#literally every single person i know is from facebook

[n4rval]

scratch this i am not on twitter

can't say i haven't tried

oh yes. i forgot to mention, but i am also on twitter

still not too fond of that place. tumblr will remain as the account i engage with the most in terms of sharing thoughts

despite all the wingdings, twitter is where i get interesting animation industry info and i might eventually also share original content as i slowly grow as a professional

[bi-writes]

whats wrong with ai?? genuinely curious <3

okay let's break it down. i'm an engineer, so i'm going to come at you from a perspective that may be different than someone else's.

i don't hate ai in every aspect. in theory, there are a lot of instances where, in fact, ai can help us do things a lot better without. here's a few examples:

ai detecting cancer

ai sorting recycling

some practical housekeeping that gemini (google ai) can do

all of the above examples are ways in which ai works with humans to do things in parallel with us. it's not overstepping--it's sorting, using pixels at a micro-level to detect abnormalities that we as humans can not, fixing a list. these are all really small, helpful ways that ai can work with us.

everything else about ai works against us. in general, ai is a huge consumer of natural resources. every prompt that you put into character.ai, chatgpt? this wastes water + energy. it's not free. a machine somewhere in the world has to swallow your prompt, call on a model to feed data into it and process more data, and then has to generate an answer for you all in a relatively short amount of time.

that is crazy expensive. someone is paying for that, and if it isn't you with your own money, it's the strain on the power grid, the water that cools the computers, the A/C that cools the data centers. and you aren't the only person using ai. chatgpt alone gets millions of users every single day, with probably thousands of prompts per second, so multiply your personal consumption by millions, and you can start to see how the picture is becoming overwhelming.

that is energy consumption alone. we haven't even talked about how problematic ai is ethically. there is currently no regulation in the united states about how ai should be developed, deployed, or used.

what does this mean for you?

it means that anything you post online is subject to data mining by an ai model (because why would they need to ask if there's no laws to stop them? wtf does it matter what it means to you to some idiot software engineer in the back room of an office making 3x your salary?). oh, that little fic you posted to wattpad that got a lot of attention? well now it's being used to teach ai how to write. oh, that sketch you made using adobe that you want to sell? adobe didn't tell you that anything you save to the cloud is now subject to being used for their ai models, so now your art is being replicated to generate ai images in photoshop, without crediting you (they have since said they don't do this...but privacy policies were never made to be human-readable, and i can't imagine they are the only company to sneakily try this). oh, your apartment just installed a new system that will use facial recognition to let their residents inside? oh, they didn't train their model with anyone but white people, so now all the black people living in that apartment building can't get into their homes. oh, you want to apply for a new job? the ai model that scans resumes learned from historical data that more men work that role than women (so the model basically thinks men are better than women), so now your resume is getting thrown out because you're a woman.

ai learns from data. and data is flawed. data is human. and as humans, we are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, divided. so the ai models we train will learn from this. ai learns from people's creative works--their personal and artistic property. and now it's scrambling them all up to spit out generated images and written works that no one would ever want to read (because it's no longer a labor of love), and they're using that to make money. they're profiting off of people, and there's no one to stop them. they're also using generated images as marketing tools, to trick idiots on facebook, to make it so hard to be media literate that we have to question every single thing we see because now we don't know what's real and what's not.

the problem with ai is that it's doing more harm than good. and we as a society aren't doing our due diligence to understand the unintended consequences of it all. we aren't angry enough. we're too scared of stifling innovation that we're letting it regulate itself (aka letting companies decide), which has never been a good idea. we see it do one cool thing, and somehow that makes up for all the rest of the bullshit?

[kingofthewilderwest]

To everyone who asked, and to everyone who didn't:

Yes. I have somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 of TwoSet's videos, all in HD quality. LINK BELOW

Earlier this year in 2024, I downloaded every single TwoSet Violin public video from their YouTube and scoured other sites like Bilibili and Facebook to get videos they'd deleted from at least one platform. My goal was to make some fandom compilation videos that'd require going through every video.

I do not have the last few months of 2024 (which I'm kicking myself for... I literally almost did a download update on SUNDAY). But I have almost everything.

2 mil, 3 mil, 4 mil, Fantasia, Hilary Hahn or Ray Chen collabs, Producer Shaun, professional versus beginner, violin charades, that cheeky skit you shared on Facebook in 2016

Their world tour VODs, including my own personal captures of their latest VOD stream

Some of the content from their Facebook kickstarter livestreams that I found from other fans.

I've been collecting all their TikTok videos currently, too. I've downloaded a spattering of their Instagram stories from 2024 and might have a small collection of recent Instagram videos, too.

I do not have everything, but I have a fuckton and I want to share it with as many people as possible, and collaborate with as many people as possible to fill in the missing pieces.

Please contact me if you have your own archives or know people working on other archives. I'm talking with a few people about starting a Google Drive project, but I don't know the big names in the TSV fandom and thus could be missing out on people who've done a lot of other work

It's more likely that this will clear over in the coming days / weeks / month / whatever and we'll have their official channel again. I'm still going to keep believing that. But it doesn't erase the importance of making sure the media we love doesn't become lost media. I have respect for content creators to monitor what does and doesn't stay on their platform, but for the sake of preservation of media, for the sake of helping a community, I want to make sure this archive is in place and widely accessible to TwoSetters.

My current cloud server is VERY MUCH a work in progress. I am in the middle of an extremely busy week and trying to do this around an office job and a half. It will take me time to upload everything, and even more time to organize everything. But the cloud server link is active, and I will keep people updated about the progress of my archiving through a PDF text file (not yet uploaded) in said cloud. If I collaborate with people for Google Drive systems, if I do other backups, I will let people know there and on my other social media accounts.

I am new and naive to Terabox. I started with Terabox because it's free to upload up to a terabyte of content. I think it should be free to download everything in full quality, but I don't know. People should inform me how it works. It's currently -- I'm sorry -- VERY poorly organized and requires Scrolling (TM), but short of that issue (which will be fixed with organization), I hope it gets people what they need.

Also: Reddit has suspended me for a few days lol (really I'm getting a slap on the wrist for how blatantly I was marching about), so if people want to start spreading this link to others in private chats elsewhere with known TwoSetters, the more the merrier! The purpose of this is to be a resource, either short-term or long-term.

[seancurry1]

Remember, Thou Art Barnacle

A serenity prayer for election day.

Originally posted on my website.

The Ann Selzer Iowa poll, regarded as the gold standard in all of political polling, shows Harris is up +3 in a state that Trump won by +8 in 2016 and by +9 in 2020. 

And you are a barnacle. 

The election better markets have Trump up by +19 (as of noon EST, 11/5/24), and bettors don’t care if people are ashamed to admit who they’re voting for—they’re in it for the money and only the money.

And you are a barnacle. 

