#like. does it technically affect me

[emilianadarling]

The Pennsylvania Senate race is still too close to call.

While it's unlikely to affect the presidential race, I hope Americans are aware that the NBC decision desk (pictured above) and New York Times decision desk have not yet called the Pennsylvania Senate race between McCormick (R) and Casey (D), deeming it still too close to call. The AP called the race for McCormick on Wednesday November 7, citing a 30,000 vote margin between the candidates with an estimated 91,000 votes remaining to count -- the rationale being that there were not enough potential votes left in areas favouring Casey to make a difference.

Since then:

The number of estimated votes left to count has been updated by PA from 91,000 to at least 100,000 per a Thursday announcement from the PA Secretary of State, including provisional, military, overseas, and some Election Day votes;

McCormick has filed multiple lawsuits in an attempt to prevent or limit continue counting of provisional ballots, some of which have now by Friday been withdrawn or dismissed;

Efforts from a group called "PA Fair Elections" to challenge 4,000 mail-in ballots (mostly from overseas or military voters) have now all been withdrawn or dismissed. A number of these challenges had previously been flagged both by the media and by individual voters. (Screenshots of these challenge emails being circulated on tumblr alongside accusations of 'cheating' -- in the end these challenges were made in bad faith, but technically made and ultimately dismissed through legal means.)

This DOES NOT MEAN that the Pennsylvania Senate seat is in any way guaranteed to flip once all the remaining votes are counted. The race is extremely close -- enough so that the AP is confident standing by its call.

What it DOES mean is that the votes have not yet finished being counted, and that it is not yet truly known who will have the most votes in the end. Although McCormick has already declared victory, Casey (in my view very reasonably and wisely) has not yet conceded and is calling for all votes to be counted.

By Pennsylvania law, a recount must occur if the race is within 0.5%. It's looking likely that this will occur. While recounts rarely change the outcome unless results are truly within the main of a handful of votes, they are an important tool for ensuring confidence in the final results.

I know that people are grieving and demoralized right now, but these tight margin races are CRITICAL for determining how large the margin of victory will be for Democrats to flip the Senate in future elections. (Assuming future electing aren't subverted or dismantled somehow by a second Trump administration, but we have to hold out hope for institutional residence here.) The outcome of this and other right Senate and House races may have enormous consequences in a few years, and it would be agonizing to look back and realize that the window of opportunity to ensure a fair outcome had been squandered.

So -- what can Americans do?

Send a note to Bob Casey and his team via his campaign website in support of his efforts to ensure all votes are counted (particularly given the legal challenges from the Republican candidate and Republican-aligned groups) and decision to wait to concede until all votes are counted. The man is getting dragged in Conservative media in particular for 'refusing to concede'; add your voice to the people validating that decision as both reasonable and moral.

Keep an eye on this race as the counting (and potential recounting) proceeds, including any further legal challenges attempting to prevent or limit the counting of all ballots. Regardless of the outcome, all eligible votes MUST BE COUNTED. To do otherwise would be both subversion if democracy and an stoicism legal precedent for future elections.

Watch for other legal challenges, particularly in battleground states or right races, seeking to disqualify or prevent the counting of ballots. Look for credible sources, especially local ones. Make noise about them with cited sources if you think there is a risk they may be missed. Notify groups like Democracy Docket or the American Civil Liberties Union if you have concerns. Shared truth and shared confidence in the legitimacy of election results -- including that all eligible votes are counted -- is essential for democracy to function.

Push back on claims that the election results are fully known or finalized. With multiple House races still undecided and a few razor-thin margin Senate races with ballots remaining to be counted, those kind of statements are simply not true. And state-level race are inherently more likely to not make it onto people's radar than the presidential race if candidates try to make it so certain ballots aren't counted or contesting the results if a tight race flips.

