#thread: blackout

[honeyknome]

[creativitycache]

Oh my god it finally happened!

My small closed subreddit I moderate finally got the attention of the Reddit overlords!

Guys they sent this message 8/8/23, I closed the sub two flipping months ago and they finally noticed I'm still waving a tiny defiant flag

[boredintjqueen]

Conspiracy theory time:

First Twitter. Then Reddit. Now ao3. Meanwhile Instagram and Threads are doing fine. Meta's taking out the competition. They'll come for us next. It's a Zuckerfest. Brace yourselves.

[sinn-bee]

For #Bingliuweek24 || Day 1 Lust/Chastity

Don’t feed me, I will come back || 🔞

🗡️Fresh from abyss Huan Hua disciple Luo Binghe/Experienced Dom Liu Qingge

🗡️Misunderstandings, Xin Mo, Kinda hidden identity

🗡️BDSM Dynamics, Dom Liu Qingge, Submisisve Brat Luo Binghe

[falakxsiddiqui]

open starter

location: mercy hospital capping: 3/5

Falak had been seated in the waiting room while her mother was seen by a physician. The older woman had taken a bad fall earlier in the day which had effectively put a stop in Falak's plans of attending the ball this evening. She'd had the perfect dress and had actually been rather excited by the prospect of having a fancy night out but this was obviously more important. She'd been called to the hospital as her mother's emergency contact and had been waiting with her for most of the afternoon and now well into the evening. She'd just pulled out her phone, thinking about calling a friend to see how the ball was going when the line went dead as soon as the entire hospital suddenly went dark.

Luckily it had only lasted a few moments before the emergency lights began flickering on but it was enough to send the people around her into a panic. Her phone was still dead as she glanced around at the others who were clearly dealing with a similar situation. "I'm sure it's nothing--the lights will be back on soon." But even as she said this--she knew how much power a hospital required with the equipment and machines and couldn't help that feeling of dread that had began to build in her stomach. "Is your phone working by chance? Mine keeps giving me a dead signal...probably a network issue."

[flicker-bot]

 @faultfindingfirebot​ asked: [  pull  ]  sender  pulls  receiver  closer  to  them 

Flicker was just using the elevator, thinking about leaving for a short walk before it would be his recharge time, when all lights in the firehouse went out and the lift came to a halt. The young mech startled.

The lift had reached the ground floor, but it had stopped a moment too early and when Flicker rushed forward, his ped caught on the gap. He stumbled with a sharp yelp, but just then he felt someone grab his arm before he’d hit the floor. When he was pulled closer, he recognized the figure in the dark.

“Uncle Wave!” Flicker gasped and turned his headlight on. “What happened? W-why did the power turn off?”

[hauntsect]

❥ ❝ A scene of the past begins with @dollhidden 's Hong-Jo ❞

Moths and butterflies fly away at the smallest disturbance. Hyles is used to staring at them from over the window of his room. Usually, they fly away when rain approaches – something that happens all too often. Yet, today, the clouds have yet to darken any further, they flutter away anyway.

They're not running away from something, but someone. Eyes travel over to the general area, he sees someone approaching. Were they walking towards the entrance of the Sanatorium? Strange, they weren't expecting visitors today, were they? The doctor would've told him, it always slips out.

Curious, he moves away from the window, the spell broken, walking over to the door. He opens it slowly, peeking through, making sure no one was around the hallway. Barefoot, he walks in his tiptoes, hoping not to be noticed by anyone. Eventually, he goes down the stairs to the first floor. Strange, there was no one at the entrance, the girl practically could walk her way in without so much as a scolding.

Well, her invasion would be interrupted by one Hyles who walked towards her, standing right by the side of the reception desk where the employees should've been.

"Are you lost? You look like the type to get lost often."

Drip, drip, drip... The rainfall begins.

[onewithblankets]

I sort of phased out of using reddit a while ago, so the whole mess feels like watching a childhood home burn down. Like, yeah, I don’t live there anymore and most of my stuff has been moved out, but I still liked visiting and some of my favorite people were there

[thegreatbacon]

The Coming Discourse Vacuum

Food for thought in a post-Twitter world

I originally published this piece 2022-11-18 on my blog, but then forgot to share lol. Thought it was relevant again with the Twitter/Reddit/Bluesky/Threads talk this past month.

There is no doubt that Twitter is collapsing. Millions of bytes have flown over the last few weeks describing the chaos both on the platform and in the private domain of its offices. Advertisers have pulled out, poorly thought out technical decisions have been made, hastily designed products have shipped, the majority of staff have either been fired or walked out the door, and the new owner and CEO is publicly melting down ON the platform for all the world to see. Some real grade A content if you will. The Adam McKay movie is writing itself. Yet as dumb as the whole saga is, it feels like there’s clearly something else at stake here, some sort of loss being felt. As much of a carnival as Twitter has always been, there is social value in it.

