he in the tree @starlightonknossos - Tumblr Blog

you get a comment on tumblr. it's a bot trying to scam you. you get a DM. it's a bot trying to scam you. you get a message on instagram. its a bot trying to scam you. you're an author and you get an email telling you how much they loved your book and want to showcase it at their bookclub. it's a bot trying to scam you (and it uses bad AI to pretend it knows your story). you get a comment on ao3 saying how much they love your fic - and they made you fanart!! it's a bot trying to scam you. you get a hate comment on ao3 which insults your writing or calls you a monster for writing something "problematic". it's a bot. but at least that one isn't trying to scam you.

a-kind-of-merry-war

there's just something really cruel and insidious about this wave of scams going after creatives. You get an email and think someone genuinely loved what you made but - no. It's another scam. It's someone trying to trick you into sending them money. On AO3, it might literally just be a bot someone made specifically to be a hateful little shit.

putting the stuff you've made out there for everyone to see is hard and scary and we're all just bumping around looking for a bit of appreciation and love and connection and these bastards are using that to try to rob us. I hate it.

a-kind-of-merry-war

Im going go get into the sea and stay there

a-kind-of-merry-war

okay come forward which of you reposted this to reddit lmao I SEE YOU

fixyourwritinghabits

Okay everybody go leave a comment on the fics you're reading, find your favorite author's social media and tell them you liked their book, and comment on your favorite artist's YouTube or Bandcamp page, go go gooooo.

ms-demeanor

After attacking Iran, Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza, shutting off humanitarian aid and escalating the dire humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians.

Gaza is under siege, and the price of staples has climbed tremendously. Community kitchens have been forced to close due to lack of supplies, and have been unable to afford to replenish their stocks.

Gaza Soup Kitchen is a grassroots organization that uses money from global donors to feed thousands of people every day. Their most recent campaign was to provide food parcels for Ramadan, and they are going to struggle to keep people fed in the midst of this new, horrifying war.

If you are able to, consider donating money to Gaza Soup Kitchen through their GoFundMe or GiveButter accounts to help stave off hunger in the midst of this chaos.

butchfagminotaur

i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh

butchfagminotaur

“oh iran is a dictatorship!” “oh palestine is homophobic!” i don’t care like literally i don’t care that’s not a problem to be solved by other countries blowing innocent people up

pacificnorthwestcore

Did you see the news about National Parks removing signage and information about the mistreatment of Native Americans by settlers, as well as about climate change and environmental protection? Read the article by Reuters for more information.

This is clear Native Erasure. We have a survey open to collect your observations:

https://forms.gle/SLoyCjLH4BBvx1rT6

Share photos, locations, and comments about signage you see that includes information about Native Americans and Tribal ancestral lands, or signs that do not. Documenting good examples is also a good idea as signs may be potentially removed. We continue to invite your observations that also highlight where signage is lacking this information on public lands. This info can be shared by the Tribe with staff from National Parks, National Forests, and other public land managers.

The Snoqualmie Tribe Ancestral Lands Movement promotes education and awareness regarding the integration of land acknowledgment and respect for the Snoqualmie Tribe within recreational activities. Our initiative also emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the ancestral lands of other Tribes when visiting public spaces.

Do you know whose ancestral lands you are visiting?

(Source: Snoqualmie Tribe Ancestral Lands Movement facebook page)

bread-and-roses-too

Not feminist as in "women should be included in the draft" but feminist as in "being drafted is a violation of bodily autonomy for any gender".