Mainstream pollsters have admitted to weighting their polls heavily in favor of Trump, to ensure they don’t end up with egg on their face like they did in 2016 and 2020 again. International whales are taking out huge bets in favor of Trump, swinging the markets, and right wing think tanks are flooding the zone with bullshit polls to artificially inflate Trump’s odds in the aggregate. And even if the popular vote is overwhelmingly for Harris, Trump’s team is already laying the narrative groundwork to support a Stop the Steal campaign that, by the time you read this, will likely already have started. 

All of that is true. 

And you are still a barnacle. 

You are not piloting the ship. You are not the captain of the ship. You are not laying out the potential courses the ship could take, you are not deciding which course the ship will take, you are not scouting ahead. 

You aren’t even a paying, ticket-holding passenger on the ship. You are a barnacle on the hull, deep underwater, and unfortunately, there isn’t really anything you can individually do to affect where this ship goes. Sorry! 

This isn’t an invitation to check out, or become apathetic, or (heaven forbid) embrace doomerism. Quite the opposite: this is a reminder of who you actually are in this entire scenario, of the power you do not have, and of the power you definitely do. 

After the 2016 election, some small part of myself was convinced I could change the outcome if I just posted hard enough. If I fought enough of my friends on Facebook, texted angrily, and tweeted from enough protests and rallies, somehow Trump would no longer be President-elect. 

All it did was, literally, give me a rash. I got so angry for so long that my skin started to break out in hives. A doctor friend more-than-half seriously prescribed that I “get the fuck off Facebook” until my skin returned to normal. Trump was still President-elect, the next 8 years happened the way they did, and here we are today. 

You’re going to hear a lot today: polls are tightening! Votes still aren’t in from this critical precinct! If these trends hold, then we can expect to know something by such-and-such a time! The race is as tight as can be! White supremacists are threatening violence to avenge a dead squirrel! 

(The squirrel thing is 100% real, and my god, I really wish I was joking.) 

Remember, through all of it, that you are not the captain of the ship. You are a barnacle on its hull, and there is very little you can personally do to change it at this point. You’ve already done all you can do—or maybe you haven’t, but even then, you’ve already done all you’re going to do. 

And as you stress, and consider how inebriated you’re going to get, and decide on which web pages you’ll be refreshing every thirty seconds, and stress out some more, remember too that Donald Trump hasn’t ever won the popular vote in his entire miserable life. He only won the electoral college, a racist system explicitly designed to empower slaveholders in southern states, one time, and ever since then, he has lost every election he’s declared for. 

More people did vote for the woman candidate the last time one ran for President, and more people have voted for the candidate of color than their opponent every single time a person of color has run for President on a major party ticket. 

And women have already made up a larger share of early voting than men in this, the first general election post-Dobbs, than ever before in American history. (53% women to 44% men.) 

So as you stress and consider your inebriates and say to yourself, “How can it possibly be this close?!” for the umpteenth time today, remember too that Donald Trump is a fascistic, deeply unpopular person (let alone President) backed by an even more deeply weird party, and that almost the entirety of your experience of this election is being filtered through the lens of a national, for-profit media that doesn’t care who wins, so long as you keep watching. 

Remember, you are not the captain of the ship, you are not the helmsman, you are not the map-maker. 

You are a barnacle. 

Vote for Harris, vote Democrat in your local and state races, and trust your other barnacles.

If you like this, consider signing up for my newsletter to get more writing from me right in your inbox the second it posts: sean-curry.com/signup

[wilwheaton]

the scorpion doesn’t care who it stings

I posted this on my Facebook four days ago, and it seems to have taken on a life of its own for a minute.

I thought I’d repost it, here:

I can not fathom the emptiness, the insecurity, the insatiable need for attention and validation, the staggering arrogance, the malevolence and total void of human experience that is Elon Musk.

He's the richest man on the planet. You can't go anywhere or do anything without interacting with something he's part of in some way. There are literal millions of people who uncritically worship him, in spite of overwhelming evidence that he's a douchebag. Some number of them will come after me, as they come after anyone who points at their naked emperor. They'll spend entire days going after me and people like me, slavishly serving a man who does not even know they exist. They are his army of fools, uncritically serving his every whim. And it still isn't enough.

He can have any material thing he wants, and he will *never* be happy or satisfied. He has no real friends. Every single person around him is either a viper, a parasite, or both.

So what does he do? He bullies and threatens and harasses and trolls and behaves like the weak, scared, insecure child he has always been. That's a tragedy for him, but it's dangerous for us. He doesn't care what he destroys or who he hurts as he chases this existential thing he cannot ever have.

You know the saying "hurt people hurt people"? He's a hurt person who is hurting our society, making people I care about less safe. The consequences of this one man's midlife crisis are global, and that terrifies me.

In a comment, about an hour later, I added:

You know what's really interesting is the tiny number of people who are attacking and harassing me are either typical right wing idiots who all spew the same garbage from behind their wraparound sunglasses, or these weird nerds who are DESPERATE to justify how toxic and cruel and destructive Elon Musk is. Like, nerds, listen to Old Man Wheaton, please. 

Don't hitch your wagon to Elon Musk. There are countless people who are amazing and genuinely good, who do all the things we wish we could do. Stop defending this piece of shit who would push you into a volcano without even learning your name, if it would save him half a second on his way to his next shitpost on $8Chan (formerly known as Twitter).He doesn't stand up to anyone. He doesn't stand up FOR anyone. He is not your champion. He's angry and chaotic and destructive, and you have to understand that the scorpion doesn't care who it stings.

Finally, I want to add two things: 1) It’s interesting to me that a lot of the people who came to my post to be dicks used a lot of MAGA language. It reminds me of this thing my friend says about concerts: the audience looks like the band. Of course there’s substantial overlap between the angry, hateful, terrified, cowards who support Trump and the same who Stan Elon Musk, and it’s real interesting to see it in action.

2) I haven’t used Twitter for years. I quit before it was popular (lol) because it was better for my mental health. I logged in once when my book was published, and I deleted all my tweets when he announced he was buying Twitter. When he took over and immediately amplified a conspiracy theorist, I made my account private. In a perfect world, I would delete my account entirely. But I have to keep it for reasons I hope I don’t have to explain. After I posted this on Facebook, it made its way around Twitter (still is, four days later, which is ... a thing that is happening) and when people went to look at my account, they saw that it was closed. As much of a fucking manbaby Elon Musk clearly is, he didn’t do anything to my account. In fact, the only reason he even knows I exist (if he does) is through a vanity search of his name. I locked my account on my own, and so should you.

I am only on:

Tumblr

Facebook (itswilwheaton)

Instagram (itswilwheaton)

and my blog that I’ve been neglecting for too long at wilwheaton.net.

I’ve had a Reddit account since 2006, predating user-created subs! I’m u/wil there.

Okay that’s all. Thanks for listening. Please choose to be kind.

