[qqchurch]

[qqchurch]

what

[running-with-toast]

nothing will top The Big Phone

[wretcheddollthings]

my fav is the fact that the japanese kanji for "horse" is different

(art source for second pic)

[pawtheticpuppyboy]

I think when a sub says "you can do whatever you want to me" what they're actually wanting is to not make decisions anymore, and they think by saying this they can foist the decision making off on the dom without having to do any of the work beforehand. But unfortunately to get to the Not Making Choices part of kink you do in fact have to make a Lot Of Choices beforehand and communicate those choices to your partner. This is an essential part of the process and skipping it is both unsafe and unfair for whoever you're playing with.

Not Making Choices is the reward for communicating clearly, not the default

[homalothecium]

To people who say this, as someone who has been there, reasons you might find yourself wanting to say "you can do whatever you want to me":

It feels flirty (situationally dependent. This is not the use OP is talking about but make sure you've *already negotiated* before, don't say it in response to genuine questions. If anything else on this list feels true to you, don't let being flirty be an excuse to say it anyway/not communicate/not address those other factors.)

Wanting to please/prioritize your partner (not a bad desire, but they likely want a clear understanding of your own wants and limits so that they can not only do what they want to do but have the Impact they want.)

Fear of seeming too needy, demanding, not submissive enough (maybe ask for them to share some of their desires and limits first so it doesn't feel like you're leading the conversation right out the gate, and understand that you having to trust that if you ask for something they don't care for they'll say no is the same trust they have to have in you.) (note- some Doms DO complain about subs being demanding, or asking for things right out the gate, treating them as kink dispensers. Subs Can be shitty like that and it's fair to complain, but also Doms can do this unreasonably, and in either case people overhearing these complaints can absorb that "don't be demanding, treat your Dom as a person" incorrectly as "don't ask for things")

Not knowing what you want (generally you can just state this outright, I recommend including a request for suggestions or brainstorming, or a discussion of a kink tasting, "Can we try a couple things and see what clicks?" If they're not up to work with you on figuring it out then you will have to just figure out what you want by yourself or with someone else.)

Decision fatigue/desire to set aside making choices (you can in fact also say this bluntly. Being offered a simple two options to pick between works for some people, so you can suggest that as a starting point. You may also need to get some down time to start with, prior to subbing. Subspace is not a replacement for self care and the human need for relaxation. It can help with decision fatigue to have time in subspace, so before doing more in depth scenes needing signifact negotiating you can do smaller ones to help that, but you do need to make Some decisions and do communication upfront for that even if you find ways to safely minimize the decisions to start with. You could ask for suggestions and make the only decisions be indicating your interest/lack, fill out kink interest worksheets so it's on paper instead of a conversation and can be broken up into more manageable chunks, or do a tasting type scene where all you say is yes and no. Seriously try to give yourself downtime and meet your needs without Just putting them on another person though.)

Shame about expressing desires (let yourself be embarrassed. Turn red, stammer, say "I need a minute", push yourself to voice at least one thing. You don't need to be suave in a negotiation, and most Doms will find it cute/hot. And probably do some reflecting on where that shame comes from, how it does and doesn't align with your values, and unpack that some with a professional or at least a trusted friend.)

Fear of setting boundaries/voicing limits (this is a serious one. If you can't do this in the negotiation do you think you can safeword in the moment? You simply Have to find a way to set those boundaries to be able to play. That's not to say you can't Work on this while in a kink relationship, but you need to start working on it Now, and make sure that your Dom understands that that's where you're at and is okay with being in those troubled waters with you. Do Not Be Shitty if they are not up for it. Let them leave without guilting them.)

Lack of concern about your own wellbeing (first of all goddamn do I get it. Depression is hard, ideation warps perception of everything, trauma can destroy your sense of self preservation, I used to think trusting someone meant not minding if they did hurt you rather than having faith that they won't. If you can't find it in you to care about not being hurt for your own sake, care about it for theirs. They almost certainly don't want to trigger you, hurt you in a way you dislike, abuse you, or kill you. If they do want to do those things then you saying what you don't want won't stop them, so in that case it doesn't matter. But they probably don't, that's why they're negotiating with you. Your lack of concern doesn't outweigh their concern for your wellbeing, so let them know the relevant info.)

