#that's my real issue with the article

[book-covered-in-cobwebs]

I have very bad news for the author of this article:

12 million likes.

the article -

screenshot transcript in alt text.

[snixx]

good GOD can we stop gendering everything. I swear some of y'all just took the futch scale and decided to run with it as gender roles 2.0 (yassified edition)

[tevos]

///

[bunnyboy-juice]

GRAAAAAAAH MISREPRESENTING DATA DOES NOTHING FOR ANYONE EXCEPT FEED TROLLS WHO ARE TRYIGN TO TAKE OYU IN BAD FAITH ANYWAY OH MY GD

[oatmilkappreciator]

wait re: tags of last post. was no one actually going to tell me that quasi-hallucination is a psych term describing a real ocd symptom. were they just gonna let me think I was having nervous breakdowns or....

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

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/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[bmpmp3]

i NEEED to be more annoying about being mixed race in public i keep forgetting how dire it is. sometimes i point out stuff in like visual culture classes about like a magazine cover with a biracial model or something and it blows peoples MINDS because the whole class forgot mixed people were real

[athenalvss]

Batkids finding out that batmom was a model, a famous one

FASHION FASHION ( bruce wayne!)

summary: Your kids are bored and discover your secret past, and a somewhat strange secret from their father.

pairing: Bruce wayne x fem! model reader

note: the characters don't really stick to the personality they have, but I liked how it turned out so, sorry I'm not sorry

open request - dc masterlist

It all started as a harmless search.

The kids were bored. A night with no missions, no emergencies, no chaos. Just the rain pounding against the windows of Wayne Manor and an awkward silence that none of them wanted to fill with real questions. So when Dick suggested going up to the attic, they all agreed with childish enthusiasm.

"Alfred said not to go up," Tim muttered, holding the flashlight.

“Alfred says that about everything funny,” Jason replied, already perched on some crates.

"What are you looking for, exactly?" Damian asked, arms crossed. "Dirt?"

"Something interesting," Dick replied, with a mischievous smile as he opened a dusty old trunk. "And probably some of Bruce's dark secrets."

The others gravitated toward it like magnets. The boxes had no labels, but were sealed with a leather strap cracked by age. Tim carefully opened one, as if it were a fragile relic, and inside they found… papers, envelopes, folders, and something even more striking: old magazines.

"What the...?" Steph muttered, taking one of them.

It was a Vogue Paris cover. The issue featured a striking young woman with familiar eyes, shining with a power that pierced the page. She wore a dark dress, her hair pulled back, and her expression was one of absolute elegance.

Damian silently flipped through an album until he stopped on a particular page. His eyebrows furrowed. "What is this?" causing everyone to stop what they were doing.

It was from a different box. More personal, there were letters, printed articles, old photos. The most striking one was one of Bruce and Batman's wedding, both young, you younger than him, but he looked at you almost dazzled. And beneath the photo was a note in Alfred's handwriting: "You always had a soft spot for her, even before you met her. It was only a matter of time."

Everyone fell silent. Even Jason, who muttered, "What the hell?"

Tim cleared his throat, smoothing out the crumpled paper before beginning to read. The page had yellowed edges, as if it had been stored away for years. The title at the top was from an old celebrity magazine, one of those tabloids Bruce would now despise but had clearly, once upon a time, collected.

—“The tastes of Gotham’s heir: who is the model stealing young Wayne’s attention?” Tim read aloud.

The boys looked at each other, confused.

"Model?" Damian asked. "Who are they talking about?"

Tim looked down. His eyes widened at a photo. It was Batmom, young, walking down a runway in a scarlet evening gown, elegant, unstoppable. Beside her, another photo of Bruce, even younger, smiling as he got out of a car, with that rich boy smile that bore no resemblance to the man they knew now.