[screechingsandwichtriumph]

Platonic yandere avengers x reader x romantic yandere peter parker

Idek how to begin this so beware unlucky readers

Summary: you are an idol ,you are an avenger. How can they not be slightly a little bit protective of you

Warnings: yandere themes , stalking, obsession, fighting, blood , I think this is it

Also this will include(I'm sorry I didn't exactly do the like main six or whatever) Tony , Steve , Bucky , Clint , Natasha , Wanda , Peter

This is longer than I expected and I kinda don't like it but here it is in its full glory<3

When you joined the team , they blamed their protectiveness over you to your personality

I mean you are so cute and look so innocent , how can they not want to protect you ?

Tony had totally not hacked into every single account that you own / have owned in your life and he absolutely hasn't researcher your dad's Facebook to find childhood pictures of you. And he surely didn't print those out and handed then around in the team. Also expect to be spoilt rotten. Complained once about a stain on your favorite jacket? Have three more of the exact same just in case

Steve claimed to need specifically your help to understand how to operate anything mechanical ad expect to have a lot of movie marathons. He will read you before you sleep even though you are not a child anymore because ' he just liked when he is reading out loud'

Bucky would be the type of person to dig in deep in your life. He wouldn't stalk you specifically. That is tasked to someone else. No . He would stalk Al your friends and all your exes and highschool teachers.ad if he had to he would accidentally make some of them he consider bad influences disappear

Clint along with Natasha are your stalkers

Clint will always be hidden close by in case you need help with something (like , idk someone dead?) and my man could literally enter your home , casually look around a bit , stare at your decorations , and be out without you even realizing he was never there

Natasha on the other hand isn't so subtle. You could easily spot her on the other end of the street wearing sunglasses and staring at you intensely. Once you were in a bookstore admiring some books and stationary that you did not buy and the next day they were at your door with a little note that said ' saw them and they reminded me of you - Natasha ' as if you hadn't seen her looking at you. It isn't even that she is stupid . She just doesn't care

Wanda practically lived at your head at this point knowing things about you , you were barely aware of. Like , what do you mean you can't remember that one time you went snowboarding and fell? What do you mean how she knows that story and that you never told her? Of course you did silly!

Peter now was clearly in live with you and the first to meet you and get obsessed over you. When after some time he went to Tony and told him about his feelings , Tony supported his feelings to the max since this could be beneficial for all of them. Peter would never leave , they trusted him and he could keep you close.

Now you seem like a soft baby that needs protection from everyone ands that's mainly due to the way you present yourself and act. You have the most bubbly soft personality and everyone loves that

Being an idol , and an avenger was a dream come true for you , so when you had a big show and gave to them tickets to come see you they of course came( Tony almost bought all tha tickets so it could be only you but Steve stopped him)

Heating a music so fitting to your aesthetic it was like they fell in love (platonically and romantically for Peter) all over again. You are just so sweet and cute

Then a day came where an attack happened in new York and all of you jumped to action. They had no time to stop you from going to battle or even think about doing it really. The only think they could do was act.

Now , your powers were so incredibly powerful that they never thought you would have to fight face to face with someone. But they were terrible wrong

Once the fight was over they all spotted you on the corner of a building with bloody fists and a small trail of blood staining your pretty pink costume. A fan of yours was there asking you to take a picture . You kindly smiled at the camera revealing a set of bloody teeth.

Your fan seemed super excited at that and almost yelled out in joy. You bid her goodbye and went towards the group of your shocked friends

They all just stared at you in an unusually bloody shape , that somehow seemed fitting (?)

Later on they were shown a video of you with a bunch of people , that you were brutally fighting with . They were all left to shreds when you left your head held high.( Peter was even more into you after that)

Asks are always open<3

[hg-aneh]

Hi! I absolutely love all of your art and I’ve been fallowing you for awhile! There’s been some rumors that you ship Muriel x crowley?? Which I guess is an odd paring but nothing terrible wrong with, I was just curious if you do ship them.

Thank you for all your wonderful art <3

okay, i want to preface this by saying that I've already been harassed over this to the point of being called a lowkey pedophile and having every little move of mine scrutinized and misconstrued to sickening extents (this harassment spilled over to my partner too, and it was horrible)

so all anyone would do by doing this again would be repeating history, among other things that have to do with fucking up my already frail mental state

now.

onto the meat

yes, I ship it

no, I do not see Muriel as a child, kid, teenager, or anything of the sort and I find it personally distasteful to think of doing so because infantilizing autistic traits rubs me the wrong way (p e r s o n a l l y)

you can do it if you want to, I have worse things to worry about than a random person on the internet thinking something of a fictional character, just don't try to push your headcanon onto me just because you perceive it that way or because it's a popular dynamic that you find fun

adding onto this, i want to add that i will never and i mean fucking NEVER post anything related to that ship outside of the very specific private Xitter account i created for it

(and my personal facebook, on a friends only setting)

any Muriel & Crowley content outside of that account is all platonic and bla bla you get the gist. I can separate things, what a talent.

Now, I'm being overly paranoid and explaining myself to exhaustion over this for a very good reason and it's because last time someone found out about it ((yes we're going full circle to the beginning of this little bible)) they treated it as some sort of GOTCHA moment about me being a pedo ((and if you didn't know this already: I fucking despise children with my whole being, I'd rather be forcefed alligator shit for my whole life than be with one of those creatures for a single day))

It got to the point of that person making extremely hurtful videos about me and their little friend group comprised of goober eating toddlers joining in on the "Hater" train or whatever the hell that new cultural trend is called, as well

It was hell, that whole experience fucked me up BAD and i feel silly for saying this but it was genuinely traumatic! So- I apologize if I'm sounding confrontational here, anon, but like, this is the type of thing you have to do to keep yourself safe now, it's gone to that point and I'm in hysterics now because what the fuck

Lastly, I'd like to say this one other thing

Muriel is played by an adult actress, they are canonically the same age as Aziraphale and Crowley and are also an eldritch creature just like them

The fact that they're nice and bubbly and happen to have autistic traits doesn't suddenly make them a fetus. I have friends with the same personality type as them and I feel like it'd be dumb to treat them like zygotes knowing they're adults with body hair and debt

Again, if you see them as one, I'm literally no one to judge, I'm 1.49, you're better off taking judgement from a stupid lone penguin in the saharan desert.

But don't fuck with others for thinking otherwise, it's not a moral issue to disagree with a headcanon, please. 🥲

[obsessive-evie]

GF KATE HEADCANONS

go thank @iminlovewithpaigebueckers, i also completely stole the formatting from her. ty twin

gf!kate def overheard you say/like a post that said hey mamas or mama, so she waits until she has you a little cocky to call you mamas just to see what happens it becomes her new addiction, especially lil mamas

gf!kate is a little shit

gf!kate sends you little facebook mom selfies whenever she travels

^^and/or vlogs and recaps when you guys can’t ft

gf!kate will learn your whole skincare routine just in case you need her to do it when you’re drunk

gf!kate appreciates feminine things and girly things: “i like that little sparkle, the white glitter it’s pretty,” while pointing to your inner corner highlight.