Thinking about what fits here can get you to a place to address issues, accomodate your needs, and communicate effectively.

[ryebreadgf]

i'm hotter than i think i am but i'm also uglier than i think i am. won't elaborate

[zoesupreme]

smoking that shit that made the Miocene epic

[dragon-in-a-fez]

genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital

[bigmann-mclargehuge]

Share the knowledge

[dragon-in-a-fez]

Okay, here we go! I'm gonna try and put this in order from least to most technical knowledge required. I'm not responsible if you accidentally create SkyNet etc.

Level 1: browser extensions

This one is basically impossible to get wrong, or at least to get wrong badly enough that it causes any problems.

Get Firefox, or a Firefox fork like Waterfox. If you use a fork, make sure it's one that will let you use add-ons. On a PC, pretty much any Firefox fork will take add-ons, but on mobile devices, many don't. Iceraven is one that does.

Get the add-ons uBlock Origin, YouTube Sponsorblock (if you use YouTube), and FBCleaner (if you use Facebook).

uBlock Origin comes with a built-in list of filters to block ads and trackers, but you can add your own filters to block any specific element of a website you don't like. You know those goddamn floating frames on fandom.com sites that block half the screen? Now you can zap 'em.

Sponsorblock uses crowdsourced timestamps to automatically skip sponsor spots and self-promotion in YouTube videos. Never listen to anyone say "hit like and subscribe" or "Raid Shadow Legends" again.

FBCleaner hides all content from your feed except posts from people, groups, and pages you've actually chosen to follow.

Level 2: leaving enshittified services

The software that's become standard over the years in a lot of fields is steadily selling more of your data, showing you more ads, and pushing you to buy more expensive subscriptions. Time to tell them to get fucked.

Dump Adobe apps for Affinity or Krita. Drop Microsoft for LibreOffice. Change your default search engine from Google to DuckDuckGo or Qwant. Use OpenStreetMaps instead of Google or Apple Maps.

Level 3: network-level DNS fuckery

DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the thing that tells your computer where www.website.com is actually located. By hacking your network's DNS you can force it to tell your devices that ad-hosting domains don't exist at all. Some of the steps on this one can get pretty technical, but because you're doing all the difficult stuff on a dedicated device, you can't really fuck up anything that seriously.

Get yourself a Raspberry Pi (a cheap older one like a model 3B will work just fine for this purpose), and follow a guide like this one to get it set up running AdGuard Home. AdGuard, like uBlock, has built-in filter lists, but you can also add your own if there are specific domains you want to block.

Once it's up and running, you'll need to change the DNS settings on your router to point to your AdGuard service. This is different for every router but will always start with logging into the admin panel with a password printed on a little sticker somewhere on the router.

With that done, every time a device on your home network looks for ads.website.com, it'll get back a message that says "sorry, can't find it", so it won't be able to load any ads.

Level 4: Android-specific DNS fuckery

Because AdGuard runs on your home network, it can't block ads on your phone when you're away from home - and what's worse, your phone will sometimes remember the addresses it got when you were out and about, and ads will get past your AdGuard wall even when you're home.

To avoid this, get AdAway for DNS-based ad-blocking directly on your phone. The easy, but less seamless, way of using AdAway is the "local VPN mode", which doesn't require you to do any mucking about with your phone's operating system.

Level 5: automated media piracy

The best way to stop seeing ads on all your streaming services is to stop using streaming services. There are loads of ways to do this, but the best ones involve setting up what's called an "arr stack" (Google that for setup guides) along with nzbget and a usenet account. Most of the time you'll want to set this stuff up on a dedicated device - an old laptop gathering dust in the closet is a great option, or you can grab something used from a charity shop or a local electronics recycler.

