#some people need to get their internet access restricted

[marthajonesurastar]

How it started // How it's going

[juuheizou]

so if anyone was wondering ten years in infantilizing comments about my favorite character on the internet still make me feel bad off screen 🫠

[darkartsanna]

This is bullshit! This website is dedicated to preserving not just books, but audio files, videos, websites, this is the source of the wayback machine! They have effectively lost the right to lend out digital books, regardless of origin. This now limits our resources even further. It's another book banning issue, and it needs to be heard.

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"

May 13 2023

The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:

HOW TO FIGHT KOSA

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline

Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.

2. Sign these petitions

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

3. Spread the word.

The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.

Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree

HOW KOSA WORKS

First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.

Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  

Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.

It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.

[andhumanslovedstories]

The constant thing on nursing as a profession on this website is getting kind of exhausting to me. I am so truly sorry that people have had negative experiences with nurses and they absolutely do not deserve that. But it’s such a massive profession with such a huge diversity of people and practices and people paint it in such broad strokes and it’s starting to kind of hurt my feelings :/ Thoughts? Am I just being a baby/does this ever bother you?

Honestly the constant negativity I saw towards nursing was why I started writing about nursing so much more. It's not that I think that negativity is incorrect--people HAVE had horrible experiences with nursing, some nurses do abuse their power, and that even without abusing power it is easy to hurt a patient. I seek out and appreciate those accounts, people should share those, people have every right to talk about their experiences. But if we're being human about it, yeah, it does bother me to see posts that call me and everyone I work with mean girls. I don't think those posts shouldn't exist, and at the same time, it is frustrating that it seems to be the dominant narrative about nurses in the particular parts of the internet where I spend time.

A big annoyance to me is that SO MANY CRITICISM of nursing is gendered! We're catty, we're bitches, we're mean girls, we're "the female versions of cops" like there aren't female cops and male nurses. And frankly, the worst nurses I have worked with have overwhelming been men. To be clear and to state the obvious, many male nurses are good at their job. We also know that female-dominated professions get valued less than male-dominated, and that men in those fields disproportionately get leadership positions.

And I've listened to patient complaints about some nurses who, sure, may have had a bad interaction with the patient, but who I KNOW are superb, brilliant, and compassionate professionals. They're also women of color who don't smile.

Nurses are the tip of the spear, as people talking about med errors love to say. Nurses are at the bedside, present and available to be mad at. We wake you up for vitals at 4 am, enforce fluid restrictions, tell you there's no more pain meds, and take ten minutes answering your call light when you desperately need to pee. Nurses are very accessible to be mad at.

There's weirdness about the perception of nurses in general. We're angels, we're heroes, we do stuff that no one else could, we're caregivers, we're nurturers, we're miracle workers, we're the people in the hospital who do "the real work*," this work is our calling, and this work is exclusively wiping butts and hand out pills. And by the way, wiping butts is degrading work. That's why we're angels. A guy shook my hand in the grocery store today because I told him I was a nurse. That's wild. Fun to be a mean girl angel cop hero.

(*untrue. you could not pay me a billion dollars to do the work doctors, surgeons, PTs/OTs, lab techs, social workers, pharmacists, and a thousand other specialized and often much less visible professions do.)

[pseudophan]

PHANNIE COOKBOOK SIGN-UPS!!

Do you have a really good recipe you think Dan and Phil would enjoy? Consider submitting it to this collaborative phannie cookbook that will be given to DnP at a meet & greet! It will also be available to everyone to download as a PDF.

Family recipes or your favourite dish from your country/culture is a bonus, but it doesn’t have to be that personal. All I ask is that you don’t go rip something random off the Internet right now just to be in the book, I want food you genuinely enjoy!

I’ve decided the most efficient way of doing this is to let you submit up to 3 different options, that way if there are any repeats (and I’m certain there will be) I won’t have to message everyone it concerns to ask if you have any alternatives. Besides, that way I can choose which version gets in based on your other options rather than which one “sounds better” to me, cause I think that would be a little unfair. I also have no idea how many people will actually participate in this yet, which is currently the biggest hurdle in terms of planning. If only a few sign up there is a chance we’ll end up using multiple recipes by some, and if somehow we get too many I’ll have to pick and choose. I do really want to include as many people as possible, but until I actually see the recipes it’s hard to tell what will end up happening.

The main focus of this will be actual food, but we obviously need to include a few desserts, so feel free to submit those as well just be aware the chances of those getting picked might be lower. The same goes for soups, I assume a lot of people have soup recipes and we might include a couple, but for obvious reasons it's a low priority.

Some key things to keep in mind:

Phil is a bit picky and has some dietary restrictions! He shouldn’t have dairy or chocolate and he doesn’t like cheese or mushrooms, among other things. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid these things entirely, but maybe your grandma’s mac and cheese recipe isn’t the best choice

While neither of them is vegan they do eat a lot of vegan food, so we definitely need some vegan dishes. I also think it would be really great if you suggested vegetarian and/or vegan substitutions you know work well with your recipe! That isn’t a must for every dish, but it’s a nice addition where possible

Tragically, Dan and Phil are British, meaning they won’t necessarily have access to all the same ingredients as you. Luckily they are also rich and live in a major city with a lot of options so they aren’t limited to what they can find at their local Tesco, but since the aim of this book is to encourage them to cook we probably shouldn’t be sending them on a scavenger hunt either. I don’t think this will be a huge issue, but if your recipe calls for something you think might be very niche or local to you it might be worth googling it or asking around

The final book will be using UK measurements, but if your recipe doesn’t then don’t even worry about it for now. We’ll get to that later. You also don’t have to worry about typing out the whole step-by-step in detail in the sign-up form, I just need a list of the ingredients and roughly how to prepare it to gauge whether it’s a good fit.

I promise I’m almost done yapping but lastly, about some of the questions on the form - you don’t need to know exactly how long the dish takes to prepare, that will depend on the person or people making it anyway, but we do need a rough estimate. The difficulty level is obviously quite subjective, but I just want to hear how you personally would rank it, and if there is a specific part of the process you think someone who doesn’t cook a lot might struggle with. As for the last question about photos, I’m asking both if you have the time and opportunity to make the food and if you are able to take a good photo of it. Obviously it doesn’t have to be anything professional, a phone camera is fine, it just needs to be well lit and decent quality.

Okay, I think that’s everything-

Here's the sign-up form

The deadline is in a week, at midnight Thursday to Friday CET :)

(I also made a blog for this @phookbook for information and updates! A lot of it will probably still be on this blog, but I'll try to post/reblog the most important things on there for those who want to keep up with everything but who may not want to deal with all the chaos of pseudophan)

[yandere-class-1a]

Also can you do normal yandere class 1a head canons if that's ok? (and can u add mic and aizawa)

Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to complete this ask, I got burned out about halfway through and needed to take a little break. I hope you like them though! I wasn't exactly sure how you wanted me to do them so I did all of class 1-A (+ platonic Aizawa and Mic) separately, they do have some connections in them though. There are a lot of words (3,895 to be exact) so I'm gonna be adding a read more button.