“you smell good,” when she catches you in passing or just when you’ve finished getting ready.

will sit on your bed helping you choose outfits… and will also cover her eyes when you get changed, all panicked just in case you don’t wanna be seen. doesn’t matter if you tell her it’s fine (she’s literally seen every inch of your skin) she’s sitting there with her hands over her eyes no peeking (maybe a single peek)

gf!kate will actually respect if you wanna pay or dress more masculine, she gets it. no stereotypes here!!

gf!kate will braid or curl your hair just to show her love and stare at you

^^^ for my textured hair girlies this includes how to do your edges!!! what products she needs to use on you!! how much!!!!

gf!kate is very white. gf kate will not understand certain slang or terms until you explain it to her. gf kate gets excited when she uses said slang correctly

gf!kate would make an attempt to read your favorite book when she’s traveling (i said attempt idk if she’s finish it i don’t know if she’s a reader or not) in my head she is simply bc i read a book a day and i make the rules here

gf!kate will also try your music taste!!

gf!kate loves buying her girl lingerie. she doesn’t give a FUCK abt prices or if you’re nervy. kinda goes with the femininity thing, she’d like to see you in lacey things and pretty colors and such

gf!kate is the biggest hype woman, genuinely thinks you are perfect (BUT IS STILL A WOMAN AND WILL UNDERSTAND HORMONES AND INSECURITIES)

gf!kate is a fan of traditional things: flowers, treating her girl to date nights she plans, she’s always driving, lowkey would ask your parent/parent figure/ important person in your life to marry you, not in a possessive way but in the way that she thinks it’s polite and necessary

gf!kate loves visiting her girls family, and they love her, no matter how crazy they are

gf!kate can fixate on your boobs or thighs or hips and just lay and kiss for forever they’re her fav place to nap, and let’s be real my girls napping a lot

gf!kate likes to hover and stare and just watch you do your thing in your habitat (you call her national geographic for a reason)

NSFW

gf kate lovesssss to give head, she just loves making you feel good and making you squirm, she also loves hearing you get loud, won’t ask you to be loud tho. but she’ll never tell you to not cover your mouth if you try to cover it, she just takes it as you trying to stay comfortable

gf kate will braid your hair before fucking you so she has something to pull 🫣

gf kate tries really hard to stay more controlling when she’s topping but she still gets shy sometimes and is also dying (she’s so turned on she can barely think)

gf kate is kind of afraid to be mean to you, she just feels too bad

gf kate will never proposition sex, she might hint at it or have that look in her eye, but she’d rather sit and be horny than ask you when you don’t want to

gf kate would go so far as to get herself off in the bathroom or shower just so she doesn’t bother you if she knows you’re not in the mood or on your period

gf kate gets worked up fast but tries to take it slower to make her girl feel good

gf kate likes phone calls and guided/mutual masterbation

gf kate takes a whilleeeeee to stop being shy when you top, specifically when you go down on her she’s so nervous and can’t look at you (go check out my fic if you like this one)

gf kate cannot handle it when you kiss her neck, like at all. especially when she’s fucking you if you kiss her neck she’d get all breathy and try to pretend like she doesn’t keep stalling and pausing her thrusts

gf kate also cannot handle it when you bite or kiss her shoulders, arms, and back. like that’s the way to get her to melt

gf kate will eat her girl out to hozier, fuck her girl to hozier, and let her girl fuck her to hozier

gf kate is adorable

[listentoace]

This will freak you out

... or at least I hope it does. Yes, I know most of the stuff I post on here is just kinky and horny talk and that's totally fine. By now, thousands of users have found their way to my blog and I'm very grateful for the support. I know I don't share much about myself, but the following will be about a more personal matter. I work in IT, or more specifically, with data. Lots of data. Being into data science, I am hyper-aware of the constant collecting and aggregating of user data. I know it's somewhat common knowledge that you're being tracked, but I want to take this opportunity to point out how bad the situation is and why privacy matters. I'll try to keep it as easy to follow as possible, so please bare with me!

The Trackers

Right now, you're on Tumblr. As you are reading this, your app connects to over a dozen servers that are not from Tumblr itself. They are from companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, but also lesser known companies such as Adjust and Moat. Within a single day, the Tumblr App sends about 5.000 tracking requests to the aforementioned and more companies, sharing your personal data. That's once every 15-20 seconds, regardless of whether you have the app opened or not. While I can't say exactly what data is being shared, it is likely that this is personal information that can be utilized to assume your opinions, target ads, or predict future behavior, as these are ways how companies will ultimately make money. Depending on what permissions you have granted the Tumblr app, it might also scan your gallery, your entire file system, access your call history, or your camera and microphone. By granting this permission, you are essentially giving Tumblr the keys to your phone on a complete "just trust me, bro"-basis. To me personally, that sounds scary.

But why do you use Tumblr yourself, then?

Very good and fair question! I actually am conflicted regarding using Tumblr, but I have put several security measures into place to minimize tracking potential as much as possible. While Tumblr can still see when I go online, read all the messages I send to others, know what content I view, like, comment on, and otherwise engage with, that is about it. Tumblr cannot acces my general file system, it cannot remotely access my camera and microphone, and even all the aforementioned trackers are blocked. I'll go more into this later.

"So what, I've got nothing to hide."

It's great that you think that! That's just what the big tech companies want you to believe. But answer me this: have you ever found it uncomfortable when a person next to you was reading all your texts, looking at your gallery, and just generally kept an eye on what you do on your phone at all times? Well, if a single person doing that is bothering you, how much worse must it be to know that several companies with thousands of employees spy on you for a living? Yes, they have seen your nudes, your breakup texts, your hours of Whatsapp calls with your best friend. It's literally a Big Brother Dystopia.

"Why would they be interested in me?"

I bet you have heard about the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal from 2018. Just to summarize: a data analytics company CA worked closely together with Facebook to target adds specifically tailored to users to manipulate them into voting for Donald Trump as President. If you are asking how specific this could be, just look at this demonstration by Signal, where their ads are extremely specific to a point where probably only a few thousand if not only hundreds of people would fit the description and just those exact people saw their ad.

"You got this ad because you're a newlywed pilates instructor and you're cartoon crazy. This ad used your location to see you're in La Jolla. You're into parenting blogs and thinking about LGBTQ adoption."

Facebook took it down within hours. But imagine you seeing this ad of a random company knowing this much and lots more about you. Note that Instagram and WhatsApp belong to Facebook/Meta, so even if you're not using Facebook directly, you're still being watched just as closely.

Knowing exactly what you like, dislike, fear, and love, strong emotions can be triggered for political or financial gain. You're into sustainability? Buy this product and we will retrieve one pound of plastic from the ocean! You are conservative and maybe slightly racist? Immigrants are taking over more and more healthcare jobs! You are scared by a possible nuclear war? Vote us for safety and peace!

This is how Cambridge Analytica managed to pull in millions of voters in the US and manipulate the election in a way that Donald Trump wouldn't have won without their manipulation. This is literally a threat to democracy. And as you know, my allegiance is to the Republic, to Democracy!