The great thing about usenet is that unlike with torrents, you don't have to do any sharing from your computer, so you're in a lot less legal jeopardy - legally speaking, distributing pirated content is waaayyy more serious than accessing it. I pay about £3 a month for a secure, high-bandwidth usenet service.

Once you start getting your own collection of media on your own computer, use the open-source media library manager Jellyfin to browse and play things from basically any device.

Oh, and don't be a dick. Pirate all you want from big corporations, but please pay independent small-time creators for their work.

Level 6: fucking with Android

Android phones are a lot more locked-down than they used to be, but depending on the device you own you can still do a lot of messing around under the hood. Note that if you get something wrong while doing this, there is always the possibility that it will turn your device into a paperweight.

Before you buy a device, check where it sits on the Bootloader Unlock Wall of Shame. Once you've bought it, check the xda-developer forums for guides on how to unlock it and "root" it (gain admin access) with Magisk.

Once Magisk is installed, you can add modules to do all sorts of cool stuff, including using AdAway in "root mode" which makes it basically invisible.

You can also install YouTube ReVanced, which will do all the ad- and sponsor blocking stuff we took care of in your Windows browser a few paragraphs ago. Be careful: there are a lot of fake sites out there pretending they're associated with the ReVanced project which might be injecting malware into their downloads. This Reddit post has the official instructions and links.

Also, try out the modded version of Facebook from APKmoddone, which will block most of the same shit as the FBcleaner add-on from earlier. There's always a possibility that modified apps like this are doing something dodgy, but I've never had any issues with this one personally.

Level 7: fucking with Windows

This one is scary because it can seriously fuck up your shit if something goes wrong, but some really cool people have actually made it very simple to strip all the bloat, ads, and spyware out of Windows. The tool I use is ReviOS. Start reading at https://www.revi.cc/docs. Basically, you'll need to download a tool called AME Wizard and the ReviOS "playbook" that tells AME what to do. Read the documentation before you do any of this.

Level 8: switching to Linux

I'm not going to pretend this is an option for everyone. Half the software I use on a weekly basis isn't available on Linux. But if you can switch? Do it. These days, Ubuntu - one of the most popular flavours of Linux - is built with people switching from Windows in mind, and a lot of things will be pretty intuitive. It also has great documentation and a huge community you can go to for help if you're confused about stuff.

And that, friends, is a comprehensive approach to banishing the demons of capitalism from your home!

[klymilark]

Something I want to add:

You don't even need a pihole for it anymore. You can throw "dns.adguard-dns.com" into your android phone under Network (or Connections) > Private DNS > Private DNS Provider Hostname in your Settings app. You can also set your router up to use it via the IPs:

94.140.14.14

94.140.14.15

Link to to source for that:

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific conten

That will depend on your router, just search "How to set up custom DNS for (router name & model)". You can usually find that info on a sticker on the router itself. The model name is often nonsense like CM1000.

For switching to Linux:

If you're worried about software not working, and the software isn't something with work-related requirements attached, you can usually find alternatives. Alternativeto.net is a good place to start with that.

AlternativeTo - Crowdsourced software recommendations

AlternativeTo lets you find apps and software for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Android Tablets, Web Apps, Online, Windows Tab

If you're a gamer, protondb.com will let you see how well your specific game runs on Linux. Ranks are from:

Borked - Does Not Work At All, or works so poorly that you cannot play the game at all

Bronze - Sort of works, but with glitches that don't exist on Windows that affect gameplay

Silver - Works, but requires tinkering, and has glitches that don't affect gameplay, or requires heavy tinkering to get running

Gold - Works, requires mild tinkering (usually just selecting another proton version from the drop down)

Platinum - Works out of the box

Native - Is made for Linux

Other common alternatives:

Spotify: I've heard good things about Tidal, but haven't personally used it (I use a cloud storage service and local files for music)

Google drive: Nextcloud. You can find free servers on their website

Google office: OnlyOffice has a desktop/mobile app, and most of the features

Gmail: Free providers aren't common, but disroot is one of them. They also offer quite a few services. Personally I use mailbox.org, but they do cost $36 a year minimum

Google search: Disroot has a searx instance, startpage.com exists, and you'd be surprised at how far you can get by setting your default search engine to Wikipedia. Marginalia's also good, but selective about what they index (mostly indieweb stuff)

I, admittedly, run almost everything through Emacs nowadays, so there may be better alternatives now.

