Dragon Mom's Musings

Draconic daimon of Hekate with a side of fae corvid, temporarily on this side of the veil, serving the gods as a pagan priestess. Sharing a vessel with an eldritch bug, a psychopomp assassin, two fae felines, and a librarian.

[dovewithscales]

Where to Find Me

I'm very inactive on Tumblr. I'm here only when someone DMs me something on Discord and asks me to respond, or sometimes to post an essay when I think of it.

I try to be more present on Bluesky. I can always be reached on Discord and feel free to DM me at any time.

All my essays are on my website, which is just my handle with a .com at the end. I'm DoveWithScales everywhere, including Discord.

Do not send me asks soliciting donations/asking me to share solicitation for money. If I do not know you, I will always assume these are scams, and you will be blocked.

Dove (@dovewithscales.com)

Hellenic witch. Otherkin. Plural. Trans WOC. EDS. Rev. Katharine Luck Ordained priestess, Fire Dance Shenandoah. Editor, Studio Prey. My es

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

and what if I told you guys that virtually everyone you ever meet will turn out to be really interesting if you give them a chance

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

some real miserable fucks in the notes I fear

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I'm not even saying you have to talk to every single person you meet. and you're certainly not going to LIKE all of them. but every person does have a rich interior life and complex feelings and unique worldview. sorry.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey man how's it going

sorry for getting self righteous about uuuuh my belief in the innate wonder of human life and connection I guess

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey man how's it going

[bunjywunjy]

wow. made it less than three months in

[ooklet]

this is truly one of the most tumblr posts i've ever seen. i know chronically online people exist in all corners of the internet but i feel like this is the only place where someone could say something as uncontroversial as "you will find out that people have personalities when you talk to them" and get responses like "oh so you're making the ABLEIST assertion that i should FORCE MYSELF to push past my SOCIAL ANXIETY to talk to BIGOTS????" amazing work, guys

[dovewithscales]

I've never seen someone get canceled for *checks notes* asserting that people are people.

Hey @batmanisagatewaydrug you're right, all people are interesting. A lot of the people in these notes are interesting in the sense that I'm really curious about what's wrong with their brains.

[dovewithscales]

That's also a special kind of unhinged. Thank you. I genuinely am fascinated by the prospect of actually understanding how people get like this. I mean obviously they have to do absolutely no critical thinking while also wanting to at least be perceived as radically progressive without actually understanding any progressive principles, but like... How? There's gotta be environmental pressures that make them this way. Usually this complete lack of higher level thought is something I associate with the alt-right.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

and what if I told you guys that virtually everyone you ever meet will turn out to be really interesting if you give them a chance

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

some real miserable fucks in the notes I fear

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I'm not even saying you have to talk to every single person you meet. and you're certainly not going to LIKE all of them. but every person does have a rich interior life and complex feelings and unique worldview. sorry.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey man how's it going

sorry for getting self righteous about uuuuh my belief in the innate wonder of human life and connection I guess

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey man how's it going

[bunjywunjy]

wow. made it less than three months in

[ooklet]

this is truly one of the most tumblr posts i've ever seen. i know chronically online people exist in all corners of the internet but i feel like this is the only place where someone could say something as uncontroversial as "you will find out that people have personalities when you talk to them" and get responses like "oh so you're making the ABLEIST assertion that i should FORCE MYSELF to push past my SOCIAL ANXIETY to talk to BIGOTS????" amazing work, guys

[dovewithscales]

I've never seen someone get canceled for *checks notes* asserting that people are people.

Hey @batmanisagatewaydrug you're right, all people are interesting. A lot of the people in these notes are interesting in the sense that I'm really curious about what's wrong with their brains.

[depsidase]

[dovewithscales]

The most fucked up part is they don't even actually need to use water at all. Closed loop cooling systems are a perfectly viable solution that would reduce annual water use to zero after initial construction. But they're slightly more expensive than wasting massive amounts of water.

[tzikeh]

Maryland to Become First US State to Ban Surveillance Pricing That Charges More After Mining Personal Data

Maryland will become the first US state to ban surveillance pricing in retail stores, after passing Protection from Predatory Pricing Act.

Jesus fucking christ that this exists in the first place

[boyslit]

I WAS FUCKING WONDERING WHAT THOSE DIGITAL PRICE TAGS WERE ABOUT SUDDENLY i had hoped they were so the workers didn't have to finagle those little papers into the slider part anymore 😭

[eclipticasolaris]

Hi, yes, that is the OFFICIAL excuse made to me by the guy replacing the paper tags with digital ones at my local Walmart, but the end goal is to remove the numbers off the shelf entirely, replacing them with QR codes that you have to scan with the app…. Which requires your login information….. and also stores your card information so even if you didn’t use your Walmart account at the physical checkout, if you used a card they recognize, they assign that purchase to your Walmart account purchase history.