Shoji is absolutely the type of yandere to try and protect you from the bad in the world. If anyone so much as looks at you wrong he will turn into a big guard dog. He wraps you up in his arms and death glares at the person that looked at you funny. If you comment on it he will turn back into the big teddy bear that you know and love. He will not limit your internet access but you bet he will watch over you if you look up triggering or problematic things for your mental health. He won't restrict it but he will have a big talk with you about how it's better to consume positive media instead of negative media. He loves to cuddle you with all his arms, and it's absolutely heavenly. He might be the tallest in class, but no way does this man not like being the little spoon. He loves feeling you wrapped around him actually a little bit more than him being wrapped around you, he just loves the comfort you give him.

Koda is absolutely a cinnamon roll yandere. He doesn't want to hurt you or anybody else for that matter. He feels like the type of yandere to worship the very ground you walk on. If you give him a gift he will put it on a special shelf and cherish it forever. Once he accidentally forgot to put it up on his shelf and one of his animal friends accidentally broke it, he cried for hours until you managed to calm him down. Whenever you can't sleep Koda will send over a bird with a beautiful song to lull you to sleep. If you confront him about it he will try and deny it at first but end up cracking under your gaze. He tells you how he just wants to make sure you get a good amount of sleep, he didn't mean to upset you. If you aren't angry at him he will be so happy, if you are he will honestly turn into the poutiest baby you've ever seen.

Sato is the type of yandere to give you anything and everything you want, especially if it's something to do with baking. He and you probably have a designated day to bake at least one thing. If you don't feel like baking that day Sato will definitely sit you up on the counter and just talk to you well he bakes. If you love to lick the spoon he will definitely bakes the batter specially without eggs so you can eat as much of it as you want. He might look big and scary to some people but he is actually a absolute sweetheart. If you get tired from walking, even just a little bit, Sato will pick you up and cradle you like a baby so you don't have to walk. He feels like the type of boyfriend that will give you his shoes if yours are hurting your feet. Either that or he will carry around a extra pair of shoes in his bag. He doesn't care what people think when he does stuff for you, your his precious angel and he's willing to do anything for you.

Ida's obsession with you stems from a deep-rooted sense of duty and responsibility. He becomes fixated on protecting you at all costs, believing it's his duty to keep you safe, even if it means resorting to extreme measures. Now Ida does not want to hurt anyone, however if they were to hurt you then he most definitely would be willing to bend his morality a little bit. He is smart enough to do full background checks on anyone close to you and is willing to use that against them if they try and hurt you. He will have Aizawa set up security cameras all throughout the dorms saying he wants to protect his classmates as class representative. He does use the cameras for that, however he mostly uses them to keep tabs on you. On a side note he keeps the kitchen stashed with all your favorite foods so you never go hungry.

Sero is the type of yandere to be possessive of you but still lets you have friends (He definitely doesn't have Ida run background checks on them or anything like that... oh who am I kidding he most definitely does). He will definitely get close to all your friends and family if you want. If someone you grew up with shows him your baby pictures you he will definitely internally fan boy. He has a pretty laid back attitude, so he's not super controlling or manipulative. However this man definitely makes up for it with his obsessive ways. He will definitely want to do the spiderman kiss at some point or another, once you start dating it happens all the time. ⚠️Next part of Sero's headcanons continues slightly suggestive things, just thoughts and not actually doing anything⚠️ He's best friends with denki so we can guarantee he's at least a little bit of a pervert, at least to you. He would love to either see you shirtless or in a sports bra depending on your gender. He knows you're not ready for the next step so he's not gonna force you, for now he's fine with just resting his head on your chest or sitting you on his lap.

Todoroki is the type of yandere to be so obsessive for you that it hurts his heart to not be with you. He can be so possessive sometimes that he'll lock the two of you in a room and hide the key. He knows it's a bit over the top, he just can't help it. To him you are a living breathing God, you are so amazing that he just has to be next to you. However he does know that you might try and grow distant if he gets too possessive... To make up for this he tries to be as lenient with you as possible in most things. He will definitely stalk you, but he's pretty open about it. He will be like "He darling! You went to the ice cream shop yesterday and left your notebook. Don't worry though, I picked it up for you". Him and the class decide that kidnapping was out of the question... but sleepovers with the class that "accidentally" last for a week aren't uncommon. Todoroki will invite you over to his dorm all the time, sometimes just to cuddle. He desperately craves physical affection... Please give him some.

Momo is one of the yanderes with more common sense. She makes sure to match how fast she eases you into her yandere tendencies and how well you take them. If your reactions are on the more positive side she will move up a few levels in about two to three weeks. However if you seem uncomfortable she will ease them onto you slowly, conditioning you so it all feels normal. She feels like the type of yandere to invite you with her instead of stalking you, though she's not against it either. Like if she goes to the Mall or even the Library she will definitely invite you. If you don't really want to go she will tell you that you can get your favorite food or stop at your favorite place on the way. If she goes shopping by herself you can 100% guarantee that she returns with at least two gifts for you. If you go shopping with her however you both will definitely come back with bags full of gifts.

Bakugo is on the extremely possessive yandere side. He used to want you to be only his, but after a lot of convincing from the class he realized that they all loved you as much as him so maybe just maybe they could share you. He still can't be in the same room when Izuku's or Todoroki are being lovey with you though, he's working on it though. He used to call you only his and use words like my darling, now he calls you the only theirs and names like our darling. If anyone that isn't in class 1-A gets too close to you, even simple things like brushing against you in the hallways, he will quickly and without thinking grab your hand and not let go until he feels better. Bakugo here is definitely not shy about pda (public display of affection). He will hug and kiss you all he wants no matter where you are, though it's a bit more rough out in public to keep up his tough boy appearance.

Kirishima is the type of yandere to obsess over every little thing you do. He notices every little detail about you and points them out to other classmates. Like one day you came into class and Kirishima just casually tells the bakusquad that your breath smells slightly different than it normally does, probably because you ran out of your favorite scented toothpaste and had to replace it with your second favorite. They all looked at him funny. Not because of the obsessive sound of that sentence, but because he somehow managed to notice something that no one else did. The minute you walk into the room Kirishima's eyes find you. He can somehow keep a good conversation with a person well-watching. He is always telling you how manly you are, even for the littlest things. He is almost constantly wanting to give you affection. His affection ranges from quick kisses on the nose to cuddling for hours. He wants to wash you in the bath soooo badly. Not in a perverted way of course! He just wants to take care of you, you're his darling after all! He would have Momo make a bathing suit to cover up your privates so he could even just wash your hair for you.

Ojiro is the type of yandere who literally just wants to take care of you. He will buy you whatever snacks you want, no matter how hard they are to find. He hates to see you sad so he will almost always have a funny or cute video saved on his phone to cheer you up. He honestly buys the most thoughtful gifts in all of class 1-A. He will teach you martial arts if you ask him to, though he's absolutely gonna baby you if you get hurt during training. He likes when you play with his tail. He will definitely wrap his tail around you while you're both sitting down. He is extremely shy about telling you his love for you. Him and Koda can sit together for hours and just talk about you, but when it comes to actually telling you about it he gets all shy. He once managed to get out the words I like you but before you could even respond he tried to cover it up with a like a friend.

