Because my previous pinned post appears to be phrased entirely too politely.
No, I will not reblog your request for funding. Not even if you send it to me multiple times. Not even if you've had your account deleted multiple times. Not even if you beg me on bended knee. Not even if you are the most wholesome, most deserving, most wretched person on the entire fucking planet. I do not approve of e-begging and I will not facilitate it in any way.
What I will do is report you to Tumblr as a spammer and then permanently block you.
Discord is supposedly saying this is going to affect "only 10% of users", but I really don't believe them at all. It's always going to be way worse and affect more people than what they claim.
So in case anyone needs it:
After Discord announced plans to require age verification for all users, a free, HTML-based tool emerged that aims to bypass facial scans on
Discord implemented age verification in Australia despite not actually being asked to do so by the Australian government. They lost any chance of me purchasing Nitro at that point. It's not about complying with any government legislation and it never was. It's about the data grab.
I'm pretty sure earth doesn't have people 4x my age or more.
I don't think I currently have any friends 1/4 my age; I stopped going to the community events where I met young people during COVID and those events haven't started up again.
If there are people four times my age living on this planet, they've probably made a bargain with some supernatural entity or other. Given this truth, if any of my friends are in that set of people, they almost certainly don't want me to know about it.
It was flagged as "Eksplicit", shadowbanned, and every reblog turned invisible. The flagging is also unappealable (unless that is an error, thanks tumblr)
Happy Trans Day of Invisibility from your tumblr mods!
Only found out because I tried to reblog with an update from your local trans unicorn siblings!
I cannot even LINK to my old comic without every new post getting deleted.
And yet, we will CONTINUE to exist, and grow, and find each other. We will be visible up to and beyond our own deaths. Because we stand for love. We love ourselves and each other and that just makes us stronger.
The original post was pardoned, but the shadowban still persisted and every reblog was hidden from the dash and flagged explicit. I'm not sure if it recovered by now, or if it's always going to be at risk of banning.
So whatever staff reviewed my complaint agreed that it wasn't explicit. So thank you for that, moderator. This highlights that the problem starts with bad actors reporting anything they don't like, and that it's a tossup if your appeal is seen by a bot, a normal human, or a bigot.
I'm grateful I can still touch people and spread positivity. Many of my queer siblings, brothers, and sisters - especially trans sisters - can't say the same.
But no matter what happens, we will always have each other. Every letter in our alphabet is a pillar holding up a beautiful world that only stands if we're all in it together. The rest of society may call you a monster, but it calls me one too. Maybe you won't hear it from the rest of them, but listen and you will hear it from me.
I used to use Google docs, but the white mode only was really annoying me (tires my eyes), so I swapped to Ellipsus (which I genuinely love and recommend), but it was bothering me a bit that I need wifi in order to use it, so now I switched to LibreOffice Writer, which I do like.
It very much has a Microsoft Word feel, but is open source and you need no accounts to use it. It's local on your device, so no AI can scan it, and no wifi is needed.
I still wish it had the Google Docs cards, because, bitch, that thing is so good for easy organizing.
I have been using Notepad as my starter mode for just about everything for years. Mainly because I have the sort of brain that throws a pink fit at the sight of a blank word processor page, and immediately starts tweaking fonts and type sizes and so on and fiddling with every single bell, whistle and piece of chrome the program has. This lasts approximately as long as it takes me to write something. So starting in Notepad is a wonderful way of getting past the bit of my brain that demands the perfect set-up, and just starting writing.
Of course, these days, Microsoft are busy turning Notepad from a simple text editor into a simple word processor, which means it's starting to lose its effectiveness for me, and I may yet be forced (by Microsoft forever "improving" their products) to switch over to Linux purely so that I can get hold of a very basic text editor that doesn't have all the bells and whistles.
(Once things have grown to a certain point on a Notepad document, I get a sense for where the story is going, and whether it's going to be something I can throw at a LibreOffice document, or whether I need a Scrivener project for it - the decision comes down to "how much of what I've written is notes about what I want to write, and how much of it is actual writing?" If it's more writing than notes, it's Libre Office; if it's more notes than writing, it goes over to Scrivener.)
i think americans should have to put a banner above their post that says U.S. CENTRIC ADVICE/INFORMATION. i think political posts should clarify that they are giving protest/societal/class information relevant only to the USA i think i would like to stop getting halfway through a post with really good information and then realising it is not widespread advice and is only applicable in the united states of america
for the love of GOD can we PLEASE stop treating us-centric advice as applicable to the whole entire world. Please. beyond anything else, i do not think you guys understand how difficult it makes it for young people to interact with and learn information relevant to them.