—“Sources claim that the Wayne heir has a fixation with the model of the moment. He's been seen on more than one occasion with magazines where she appears on the cover, and some insiders claim he has a photo of her in his office. Obsession or admiration? Time will tell if Gotham's most eligible bachelor will dare to approach the icon who has him fascinated.”

Jason let out an incredulous laugh. “Mom was Bruce’s celebrity crush!?”

"For God's sake, Mom was a model" Dick said, still surprised.

And there it was: a photo of Batmom walking the red carpet at Cannes. And another of Bruce, maybe twentyfour years old, leaving the company with a fashion magazine folded under his arm, and the magazine showed a close up of the cover showing your face.

“Oh. My. God,” Steph said.

—This is like... when someone marries their celebrity crush... Only he did it —said Tim

“Bruce was in love with Mom… before he met her,” Dick said, as if that reshaped his entire family history.

"That's cute…" Steph murmured as she looked through all the magazines.

"He seems more like a freak to me" Jason added, though he seemed secretly impressed.

Just then, the sound of soft, steady footsteps interrupted the silence. Alfred appeared in the attic entrance, his calm, unmistakable demeanor.

And as if fate had known it, Alfred's firm footsteps were heard ascending the attic stairs. "I knew curiosity would win" he said, without raising his voice too much. "Although I expected it to be a few years ago, all detectives were quite slow to see..."

"So you knew? That Mom was Bruce's teenage fantasy?"

Alfred raised an eyebrow, picking up a magazine from the floor with two fingers as if it were a crystal goblet. "I prefer the term 'admiration.' Although... yes, I knew it. I knew it from the first day he walked in with a copy of Harper's Bazaar under his arm, feigning interest in an article about Swiss watches."

"That's beyond pathetic," Damian said, a little disappointed in his father.

Then Bruce's firm, heavy footsteps were heard on the wood of the staircase.

Everyone froze.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice low but firm, seeing the chaos of magazines, clippings, and letters.

"So you had an obsession with Mom?" Tim shot back, not missing a beat.

"A whole collection of magazines?" Steph continued, holding one up. "Bruce, this is teen crush level."

"How did we not know this before?" Dick looked somewhere between fascinated and disappointed in himself.

Damian, still in his sour tone, crossed his arms. "I thought you were pathetic in other ways. This is new."

Bruce sighed, closing his eyes for a second. "Why were you rummaging through private things?"

"We were bored. It's Dick's fault," Jason said quickly.

"Alfred knew it," Steph accused, pointing to the butler, who had just calmly brought up a tray of teacups as if it were all part of the service.

Alfred didn't even flinch. "Of course I knew. Master Bruce had a poster of her hidden away. I discovered it once when I went to get the laundry."

"Alfred!" Bruce growled in disbelief.

"im sorry master Bruce"

"A poster?" Jason asked, raising his eyebrows with a mischievous grin. "I don't want to know what you were doing with that."

"Jason!" several people shouted at the same time, between laughs and groans.

"It was a different time" Bruce tried to defend himself, though he knew it was useless. "i didn't do anything. I had it because i admired her work. End of story."

"Sure, sure," Tim murmured. "The art. The talent. The... four foot ten legs."

"TIM!" they all shouted at once.

"So Mom was your celebrity crush?" Tim said, amused. "And you married her? That's legendary."

"It wasn't exactly like that," Bruce began, but broke off when your silhouette appeared in the doorway.

"What are you doing with my magazines?" you asked, a mixture of amusement and resignation.

The kids turned around as if they had been caught stealing.

“Investigating your hidden past” Jason said, waving a magazine like it was classified evidence.

"Confirming theories," Tim added, still holding a photo. "Like, Dad was completely in love with you before he even met you."

"And that he had a hidden poster," Damian added, his voice dry. "Disgusting."

"I didn't want to know that, by the way," Steph continued, raising a hand. "But now it's etched in my mind forever."

Bruce put a hand to his forehead, muttering something unintelligible.

"And you found this, Alfred?" you asked with a smile, looking at the butler, who was still holding an untouched cup of tea.