You might be aware of how right-wing and extremist parties all around the western world use very polarizing and emotional topics in their campaigns and are doing very well on social media. Often much better than more centered, leftist, or conservative parties, who tend to polarize less. This is not a coincidence. Not only is this because of customized, targeted content, but it's also because strong emotions generate more attention

Doom Scrolling & Dopamine

Social Media has had decades to perfect their dopamine lottery. The algorithms know exactly what you are into, no matter how much of a niche it might be. A good, user-oriented algorithm would show you a few posts, the best ones of the day, and then simply say "well, that's been all the good stuff. Wanna see the rest anyways?". But that's not how it works, is it? When opening an app like Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, etc., you usually immediately land on a recent top-post. This is to give you the instant gratification and that sweet hit of dopamine.

Have you ever noticed how you had to scroll a bit before you got a post again that you really loved? That's by design. The mix of top-posts and mediocre ones is on purpose, to keep you waiting for more. You never know when the next super funny TikTok will come by. All you know is that it might be the next one. In-between top-posts, you're met with mediocre garbage and an add or two and just before it gets too boring, you hit gold again. The constant release of much higher than normal amounts of dopamine make your brain temporarily lose touch with what levels are normal. Why is it that you feel drained and tired after scrolling through social media for a few hours, even though you've done nothing but sitting around? You didn't think hard, you didn't move much, so what is it? It is the dopamine-rollercoaster that is mentally straining you. And there are tens of thousands of highly trained software engineers and corporate executives designing their platforms to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. If that little chiming sound increases your screen time by as little as 2%, it will be added. It is designed to suck your life away, chain your eyeballs to the content they want you to see, just so they can literally sell you to anyone who has the cash. You need that new gadget, visiting this country is an absolute must, this new sports competition is amazing, definitely vote for this cool party. Trust them. They know what you want. You don't know anything about them, but they know everything about you.

"What do I do now?"

Well, it is unlikely that you'll stop using social media at all. I mean, even I am still here. But there are things you can and should do for your mental and financial health, and for your own safety and protection against manipulation. Here is a list of things you should consider

Limiting social media to only a few apps you actually use and are interested in

Spend no more than 2 hours on social media per day

Meet friends irl instead of only texting

Stop sharing personal information. It is not illegal to enter false names, birthdays, etc into random sign-up forms! Protect your children as well!

Use privacy- & user-oriented platforms, such as Signal instead of WhatsApp, or Mastodon instead of Twitter. They finance themselves through volunteers and donations instead of by selling your data and lifetime to any buyer

Use privacy-oriented frontends (the visual interface and application you interact with), such as NewPipe or FreeTube instead of YouTube. You also won't be seeing any ads there

Don't buy anything impulsively. Take a week or two to think about whether you really need and want it.

Check facts, do your own research, use multiple sources, be critical

And in case you're interested in what I use:

I'm have an Android phone running /e/OS and a total of 5 computers/servers which run Linux and a Windows laptop for work. My phone block any trackers, fakes my GPS location (not VPN/IP) to where I am in Barcelona. All devices have a 24/7 encrypted VPN connection. I don't have WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or even a Google account. For personal use I have Signal, Element (Discord alternative), and Proton Mail. That's it. Every website or platform I have an account on has it's own, unique, single-use email, a randomized password and 2FA whenever possible. I use KeePass as my password manager, encrypted with a password, key file, and hardware key. I enter false data into any random form, use hardened Firefox browsers to resist fingerprinting and tracking, and back up all my data at home on a hard drive instead of using a cloud service. (Yes, there is much more)

For my content, I use Tumblr and a semi-active Discord account, Reddit accounts are banned.

For my professional life, I am forced to use Microsoft Teams and Outlook, yet I only use those on my work computer & phone.

Privacy = Freedom

Yes, I know my measures are far beyond average, but I wanted to present an example and hopefully inspire some of you to take back your online freedom and privacy! Because that's what it is! Privacy is Freedom!

I hope this inspired you and please ask any questions in the comments! This truly is a topic that means a lot to me so thank you for reading all the way through it. Please reblog to further share this important topic and encourage others to protect themselves!

- Ace

[genericpuff]

You should watch Jack vs. Webtoons video on Lore Olympus before it gets wrongfully taken down.

His video pointed out something I wasn’t able to put into words until now. Lore Olympus has a real bad dialect problem. One second the characters are talking like they’re in a Shakespeare play which makes sense, sense they’re gods or what not. The next second you’ll have characters saying shit like “blue balls” “clout chaser” and “you’ve got a young wife with a fat ass”. It probably wouldn’t bother me if certain people talked a certain way like how Hera doesn’t use any slang and how Hermes uses some but all the characters vocabulary are the exact same.

Honestly I can look past the art and it’s inconsistencies but having dialect jump from regal to tiktok facebook slang makes my brain hurt more than glossy lipped Hades and bug eyed Persephone.

I checked it out, it's pretty great haha and yesss this is something that's been discussed before but I haven't really ever made a post about, the dialogue is CONSTANTLY flip-flopping between royal talk and "hello fellow teens" quipping. Sometimes it feels like it's trying to be like Marvel and then other times it feels like it's trying to be Bridgerton. I can think of no better example than all of the "pedigree" talk, it makes me squirm every time I read it because in the modern context of LO, it SCREAMS eugenics. The whole B-grade goddess thing made sense, until they started talking about Persephone like a poodle:

But then you ALSO get INCREDIBLY stiff dialogue that makes it seem like the comic is either being written by AI or Rachel is actually a real life version of Michael Afton post-scoop:

And yes, there is a tinfoil hat theory that LO is being written by bots at this point because I don't know how a single person could write something so tonally confused. That said, I do think the more reasonable explanation is that Rachel is likely copying dialogue from shows and movies she's watching and just tweaking it slightly before slapping it into LO. She's not observing why the dialogue works in the media she likes, she just knows she likes it and slaps it in there without any regard for context, tone of voice, or personality.

And that leads to, as you said, all the characters sounding the exact same, and that metric by which they all sound the same changes all the time. I think at this point the only reason we haven't seen Hera dropping TikTok language is because she hasn't been onscreen long enough for her to get the chance LMAO That said, we've definitely gotten some weird inconsistent dialogue with Hera as well:

(like she's essentially saying the exact same thing across both of these panels but one is being said by an adult and the other is being said by a teenager lmao)

I think the dialogue is definitely one of the most glaring issues with LO, among all of its other problems. It just never feels like it's being written by a human, there are problems with this even as far back as S1 but it's become especially apparent in S2 onwards.

To finish off this ask, here's one of my favorite dialogue mishaps in the entire series, from S1, in which Apollo literally adopts an askew English accent:

[valyrfia]

I feel like there is a very big difference between posting a lestappen or f1 ship rec list in your own page, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, etc. and posting it on their page. If Alex comes across a lestappen video or rec list it's her "for you" page so she's stumbling into it for a reason. we shouldn't have to censor our space

There’s two reasons tumblr is preferred for RPF over every other social media and that’s because a. people involved tend to not be on it and b. unlike instagram or tiktok or twitter there isn’t an aggressive algorithm which is throwing different interests at you to see what sticks, everything is just in the tags you search up or the blogs you follow.