The widespread recording and reporting of police brutality in communities leading to the Black Lives Matter movement and the George Floyd protests of 2020 likely couldn’t have occurred without it. Last year when a wildfire broke out in the north suburbs of Denver, I used the platform to get almost real-time info and pass it on to friends and family living close to the disaster.

It’s the place to go for breaking & front page news. To hear the latest japes and gossip. It’s one of the town squares of the internet. And now it’s on fire while a lone, pathetic, billionaire is trying to rip it apart and sell it for scrap after buying it on a whim.

So, what’s next?

Some people are starting to look for the future in newer, less established spaces. But what if before our society immediately moves on to the next big thing, we take a step back to dream of a green field. If we could do it all over again, what should it look like?

To start with let’s talk about the elephant in the room, Mastodon, which is one of the new things that people have been migrating towards. Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, a collection of open source tools and platforms that prize decentralized architecture first and foremost. This means allowing anyone to host their own instance of a server and then connecting it to other servers in a federated model to gain network effects.

So instead of just one single giant ship plying the shitposting seas, it’s a bunch of rafts lashed together. If you don’t like how things are going, you can untie your raft and set off on your own. Or that’s the idea anyway.

But in my experience I’ve found the whole system unintuitive and overwhelming despite the fact that I write software for a living. Where am I supposed to make an account? How do I make sure I’m in the same network as the funny people I was following on Twitter? Does anyone in this federation even live in my state?

The barrier to entry is too high and the core architecture of Fediverse software fragments the new social network right out of the gate, undermining the very reason Twitter was useful in the first place. The replacement has to be centralized, it has to be the same place everyone agrees to show up. That’s how town squares work.

Another consideration for this future digital town square should be democratic controls baked into it from the start. The goal here is to keep any one particular petulant owner from taking control of the whole thing. This is ostensibly the purpose of federation in Mastodon, but I’m talking about even lower level controls. Elected moderators to patrol the space and ways to debate and decide the rules that govern the space. Baked in polls for voting on anything from names to new channels to modifying community guidelines. Focus on democratically controlling a single instance from within its own framework before jumping straight to federation.

Lastly, just like how a good tax base helps keep public places clean and maintained, this theoretical future platform would need some mechanism for collecting monetary support from its users, instead of an ad driven model. Ad driven platforms will always be forced to sacrifice the user experience for driving advertiser metrics.Instead let's talk about things like up-front registration fees or monthly supporter tiers, cosmetic items or badges for purchase, and publicly published operational budgets so users know how much they need to open their wallets. We could even dream of an honest to god new state-run utility that can actually levy taxes to manage and operate the platform!

As I’m writing this piece, one of the top trends on Twitter is literally #RIPTwitter. Even if the website technically lives on past tonight, it’s clear that it has lost the trust and confidence of its community, the lifeblood of any social media platform. So as we stagger out of this burning square, we should all take a moment to unplug, touch some grass, talk to our friends and family around our kitchen tables, and take a deep breath. In that moment of quiet, let’s dream about something better, before we go back to looking for something to fill the vacuum.

[riotinyellow]

maybe the threads migration is a good thing. Maybe in 3 years, no one will be using Twitter, but the queer teenagers. Maybe Twitter is just going through a tumblr phase right now

[predakingrising]

(Continued from here x ) @thesoundlessvoid

Blackout is in the middle of Primus know's what in his office when the call comes through. At first, he is silent, but then, excitement strikes.

:: Preds? Dude. What the fuck, where you been? Are you okay? ::

Predaking had never expected to get a reply, having fully antisipated people to be furious with him for vanishing so suddenly without a trace, not even a distress beacon left behind. There one day, and gone the next- much like the titan and his nomadic ways he supposed. Perhaps that's why he wasn't met with ire?

Instead the excitement that coloured Blackout's tone has him surprised, frankly endeared the giant owl was happy to see the dragon at all- or rather hear him. However choppy the signal was.

::I believe I owe you an apology, firstly. I've-::

The predacon pauses, worrying at his bottom lipplate.

::Stranded was where i've been. I was with my creator- Shockwave. He had requested assistance to what should have been a routine inspection on his territories... It was not, as you can guess.::

Predaking sounds far more tired than the last he had met Blackout, their audacious rambles across the lush islands now long since colonised by Cybertronian and Predacon alike.

