N. V. May @nvmay - Tumblr Blog

Hey, It's NV <3

There's a less than zero chance you may know me as Cole from PBC! I'm the Co-Creator of Valdivian's Finest, a PodJam Pilot which has since entered pre-production for a fully fleshed out three season run.

This blog is a side blog of Valdivian's Finest, so if VF follows you, so do I.

A quick rundown:

Name: NV or Cole Pronouns: Any Podcast: Valdivian's Finest Nationality: British

I'm always open to a bit of chit-chat <3

doodlespatulas

See, im cooler than everyone else because MY first legit fiction podcast was Biotopía, a spanish audio drama set in a weird town where the laws of phisics dont apply and so a scientific comunity has started there to take advantage of it all. Its so fucking good

Theres a cat whos a "quantum cat" so he can change gender, age, species, sentirnce, everything. During an arc he became a lawyer refered to as "El Abogato", a wordplay with abogado (lawyer) and cat (gato). The cats name is Erwin btw

Theres an AI called AmaIA whos in charge of the entertainment industry and the fact they predicted that is hilarious. Shes obsessed with barging down doors. Her name is ALSO a pun, as in spanish AI is "inteligencia artificial" aka IA. AmaIA. Also she has beef with the other AI, JoseMarIA. Its so funny

Theres a guy who cannot stop cloning himself

Its been on hiatus for several years now, both my dad and i are waiting for the next season, but its legitimately so good. I listened to it before WTNV and i compared wtnv to Biotopía. If you know spanish, give it a try

#goals for when I get back into learning Spanish again #(I studied a minor in Spanish at university then didn't do any Spanish for like. five years. it's a tragedy. but one day I'll return)#(and I'll listen to this)

oidheadh-con-culainn

i hope i am not merely a blog to you but also somebody you would get rained on with at a historic site

smallsies

@quillsandpaper @nvmay @n1et @goateggz

#that DID happen to us omg

abbiistabbii

Hello. I live in the UK (Yeah) and thus, I have to deal with the Online Safety Act in practice and on the ground. I kinda wanna write this account for three reasons.

All the YouTube Videos about it that are clogging my recommendations page are taking a bad situation and sensationalising it for clicks, views and engagement (as YouTube Channels do, alas), which gives a bit of an over the top breathless view on it.

I kinda wanna talk about it from the point of an average person.

My own mental health.

In short, it's bad.

About me.

I'm a thirty something, with a BA in History, I like to choose what I share about myself online (Oversharing can bite you in the arse), and I consider myself to be on the Left-Libertarian quadrant of the Political Compass. I'm transgender, queer af, Scottish Independence supporting and value Open Source tech, participationary democracy, and have Bookchinite views on things. OK? Ok.

So what about the Online Safety Act 2023?

The Online Safety Act 2023 (or as I call it, the OSA) was passed under the last Conservative Administration and despite winning the 2024 election, Labour is not merely enforcing it but enforcing it with some glee it seems with the Technology Minister insisting that if you are against it, you're with the Pedophiles.

But fun fact, The United Kingdom publishes all legistlation online for all to see and it's viewable here. The bill doesn't just cover sites about Porn, Violence or Eating disorders, it covers all sites with User Generated Content or where users interact with each other. It also covers search engines and sites with a search function (yikes). But the issue lies, like all bills, not with what it defines, but what it leaves vague. Section 60, Subsection 2 defines "Content that is harmful to children" as:

Primary priority content that is harmful to children (Porn, suicide, self harm, Eating Disorders).

Priority content that is harmful to children (abusive content or harm toward people and/or animals, be it real or fictional, yes you heard).

Content, not within 1 or 2, of a kind which presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children in the United Kingdom.

That last one, Ladies, Gents, and all those inbetween and neither is what is worrying because that could mean literally anything. In fact no, that does mean anything. All you need to do is say "this harms children" and boom, age blocked. I could, hypothetically, point to the Prime Minister and Wes Streeting for harm to children, considering the amount of transphobia they spew could come under this law, because you know, there are an appreciable number of under 18s who are Trans, but we'll circle back to that.

So what does shit look like on the ground.

The Online Safety Act had an effect before it even came into force, with websites asking users to make an app and verify their ages before the 25th. But even outside of the usual suspects (porn) it was having an effect.

British Based Forums started shutting down, simply because they could not comply with what the Online Safety Act demanded or did not want to. These forums include football supporter forums, Renault EV owner forums, forums for single and divorcing dads, a forum for fix gear bicycle users in London (yes, you heard), and even a Mastodon Instance

They didn't shut down because they were pornographic or had pornographic content, they shut down because they were places where users interacted with each other and they were too small and did not have the resources to institue age checks. Sites from outside the UK started Geoblocking UK users (we'll get back to this later) because again, they didn't have the resources to institute agechecks. These included some porn sites, but also a lot of forums, blogs, and lemmy instances.

OK, so what about the age checks.