"I was just providing some historical context," Alfred replied, unperturbed. "And perhaps I remembered certain... details."

Bruce looked at you with a silent intensity. The same as always. As if he still couldn't believe that that woman from the magazines was standing in front of him, every day, in a bathrobe, drinking coffee and scolding her children for not setting the table.

"Come on. I'll show you something better than magazine clippings."

You led them downstairs to the main room. You opened a small, decorative-looking wooden box. From it, you took out an old flash drive. "I thought this would get lost over time," you said, plugging it into the TV.

You led them into the living room. You connected an old external hard drive to the TV screen. You didn't explain anything. You just pressed "play."

And there you were.

A young you. Walking down a runway in Milan. The camera followed you as if you were the only person in the world. Fashion shows, interviews, covers. The music, the flashes, the unstoppable aura. A version of you your kids had never seen.

Not as a mother, not as Bruce Wayne's wife. But as yourself. Strong, brilliant, and unforgettable.

[xenineshroom]

It is so frustrating to know what it's like to pass as a cis man in a male-dominated field, and see all these experiences of highly privileged trans men in these same fields propped up as the standard.

There is this odd phenomenon where being a transmasculinized individual one is faced with an array of exceptional examples of those like us, while being told these examples actually represent all of us. These examples are supposed to be saying something important about all of us.

Every narrative I was fed as a baby trans, was of exceptional trans men who could only talk about how much better people treated them. Being cis passing and indistinguishable from a cis man was the standard back then in 2016 when I originally came out, and remains as such today. It is disheartening to see that people have no issue with enforcing that expectation, even if "gender liberation" is supposedly important to them.

So to be a boyfaliure, a faggot, someone who faces open discrimination and gender questioning even when I can pass as being plausibly cis, someone who is talked over even when I am seen to be a man with expertise in my field... suddenly Devon Price is the standard I've simply failed to live up to. Even worse for non-white trans men who're made to feel they failed to live up to this white ideal of transmasculinity. When normative and gender conforming trans men write articles about their improved lives, better wages, endless opportunities, they receive an outpouring of support from those who wish to stroke a cisnormative image of transgender existence.

The stories from people like me, they don't feel good to read, they don't let the reader sit back and pat themselves on the back for seeing trans men as "real men" without any challenge to their preconceived notions of manhood (in this case, being a "real man" is being privileged, cis passing, and often stealth with a successful career).

For a reader who feels too challenged, these things are easy to dismiss. Perhaps the transmasc in question is simply "early in transition." If we aren't, then maybe he's just not trying hard enough. Even if "trying hard enough" is a transmedicalist and cisnormative standard which is unfair to apply to trans people, the speaker is simply lying. If they're not they're an outlier- and if they're not, then they are still somehow unimportant. It has to be okay to write transmasculine oppression off as a phase, (or as not having ever existed at all) otherwise it would mean accepting that manhood can't save one from discrimination. It would mean that trans gender doesn't map onto cis gender cleanly and neatly, that old models cannot be recycled to include all of us.

It is very easy to accept that a transmasculine transition ends in privilege and opportunity, after all, the only reason a woman would ever want to be a man is to gain privilege... right? The only trustworthy trans men, well they will tell you stories of their vast wealth of privilege after all.

By these mechanisms, erasure by exceptionalism is reinforced.