at a certain point, treating us-american advice as universally applicable borders on misinformation. i am not saying that it is done maliciously, but it is dangerous at worst. i do not want younger people going around assuming that certain laws do/do not apply to them and getting in trouble because of it. i worry about what 'fundamental/constitutional/labour rights' are only legally defensible in the USA. i worry about kids who do not know yet to wonder where the advice is for, and take it as fact because a post that reads "EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS" begins with "EVERYONE".
okay yes all the tags are very very good points but i would like to point out the main reason i made this post, which is that
if you are non-american then it can be dangerous to hold beliefs about your rights that are only applicable in the US.
i am australian and i have seen young australians have completely us-american perceptions on the rights they hold (or do not hold) in regards to protest, police officers, self-defense, medical care, higher education, debt, and legal proceedings. i am not talking about "boooo americans" i am talking about the genuine danger it might present to have us-centric assumptions in high-stakes situations
(please do not chalk this up to 'if you don't do research then you are stupid'. i made this post with young people in mind. that being said i am willing to bet it also applies to others, ie those who are newer to non-local internet, older folks, or those escaping high-control environments.)
As an Australian who's been online for about three decades now, can I point out that this didn't just start when we got online. It started when we started importing a lot of our popular culture holus-bolus from the USA. To the point where I'm pretty sure Australian phone systems have a redirect on "911" to "000" (the Australian emergency number is 000). There are a lot of Australians who don't know their own national emergency services number.
As I keep saying: the world is a very big place, and there is an awful lot of it that is not the US of fucking A. It would be really lovely if USAliens recognised this a bit more often, and mentioned when they were giving US-specific advice or information.
LISTEN UP AGAIN KIDS
STOP REBLOGGING THIS FUCKING GARBAGE POST. IT IS 100% FUCKING BULLSHIT AND CAN AND MOST DEFINITELY WILL LITERALLY KILL.
DO YOU NOT SEE WARNING LABELS THAT SAY “DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING”? THEY AREN’T FUCKING AROUND. YOU CAN FUCKING BURN THEIR ESOPHAGUS BY CAUSING VOMITING, CAUSE CHOKING, DROWNING, OR MAKE IT WORSE!
AGAIN DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING DOWN ANYONE’S THROAT. THEY. CAN. DROWN.
IF SOMEONE IS LOSING CONCIOUSNESS ALL THE CHIT CHAT IN THE WORLD WILL NOT PREVENT IT AT THAT POINT THEY ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER.
“Buuut i don’t wanna take them to the hospital!!!”
WELL SUNSHINE GLAD YOU’D RATHER HAVE A DEAD FRIEND THAN A LIVING ONE BUT YOU’RE IN LUCK
CALL FUCKING POISON CONTROL. THEY ARE NOT THE COPS. THEY WILL HELP YOU.
AND IF THEY SAY GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL YOU GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL. NO EXCUSES. 0. NONE.
I have seen this shit cross my dash SO MANY TIMES so PLEASE fucking reblog this and prevent some well meaning idiot from accidentally killing someone they love!
Poison control may advise diluting the toxin somehow like with water or milk, otherwise do not give them something to drink and take the empty pill bottle/ blister pack with you to the hospital.
THIS!! Coming from a survivor, never force water down a person’s throat, there’s a high likelihood of aspiration. Take them to the ER immediately or call your emergency number.
Uk numbers aren’t often featured explicitly so here’s the uk national poison information service line: 0344 892 0111. But please always use 999 or 111 as the default in any situation
Of course, the standard conservative argument to justify these things is that we clearly aren't already doing it hard enough.
(If you pray hard enough, you can get water to run uphill. How hard is "hard enough"? Hard enough to get water to run uphill).
Once again, this is why we need to start pressuring our lawmakers for evidence-based policy-making. Why do they think this will work? What is their theoretical justification for this decision? Has this ever been tried before? If so, does the outcome of that trial support their proposition? If the evidence doesn't support their proposition, what is their explanation for why their theory wasn't applicable in the real world? What's changed since last time to make it work this time? Do you have an argument for why this is going to work the way you say it is that isn't just 'because we say so'?
If they can't provide evidence for why this would / does work, why should we be implementing it?
Evidence-based policy making. Western nations (the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and many others) have spent the last forty to fifty years trying out all the techniques and ideas that Friedmanite "supply side" economics said should work and make the economy a better place, and we have multiple metric shit-tons (and imperial shit-tonnes) of evidence that they don't. The main advantage of "supply side economics" from the conservative point of view is it tells rich people they're wonderful - and really, if rich people want ego-fluffing, they can afford to pay retail prices for it rather than having it supplied to them wholesale by governments.
