aka: the gem AU blog

★ [DOB: 9/29/89 // She/They] ★ I post art, cartoons, & other shiny stuff. You’ll be a victim to my hyperfixations~ XD

[jigokuhana]

i feel like more ppl need to be figuring out an alternative to Youtube, Discord, etc.

what with govts trying to get your id info for the sake of “protecting the kids”, when it’s literally all going to an Israeli run data agency.

so far, i have Bluesky for X/Twitter, Upscrolled for Insta…anybody got any others?

[croptoptux]

invidious for youtube (freetube is a desktop client)

FreeTube is a feature-rich and user-friendly YouTube client with a focus on privacy.

revolt for discord

Revolt is the chat app that's truly built with you in mind.

[nerdofalltrades505]

Does anyone know how to switch instances like OP mentions in their tags? I wanna use Freetube with as little problems as possible since it's pretty good honestly

Also is it possible to use this software on a mobile device like an Ipad or android phone? I use Youtube on my mobile devices way more than my computer.

[croptoptux]

in freetube itself ctrl + shift + r. It should be relatively painless.

In browser it’s a little more manual. You pull from this list then rerun your query.

The official Invidious documentation

Does that help?

edit fir the second question: i don’t know about ios off the top of my head but I have heard good things about NewPipe for Android

NewPipe - a free YouTube client

[nerdofalltrades505]

Yooo it does help! I'm using the application you can install and not the browser version so I think I'm good!

And thanks for Newpipe, reblog if you can find an Ipad alternative! I hate to say it but I use my ipad for all my youtube watching and idk if I'm ready to stop.

Reblog this if you can guys, and give love to OP! They are AWESOME for this! Fr thanks so much :D

[karmacreatesstuff]

Rebloging this for safety! I don't usually post anything political, but this could save someone!

[sentimentalslut]

"very guilty and problematic client" holy copaganda batman

[sentimentalslut]

let’s start parsing who does and doesn’t deserve representation and assign moral weight to agreeing to protect their rights I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong

[anarchistmemedistro]

[bitch-duck]

This is the endpoint of assigning morality based on ontologies of people. You wind up with the simplest ontology: good or bad.

[madlori]

Getting tired of saying this but

THE POINT OF A DEFENSE ATTORNEY ISN'T TO GET THEIR CLIENT OFF. IT'S TO MAKE THE STATE PROVE THEIR CASE AND DO THEIR DUE DILIGENCE.

IT'S TO PROVIDE A CHECK ON THE POWER OF THE STATE TO JUST THROW PEOPLE IN JAIL.

If someone "gets off" because of a technicality that means the state DID NOT DO THAT.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydx34kzlvo

[runcibility]

"Vanderhorst had been under the influence of MDMA and three litres of vodka she had consumed on the night of the offence last September, her lawyer Michael Hill told the court."

three. liters.

[anais-ninja-bitch]

i support women's wrongs

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

[scribefindegil]

I'm still thinking about the guy who saw me realize my wheelchair wouldn't fit in the elevator because he (also a wheelchair user) was already inside it and immediately quipped, "This elevator ain't accessible enough for the both of us."

[spicyvampire]

The way all the 2020s have done so far have been making me categorically against every new generation of tech that comes out is insane. Like I'm from a technological boom generation, saw the first portable phones, nokias & blackberries & flipphones etc, and the first smartphones, and the first ipods & ipads & tablets in general while still having cassettes & DVD & MP3 players around so I know how all of it work, I had computer classes in high school, I did the transition between home desktop computers to laptops and back to gaming computers. But then they started to put internet in your printer & microwave, everything has ads & AI now and every update is worst than the last. I literally loved technology and they ruined it

[victusinveritas]

"Springtime for Hitler" and the Producers as a whole did more damage to Neonazis than most antifascist actions of the 70s put together. (I have zero data to support this.)