[funnygirlthatbelle]

i suspect that a huge factor in the defense of students using gen ai (and academic dishonesty in general tbh) comes from the fundamental misunderstanding of how school works.

to simplify thousands of educator's theories into the simplest terms, there are two types of stuff you're learning in school: content and skills. content is what we often think of as the material in school- spelling, times tables, names, dates, facts, etc.- whereas skills are usually more subtle. think phonics, mental math, reading comprehension, comparing and contrasting; though students do those things often, the how usually isn't deemed as important as the what.

this leads to a disconnect that's most obvious when students ask the infamous "when will we use this in the real world?" they have- often correctly- identified content that the content is niche, outdated, or not optimized but haven't considered the skills that this class/lesson/assignment will teach.

i can think of two shining examples from when i was a kid. one was in middle school when they announced that we were now gonna be studying latin, and we all wondered why on earth they would choose latin as our foreign language. every adult promised us it'd be helpful if we went into medicine, law, or religion (ignoring that most of us didn't want to go into medicine, law, or religion), but we didn't buy that and never took it seriously. the truth was that our new principal knew that learning languages gets harder as you get older, and so building the skills of learning a language while it was easy for us was more important than which language we learned, and that's an answer twelve year old me would've actually respected.

similarly, my geometry class all hated proofs. we couldn't think of a single situation where you'd have to convince someone a triangle was a triangle and "look at it, of course it's a triangle" wouldn't be an acceptable answer. it was actually the band director who pointed out that it wasn't literally about triangles; it was about being able to prove or disprove something, anything using facts.

and so, so, so many assignments that are annoying as hell in school make more sense when you think about the skills as well as the content. "why do i have to present information about something the teacher obviously already knows about?" because research, verifying sources, summarizing, and public speaking are all really important skills. "why does this have to be a group project?" because you will have to work with other people in your life, and learning how to be a team player (and deal with people who aren't) is an essential skill. "why do we have to read these scientific articles and learn about graphs?" because if you can understand them, people can't lie to you about them.

now, of course, there's a lot we could do better- especially we as in the american school system. the reason i have an education minor but am not teaching is because of those issues. there are plenty of assignments that are busywork and teachers that are assholes and ways that the system is failing us.

but that doesn't mean you should cut off your nose to spite your face!

the ability to learn and grow and think critically is one of our most powerful tools as people. our brains are capable of incredible things! however, the same way you can't lift a car unless you consistently lift and build up to that, your brain needs to train in order to do its best.

so yeah, maybe chatgpt can write a five paragraph essay for you on the differences between thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton's governing philosophies. and maybe it won't even fuck it up! congratulations, you got away with it. but by outright refusing to use your brain and practice these skills, who have you helped? you haven't learned anything. worse, you haven't even learned how to learn.

[koushirouizumi]

Each of the cards had a picture of a Digimon on it, and there were nine in total. Koushiro looked at the stone slate next, at the pictures of the lion, archer, and monkey, and the three sets of stars. In other words, they would have to put one card into each of the holes. While Koushiro was studying them, he was unaware that Sora had come to stand behind him at some point. Now she asked him, “Do you know what it means?” “No, not at all. But this ∴ mark on the slate looks familiar. Maybe it was Aleister Crowley…” “Aleister Crowley? Who’s that?”

from "Operation Invade the Real World", Adventure Novel 2, translated by "Onkei" of Digital Scratch

Per Wiki's entry on him:

Biographer Lawrence Sutin stated that "blatant bigotry is a persistent minor element in Crowley's writings". Sutin thought Crowley "a spoiled scion of a wealthy Victorian family who embodied many of the worst John Bull racial and social prejudices of his upper-class contemporaries", noting that he "embodied the contradiction that writhed within many Western intellectuals of the time: deeply held racist viewpoints courtesy of society, coupled with a fascination with people of colour". Crowley is said to have insulted his close Jewish friend Victor Benjamin Neuburg, using antisemitic slurs, and he had {"mixed opinions"} about Jewish people as a group. Although he praised their "sublime" poetry and stated that they exhibited "imagination, romance, loyalty, probity and humanity", he also thought that centuries of persecution had led some Jewish people to exhibit "avarice, servility, falseness, cunning and the rest".

{Presented without further commentary} except Koushiro would definitely know about this history of them too.

[lupinescribbler]

How to write Injuries!

Note this is how to utilize them in your story and not going into the physical details how how to write every type of injury, because that second one would both stretch my medical knowledge and be way too expansive for a tumblr post.