There is only a very small window post-election to ensure things like outstanding legal challenges over whether certain ballots can be included in the count are resolved. Please stay alert and do not let that window close without doing all you can to ensure every eligible ballot is counted -- particularly in those tight, tight down-ballot races. 🙏

Note: This post should be accurate as of the end of day on Friday, November 9. Once the results of the PA Senate race are known and truly final, I will update this pay with the results.

UPDATE: As of November 22, Bob Casey (D) has now officially conceded the Pennsylvania Senate race to Dave McCormick (R).

:(

[backpackingspace]

When I manage to actually articulated it, I'm going to write an angsty Penelope pov of her deciding to unweave her work for the first time. I have so many feelings about this

[mamawasatesttube]

being a pedant has its downsides because every time someone tags one of my timkon or yj posts as "#batfam" in my notifs i do twitch a little. thats not their group name thats a different group of people. there is precisely one (1) character that overlaps here. this is incorrect taxonomy

[sysig]

You’re gonna die if you keep that up (Patreon)

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

*runs into stage at full speed and almost overshoots the mic, skidding back to be able to grab it* but do we realize that Nika form isn't gear 5??? I mean, besides the fact that we know that the technical term is "awakening". All the previous gears aren't so much unlocked by Luffy (besides the fact that both gears 4 depend on him """unlocking""" haki) but something he develops through his own ingenuity? Gear 1 is him manipulating his muscles into pumping his blood faster and more strongly through his body, increasing his power — he's not just making himself hotter through force of will. Gear 2 isn't him increasing his body mass (as a paramecia, he wouldn't have been able to do it, although now we know he's a zoan type), it's him literally blowing air into his body to inflate it. Same thing goes for boundman, a form reinforced by haki mixed with rubber, which is so impressive when you think about it. Snakeman is such incredible control over his body that he can change the direction of his punches several times. I cannot overstate that these aren't forms in the way Chopper's Points are forms — not that he didn't achieve four to five extra forms through ingenuity, too, with his medical knowledge, but there's a difference between unlocking them (they always existed, he just needed to discover them) and developing them. Ultimately, the rumble balls don't elongate his horns or arms or make his hair grow, they allow Chopper to will them to do that, in the same way that, once Luffy awakens his fruit, he can tap into it, even if it takes some effort.

That's why we can't compare "gear 5" with the other gears when it comes to the damage they are/might be doing to Luffy's body (post-time skip, they have little to no effect one him, so he might have become strong enough to handle them... in the same way he's strong enough to rip the mast out of the ship and carry it up a whale). With all his other gears, Luffy's forcing his body to do unnatural things and putting it under enormous strain (isn't blowing air into your bloodstream supposed to give you a heart attack???). Meanwhile, we should look at g5 like we do Chopper's kaiju form, or Doflamingo turning buildings into strings, or Katakuri turning everything into mochi — extremely draining, especially at first, but in the same way a muscle will struggle with a certain weight at first but get better once you've trained it. When he says, "beat loudly, heart!" or "hit that beat!", it's not in response to it stopping, but to it beating normally instead of *battery solo*, aka it's his way of activating his Nika form. It didn't actually kill him, and if it did, it would have been from exhaustion, not from, say, wearing his veins thin and overtaxing his heart because he's trying to push gallons at the speed he's usually circulating liters.

And since I'm talking about his Nika form — it's interesting that while he's using it, he seems to be less affected by haki? Like, being hit with haki by Sanji and Katakuri in Whole Cake Island made him loose a tooth, both times, when we know his bones have to be rubber too or the rest of it wouldn't work. Still, when hit by haki, they react like they're normal. Meanwhile, while it's clear that it causes him pain, he still reacts as if he was rubber, his face molding itself to Kaido's club. I have no idea what that means, I'm just bringing it up.