That’s why there’s no real “space” on mainstream social media like instagram/tiktok/twitter and to say that “oh Alex shouldn’t come into OUR space” is a moot point because if someone likes Formula 1 the chances are that the algorithm at some point is going to throw some sort of RPF content at them because all the algorithm of these apps is doing is trying to keep a person on the app by comparing to what a lot of others interact with. It’s why I‘ve been vocally so against blatant RPF on these sites. Like yeah if someone stumbles across RPF on tumblr or ao3 that’s on them but otherwise—I don’t know I think there’s a level of self-awareness needed. I’m not going to get into the morality debate but RPF IS a weird thing and should be widely regarded as such and there is a reason we should do everything in our power to keep it from the people involved.

Also, I interact with F1 content but absolutely no RPF content on my tiktok, and about once a month I get blatant Lestappen content or fic recs on there. I quite literally click not interested and close the app every single time in order to tell off my algorithm but it keeps happening. So if Alex or another person related to F1 stumbles across content on their FYP it’s really not their fault and I actually think it’s a little reductionist to interpret that as “oh well they’re coming into OUR space”

[garciaasfluffypen]

bright beginnings pt. 10

pairing: single dad!joseph quinn x fem!reader  wc: 868  warnings: grace being sneaky but in a good way i promise

part nine • part eleven

a/n: hi sorry im so bad at uploading mental health went poopy stinky but im back

“grace elizabeth vandien!” joe gasped, practically hitting the phone out of grace’s hand. “you did not just friend request my employee!” 

“well she’s cute and clearly you need to get your head out of your ass, so if you don’t do it i will.” 

“you’re not playing cupid.”

“and you’re stupid if you think i’m going to listen to you.” 

“i cannot believe you’ve done this.” 

“well believe it, buckaroo. this is happening whether you like it or not.” 

joe had to stop himself from shoving grace off the couch, instead choosing to throw a pillow at her face before getting up to pace the room. there was no way this was going to turn out good. there absolutely wasn’t. but it wasn’t like he was nervous, right? granted, the last person he was with was julia. she didn’t really do much in terms of their relationship, seeing as it appeared to be purely transactional. and the fact that she left the kids with joe a majority of the time. he wasn’t going to lie, the honeymoon phase was nice, but it didn’t last much longer than six months before he started noticing a few things. then six turned into twelve, julia got pregnant and those twelve months turned into 23 with divorce papers in his hands. and now the twins were three, he was sex deprived and dear god, he just-- 

but he couldn’t, could he? he wasn’t going to lie, y/n was one of the only things on his mind lately. okay so maybe he had looked at her profile picture on facebook for too long. and memorized the freckles on her cheeks and how some of them almost looked like the little dipper if you squinted just enough. or how her cousin commented “so hot so pretty you need a boyfriend” on every profile picture and y/n would just reply with an eyeroll emoji and a “get me one then”. how she laughed so gracefully when the kids at the daycare did something funny. or cute. or both. how she took such great care of the twins and didn’t care at all that they attached themselves to her. 

yeah, maybe he needed a new relationship. he needed to stop thinking about y/n. he needed--

“joe, get out of your head.” grace lightly slapped his cheeks. “i promise i won’t say anything too out of pocket to her.” 

“grace!” 

“i’m joking! mostly. listen, you know your worth and you deserve to have it. julia can suck my ten inch clit, and if she pulls a fuss to her lawyer about you moving on you can literally bring up the fact she leaves you with the kids and breaks her custody agreement almost weekly to go fuck some guy on whatever costal island she flies to with daddies money. you. deserve. so. much. better. don’t stop yourself from pursuing this because of some silly little lady who can’t tell her left from her right.”

“i— she’s not directionally challenged.”

“that’s not my point.” grace rolled her eyes. “stop being such a worry wort and just get back out there! what’s wrong with going on one date with y/n?” 

“well for one, if it goes bad we might lose our best employee.” 

“i doubt she would quit if the date goes that roughly. and you gotta believe in yourself, dude. you had everyone in college swooning over you. it’s a surprise you’re not playing some heartthrob metal head somewhere on tv that everyone is going to fall in love with.”

“stop reminding me of my failed dreams.” joe dramatically flopped back on the couch. “i’d much rather be on tv than running a daycare.”

“but you’re doing a damn good job at it. honestly? i think it's your calling.” 

“huh?”

“working with kids. maybe you could like, develop a show about a couple in a daycare that falls in love and has like ten babies.” 

“y/n and i are not going to have ten babies.” 

“i never said that.” grace cheekily smiled as she typed away on her phone. “and besides, you never know what’ll happen.” 

“i have two, and they are more than enough right now, thank you very much.” 

grace rolled her eyes. “puh-lease, you want more kids and you know it.”

“i do know it, but i have two three year olds.” 

“and like, how many girls watching them constantly? joe. i’m going to be blunt and you’re going to take it. you need to get laid. and i’m going to help you get laid.” 

“i- grace…” 

“listen, i’m gonna find you someone. even if it’s on tinder, okay?” grace pushed herself off of the couch. “i’m gonna head out because i have an 8am, but i’ll send you updates. also send me your favorite pictures of yourself in case i end up making you a tinder.”

“i don’t want to be on tinder.”

“i’ll do bumble then.” grace paused in the doorframe.  “oh, before i forget, y/n and i are getting tea tomorrow, i’ll let you know how it goes!” 

and with that, grace shut the door and joe was left to once again scream into his pillow.

[wirewitchviolet]

When Complete BS Becomes "Common Knowledge."

Someone told me they stopped paying attention to someone who reviews movies after one too many mean-spirited jokes about trans people, and it was one of those cases where the reviewer in question definitely had the vibe of someone who'd go around doing that, but I couldn't think of any real flagrant examples. Cut to me watching a movie the other day, remembering that oh yeah, I skipped that one guy's review of it because I wanted to go in blind, and sure enough, that review has this big long crappy 5 minute aside of an out of left field "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" routine. So that's a shame.

Now this particular guy rather famously Does Not Get Out Much. Pretty sure he hasn't really have any exposure to a single trans person, or to any real die hard transphobes, and most likely what happened here is he saw I dunno, an episode of South Park or a facebook post from some bigoted aunt, or some Tiktok video, something like that, and just blithely assimilated it into his world view.

But you know, the reality is... to the best of my knowledge no trans person has ever actually said this, or anything similar to this, and we sure as hell don't live in a world where anyone would have the back of someone who did? But you know, here we are.

Now I want to be clear, this isn't some kinda thing where trans people can't take a joke or anything. Literally while I was typing this, some cis guy just tossed this out, and this is a real tired old hokey one, but I cracked a smile, because oh yeah, the whole "programmer socks" bit really is a weirdly accurate stereotype.