The draft should not exist. Drafting people into the military is a violation of human rights. You should not be able to force someone to risk their life. If you can't find enough people who care about a conflict to keep it going then it simply shouldn't keep going. You can't even force someone to donate a kidney using government power, why the fuck can you force them to donate their whole body and life to a cause they don't agree with or don't care about?

ruhua-langblr

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

meret118

I was looking something up for a fic, and apparently lingq is good too. I haven't used it though.

no-where-new-hero

“this post contains mature content” it’s picture of a classical nude. it’s a photorealistic painting of someone’s hands. it’s a gifset of a kpop idol smiling. it’s a moodboard featuring someone’s bare shoulder. it’s a film still of a non-graphic bloodstain. it’s a photograph of a non-white girl sitting on a counter wearing a short skirt. it’s a meta about how sexuality is depicted in a tv show. do you see what’s happening here. the vilification of the body. the sanitizing of violence. the whitewashing of presentation. i hate it i hate it so much

atomic-chronoscaph

art by Eyvind Earle

creature-wizard

Deradicalization isn't just for people who got into MAGA BS.

It's for your leftist buddy who got in with a leftist group that promotes eugenics.

It's for your feminist friend who was lured into radical feminism with "divine feminine" rhetoric.

It's for you when you fall into something that you thought you were too smart for, because it never crossed your mind that fascism could be repackaged in a way that would appeal to you.

corantus

locked the fuck in get my money up

skoomabong

stephenroot

ICE separated a five year old child from his father and sent him to a detention facility in Texas. His family didn't know his whereabouts for almost 24 hours. There is no hell hot enough.

wtfaboutit

My friend took this shot.

stephenroot

Tell your friend thank you for their bravery and for helping to get the word out about Liam.

stephenroot

Liam Adrian Cornejo Ramos is just 5 years old and currently in pre-K. Yesterday, he and h… sarai Orquiz needs your support for Help Bring 5-

stripedroseandsketchpads

According to Minneapolis Public Schools 4 small children total have been kidnapped by ICE since this round of raids started this week including Liam.

therapatical

the thing is. being nonbinary means acknowledging that even people who want to be gender affirming--people who do all the right things, who care about others, who believe in your humanity--are still likely to never see you as anything except the binary gender you most closely resemble.

it's a bias. it's a thing society has wired into their brains, and they don't have enough exposure-based repetition to meaningfully undo the years of societal conditioning. chances are, even you feel this way about yourself and others, despite how hard you try not to.

and that's not me saying you should stop trying; you should still keep up that effort. it's better than nothing, and maybe it'll culminate in something bigger than all of us.

but there is a certain solemn reality check many of us have. & I think many trans people who realize they will likely never pass have this moment of recognition as well. and not from dysphoria-induced brain worms pre/early-hrt, but from being years on various interventions & coming to a point of acceptance about the reality of the cards you've been dealt & finding a way of living happily in spite of that

I just find that there are many many trans people, especially binary trans people, who can't wrap their head around anything except a very "toxic positivity" version of being trans & our experiences. at some level, most nonbinary people eventually recognize that how we view ourselves is not likely to ever be fully reflected by others.

we persist onwards, regardless. we still live our lives because we have to. and it is that coming to face with our own mortality of sorts that I think causes many of the rifts in the trans community. it's a type of maturity that not everyone gets to, even many nonbinary people, but for those of us who do and are able to integrate that and accept that we should still keep trying anyways... idk, you look at discourse a lot differently.

being gendered correctly by strangers isn't as dire to me because that dysphoria has been so thoroughly exhausted that I've had to make a conscious decision to stop paying attention to it for my own mental health's sake, because there's literally nothing I can do to change that. that doesn't mean I don't care. it means I've taken a realistic look at the situation and decided to focus on what I can tangibly impact instead. because I'd be dead if I didn't do that.