(Directed generally) Also remember that in most cases the problems are Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. If you find a small project that isn't perfect, remember that those five companies are probably worse in every way imaginable. Look for an alternative, but for the love of whatever you hold dear, Google is *not* a better alternative.

[iamwizzzzz]

[experiment41]

we are NOT bringing 4chan incel terminology to this site, take that "foid" out of your post and go wash your blog out with soap

[cognitohazardous]

the memeification of fascism is a proven method of perpetuating and instilling it in other people. Layers of irony will not protect you once you adopt racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic terminology into your lexicon. you'll be acknowledging and nursing the mindsets and connotations borne of those words.

[sylvanus-cypher]

A very astute observation by prev which should not be relegated to the tags

[makrustic]

Whole Summer Solstice ☀️ 'Falling right there by the sunset, falling right there by you' Prints | Ko-fi | Patreon | Bluesky ⭐

[karvina]

Reincarnated In Meet N Fuck Kingdom — But I'm Asexual !! • Volume 1: I Seriously Don't Give A Damn About Elfen Breast Milk

[stuffman-main]

imagine if you will, a fairly dry survival crafting game in which you live in a bunker and must periodically venture out to scavenge food, set up turrets for attacking monsters, etc

now, your computer inside the bunker has a game-inside-a-game on it which is a charming farming sim of undeniably greater quality and scope than the survival game you're playing. therefore, the object of the game becomes to keep your bunker secure so you can play the farming game more.

now, once you achieve the highest rating in the farming game, a secret shop inside it unlocks, and one of the novelty items you can purchase is a game console, giving you access to games-inside-a-game-inside-a-game. most of the games for it are typical mobile shovelware, but one of them is a highly polished, extremely brutal precision platformer with amazing level design and production values exceeding that of the survival game and farming sim combined.

it is only at this point that the purpose of this entire contrivance becomes clear: to create the most deranged speedrun community the world has ever seen.

[lesbianshepard]

if an archaeologist says an artifact was probably for “ritual purposes” it means “i have no fuckin clue”

but if they say it was for “fertility rituals” they mean “i know exactly what it was for but i dont want to say ‘ancient dildo’”

[thecringeandwincefactory-deacti]

Back in the day I worked at a certain very famous and very high caste art museum in the US as a junior curator. Part of my job was to catalog the objects in the museum database. This includes details like provenance, measurements, and a visual description of what the object looked like.

Like I said, the museum was a pretty snotty institution. It’s got a LOT of objects it’s way famous for possessing, but nobody knew about the absolutely massive collection of Moche erotic pottery it had because the curators were totally embarrassed by this stuff.

Some examples:

Pretty hot shit, right? They never, ever put any of this stuff on public view or published it in any catalogues but - we legit had like several hundred pieces of Moche ceramics in the “dirty pots” category. Anyway, I was left alone to just do my job with regard to the database for several years, ok? And I figured, well, these’re accessioned objects in the museum’s collection - better get down to bidness. 

I catalogued every goddamn bestiality, necrophiliac, cocksucking, buttfucking, detached penis, and giant vulva drinking cup in that collection. I’d be like, 

A drinking vessel in form of a standing man wearing a tunic and cap. He holds an oversized erection in his hands and stares into the distance (note I did not say “like he’s hella-constipated”). The vessel has a hole at both the tip of the penis as well as around the rim of the figure’s head, thus forcing the drinker to drink only from the penis or risk spilling wine all over themselves from the top of the vessel. Red and orange slip covers the surface of the piece.

