#recommended to me. i think the tumblr ads think that I'm american and I'm a grandpa or something? idk man

[dysfunctionalcreature]

Kevin Day wearing this shirt a tumblr ad recommended to me (if someone wanted to draw him wearing this I would be eternally grateful)

[bonefall]

Hearing Loss Research Dump

Heyo!! You probably reached through the footnote at the end of the Hearing Loss Guide for Warrior Cats! I often get asked questions like, "How do you make these guides?" and "Do you have sources?" So this time, I tried to keep a bit of a loose "journal."

Unfortunately it got disorganized after a few sessions (since this project ended up taking about 2 - 3 weeks to do) but, hey, hopefully it helps.

I have dumped all of my sources here and explained my thought process as I went along, so that you have a good foundation to go forth and do your own research.

I may update this post with more information and links, or remove sources if, for some reason, it is revealed that the source was harmful or not credible. SO, PLEASE feel free to recommend good educational organizations, documentaries, and blogs here on Tumblr willing to take questions.

This post is set to "no one can reblog" so that you're always seeing the most current version of this post. Just in case a source gets challenged, or one of the sensitivity readers wants their name removed, or I end up adding important corrections, etc.

This is Version 1.0, and it was updated on 1/2/2024.

The research "dump" post is messy, because it's a Bonus Thing that's supposed to go along with the very pretty and ~concise~ Herb Guide that I created.

Session 0

I had wanted to do this for a while, but this RIDICULOUS thing that was said to an Anon and then shared with me almost gave me an aneurysm. I asked if my followers wanted this boosted to the top of my priorities, they said yes, and here we are.

In the process I also looked for input, especially from deaf/HOH followers. I made a note to include tinnitus, unilateral (one ear) hearing loss, and I'm considering doing a second guide just for how to TREAT the ear infections I mentioned would lead to a lot of hearing loss in RiverClan.

An outline of the Herb Guide post was written just before I did any real research, so I had a general idea of the aspects of hearing loss I wanted to talk and learn about.

Sat down to start my research the next day.

SESSION 1: The Basics

My first step is always just a basic internet search, including a pit stop at Wikipedia to read the article, and then follow the sources or find a place that explains the concept more deeply.

Because my project's about anthropomorphic cats, I always start with humans first, then swing over to a search on felines. I'm usually alternating between them because that is how my mind works, hearing something in one and then linking that to some sort of question about how that would look in cats.

From Wikipedia, the World Health Organization, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, I learned that "Hearing Loss" is the blanket term for all lack of hearing, and "Deafness" is when it totally prevents you from understanding speech.

Like blindness, most deaf people can hear a little. Stressed that.

It's also here that I started with cat hearing. First I looked at Purina, but it wasn't a great find, besides a link to common signs of ear infections which I put in my back pocket lmao. I came across Dr. Pippa Elliot's article for Petful.com, and this one is MUCH more informative.

I started thinking critically about a lot of that info. Cats have a much higher range of hearing than humans, a feline society would actually catch hearing loss loooong before humans would catch it in a pet cat. Plus the whiskers. The article actually mentions that when you check a cat for hearing loss, you have to avoid blowing wind on the whiskers or even vibrating the ground.

Very sensitive animals, fascinating. Anyway, back on humans,

There's also FOUR TYPES of hearing loss. Conducive, Sensorineural, Mixed, and Auditory Neuropathy. I also went and found a good explanation from the CDC to double-check Wikipedia.

And it's a good thing I did! Wikipedia did not mention Type 4 at the time of my research, and the CDC's article is VERY straightforward and informative.

Types;

Conducive: Sound can't get through the canal. Usually a blockage.

Sensorineural: A problem with the hearing organs or the auditory nerve.

Mixed: Both of these at once

Auditory Neuropathy: The ear detects the sound, but doesn't send the signals to the brain properly.

From what I can tell from the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Auditory Neuropathy is less well defined and can have overlap with Sensorineural. Sometimes it has to do with damage or malformation of the inner ear hairs, other times it's completely unknown and just assumed to be a brain issue.

So according to that definition, Auditory Processing Disorder is a type of auditory neuropathic hearing loss.

Then I started watching Christmas movies and forgot I was doing research oops. Time waits for no man, nor muppet. Very important that once a year you watch movies that make you cry and also Gonzo is there.

BUT. Throughout this project, I was constantly finding new sources on "the basics" that explained things in different ways. I didn't find all of these in that one session, but I will dump them in a straight list here.

Straight statistics of prevalence of hearing loss in the UK

Two types of inner ear infections (got cut from the guide because I was trying to stay focused on the disability itself, not causes and ear ailments)

Congenital deafness (Helpful, but again, was trying to keep the guide focused on general disability writing advice, not explain every single reason why a person could be deaf. That's for one's own research!)

Degrees of hearing loss (But notably I've also seen these thresholds shift around. This one says deafness starts at 95 DB, but I did also see 81 elsewhere.)

A guide on soundproofing which put the affects of noise on your ears into perspective (helpful with comparisons to degrees of hearing loss)

REALLY GOOD GUIDE ON HERTZ AND DECIBELS (And also comparisons of different decibel levels, in relation to the thresholds of hearing loss)

Tinnitus

SESSION 2: Comparing human and cat hearing

I felt like I had a good understanding of the basics here. The four types, some considerations for cat biology, some tidbits to mention like most people with hearing loss still being able to hear a little, etc.

NOW I'm going to finish reading any sources I opened up in side tabs, and learn about the side effects of hearing loss that I've seen so far. Tinnitus was requested specifically.

But, I felt pretty confident at this point, so I started actually working on the guide itself. It's good because that's when I start getting really specific questions like, "Just how sensitive IS a cat's hearing next to a humans?"

Found this article comparing human and feline hearing, and also went for a source on common causes of ear infections in cats, and compared them to common causes of ear infections in humans. Basically everything WE get, and more. I also remembered a vet that I worked with explaining that humans don't get ear mites because our ear canals are shorter, but honestly I don't really want to hunt down a source on that.

Bottom line is that it seems that cats get ear infections significantly easier than humans.

SESSION 3: Paying attention to deaf and HOH experiences

Started loading up some videos on Youtube, and follow along with presentations from deaf speakers, awareness charities, and so on.

ADHD protip: If you're like me and often feel the need to get up and walk around when you're trying to focus on something, playing flash games on Neopets or a similar petsite while keeping a video popped out is a great way to help with executive function impulse stuff. Firefox and the program Freetube both allow for you to pop open a small window that you can move around your screen.

I absolutely adored this video from Montfort University, which collected experiences from people who were actively losing their hearing. I'm feeling that a lot of folks are probably anticipating the Herb Guide with the expectation it'll talk about fully deaf warriors like Snowkit (And BB!Whitewing, who is deaf in Better Bones), but one of the most important things I'm learning is that partial and unilateral hearing loss is both common, and important to talk about.

That section on people forgoing hearing aids is so bitter. The way that they were reluctant to even "admit" they had a disability (feeling as if it "doesn't count"), felt like hearing aids were for "old people" so they resisted getting a device that would really help, and that one woman who finally realized what her own mother must have been going through when she was in her shoes...

Jeez, man. Ableism really hits us all, doesn't it? You'll reject the small bits of help that were SHAKEN out of the pockets of an uncaring world, just so you don't have to admit you might need it.

I am vaguely aware that there's buzz within the deaf community about hearing aids, with some deaf people actually having extremely negative feelings on them. I didn't manage to find those people though, besides what I remembered from Tumblr posts explaining that cochlear implants tend to destroy what little hearing remains. I also didn't know what sorts of hearing aids exist, just basics.

In any case, it's not what my guide's about. Clan cats wouldn't be able to make devices like that-- so to compensate, I tried to stress that forcing warriors to "assimilate" to able-bodied society is bad compared to "accommodating" them. But I did make a little aside note on the guide itself as a PSA.

ANYWAY I'm keeping that pinned in my mind as I go through this. A LOT of these speakers are talking about their implants and how much they changed their lives, so I'm taking things with a teeny grain of salt, knowing I'm probably not getting the entire hearing-impaired community's feelings on this.

