyao from all versions of the mdzs canon

@yaozongzhupressoffice my neglected satire blog where i answer asks and reblog stuff in-character as yao-zongzhu. occasionally will make references to his entirely heterosexual feelings for his very good friend ouyang-zongzhu in the tags.

@itwasabeautifulwebbing my minthara baenre from baldur's gate 3 simping blog lol. it's also turning into a catch-all for various video game nonsense, tho i'm definitely not as active there as i am here.

@fakerashid same deal as above, just for armand from amc's interview with the vampire.

3. how long have you been on tumblr? i first joined back in 2011 with a different username back in the migration of the dragon age fandom from livejournal to tumblr, and have been kicking around in some form or another ever since.

4. do you have a queue tag? sure do! 'moling queue' because, as i said, i'm weak for puns.

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? originally this blog had a different username, and i started it with the intention of cross-posting very serious horror fiction thinkpieces from a wordpress site. obviously i stopped doing that and have been enjoying myself a lot more here since i stopped taking myself so seriously lmao.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? i don't understand the question, that's literally me, su-zongzhu. (please god recognize this is a joke)

7. why did you choose your header? i just think jgy and sms look very powerful and dapper together in that scene. 😌

8. what’s your post with the most notes? some unfortunate ides of march shitpost that broke containment within an hour, i have it muted and hope to never think about it again.

9. how many mutuals do you have? no idea. lots? lots and lots?

10. how many followers do you have? 1271 as of this morning.

11. how many people do you follow? apparently 400 on the nose

12. have you ever made a shitpost? absolutely not, i don't have a sense of humour or believe in laughter.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? every time my attention wanders pretty much lmfao (despondent)

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? never!!!! 😬

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts? i ignore them.

16. do you like tag games? yes!

17. do you like ask games? "i love them, but i don't like chain asks" <- same hat

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? "probably ray" <- oh no oh dear 😬 i think if i qualify as tumblr famous (doubt.jpeg) then probably a bunch of my mutuals are, too.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? i am boring and married so no.

20. what is the last song you listened to? this performance of the famous "flowing water" composition for the guqin.

21. what are you currently watching? nirvana in fire, and it's consumed my soul. mei changsu 👀...... /clenches my fist

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? "savory"! <- correct!!!

23. what is your current relationship status? "literally on my way to break up with someone T_T i'll be single in a few hours!!!" <- omg fennel!!??? um, as i said above, i'm married! no plans to divorce mr. sushesaid, he surprised me with flowers and takeout from my favourite indian restaurant yesterday because i was having a rough day.

24. what is your current obsession? jin guangyao. it's still jin guangyao. it's probably going to be jin guangyao this time next year too.

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

it's not an album, but basically all of the ensemble and solo performances by zi de guqin studio on youtube.

return to cookie mountain, tv on the radio

the wellermen's album of shanties and other arranged covers

the hades 2 videogame soundtrack

the baldur's gate 3 videogame soundtrack

the chain, fleetwood mac

all of the lyrical ballads from the kentucky route zero videogame soundtrack (are u noticing a pattern, because i am)

the haven videogame soundtrack

the assassin's creed valhalla videogame soundtrack

tagging: @ratheralark @holy--milk @carnivorous-horses-lover @sunriseverse @watertightvines @frodo-of-the-nine-fingers @confusion-and-more @occasionalinanity @varethinsilico @thepurplewombat @peacocksdance and anyone else who puts eyes on this thing and feels moved to complete it.