Aoyama is the type of yandere to constantly compliment you and not be shy about his obsession. He loves to do Mini fashion shows for himself and You. He will invite the whole class and they all show up. Bakugo might take a bit more convincing but he cracks when Aoyama shows him one of the dresses/suits you will be wearing. If your having a self conscious day where you don't like something about yourself fo to Ayoama. He is always ready with a list of things he loves about you. The list doesn't have only things about your body either... It has little habits you do, your tone of voice, your passions, your different styles, your personality, ect. He is always ready to make you any type of clothes you want. He can make the comfiest bra's and/or panties if your comfortable with that. He knows how to make binders and breast forms for trangender darlings as well. He gives you your favorite type of cheese randomly, and if you don't like the taste of cheese he buys cheese scented candles for you.

Denki is the type of yandere to follow you around like a lost puppy. He is super duper protective of you to the point that he will do his best to remove anyone and anything that has the potential to harm you. At some point you got a splinter in your foot and this boy convinced everyone that soft carpeted floors were a necessity to have in the dorms. He may not be good at numbers or other academic things, however he is amazing with people. He would never hurt you, that includes manipulating you, but he'a not above manipulating other people. Half the time nobody even notices he's manipulating them, and if they do, Denki will manipulate them more to think it's all in their head. Denki is a naturally cuddly person so cuddle sessions are a must have. If you ask him for cuddles he will drop everything he's doing and cuddle you. He isn't the type to get jealous cause he knows you love class 1-A and only them romantically. He is more the type to get to show the other person that you belong to him.

Izuku is the type to know everything about you, even things you don't know. Izuku definitely has at least 3 notebooks full of all your information. The first one starts of pretty standard, just your name and quirk, same as everyone else. It then gets more in detail about your quirk until it's basically entirely explained as far as to your family tree to compare the quirks to your own. It then sorta just kept on going from there. He definitely has a secret shrine to you. It has little things like pens that you left behind up to pictures of you at all times of the day. He keeps it hidden in a locked drawer so no one can find out about it. He’s a huge stalker. He almost always knows where you are and when he doesn't he panics and searches the entire city for you. He likes to watch you sleep secretly, only for about half an hour though.

Mina is the classic type of stalker that watches you from a tree. She will absolutely positively have a wall covered with photos of you in her room. Now she's not a complete idiot, so she buys a pretty tapestry and covers up the pictures with it. She is super bubbly and friendly so she has no problem talking to you. She will listen to you talk about something you love for hours if it would make you happy! Of course if you preferred to listen she has tons of stories to tell you, even if she might bend them a little bit to make herself sound more amazing. She definitely sends you good morning and good night texts, just not at normal times. Her good morning texts range from 4:00 in the morning to 12:00 noon. Her good night texts are around 10:00 in the nighttime to 2:00 in the morning. She definitely posts all about you on her social media's. If your not comfortable with pictures she will just post all about how amazing and beautiful/handsome you are. If someone says something like "Oooo what's their number" or "I bet I could date them" Mina will instantly block them. If they something more, suggestive to straight up filthy, Mina will not hesitate to break their online profile. She has a passion for coding and knows how to hack into accounts without leaving a trail.

Tokoyami is the type of edgy but soft yandere. Tokoyami loves it when you listen to his poetry. He could go on for hours with edgy (yet very cute) poetics about how you are his beautiful Shining star. Darkshadow also likes to talk to you. However theirs are more asking you questions and listening to your answer so they can store it in their mind. Tokoyami is really shy when it comes to physical affection, Dark Shadow is definitely not though. Tokoyami will be sitting next to you in the common room and Dark shadow will just pop up and be like "Tokoyami wants to hold your hand but he's too scared to ask". Tokoyami isn't that great with speaking words, mostly prefering to write instead. He will write cute little notes for you and leave them on your desk. He makes handmade black envelopes and seals them with a red wax stamp. Dark shadow likes to put little random questions at the back of the card, like what's your favorite color or do you have any pets. Dark shadow likes to write in pretty pink glittery gel pens just to mess with Tokoyami.

Uraraka is the type of yandere to be so caring that you hardly see the obsessiveness because you're too happy from all the love she gives you. But let me tell you that the obsessiveness is 100% there. She's very careful that nothing can hurt you. If you do somehow manage to get hurt she will take care of the wound extremely tenderly. It could range from a splinter to a broken leg, it doesn't matter because she treats you so sweetly it's impossible to top it. At times she will become quite clingy, wanting cuddles and kisses galore. If your just not a touchy person or maybe you don't like skin on skin contact she will try and back off. However she needs some type of contact or she gets super pouty and sometimes depressed. If you want to bring her out of this state all you have to do is link your pinkies. It's not much but it makes her super happy that you're even touching her. Be careful as when her emotions get super high her quirk gets out of control and you might float up to the ceiling.

Jiro is like the edgy to everyone except you girlfriend. Once you found a cute and fluffy pink key chain and gave it to her. She paused for a second and you panicked thinking you messed up. When you offered to take it back she snapped out of it and hugged it to her chest tightly. She gently smiled at you and said she absolutely loved it. After that she placed it on her bookbag and hasn't taken it off since. She is super flirty to you but if you so much as say she looks pretty she will turn into a blushing mess and not be able to look at you for at least 10 minutes. If you ask her to teach you and instrument she will absolutely agree. If you are a slow learner it's ok, She has all the patience in the world for you. If you learn quickly she will eventually start playing musica with you. It doesn't matter what type of music you like she definitely has a playlist of all your favorite songs that she listens to when she misses you.

Hagakure is definitely the type of yandere to stalk you any chance she gets. She would have major problems approaching you cause she thinks you're too good for her. She honestly thinks that you are absolutely one of the most perfect beings in the universe. Her quirk literally makes her invisible so she could stand directly next to you and you would never know. It may sound a bit creepy, and she is well aware of this, but she likes to watch you sleep. She loves how peaceful you look when you're having a good dream. If you were to sleep walk/sleep talk she will let you do whatever it is you do as she finds it adorable. If she thinks you might hurt yourself in your sleep she will gently lead you back to bed and tuck you in tightly. She will sometimes follow you for hours. When people ask her what she likes to do her reponse is "being with y/n". It sounds normal enough to not cause suspicion but it's still the truth, she does love being with you! You just Don't know she's there most of the time...

Tsu is the type of yandere to be extremely sweet to almost everyone but if they so much as look at you wrong that switch flips fast. So basically Tsu is overprotective central. She will protect you from any harm that comes your way. She has a dead serious glare that is honestly scarrier that original Bakugo. She loves to cuddle up next to you in the sunshine on a warm day. She doesn't like intense heat but she loves sunlight. She will curl up next to the pool and just sunbathe with you if you want. If you love swimming she will take you swimming all the time. She uses her excuse of being able to breath under water as a way to kiss you. Let me explain, she will press your lips together and blow air into your mouth so you can stay underwater with her. She will 100% take selfies with you any chance she gets. She actually has a locked folder on her phone called 🐸 ~ My Darling ~ 🐸 with over 500 pictures of you.