[loveridden1999]

[monstrous-femme]

as a regular donor to Gaza Soup Kitchen I get their email updates, and they said today that while they've continued to be able to expand, donations are slowing down as Gaza gets less coverage. If you have a few dollars to spare, I encourage you to send them here to continue the amazing work that Hani and his team are doing.

[awakefor48hours]

Every once in a while, I wish the friendship meter from the Sims was real so that way when people tell me "I used Chat-GPT" they can visually see just how much respect I just lost for them in that moment.

[berkelbites]

One time an acquaintance told me she entered Snape's star chart into chatgpt and I could physically feel that meter dropping three separate times over the course of her sentence

[dragon-in-a-fez]

if I see one more "why age verification is bad" post that doesn't even bother to mention that locking young people out of huge sections of the public sphere - literally the stated goal and primary impact of this shit - is wrong in and of itself I will simply start hitting people with bricks

[dragon-in-a-fez]

yes yes biometric data privacy blah blah adults can hypothetically by harmed by this too. what about the immediate and deliberate and not at all hypothetical harm to youth. why are you acting like a potential data leak about what your face looks like, which if it ever happened would at least be generally recognised as a problem, is a more serious issue than cutting millions of people off from information and community and public expression which is happening right now in the open with large scale support

[dragon-in-a-fez]

it's got the stench of fucking "banned books week" on it. thousands of adults congratulating themselves for reading books literally no one is trying to stop them from reading while doing nothing to improve access for the young people who are the ones actually having those books made off-limits to them.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

[normal person voice] as we all know, the public sphere consists largely of strip clubs and pools of glowing green acid

[cunning-linguistix]

Pro tip: when you see a brand new slang term, your first question should be how that term has been used in AAVE for the past 20-30 years.

[lacunaanonymoused]

This, too. This is a big one as well.

[titleknown]

Trump Moves to Deeply Censor the Entire Internet

The Trump administration is cynically exploiting calls for stricter AI regulation to pass broad censorship measures at the federal level.

So, in terrible news, Trump's trying to pull some strings to pass this massive internet censorship bill, featuring all the kinds of internet censorship we're terrified of, including mandatory ID for accessing basically any website, specifically to crush state regulation of AI, because apparently this man will always see the moral bottom of the barrel and start digging.

So, if you live in the US and hate censorship and AI you know what to do, contact your congresspeople and tell them do not fucking dare let this through or so help us god...

[titleknown]

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The bastards just worked out a deal on the package, and they're going to try and ram it through the House in the next couple of weeks.

So, if you've been waiting to call, the time is NOW. Do it ASAP, be polite, be informed, but light up those phones like a Christmas tree!

[doggirlpaws]

did tumblr delete my post

[doggirlpaws]

yeah, they did. I wrote up a big long post about the Trevor Project and the 12 hour charity livestream I'm participating in right now, and they deleted it. twice. We've raised over $50,000 for a legitimate charity but because it helps trans kids it gets deleted from the site

[doggirlpaws]

please share this if you can. so many amazing people have come together to make this happen.

if I make these links clickable they'll get deleted so please copy and paste them:

Livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/enderempress

Donate: https://give.thetrevorproject.org/TPC2026

[3liza]

cancel your mullvad subscription

tech news today is that Mullvad VPN has gone mask-off about being the major funding source for the Swedish Orebro party, who are racist nationalists. unfortunately all discussion of this is occurring on fucking Mastodon instances i can barely load

if you are a mullvad customer (as i am) and want to get out, here is guidance from this guy

If you don't want your Mullvad fees going to fund neo-Nazis - or @mozilla VPN fees, which is rebranded Mullvad - cancel and get a refund immediately that's whose "free speech" the official account is talking about here, and that's where your fees go to EDIT: Mullvad has a 14 day refund policy. But the message below is a direct call to ask for a refund if you don't want to give money to Nazis. If Mullvad refuse a refund, call your consumer protection agency. And reverse credit card charges on the basis of deceptive refund policy representations. It's not like you ever want to be a Mullvad customer again. archive copy of Mullvad statement: https://web.archive.org/web/2026062717