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

Yes, call your reps. Yes, push for more legislation like this in more places. But also take an extra minute out of your shopping trip to MAKE IT HURT for companies to pull this shit.

[antisocialxconstruct]

I've seen some people in the notes express (very fair) concern that this is only going to inconvenience already under-paid laborers, and not have any impact on corporate. While I can't speak for every company or every store, I do work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is precisely the kind of thing that would have an impact, especially if people are doing it en masse. Stores absolutely track their shrink numbers, and they do draw distinctions between what gets stolen, damaged, or wasted for other reasons. If people are making it clear that the reason they're bringing things to the cashier is that the prices are not adequately represented on the displays, and rather than improving business it's wasting product, slowing down transactions, and causing confusion and mistrust in customers, that is a language that shareholders speak.

[dovewithscales]

I worked in retail for years. If this had happened while I was working retail, I would have been delighted and felt great solidarity with anyone who was wasting my employer's time and money and giving me busy work as an act of protest. In point of fact every moment the employee spends carting items back to the shelves is a moment not spent standing at a register.

[mangled-by-disuse]

in happier pride news i actually found this deeply heartwarming

that's solidarity baybeeee

[lgbtlaughs]

Further context: Durham city council (Reform UK) cut funding and support for Pride. The Durham Miner's Association and other trade unions raised enough money for Durham Pride 2026 to go ahead - a direct call back to when Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised money for mining communities when Margaret Thatcher seized union funding during the miner strikes of 1984-85.

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

Stephen Guy, the chair of the Durham Miners’ Association, said that when it became apparent Durham Pride was under threat, he took it upon himself to “encourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT+ community […] They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity.”

[dovewithscales]

This is beautiful. True allies. We love to see it.

Also, separately, why does a Pride parade need municipal funding? It's nice to have money, yes, but walking is free and banners are cheap to make by hand. The first Pride parade was organized by a bunch of under employed drag queens with no outside funding. The overhead is zero if you throw bricks at anyone who says you need a permit.

[dovewithscales]

Oh undoubtedly. It's so much better with decent funding. But it was implied that money was a barrier to being able to have a parade at all, which should absolutely never be the case. If you can't afford a parade, you don't do nothing, you replace the parade with a riot.

[mangled-by-disuse]

in happier pride news i actually found this deeply heartwarming

that's solidarity baybeeee

[lgbtlaughs]

Further context: Durham city council (Reform UK) cut funding and support for Pride. The Durham Miner's Association and other trade unions raised enough money for Durham Pride 2026 to go ahead - a direct call back to when Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised money for mining communities when Margaret Thatcher seized union funding during the miner strikes of 1984-85.

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

Stephen Guy, the chair of the Durham Miners’ Association, said that when it became apparent Durham Pride was under threat, he took it upon himself to “encourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT+ community […] They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity.”

[dovewithscales]

This is beautiful. True allies. We love to see it.

Also, separately, why does a Pride parade need municipal funding? It's nice to have money, yes, but walking is free and banners are cheap to make by hand. The first Pride parade was organized by a bunch of under employed drag queens with no outside funding. The overhead is zero if you throw bricks at anyone who says you need a permit.

[beardedmrbean]

[dovewithscales]

On average, AmTrak trains are several hours late. They don't have to be. We know why they are always late. We can fix it. We haven't because the freight train corporations make more money this way.

[flagellant]

Hey guys I made a pride flag for when your gender is nobody else's fucking business! Check it out!

[flagellant]

happy one year anniversary to this post getting marked as "potentially mature content" and then never leaving content review when i appealed. tumblr's own default loading graphic is considered by their own tos "potentially sexual" it seems.

@support you got any explanations for how this post got flagged? or why it never got reviewed? or what mature content might potentially be happening? believe me i am ALL ears

[flagellant]

it's 2026 and this post is officially no longer "potentially mature" and is just "mature". so: either tumblr's own default loading graphic is now confirmed to be explicitly sexual and pornographic

or the concept of a pride flag is considered to be inappropriate for 13 year olds.

happy pride 2026. here's a pride flag for when corporate interests of a site run by dogshit transphobes, handwringing pearlclutchers, and "powerless" "allies" tell you that pride and your gender is no one else's fucking business:

[dovewithscales]

I need to get off social media for the day. It's making me angry.

[sztupy]

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

[ayeforscotland]

Let’s fucking go

[made-in-manetheren]

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

[dovewithscales]

Oh fuck yeah. Corporate liability for the win!