Aizawa is like a father type yandere to you. He's gonna be super duper protective of you. If a villain tries to attack you while your in class (because Class 1-A is just a villain attack magnet) you’re the first one he thinks about protecting. He knows it's wrong to have a favorite student but he just can't help it. Your just such an amazing person to him how could he not favorite you?! He absolutely is not afraid to show his favoritism to anyone. If Nezu comments on it aizawa will just be like "What are you gonna do, fire me? Who else would be willing to take care of those problems children?". If you accidentally mess something up he will just simply forgive you and tell you it's ok. Like once you and denki had a sleepover and forgot to do homework... Denki had to do 10 laps around the field and you got asked if you needed help on any of the questions. He definitely teaches you privately different skills that aren't related to your quirk.

Present Mic is like an extremely proud father. At any game or contest that he announces he scream out praise at every little thing you do. He's been asked about it before and his answer was just pure confusion. He doesn't understand that he might be focusing more on you than the actual thing he's supposed to be announcing, he just thinks that you're doing amazing and wants everyone to know. Mic is extremely handsy with you, of course in a fatherly type of way. He will often be seen with some type of contact with you. He will pat your back, ruffle your hair, hold your hand in crowded areas, ect. He will hangout with you and Aizawa in your dorm room as you all take turns picking a song to listen to. If you really like a certain band or singer Mic will get you both tickets to one of their concerts.

[singular-ghost-sound]

Hi there, my lovely friends! I kindly ask that you read all the way through as this post is about KOSA

I would also like to apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling mistakes. That is unfortunately not my strong suit lol also, please send me any updated information that anybody has. As unfortunately, I am very bad about getting any information as I am not allowed to have discord and be in the anti-KOS a discord chat. 😭

Hi! My name is Bella, and I run The one, and only singular ghost sound gimmick blog on Tumblr :D

A fun fact about me I am a queer teenager who happens to live in a very homophobic part of the US, and in a part of the world, that would be directly affected by the KOSA act 

Thankfully—as far as I’m aware with my own research and what I’ve read— I would not personally be as much affected by the kids on the safety act in the same way that other people would be. As I fall just outside of the age that the bill is meant to affect the most (16 and younger)

However, my two younger brothers, both who are in the LGBTQ community would be.

Now for those of you who don’t know what the kids online safety act (KOSA) is:

The kids online safety act is in law currently being discussed in the Senate of the US that would make it to where parents and the government would have full control over what anybody under the age of 16 could consume on the internet.

This would mean things like

LGBTQ representation, POC representation, mental health resources, certain religions, and information about anything, considered taboo in any way, shape or form, would no longer be accessible to people who are under the age of 16. And on top of that online safe places would be completely eradicated.

 The kids, online safety act we take away the safe place of MANY people in the world. Including those over the age of 16, as the Internet would be HIGHLY restricted.

I grew up, lucky enough that I had parents that were willing to share with me and my siblings about sex, Ed, the LGBTQ+ community, many different religions, the good, and the bad of history, and many different things. 

There are so many people that I know personally, who did not grow up with that kind of family. So many people who would have been kicked out if their family knew that they were gay or trans in any way shape or form.

There is so many people that I know who has been physically mentally or even sexually abused by guardians and people who should’ve protected them, and who only learned what happened to them was wrong BECAUSE of the Internet.

I know so many people who only learned about what safe sex was because of the Internet, or through ME as they did not have people who would’ve been willing to teach it to them.

The kids on the safety act would take away so much from the people who really need it the most. And on top of that, it would give their parents or guardians access to all the stuff that they see online.  and so they would be unable to access any safe place on the Internet. 

KOSA is designed not to help those who were accidentally or purposefully coming across porn and access to drugs and other illegal things.(like the people in power saying it is)

But is designed to keep those who need LGBTQ representation or POC representation in mental health resources from getting the Information and representation that they need.

I am urging everybody to please contact your senators, and have your family and friends, contact your senator and ask them to say NO to the KOSA bill.

Please know that you don’t need to have a long lengthy speech. They don’t act on those. They act on the quantity of what they get about the same subject.  

I would also like to GREATLY thank @dragonoftheunderground for letting be know that this was back. So ty my friend :D

Ty for reading :D here are some ghosts for the long post :D



[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

it's time now. it's time to imagine the brightest future you can, and talk about it.

a future where people only work 8 hours a week and everyone's basic needs are met. a future where we are more connected to nature and eat seasonal, local produce. a future where you look out for your neighbours and they look out for you. a future where you actually know who your neighbours are. a future where everyone is just a lot more relaxed and able to do whatever they want to do - this 8 hour working week has given people their lives back and now they're able to make community events, work in community gardens, sing and dance and spend time with their kids, play whatever sport they want, travel, read, create art and music.

People are interacting with each other in good faith again because money as an ulterior motive has all but disappeared. Cus you see a few decades ago they made profits illegal. All money has to be put back into the company and CEOs can take home a salary only, no bonuses and it can't be more than 3x what the lowest paid employee makes. You can go to jail if your company is found to make profits, advertise on a large scale or pay its high ranking members more than what's allowed.

Jail still exists but mostly people go in for financial crimes (greed still exists); drugs are decriminalised and available to use safely. people are not as desperate now so there's been a massive reduction of violent and petty crime and most of the people who still do this are teenagers who get away with a slap on the wrist. police are not armed anymore and are heavily penalised if they abuse their power or hurt a civilian, and their role is more that of mediator, signposter (to community services, social services, and free and accessible healthcare including for mental health) and security. together with the former military they make up an "emergency task force" which are called upon in times of need and crisis, for floods, fires, other such disasters.

the stock market completely collapsed after profits were made illegal and people had to find other ways to figure out what a company was worth: such as how they treat their staff or how accessible their processes are. as a result of this, as well as more widespread disability thanks to Covid and an ageing population, accessibility is fucking incredible now. most places are accessible to the vast majority of disabled people even without them having to ask for a single thing. If they have to ask, accommodations are made quickly and without fuss and this is completely normal now. disabled people are more visible than ever in public life and this has led to a generally kinder, more tolerant public life.

Everything is slower now. Social media as we know it died decades ago and Internet 4.0 is efficient, will find you accurate answers and the websites you're looking for very easily and fast. there's monopoly laws restricting how large companies operate online. online ads are all but illegal - there's "phone book" esque pages where you can promote your business or service and that's allowed but not anywhere else. Lots of people are still annoying and some of them are still cruel but overall living together as humans has gotten so much more chill. We've tackled climate change and reversed much of it, now it's a global day of mourning whenever a species is found to be extinct through human intervention. these days used to happen much more frequently but it's very rare these days. Most everyone gets the day off and is encouraged to read about the lost species or hold themed funerals. Globally everything has gotten better - there's much more global equality now after a bunch of western/formerly colonising countries almost self destructed and then instead decided to own up for colonialism, pay reparations to a lot of countries in Africa Asia and Latin America, as well as indigenous nations of North America, Oceania, even in Europe. The USA doesn't exist anymore instead its a whole host of separate nations all managed by the native people whose land it is. The UK doesn't exist anymore. England is still sad about it but Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall are called Cymru, Alba, Eire and Kernow again and they've formed a Celtic Union for better collective bargaining power in the EU (which still exists, somehow. Its better now. England may still be out of the EU I'm not sure). Migration is common and foreigners are welcomed into any country with open arms.