Rachel Kolb's Tedx talk was DEEPLY insightful, she is an absolutely fantastic presenter and her statistics are gutwrenching. I'm also paying close attention to how she described her speech therapy classes, how tactile the lessons are, how she had to hold her hand to her teacher's throat and learned that the trick to an N and an M was to speak it through the nose...

The theme of this part of my research has really been "heartbreaking," honestly. Next I watched this one from a BBC interview, where the speaker talks about how much EFFORT they have to make to listen to others. The casual cruelty of hearing people just not caring enough to reach out and make sure she can follow along in the conversation.

I know it's maybe not the same thing, but I teared up a bit at some parts, because that's something I've also felt as someone who's ADHD/Autistic. How much it hurts when people won't even take the goddamn time to clue you in. Like you're not worth it

Even if it's just for a silly cat community, I really hope the weeks of effort and hours of reading I put into this guide and journal makes someone feel seen. You're worth the time. I promise I mean it

Anyway,

Like The Basics, I kept finding more things as I went through my research, outside of this session.

Struggles of deaf people in life and the workplace

Social struggles, particularly in the digital age

Cochlear implants: Pros and Cons (It was really not relevant to my project here, BUT, I figured it was important enough to even mention in an aside on the main guide.)

Really interesting passage from a married couple losing their hearing

"What is it like to be deaf?" Mentions the link to memory loss in people who are hard of hearing due to the brain "discarding" misheard sentences.

SESSION 4: Relevant questions.

This is the point I was asking more targeted questions, as I was actively writing the bulk of the guide, because in spite of everything this remains a cat project. If I was about to write something and then realized I didn't actually know like... WHAT causes it, HOW it happens, How COMMON a thing is, I would go and find out.

For example I knew that Snowkit had a higher chance of being born deaf, but didn't exactly know why, or how it happens, or how much higher of a chance that was. So, I looked up white cats with blue eyes, and looked up the percentages associated with deafness in them.

Apparently it's rapid degeneration, instead of the inner ear just not forming properly. I could go down that rabbit hole and learn more about why, but at this point, I'm far enough along that I need to start deciding when something isn't really helpful but just interesting. It's REALLY easy to get distracted at this point in making these guides.

That lead to to look at how people tend to handle their deaf cats and make their lives better, which also lead me to a good source on how to clean a cat's ears. That's another thing I had to halt at; because this guide is about DISABILITY, not about treating ear ailments.

When you're doing research this way, I find it helpful to "limit my scope." I've mentioned this technique/skill/advice in the past with some of my cultural expansions for the Clans too. You can see how maaaaassive the guide I wrote got even while staying on topic; it easily could have gotten bloated by even MORE tangential knowledge.

But I do plan to make an ear treatment guide at some point, as well.

I then started trying to learn more about rodent squeaks. How high in hertz they are, when different animals make them, how loud in decibels, etc. I couldn't find very much, because sound/hearing in general is actually WILDLY understudied, especially in terms of non-human animals.

But I did find this article on mouse vocalizations, specifically, and this webpage on various animal hearing ranges.

(though the webpage begs ppl to be careful about making comparisons between the numbers on the page, because they come from different studies with different parameters. But like. somehow i think this is good enough for funny cat project)

Lastly on this topic, I tried to find a good source on whiskers and how well they can "replace" hearing, and ended up finding this EXCELLENT article on allllll sorts of hearing loss related things in cats. It's got it all. Whiskers, common causes, tests. It's great.

SESSION 5: Sensitivity readers

I'm trying to be extra careful with this guide, with the knowledge in mind that this one was highly requested and likely will get decent reach. So, I figured it was more important than usual to speak to disabled individuals who could advise me, to my face, instead of only relying on what I'd seen in my research and secondhand information.

(especially since my style in writing these guides tries to be "simple," trying to limit how much medical speak I use and explaining terms in-depth when I need to use them.)

I spoke to @sylsoddsandends, @s0ulfulsapph1cf, and one more. While talking to them, they brought up even more to me that I hadn't considered.

For example, I did not know that unilateral hearing loss (affects one ear more than the other) actually resulted in a loss of "distance perception," the same way that I don't have depth perception because I've got low vision in one eye. I grabbed a scientific paper to read about it and went forth.

I also got a ton of good feedback about how much I stressed that lipreading is difficult, added some advice on a unilateral HL cat would stand, brought in some notes about chronic pain, so on. I then went to preview it to a bunch of personal friends to give it a couple more once-overs for typos and flow and such.

The last thing I did was reach out to those sensitivity readers again, and ask their permission to link them here. I don't have permission from the last reader yet (which is on me, I should have asked sooner). So there will be an update here if/when they get back to me.

POSTMORTEM

Nothing here yet! I will make an attempt to collect any follow-up questions and such down here.

[uh-velkommen]

Scandinavian Things to Watch

Somebody asked me for some recommendations in regards to Swedish and/or Norwegian T.V. shows so I figured I'd scour the internet for every show and movie I've ever seen and compile a list.

Now I will note that half of these I wouldn't really recommend. A thing about Norwegian shows, you'll always end up in one of these genres: Crime-Drama, A show about an awkward person or immigrant family navigating Norwegian culture, or an uneventful slice of life adult/family show and somehow, more often than not, some environmentalism plot line is threaded throughout each genre. I'm very used to fast paced dramas featuring teens so Norwegian series are quite the opposite. This is me admitting that I think most Norwegian shows and movies are so slow and boring. Also I hate Crime-Dramas. With that being said, I do try to get through the first couple of episodes/minutes and can recognize when a show is potentially good but if it requires my full attention to keep up, I'm not finishing it. I can't say if this crosses over into Swedish shows and I'm only just starting to get into Danish shows. Some of these are still on my To Be Seen and I definitely forgot to list others but it's been years since I've seen them so...🤷🏽‍♀️

Where To Watch: Most of these are on Netflix. Some were and are now gone, others have been added once I moved to Sweden. Some are on NRK which I used mostly when I was in Norway. You could get by with a VPN but NRK knows when you're using one and you'll have to restart it every two episodes. Viaplay is a Nordic streaming service that's only like 5 bucks a month, accessible anywhere but again, the selection varies depending on location.

Norwegian Movies:

Blasted (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, Two dudes fight aliens

Royalteen (Netflix) Drama, An average girl gets a prince to fall in love with her. In Royalteen 2, we follow the prince's sister who's working through personal issues.

Thelma (Netflix, Viaplay) TBS GAY - Horror, Something about romance and magic powers?

The Man Who Loved Yngve (Idk) TBS GAY - Drama, Romance

Norwegian Dream (Idk) TBS GAY - Coming of Age, Drama

The Trip (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, An old couple fights to see who can kill each other first instead of just getting a divorce

Troll (Netflix) - Drama, Action? A government team and Archeologist(?) try to stop an old troll from destroying the town

Troll Hunter (Netflix) - "Found Footage" People chase a troll idk

The Wave (Netflix) - Action Drama, People run from a massive wave

Battle (Netflix) - Drama, Featuring Lisa Teige who played Eva in Skam as a ballet dancer battling for the top spot I think, I never finished it.

Disco (NRK) - Drama, Which features Noora's(Skam) actress Josephine Frida Pettersen as a dancer juggling religion and passion.

Det Norske Hus (Netflix) - Comedy, A man crosses the boarder to attend a school that will teach him how to be Norwegian

The Lion Woman (Used to be on Netflix) - Whimsical Drama, A man protects a young hairy girl from being the town freak

The Affair (Viaplay) - Dark Drama, featuring Tarjei Sandvik Moe or Isak from Skam, A student gets dirty with a teacher and then stalks the teacher

Kitchen Stories (Idk) - Comedy? I had to watch this for school. I found it boring but Norwegian people like it. An Anthropologist(?) watches over a Norwegian man to study how Norwegians use kitchens

Norwegian Shows:

SKAM GAY for a season- Come on, you can't be on Tumblr and NOT know this show. This listing includes EVERY remake. Especially the American one (it's on NRK you nords) Every non-American only hates it because our culture is so different from Europe's, its giving xenophobia. Find the shows yourself, it's a rite of passage.