So pretty much every major social media and porn site (but not all) are instituting age checks. These take the form of an Age Estimation Face Scan (which have been broken by using video games like The Sims, Death Stranding and Garry's Mod, yes, you heard that right), or a Drivers Licence or Passport check, which you were told before this bullshit happened not to do. As a result, a lot of scammers are setting up face ID checkpoints and taking people's drivers licences and passports. For a while, you could go onto Google Images and get pictures of people's driver's licences.

And it gets worse because even the "legit" age checkers like Yoti say that they will delete the data, just not for a couple of weeks, just incase the cops want your ID (yikes). This of course, opens up a whole can of worms because this means that if Yoti gets hacked (which I'm sure every blackhat is doing as we speak), we will not merely have people's ID and faces leaked, but potentially what porn you have been viewing, which would be lovely for Blackmail.

The effect on Social Media

The social media sites that are doing verification include (but are not limited to)

Twitter/X

Bluesky

Discord

Facebook (and it's subsiduaries).

OK but here's where it gets worrying. There's two people who decide what's covered under this act:

The Government

The Social Media Companies themselves

This has lead to a couple of things happening:

A lot of overreach: Reddit, for example, are covering their arse by not merely Age Gating NSFW subreddits, but also SFW subreddits, namely help forums for people going through mental health issues, forums to stop smoking, and safe for work LGBT subreddits. Despite news content explicitly getting exceptions, Twitter/X are Age Gating posts by News Outlets. The example brought up frequently are Protests outside of Hotels housing Asylum Seekers, but this is currently also used on Protests against the Palestinian Genocide, Environmental Protests, and posts about anything related to those things. Basically the law is so vague on what counts as "harmful to children" that anything the Government doesn't like can be banned. If you're one of these people who are like "they're not going to target the other side" or "they're only targetting my side", let me remind you; Palestinian Action has been proscribed as a Terror Group for an act of Direct action and you can be arrested for even suggesting support for them.

A lot of twitchy fingers: Now bare in mind here, because of the vaguries in the law, we don't really know if something can or will be covered. For example, on my Fediverse account, I wrote about how Tuberculosis gave us Leather Daddies. That mentioned Erotic Artist Tom of Finland (who, despite making smut, has had an outsized effect on culture). Could that be age gated under this law? Since the law says "anything that could cause harm to an appreciable amount of children", that could mean anything. Technically, Tom and Jerry could be banned.

It doesn't just affect smut or politics.

Remember when I said Reddit is age gating LGBT subs? Well the current government is very much not Trans friendly. Keir Starmer made transphobic jibes in front of the father of Brianna Ghey, a murdered transgender teenager, in Parliament. Wes Streeting is a transphobe who's linked to various "gender critical" groups and is enforcing anti-trans policies. What happens when SFW help forums are age gated, or charities like LGBT Youth Scotland? A transgender teen, racked with dyphoria, may have nowhere reliable to go if the forum they require help from or the site that has the info they need is age gated. It is no accident that LGBT media is usually marked as being Adults Only when things turn south, even if the media in question is completely Safe For Work.

And what of other minorities? Will their spaces online be gated when opinions on them turn south?

And the whole thing Backfires.

The one thing about Teenagers and technology is that they are clever and when they find a work around, they use it and they share that work around with everyone. The governent, which is run by people who are a little older than Teenagers, don't seem to understand this and think that teens are as tech illiterate, or even more so, than they are.

Guess what all the teens did: They got VPNs. being teenagers with very little money (you can imagine the kind of stress they are under), are now using dodgy "free" VPNs who make their money by selling the data off to who the fuck knows, including things like your passwords and accounts, which puts teens into even more danger than they were before. Some of the cleverer ones are using Tor, which, while great, also runs the risk of running into straight up illegal material, putting kids into even more danger.

Now, I'm sure some poor sod at the Civil Service had to sit down with the tech minister or even the Prime Minister and explain how the bill was a bad fucking idea, and by the looks of things, the response from Number 10 was "I don't care". If you are reading this, nameless civil servant, you have my greatest sympathy because you must've needed the patience of a Saint or Bodhisatva to deal with the urge not to end up on the front pages the morning after.

What has been the government line to VPNs? Well they have said that "it's illegal to circumvent age checks with VPNs", but a law is only as good as it's enforcement. The other line is "Websites cannot tell people about VPNs in regards to age checks", but every fucking money making youtube channel for several years has been running ads for various VPNs for years now. Everyone knows what a VPN is, except number 10. And finally, it's been floated that VPNs themselves should be made illegal. All of this ignores the fact that companies, banks, and even the government require VPNs to do shit securely. My bank uses VPN tech for fuck sake! I don't think the government will care about practicality, they clearly haven't here. But then again, both the Last Labour GOvernment and the last Conservative governments, have floated the idea of banning or breaking encryption, only to (hopefully) be disuaded when told it would destroy the economy.

Oh. And it gets worse.

The Wikimedia Foundation (the people in charge of Wikipedia) are currently in court with OfCom trying to stop them putting Wikipedia under Category 1 regulations. Under which, all editors will have to reveal their identity, potentially putting them at risk of attack from unfriendly governments. Worse case Scenario: Wikipedia gets Geoblocked.

