In the process of change

All of my art and story related things are mostly on madeasubstitute This is where I reblog stuff that don't hold much relevance to my other blogs

[meeedeee]

The Internet Archive is under attack by corporations seeking to wrest more and more of our fair use rights, our public spaces and our communities from the public good. The Archive was recently forced into a settlement for scanning and digitizing legally purchased books. They are now facing a $325 million lawsuit for accepting donations of old 78 RPM historical music records that were digitized by volunteers. The goal is not only to stop the distribution of these works, but to create new legal precedents that make it illegal to preserve or archive for any reason. This will have a significant impact on our culture, our communities, and our future

Here is how you can help them

1. Use The Internet Archive Site

2. Save websites via "Save Page Now" browser tool

3. Become a patron to get a free "library card"

4. Curate & Upload to the Archive

5. Tell People That the Internet Archive Exists

6. Browse The Many, Many Collections

7. Take care of yourself and the people you care about

(Link will take you to a blog article that goes into these suggestions in detail)

[fullhalalalchemist]

internet censorship bill about to pass congress:

ao3 is facing a ddos attack from an overseas right-wing anonymous group because it contains "degeneracy and disgusting things like LGBT and NSFW".

they're not the only right-wing group that is attacking fanfiction sites because of queer & nsfw content. the Heritage foundation, the US right wing think tank that writes laws for republicans, wrote an article about how "big tech turns kids trans" in which they're advocating for the Kid's Online Safety Act to pass because it will give state attorney generals power to sue websites for "potentially harmful content towards minors". in this article they point out websites like wattpad, tumblr, tiktok, twitter as sites that GOP attorney generals can and will target for censorship if this bill passes. all places where fandom, that's mostly queer, hangs out.

if you think this bill has no chance of passing because of all the red flags it poses, think again. it currently has 38 cosponsors in the senate, and is being pushed by the democrats as a "protecting the children!!" type bill.

there are left-aligned orgs in congress rn lobbying for this bill to pass. july is extremely decisive, because if KOSA goes through to markup it'll be bundled with the Earn It act, Restrict, and all the other bad internet bills and passed as a package, completely censoring the internet forever.

if you want to learn more about the bill, go here. also sign the open letter against it here

it's ESSENTIAL that you call your members of congress, specifically Maria Cantwell (you can call from out of state) and tell them DO NOT PASS KOSA. this site here connects you to your members of congress and gives you a short simple script to read off of! super easy and doesn't take much out of your day! please do this now!!

Bad Internet Bills

All of the bad internet bills. One website.

[soheavyaburden]

I’m sure this will hit the news soon but just in case it’s not out yet — the Governor of Maryland just signed an executive order tonight declaring Maryland a sanctuary state for trans people seeking gender-affirming care, and for all people who provide such care or help trans people access such care. This executive order includes an explicit refusal to cooperate with law enforcement/prosecutors in any other state where accessing, providing, or helping people access such care is now or will soon be criminalized.

Yes it is absolutely a privilege to be able to travel or to think about moving but if someone can access the resources to move or visit to get what they need to survive and be less likely to be actively targeted for LITERAL EUGENICS AND GENOCIDE, then they should and we should support them.

Please spread the word.

[karadin]

Minnesota is also a sanctuary state, welcome trans people!

[lupismaris]

It hasn't hit the news yet but you can find the order here!

[ao3commentoftheday]

I had to abandon writing for about 3 months because I was too busy studying. but now that I have time, i just can't get back into the mindset that allowed me to write. i used to enjoy writing so much, but now it just doesn't have the same appeal to me. It's not a writer's block or a burnout, you can't get those from not writing. do you have any advice on how to handle it?

Burn out happens in other areas of our lives besides writing. If you’ve had a stressful or busy few months, then the burnout from the rest of your life can definitely affect your ability to write. What you do about it will depend on what kind of burnout you have:

1) Exhaustion - feeling overwhelmed and emotionally drained. You might have anxious feelings or trouble sleeping and you probably have trouble focusing. 