Ligga (Discovery+) TBS GAY- Comedy, featuring Ulrikke Falch, Vilde from Skam, A girl gets dumped and discovers casual sex. To be seen because I think it's only on Discovery Plus in Norway.

Ragnorok (Netflix) GAY for like 2 minutes - Mythology, featuring sexy babes from Skam Magnus, P. Cris, and my gf Sonja. The story of Thor versus the Giants. Fun Fact I actually don't care about this show, mainly this genre of show, but I challenged myself to watch it entirely in Norwegian without subtitles since season one and it's done so I win.

Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes (Netflix) TBS - Dark Comedy, Funeral directors get up to some morally corrupt shenanigans. I got half way through the first episode and gave up.

Øyevitne TBS (Eyewitness U.S. version on the USA Network) GAY- Crime Thriller, I haven't seen the original yet bc I can't find it anywhere. Also I said I didn't like this genre but the Scandis do know how to make 'em. Two boys witness a murder that could solve a massive crime ring but are too scared to come forward bc they don't wanna be outed as ~lovers~ The acting in the American version is a little rough but don't let that stop you! This is the only English speaking show on this list.

Ida Tar Ansvar (Viaplay) - Ironic Comedy? A girl who is just terrified of the real world befriends an Incel in hopes of changing him/saving women. The main actress is also in Royalteen and the main actor is actually Kasper from Skam!

Lillyhammer (Used to be on Netflix) - Crime Comedy, An old American gangster moves to a small part of Lillehammer, Norway to hide and life ensues. This was actually the first Norwegian series I watched post-Skam. There's speaking parts in both Norwegian and English but it's an American show. I still recommend it.

Norsemen (Netflix) - Mockumentary, It kind of feels like a Viking Version of The Office. I've seen a few episodes but the humor is very Norwegian and it didn't stick for me.

Beforeigners (Amazon Prime Video) - Drama, Time travelers from the Viking/Stone Age era end up in Modern day Norway. We follow a Detective Traveler Woman solve crimes. I never finished it bc I forgot it existed lol.

Exit (Viaplay, NRK) - Drama, We follow as a bunch of rich people be absolutely terrible human beings. Tbh, I only got to like episode 3, they're just too long.

The Architect (Viaplay) TBS - Drama, I couldn't tell you shit about this show. I got through the first episode and had no idea what was going on but it's filmed very stylistically and I can see it being enjoyable for someone out there.

Delete Me (Viaplay) TBS - Dark Drama, A sex tape gets out and causes problems for many students at this school. I haven't seen it yet bc the plot doesn't interest me but someone else highly recommended it.

Lik Meg (NRK) - Teen Drama, Two girls' friendship gets tested when they enter the 7th grade. I tried watching this when I was in Norway to fill the Skam void but it's definitely geared towards younger audiences so I didn't get far.

19 (NRK) - Same as above, Each season follows a character of a different age so the title of the show changes too I think. I don't know, here's the Wiki. This show focuses on third culture kids.

Skitten Snø (NRK) TBS - Dark Drama, again featuring our child Tarjei Sandvik Moe as he struggles with friendship but in a creepy way? It's hard to find a good description of this one.

Peppa Gris (NRK) - I literally just watched Peppa Pig in Norwegian for language learning purposes. That, Shrek(DVD), Frozen(Illegally) and also Vivo(Netflix).

Klassen (NRK) - Teen Drama, again really geared towards younger audiences. It's a very Disney-like show. I never finished it.

Pørni [or Pernille] (NRK, Netflix, Viaplay) GAY for like 2 minutes - Family Drama/Comedy following a social worker and mother navigating life after her sisters death, her father coming out, and her kids getting older. The characters are all genuinely funny in an endearing way to watch, and it shows genuine/sweet love between older people.

Swedish Movies: (I haven't seen these but they look good)

Black Crab (Netflix) TBS - Dark Drama, A solider has to cross a frozen sea with precious cargo to stop an apocalyptic war.

Låt Den Rätte Komma In (It's online free somewhere & on Swedish Netflix) TBS (Let Me In U.S. version) - Thriller, Something about a vampiric killer kid. I really like the American version so I wanna give the OG a shot.

A Man Called Ove (Netflix, Viaplay) TBS - Drama Comedy, A grumpy old man is mean to his neighbors after the death of his wife, he learns how to enjoy life again, I think.

JJ+E (Netflix) TBS - Teen Drama/Romance, A third culture boy and a Swedish girl fall in love. Will they make it?

Kyss Mig (Viaplay, Used to be on Netflix) TBS GAY - Drama, A young woman who is engaged begins an affair with her future stepmother's lesbian daughter (Can we consider that incest?).

Swedish Shows:

Sjukt (NRK) - Drama Comedy, Loosely based on the life of Young Royals Creator, Lisa Ambjörn. A young women finds a new lease on life after beating Ovarian Cancer. I enjoyed half of it but would rather finish it on a site that isn't NRK.

Young Royals (Netflix) - Teen Drama, beautiful amazing talented show stopping never been done before... A young prince gets sent to a boarding school to tighten up his act when jealousy causes things to fall apart all around him. Obviously recommend.

Gåsmamman (Amazon Prime Video) - Crime Drama, Featuring Young Royals star, Edvin Ryding, as one of the sons to a widowed mother caught up in a crime ring left by her husband. Turns out it goes deeper than what she was expecting. Brace yourself for this intense 6 season, 46 episode long show.

Kontoret (Swedish version of The Office) TBS - Exactly what it sounds like. I haven't bothered to look into it further but it could be fun to see the cultural differences and Swedish nuances.

Quicksand (Netflix) - Dark Drama, also a good one, After a school shooting we follow a girl who was somehow involved. As the plot unravels we find out exactly how. Features Felix Sandman if you're a fan of him.

One More Time (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, I literally just added this to my list. It's "17 Again" mixed with Disney's "16 Wishes."

Thunder in my Heart (Viaplay) TBS - Coming of Age/Family Drama. A lot of these Swedish shows on Viaplay don't have English subtitles so, dead end.

Älska mig (Viaplay) TBS - Drama/Romance, Familiar faces: Edvin Ryding of Young Royals/Gåsmamman! Little stories about people finding and navigating romance.

Ej Kjem (NRK) - Scandalous Drama, A show about a girl navigating life and SEXuality. I couldn't get far with it because it's only in Swedish with NYNORSK subtitles??

Clark (Netflix) TBS - Biography/Comedy? Bill Skarsgård! The unbelievable story of Clark Olofsson, the man who inspired the phrase "Stockholm Syndrome."

Danish Movies:

The Bombardment (Netflix) TBS - Wartime Drama, Based on true events, a WWII bomb hits a school in Copenhagen. (Also if you didn't know, there was A LOT happening with Sweden, Norway, and Denmark during WWII and so there are TONS of good Scandinavian movies set during then. I didn't list them because I'm just not that big a fan of the genre but the history's crazy.)

Danish Shows:

Seaside Hotel (Viaplay) GAY for like 2 seconds but idk if more happens I'm still watching - Drama, set some time in the 1920s. Various kooky guests check into this hotel every summer and life happens, drama unfolds. I was just starting to really get into it but for some reason Viaplay in Sweden doesn't have it 😡.

The Rain (Netflix) - Survival Drama, Toxic rain falls from the sky wiping out almost all humanity. One boy is the cure. Does he save and restore all humankind? I don't know I never finished it. This was when the survival genre was at an all time high. It's a good show but I just couldn't take it anymore.

Rita (Netflix) - Drama Comedy, Rita is an independent girl boss mother who has funny relationships with everyone around her. It's been years since I've seen it but it was pretty popular to the Danes.

Elves (Netflix) TBS - Horror Drama, It's evil elves at Christmas time. I haven't seen it yet but it doesn't look like it's gotten good reviews.

The Chestnut Man (Netflix) TBS - Crime Drama, A creepy chestnut toy links together murders and might be the answer to a politician's missing child.