I think many of the heavily mocked "femme presenting nonbinary theyfabs who don't take hrt and look and act like a cis woman" out there are in a similar position. I don't think these people don't care. I think it's that they know nobody will change no matter what they do & they've reached a point of acceptance with it, so they see little point in doing anything about it.

it's a place of apathy & source of heartache for more people than I think some people ridiculing them realize. that's why they react so strongly to people basically bullying them online.

because most of those people are just trying to exist in a way that they find fun or aesthetically pleasing, because they realize that there's nothing else they can do. so they distract themselves with makeup and clothes and "girly" things that appeal to their eyes because they are small happinesses that society only genders because cisheteromasculinity prides itself on being devoid of beauty and joy more often than not, and if you're stuck in a prison of biology's making you might as well choose the presentation that lets you paint your nails and look at pretty things and pretty colors with less overt pushback (i.e. fitting the status quo, not necessarily that femininity isn't routinely degraded, it just receives less immediate threats to your safety to do the things society expects of you).

it is a strategic choice that they do not even want to be making in the first place, because it inherently relies on their misgendering.

...but it's what makes the most sense to a lot of people. that's why it's so common. and when you ridicule that, you poke and prod at all of those wounds that you're unaware even exist, because you assume they don't exist.

meanwhile they may have faced more suffering and agony at this positionality than you have. but it's an invisible suffering. so it's easy to poke fun at. you don't live in their head, though. you make assumptions upon assumptions about people, failing to recognize that sometimes there's no "good" solution & you've just gotta do what you can to survive in the least miserable way you possibly can, and that being in that position itself (inside a society that you know will probably never accept anything even close to you, at least not in your lifetime) is a type of trauma that changes you on a fundamental level. it fucks with your head. that's why these people act this way.

and while I'm somebody who has medically transitioned, I fucking get it.

#lgbtq #nonbinary

drcaviar

Cascade Mountains, WA

xanaxfarts

True color images of every planet in our solar system

macmanx

"We want musicians to keep making music, and for fans to have confidence that the music they find on Bandcamp was created by humans," the co

Bandcamp’s new guidelines state that music and audio generated “wholly or in substantial part by AI” is not permitted and that it will not allow the use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles.

phaeton-flier

One day, in the future, this entire system of tiered passports and immigration restrictions and second-class citizenship will be gone, a relic of the past, and the phrase "Immigration is a human right, moving is a human right" will seem as quaint and obvious as "Aparteid is bad" in an old sci-fi episode

errorschacha

Looking at what national news outlets are up to right now, one might not realize a whole major US metropolitan area is, you know, sort of under attack by paramilitary forces. Wild.

zoyasayshi

im sorry the What is being What now???

errorschacha

While it's not going unreported entirely, what's been happening in Minnesota and in Minneapolis–Saint Paul in particular since Renee Good was murdered is not getting the attention it should be.

There are already 2000 gangsters from DHS deployed, and "hundreds" or "1000" more are on the way, depending on which Trumpland person you ask. As a point of reference, the Twin Cities' actual police total just under 1200 (600 in Minneapolis and 590 in Saint Paul according to the depts' sites).

The feds there are more or less attacking people at random. They've gone door-to-door for "citizenship checks" (completely illegal). They've knocked doors down when residents haven't complied (obviously also completely illegal). In addition to abducting and brutalizing the immigrants they come across during their rampages, they've done the same to US citizens of color and are also harassing, stalking and physically attacking observers.

Here are some local sources:

ICE intensifies Twin Cities operation after killing of Renee Good, protests (MPR News—link won't embed)

Privacy advocates: ICE using private data to intimidate observers and activists (MPR News—link won't embed)

A U.S. Border Patrol agent kneed a man at least five times in the face while several other agents held him pinned facedown on the pavement i

Below are some videos from observers. I'm linking to Bluesky because that's where I saw them, though many are originally from/also available elsewhere. I apologize for the rancid formatting below but it was the best I could do quickly-ish. The images are previews; click the links in the timestamps to watch.

Elliott Payne (@elliottpayne.org) January 12, 2026 at 10:49 PM

Mickey Kuhns (@mickeykuhns.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 10:58 AM

Dumb Meg (@dmbmeg.bsky.social) Jan 11, 2026 at 6:10 PM (You need to be logged in to see this—while it's unclear what happened to the victim in this one, there's no reported death so far; CW for heightened violence)