::Shockwave's entire fleet was struck into deepspace, communication dead and adrift into nebulae- it is a miracle we made it free. Your engineering skills taught to me long ago certainly made the difference.::

[myriadxofxmuses]

@4fter-hours

[falakxsiddiqui]

closed for @rhysbradley location: mercy hospital, night of the blackout

Falak had been trying to see if any of the landline phones were working nearby the nurses station, but getting there was nothing short of a stumbling process thanks to how many people were in the hospital and given the darkness, everyone was having difficulties. She wasn't looking to call any particular person, but rather trying for the police to see if the entire city was engulfed in this darkness or just parts of town. And if it was the case--what were they doing to get it up and running. Surely they couldn't expect the residents to just deal with it, because that was unacceptable.

By the time she got the nurse's station and picked up the phone, a sinking feeling was inside of her and sure enough as soon as she put the receiver to her ear--the lack of a dial tone confirmed her thoughts. "Of course it's dead, why wouldn't it be? Clearly everything is going to hell today.." she murmured as she slammed the damn phone back down. She didn't really care who was watching her act this way but just as she placed the phone down, she caught sight of someone watching her. "I suppose it's too much to ask if you know anything about what's going on, huh?"

[probablyasocialecologist]

Often in the same breath as the far-right in power makes threats of expelling Palestinian citizens from Israel, they slip in the parallel threat of stripping Israeli leftists of citizenship. A poll in August 2022 found that 64% of Israeli voters supported Ben-Gvir’s proposal to deport any citizen, Jewish or Palestinian, who opposes the army or the state. Over the past decade, the word “leftist” has become an epithet, synonymous with “traitor” and “Palestinian lover.” Even if one is a Jewish citizen of the Jewish state, Israel is a terrifying place to be a left-wing radical, where beatings by fascist thugs may soon escalate to killings and where one’s civil liberties hang by a thread. This too has accelerated since Israel unleashed a tidal wave of violence against the people of the Gaza Strip; dissent among Israeli citizens against the bombing campaign has been criminalized. Pro-ceasefire protesters have been attacked by police everywhere they assemble, fired from their jobs, doxxed and assaulted by fascists, and arrested for posts on social media. Any journalists covering demonstrations are themselves arrested; Israeli police are attempting to uphold a media blackout on dissent to the war. Detainees from peaceful demonstrations are being charged with “support for terrorism.” Some leftist Jewish Israelis have declared that “Israeli is now a full-scale dictatorship.”

Mason Herson-Hord, A Second Nakba: Paving the Way to Genocide

[hans-wh0re]

SKZ HYUNG LINE AND CHOKING

Warning: non con, extreme (kinda) breathplay, all of them are mean

Chan:

"The only sounds I wanna hear are you choking on my cock," Chan snarls as he tightens his vise-like grip on your throat. His hips snap forward with cruel force, burying his thick length into your spasming cunt to the hilt. You gurgle helplessly around the oxygen deprivation, eyes rolling back as he sets a punishing pace.

"F-Fuck… take it slut, just like that," he grunts, other hand threading into your hair to yank your head back at an obscene angle. Drool leaks from the corner of your parted lips with each savage thrust that knocks the air from your lungs.

He loosens his hold briefly to give you a split second of reprieve and your body instinctively bucks with a ragged inhale. But Chan is immediately squeezing again with wicked dominance, smile twisting viciously as your airway is cut off once more.

"Love listening to you try and breathe while i'm choking you," he growls, sloppy sounds of his brutal rutting filling the air. You feel yourself teetering on the brink of blackout, shuddering convulsively around the jackhammer pace splitting you apart.

Just when you think you're about to pass out from the dizzying rapture, Chan's grip shifts, closing off your throat entirely. You seize and buck beneath him with garbled, strangled wails as your entire world whites out into an overwhelming release. Through the delirium, you feel thick spurts of cum flooding your battered pussy in time with your own gushing orgasm…

Minho:

"Yes, that's my fucking girl," Minho croons as you writhe beneath his firm chokehold, nails digging crescent moons into the wrist constricting your breath. The filthy sounds of his thick cock pistoning in and out of your dripping slit accompany your feeble grunts and wheezes.

He slows his punishing thrusts momentarily, dragging the swollen head in maddening circles around your abused entrance before sheathing himself fully once more. Delirious with oxygen deprivation and the merciless stimulation, a pitiful whimper gurgles past your parted lips. Minho's eyes darken at the submissive sound.

"What's that, slut?" he sneers, grip tightening incrementally as he rolls his hips with agonizing languor. "You want more of this cock inside your worthless little fucktoy hole?"

You can only respond with another broken noise, desperation contorting your face as he withholds the breath you so crave. Smirking viciously, Minho releases your neck just long enough for you to drag in one desperate inhale before cutting it off again. He resumes pounding into your brutalized cunt at the same devastating pace, ignoring your garbled shrieks of overwhelmed rapture.