1) Research

Knowing about the malady you are afflicting your character with is important. In the most optimal case this involves talking to an actual medical professional who is well-versed on that type of injury. However, since not all of us have doctors at our beck and call, a few articles from decent sources can suffice. Typically you're going to want these pieces of info:

symptoms (description fodder)

mechanism (how could this injury be sustained?)

level of impairment (know how and to what level the injury would reasonably impair someone. This info might need more digging around than the others)

healing time (know how long it takes to heal from this injury)

treatment (potentially including symptom management)

Having this knowledge will help ground your story in at least a touch of realism. Make sure your symptoms match the injury, make sure the mechanism of the injury is sufficient and just overall makes sense for the injury, don't have someone with a broken leg strolling around like nothing happened, don't have the healing time unexplainably short or long, don't treat shock by trying to cool them off, etc.

A quick note, if you are doing a fantasy/not-real injury or illness you don't get to necessarily skip this step. In fact, imo, it can become even harder since you have to fill in these details yourself. Remember, internal consistency is key.

2) Attach Relevance

You want the injury to matter to the plot or character development. Does the broken leg prevent a character from joining a big battle? Does the flu present an extra challenge to going to their daughter's dance recital? Does being weak or out of the action aggravate their hero complex or self worth issues prompting growth or self-reflection? Does a captive's injuries complicate a rescue mission? Does having their dominant arm injured force a usually brunt force reliant powerhouse to be more creative in their strategies? Does the overpowered character have to rely on their friends/allies more because of a certain injury?

Use the injury to show the level of a character's commitment or mental toughness, use it as an obstacle they have to work around, use it to up the stakes, use it to force them to be vulnerable or else show how unwilling they are to being vulnerable, use it to thwart the main team's perfect plan, use it to push a situation into even more dire straits, use it as an alternative to character death, etc etc. These are just a few ideas, there are numerous different ways you can use different injuries/illnesses in stories. Really think about how it could affect or reveal things about the plot, characters, and relationships.

As always, remember writing advice is highly subjective. Find what works for you. My number one writing advice is always to not take writing advice as hard truths :) happy writing!

[pathologicalreid]

diphenhydramine | s.r.

in which reader has a hard time getting to sleep at night, leading to Spencer's step by step instruction of which hormones help you fall asleep

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: smut (18+ mdni) content warnings: unprotected p in v sex, fingering, spencer infodumps while fingering you, restlessness, ambien, sex as a sleep aid, effective but not recommended, physiology, female masturbation, insecurity, reader doesn't pee after sex which you really should do, no clean up, but fanfiction isn't real. softdom!spencer. not thoroughly proofread. word count: 1.99k a/n: i thought i had this scheduled so imagine my surprise when i went to check tumblr and it wasn't posted. ANYWAYS. this one goes out to all the girlies with chronic sleep issues (me) and the person who requested this. don't like, don't read.

Your pillow was warm. Surely that was what was hindering your ability to sleep. Lifting your head, you flip your pillow over, resting your head on the cool side and turning to your other side.

Facing Spencer, you pull your arm out from under the covers, wondering if you should only change one variable at a time to see what actually helps you get to sleep. Huffing, you shut your eyes again, the usually muted traffic outside of your apartment seeming extraneously loud for this time of night.

You couldn’t put a name to it, but there was something keeping you up at night. You’d always had sleep issues, but your restlessness from the last several weeks was unprecedented.

“Angel,” your boyfriend says from next to you, reaching his hand out and placing it on your waist, trying to drag you across the sheets and into his arms.

Willingly, you move to his side of the bed, leaving space between the two of you to keep your body cool—maybe you were just too warm to sleep. “Did I wake you?” You ask, peering up at him through your eyelashes. He looks so ethereal in the diffused moonlight that seeps in through the closed curtains, the cool light falling over the harsh edges of his face.