I may try to write something about this. I have a vision for a future and it's so lovely. Here, on earth, with the starting point being now. We have a lot to work with and only a few changes could make such a difference. Demilitarisation, UBI and maximum working hours, greedy financial practices made illegal. Conservation and education on local plants and nature and food. Community building on every level. Giving people their lives back.

This is all extremely possible. If it were up to me, very little in society would be left unchanged but it would all be people friendly changes. changes that aim to support the poorest and most marginalised, changes that aim to punish greed and exploitation. It's a work in progress of course. But I have a vision for a better world and dammit if I'm not going to share it with you.

[elfwreck]

Do you think ao3 is going to have a problem in the future?

hot damn isn't that an open-ended question.

...er. yes. Yes, I think AO3 will have "a problem" at some point in "the future."

Which problem is up for debate.

I don't think AO3 is going to be taken down or even substantially hurt by lawsuits from media companies or authors who hate fanfic. I think the time for that was over 10 years ago; if Disney hated fanfic and thought it was illegal, they would've gone after AO3 before it was internationally famous with more than 5 million users. Before it had won a Hugo Award.

Doesn't mean I think a lawsuit isn't possible, and the current SCOTUS in the US is run by a pack of corporate shills, but... it's a hard stretch to get a copyright-creativity case to go that far, and even with such a court, the outcome wouldn't be guaranteed. And no media company wants to be the test case for a lawsuit that decides "actually yknow what? Fanfic is pretty much legal."

I think there will be more regions that block AO3, in one way or another. Not many places have China's control over the internet, but there are other blocks, like pestering Google and demanding they filter search results.

I think antis are going to continue to scream about AO3 allowing content they don't like, even if the term "anti' changes and they wind up calling themselves something else. I think this may create some kinds of problems, including with payment processors, depending on where and how they yell. I don't think any of that will shut down AO3 or change its policies.

The thing to keep in mind is: AO3 does not need to grow. AO3 is not a venture-capital company. It does not have ROR. It does not generate profits. It is not accountable to anyone but itself for its policies and activities. It was designed by a small pack of fans who decided "we're damn tired of being pushed off our fic archive websites, and even more tired of VC-backed things showing up and trying to fleece us for profits while simultaneously insisting to their mainstream stockholders that they don't approve of smut, that they dislike slash, that they think fanfic is copyright infringement. We need to own the servers and set our own policies."

AO3's going to face plenty of problems in the future. A lot of people do not like smut, or do not like some kinds of smut, and think it should be illegal. Or they think it should be restricted. Or at the very least, the people who host it, write it, and read it, should be ashamed, and if they're not, they need to be Taught A Lesson.

Repeat with: slash fanfic, RPF, fanworks based on children's shows, and fanfic in general.

A lot of people think AO3 is Doing Fandom Wrong, and some of those people are going to cause problems. Some of those people are probably government officials, so the problems are going to be big.

But I don't think any of them are going to succeed in shutting down AO3 (although accessing it may get more difficult from some parts of the world), and they're definitely not going to change the core policies.

AO3 was started by people who'd been watching the legal and cultural landscape around fanfic for decades. It's run today by people with the same kinds of experience, the same kinds of beliefs about fandom culture.

I am not worried about the future of AO3.

[stupidneko]

Fiction can affect reality if you let it affect you, if you think that some actions depicted in fiction is something normal to do in real life than you definitely need professional help

The line is thin but not invisible, as long as you are aware of it it's alright.

To not forget that is also important when you consume the said content, if you are young and curiosity gets better of you please reach an adult to talk things out, or try to not enter or engage in the said space in the first place, everything has its time, even if it is considered as "missing the fun".

As someone who had unlimited access to the internet I was aware of what to engage and what to not despite never having any surveillance over it, but of course not everyone is like me nor I'm like them, too much restriction causes curiosity and too much freedom also causes access to the said things, it's important to find a balance and again if you are young, an adult needs to explain and clarify why it's not good to watch the said content now.

What personally annoys me is that sometimes people tend to put their nose in someone else's business, for the better of your peace it's better to not engage and just ignore it. Not your cup of tea? It's understandable, maybe you'd like some cappuccino or some juice instead, but please, do not be mean about it or call people names just because it doesn't fit your criteria.

[aimportantdragoncollector]

On the setting of werewolfverse / And Then There Was One:

-This takes place in an alternate Earth. The geography is roughly the same but the places have different names. The werewolves have swallowed up the fantasy world equivalents of Africa, Europe, and Asia by the modern day. Now North America, South America, and Australia remain.

-Kazuo's country, Abara, is located in North America. There is no equivalent of United States in this AU. This is partly because without a British Empire, there was no incentive for the states to form a union. It's also because the werewolves have been using their wealth and power to subtly discourage large human countries from forming. They prefer human countries to be in smaller, easily digestible sizes.

-Werewolves live in the Lupercal Empire. Lupercal has no concept of money, people simply request whatever they want and get it. This system would NOT work with humanity and its bottomless capacity for greed. It only works in a society where everyone is forced to feel an empathy that discourages them from resource hoarding. The inner wolf can't lie, allowing the wolves to communicate among themselves about what their people need.

-Everyone in Lupercal is living an upper middle class lifestyle. (At the high end of upper middle class.) Again, this is possible because of magical help. Werewolves have a nature affinity ability that allows them to easily produce large quantities of food, they have superstrength/superspeed, they have telepathy to perfectly coordinate their economy. There's a lot more to go around in werewolf society. Income inequality is very low. It's possible for werewolves to earn more resources by working based on the difficult and time-intensity of the job, that is perceived as only fair, but it's still people moving around in the same general social class rather than being in a different one. The ultra rich do not exist. Werewolves would be appalled at anyone hoarding more resources than they can use.

-Since work is not a necessity, the arts are thriving in werewolf society. All forms of art are highly valued. Werewolves also like to consume human art, but the flow is restricted in the other direction. Any human who had free access to Lupercal art would soon learn about the werewolf mission and how they definitely do not view humans as equals. Lupercal is still trying to keep their invasion plans a secret from the hairless apes. So Lupercal has its own internet that humans cannot access, and any books/art/TV that leaves the empire must be censored before humans can see it. Within Lupercal there is no censorship. They're only keeping secrets from humans.

-Werewolves can run faster than cars, making them obsolete. Some people still have car races. But they are not used for transportation. Even when transporting goods, it's easier to have a werewolf pull a cart.

-Since werewolf decisions are made by group consensus, Lupercal has a thriving tradition of debate. They love their debating events and have built amphitheaters.

-Religion is...weird. Lupercal has freedom of religion in principle, but in practice werewolves don't respect humans enough to listen to any human religious leaders. Basically, werewolves don't respect non-werewolves, not even deities. A lot of werewolves will continue to practice religious cultural traditions and holidays that they enjoy, but for fun and without any sense of obedience. Werewolves do not have their own deity. (Someday I may talk about how werewolves were created, but for now it would be a spoiler for the second story I have planned in this AU.) Humans who are religious are a lot less likely to volunteer for the bite because they have noticed how it erodes faith.

-Werewolves believe in reincarnation, or rather they treat it as a fact. They are correct in the context of this universe. Part of the effects of the bite is claiming a soul for the pack, forever, ensuring that those bitten will reincarnate as werewolves rather than reincarnate as a human or go to any afterlife. Over time werewolves have grown more magically powerful as the pack swallows up more souls.