About the Disability Pride Flag
(its design & meaning)
Because:
A) I see it around the Internet where the proportions are off, and I think people are copy/pasting from different thumbnail images that come up in search results, and not clicking through to get the original. It's not a big deal, but it causes a hiccup in my brain whenever I see it.
and
B) There's been some discussion in the Disability Community here on Tumblr on what the precise symbolism should be, and it's changed a bit and gotten complicated. So I want to simplify and broaden it, so it can be explained to curious Normate folk -- without going into a 15 minute explanation of social constructs.
So I'm making a fresh post right now to put all that stuff together.
I'm gonna leave the detailed description of the flag design's proportions just in the alt text (so that people with screen readers know what they are, without having to listen to it twice)
The width of each colored stripe is proportional to the overall width of the flag, but I decided to leave the general proportions of the flag flexible (so it's easier for people to make one based on what materials they can find -- just in case there's a need for a protest sign for a pop-up rally).
The Meaning (Short Version -- what to tell someone who asks while you're waiting for the elevator)
6 colors represent how the Disability Community is Global
The 5 colors in the middle represent how diverse that community is
The black is inspired by pirate flags: rage at injustice, fighting back
The stripes are diagonal to represent cutting through barriers.
The in-depth reasons behind the meaning (Long Version -- If you actually want a 15+ minute discussion of social constructs and history)
The flag has all 6 'standard' colors recognized in international flags, to represent how the Disability Community is bound together by their varied, but shared, experiences, rather than geographical or political affiliation (borrowing that symbolism from Olympic Flag, which represents the global community of athletes -- also bound together by their shared experiences and aspirations).
The five colors cutting across the center of the flag represent the diversity of the Disabled Community, both in terms of physical conditions and in terms of the social-political-economic ways by which disability is understood in society. (No longer trying to assign a specific meaning to any of the individual colors)
The stripes begin centered in the top corner because that's where the "canton" of a flag is, and in flag code, that's the place of highest honor; this is where the stars are in the U.S flag, and also the stars in the flag for the People's Republic of China, and the Union Jack in Australia's flag. It cuts all the way to the end that flies in the wind to show our striving for freedom.
The field is black because Pirates!, yes. But it's also in recognition of the Black Triangle Badge (link goes to Wikipedia), which the Nazis used to mark out a wide range of people in their concentration camps, including the Disabled, that they considered "asocial." And it's in solidarity with the UK-based Black Triangle Campaign (link goes to deathbywelfare.org, from 2010), protesting cuts to disability benefits, and reclassifying disabled people "fit for work."
It's roughly half-way through the poll's active period, so I'm reblogging for a larger sample size.
As I'm typing this, I'm also contemplating writing/designing a tri-fold pamphlet .PDF, with a bit of Disability History (that the ADA was signed into law on 26 July, 1990), and the symbolism of the Disability Pride Flag) that people can print out and have ready to give out at community organizing events.
If I do, it will have the full-saturation color version of the flag (you can see what that looks like under the "read more" on my pinned post).
This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!
(dry look) Nobody gets to tell me when to cringe. I reserve such assessments to those who have sufficient experience to correctly judge what’s cringeworthy.
And if you have a story idea you want to share, but don't have the time to write it? Outline the idea in a post. Maybe someone will write it. Maybe you'll write it later. Maybe no one will write it except in their imagination, which is beautiful too.
Do prompts communities not exist any more? I mean, this is what kink memes and similar were - people sharing story ideas ("I'd like to see X and Y together doing Z") and other people responding. If you have an idea which you want to see given life, and you don't have enough time or confidence in your own skill level to do it justice, give it to the fandom and let other people play with it.
Also: you're allowed to write it and not share it. Not everything you write has to be shared with the fandom. If you're not confident that what you've written is going to be able to be shared without your ego getting shredded in the process, just don't share it. You're allowed to write the stuff that "nobody wants to read" (you want to read it - you're not nobody!). You can write it and keep it private.
People who think sheep are killed for their wool are so hilarious to me. Does your barber slit your throat whenever you get a haircut?? Are you a returning customer to Sweeney Todd? Lmao it grows back, fools.
This is completely ignoring the fact that the sheep's soul is stored in its wool. So sure, the body remains, but the spirit, the essence of the sheep, that's gone forever, and then as the wool regrows a new soul moves in.
I'm not sure whether the ghost of W B Yeats is smiling in heaven, or whether the government of Ireland could harvest the rotational energy from his gravesite as a form of power generation.
Either way, well done!
Plot Bunnies, Head Canon and other Ramblings @megpie71 - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
