TurtleTotem

She/her, 40, librarian, writer, reader. EDITOR FOR HIRE. Current obsessions are The Locked Tomb series (Griddlehark) and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Catradora). Also a longtime fan of X-Men First Class and the good ship Cherik, Good Omens, Captive Prince (always tagged), cute animals, Star Wars, Jane Austen, and whatever else I fancy along the way. You can find my fanfic here and here. My askbox is here!

[foxes-in-love]

[ckret2]

getting scambot messages from random accounts that clearly used to be normal active blogs is sad enough. you know that there used to be a real person on that blog until they were tricked into handing their password to the digital fae.

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

RIP to the blog that used to DM me to tell me they liked my new chapters. Their last known words spoken before being turned, 17 hours ago: "Ggs!" They were praising someone's deadlift.

[ckret2]

the message they tried to get me with is probably the same message that got them, so for anybody who hasn't already been warned about the signs of a zombie account:

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

they got one of my treasured followers, and they can get you too. don't fall for their tricks. know the signs.

[meyerlansky]

just. please know. that giffing scenes like that is a fucking nightmare labor of love.

to wit:

bottom's the raw capture, middle's just flat curve correction to make the footage visible, top is the final coloring with /counts seven adjustment layers to add back in Literally Anything But Yellow

every giffer i know does it out of love for the game, but for the record it's not... easy. it's not just slapping the footage in a cap grabber and posting whatever it spits out. "professional" lighting and color grading has only gotten waaay murkier and flatter in the fifteen years i've been giffing on here, so uh. don't repost gifs, please!

[infiniteeight8]

I thought the bottom was a black bar. I didn't even realize that was footage.

Everyone say thank you to your neighbourhood GIF maker! Giffers are so important to the fannish ecosystem, but to so many people the amount of work involved invisible.

[innocencelives]

shoutout to people with simultaneously great and terrible memories. like oh yeah i remember in perfect detail that random story you told about the banana costume from a year ago but all of novemeber? completely blank.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[ullathynell]

Details from my art book Woodlands. Expanded 2026 edition of Woodlands launches on Kickstarter this summer!

[stinkrat-aleks]

“Charles is my friend now! And I hope we’re friends forever and ever and ever!”

[toodrunktofindaurl]

clingy gfs

[tiffartco]

I’ve been drawing a lot of SheRa lately, this isn’t finished but I like the colors

[vaguely-concerned]

I am so charmed by how tumblr-esque dorothy l sayers' way of expressing her fondness for her hero is. she truly was spinning that guy around in an anachronistic microwave and chewing on him and beating him with hammers and biting him biting him biting him and so on with the greatest affection imaginable fr fr. she may have been vastly more articulate and educated than I'll ever dream of being and I respect her writing skill immensely, but blorbo brain recognizes blorbo brain across the ages too. she literally starts out at 'he's like a little worm ❤️in a top hat :)' and only keeps going from there and it's glorious. tell me that descriptions like 'he looked, with his long, narrow face, like a melancholy adjutant stork', 'true, he is all nerves and nose --' and 'he was a colourless shrimp of a child' are not in the same literary tradition as, if removed in time from, the modern tumblr idiom for blorbo appreciation. you can't. I'm right about it. anyone can give their hero hard grey eyes and ptsd but it takes tumblrina instincts to also repeatedly liken him to a bewildered heron

[heymacy]

#they never stood a chance

[cakepopsandcoffee]

+bonus

[sandmandaddy69]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

You're right but don't say it like that

[feefal]

The moon! Did you know the phases appear different depending on where you’re viewing it from?

[sztupy]

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

[ayeforscotland]

Let’s fucking go

[made-in-manetheren]

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

[alianoralacanta]

5. If the words are Google's, this solidifies the position of universities who demand that all answers from AI are fully cited. If all the in-line citations now have to be (Google, 2026), that's going to make it obvious when someone's trying to use Google as a source. There's still the difficulty with people who are academically dishonest by trying to pass off the AI writing as their own. 6. 91% accuracy is officially too low to use as a source of references, which means the AI can't be used as a source of references either. This makes it less legitimate for such purposes than Wikipedia of all places (Wikipedia might need date/time proof of when it was accessed for the reference to be valid, but at least it is possible to prove the link existed at a particular date and time). 7. This will help encourage the rollout of courses on how to avoid AI search for students who need academic accuracy, because it's statistically not good enough to use. 8. This strengthens the case intellectual property authors have against Google in the EU, as this is proof that an intellectual property transfer took place.

[liarsblade]

Love a character who is neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy but another secret third thing.

[liarsblade]

Guy who can be relied upon to make the right choice 98% of the time but God that 2% is a fucking doozy.

[maefaeve]

slow mornings ☀️

(btw! im trying to get a vgen code, so likes and comments are very much appreciated :3 my vgen is https://vgen.co/maefaeve)