I think ao3 is literally the only site where no censorship means no censorship. you can post the most vile things on there — things that will get taken down on any other platforms — and ao3 will protect you, your works, and your rights to create whatever you want, however you want.
and no, this isn’t me saying “write that messed up, disgusting thing” because while, yes, write it if it’s what you want (I myself enjoy writing dark fics, something I believe would be considered “vile” to a lot of people), this is me saying in a world of censorship and capitalism, ao3 really is a treasure.
Yet another new study debunked the basis for the anti-trans sports bans. It was never about sports but for creating legal avenues for exclusion and abjection. This is one of the largest analyses ever conducted, involving 52 studies and 6,485 trans people. Read the study here.
I can't access the full paper, but their conclusion is right there in the abstract:
While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable. Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogenous quality but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender.
If you use Firefox, you can go to the about:config page, search for "media.mediasource.enabled" and double click on it to set it to false. After you restart Firefox, all youtube videos will load entirely even when paused! This also affects other streaming websites :)
go to About:config
find media.mediasource.enabled and toggle it to false
find media.cache_readahead_limit and change it to 9999
find media.cache_resume_threshold and change it to 9999
additionally if you'd prefer mp4 to webm
also in about:config, find:
media.encoder.webm.enabled
media.mediasource.webm.audio.enabled
media.mediasource.webm.enabled
media.webm.enabled
and toggle them all to false
note!
this will limit video to 1080p
and use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-accept-webp/ to kill WebP
Fuck Google
hello fellow artists. google has fallen. pinterest/duckduckgo AI filters don't work. do not despair; here is a list i made of places to find reference images without having to sift through piles of worthless garbage. (for future editing convenience i am just linking my blog post on dreamwidth.)
✨ good places to find art reference that are not full of AI trash 🌈
I got a rice cooker that is absolutely terrible at making rice, but is fantastic at these hotcakes. Every few months, someone in my family forgets and tries to make rice in it and it spews hot rice water all over the countertop 🤣
You remember only the moth, carrying you through the cosmos.
And now you are dead. A newly formed spirit, carrying your grief into the unknown.
But the end has no end, and your story continues.
After a meeting with Death (they're really not used to talking to people, be gentle with them) and the Raven, a sardonic talking bird with secrets older than stars, you sign a contract: manage the bar on the Abyss for one year, in exchange for a single limitless wish from the gods themselves.
The Abyss is a nexus connecting every realm in existence. A haven where gods, devils, angels, and lost souls converge to drink and revel.
And you're not alone. You have your staff, and your patrons: a mortal witch, a sly devil, and Death, who keeps finding reasons to visit. Grief isn't the only thing that survives death. Love and friendship make the crossing too.
But something is hiding in the fine print. A voice in your dreams, a loneliness that has swallowed every proprietor who came before you.
How do you fight loneliness?
Manage your bar, unravel the cosmic mystery of the Abyss, go shopping in Hell, witness the universe's creation in a public bathroom, unlock the forbidden secrets of magic, and learn the truth about your real employers.
The Abyss beckons you.
✬ A narrative-driven interactive fiction experience, where every choice builds the story and the person you're becoming in death.
✬ Play as any gender, any sexuality. The afterlife doesn't card you at the door.
✬ Customize your death: did you go by fire, or illness? Did someone else make the choice, or did you? The circumstances of your death are yours to define.
✬ Pick your grief path: the way you felt in your final moments will shape the story, how certain characters respond to you, and how you see the world. Did you rage against the dying of the light, or welcome the reaper with a handshake? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance: choose the lens of your afterlife.
✬ Customize your spirit-self: choose your appearance, pick from 36+ career backgrounds that unlock choices throughout the game, and your death scars — because you died, and you probably have the marks to prove it.
✬ Choose your pension: a single, limitless wish from the gods themselves. What do you want more than anything?
✬ Build your psyche: a 30-trait personality system quietly maps every decision into a portrait of the spirit you're becoming.
✬ Pick your Spirit Gift: a mythical artifact left by the bar as a welcome gift. Stop time, read the secret thoughts of gods, analyze any entity, hear the opinions of inanimate objects, wear anyone's face, or carry a sword forged to kill gods. Each gift opens unique scenes, solutions, and ways to experience the story.
