@heavenly-mireille - indie, mutuals only, post X/Y Champion Diantha, also very headcannon based.
@renovarre - indie, mutuals only, mid dlc Z-A Protagonist, Reneé Seelhinde, headcannon reliant, shares lore more directly than my other blogs do with eranthiss. worldbuilding heavy, default timeframe here is five years ahead of default timeframe for all others.
@draakaina - indie, mutuals only, headcannon reliant Kalos Elite Four Drasna. post X/Y
@corvuscoraax - indie, mutuals only, post sw/sh Galar challenger OC. once again, headcannon based.
@ludxs - ARCHIVED - indie, mutuals only, post X/Y Rival Calem. you guessed it, headcannon based.
Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):
Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click.
"Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said.
Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from.
"If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."
And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):
While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.
Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.
And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:
When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of “catastrophic” impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.
Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.
Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers.
Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Google’s planned changes to search are “going to have a devastating impact on the Internet.”
“It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.
Imagine you're coming home after a long day of hunting, and the first thing you hear is your seven shitty kids screeching at you for no reason, how pissed off would you be, I'd immediately fly away too
Imagine you're the oldest of seven and a fucking HOA member broke into your HOUSE and SHIT AN EGG and is BITING at your siblings, but your dad shows so you try to tell him the problem but you're very little and you don't speak English and he doesn't speak English either so you can't communicate that a fucking GOBLIN is in your HOUSE and the only reason he doesn't know is cause his ASS was on that bitch's HEAD and he must've assumed it was one of your brothers and sisters but it was actually that FREAK WOMAN who got in, and now your dad is flying away 'cause he has no idea what's going on
Imagine you're a parent and you've calmed down and gone to get McDonald's for your seven kids, and you come home expecting to get cheers because you know the D's are always a winner, but when you fly back in through the door the kids are all still screaming, and it's not even excited screams but you don't know what's wrong so you just look into the camera like you're Jim from the Office
Imagine you're one of the small middle children and probably the one that this HOA WITCH was BITING after she broke into YOUR HOUSE and SHIT an EGG and you tried to be a good host by cuddling with her to congratulate her on her egg but then she started BITING and taking over your ROOM and threw out all your GOOSEBUMPS books and your eldest sibling couldn't call dad so you all just had to wait, and then dad comes home but your STUPID FAMILY won't stop SCREECHING to explain what's going on so your dad leaves but then comes back and he's brought McDonald's which is like yay but there is an INTRUDER, and finally your dad looks around the house and notices BITCH BIRD KAREN IN YOUR BEAN BAG CHAIR, and you're like ok dad can handle this but then you learn he's more scared than you?????
Imagine you're a dad and you just got home with McDonald's and WHO THE FUCK IS THAT IN MY HOUSE but luckily you have seven children and the mean one is willing to fight this bitch and you're just gonna chill in this corner until this problem is resolved even if your other kids are straight-up judging you
Imagine you're Kevin McCallister and you're doing Home Alone except you're not home alone 'cause your dad is home too but he's not helping, he's just holding a bag of McDonald's, so you have to be the head of this house at eight years old 'cause you're home alone emotionally but this FREAK ON AN EGG isn't leaving so you decide to screech at your dad and he's more scared of you than she is
Imagine you're a dad and your child has publicly shamed you in front of your other kids and this ASSHOLE KAREN and you decide you're not gonna take this shit anymore so you tell your kids that you paid for this McDonald's with your hard-earned bird money and they're gonna damn well eat this, so everybody stop looking at that side of the house and just eat your fucking french fries but then that fucking MONSTER starts BITING your only child willing to go into battle so you recognize this is a lost cause and throw the burgers on the counter and you remember you're an ADULT so you grab your car keys and fly the fuck away
Imagine you're all seven children and dad left you with the pigeon again
I think the sex-repulsed / sex-averse / "anyone under the asexual label umbrella who doesn't want or enjoy sex" community doesn't make enough use of this gif it's absolutely hilarious
The random explosion is what solds it,
I dunno what it is about flames, but they just make everything cooler /q
metaverse being an 80 billion dollar turbo flop that immediately shut down after one of the worst performances and subsequent total company rebranding in recent history SHOULD, in a kind and just world, have spelled the end for the entire company. but unfortunately we live in hell and "Meta" is still alive
same goes for twitter too like that shit should have shut down a month after it became X, The Everything App but these guys just have so much money that 80 billion dollars can be burned with reckless abandon and their companies will survive
I'd also like to point out in The Great Beta Resurgence of 2026 that the writing software Ellipsus has a collaboration feature including comments and drafts. If you were using Google Docs for it, try that software out--it's not only no AI, but it's anti AI, very aggressively, and still in active development
Folks can find Ellipsus on their website at ellipsus.com or here on tumblr @ellipsus-writes
I haven't tried it myself because I just write directly into AO3 (I know. I'm an eldritch horror, but it's just how I roll) but I've only heard good things!
For those who don't know, recently this Bill was proposed in Parliament in Aotearoa New Zealand by an MP from New Zealand First, a right-wing party that makes up part of our current coalition government:
This Bill proposes adding definitions of "woman", "female", "man" and "male" to the Legislation Act 2019, making these the new legal definitions of these terms that apply across all New Zealand Legislation.
This Bill ignores the fact that trans people in Aotearoa have been able to legally amend their gender markers since 1995, and that people can register their legal gender as non-binary. It also fails to account for the existence of intersex people and general variations of sex characteristics that make this binary impractical (and ironic given the use of the term "biological reality"). AND it does not take into account the fact that Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa) recognise multiple genders and did not follow gender roles as westerners see them until colonialism happened.
On top of all that, the claims of protecting the integrity of sex-based rights fall short when you realise that the ambiguity of what "adult" refers to here will actually potentially remove rights, especially around reproductive rights of young people.
The Bill was read at Parliament, and the other parties making up the coalition voted to allow the Bill to pass on to a select committee to review the Bill, gather information, and make a formal report for the House with their recommendations. A part of this process is accepting public submissions.
People can make submissions in support of or in opposition to the proposed bill. You can make your submission online here:
If you need support with drafting your bill, there is a guide on the Parliament website, and some helpful folks have put together a site of resources including a submission generator. (If people have more resources for support, please feel free to add them in reblogs or comments)
Submissions close on Thursday, 02 July 2026 at 23:59 New Zealand Time.
Rhetoric like this is often pushed on the message of a "silent majority" who secretly agree with it. The best way to show that isn't the case is by showing up and making our voices heard. If you are in Aotearoa, I strongly urge you to make a submission and let the Select Committee know you do not support this bill, and you do not support legal discrimination of trans, intersex, takatāpui and non-binary people in our country.
I love lying to my landlord. “We’re currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease here” and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, I’m gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that I’m not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlord—I’m just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease I’ve ever signed. (Also, I’ve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether they’re corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their asset—the property—is a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time it’s sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goal—and because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent money—they’re almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, it’s actually in their best interest to give you a better price.
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily. High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an “AVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAY” sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says “First month free”? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says “call for availability”? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.
You have the least leverage if you’re a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that aren’t even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if you’ve already signed a lease and you’re in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so you’re stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if you’re a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and you’re being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, they’re also probably going to have to put in some work to “turn” the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, it’s still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. They’re probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know it’ll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if you’re a prospective new tenant—if they can’t get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, that’s $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and they’ll never get it back. It’s a perishable item about to spoil.
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number they’ll quote you for the rent—the sticker price that you’ve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, they’ve built some buffer into that number. There’s almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people don’t!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Don’t reply to their initial offer right away—unless there’s a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you aren’t desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when we’re talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when it’s time to send out renewal offers didn’t get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they could’ve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)
Here’s the tricky part. You need to write an email—always negotiate over email if you can, it’s too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isn’t in writing means nothing—which simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, you’d delete those other hoes’ numbers forever! Here’s the rough script I use every time:
“ Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I should’ve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number that’s higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; you’ve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and they’re likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firm—in which case, guess what? You still didn’t lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didn’t mention it above because I just couldn’t fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically “price firm :(”, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, “actually, nvm, how’s $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?”
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
If this page suddenly goes silent one day, know that my brother Samer didn’t make it. I will never forget those who saw him suffering from severe bombing injuries, lacking his vital medications, yet chose silence and kept scrolling.
I feel completely shattered and deeply ashamed begging strangers for help every single day. This endless nightmare has stripped us of everything, forcing me to sacrifice even my own dignity just to keep my brother and my family alive.
I want nothing from this world except to see Samer healthy and free of pain, and to save my family from this slow death. Please donate so we can afford his essential psychiatric and medical treatments before it’s too late.