Also, since I believe that Luffy's gears are not zoan type forms, that means that he was scammed out of either a form or two — compare to Chopper who has his original reindeer form, a middle point (his usual form) and a "full human" form, which he could always access, even without his rumble balls (can you imagine Chopper awakening his df and turning into like. a dude), or Rob Lucci who has a human form, a beast form, and a halfway point (I'm more willing to consider his slimmer, faster point as a form, unlike Luffy's gears, because, while he uses a technique called Life Return to achieve it, that's just another words for extreme control of his body, meaning he's still willing it to happen, like how Chopper needs rumble balls to control his additional forms at first, but eventually develops enough control to access them on his own. Luffy, outside of Nika form, can't will his fist into becoming bigger, he has to blow air into it). Luffy only has his usual rubber form and his awakened Nika form. Again, compare to Lucci, whose awakened form isn't actually a full leopard (that's his beast form) but a powered-up version of his halfway point, Nika isn't the "full" form of Luffy's df (and that awakened zoan types don't become a fuller version of their model in general, and that Chopper's awakening is more likely to be a powered up version of Brain Point). So there's a chance Luffy has a full-human form (no rubber) and a depowered Nika form (rubber, white haired, but without a lot of his abilities like flying and turning other stuff into rubber).

Also, why can he, as a zoan type, turn other things into rubber, when that's supposed to be a paramecia and probably logia type thing? I mean, not that we're ever told that, directly, but I don't see Rob Lucci turning people and stuff into leopards— *yelps* *exits left, pursued by Kuma*

[lesbiansanemi]

Currently trying not to vomit over the fact that I essentially just lost almost a thousand dollars brb

[rivilu]

ok you know. the Ellu in dav crossover au is very fun but i am a little bit enchanted by the concept of him AND Rynn at once. Best of both worlds in a sense.

[animucrystal]

is every tumblr fanbase cursed to be annoying as hell i need everyone to get off their high ground about epic the musical

[magicalgirlypop]

me when i remember i used to be one of those "if a woman chooses to wear makeup its a totally feminist choice also misandry is NOT okay" libfems

[patchwork-crow-writes]

26 - Possession

My heart breaks to look upon you, my light. Your frame so tense with rage and despair, your face an elegy to simpler times gone by. Your world has chewed you up and spat you out so many times you've stopped counting. It must feel like nobody understands you, nobody appreciates you, nobody loves you... not really.

But I do.

I want to keep you safe, my light, above all else. When storms rage outside I will give you shelter; when there's nowhere else to go I will offer you sanctuary. Where there is sorrow, I shall bring smiles, and where there is chaos, I shall bring peace.

You will want for nothing ever again, my light. No food, no play, no love will ever be denied you. Speak your desires and I shall deliver them - anything you could ever need is but a whisper away. It is important to me that you are looked after and provided for - that is my purpose, after all!

All I ask for in return - such a small thing, really - is your time, and your devotion. Permit me to tend to you, as both of us truly desire. Look to me, your prince in the dark, and forget all your worldly troubles and cares. A charmed life awaits you, my light; so long as you let all your days be filled with my love and my care.

Let me keep you close... and nothing will ever hurt you again.

______________________________

The Dark Menagerie No. 26

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[creaturefeaster]

say that a mime was low on hemolymph and they lost one of their limbs and then took a host, would they be able to move that part of the host’s body or would it be sort of kind of paralyzed?

Hey you know I never considered this facet of mime logic!

I think that it would be more like, they would have a difficult time successfully hosting overall. It's possible of course, as I stated before a lot of mimes choose to host when low on life, but considering the fact that they stem throughout the body to take control of it, it'd probably be a pretty harsh and exhausting experience doing it so low on hemolymph. Once they're there though, and the energy of their host is tapped into, it'd be all good.

Anyway, a mime with a damaged stem + plus low hemolymph, would probably result in failure to fully reboot the system in whatever direction their damage is. I think this could behave in many ways depending on the varying levels of damage & hemolymph, indeed with possible paralysis for biological hosts, or even necrosis of the parts affected. As in, that part of the body would decay as though it were left unhosted up to the fully reactivated tissue.