Wikipedia is one of those sites that I love and is a testament to the human capacity for knowledge and sharing. It is the modern Library of Alexandria, a real life Hitchiker's guide. To restrict or lose it would be the final straw for civil society and freedom of knowledge. If you are restricting Wikipedia, you are not a good person.

In short

Shits bad. Fireballs and lighting aren't raining from the sky, but shit is bad. I'm so, so fucking tired.

valdiviansfinest

Ko-fi lets you support creators you love with donations, memberships and shop sales!

Astralphire aka Cole finally got on the kofi train for the PBC lesss goooooo

Valdivian's Finest and its related projects wouldn't exist without the PBC <3

If you like audio fiction, we highly recommend checking out @podcast-bookclub and its discord server. It's full of wonderful folk and is the home of multiple audio fiction events.

#that's me

cl0udhopper

Art Fight: A (hopefully) low pressure, stress-free guide for new participants

Art Fight is an event that a lot of people in online art-based communities look forward to. It's an event that I've had fun participating in for years! But there's also a certain way some people seem to talk about it that rubs me the wrong way. If I were new to the event in 2025, it would be easy to get the impression that it was a community only for very dedicated OC artists – the type of people who seem to post artwork every day and never experience burnout. The truth is, it's an event for everyone, including the most infrequent and beginner artists, as long as you like the idea of making art of other people's OCs. The goal of this post is to clear up some misconceptions that people who are already vaguely familiar with the event might have. If you have no idea what any of this "Art Fight" business is, you can find more information about the event on their website.

You don't need to make reference images for your characters.

There's a significant culture around prepping for Art Fight in the preceding months by making detailed, up-to-date reference images of your newest characters. You DO NOT need to do this if it stresses you out! It's perfectly okay to have images of any quality on your character pages – bust drawings, uncoloured sketches, old art – there will still be people willing to attack your characters. Of course, the more detailed your reference image is, the better a stranger will be able to portray your character, but there is no requirement in the rules or even any social pressure for your character pages to be held to a professional standard.

You technically don't even need a character to participate.

Although this means that other participants will be unable to make art for you, there is no rule against participating in the event while having no OCs on your profile. If you would like to use the event as a chance to practice your art or just have fun drawing others' characters, while getting nothing in return, you're absolutely welcome to (in fact, I think many people would benefit from seeing the event in this way, rather than as an art exchange. There is no guarantee that you will receive attacks, and there shouldn't be).

Your art doesn't need to be digital or 2D.

There are a huge variety of artists who participate in the event. Along with the category for drawn/painted artworks, the site also supports scoring systems for 3D models, crafts, and animation. There are people who have made sculptures, plushes, cosplays, and even food art as attacks! Personally, I love to see these rarer mediums used, and I get the impression that other people generally do as well, so don't feel apprehensive about not doing things in the way most other people are doing them.

There's no skill requirement to participate.

Beginner artists are welcomed! Don't feel intimidated by the quality of other people's attacks – no matter your level of experience, there are plenty of artists around your skill level who participate every year. Also, don't feel embarrassed to attack more experienced artists! Each attack is a gift, and this includes yours. People love gifts no matter the quality (imagine the "holy shit, two cakes!" meme, if it helps).

You don't owe attacks to anyone.

Just because someone has attacked you doesn't mean you owe them a revenge. If you can't (or don't want to) revenge someone at all, that's totally okay. If you can manage a sketch, but it's lower effort than the polished piece they gifted you, that's also totally okay. This is an event we do for fun, in our spare time – remember again that the attacks we make are gifts, with no obligation for reciprocity.

There's nothing wrong with posting as few (or as many!) attacks as you want.

If Art Fight just doesn't work out for you and you don't get anything posted, don't beat yourself up. If the sum of your energy has gone towards one art piece, that's still an attack that made one person's day! If you'd rather post many rougher sketches instead of finishing just a few pieces, that's absolutely fine. The mantra "do whatever you want forever" applies here – in fact, it applies to all of the misconceptions I'm addressing in this post. It's my thesis statement for the event in general, if you will.

I hope this helped assuage any worries you had about the event! Of course still do your best to be kind and follow the rules, as well as other people's character permissions, but I think some people can get way too uptight about Art Fight. It's great if detailed character references and fully coloured and shaded attacks every day work for them, but for the rest of us I think it helps a lot to be told you don't have to do that. Have fun and do whatever you want forever, everyone!

#wooh! nice guide!#I think I'll be playing catch up on last year's art fights

catgirl-kaiju

i'm like the smaller version of a nische micro-celebrity. what scientists are calling "not famous"

#me fr

valdiviansfinest

Soup.

nvmay

Soup.

aspiringwarriorlibrarian

There should totally be a movement called “Sleep in Public” where people defend their right to sleep on public property. Sleep in your cars. Sleep on benches. Sleep at the park. Just make it a mundane and regular part of life to see someone napping in the library. It would make it much harder to single out the homeless for harassment if everyone else is doing the same thing and much harder to argue that it’s a “threat to public safety” when it’s so clearly harmless.

aspiringwarriorlibrarian

“But homeless people commit crimes!” I have a very hard time believing they commit crimes while asleep.