He hums in response, opening his eyes and casually slipping a hand under your sleep shirt, resting his palm on your bare waist, “No,” he murmurs, even though you know he’s lying through his teeth. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t sleep,” you tell him miserably, sticking out your lower lip even though he likely can’t see your face—his eyes would need to adjust to the darkness.

He shifts under the covers, gently skimming the pad of his thumb over your ribcage, “Have you tried Ambien?”

Your primary care physician prescribed sleeping pills for you, but you didn’t have any interest in taking them. “So I can end up at the Lincoln Memorial with my underwear on my head? No, thanks.”

“I would be very impressed if you managed to sleepwalk all the way to the National Mall,” he muttered, his voice clearing as he became more alert.

You sigh in exhaustion, “I’m multifaceted.”

Spencer kisses your forehead, “Go to sleep, multifaceted.”

“I can’t,” you complain, watching him through your eyelashes, “I’m open to suggestions.”

Your boyfriend groans at your impertinence, “You could try taking the pills that your doctor prescribed to you.”

Rolling your eyes in the dark, you tuck some stray hairs behind your ear, “Nope. Any other ideas in that big brain of yours?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you get kind of snippy when you get tired?” Spencer asks rhetorically.

Frowning in defeat, you consider going out to the living room to watch something on the TV. At least that way you would be able to let Spencer get some sleep. “Are you telling me that there’s nothing you’ve read recently that has any kind of information on remedies for restlessness?”

Next to you, Spencer stiffens, and you wonder if he’s cold. You turned on the ceiling fan in an attempt to cool down, “There are always new articles on sleep remedies, but none you’d be interested in.”

Your eyes flicker to the alarm clock on his bedside table, just past three in the morning, “I’m open to anything.”

“Orgasms produce some of the same hormones that are conducive to falling asleep,” he whispers, his ministrations on your waist coming to a halt.

Sighing, you flop onto your back, “I already tried that.”

He’s silent for a moment, “Were you touching yourself while I was in bed next to you?” There was a new lilt in his voice, some sort of shift as the type of frustration he was feeling changed.

Considering your options, you cross your arms in front of your stomach, staring up at the spinning blades of the ceiling fan, “Yeah, but I didn’t— I couldn’t—”

“You couldn’t make yourself come?” He finishes for you, the words that you couldn’t get out slipping easily past his lips.

It shouldn’t embarrass you, but you find your face warming under the cover of night anyways. “No,” your answer comes out as barely more than an exhale, “I couldn’t quite get there.”

With his hand now resting on your abdomen, your attention laser focusing on the way his pinky finger skimmed the elastic band of your panties, “Do you want me to try?”

Honestly, it wouldn’t be much of an attempt, like every other aspect of his life, pleasing you is something Spencer excels at. “I want you to go to sleep. I’m sorry for waking you,” you decline his offer.

He doesn’t move his hand, “Are you sure? I’m offering, if you’re accepting.”

“I-“ you falter, “I guess it doesn’t hurt to try, but only if you want to.” You were perfectly fine with going to the couch and wasting the night away in front of the TV screen. You’ve clocked a lot of time with the early morning newscast recently.

Spencer twists his wrist in response, looking at you in the cool light of the room, “I’m always interested in pleasing you.” He speaks to you quietly, retaining the reverent tones of the morning while slipping his hand deeper into your underwear. His index finger slipping easily through your folds, “Oh, you got close,” he whispers.

There’s no resistance as his finger breaches your entrance, already deeper than your fingers had gotten. Your mouth falls open, a small, choked gasp escaping your throat as your hand instinctively grabs at Spencer’s wrist, “Yeah.”

His motions are slow and precise, making sure you can feel every slight movement as he withdraws his finger before sliding it back into your pussy. Adding a second finger before his other hand pulls down at your underwear, haphazardly leaving them around your thighs before finding a rhythm. The peace of the night pauses only for the crude sounds from you, muffled by the blanket strewn over your bodies.