To deal with this kind of burn out, decide what it is that you want to do (in this case, write a fic) and break it down into smaller and smaller pieces until you find one that you’re actually able to tackle. You might not be able to write a full story right now, but you might be able to look through prompt lists until you find an idea that interests you.

2) Cynicism - feeling disengaged or disinterested or separate from what you want to do. Dealing with it is stressful, and so you are removing yourself from it in order to avoid that stress. This might lead to feelings of isolation or lack of motivation or just a feeling like whatever you’re doing is meaningless and there is no point. 

To deal with this kind of burnout, you need to figure out if what you want to do is gain positive feelings or avoid negative feelings. If you want to gain positive feelings, then reaching out to others and sharing your ideas and fics could be helpful. If you’re trying to avoid negative feelings, then you’d be better off deciding not to share anything you’re writing until you’re in a better headspace. By removing the idea of sharing your work with other people, you’re removing the possibility of getting a negative reaction to it. 

3) Inadequacy - feeling like you’re unable to do a good job or that you won’t be able to finish something so why even start. This can lead to feelings of helplessnes and also hopelessness. 

The key to dealing with this kind of burn out is finding a balance between things that you have to do and things that you want to do. If everything comes with feelings of obligation, then you can get overwhelmed by the idea that you’ll never get it all done. This in turn means that you feel like it’s useless to even try. 

Right now, you want to write, but in order to write you have to decide on what to write about. If you can find ways to make those “have to” steps easier, you’ll be able to get to the “want to” steps with enough energy left to actually do them. In this case, you could ask people to submit prompts. This still leaves you with the have to step of choosing which one to write, though, so you can either prioritize them based on your interest or use a random number generator to just pick a prompt for you. 

I’m not an expert on burnout, but these are the concepts I’ve learned over the years. I hope you find them useful, but in case you don’t let’s see how other people manage when they’re in your position.

[guerrillatech]

Help save mature forests in the US

[unexpectedgeese]

The Climate Forests campaign works to protect mature and old-growth trees and forests from logging across America's public lands as a corner

Here’s the link for my followers! It’s super easy— all it needs is your name and an email address.

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

What is the EARN IT Act?

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

[phone] connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

[im-a-ramblr]

HAPPY FIRST EVER INTERNATIONAL AROMANTIC VISIBILITY DAY

[logan43000-deactivated20150721]

[maureenjohnsonbooks]

This graphic is fabulous. It represents a tiny crash course in rhetoric. Learn these things. Put them on your wall. Whisper them into the breeze. These are THINGS TO KNOW.

[hollyblack]

Yeesssssssssss.

[navaeragreenleaf-deactivated201]

Interesting

[joehillsthrills-deactivated2019]

Bookmark this shit and the next time someone begins gobbling nonsense at you on a social network, instead of engaging, point them to this handy chart. Also useful: Thought Catalog’s “How To Have A Rational Conversation“ flowchart.

[neil-gaiman]

This.

[behaviornerdwithahat]

[behaviornerdwithahat]

Reblogging because a reader thought Heart Attacks and Stokes present the same in women and men.

Women are more likely than men to experience non-chest pain symptoms. Women are also less likely to receive CPR and are less likely to survive a cardiac event.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THAT HEART ATTACKS AND STROKES DON’T LOOK THE SAME IN MEN AND WOMEN, TIMELY TREATMENT IS CRUCIAL AND LACK OF KNOWLEDGE KILLS PEOPLE ALL THE TIME!

[whentherewerebicycles]

saw this on twitter and wanted to save it here

[spoonie-isms]

I wish they taught a class on what being a normal human is like

Like, the normal amount of pain is zero. The normal amount of wishing you weren’t ever born is zero. Food isn’t supposed to itch or hurt*. Going numb (any time outside sitting in one position too long) isn’t normal. Passing out isn’t normal. Normal people take like 10-20 minutes to fall asleep, and sleep like 6-9 hours. You’re supposed to get one period a month, which is manageable with a few tampons or pads a day and lasts 3-6 days.

These are all things I had to find out later, like a moron.