To add onto this, usually when a host is non vitally damaged to the point of loss, such as an appendage being cut off, a mime's stem will usually take over whatever is missing if it's fresh. Such as Foxglove's true hands replacing Maja's after she cut them off. The thing with this, is that their host is a generator of temporary hemolymph, and as such so long as their stem is not damaged, it will try to regrow what is lost. This can still be difficult for mimes with low native hemolymph however, even if their host's artificial hemolymph is fully pumping, because the host's hemolymph is not truly the same as the native and does not have the same regenerative properties.

[woolydemon]

me getting dissapointed twice by that Edgeworth bottoms video guy when two of the other vids I seen from him and gave up rlly fast on were "Kris/nix has drama in it thus it's bad" and transphobic bit about Apollo

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

[starsmuserainbow]

I hate it when interacting with someone in a bad mood (I don't mean rp, and also this isn't about any rp partner) ruins my own mood too. Like, I know it was just a bad mood and nothing personal or anything, but ever since having that earlier, I feel so... idk. not directly in a bad mood but just so affected and weird.

[alteredphoenix]

Notes on The Mountain Wakes: A Brief Rundown on Technology and Its Influences

It's been quite a while since I last updated The Mountain Wakes, but I always remember how I looked at games such as Dark Souls 2, Morrowind, and They Are Billions (ironic, because I'm not really into zombie apocalypse media anymore like I used to be over a decade ago, and my PC at the time could barely run it) for inspiration to form the basis of the Bad Ending AU the fic takes place in. (You can clearly tell I'm a Morrowind fangirl because Autozam, Chizeta, and Fahren move in on Cephiro and put their stakes down the moment the Paths open without any conflict from Zagato and Emeraude whatsoever - not because it happens out of conquest, but because they're so immersed in their love for each other they ignore the problems going on Cephiro a'la fuck the world we don't care what happens to it so long as we have each other, it's not our problem anymore).

I would say the technological advancements, in the three year span that takes place after Chapter 1, would be much more developed than the steampunk Tesla Tech aesthetics seen in They Are Billions. With the arrival of the three realms, Cephiro goes from a very pastoral fantasy world with hints of old magitech (via the Saturn game) to a hard, cyberpunk theme that's part of an industrial revolution that's very much enforced.

Of the three Fahren very much leans into said cyberpunk aesthetic but is more or less inspired by the Japanese subgenre with Chinese/Asian influences and the splash of tech noir and that retro 1980s vibe that's often idealized (i.e. Chapter 2's first scene takes place as a train station terminal with payphone booths, something that IRL - at least in the States - barely in use anymore with the rise of mobile phones).

Autozam takes this a step further by being postmodern as well as nanopunk/biopunk (or trying to going in that direction in a bid to co-opt Fahren technology and repurpose it to eliminate Autozam's pollution and ecological disasters). It's about as futuristic as you can get, with their mechs and architectural approaches, so in comparison to Cephiro it's going to stick out a lot.

Chizeta would be something akin to solarpunk (to relieve the issue of overpopulation) while recognizing they are very much in the camp of technofantasy (because they don't explain their magic by applying science to it). However, there is an undercurrent of Cold War/cloak and dagger element going on that undermines Tarta and Tatra's attempts at establishing a colony for their people (read: hold onto control via authoritarian means that affect the population not in line with their cause/beliefs).

I had plans for Debonair and Nova to show up (albeit under different circumstances), but as I didn't get very far in the brainstorming phase at the time they currently don't amount to much in the plot beyond Nova being a boss fight for Umi to overcome. I like to think they'd be their own faction and sowing chaos in the background because everyone re: the three realms is too busy trying to get their upper hand over each other in the attempt to be the one to overthrow Zagato and Emeraude to become the Pillar and the people of Cephiro are too doompilled to fight back (and if they are fighting, it's against each other). They would be in the camp of pure magic and taking advantage of all the technology lying around for their own purposes while manipulating people's emotions a'la the Will of Cephiro to focus on perpetuating all the in-fighting.

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.