Pretty straightforward, right? Apparently the deep seated fear of these objects that the curators exhibited was meant to spread to me as well, but - no one ever gave me that memo, because I guess Midwesterners reproduce asexually. When the curators understood that I had catalogued all of these objects in addition to the other, non-sexy pieces in the collection, they were apparently livid, but knew they had no legs to stand on in terms of getting pissed at me for it. 

I visited the museum’s online public access database a few years back and - every single description I wrote of these pieces has been totally neutered to say something like Male figural vase. 

Long story short? Just call a dildo a fucking dildo. It’s all gonna be ok, I swear.

[workfornow]

This is absolutely the MOST unusual reblog I have ever tagged with what is probably my second-favorite tag, “talk to me about your work.”

Plus it’s hilarious.

[cloudfreed]

I love ancient art history !!!!!

[clockshunddachshund]

@lowercasetrashwriter

[scrimblobimblobadimbo-deactivat]

Museums should have sections dedicated to artifacts like these with a warning that says “There’s a lot of private parts in here but we’re dedicated to displaying history so we won’t censor these. Enter at your own risk” or something. It’s prudish to deliberately hide history because of some ding dongs.

[dovewithscales]

Fucking Puritanism.

Unpopular opinion: Sex exists. Making body parts taboo is both psychologically bad for us and kinda stupid.

[rosepetal444-deactivated2026020]

i’m like if a pervert was a sweetheart

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

Starting a collection

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[definitely-not-lordenglish]

[home-and-having-tea]

[yr-tiktok-mom]

[maswartz]

[jonny-r217]

[toast1862]

like it just doesnt make any economic sense. replacing human labor with ai only makes sense if the output is as good or better and cheap as free. but just the fact that you have to build the massive data centers at all-- especially that gpus go bad in just a few years, but even if they didn't, the facility itself is going to be a big expense-- means it cant be cheap as free. they were banking on an uber type situation where they could crank up the prices once people switched to their business model, but the trade is literally "this will be cheaper than using human labor" so if it's not cheaper than human labor then people will just hire people again. and it's not even as good or reliable as a person. so while ai is "here to stay" in the sense that the technology exists and will find its niches, probably people are going to be sexting with them forever just maybe on local models, the current business model cannot survive and never possibly could.

it's all desperation. i do really believe ed zitron's rot economy idea, that the tech sector has been searching for a new internet or iphone or whatever that blows up and changes the world and they get to keep the profits so they'll uplift any garbage (hence nfts and the metaverse) to try and astroturf that. and relatedly, i think nvidia and the cloud compute companies and the ai companies are just passing the same dollar back and forth to create big numbers that paper over how bad the economy really is. it's all an attempt to keep the infinite growth hack going.

like i actually think all of the problems with ai are problems that already existed that are just getting a huge spotlight on them because of the massive reckless expansion and apocalyptic marketing. like people are cheating on essay assignments? no shit, they used to use fiver and other cheating services. higher ups are devaluing and trying to get rid of creatives? yeah, we've been talking about how vfx artists need to unionize for over a decade, especially people working on marvel movies. people with mental health problems are turning to the internet instead of getting support or medical assistance and end up hurting themselves as a result? yup, especially when it comes to like eating disorders, there are some really awful places that will validate you into the grave. data centers use a lot of energy and water? yeah, they also did that before they were used for ai, they do that for youtube and twitch, and tech in general is a massive source of pollution. politicians arent listening to their constituents' needs and demands, instead handing money and special privileges to corporations that wont keep up their end of the bargain? yeah, i remember the public transit proposals cancelled to hand money instead to elon and his terrible tunnels. like it all already existed, they're just doing it so much so quickly that people can actually see it in front of them

[oddarette]

“Do Dead Malls Go To Heaven?”

Experimented a bit with a new way of detailing the tiles. Kinda like it? This particular piece took a hell of a lot of work. I’d love if you shared the vibes it’s giving off, for research purposes 💖

[mintbees]

steam repeatedly notifying you that a friend is booting up a game thats clearly not cooperating feels like ur sitting inside and someone outside keeps trying to rev up a lawnmower

[mintbees]