(fibromyalgia, depression, allergies, cataplexy, narcolepsy, PCOS and endometriosis)

*spicy food is supposed to hurt?

[spoonie-isms]

Sneezing when you see bright light? Normal.

Sneezing hurting your ribs so bad it makes breathing hard? Not normal.

[spoonie-isms]

It’s normal to hear a fluttering in your ears when you yawn. It’s not normal for your ears to hurt so much your teeth hurt too.

It’s normal to sleep badly and wake up sore every now and then. It’s not normal to lay awake because pain is keeping you up.

It’s normal to be nervous to see a doctor. It’s not normal to put off care because of your anxitey

[spoonie-isms]

So many times I’ve realized something about my body is super messed up when I’m like “you know how when X, Y?” And all my friends are like…no. I don’t experience X.

[tea-and-spoons]

A couple good additions from the notes:

(image description: screenshot of a reply to this post from fiddlysticks that says “Took me up until very recently to learn headaches aren’t supposed to feel heavy and fuzzy, make you extra sensitive to light and sound, be debilitating, and last about 3 days lol)

(image description: screenshot of a reply to this post from raw-squid that says “Also like period cramps arent supposed to literally wake you up, even with the strongest over the counter painkillers :) )

Some additions from my own experience:

-Crunchy foods like toast or pizza are apparently not supposed to cut up the inside of your mouth and make you bleed- that’s unusually fragile skin and might indicate a connective tissue disorder

-Wearing jeans or bulky jackets isn’t supposed to make you feel like you’re dying- that’s a sensory processing difference, more specifically tactile defensiveness

-Ribs are not supposed to dislocate when you laugh too hard (connective tissue disorder again)

-Waking up exhausted every single day isn’t supposed to happen- could be any number of underlying conditions

-Standing up is not supposed to cause your heart rate to skyrocket and you to get super dizzy- that’s dysautonomia, anemia, or something similar

-Constantly sitting like a pretzel as a teen or adult mean nothing, but if other people are baffled by how you’re comfortable in those positions, you might be hypermobile or neurodivergent or both!

-The normal amount of seeing double is almost none!  And even if you’ve seen double your whole life, the eye doctor can still prescribe you glasses that fix it

-Have a few “floaters” in your vision is normal, having constant showers of them that interfere with your vision is not

Basically, just because everyone in your family experiences something doesn’t mean it’s normal, it might mean there’s something genetic going on and you should ask a “control group” friend

[audkitty]

• Food isn’t supposed to make your mouth itch. That’s an allergy

• Coffee isn’t supposed to put you to sleep

• Your period is not supposed to be more painful than labor (found that out with child #2)

• Your friends do not hate you. Yes, even when they’re too busy to answer your text. That’s RSD

• 100 and 1000 are not the same number. Most people don’t transpose numbers regularly. Most people do not find Algebra easier than arithmetic because variables mean less numbers to accidentally mix up. That’s dyscalculia

• Lights in the distance should be round. If they stretch like stars have your eyes checked for astigmatism

[spoonie-isms]

Everyone always talked about halos and I didn’t realize until I saw a picture of normal vs astigmatism to realize how much it affects me. The points take up my whole field of vision, top to bottom.

[feralphoenix]

most people cant hear the buzz/hum of large household appliances or lights being on, thats autism

if it takes you an hour or more to fall asleep on average thats probably either autism or adhd, but could be other stuff, if meds dont improve it go to a sleep specialist to see

some people simply do not have 24 hour circadian rhythms. if you find the time you are asleep vs awake every day slowly crawls forward until for some periods you are nocturnal and then after another while you are diurnal again, this is probably you

spicy food causes your mouth to be more sensitive to heat, so if youre feeling pain/discomfort thats not heat related while eating it youre probably allergic to something in the meal

if you find yourself wishing you could be a different gender you can just try that to see if you like it

most people can just do things. if you feel completely unable to do something even if you want/need to and have to trick yourself into it, thats executive dysfunction. could be adhd could be some other mental illness

if caffeine puts you to sleep thats also adhd

if you regularly completely forget the plots things you saw/read/played a year or more ago/have similar memory loss issues with other things in your life, that too is almost definitely adhd (but if your memory loss is more extensive there could be other factors too)

[themysteriousinternetentity]

The normal odds of making it through any given meal without vomiting immediately afterwards are 100%.