"M gonna keep you right on the edge like this," he pants harshly, damp hair clinging to his forehead with exertion. "Stuffed full of cock and just shy of passing the fuck out from how badly I'm choking you. What a lucky little fucktoy..."

Changbin:

"That pretty little face is gonna look so fucked when I'm done with you," Changbin growls, thumb digging cruelly into the hollow of your throat. His pelvis snaps forward with punishing force, burying his girth into your abused slit to the hilt as you choke out a gurgling wail.

You're drooling helplessly in your struggle to take air into your compressed airway, all rational thought obliterated by the fireworks detonating behind your eyes each time his cock splits you open. Pounding relentlessly, Changbin tightens the circle of his fingers around your neck, cutting off breath entirely. The oceanic rush in your ears grows louder as you convulse beneath him, mind blanking into euphoric white static.

Just as blackness begins creeping in at the edges of your vision, he finally deigns to loosen his hold. The oxygen flooding back into your lungs draws a shuddering wheeze of relief that's abruptly swallowed by another hoarse cry as Changbin's thick shaft slams home again. Your battered walls flutter around the brutal intrusion, gushing more of your grool to mingle with the mixture of your arousal already coating his pelvis and thighs in a sticky sheen.

"Fuck, you're gonna milk me dry, aren't you?" he pants, greedy gaze drifting between the sloppy mess your joined sexes have become and the punished, drooling 'o' of your lips struggling for air. "Go ahead, cum all over this fat dick stuffing you stupid, slut…"

Hyunjin:

Hyunjin's dark gaze burns with unrestrained possession as he tightens his grip around your delicate throat. The vicious squeeze elicits a gurgling, strangled cry as he sheaths his aching length fully inside your helpless, convulsing cunt.

"Look at you," he rasps, voice dripping with cruel dominance. "Such a depraved little fucktoy, gagging and choking on my cock like the thirsty set of holes you are."

He draws out with agonizing slowness, the lurid sounds of your arousal thick and obscene. Breathing raggedly through your teeth, you manage to roll your hips in a desperate bid for more friction against the delicious stretch of his girth. Hyunjin watches with darkly amused eyes before abruptly slamming back in to the hilt, never releasing the bruising squeeze cutting off your breath.

Each punishing thrust rips a strangled, gurgling wail from your swollen lips as you writhe and buck violently beneath him. Drool and streaks of your mixed arousal smear between your gasping mouths - you delirious with white-hot euphoria, he coldly focused and ruthless in his domination.

Without warning, Hyunjin shifts his grip, fingers curling around your throat in a vice that fully cuts off oxygen. You seize with a sobbing shriek of rapture as your entire body is set alight, an orgasm of earth-shattering intensity tearing through you like a shockwave. Spots of blackness encroach on the edges of your vision. Just as you start to go limp, hurtling helplessly toward that blissful abyss, Hyunjin releases his grip.

The gasping inhale you manage to wheeze as stars explode behind your fluttering lids is abruptly choked off once more as Hyunjin resumes his merciless pace, maniacal fervour coursing through his frame.

"I haven't given you permission to pass out yet, slut," he snarls, voice edged with insane menace. "Gonna keep you right on that brink, stuffed full and denied air until I've properly bred your slutty womb..."

Overwhelmed shrieks and garbled pleas spill from your abused throat as Hyunjin relinquishes and reinstates the breath-stealing clutch at cruel, calculated intervals - keeping you pinwheeling in the vertigo of orgasmic delirium. He shows no signs of slowing, ruthlessly extending your torture of euphoria into a realm where rapture and agony have blurred indistinguishably...

A.N: Not me writing this at work and praying that nobody walks into my office without me noticing 💀💀

[love-3-crimes]

DON'T FORGET! Don't stop talking about them just because strike week is over!

PALESTINE

My original post is still relevant.

Keep educating yourselves, keep sending emails, and doing your daily click

Shut it down for Palestine (March 2nd). Look for a protest near you (it might help to search up "(City/State name) Palestine" to find them)

LEBANON

They are also being attacked by Israel. Here's a twitter thread of some of the petitions you can sign and where to donate

SUDAN

Tumblr thread explaining the blackout currently happening in Sudan and how to help

Keep Eyes on Sudan is a good website to get more information. They also have a section to email your representative (for US, Canada, UK, and Australia). It also gives you a template you can copy and paste.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Twitter thread of what's happening in Congo with ways to help.

One way to help is to stop buying new electronics. If you need to, buy second hand (I've heard Swappie is a good place to get refurbished phones).

Friends of the Congo website (and their instagram) also has ways you can help (more emailing!). Their insta should have a link to one of the petitions you can sign.

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THEM! No one is free until they are free!