One of the Boys (Viaplay) GAY - Coming of Age, short drama series. A boy gets sent on this "How to be a man" retreat and flips between changing himself to fit in and accepting his oddball self with this other outsider who is "totally not gay" but I literally don't believe that and it's total queer baiting but there's a kiss scene and it's such a short and easy watch that why not give a chance.

And finally: @notachair asked for this so here you go :)

[monstrouslyobsessed]

still working on a thing and ima try and throw up another concept or hc later today tomorrow~now ima answer some asks < 3

tw: n'sfw subjects, kink talks, pregnancy(-related) mentions

What blogs and writers(ones that do dark romance stuff) do you recommend? —anonymous

i get this question a lot tbh, i should think about adding to faq, but uhhhhh, depends on what you're looking for. original or fandom? most of my mutuals, friends, and writers i liked/found write genshin, jojo, and other popular fandoms.

if original works only, i haven't found many, no, and tumblr ain't great with their rec feed (99% time they're fandom only).

@dear-yandere (she's not active, but i love her works sm) made a post you can look through! linky link

Favorite kinks to write in your opinion? —anonymous

uhm, i'm sure you can tell with most of my works lol but ig i can explain why i like a certain few. rest tho, i just like them lol

pregnancy / pregnancy sex / oviposition, im actually a touch tokophobic irl, but in writing, its not so much on for children (they're cute though) but because it's the near-total loss of control over one's body, if that makes sense. as its my thing to write the darling losing control to their possessive spouse, pregnancy is one of my go to.

monster dick(s), because we could use some variety in our d's lol human d's is good too though ofc

stomach bulge / cumflation, p similar to pregnancy in some ways, the darling loses the sense of losing their body to the other. (pseudo?) body destruction, really.

size differences, because i want to be picked up and be carried sometimes

yeah, most of the kinks i listed here had to do with the loss of control.

YES I CAN U BACK DEAR 💕💕💕💕 —anonymous

that was painful;; so glad to be back!! 💕

Yoo have you seen the movie called the descent? If you have, what do u think of the monsters!! —anonymous

uhmmmm, the name didn't ring a bell...google time!

oh waittttt, i vaguely remembered this one. this was based on dante's inferno, wasnt it? after checking the monsters, yes hi.

i prefer they'd bathe first though lol but i'd be down for them! pretty simplistic in design, reminded me of buffy the vampire slayer's vampires, actually! think buffy was one of the earliest monsters i can remember really liking as a wee lad.

So, have you read the Neonomicon? I saw it on one of your posts. I actually read the thing online and I immediately fell in love with the Deep One too despite the noncon. Is that weird? —anonymous

are you referring to the one i did where the darling had to watch the world burn in the palm of cthulhu?

thats the only one i can recall of ever doing, but on reading the neonomicon, no! you're talking about the comic series one? i don't generally read american comics because of how weird they organized their issues, but if its not long and good, then i'll be happy to check it out!

and nah, not weird at all imo. humans are drawn to things we simply don't understand, and as long as you are not harming yourself or anyone else, its fine to indulge. we all find appeals in certain things others don't and that's perfectly normal. most of the monsters i liked as a kid were actually violent and murderous so.....yeah. im literally one of the last people who should judge you , dear nonnie.

just know that youre far from being alone though! heck you'll find many n'sfw artworks and other contents of the deep ones and other monsters if you know where to look.

Dude I've been binging all your pyramid head works and I love them sm!! Would u be writing more for him in the future? —anonymous

mmmaybe? like i do have a couple of ideas, but nothing too concrete. one idea involved the reader being, well, the mother of monsters and the butcher would probably become more monstrous over time because of the silent hill related plot reasons. thing is, the reader wouldn't know there were changes at all, being too addicted to the butcher's to pay attention. I'm being very vague on this one because...idk how to communicate the story yet, if at all.

the other one might involve incest though, because of the monsters the reader birthed cooperating with the butcher, under the god's order. this one is just...a concept more than anything though because tentacles are fun.

otherwise, its just straight pron with the butcher. I'm glad you liked him tho! &lt;3

now to work on things...inbox is always open tho~!

[laundrybiscuits]

Tagged by @zerokrox-blog! Not tagging anyone else because I am fundamentally a bad tumblr citizen. Do it if you like, I'm not your parent or guardian.

Putting this under a cut because it's not technically fandom content.

Three ships: I know this is a non-answer, but I tend to hyperfixate on one ship at a time, gnawing at it until I've got all the gristle and marrow I think I'm going to get. That said, I'm generally pretty willing to be sold on any given ship for the length of a fic.

Last song: I've just got back from the V&A's Hallyu/Korean Wave exhibit this afternoon, so I've pulled up some of my old kpop playlists; the song that's playing right now is Holland's I'm So Afraid.

Last movie: An indie cinema in Chinatown did a special showing of EEAAO last week, so of course I took the opportunity to drag a few friends along to see it again in 4k.

Currently reading: My friend recently lent me Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, and I finished it just in time to catch the staged version at the Barbican in a stunningly serendipitous coincidence.

Currently watching: Turns out the same friend who lent me the Tokarczuk has never seen We Are Lady Parts so I've been making her watch it. I highly HIGHLY recommend it for absolutely everyone—it's a charming, funny, clever, and incredibly well-produced six-episode series about an all-female Muslim punk band in London.

Currently consuming: What my bestie calls "diaspora buttered noodles" i.e. flat egg noodles with sesame oil, chili, and a bit of rocket/arugula to nod vaguely in the direction of vitamins and whatnot. I feel obliged to admit that I've also added some nutritional yeast; I'm not a vegan, but I've dated a number of vegans (yay queer dating) and it turns out I'm a freak who just...legitimately enjoys nutritional yeast more than cheese. I may get my American citizenship revoked for this, or at the very least my right to call myself a Midwesterner.

Currently craving: Time, energy, a girlfriend, take your pick.

[respectable-username]

🔐 Why You (Probably) Don't Need A VPN

A rant by a software engineer sick of VPN ads from her favourite YouTubers

TL;DR:

Here are some legitimate reasons the average internet user might want to use a VPN:

To connect to their company's internal network

To bypass the Great Firewall of China (or other types of website blocks at country or organisation level)

To watch Netflix etc as if you were in another country

Here are absolutely rubbish reasons to use a VPN:

Privacy

And today, I'll tell you why.

Hang on, won't a VPN stop hackers from stealing my passwords?

I mean, it does encrypt the web traffic coming from your device.

You know what else encrypts web traffic coming from your device? Your browser.

Yes, in the year 2021, pretty much all websites on the internet are accessed over HTTPS. The "S" stands for "secure", as in "your request will be securely encrypted". If your browser is using HTTPS, nobody can capture the data you're sending over the internet. More detail in the "I like too much detail" section at the bottom of this post.

It's very easy to check if you are using HTTPS by looking at your URL bar. In most browsers, it will have a lock on it if secure:

(From top left to bottom right: Chrome on iOS, Safari on iOS, Chrome on Windows, Edge on Windows, Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Screenshots reflect the UI at the time this post was written. Oh gosh this has taken over 4 hours to write.)

But isn't moar encryption better? What if somebody breaks HTTPS?

For starters, nobody's breaking your HTTPS, and there isn't any benefit from double encrypting. This is because of the maths behind encryption/decryption!

Encryption works kinda like a lock and key, except the lock is maths and the key is a special number only known to the person allowed to unlock the information.

The important thing is, without the key, all the locked data looks like complete and utter garbage. Completely unusable. Barely distinguishable from random noise. There's absolutely no way to tell what the original data was.

The other important thing is that the key is nearly unguessable. As in, with current technology, will generally take more than the lifetime of the universe to guess by chance. And when technology gets faster, we just make the numbers bigger again until they're once again secure.

For any major website you use, they will use a strong encryption algorithm (ie lock) with big numbers so your keys will be strong enough to withstand an attack. This means your data is safe as long as that lock icon is in your URL bar.

A VPN will not make the existing garble any more garbled. The extra $10/month or whatever you're paying for does not buy you any extra protection.

If you want to know more about how encryption and HTTPS in particular work, see the "I like too much detail" section at the end of this post.