-Werewolves tend to be constantly knowing about each other's business due to the telepathy and smelling emotions. It's polite to pretend not to know private stuff. However werewolves don't let anyone remain unhappy in the long term without staging an intervention. It's very hard to be a werewolf NEET because someone will come along to drag you out of your room. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing might be open to opinion? Werewolf society doesn't let anyone fall through the cracks, which is good. However it can be harder to get any privacy. Even if a human might be fine alone, the wolves crave contact and will arrange playdates if need be in order to force their people to make friends. On the plus side, every werewolf knows they have a few billion people who will catch them if they fall.

-Some werewolves handle need for privacy by moving to more isolated places. That is acceptable as long as you're happy. The pack doesn't feel the need to intervene if you're happy. Werewolf introverts are plentiful, but everyone has friends because the inner wolf demands it.

-Werewolves have no nudity taboo but they love pretty clothes. Love of art also includes a very thriving fashion industry. Werewolves have loads of spare time on their hands so they run experimental in stuff like clothing and cooking. They also have very enthusiastic sports competitions.

-Werewolves love to learn too, and will often spend their entire lives dropping by college to take classes in stuff that interests them. Scientific advancement is prized for making lives easier. They have heavily automated production with robots to free up leisure time.

-Werewolf society is so wealthy because of their telepathic network, which they can use to prevent waste. Some unpleasant facts: in the USA 30-40% of food gets wasted, and 85% of textiles end up in landfills every year. Werewolves have a huge advantage because they can telepathically poll people to make sure food ends up where it should be instead of the food people don't purchase rotting and expiring in grocery stores. They produce only what clothing they need instead of a lot of it getting thrown out. That is HUGE because their society can ensure everyone gets more while producing less. By human standards, Lupercal is cheating.

-Werewolf leadership is part election part meritocracy, with people who want to be pack leaders undergoing a series of tests and trials that get publicized. Having strong magic is vital to becoming a pack leader, because as I already mentioned, pack leaders are in charge of implementing the decisions of the pack so they must be capable.

[random-lil-illing]

in honour of the fact that i am still somewhat (?) into dead poets society despite being hyperfixated on fnaf now, have some headcanons about the dead poets and co reactions to fnaf lore.

i just know meeks and pitts would be fnaf fans - meeks, being a fan since the WEEK the first game came out, while pitts got into it around sister location. they just both have different ideas of the lore - pitts would get it from matpat and meeks would get it from first hand sources and gibi's good idea bad idea - meaning meeks can only recount the lore up until UCN, and pitts can keep going until the latest fnaf game. they both still manage to talk for the same amount of time, somehow

ginny would ALSO be a die-hard fnaf fan (being into the games since fnaf 3 - fnaf 4), but like... seasonally. as in, her hyperfixations usually last 2-6 months, and has her fnaf hyperfixation about 1-3 times a year (literally me). knows the basic storyline of fnaf 1-7 and knows some parts of the games after that, but she needs to routinely check the fnaf lore presentation that she, meeks, and pittsie made together to catch up on the details. still she would be up by the fnaf presentation board with meeks and pitts for moral support and to input information about external references (e.g: things the characters/games were based off of)

they'd try SO hard to explain the lore to the rest of the dead poets, but since they're both telling different stories they're all confused to some degree.

todd would be struggling to keep up with both versions of the lore but he'd absolutely LOVE the premise of the games and beg meeks and pitts to help him get into fnaf and other horror games like it (like batim/batdr). he loves horror movies the most but i think he'd be an avid enjoyer of horror games with insane plot too. he wouldn't be as caught up on the lore as meeksie and pittsie but he'd try his best. i feel like his favourite character would be the puppet because of her very poetic (?)/tragic demise and afterlife.

charlie would have no idea what's going on, despite having heard of fnaf before - no matter how many diagrams and references meeks and pitts include the fnaf lore is just way too convoluted (too many dates/two different versions) for them and none of the information retains in their head (mood). that's not to say they're not having fun though - they love all the animatronics and shit and are extremely supportive of this interest despite not understanding a single thing. their favourite character would probably be some variation of foxy (most likely mangle or funtime foxy)

neil wouldn't get a single thing either and he'd be... mildly disturbed by all the murder and dark themes in the game because i think he wouldn't like horror themes that much (plus its his first time learning about fnaf - he had VERY restricted internet access), but he'd still support meeks and pitts (and, later on, todd) throughout their whole explanations. he still thinks it's interesting and LOVES the tragedy of all the characters, especially character like michael and charlie. i think he'd be able to grasp the concept of remnant pretty easily, but the whole 'sharing parts = technically possesing other animatronics' thing would mess with him a little. his favourite character would be michael just because of how TRAGIC and pathetic the guy is

knox would be like neil in the way that he's a little freaked out by the whole thing but tries (key word: tries) to be supportive. he'd heard of fnaf before but he never imagined it to be this complex/bloody. also you know when people judge horror protagonists for doing something stupid? yeah, he'd 100% do that to characters like michael/henry/gregory and everyone else would be like "it's a FICTIONAL, HORROR, VIDEO GAME for a reason, knox!!" would have a hard time with all the lore, but somehow is able to keep track of all the characters. i think he would like phone dude or phone guy best because. i don't know actually i think he just finds them silly (/pos)

cameron would be... very disturbed and concerned for their friends' mental health, is absolutely horrified when meeks explains, in excruciating detail, the whole scooped michael fiasco (she provides scientific input and talk about how it would FEEL for michael in that moment). he wouldn't outright tell anyone that he thinks the whole game is terrifying but everyone would know anyway - still, they keep up with the lore surprisingly well for someone who if horrified by the game, they're only out-bested by todd and ginny (as well as meeksie and pittsie, of course). his favourite character would be elizabeth because he sort of relates to her

chris wouldn't be horrified at all by the game and find it mildly interesting even, but would still definitely be confused by the lore (it's a lot of information - even i can't retain it all that well), and it's not really their style of game anyway. they still show support for the people interested in fnaf and attempts to add her own interpretations during the conversation, even if they end up being wrong. accidentally gets hyperfixated on the toy animatronics and continuosly asks ginny to tell her about them so she can be interested in them properly (her favourite is mangle - they affectionately call it their sick, stray puppy)

meeks would be the one that had to explain the lore to mr keating because she wrote about the tragedy of charlie emily in one of her essays and mr keating didn't know who that was and asked about it. she spends the entirety of lunch and her free period to explain the entirety of the fnaf lore to mr keating. mr keating is mildly concerned about meeks' mental health/well-being and considers calling her mom, but sees how eager meeks is talking about the lore and decides against it. finds the concept very interesting after a while and loves the poetic implications of remnant/william's motivations and all of that. he off-handedly makes a fnaf reference in class a couple days later and all the fnaf fans, and the kids who aren't really fans but know of/about the game just quietly stare at him and each other in horror, trying to figure out who snitched to mr keating about fnaf while meeks tries to sink into the floor

bonus!!

some other teacher (like mr mcallister) walks by the dead poets discussing fnaf lore at an especially gruesome part (more specifically, the bite of '83) and is, understandably, very disturbed and concerned, especially at the way they talk about it so casually. at the next teachers' hangout he brings it up and mr keating just laughs and goes "ah yes, the bite of '83. i remember that." meaning he remembers when meeks told him about it. everyone else thinks this means that the bite of '83 actually happened and the dead poets are just?? casually talking/laughing about an event like that?? it's eventually cleared up somehow but yeah. they nearly end up involving parents before they clear it all up

sorry that it's so long, but i could NOT get this idea out of my head and i needed to write it all down.