And there's plenty of other trans jokes I'll laugh at. Ones directly at my expense. Some real dark ones even. You wanna go off on trans women all having the same like 10 names and them all sounding like we were born in the 1800s, go for it. Other stuff about how we all dress? Coping mechanisms? Low standards? Being too into pickles and sriracha? There's plenty.

But "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" and while we're at it, "I identify as..." don't even have the vague shape of something you're ever going to encounter in reality. Like if I didn't know the context of where these came from and hadn't had them posted a thousand times or so by people with swastikas for avatars and such, these probably would get a laugh from me the first time I heard them, because they sound like weird surrealist humor. Like, "don't you hate how every time you go to the laundromat, you have to play chess with the dragon before they let you in?"

But, again, I know the context. And the context is a bunch of fascists want people like me dead, and they're both too scared to pick up a gun to do it themselves and too incompetent to know who to point it at or where to find them. So they sit around with each other and go "hey, what sort of person does everyone hate? Let's all say trans people talk like them!" And because they haven't spoken to a single human being besides each other and the rich parents they're sponging off since getting banned from the Something Awful forums in the 90s/punk bar in the 80s/whatever, they settled on "rich white person calling the cops on somebody for walking down the street" and "didn't I first get into being a hatemonger because I was stupid enough to think that time I saw someone roleplaying he really thought he was a big scary dragon?" Which has honestly worked out weirdly well for them when you stop for half a second to appreciate just how absolutely ridiculous it is to ever imagine cops coming to the aid of trans people.

Like... here's a situation that actually plays out in reality. I have a bad tooth. Dentist says I need a root canal, and she doesn't do them. Refers me to another dentist like an hour and a half away. I walk in, write my Victorian sounding name on some paperwork, fill in all my various medications, wait a bit, hop into the big dentist's chair, so far so good. This dentist busts out the pick and the mirror about to have a look, and goes "hey, so I noticed on your medications you're taking a ton of something called divigel? What is that?" I say "oh, yeah, I'm trans, so I'm on supplemental estradiol." She almost drops the mirror, stares at me like she just realized I'm Venom and if she bent down to look at my teeth I was about to swallow her whole head. She stands bolt upright, says, "your teeth are fine, get out." I'm a bit confused, but I can read a room, so I say "well that's weird, but OK..." and start to leave. I get a "have a nice day SIR!" shouted at me. And then I go out, call the cab company to say my appointment ended early, and get told too bad, it's coming when it's scheduled, and someone snickers. See, at some point in having to take cabs to all my appointments, a driver worked out that this woman he'd been picking up from this address for the past year has a similar voice to and maybe vague family resemblance to who he'd been picking up from that same address the year prior, and after getting the courage to ask me, guess who's constantly having cabs show up late, or not at all, or on time with a driver staring angrily into the rear view mirror while blaring AM radio with someone shouting about all "the gays" needing to be rounded up so they can burn in hell. And I just need to suck it up and live with it. I'm sure as hell not going to pick a fight over it. I'm just gonna stand out in the cold (fortunately with nice warm knee-high socks) waiting for this cab for an hour because I sure as hell can't stay in this lobby.

But again, the whole weird myth here posits a world where trans people are all-powerful and control the government and stuff. And the basis for that is like... sometimes people refuse to pass ridiculous laws to stop trans people from doing things we only do in bigots' imaginations at great taxpayer expense, and SOMETIMES someone is responsible enough to double check what's up before they allocate the funds. Like... hell, you know what's exactly as completely divorced from reality and honestly the same people doing to same crap? That wild BS about "schools keeping litter boxes in classrooms because all this acceptance of trans people means we also have to accept kids who think they're cats!" Like... how the hell can anyone actually be stupid enough to believe that anyone else could be stupid enough to believe that they're actually stupid enough to believe such an OBVIOUSLY made-up narrative? Like... lawmakers bring that one up and try to get bills passed on it. Everyone else in the room is socially obligated not to laugh and ask whether they also want to pass legislation against Bat Boy and UFO abductions. This is Ralph Wiggum tier absurdity.

But like... what do you do about this sort of thing, really? As the person ultimately has to deal with the dentists who think I'll bite their heads off, ask to speak to their manager, and drop trou over a sandbox the state mandates they keep in the middle of the room, I'm... not in the room when this BS gets concocted, or discussed, or shared in Minions meme some film critic sees and imitates to try and be relatable and relevant. Can someone else start grabbing all these people by the lapels and shake them and shout questions about how they can be this stupid, maybe invite them back to reality for me?

[wordslikesilver]

Sometimes I think about how ready discord servers of big companies and games are to literally just ban people for being homophobic or transphobic, zero tolerance whatsoever and I think for just one moment of blinding clarity how nice it would be if tumblr was actually that intolerant and direct about online bigotry as well. If facebook was like that. If Twitter was. Suddenly I feel like I get it. I understand what it would feel like to actually be supported and truly accepted by society. Like what the fuck kind of place is this where you can just spew hate speech and face nothing from the people who keep the lights on? Why is League of Legends more queer friendly than Tumblr?

Years ago, BLM protested and made the Pride parade in my city of Toronto ban cops from being in the parade and every year that passes I feel like I get it, more and more. How dare they let them march? How dare they let the police pretend they’re not still complicit in rampant queer and BIPOC violence and discrimination to this day?

How dare Tumblr tolerate TERFs and discriminate against trans women as freely and readily as they do? Fuck it makes me so angry. There’s a taboo against saying free speech is bad but you know what? We don’t need to be lawless and indifferent to the suffering of an already discriminated against people. We don’t need to welcome everyone. There’s no slippery slope or ruthless calculus, it’s basic fucking math. Bigotry and hate speech should not be welcome. Period. You’re right, it’s not free speech anymore, it’s the super spooky censorship devil. Censorship is not evil you stupid fucks. Reddit deleting r/jailbait is censorship. Deleting incel subreddits is censorship. Deleting racist, fascist, predatory cess pool subreddits is censorship. It’s a tool. And just like a shovel can be used to kill a person, so too are it be used to clean up the garden and remove the rot and the sickness.

I truly believe deep in my heart that making space for any and all opinions to be heard is cowardice. To make space for evil to flourish and refuse to weed it out is to welcome and encourage it. This is not subjective. The systemic oppression of and hunting of minorities is not a subject with deep or complicated nuance. It is evil. It is evil and it has always been evil. We’ve been so slow in the grand scheme of history to acknowledge this, but even slower to accept that we need to be kill the myth of the censorship devil and recognize that maintaining a stance that tolerates and thus encourages bigoted behaviour is to be accomplice to a wicked and wretched, rotted evil. I believe in the inherent intelligence and goodness of humanity, I fully believe without a single faltering of my heart that we can establish on far larger scales than a fucking discord server, rules of conduct and behaviour that reject the rampant and heinous bigotry that my trans sisters and DOZENS of other minorities face day to day. I believe without a moment of doubt or wavering resolve that it can be done in clear ways that are above and beyond reproach from the incessant, inane and ill intentioned questioning and muddying of rules that of course would follow from those who would cry villainy that they can no longer voice their disgusting, hate fuelled opinions on matters of basic human rights.