Something something viruses

How's a VPN going to stop viruses? It controls the path your internet traffic takes, not the content that gets sent down that path. I guess it could block some known virus-giving hosts? But if it's known to the VPN provider, it's probably also known to the built-in antivirus on your computer who can block it for you.

(Oh yeah, 3rd party antivirus is another thing that's not worth paying for these days. Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender is as good as the third party options, and something something Macs don't get viruses easily because of how they're architected.)

Honestly though, keep your software up to date, don't click on anything suspicious, don't open files from sources you don't trust, and you'll be right most of the time.

And keep your software up to date. Then update your software. Hey, did I mention keeping your stuff updated? Update! Now! It only takes a few minutes. Please update to the latest version of your software I'm begging you. It's the number 1 way to protect yourself from viruses and other malware. Most major software attacks could have been prevented if people just updated their damn software!

But my ISP is spying on me!

Ok, it is true that there are TWO bits of data that HTTPS can't and won't hide. Those are:

The source of a request (your IP)

What website that request is going to (the website's IP)

These are the bits of information that routers use to know where to send your data, so of course they can't be hidden as the data is moving across the internet. And people can see that information very easily if they want to.

Note: this will show which website you're going to, but not which page you're looking at, and not the content of that page. So it will show that you were on Tumblr, but will not show anyone that you're still reading SuperWhoLock content in 2021.

It's this source/destination information that VPNs hide, which is why they can be used to bypass website blocks and region locks.

By using a VPN, those sniffing traffic on your side of the VPN will just show you connecting to the VPN, not the actual website you want. That means you can read AO3 at work/school without your boss/teachers knowing (unless they look over your shoulder of course).

As for those sniffing on the websites end, including the website itself, they will see the VPN as the source of the connection, not you. So if you're in the US and using a VPN node in the UK, Netflix will see you as being in the UK and show you their British library rather than the American one.

If this is what you're using a VPN for and you think the price is fair, then by all means keep doing it! This is 100% what VPNs are good for.

HOWEVER, and this is a big "however", if it's your ISP you're trying to hide your internet traffic from, then you will want to think twice before using a VPN.

Let me put it this way. Without a VPN, your ISP knows every website you connect to and when. With a VPN, do you know who has that exact same information? The VPN provider. Sure, many claim to not keep logs, but do you really trust the people asking for you to send them all your data for a fee to not just turn around and sell your data on for a profit, or worse?

In effect, you're trading one snooper for another. One snooper is heavily regulated, in many jurisdictions must obey net neutrality, and is already getting a big fee from you regardless of where you browse. The other isn't. Again, it's all a matter of who you trust more.

For me personally, I trust my ISP more than a random VPN provider, if for no other reason than my ISP is an old enough company with enough inertia and incompetence that I don't think they could organise to sell my data even if they wanted to. And with the amount of money I'm paying them per month, they've only got everything to lose if they broke consumer trust by on-selling that data. So yeah, I trust my ISP more with my privacy than the random VPN company.

But my VPN comes with a password manager!

Password managers are great. I 100% recommend you use a password manager. If there's one thing you could do right now to improve your security (other than updating your software, speaking of, have you updated yet?), it's getting and using a password manager.

Password managers also come for free.

I'm currently using LastPass free, but am planning to switch after they did a bad capitalism and only let their free accounts access either laptop or mobile but not both now. I personally am planning to move to Bitwarden on friends' recommendation since it's not only free but open source and available across devices. I also have friends who use passbolt and enjoy it, which is also free and open source, but it's also a bit DIY to set up. Great if you like tinkering though! And there are probably many other options out there if you do a bit of googling.

So, yeah, please use a password manager, but don't pay for it unless you actually have use for the extra features.

No I really need to hide my internet activity from everybody for reasons

In this case, you're probably looking for TOR. TOR is basically untraceable. It's also a terrible user experience for the most part because of this, so I'd only recommend it if you need it, such as if you're trying to escape the Great Firewall. But please don't use it for Bad Crimes. I am not to be held liable for any crime committed using information learned from this post.

Further reading viewing

If you want to know more about why you don't need a VPN, see Tom Scott's amazing video on the subject. It's honestly a great intro for beginners.

I like too much detail

Ahhh, so you're the type of person who doesn't get turned off by long explanations I see. Well, here's a little more info on the stuff I oversimplified in the main post about encryption. Uhh, words get bigger and more jargony in this section.

So first oversimplification: the assumption that all web traffic is either HTTP or HTTPS. This isn't exactly true. There are many other application layer internet standards out there, such as ssh, ftp, websockets, and all the proprietary standards certain companies use for stuff such as streaming and video conferencing. Some of these are secure, using TLS or some other security algorithm under the hood, and some of them aren't.

But most of the web requests you care about are HTTP/HTTPS calls. As for the rest, if they come from a company of a decent size that hasn't been hacked off the face of the planet already, they're probably also secure. In other words, you don't need to worry about it.

Next, we've already said that encryption works as a lock and a key, where the lock is a maths formula and the key is a number. But how do we get that key to lock and unlock the data?

Well, to answer that, we first need to talk about the two different types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption such as AES uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, whereas asymmetric encryption such as RSA uses a different key to encode and decode.

For the sake of my writing, we're going to call the person encrypting Alice, the person decrypting Bob, and the eavesdropper trying to break our communications Eve from now on. These are standard names in crypto FYI. Also, crypto is short for cryptography not cryptocurrencies. Get your Bitcoin and Etherium outta here!

Sorry if things start getting incoherent. I'm tired. It's after 1am now.

So first, how do we get the key from symmetric crypto? This is probably the easier place to start. Well, you need a number, any number of sufficient size, that both Alice and Bob know. There are many ways you could share this number. They could decide it when they meet in person. They could send it to each other using carrier pigeons. Or they could radio it via morse code. But those aren't convenient, and somebody could intercept the number and use it to read all their messages.

So what we use instead is a super clever algorithm called Diffie-Hellman, which uses maths and, in particular, the fact it's really hard to factor large numbers (probably NP Hard to be specific, but there's no actual proof of that). The Wikipedia page for this is surprisingly easy to read, so I'll just direct you there to read all about it because I've been writing for too long. This algorithm allows Alice and Bob to agree on a secret number, despite Eve being able to read everything they send each other.

Now Alice and Bob have this secret number key, they can talk in private. Alice puts her message and the key into the encryption algorithm and out pops what looks like a load of garbage. She can then send this garbage to Bob without worrying about Eve being able to read it. Bob can then put the garbage and the key into the decryption algorithm to undo the scrambling and get the original message out telling him where the good donuts are. Voila, they're done!

But how does Alice know that she's sending her message to Bob and not Eve? Eve could pretend to be Bob so that Alice does the Diffie-Hellman dance with her instead and sends her the secret location of the good donuts instead.

This is where asymmetric crypto comes in! This is the one with private and public keys, and the one that uses prime numbers.

I'm not 100% across the maths on this one TBH, but it has something to do with group theory. Anyway, just like Diffie-Hellman, it relies on the fact that prime factorisation is hard, and so it does some magic with semi-primes, ie numbers with only 2 prime factors other than 1. Google it if you want to know more. I kinda zoned out of this bit in my security courses. Maths hard

But the effect of that maths is easier to explain: things that are encoded with one of the keys can only be decoded with the other key. This means that one of those keys can be well-known to the public and the other is known only to the person it belongs to.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob and just Bob, no Eve allowed, she can first look up Bob's public key and encrypt a beginning message with that. Once Bob receives the message, he can decrypt it with his private key and read the contents. Eve can't read the contents though because, even though she has Bob's public key, she doesn't know his private key.

This public key information is what the lock in your browser is all about BTW. It's saying that the website is legit based on the public key they provide.

So why do we need symmetric crypto when we have asymmetric crypto? Seems a lot less hassle to exchange keys with asymmetric crypto.

Well, it's because asymmetric crypto is slooooow. So, in TLS, the security algorithm that puts the "S" in "HTTPS", asymmetric RSA is used to establish the initial connection and figure out what symmetric key to use, and then the rest of the session uses AES symmetric encryption using the agreed secret key.