Gently, Spencer presses the pad of his thumb to your clit, maintaining the thrusts of his hand as he slowly encircles the sensitive nub, “Spence.” Your voice is a breathy laugh in recognition of just how quickly he can get you there.

There was something about having someone else touch you. When you do it yourself, you can hold yourself back or overthink it, but with Spencer’s hands on you—or in you, rather—there was nothing to hold back. “Sex can help you sleep for the simple reason that it’s physical activity, but it’s when you cum that your body releases hormones that can actually help you sleep,” his ministrations don’t suffer as a result of his physiology lesson. If anything, it all becomes more intense.

A sharp, high-pitched noise comes out of your mouth, the all too familiar knot in your lower belly coiling. And coiling. And coiling. “So, you can—” your voice cuts out as you gasp, “You can literally fuck me to sleep?”

Spencer hums a confirmation, “Sex reduces cortisol levels, and your body’s going to release oxytocin and prolactin,” he assures you, “and those will induce pleasant and relaxing feelings. All of which means I get to fuck you to sleep tonight.”

“’m close,” you breathe, closing your eyes as the pressure in your core nears unbearable levels. “Oh, Spence,” you say, your grip tightening on his wrist as his hands don’t let up on you.

His unoccupied hand reaches up to your face, gently sweeping hair off of your forehead in a way that makes you dizzy, his head falling to your shoulder before he kisses the worn fabric of your t-shirt, “You can cum, baby. It’s okay.”

He doesn’t want you to hold it in, so you don’t. Your head tips back into the pillows as the coil in your belly snaps, going off like a slingshot—sharp and quick.

Spencer’s fingers keep working you through your orgasm, slowing at the same pace that your orgasm does, the sheets sticking to your back as you slowly unarch, coming back to the surface as the pleasure of your orgasm drifts away almost as quickly as it came.

Every part of your body trembles as you fall away from your high, hooded eyelids staring over at your boyfriend as you catch your breath. Timidly, you reach down and push your underwear down your legs, kicking them off into the abyss of sheets to be discovered at a later date as you turn on your side.

“You’re so pretty,” he whispers, shifting under the covers as he pulls his cock out of his boxer briefs.

You hum, scooting yourself closer to him on the mattress, heat emanating from his body in a way that you now find welcoming, “You can’t even see me.”

Grabbing your thigh, Spencer slings your leg over his waist, opening your body to him, “Not right now,” he admits, “But I know you. I know the way you look right now, while I’m slipping myself into you.” His voice is low, but your attentions are focused on the feeling of his tip at your pussy, slowly pushing into you. He lets your body adjust, this isn’t an angle he usually takes you at, but you can feel every single ridge as he moves.

“I know the glossy look your eyes have right now,” he mutters, pushing your lower back closer to him, leaving his cock impossibly deep in you. “A combination of the orgasm that you just had and the sensations you’re feeling right now.”

You shudder at his words, tentatively rolling your hips against him, silently signaling to him that you’re ready for him to move. A soft cry escapes your lips as he withdraws his hips, pushing himself back into you while your cunt throbs around his length, “Spence.”

He grunts in response, finding a steady, gentle rhythm as your mind goes blank. You find yourself searching for that high again, “You feel so good, angel. So, so good.” His voice is low as he pulls your body closer to him still, “Fuck.”

“Spence,” your voice cracks at stimulation, overwhelming you as he breathes into the crook of your neck. You dig your nails into his back, trying to keep yourself from screaming as his hand slips between your conjoined bodies, swiping softly at your clit.

Spencer keeps moving, fucking into you as his movements grow messier and messier with each passing thrust. “You’re so pretty,” he repeats, seeing your features in the soft moonlight as your mouth gapes and your second orgasm quickly approaches.

Whimpering, you bite down on your lower lip, your leg that’s slung over him shaking uncontrollably as you chase your orgasm, “Oh my god,” you gasp helplessly.