✬ Be the proprietor of your own afterlife bar: name it, choose its theme, and run it your way.
✬ Romance and befriend a cast of mortals and immortals: the awkward Grim Reaper, a mortal witch and their familiar, a sly devil, a warlord who became your security guard, a spectral diva, and a formless shadow. Be poly, monogamous, asexual, purely physical — they'll respond in kind.
✬ Random patron encounters on your night shifts: who walks through the door changes every playthrough.
✬ Explore the afterlife, travel to distant realms, and uncover the dark secrets hiding beneath your bar… and your contract.
M\F\NB (Poly or Monogamous paths)
Death reveals a surprising warmth beneath their eternal duty.
Is there room for love within their everlasting embrace?
Read more >>>
M\F (Poly or Monogamous paths)
This devilish being, a powerful magnet of desire, seeks more than power in the bar’s shadows.
Who dares to pursue the heart behind the flame?
Read more >>>
M\F (Poly or Monogamous paths)
The Witch, with their feline companion, seeks a lost soul, their magic stirring trouble and passion alike.
Can a mortal love thrive in the spirit realm?
Read more >>>
M (Monogamous path)
A mercenary turned security guard, Hastur carries an immortal burden, guilt born of past battles and sacrifices.
Will your love heal his wounds?
Read more >>>
NB (Monogamous path)
The spectral diva enchants with their voice, their performance a dance of beauty tinged with the sorrow of eternal life.
Can your love find a new song for them?
Read more >>>
M\F\NB (Monogamous path)
A shade keeps the bar’s order, and his silence holds the weight of cosmic secrets.
Will your heart fall for the being behind the shadow?
Read more >>>
With feathers dark and wit sharp, The Raven’s history is as rich as the bar itself. He offers piercing insight beneath a layer of humor.
Read more >>>
The stern soothsayer-turned-accountant Yaga guards the bar’s fortune while wrestling with her own spectral regrets and wisdom.
Read more >>>
Shelly, the bar’s assistant, brings life-affirming warmth but seeks a new family to fill the void of her lost one.
Read more >>>
Welcome to the cosmos: a weave of ever-changing realms. Each domain is a thread in the grand design.
Read more >>>
I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Big or small, everything matters: your input is invaluable. I'll be answering and taking each into consideration. You are very welcome to post your reviews here!
Here’s what I’m especially looking for:
Thoughts on the plot, characters, and overall narrative experience. What’s working, and what could use more polish?
Notes on any typos, grammar issues, or awkward phrasing that might distract from the story.
Any continuity errors you spot: It's a big project, so making sure the narrative makes sense in the long run is really important.
The game explores themes of Death in various forms, including suicide.
Alcohol indulgence and its various side effects (hangovers, vomiting, etc.)
At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields
technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.
Free Harvard courses.
Free Courses from Stanford.
Free Courses from MIT.
Free courses from Yale.
Free courses from Princeton.
Free courses on Coursera.
Free Courses on EDx
Free Courses on Alison
For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.
When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses."
Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.
i love when people on the internet get denied stuff and you find the most innovative minds of the generation dedicated to making goddamn sure other people get what they want come hell or high water
Okay but I get this. All of you worms who have things blocked on your wifi or whatever and have IbisPaint this is how you do it
Open IbisPaint go to a canvas (any canvas, or make. a new one)
Select the font tool (if you don’t know what or where that is, press the tool icon (normally a paint brush or eraser) and press the T button
From there you should be able to create a text box (writing is not important…). Find the font button and add a new font. I can’t remember what it’s called but you’ll know when you see it
It’ll automatically search for you “free fonts.” Do not follow this. Your app is misdirecting you. Instead search up whatever it is you’re looking for in the search bar, and that should work
Knowledge should not be trapped behind bars, bend and break them until you can grasp it
We toss out over 80 pounds of textiles each year. These textiles are often made of plastic materials (polyester, nylon), made in unethical conditions, dyed with harsh dyes that often get put into the rivers, etc. Even a single cotton shirt releases carbon emissions and uses tons of water.
So the best thing to prevent the unsustainable growth of the fashion industry is to make sure that your clothing lasts as long as possible. To do so, mending clothing is a must. So here are some resources to help you learn how to do various things, such as sewing a button, to tailoring clothes, or even upcycling old clothing into new styles.