[sedoretu]

I’m reading The Deviants War: The Homosexual vs The United States of America and the entire point of gay pride as a concept comes from police raids on bars, clubs, public restrooms, etc where gays were humiliated and outed in the newspapers (sometimes with their addresses!) and had careers ruined and lives upended by being associated with perversion and vice squads and all that and they responded by going “no I’m proud” and took that pride to the streets in defiance of the huge mechanism of shame that existed to oppress the gay community into obscurity and so the fact that people are now trying to apply conservative dogma to pride parades to make them “safe for children” or in other words “safe for people with oppressive conservative values” is simply insane

[sedoretu]

To phrase this more clearly: “public indecency” laws were the primary tool for brutally enforcing gender and sexual conformity, so applying a “public indecency” lens to pride parades of all things is a slap in the face of everyone who ever suffered under gender & sexual oppression and took their anger (and yes their pride!) to the streets. If it makes you uneasy or uncomfortable maybe you’re not on the side you think you are!

[dovewithscales]

The first Pride was a riot! No cops at Pride! No corps at Pride! No respectability politics at Pride!

No, the spirit of Pride is that we organize, we show up, we obstruct. No permits, no permission, no police cooperation, no dress code. At most we tell the powers that be when and where and they can close the roads in advance if they want. They do not get to tell us when and where we are allowed to gather or how we are allowed to behave.

We do not need police to keep the peace. We have leather daddies for that.

If your Pride is polite and respectable, you are missing the point.

Make the pearl-clutchers afraid.

[the-stew-goblin]

Fun fact! Snake people do not have nipples as snakes do not produce milk!

This is unfortunate because snake milk stew can never exist, but you can't win them all.

SO STOP DRAWING SNAKE PEOPLE WITH BIG BAXINKADONKERS (unless there's a lore reason why that specific one is a mammals(or unless you just want to continue drawing them with gigantic baxinkadonkers)

[hollowedskin]

Stew goblin, if your recipe says you need snake milks, you can still make it! You milk a snake by getting him to bite something in a way that lets you collect the venom. That's snake milk!

[labradorduck]

y'all... snake milk stew is just snake meat plus the milk of your choice. Cow, soy, pigeon whatever milk you want to use! Believe in your dreams

[the-stew-goblin]

Thank you guys!!! I'm going to go milk a snake ASAP

[wardenaristraith]

Or you could ask a snek with humongodonkers if you could get some milk from her reptitties.

[dovewithscales]

Shit like this is both why I haven't left Tumblr and why I should...

[funny-tik-toks]

[birdplushie]

"it's not that deep" START DIGGING!!

[magn-animously]

DIG

[14-opossums-in-a-trenchcoat]

DIG

[buriedunderyourmum]

DIG

[hannisconfused]

DIG

[kitsunesakii]

DIG

[yourlocalfandomfriendo]

DIG

[apple-notplural]

DIG

[vivitur-moritur]

DIG

[spacecat24-7]

DIG

[chub-froggy]

DIG

[thatghostthateatspeople]

DIG

[krowbreaker]

DIG

[spid-the-spider]

DIG

[annabelle--cane]

DIG

[yellow-faerie]

DIG

[vampiraptor]

[baygeethefirst]

I hollered

[atelier-tamamoland]

sixpencee got less hate for straight-up admitting to owning a child slave than I do for saying children shouldn't be treated as property

[atelier-tamamoland]

like i'll say "parents should not be able to unilaterally override their child's consent" and some dipshit will see the word consent and the smoke from the hollowed-out crater that used to be their critical thinking skills will immediately coalesce into a message in my ask box calling me a pedo. no fucking hope for any of you

[atelier-tamamoland]

which I say, by the way, because one of my closest friends was able to be effectively disappeared off the face of the earth and sent into the woods to be sexually abused and tortured into being straight due to parents effectively owning their children as property. if you are a minor your consent simply does not actually matter - whether you get vaccinated, whether you get to go to school, whether people get to hug touch you, what you wear, how your hair is cut, what your hobbies are, whether you get to have friends, and yes, whether you want to be sent to a torture camp in the woods or not - your consent is entirely meaningless because your parents can simply override it, and there's fuckall you can do about it, because you aren't a person, you're just property. the family dog has more protections against being abused than children do

but! if you ever point this out you get called you a rapist

[dovewithscales]

Children die all the time because their parents can deny them access to medical care, regardless of whether or not the child wants medical care.