[needtoloveoutloud]

Apparently, a hot take on hive-mind tumblr?

Every time I see a post that equates pro-shipping or difficult, problematic themes in (fan) fiction and books and other stories with actual, real-life SA or whatever the topic is, I automatically assume that the OP lacks critical thinking skills and media literacy, fell for the dangerous Puritan movement that's sort of going on in the US (and other countries, too) right now and is likely 14 y/o (or at least mentally stuck at that age) and simply jumped up on that dangerous bandwagon of wanted censorship.

Also, a little bit of hope dies within me.

I could write a damn essay on why equating the “experiences” of fictional (read it again: fictional aka NON-EXISTENT characters) with the trauma and experiences of real-life people is incredibly harmful and hurtful.

To somehow put the plot of a story on the same level as what actual victims went through under the guise of "omg you write/read something like that, so you must support this" is so disrespectful, on so many levels. To everyone affected.

(for example: in my story, I wrote about a 4 y/o girl that got kidnapped by child-traffickers. Does not mean that I a) condone that shit in any way shape or form in the real world and b) am a kidnapper and/or child trafficker myself...? I don't even know why this needs to be clarified?)

Only because some people don't like something that does!not!actually!harm! a real-life person, doesn't mean that that thing should be forbidden or censored. This is so, so incredibly dangerous. I feel like we have learned nothing from history. How about we just start burning books again? That worked out amazingly in the past and wasn't a catalyst for any big issues at all, right?

Assuming stuff is properly tagged, it's your own responsibility for what you consume online. If you are under 18, this applies too. A lot of authors feel uncomfortable to sharing their work with minors, which is completely fine, and they are in the right to do that. If you still continue to read a story (or in the case of AO3, click "accept" when the warning pops up that a story might include adult themes (graphic description of violence, sex, language, whatever, really): then it is on the minor (or the parents who didn't oversee their child's internet activity). Authors are not their parents or guardians. If minors have unrestricted access to the internet (which I am not sure they should have, at least not when you're 12 or something, but then again: I'm no one's parent), then all you can do is learn by experience. You lie and pretend you're older than you are? You click "understand" and read a story that involves adult themes?

If you do all that, despite the site's warning or the author's warning, then you do not get to complain that the story is intended for people who are older than you, have more media literacy and critical thinking skills to be able to differentiate between fiction and real life or the fact that the story contains adult themes — as it was tagged. WHATEVER adult themes are included.

Trying to censor stuff or illegalize things only because YOU subjectively think they are wrong or immoral or whatever opens the door to a lot of dangerous effects that we, in a civilized society, had to work hard to bounce back from in the past — historically speaking.

Some countries still have major restrictions and censorship of stories, books, and whole websites (that do not harm people) and it was often possible to implement such laws and censorships because it was argued (in the beginning) that it was for the protection of young people or because all porn is inherently bad or stuff like that. Then, it opens the doorway to a lot of other censorship, and then it's too late or very, very hard to reverse.

Idk, there are just so many things wrong with the notion of "anti-shipping" or "I wanna censor shit you read/write because I don't like it/think it's immoral" and, personally, it just rubs me the wrong way.

God, I can already feel people starting a discussion or blocking me or unfollowing me or whatever. And you know what's the beauty of it? You can do that — because we, luckily, have the power and responsibility to be in charge of what content we actively consume online. :)

P.S. I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously (as stated) my take on all of this only applies to fictional characters. Writing SA stories on real, existing people (celebrities or not) is not okay.

Feel free to ignore this, feel free to jump in to discuss this topic like adults, idc, really :D Just wanted to voice my thoughts to the vast void of the interwebs

Also: feel free to help educate me if you think I lack background information or stuff.

[thetreestumptherapist]

Life needs mystery

Something I've been thinking about recently, is how following our curiosity and finding things out changes our lives forever. Like, for ages you drive by a long driveway and wonder who or what is down there, but then by some strange circumstance you end up there for an event or something and that mystery is gone. You know what's there now. And it could be a really fun place to be, but is it more fun than the mystery and speculation when you didn't know? And I never got to watch CaptainSparklez growing up because of my limited/restricted access to the internet. But, I would read the Minecraft handbooks and read about him and he was always this mysterious Minecraft legend. But, now that I watch some of his videos, I know who he is, and some of that mystery is gone. (Due to trying to keep up with Hermitcraft/life series and trying to live my own life I haven't actually watched a majority Jardon's videos yet, so a lot of that mystery is still there.) Same with Paulsoares jr. I watched I think it was his first video, but never continued. I would like to at some point though.

This also ties in to why I don't like Solo a star wars story. Yes, we were curious about Han's past, but he was supposed to be a man of mystery, with a questionable background. And now we know what his past was like, and he's not so mysterious anymore. It's also why I am extremely glad with, albeit infuriated by, the fact that no one will reveal Yoda's species. No one knows what to call his species, but it perfectly fits the "mysterious swamp wizard" thing he's got going. Like, in universe, no one knows what to call him. They wonder what species he is, so us not knowing adds an immersive aspect to it.

So, in exploring and following our curiosity, we lose a lot of mysteries. When you know every little thing about something it stops being fun. It's why the best shows often don't answer all the questions and leave room for speculation. It's also why cliffhangers are so annoying. Because the big obvious suspenseful question isn't getting answered, there's no resolution, and we don't see the little questions as much because we are so focused on the big question. Also, cliffhangers feel like betrayal but that's a different issue. The little questions are more wonderment and fascination where as cliffhangers are eternal suspense and frustration.

Life needs mysteries in order to be fun. Sometimes it's finding our own mysteries, other times creating mysteries for other people. Like, finding and exploring the secret garden and then keeping it a secret so it's a mystery for others.

My advice for this post is enjoy life's mysteries, stay curious, don't be afraid to learn something new, and also don't be afraid to be ok with not knowing everything.

Short story: the first Minecraft youtuber I ever watched was Thinknoodles, starting with old diversity episodes then Noodle Planet both of them being on the minecraft channel on Pluto tv on the roku. His tree house on the Noodle Planet inspired me to build above ground for once. Then when I wanted to improve my building skills I looked up tutorials on youtube and found Grian's build school. I remember him saying he was going to be joining hermitcraft and how he would have to get used to playing in survival. Then I followed him to hermitcraft and that remains my favorite server to this day. At some point I went and found his evo series and I haven't finished that either... (I'm really good at starting things, I'm not so good at fini

[mostlysignssomeportents]

We should ban TikTok('s surveillance)

With the RESTRICT Act, Congress is proposing to continue Trump’s war on Tiktok, enacting a US ban on the Chinese-owned service. How will they do this? Congress isn’t clear. In practice, banning stuff on the internet is hard, especially if you don’t have a national firewall:

https://doctorow.medium.com/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography-33aa668dc602

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

My guess is that they’re thinking of ordering the mobile duopoly of Google and Apple to nuke the Tiktok app from their app stores. That’s how they do it in China, after all: when China wanted to ban VPNs and other privacy tools, they just ordered Apple to remove them from the App Store, and Apple rolled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

That’s the completely foreseeable consequence of arrogating the power to decide which software every mobile user on earth is entitled to use — as Google and Apple have done. Once you put that gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, you damn betcha that some strong-man backed by a powerful state is going to come along and shoot it by Act III.