And there you have it! Crypto in slightly-less-short-but-still-high-enough-level-that-I-hope-you-understand.

Just realised how long this section is. Well, I did call it "too much detail" for a reason.

Now, next question is what exactly is and isn't encrypted using HTTPS.

Well, as I said earlier, it's basically just the source IP:port and the destination IP:port. In fact, this information is actually communicated on the logical layer below the application layer HTTPS is on, known as the transport layer. Again, as I said before, you can't really encrypt this unless you don't want your data to reach the place you want at all.

Also, DNS is unencrypted. A DNS request is a request that turns a domain name, such as tumblr.com, into an IP address, by asking a special server called a Domain Name Server where to find the website you're looking for. A DNS request is made before an HTTP(S) request. Anyone who can read your internet traffic can therefore tell you wanted to go to Tumblr.

But importantly, this only shows the domain name, not the full URL. The rest of the URL, the part after the third slash (the first two slashes being part of http://), is stuff that's interpreted by the server itself and so isn't needed during transport. Therefore, it encrypted and completely unreadable, just like all the content on your page.

I was going to show a Wireshark scan of a web request using HTTP and HTTPS to show you the difference, but this has taken long enough to write as it is, so sorry!

I could probably write more, but it's 1:30am and I'm sleepy. I hope you found some of this interesting and think twice before purchasing a VPN subscription. Again, there are legit good uses for a VPN, but they're not the ones primarily being advertised in VPN ads. It's the fact that VPN ads rely so heavily on false advertising that really grinds my gears and made me want to do this rant. It's especially bad when it comes from somebody I'd think of as technologically competent (naming no names here, but if you've worked in tech and still promote VPNs as a way to keep data safe... no). Feel free to ask questions if you want and hopefully I'll get around to answering any that I feel I know enough to answer.

Nighty night Tumblr. Please update your software. And use a (free) password manager. And enable two factor authentication on all your accounts. But mostly just update your software.

[game-boy-pocket]

Today, I beat Fester's Quest, another game that was featured in Nintendo Power #8. I think I may have actually owned this one as a kid, either that or I had a relative who owned the game... or maybe it was on an ad inside the box for another one of my games, either way, I didn't play it... there was just something about the box art for this game that I found so very... frightening.

Fester is suppost to be pretty ghastly looking, but as far as I know he was never pure white with blood red lips. And that horrid spider on his forehead, that gloomy mansion with the thunder clap in the background... aparantly I wasn't the only one this box art made an impression on, as KC Green parodied it quite clearly for the comic book Graveyard Quest.

Somehow not as frightening when it looks MORE corpse like than Fester does.

I wasn't an Adams Family fan back then and I still only think they're okay, I'm much more of a Munsters guy. This was released before the films made the series go back into mainstream popularity after nearly 25 years prior...

I don't know why Sunsoft wanted to make an Adams Family game, I hear the license was cheap... but they could have just made this game star Jason Frudnik and sold it as Blaster Master 2, because this game is almost literally Blaster Master without the tank in a very loose Adams Family Skin. Like, even the enemies feel more like they should be in blaster master... hell, the frog boss from blaster master is actually in this game as a shrunken down version as a regular enemy.

This game has a very pad reputation, and I can kind of see why, but at the same time, I'm probably missing something because I played a patch of the game that applies the changes Sunsoft made to the European version of the game after American feedback to the NTSC version, which fixes your shots being stopped by walls and lowers the health of enemies to make them less bullet spongey, while raising the price of healing items.

As for my experience.... 's alright.

The one thing i'll say this gets right where Blaster Master fails is that your weapon doesn't downgrade when you get hit. There are item debuffs that you have to avoid collecting. That one change would have made Blaster Master a lot better ( but not completely fixed it's problems )

I almost rage quit this game to be honest. The bosses are nearly just as bullshit hard as Blaster Master, but I learned something quite crucial to beating this game. You have to explore, and use your keys on the buildings to get essential items. An invincibility potion and a health refill potion being the most crucial, as well as a whip that is super effective on certain bosses, and an item that removes a the "slower walking" status ailment. And these items actually get refilled every time you beat a boss, the game is actually not so hard if you save these items on the bosses.

The game sends you back to the starting point if you die just once, which is kind of shitty, but all the bosses stay dead, and you don't lose weapon upgrades, I almost would have preferred Blaster Master do this instead of just not have continues. I actually let myself die to collect missing items, and it was pretty quick to get back to where I died. I think the worst thing this game does is hide one of the only two health upgrades in the game in a area that you can only access by walking through an invisible path into a secret house, I wouldn't have known about it but I had a video walk through playing to give me a boss strategy.

Do I recommend this game to others? If you liked Blaster Master, or you're just in general an NES fan, then maybe, sure, but do not play the vanilla USA version, get the patch I told you about. I'd link it but tumblr seems to have broken that feature. Good job tumblr. If you're an Addams Family fan... I'd say skip it, this has fuck all to do with the series other than you playing as Fester, and there being a few compressed JPEGs from the show... I guess if you want to stretch it Fester lights up the underground with lightbulbs like how he can power lightbulbs with his mouth in the show, but that's about it... there's a SNES Fester game that feels much closer in spirit to the show, and plays a bit like Zelda, but that will come later.

Last thing i'll say is, before issue 8 of Nintendo Power, Fester's Quest got a preview, and I love how the NP artist drew Fester as this funny little druid dude with a megaphone ( it's meant to be a blunderbuss. )

[queenlilith43]

Reasons Why Post Plus is a Terrible Idea

Tumblr has recently unveiled their new "Post Plus" feature. It allows people to put a paywall around their blogs, allowing them to charge up to $9.99 a month, with Tumblr taking a 5% cut of the creator's earnings. In this post, I will explain why this is a horrible idea.

@staff: You better listen up. I took a few hours away from my day for this. I had to have my friend Ashley help me with this, and that took time from her day too. (Thank you @patalliumapples) I'm explaining everything under the cut because this is long.

1. We Don't Have the Money

First of all, Tumblr is a social media site. This means in countries like the US, people as young as 13 can sign up and have an account. Most teenagers do not have the money to keep up with their favorite blogs for the low, low price of $9.99!

Second of all, a lot of adults on the site already are having trouble paying their bills, and don't have any content they would be willing to charge people on. As explained in this post, people are already struggling. (They also explain how to support creators better, which I will go onto later.) They don't have the money to spend on this. I, as a teenager myself, don't have enough money to spend to unlock Tumblr blogs. I don't know if I even can, I don't have a credit card or anything, and I don't want debt before I'm out of high school. Oh, and that leads me right next into the next point.

2. You could fix other things

Tumblr is called a Hellsite for many reasons, and how it breaks a lot is one of them. One problem are the Ray-Bans sunglasses bots that hack the site every so often. I have gotten one, Ashley has gotten three.

You can also barely even search on this website. Searching for tags brings up the randomest things. You can barely even search your own blog, this is how bad it is. Fixing those issues before we give you our credit card number would be a great thing.

3. People don't want it

The consensus so far is NO. In some cases, "FUCK NO" This is valid, people don't want it. We can't pay for it, and we really don't need it. Everyone hates it.

And you bet that the Tumblr-famous will try this out.

I, as of writing this, have 416 followers. I bet all of them would leave me if I tried to do a paid post. (Not like I can, I'm a broke teenager, but still.) That would limit the market.

And other people have expressed they would leave anyone who put their posts behind a paywall, such as in this newly-viral post.

4. Monetization of fanfic

Alright. *Cracks fingers* I get to show off my knowledge of copyright law.

Fair use that covers fanfiction does not cover having to pay for it. Monetization of fanfiction is not legal, and if someone tries, the original content creator can issue a DMCA takedown order. The person who posted and monetized the fanfiction will be forced to take down their post, hurting their earnings. This will affect Tumblr.

Also, as we saw recently with a Loki T-shirt on Etsy, big corporations are known for taking down anything they consider infringement, even if it falls under fair use. There was a scare a while back on Ao3 (Archive of Our Own) that Disney would take down their fanfiction, but Ao3 had a legal time that can fight for them. Tumblr probably does not, and would probably lose a legal battle against Disney.

