IDK ponies I guess

38, artist, programmer, recluse, queer, UK, they/them.

[squiggelsquirrel]

So like, imagine a city where murder hasn't been made illegal and people keep getting stabbed to death, so they make a law against stabbing people, but then they have to define "stabbing", so they make it "putting the pointy end of a sword, knife, dagger or other bladed implement into someone".

Then it's a few weeks later and people keep getting killed with metal skewers but everyone's like "no, that's ok because it's not stabbing because those aren't bladed implements, it's just skewering, which is different. We made stabbing illegal, which proves that our laws are good and correct and represent our wishes. The law doesn't say skewering people is wrong, so that proves it's ok".

[psychic-waffles]

We're at the "JK Rowling is personally funding litigation to try and destroy AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL" stage of rabid UK terf brain.

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

*Not so friendly reminder there is no way to engage in the wizard books without enabling this shit.

[squiggelsquirrel]

Saw the term "findomme" in a post recently and was not familiar with the term, spent a minute or two trying to puzzle out/guess the meaning from the context.

I got the "domme" part pretty quick I think.

Initially the only "fin" I could think of was Fin the Human from Adventure Time. That didn't seem right.

Start trying to think of other fictional Fins, probably female from the context.

Ruled out "resident of Finland" pretty quick.

Considered mermaids. "Dominated by mermaids = findomme" fit Tumblr and the vibe pretty well, but OP seemed a little more "this is an IRL thing you should be familiar with".

Eventually clicked on "financial".

I think it's a neat concept to reverse the power dynamic of the whole "sugar mommy" thing.

IDK just wanted to share how my brain works because I thought it was kinda funny.

[aorish-deactivated20251222]

Recent discourse reminds me of that cult indoctrination trick that's often used to weed out more difficult marks early on, where they tell you all that you aren't allowed to eat rice on Tuesdays and then if you protest they go "wow SOMEBODY likes rice a little much huh" as if you're the fucking weirdo who cares too much about how much rice is consumed between Monday and Wednesday instead of them.

And this forces you to decide whether your autonomy matters to you more than the approval of the group - while they'll still act like you're on thin ice either way, if you give in at this point they know you're theirs forever, because now they've established a foothold, you've shown a moral weakness, which they will brand you with so it can be used against you in the future ("hey RICE-addict here doesn't want help break into the city records office") to force you to double-down and isolate you further.

And if instead you do decide to push back further, after your abrupt departure from the group ("You're seriously leaving us over RICE?!? Seriously?") and subsequent ostracism, you can then be used as a demonstration to the others who were more pliable, of how the outgroup is full of people like you who are obsessed with violating the No-Tuesday-Rice rule to the point where they'll abandon all their friends, who cared so much for them, so it clearly isn't an arbitrary restriction, you're the kind of monster these rules are intended to protect them from, thus all the other wise and esoteric precepts of the charismatic leader are implied to be equally justified.

[doomhamster]

This isn't just for cults either! Shitty partners, bosses, friends - they all do variants of this where if you kick back the first time they make an unreasonable request, it proves you weren't ever committed since you'd let such a small thing ruin everything. And of course, if it's the third or the tenth unreasonable thing they ask of you, it's SUCH A SMALL THING to be a deal-breaker at this late point in your relationship!

[squiggelsquirrel]

Fucking terrified by the notion that next time an election rolls around, some people are gonna be asking AI who they should vote for.

[culturalcicada]

There's a lot of things AI is bad at, possibly even most things, but do you really think the average voter is at all likely to make a worse voting decision by using AI?

[squiggelsquirrel]

Honestly yes, I do.

I think AI tends to reflect the political bias of the companies that run it, even when those companies aren't actively trying to introduce political bias (which some of them are).

I think AI tends to reflect what appears in mass media, more that what the average person is actually saying.

I think that in most countries, in most cases, the majority of people who actually show up to vote do make good voting decisions — but that most political systems are messed up for various reasons (e.g. gerrymandering) to make the final outcome not reflect this.

But perhaps most importantly, I'm not even focussed on whether the outcome will be better or worse, just the idea of people using AI for that scares me regardless of the outcome.

[squiggelsquirrel]

Fucking terrified by the notion that next time an election rolls around, some people are gonna be asking AI who they should vote for.

[stahsm]

Overlock Stitch by @clothes_reetzy

[thatisuseful]

Damn, that's useful

[fluidstatick]

Finally a hand sewing tutorial on a hemline that isn't just the ladder stitch! the ladder stitch disappears when you tighten it, but it's not meant for hemlines because it breaks really easily! The overlock stitch is more stable, so it holds much longer, and it won't pucker or warp the fabric!

[depsidase]

[blessedbrick]

That's kind of why they exist actually

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[nova-caine99]

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Friendly reminder that you can talk to your brain like a beloved innocent little kid and it works probably better than you’d expect

“Wow this is pretty rough huh…let’s think of some good things instead! What are some things we’re looking forward to?”