[prof-grace-aspen]

I think somewhere people got confused and now think that "privileged" equals "oppressor" and "having privilege" equals "has the power to oppress".

It doesn't.

[neon-slime]

Would love to hear more about this, because I understand the first part, that privileged doesn’t automatically equal oppressor, but I don’t think I know enough to understand how having privilege doesn’t equal having the power to oppress.

[prof-grace-aspen]

Having privilege does not automatically grant you power.

I have working legs. This does not mean I am systemically oppressing people who need mobility aids, and it doesn't mean I have the power to do it, either. If I got elected to government and passed legislation that removed elevators and ramps on the basis of "Well I don't need them", then I'd be systemically oppressing people based on walking privilege.

[doberbutts]

It's exactly what I was saying on the other post; existing doesn't mean oppression.

You do not have mobility problems with your legs at the time of this posting. I do, but I can still walk with relatively little assistance as long as my pain is low and the terrain is not actively working against me. That doesn't mean the stairs in your house or apartment are oppressing me, or that your ability to climb them with no negative effects is oppressing me. You have the privilege of not needing to worry if you can actually make that climb and thus more avenues are open to you- you don't have to worry about the expense of buying a house with no stairs, you don't secondguess if you can actually take the flight, entire venues and employment/schooling oppurtunies and city streets and businesses aren't completely inaccessible to you because they exist on the third floor with no fucking elevator, you don't suffer sleepless at night when you were forced to take stairs you shouldn't have climbed. But unless *you*, specifically YOU, designed these stairways in these places with no other way to access the upper floors... it's not like you not needing to worry about that is directly oppressing me.

You CAN contribute to it- "why should stairs need to be accessible" "who even needs ramps and elevators" "I mean if you can walk you should be able to take a couple steps" "why do I need to make room for you on the elevator or wait for you to catch up" and my favorite "wow the world's youngest senior citizen" usually said when walking with my cane. But until that line is crossed, you existing as someone who can walk without pain unassisted is not directly oppressing me.

And that's the thing. Actions are oppression. Existing as someone with privilege does not mean you automatically oppress people.

"Having privilege" is morally neutral. Society is what bestows you privilege. That is completely out of your control.

"Oppression" is morally repugnant. Actions that contribute to the harm of others are terrible and bad and you should not do them.

Too many people conflate the two.

[petr1kov]

it feels strange to me now that undertale garnered such a reputation for being edgy due to fan interpretations when the game itself is just SO earnest and sentimental that it hurts. like, it's a game about connection and friendship and love and it's so forward with that message that it gets silly with it, but that's just because it really really wants you to care. it's the least cynical game i've ever seen, even on it's worst routes

[bigshotarchitect-deactivated202]

you guys are SO right

[runby2]

Speedrunners have ruined their entire speedruns of Undertale last second because they chose to hug Asriel at the end. The game is so impactful that even speedrunners, understandably disregarding everything about the game except for what they need to memorize in order to get the fastest time for their sport, have seen Asriel and couldn't help but let him know in his last moments that they forgive him.

[humoristics]

The thing with statistics - via

[angremlin-deactivated20250312]

Numbers don’t lie but people can sure as fuck pick and choose the numbers they give you and phrase things to make them sound like they mean things they don’t

[agentumbls]

learn fucking stats or at least how they can hurt

[karethdreams]

As a wise man once said: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[evilkitten3]

always remember the difference between “true” and “technically true”

[hellsite-yano]

I never know how to say this without sounding condescending but when it comes to social media you can simply choose not to be around people who make you unhappy.

[hellsite-yano]

[thechekhov]

👌Content™

[editoress]

Unfortunately, when a lot of fans dunk on a character for reasons I find silly, especially if they willfully misread the text to do so, the fandom punching bag then becomes my favorite character. I could have liked them a normal amount, but the constant bad takes annoyed me and now I am unstoppable.