In fact, Ao3 does not allow any sort of links to other monetizable websites, like Pateron and Ko-fi, on their platform to avoid potential legal trouble. It's included in their terms of service, which you can read here. I would recommend it, and to check out some other links. They explain legal issues quite well.

And as satirized in this post, trying to find posts on Tumblr for a DMCA takedown is pretty damn hard.

5. You can get around paying for a post through the reblogs.

Despite the fact that is something you're technically not supposed to do, people can just copy and paste the content. The fact is if anyone has a Post Plus post, you bet the entirety of Tumblr is going to get around that. After all "you can share a teaser of +Post Content through the reblog function on the Services" (From the Tumblr TOS)

6. We've had mirror sites that could probably get around the paywall

In the past, we have had many mirror sites. They are the exact mirror of our Tumblr, tracking everything right down to our reblogs. Last I heard they were all shut down, though Tumbex sounded like it was going to come back. If these mirror sites are smart enough, they would be another way around the paywall.

7. You can't block people who are paying for your content

This is a problem. People can harass you, and sometimes, this Hellsite won't take them off. The block button is an important tool. I, for one, currently have 11 people blocked for various reasons. Some of them were messing with me in the reblogs of a post (it wasn't even their place to do so) and I didn't think Tumblr would count this as harassment.

If you can't block people, and even with the risk of it hurting your earnings, it's not good. Even remotely.

8. There are other ways to support creators that are much better. 

As said in the very first reason, creators hate this Post Plus. They prefer being supported in other ways. People also don’t always want to be paid for the content (not even counting legal issues) And if they want to there are already platforms set up for them to use. For example, Pateron has tiers you can set up for membership, ranging up to $100. There, you know what you walked into. You’re not expecting free content, like on Tumblr, you’re building a relationship with the people in your community. Ko-fi lets people donate directly to their content creators, and won’t take any of their donations, unlike the 5% cut Tumblr is planning on taking. Both platforms also offer features that would not be available on Tumblr. Creators are also more likely to already have one of these set up, and keep Tumblr for their free content. 

9. Tumblr could make money through better ads

Tumblr ads are famously . . . what’s the word? Ah, yes, “batshit” is the word I’m looking for. I’ve gotten ads for tattoo aftercare, signs of heart disease (the picture provided was someone with their nails painted blue), maps of the USA, celebrities that has passed away, lists of bad cities in my state, graphics of chickens with Hindi (note: I am American), and apparently now I should be worried if my dog licks their paws. (?) As I went to check my dash while writing this post, I saw a small air cooler that was apparently more powerful than A/C being advertised. 

No one clicks on them except for a laugh, or if they accidentally thought it was something that was actually interesting. Most of the time, it is not. Tumblr could do something like Instagram and actually have good ads and make more money off of it. It may not be as much as they thought they were going to make, but it’s better than what they have now. (It’s a low bar.) 

10. This is the same website that spearheaded DashCon

You remember DashCon, don’t you? 

This seems to illustrate the website's stupidity in one picture and this is why you shouldn't trust us with money.

If you have any other reasons why this is bad reason, reblog the post with your reasons. I'd like to hear them, and don't forget to tag the staff.

There is a survey Tumblr wants you to fill out here, it's a step you can take. You can also listen to the protest @postplus-protest which should help. It starts August 6th, it's going to be a great time.

[imadeoutwithmikeywayonwarpedtour]

tell me about the colonization of mitski’s music please

thank you so much

so i have ranted about this on multiple occasions to my friends but like. basically. mitski’s a biracial asian woman right. her identity will always have some kind of influence on her music and i think a lot of her white listeners don’t realize this? let’s take her song strawberry blond, which is one of her most popular songs, and also the one that makes me the most mad.

lets start off: strawberry blond is a hair colour that usually, only white people have. in the context of the song, strawberry blonde is a euphemism for whiteness.

this song is not about yearning, in the way that most people know. it’s about being the second choice, as a person of colour, to a white person. it’s also about how a lot of poc seek out white attention despite knowing that we will never be “good enough”.

the lyrics:

you tell me you love her, i give you a grin.

this is the feeling, of being the second choice. having to listen to a white person talk about another white person when you knew you were never an option in the first place. beauty standards in our society are made for white women. women of colour especially can never compete with the white woman when it comes to navigating our society that is so based around standards set for white women.

look at you, strawberry blond, i love it when you call my name, watching your arm, i love it when you look my way.

this is the feeling of seeking out the validation of a white person (male probably, hence the use of blond and not blonde). even though you know you can’t compete you hope, just this once, that you will be enough. i’m guilty of this myself. in the past i have looked for the validation of mostly white men/women when i know that white people hold some “superiority” over me.

i hate how tumblr, tiktok, all social media platforms have dumbed the meaning of this song down to ohh yearning!!!! cottagecore song!!!! strawberry cow!!!!! (what the fuck was that btw).

yes the song sounds very cute. if i wasn’t aware of the meaning i might have added it to a cottagecore playlist myself. (not to mention how a lot of people EVEN SPOTIFY THEMSELVES have) but the song is pretty depressing, if you’re a person of colour. with the exposure of the song in white lgbt spaces, it’s regarded now as a song for cottagecore wlw and not women of colour.

you could argue that art is meant to be interpreted, and i’d agree with you. but to completely strip the actual meaning of a song when in regard is about the experiences of marginalized people, is disrespectful. especially when it’s a majority white people making this argument.

another one of her songs, your best american girl, is more obvious about it’s actual meaning, except in the end, mitski chooses her own culture over the white person. (i recommend watching the mv, it’s great) in the beginning of the video, mitski actually has the attention of the white man, but as soon as a white woman comes into frame, the man is completely distracted by her and basically has disregarded mitski’s existence. this is how it is in real life for us.

lyrics like:

well i'm not the moon, i'm not even a star

your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me, but i do, i think i do, but you’re an all-american boy, i guess i couldn’t help trying to be your best american girl

are so obviously about wanting to be white, to fit into that social norm, to finally get the boy you want. and yet, i’ve seen people add this song to love song playlists (??!??!?!?)

here’s my general opinion:

i think that white people have effectively erased colonized the true meaning of mitski’s songs in order for them to fit their own meanings. and i hate it.

[almasexya]

Carnivorous Plants and the Things I Know About Them

I've been kicking around the idea of making a post like this and I figured it was of enough general interest to folks on Tumblr to go for it.

So

One of the things I do is grow carnivorous plants, like these

From top left to bottom right we have a Venus Flytrap, a North American Pitcher Plant, a Sundew, and a Butterwort. All of these are pictures I've taken of plants during the growing season.

Now if you look at these weird looking plants you probably wouldn't expect them to be native to North America, but they are. You can find pitcher plants all over the southeast up to the northeast into Canada, flytraps in the Carolinas, and butterworts and sundews all over the continent.

These plants are a lot of fun and easy to grow once you understand their requirements, but before we get into that, I want to take a moment and explain how they came to be in the first place.

To keep it short, carnivorous plants are carnivorous because they grow in soils that are lacking in the nutrients plants need to put out new growth. Because of this, they evolved to find their nutrients a different way - by luring, trapping, and digesting insects. While these plants still photosynthesize, they supplement this with the nutrients they absorb from insects.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I'm going to go into the basics of growing them, point by point. A short disclaimer - I'm specifically talking about temperate North American plants, since they're what I have experience growing. I can provide basic info on how to take care of tropical plants like the southeast asian pitcher plants, but as of this post I don't have experience with them yet.

Soil: For carnivorous plants, a good soil mixture is a must. These plants grow in nutrient-poor marshes, and the soil they call home is constantly wet. The main ingredient in basically any carnivorous plant soil mix is sphagnum peat moss, which is slightly acidic. The second part of the mixture is often perlite or horticultural sand. Some nurseries use a mix of equal parts peat and perlite while others use 80% peat and 20% perlite, but I've had success with both. The most important thing to ensure is that your soil doesn't have any fertilizer added to it. Because carnivores grow in low nutrient soil, any kind of medium that contains fertilizer can actually kill them.