I know how I sound. I know these words can be used just as easily by The Other Side about the Woke Left and Special Snowflakes with fragile feelings being cowards who can’t Get Real and accept the world’s rejection of who they are. But isn’t that what they’re really afraid of? That they’re the ones who are wrong and need to change if they still want to be welcome anywhere? We don’t welcome cops in the pride parade because being queer isn’t about everyone being valid and welcome. We are a people and a community that will not quietly bow to hatred against us. Anyone who wants to claim they support us cannot abide the proliferation of hatred against us when it happens under their own god damn roof.

[crestfallercanyon]

@its-tea-time-darling thank you, actually, for driving me to headcanons again, because you’ve inspired one that I have to talk about more —

Gally is ABSOLUTELY the guy who calls someone if they so much as text him more than two times. Especially if they are paragraphs, he’s just going to call someone. Some people like this/aren’t bothered by this most of the time/know this about him and accept it (I’d say probably Teresa, Alby, and Frypan respectively) but everyone else is absolutely fed up with it (Thomas doesn’t answer, Newt answers but reminds him that he was texting for a reason, Minho straight up declines the call and continues to bombard him, Brenda likes to answer his call and start saying the most fucked up shit just to make him stammer and wish he’d never called).

Minho responds to someone with memes almost always. He has a meme or a gif for literally every single situation. Eventually though, whenever someone has bad news he will respond with “BUMMER” but then send an actual “ah that sucks man,” after because personal growth. He does however love to vent in text and will also send paragraphs of funny rants about his day.

Thomas sends paragraphs. All the time. Where three words would suffice he texts out fifteen. He also is the one who asks too many questions and if the group is meeting up somewhere he always has to ask again what time/where/dress code/parking etc. (Brenda actually secretly really appreciates this). He also sends out videos and articles but he’s not a big meme person (he’s never sure he’s using em right but he laughs at Minho’s and Brenda’s).

Newt doesn’t actually text the group that often and usually just texts people directly, but he does pin things if the app they’re using has that capability/answers Thomas’s questions and pins it (or reminds him that it’s already pinned, ffs, can’t you read?). He occasionally sends pictures of what he’s doing and has to be reminded to text someone where he’s going so that if something happens people know where he is because he often goes out on his own.

Teresa sends news articles, and other things she thinks others might enjoy learning about. (Alby and Thomas always feel the need to actually reply instead of just react like “this is neat!” Which actually Teresa really enjoys). Teresa also sends a bulk paragraph of plans or is the one to initiate “okay, we talked about hanging out, but what is the plan” and forces people to actually commit to things.

Alby has not mastered that certain apps are for certain things and always tries to talk about subjects that are in other apps in the wrong one. Do not start a serious conversation in the Instagram group chat, that’s for texting, the insta is for memes, articles, videos, etc., not convos. Facebook messenger is for meetups in person, discord is for FaceTime calls, etc. and he always mixes them up and someone (Newt or Teresa) usually gently delete and redirect him every time or don’t even say anything and just ignore it.

Brenda, like Minho, knows her way around memes and gifs and could be a comedy/influencer if she wanted to but she has no desire to post every day. She and Minho would have absolutely killed it on vine. She texts a lot and seems to know how to keep a conversation alive if it seems like it’s stalling.

Frypan is typically more of a responder than one to start the conversation. He actually engages with a rant and says things like “that’s rough!” Or whatever and also reminds everyone to text when they get home from an event safely. He actually has the most active social media following because he’s starting a restaurant and always posts videos about his new food and things like that and it looks delicious. He didn’t really mean to get big on Instagram it just kind of happened because his food looks good and he just wanted to share his food with his friends or his home recipes but things spread much quicker than he expected outside his own page. He’s known for being very wholesome and having super delicious food.

And maybe I’ll do a follow up about whose location is shared with who but I think that’s all I got for now 😂

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hi cas!!! Outed anon here

First of all i just finished calendestine and MAN that was AMAZING like literally you are a god for having the patience and motivation to write all that bcz wtf.

TW: minor mentions of alkochol use; some weird possesive acting?

Second of all i have a problem and this problem isn't even mine. So few weeks ago a sended you an ask about my friend who had been breaking the boundaries. I talked with him and we are all good again that was just an missuderstanding of some sort. But now there is a different thing and i'm not sure what to do. For me the school year started on september first (high school a scary scary place to be) and we both went to different schools. We are friends with oposite gender so i often hear we will end up together or we get nasty comments while walking fown the street with each other. Its not a possibility bcz im a girl kisser (and a nb person but thats a side note). He recently introduced me with his classmate (lets call her katie). Well, katie seemed really nice at first and i really thought that she is a good person, since they are flirting and its starting to become a situationship of some sort. I thought she treated him well and wasn't like his last girlfriend (she had some things going on with alcochol and tried to push him into it with her) which in my country is unfortunatelly a very usuall thing (most of people my age are alcocholics) (im not even 16). So yeah she seemed cool and was very friendly. It was untill i mentioned i have an ex (in my lauguage you have a gendered word for it so it was obiviously about a girl) and she was off. I aprecieted that Sam (lets call the guy bestie that) didn't outed me without my knowlege but i wouldn't mind if he mentioned it to her as a form of reasurence we dont have a romantic friendship thats so pupularised by the media. After i told her i dated girls she became dry and distant. Nasty comments and would clinge to Sam harder then before. I don't really get the reaction but after the meating ended and i got home i noticed he blocked me on facebook (so we couldn't talk by messanger). I texted him on instagram where i was unblocked with a question why he blocked me. I understand this could be an honest mistake so i want agressove passesive or anything. He answered me that katie decided he shouldnt meet me anymore and blocked me on his phone before she left?????? I thpught this was weird. At first i thought she was a homophobe but it soon became a false statemnet bc she is bi. I had exstra classrs with sam today anf he said she became really snapy and was activly hating on me to him. I dont really knoww what to do bcz as far as he told me she reacted similar after meeting every single on of his frriends after any minor mentions of having a parter or an ex. Im not sure what it means and also im kinda worried she will try to isolate him from his friends, bcz he is an exstravery anf that would have a pretty bad inpact on him. Do you have any ideas what to do? I tried to talk to him but he really likes her and doesn't see anything weird in the way she acts. Maybe im the one who is imagining things???

Help

Hi!

I'm so glad you liked Clandestine, thank you so much!

Honestly, I would ask some of his other friends of they're seeing similar things happen. If they are, you should all get together and gently talk to him. It sounds like she's trying to pull him away from his friends and that's not cool. He needs to hear from multiple people that this isn't okay. Don't make him feel ganged up on, but make it clear that it's not just you feeling this way, you know?

Sending love!