[pitbolshevik]

the thing about those tesla stickers is that 90% of the time they're on a car that was made after it was already common knowledge that elon was a fascist lol

[pitbolshevik]

like if this was just people driving 2010 tesla roadsters then i guess MAYBE they could pull the "i didn't know" card but it never is. it's always some guy in a 2023 model 3 or something

[dovewithscales]

He publicly stole Tesla in a hostile takeover and shut out its founders after buying the right to pretend he was its founder. His fortune was built on emerald mines operated using barely disguised slave labor in apartheid South Africa.

There has never been a time in his adult life when Elon Musk's complete lack of ethics was not a matter of public record. It's not that people didn't know he was a bastard. They didn't know they'd be judged for driving his cars, that's all.

[pitbolshevik]

i think you are overestimating how widely known all of this was 15 years ago tbh. i have had to explain the emerald mine thing to enough people who legitimately had no idea to know that there were in fact people who were unaware of any of that. and this was recent too, like maybe 2 or 3 years ago.

to be clear, that's not a defense of these people. i don't really think "i didnt give enough of a fuck to do a quick google search on the guy who i am giving $80,000 to" is a defensible position at all.

all of this is a moot point anyway though because there are hardly any 15 year old teslas still on the road. i have honestly never even seen a tesla roadster in person and i am someone who pays close attention to cars i see.

[dovewithscales]

Yeah you're not wrong, but every time someone says "I didn't know" what I hear is "I didn't care." Billionaire=shitbag. Always. There's no one who can legitimately claim to not know that. They may not know the specific evil shit he did, but they know he did evil shit. I'm willing to say that anyone who says otherwise is lying. Nobody believes that.

[pitbolshevik]

yeah no that's completely fair. Definitely in agreement there

[dovewithscales]

Which I kinda understand. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. I buy from Amazon sometimes because they have cornered the market and I'm disabled and can't always reach a store. I shop at Walmart because they have the only pharmacy in town that doesn't suck. I am aware Jeff Bezos is evil. But there often is not a non-evil option. Hell, I even have Starlink internet because they have a literal monopoly on high speed internet in my area. The state is working on laying fiber optic cable here and as soon as that's done I'll switch, but until then I literally have no choice because my husband and I both work from home and high speed internet is a job requirement.

But I'll dump Starlink when there's another option. I don't buy from Amazon when an alternative is available. I canceled my Spotify subscription because the owner is a Nazi. I don't own a Tesla because other cars exist.

Teslas don't lead in any metric. They're not cheap, they're not fuel efficient, they're not durable. The only reason to buy a Tesla is willingness to spend more money on a worse product because you like Musk's politics. And yeah, briefly at the beginning they had the only EV on the market and no one knew it was shit on wheels, so it was perfectly fine to buy that car at that time. As you said, no one still has that car.

But all that aside, the thing I really judge people about is the lying. Like, I sometimes buy from Amazon because doing anything else would have a quantifiable negative impact on my life. But I don't pretend I don't know Jeff Bezos is a piece of shit. I don't tell people I paid for Prime before I found out he was a piece of shit. I compromise on buying from a company that literally works people to death, and I freely admit that I do that. I don't like doing it, but I don't pretend I don't know that's what's happening.

[pitbolshevik]

the thing about those tesla stickers is that 90% of the time they're on a car that was made after it was already common knowledge that elon was a fascist lol

[pitbolshevik]

like if this was just people driving 2010 tesla roadsters then i guess MAYBE they could pull the "i didn't know" card but it never is. it's always some guy in a 2023 model 3 or something

[dovewithscales]

He publicly stole Tesla in a hostile takeover and shut out its founders after buying the right to pretend he was its founder. His fortune was built on emerald mines operated using barely disguised slave labor in apartheid South Africa.

There has never been a time in his adult life when Elon Musk's complete lack of ethics was not a matter of public record. It's not that people didn't know he was a bastard. They didn't know they'd be judged for driving his cars, that's all.

[pitbolshevik]

i think you are overestimating how widely known all of this was 15 years ago tbh. i have had to explain the emerald mine thing to enough people who legitimately had no idea to know that there were in fact people who were unaware of any of that. and this was recent too, like maybe 2 or 3 years ago.

to be clear, that's not a defense of these people. i don't really think "i didnt give enough of a fuck to do a quick google search on the guy who i am giving $80,000 to" is a defensible position at all.

all of this is a moot point anyway though because there are hardly any 15 year old teslas still on the road. i have honestly never even seen a tesla roadster in person and i am someone who pays close attention to cars i see.

[dovewithscales]

Yeah you're not wrong, but every time someone says "I didn't know" what I hear is "I didn't care." Billionaire=shitbag. Always. There's no one who can legitimately claim to not know that. They may not know the specific evil shit he did, but they know he did evil shit. I'm willing to say that anyone who says otherwise is lying. Nobody believes that.