“So good for me. Let it go, I’m close too,” he says, continuing his motions even as your pussy clenches around his length, the waves of your orgasm pulsating around him, sending him hurtling toward his own.

Stars dance in front of your eyes, and you let them fall shut. His movements come to a stop and you loose a sigh of relief at the realization that you’re exhausted. “Don’t go,” you mumble.

Spencer presses a soft kiss to your lips, holding you close to him with one arm while readjusting his underwear with the other. “I won’t,” he whispers, “You need to call your doctor about wanting new sleeping pills.”

You grunt in response, too close to sleep to form a coherent response.

“I’m not opposed to a more natural remedy, but I’m not always around at night, and I need to know you’re sleeping at night,” he tells you, his voice growing softer as sleep threatens to take him.

Humming, you nuzzle closer to him, letting your body melt into the mattress as you finally fall asleep. Staying cold was no longer a concern, staying close to Spencer was.

[ursie]

Brennan’s statement on Palestine :

[ ID: Statement from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Instagram. It consists of three black squares with plain white text. The text reads as follows:

"I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. it cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. it cannot co-exist with illegal settlements, segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the violence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My hear breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because I, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The Unites States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In wiring this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts and ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough clever enough, or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not constantly weigh in an make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American Politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who I've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words I've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event. I'll just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine." End ID ]

[chase-solidago]

Invasive Species and Xenophobia

Invasive species are complicated! People have a lot of feelings about them, positive and negative. Are plants that move "invaders" "colonizing", "immigrants", "citizens"? What does it mean to kill species that are from somewhere else? What if that species legitimately makes a poor neighbor and causes extinctions in other, native species? This complex, culturally-loaded issue is a foundational issue behind a lot of plant conservation and restoration.

This is a juicy and still actively disputed topic! The Guardian recently had a big article on colonialism in Botany, (tbh her views are dated and reductive, imo) and it’s come up again this week, to much hostility (cw: reddit). Yes, my region's native plant restoration came from literal nazis, but also, the impacts of some invasive species are real, not figments of a racist imagination. How do we balance these issues? What does ethical invasive management look like?

Since it’s such a juicy topic, I wanted to offer a few fun readings to share:

The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?, Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, 2004, Arnoldia.

THE CLASSIC 20th century German nazis and native plants paper. Made a huge splash when it came out, and you will still encounter people who paint all native plant stuff with this brush. Summary: yeah the nazis loved their native plants and used them as part of their conquering process. Also, the first prairie plantings ever, located in Chicago, were done by a racist probable-nazi for racist reasons, full stop. I’ll let him speak for himself: “The gardens that I created myself shall… be in harmony with their landscape environment and the racial characteristics of its inhabitants. They shall express the spirit of America and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible… the Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was overgrown by foreign character. The Latin spirit has spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day.” - Jens Jensen

Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants, Tomaz Mastnak, 2014, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Rather than viewing native plant plantings as an act of racially-pure occupation, Mastnak positions native plants in California as a decolonization of the sub/urban lawn. Uses a lot of quotations from 16th century English philosopher Francis Bacon, and is heavy on the philosophical musings.

From killing lists to healthy country: Aboriginal approaches to weed control in the Kimberley, Western Australia by Bach et al., 2019, Journal of Environmental Management.

This paper talks through some of the native vs invasive debate, and offers a different perspective on how to approach to plant invasive management based on cultural relations, rather than country of origin or behavior.

Beyond ‘Native V. Alien’: Critiques of the Native/alien Paradigm in the Anthropocene, and Their Implications, Charles R. Warren, 2021, Ethics, Policy, & Environment

DENSE but thorough, if you want to follow the entire history of the native/invasive debate, this has you covered. The most interesting stuff, in my opinion, is the discussion of invasive denialism, IE: the impasse of “You’re just being racist!” Vs “You know nothing about ecology!” I recommend the Discussion, which starts on page 13.