“I have an idea, lets pretend we’re in slow-motion, even our breathing and blinking is slooowwww”

“Quick I need your help it’s really super important! Tell me every single [color/animal/etc] you can possibly think of”

“Hey buddy, do you maybe want your favorite snack? I bet you’re pretty tired huh…how about we have a little nap/go to bed early tonight”

Doesn’t always have to be for handling negative stuff either in fact doing it in neutral-positive situations will help you remember it’s even an option in times of distress. And in general it’s just very healing, promotes self-worth, etc.

(no specific source other than that one of my lifelong special interests has been How To Be Better In Every Way Because Everthing About Me Just Seems Wrong)

[holidayslaughter]

whenever i see people call random edgy but not-at-all harmful artists "degens" i would like to refer them to the first sentence of wikipedia's "degenerate art" article

[memecucker]

anyway remember when the US government commissioned a study on dangers of pornography and when the commission returned with a report saying it doesn’t pose a danger and recommending removing restrictions the US government denounced its own study

[headspace-hotel]

fucks me up that by total coincidence the sun and moon's size difference is exactly matched to their difference in distance from us, thus making our beautiful total solar eclipses where you can see the silver threads of the sun's corona possible because the moon just covers the sun completely

The stars (literally) aligned just right for this experience to be possible. It's likely that aliens don't have this

[uncivilliberties]

The moon is also absolutely gargantuan by moon standards. It isn't the largest moon in the solar system, but it is BY FAR the largest in comparison with its planet. Ganymede is the largest satellite of Jupiter and the largest moon in the solar system. Its diameter is only about 3.8% of Jupiter's. Titan's radius is 4.4% of Saturn's. Callisto and Io are the next largest in the neighborhood, with 3.4% and 2.6% the diameter of Jupiter respectively.

Our moon is number 5. It is smaller in direct comparison to the above moons. The diameter of the moon is 3475 km. That is a full 27% of the diameter of the Earth. More than a quarter. That's ridiculous. It's unheard of. The universe is large enough that the word unique probably doesn't mean a lot, but this might be about as close as you get.

This has had a huge impact on our planet. Other things aliens might not have are significant tides. One of Mars's dumpy little potatoes wouldn't be able to move oceans the way our moon does.

Our moon has also stabilized our axis to a massive degree. Without her up there our axis would wobble all over the place and our climate would be far more chaotic. Aliens might not be quite so lucky.

I guess what I am really trying to say is that the moon is extremely cool. I like the moon.

[willowdove]

Just want to add that the reason we have such a large moon is because a whole planet crashed into proto-Earth. Theia (the planet) and Earth got so superheated by this collision that their component cores fused and the impact jettisoned a lot of material into space. That massive amount of jettisoned material became our moon. So Earth and the moon have very similar composition. This does not seem to be a common method of lunar formation.

[gandalfsbignaturals]

what if the answer to the fermi paradox is that life cant exist without a moon like luna

[habbadax]

I got a serious beef with the Fermi paradox. There is no Fermi paradox. There stopped being a Fermi paradox once the first radio telescopes went up, and we began to get a true sense of the sheer scale of the universe.

Space is big, empty, and loud. Sunspots can cause enough interference to affect global communications. We’re not even loud enough to talk over our own sun. On our own planet. We can barely communicate with Voyager, and we know exactly where it is and what its signal sounds like.

The Fermi paradox is like doubting the existence of Belfast, because you stood on a windy New York beach shouting towards it and didn’t get an answer.

[headspace-hotel]

[kactusnz]

i didn't realise we were drowned out by our own sun :(

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

She is screaming so loud

[squiggelsquirrel]

There's also the timescale to consider.

The Big Bang was estimated around 13.8 billion years ago. The oldest known planet: 12.7 billion. Earth itself: 4.5 billion. Life on Earth: 4 billion. Dinosaurs: between 245 and 66 million. Humans: 3 million.

In a metaphor where the entire history of the universe is compressed into a single year, the dinosaurs went extinct a couple of days ago, and our species has existed for a couple of hours. The Roman empire fell about 4 seconds ago.

So, it's not wild to imagine that if there are extraterrestrial civilisations out there, they could easily be billions of years older than us, and we should reasonably expect them to be at least hundreds of millions of years older than us.

If they're all merely tens of millions of years older than us, it would be kind of a weird coincidence.

We invented computers less than a hundred years ago.

Try to imagine what our technology and society will be like even 1000 years from now (assuming we survive that long).

If aliens with their own science and technology are out there, they most likely progressed far beyond anything we can imagine, longer ago than we can truly comprehend.

[shirecorn]

THIS is the comic that has been banned

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.

[squiggelsquirrel]

Ok but have we considered that the cup might be faking emptiness to get out of having to pour, and that we should threaten to throw it out on the streets as incentive, which incidentally doubles as punishment for the moral failing of choosing not to be full?

[animentality]