Water: The other vitally important part of the equation (and the one that kills lots of plants when incorrectly applied) is water. Generally, unless your tap water is soft, water carnivores with distilled or reverse osmosis water. The minerals in tap water or even bottled drinking water can eventually build up and kill your plant in the same way fertilized soil does. Carnivores love waterlogged soil, and some even get flooded in nature. To approximate this, set your plant in a tray of water no more than an inch or two high. This ensures your soil stays wet without having to constantly water it.

Containers: Plastic pots are your friend. Avoid terra cotta clay pots, since they can leech minerals into the soil and also tend to dry out your substrate faster. Glazed clay containers can also work. If you're using the tray system, make sure to buy pots with drainage holes, so the water can get in. Also, a trick that lets the water in but keeps the soil from escaping is to line the bottom of the pot with long-fibered sphagnum moss. If you go with an undrained container, make sure to keep the soil wet at all times, but allow some of the water to evaporate in order to keep the water table fluctuating.

Sunlight: Since carnivores evolved their leaves to catch insects, they're pretty poor at photosynthesis. As a result, these plants love sun - the more the better. Many a store bought flytrap has perished as a houseplant due to lack of sun, so if you can, put these plants outside, in the sunniest spot you can. Generally, it's good to give most carnivores around 6 hours of sunlight per day. Many can get by with 4, but they don't often thrive with that amount of light.

Dormancy: Plants that grow in temperate or warm temperate climates tend to buckle down and hibernate during the late fall and winter months, conserving energy until spring. Generally speaking, the large traps die off, or in some cases the plant dies down to the roots, or forms a small bud that rests on the ground. Plants grown outside respond to colder temperatures and shorter photoperiods, while plants grown inside usually need some help. If you're growing your plants on a windowsill or in a terrarium, move them somewhere cold or cut down on their heating, and also diminish the amount of daily light they receive. You can also slow down on watering, though they still need some water to get by.

Temperature: Temperate and warm temperate carnivores can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, despite what you might think. My pots survived the freak snowstorm the Pacific Northwest got this February without a single dead plant. Most species can tolerate temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and down to 20 degrees, though not for prolonged periods of time. If you see long spells of hot or cold weather coming, try and move your plants to a protected area until they pass.

Feeding and Fertilizing: Now I know what you're thinking. Fertilizer? He just told us that stuff was death! And it often is, but there are ways to fertilize your plants. Generally, a fertilizer made for acid-loving plants can be diluted and applied to the leaves during the growing season. I use Maxsea 16-16-16 on plants that are too young to easily catch prey (diluted down to a half teaspoon per gallon) and haven't had issues. Try not to spray the soil unless you frequently water your plants from overhead, as the dreaded mineral buildup can still occur. That said, if your plants are outside, they'll fertilize themselves. You can also "feed" your plants insects using tongs - keep in mind that some plants require their prey to be alive in order to secrete digestive enzymes. I'll get into prey in more detail in other posts about specific types of plants.

Flowering and Propagation: For a lot of carnivorous plants, flowering is an exhausting effort that tends to deplete the energy they would use creating traps. As a general rule, if you're not interested in seed, clip the flower stalks off. Many plants can be propagated through leaf or root cuttings, which produce genetically identical plants. Some plants also clump and form their own divisions over time, meaning all you need to do to get more is wait for a year or so, depending on the age of the plant.

Pests: Carnivores can be targeted by various pests. For insecticides, I've seen neem oil recommended, as its generally less harmful to the plant and the environment. I haven't had to make much use of these yet, so my information on insecticides is a bit of a blind spot. Generally, try and stay away from soap insecticides and aerosols, and stick to less concentrated varieties. If you're dealing with squirrels or rodents digging up your plants, I found a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper around the plants works wonders, and does no harm to the plants.

This is a basic rundown of carnivorous plants and how to take care of some of them. I must stress there's a ton of information out there - this post is geared more towards starter plants that are fairly forgiving and simple to grow.

So why grow carnivorous plants when you can just go out and buy some petunias?

They're active: Carnivores are showy, unique plants that can move on their own through some incredibly unique and complex evolutions. Watching a Venus Flytrap snap shut or a Sundew curl around an insect is a truly special thing to see.

They're a conversation piece: The relative rarity of carnivores in cultivation means the average person doesn't know much about them, despite maybe having heard of a Venus Flytrap before. A 12" pot of flytraps, sundews, and pitchers is a surefire way to grab attention.

They can control certain pests: Carnivorous plants can act as natural pest controllers. North American Pitcher Plants gorge themselves on flies and wasps, and considering some pitchers can grow over two feet tall, they can hold plenty of them. Sundews and butterworts specialize in catching smaller prey, such as fungus gnats, fruit flies, and even fleas. These plants can work as limited, natural pest controllers, though they won't eradicate a yellow jacket nest for you.

They're endangered in the wild: The wet, marshy habitats carnivores call home are rapidly dwindling due to improper land management and development. Some are nearly extinct in their home ranges, kept going through dedicated nurseries and attempts to naturalize them in other locations. By caring for carnivorous plants, you're raising awareness of these unique, underappreciated organisms and aiding in their conservation by keeping them alive.

Phew, I realize this was a lot, but I hope it was a fun read! Let me know what you think about carnivorous plants, or if you have any questions about them. I'm going to try and go into more detail on specific plants later, but for now, I wanted to bang out the basics.

If you're looking for more information, Flytrapcare.com is a great forum, and the r/savagegarden subreddit is very helpful as well. For books on the subject, the Savage Garden by Peter D'Amato is the go to source. Nurseries I've used and can vouch for are Sarracenia Northwest (located in Oregon) and California Carnivores (located in California).

[solitarelee]

OK so there's a jeon (pancake) base that I like to use, because I'm lazy, but if you don't have that, you can just use a half-cup of all-purpose flour. You can probably use a gluten-free alternative if you need to, I've just never tried? This recipe is basically just Maangchi's, so feel free to just look it up on her website (I'd link, but... tumblr) for pictures and guides.

The most important part of this recipe is to chop one cup of kimchi up really well. I normally try to get them into like half-inch squares, I've also seen people cut them into long thin strips. The smaller the pieces are, the easier the pancakes tears/cuts up. Also chop up 2-3 green onions/scallions depending on how big they are.

Combine in a bowl about a cup of chopped kimchi, the chopped scallions, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/2 cup water and just mix mix mix until you get a gloop. (If you, like me, use jeon mix, just use a 1/2 cup of that instead of the flour+sugar.)

Add a goodly amount of oil (I use vegetable oil or canola oil, I don't think it rly matters but if you use that much sesame oil it WILL effect the flavor A LOT lol so I wouldn't use that just yet) to a pan, let it get hot enough to swirl and coat the pan, then pour in the batter and pat it flat with a spoon or spatula or, if you're me, whatever you used to mix the batter, LOL. Cook it on medium to medium-high heat (depending on your heat source of choice) for about 3-5 minutes until it's golden-brown and solid, just like you would an american pancake! Flip that bad boy, drizzle in some more oil (trust me) around the edges and make sure to tilt the pan to let it get all the way underneath the pancake. This ensures both sides are crispy and don't stick to the pan. Again, 3-5 minutes, then pull it off and you're done!

FOR THE SAUCE: - 1 tbsp sugar - 2 tbsp soy sauce - 2 tbsp water - 2 tbsp rice vinegar Optionally (the more you add the more it Tastes): - thinly sliced onion or finally chopped green onion (or both! live your onion dreams!) - 1/4 tsp gochugaru (korean chili powder/flakes) - 1/4 tsp minced garlic (I have a jar of this stuff always so it's easy to use such a small amount) - 1/4 tsp sesame seeds - 1/4 tsp sesame oil (a lot of people don't have this so I put it here, but I recommend adding it)

I use this sauce for any kind of fried seafood especially tuna cakes or hameul pajeon but it's good with basically ANY fried food, so I recommend trying it with any jeon!

did I buy a literal gallon of kimchi yesterday? YES. did I mostly do this because they were out of the smaller sizes? ALSO YES. do I regret this at all? ABSOLUTELY NOT.