The same goes for commercial surveillance: once you collect massive, nonconsensual dossiers on every technology user alive, you don’t get to act surprised when cops and spies show up and order your company to serve as deputies for a massive, off-the-books warrantless surveillance project.

Hell, a cynic might even say that commercial surveillance companies are betting on this. The surveillance public-private partnership is a vicious cycle: corporations let cops and spies plunder our data; then the cops and spies lobby against privacy laws that would prevent these corporations from spying on us:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#hun-sen

Which makes the RESTRICT Act an especially foolish project. If the Chinese state wants to procure data on Americans, it need not convince us to install Tiktok. It can simply plunk down a credit card with any of the many unregulated data-brokers who feed the American tech giants the dossiers that the NSA and local cops rely on.

Every American tech giant is at least as bad for privacy as Tiktok is — yes, even Apple. Sure, Apple lets its users block Facebook spying with a single tap — but even if you opt out of “tracking,” Apple still secretly gathers exactly the same kinds of data as Facebook, and uses it to power its own ad product:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

There is no such thing as a privacy-respecting tech giant. Long before Apple plastered our cities with lying billboards proclaiming its reverence for privacy, Microsoft positioned itself as the non-spying alternative to Google, which would be great, except Microsoft spies on hundreds of millions of people and sells the data:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Tech’s surveillance addiction means that Tiktok’s own alternative to the RESTRICT Act is also unbelievably stupid. The company has proposed to put itself under Oracle’s supervision, letting Oracle host its data and audit its code. You know, Oracle, the company that built the Great Firewall of China 1.0:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/selling-china-surveillance

We should not trust Tiktok any more than we trust Apple, Facebook, Google or Microsoft. Tiktok lied about whether it was sending data to China before:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access

And even if it keeps its promise not to send user data to China, that promise is meaningless — it can still send the vectors and models it creates with that data to China — these being far more useful for things like disinformation campaigns and population-scale inferences than the mere logs from your Tiktok sessions.

There are so many potentially harmful ways to process commercial surveillance data that trying to enumerate all the things that a corporation is allowed to do with the data it extracts from us is a fool’s errand. Instead, we should ban companies from spying on us, whether they are Chinese or American.

Corporations are remorseless, paperclip-maximizing colony organisms that perceive us as inconvenient gut-flora, and they lack any executive function (as do their “executives”), and they cannot self-regulate. To keep corporations from harming us, we must make it illegal for them to enact harm, and punish them when they break the law:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

After all, the problem with Tiktok isn’t the delightful videos or the fact that it’s teaching a generation of children to be expert sound- and video-editors. The problem with Tiktok is that it spies on us. Just like the problem with Facebook isn’t that it lets us communicate with our friends, and the problem with Google isn’t that it operates a search engine.

Now, these companies will tell you that the two can’t be separated, that a bearded prophet came down off a mountain with two stone tablets, intoning, “Larry, Sergey, thou shalt stop rotating thine logfiles and, lo, thou wilt data-mine them for actionable market intelligence.” But it’s nonsense. Google ran for years without surveillance. Facebook billed itself as the privacy-forward alternative to Myspace and promised never to spy on us:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

The inevitabilist narrative that says that corporations must violate our rights in order to make the products we love is unadulterated Mr Gotcha nonsense: “Yet you participate in society. Curious. I am very intelligent”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Of course, corporations push this narrative all the time, which is why American Big Tech has been quietly supporting a ban on Tiktok, which (coincidentally) has managed to gain a foothold in the otherwise impregnable, decaying, enshittified oligarchy that US companies have created.

They have conspicuously failed to call for any kind of working solution, like a federal privacy law that would ban commercial surveillance, and extend a “private right of action,” so people could sue tech giants and data-brokers who violated the law, without having to convince a regulator, DA or Attorney General to bestir themselves:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

Instead, the tech giants have the incredible gall to characterize themselves as the defenders of our privacy — at least, so long as the Chinese government is the adversary, and so long as its privacy violations come via an app, and not buy handing a credit card to the data-brokers that are the soil bacteria that keeps Big Tech’s ecosystem circulating. In the upside-down land of Big Tech lobbying, privacy is a benefit of monopoly — not something we have to smash monopolies to attain:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

Not everyone in Congress is onboard with the RESTRICT Act. AOC has come out for a federal privacy law that applies to all companies, rather than a ban on an app that tens of millions of young Americans love:

https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-first-tiktok-congress-ban-without-being-clued-in-2023-3

You know who agrees with AOC? Rand Paul. Yes, that absolute piece of shit. Paul told his caucusmates in the GOP that banning an app that millions of young American voters love is bad electoral politics. This fact is so obvious that even Rand fucking Paul can understand it:

https://gizmodo.com/rand-paul-opposes-tiktok-ban-warns-republicans-1850278167

Paul is absolutely right to call a Tiktok ban a “national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation.” The Democrats should listen to him, because the GOP won’t. As between the two parties, the GOP is far more in thrall to the Chamber of Commerce and the rest of the business lobby. They are never going to back a policy that’s as good for the people and as bad for big business as a federal privacy law.

The Democrats have the opportunity to position themselves as “the party that wants to keep Tiktok but force it to stop being creepy, along with all the other tech companies,” while the GOP positions itself as “the party of angry technophobes who want to make sure that any fun you have is closely monitored by Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pinchai and Tim Cook and their pale imitations of the things you love about Tiktok.”

That’s not just good electoral politics — it’s good policy. Young voters aren’t going to turn out to the polls for performative Cold War 2.0 nonsense, but they will be pissed as hell at whoever takes away their Tiktok.

And if you do care about Cold War 2.0, then you should be banning surveillance, not Tiktok; the Chinese government has plenty of US dollars at its disposal to spend in America’s freewheeling, unregulated data markets — as do criminals, petty and organized, and every other nation-state adversary of the USA.

The RESTRICT Act is a garbage law straight out of the Clinton era, a kind of King Canute decree that goes so far as to potentially prohibit the use of VPNs to circumvent its provisions. America doesn’t need a Great Firewall to keep itself safe from tech spying — it needs a privacy law.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A modified vintage editorial cartoon. Uncle Sam peeks out over a 'frowning battlement' whose cannon-slots are filled with telescopes from which peer the red glaring eyes of HAL 9000 from '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Topping the battlements in a row are Uncle Sam and three business-suited figures with dollar-sign-bags for heads. The three dollar-bag men have corporate logos on their breasts: Facebook, Google, Apple. Standing on the strand below the battlements, peering up, is a forlorn figure with a Tiktok logo for a head. The fortress wall bears the words 'RESTRICT Act.']