[antifainternational]

[mortalityplays]

some people have reported being refused refunds that fall outside their 14-day refund window. my sub was 60 days past the payment date, but fwiw I emailed support with my account number and a screenshot of the above mastodon post and explicitly said "In line with your official account's statement, I'd like to request an immediate cancellation and refund on the grounds that I don't share the values of Mullvad or any other company that knowingly profits Nazis. If you're unwilling to issue this refund, please let me know and I'll be happy to escalate the matter to consumer protection." and they issued my refund without a fuss.

[iamjaynaemarie]

Dangers of working on a set.

That’s what I said.

[seawitchkaraoke]

Okay but you forgot the best part! During the scene where Aragorn, Gandalf and the other Main CharaktersTM ride ahead to go shout at the gate (and talk to the mouth of sauron in the extended edition) they were very firmly told only to ride up  ahead “this far” because that area was cleared and beyond that it wasn’t.

But. Viggo Mortensen is absolutely mad and lead them just…. a bit farther than that. Everyone else was very scared they might blow up any second. Viggo said it “added a little extra tension”.

[mikkeneko]

[ithinkitsdashing]

#they just don’t make behind the scenes stories like lotr anymore

[ophidahlia]

Viggo was just Like That™ for the whole trilogy, taking method acting to extreme levels:

he would spend multiple days walking overland to locations in full pack, sword, & armour when everyone else was travelling in trucks

refused to use any prop swords that weren’t actual steel

basically lived in the forest in-costume, sleeping rough under the sky, even fishing & foraging for his food when possible

often spent hours in the barn just bonding with the horses. He adopted the horse he rode, Uranus, after filming ended

repaired all his own gear by hand, which was often since he never took it off

had a tooth knocked out during filming but had the crew simply glue it back in place so they could keep filming

the instructor who taught everyone swordplay said Viggo was the best swordsman he had ever trained

carried his sword literally everywhere & practiced non-stop, resulting in the cops being called when locals reported “a wild man swinging a sword around his head" outside a gym in Wellington

an orc actor fucked up & accidentally threw a dagger directly into Viggo’s face, but Viggo just deflected it with his sword. They kept that shot

infamously broke 3 toes kicking that helmet but stayed in-character & sold his very real scream as part of the scene. They also kept that shot

Viggo insists on doing his own stunts; in The Two Towers where Aragorn is unconscious & floating down the river, the strong current pulled him underwater for so long that a rescue team had to go in to save him. Viggo survived by grabbing a boulder on the riverbed and pulling himself to the surface

It’s probably more accurate to say that Aragorn played Viggo Mortensen in the off season, so I’m 100% unsurprised to hear he put a whole crowd of fellow actors in genuine mortal peril for a 12% increase in authenticity

[gooseworx]

Do you think, that should've given more characters from the main cast time to shine? I really like your show and like all of the characters, but sometimes some of them feel left out. But maybe that's just me, who knows

Yeah I'd agree with that, it's just a lot bigger of an undertaking than I'm sure a lot of people realize when you're the only writer and juggling so many different departments at once. It would have required more episodes, time, and stamina. Something I wasn't exactly graced with, being only Glitch's second creator driven show. I would have needed more writers and co-directors, because writing and directing even just 9 episodes basically killed me.

It's also a miracle I was allowed to make episode 9 as long as it was, because one thing a producer never ever wants to hear is "I'd like to make this longer." There will always be an incentive to cut things down over fleshing things out. Thankfully if I do another one of these, a lot of the kinks will hopefully be worked out from the beginning. Hopefully.

[brightlotusmoon]

[ancientson]

I know this is meant to be funny but it actually makes such a good point about how ADHD and executive dysfunction can impact people in really major ways, including financially