* How to sew on three different types of button
* How to hand sew on a patch on a torn pair of jeans
* How to sew up a hole in an old shirt
* How to sew a simple T-shirt
* How to upcycle old clothing into new clothing
* More upcycle and sewing techniques
* How to repair a damaged sock
* How to do an invisible stitch
* 3 different stitches to work with for different results
* How to make a T-shirt smaller so it fits you better
* How to make repairs to your shoes
These are just a few of the things that you can do in order to make sure that your clothing lasts for a long time. Nobody wants to keep buying new clothing, as it is expensive and wasteful.
So making alterations to your clothing, or fixing small holes hen you see them can be hugely beneficial to your wallet, to garment workers, and to the environment in the long term.
every day I learn bot comments on ao3 are stooping lower and lower
anyway if you get a comment like this, chances are that they are bot and their goal is to do whatever it takes to get you to delete your work, most certainly (from what I’ve heard) it’s because they want to “safely” steal your work, use it to train their ai without you being able to rightfully claim ownership of your work since “there’s no proof that the work was stolen/was posted elsewhere first by you” because the original source has already been deleted.
THEY ARE ALL BOTS. at first it was “ao3 is deleting fics and your entire account will be affected unless you delete the fics yourself” then it was “this work contains contents that are illegal and they have already reported you and your fic to the police” (yes, that’s how desperate these bots are), and now it’s this.
report their comments to ao3 for spam—in this case, specifically, I think you may be able to report them for harassment too—and don’t pay attention to them, most importantly don’t delete your works, don’t feel discouraged by their comments. remember that they are bots and they mass comment something like this on people’s works at random to get people to delete their works. (or even if they’re not bot, they are still pathetic bullies who don’t deserve your time or attention.)
MORE ABOUT BOTS AND SCAMS PLAGUING AO3’S COMMENTS SECTION HERE
I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.
Exactly! It's freaking annoying when I want to watch movies but I would have to subscribe to like 24 different services . Just to watch the shows that I like.
i like using streaming apps but there are waaaay too many and they're all stealing my data .i wish there was a secure and organized way to have millions of shows and movies available one one app. but alas. we've truly gone full circle back to cable + now it spies on you. its a real shame. i dont want to fill my device storage with tons of boring and stupid cash grabs.
i know, it's so annoying for everything to be paid nowadays, especially movies and tv shows. it would be perfect if i could watch them without getting infected by some virus or some shit. i'm fine with ads, they gotta run themselves somehow, but i want to watch stuff and .live! if they have to use different domains i'm okay with that too, because free media is .top dog either way.
for mobile users, it especially sucks, because you can't just use websites and you have to not only pay, but you have to download a billion apps just to find what the thing you wanna watch is on. it doesn't help that the streaming services take up...so much space. so much.
I've recently set up a Google Drive folder linking up to many deleted fics. I have a little hobby of tracking down great deleted fics and downloading them for my pleasure, and I'd say I've gotten pretty good at it tbh. I didn't realize I have so many now, so I set up a drive folder and decided to make it public.
I have it organised by author, so hopefully you can recognize the stuff. I'll put the names of the authors in the tags, and you're def gonna recognize them. People on twitter are already freaking out about everything I have lol. (P.S. ever heard of yours, in murder by May Marlow? Read it. Cuz I got it.)
So please enjoy my library of recovered fics. I also take requests if you want me to find a deleted fic of some sort. Altho be warned, my area of expertise is tomarry, but I'm sure I could still track down a few fics.
Edit: Btw I'm still adding fics to this folder. So if there's anything you're missing out on I suggest coming back to check every once in a while.
Edit 2: There's an ongoing problem that a few people have brought up to me. Turns out some people can't open the files. The reason why is because I download the webpage directly from chrome, usually, and those are html files, but when I download the webpage, the file isn't automatically recognized as html for some reason, so I end up putting it into the Google drive and it's an unrecognized file type, which is why some of you can't open it. There's an easy way to fix that. Just download the file then rename it. Add ".html" to the end of the file name and you should be good to go. And for those that don't like to read html files, you can convert it to an epub or wtv else by using free sites like cloud convert and then you're good to go.
Google Drive Link
Naamloos @justhereforsomethingnice - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag