The Rambly Red

Resource blog

[soundoftheirwings]

Gotta tell you guys something wild in the Chinese fan sphere

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

And that is how this charity received over 1 million in donations in three days lol. Oh btw the “freedom of expression” side won by a landslide (960k to 40k)

[tlbodine]

From now on this is how all petty fandom disputes should be settled.

[flagellant]

[parkayquarts]

hbo max blocks screenshots even when I use the snipping tool AND firefox AND ublock which is a fucking first. i will never understand streaming services blocking the ability to take screenshots thats literally free advertising for your show right there. HOW THE HELL IS SOMEBODY GONNA PIRATE YOUR SHOW THROUGH SCREENSHOTS. JACKASS

[parkayquarts]

somewhere out there is a guy who meticulously takes screenshots of every individual frame of his favorite tv shows and then painstakingly etches each one onto a roll of film which he puts into his old timey projector and recreates the footage as a silent film with his own lavishly hand-lettered dialogue cards and original score that he plays on his upright piano and charges audiences one shiny penny a play. at last, big media has finally outsmarted ol' Zachary Zoetrope

[theheroheart]

PSA for everyone who doesn't know, explained simply

this is NOT because of blocking screenshots, it's because of HOW streaming sites use your computer's hardware to optimise performance, which means the thing rendering the video and the thing capturing your screen aren't the SAME thing. so they can't talk together.

you can fix this by going to your browser settings, searching for "hardware acceleration", and turning that off.

[team-thickness12]

This also fixes screen sharing to other screens. It has been GODSEND

[lucarleigho]

type this in the toolbar to find this setting in firefox: about:preferences#searchResults

[mctreeleth]

ol' Zachary Zoetrope is back in business!

[writersisland]

Prompts: Are we about to fight or fuck?

⟢ "I'm getting mixed signals here." "I could tie you up and threaten you with a knife." "That... would not help."

⟢ "You‘re staring." "So are you."

⟢ "Keep talking like that and I might think you care." "God forbid."

⟢ "I can‘t fucking stand you." "Then why are you standing so close?" "I… What?"

⟢ "We can‘t keep doing this." "I wasn‘t aware this had turned into an us thing."

⟢ "Is there a reason you keep showing up where I am?" "I could ask you the same thing."

⟢ "Is there a reason you keep showing up where I am?" "Maybe I‘m following you." "And why would you do that?" "Why indeed."

⟢ "You‘re the last person I wanted to see tonight." "And yet here we are."

⟢ "Get off me." "You sure? For a second it looked like you were enjoying yourself."

⟢ "I never know what you want from me." "Good. I‘d hate to make it easy for you."

⟢ "Back off." "Stop leaning in."

⟢ "What exactly is this? Us?" "Do you want an answer or are you afraid of it?"

⟢ "You should go." "You should try sounding like you actually want me gone when you say that."

[butchscientist]

you will never catch me complaining about an actress on a tv show having an imperfectly concealed pregnancy or a character going on a sudden trip somewhere while her actress is on maternity leave. so many actresses (and women working in any other field) are fired, punished and pressured into making reproductive decisions for their employers' convenience & if i have to try a bit harder to suspend my disbelief then that's absolutely what i'm going to do if it means people are getting to exercise reproductive & bodily autonomy without punishment

[status-quo-hater]

I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.

He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense

[status-quo-hater]

Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM

[anarchistmemedistro]

How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis

Some narratives in international development hold that ending poverty and achieving good lives for all will require every country to reach t

[larkandkatydid]

It’s cool how we found the secret elixir that cures all human disease and it’s in this guy’s bitey little mouth

[larkandkatydid]

What this guy’s bitey little mouth has been recently up to:

[sauriansolutions]

This is why scientists study everything.

[mikkeneko]

Put this picture in your pocket, next time you get into an argument with someone about 'useless' scientific studies, ask them "Do you think that we should give funding to study the mating habits of endangered iguanas in the Sonoran desert, or should we be funding cures for alzheimer's and diabetes?" and then when they say "Of course we should be using that money to fund cures!" you can whip out this picture and say "trick question, it's the same thing"

[standwithdaanes]

having a process for people who have done morally horrific things to make amends, rejoin community, and do right going forward is actually fundamentally crucial for the left. having a clear and accessible pathway for people to be socially (if not interpersonally) forgiven is how you get people radicalized against capitalism and imperialism and white supremacy and patriarchy. its how you turn "these people think i am a bad person" into "these people think something and someone coerced or forced me into doing bad things, and these people want to help me do something about that."

if you want more revolutionaries, you must have a system to turn guilty, traumatized, angry bystanders and collaborators into revolutionaries. and I say a system and process because its not "oh the drone operator said they were sorry and felt bad so its all good now :)" there is no shortcut here. but it is absolutely necessary. no revolution is comprised of morally pure people. in many cases, the most devoted revolutionaries are the ones who know exactly what it is like on the other side.

[renthony]

I see so many arguments over what is and isn't "good queer representation" that really just boil down to "y'all are actually arguing over matters of taste and genre preference, which is incredibly subjective and personal."

Worldbuilding where being queer is normalized and queerphobia has no impact on the plot? THAT'S FINE. Worldbuilding that includes queerphobia and tackles the effects of it as part of the story? THAT'S ALSO FINE.

Low-stakes queer romcom where the characters are fluffy and cute? THAT'S COOL. Messy queer drama with toxic people who fuck each other over and clash repeatedly? THAT'S ALSO COOL.

Stories that center the characters' queerness, show a trans character's transition, and are about the queerness as much as the rest of the plot? AWESOME. Stories where the characters' queerness isn't treated as a big deal, and have trans characters whose transition happened before the story entirely? ALSO AWESOME.

You may PREFER one thing or another, but it is actually good to have all these things. It's about variety. It's about queer characters being allowed to exist without censorship. It's about queer artists getting to make things without being told we're a "niche issue" or "adult content." It's about having as many goddamn cakes as the bakery can produce.

At the end of the day, I'd prefer a media landscape with fifty pieces of problematic queer representation over a media landscape with one single piece of queer representation that's trying (and usually failing) to be 100% perfect for everything and everyone.

[simply-a-dream]

“don’t take it personally” how would you like me to take it then? professionally? romantically? academically?

[creative-anchorage]

[suriandtaal]

[normal-horoscopes]

I legitimately think the first video game to ever say the word "bisexual" out loud was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. There is a nonzero chance it was actually the first video game to print "bisexual" in a text format.

[normal-horoscopes]

It is very possible that the first video game character to ever say the word "Bisexual" out loud was Solid Snake.

[lakemojave]

Based on what I found, the first ever bisexual character in a video game was Curtis Craig from Phantasmagoria 2 (1996) but I have yet to find out if he says the word "bisexual" in the scene where this is revealed

[lakemojave]

He does not. He says he's attracted to his male best friend but he never says the word "bisexual."

The first ever character to ever correctly and overtly identify a person as bisexual was Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

[nyanbinyuri]

I once again have to point out for those who've never played mgs2 he says this when asked if another character that goes by the name of vamp is a vampire

[laliluleho]

Everyone here who hasn’t yet needs to see how fucking incredible this whole conversation is.

Snake: “He was at church when a bomb went off, got pierced by a crucifix, survived by drinking his family’s blood.”

Raiden: “So that’s why he’s called Vamp?”

Snake: “No it’s because he’s bisexual.”

[preludeinz]

Every instance of this screenshot I have seen, I assumed was an edit as a joke.

[roychewtoy]

my watery friend... are you too brushed with the pattern of the dappled light...?

[elluendifad]

[ID: a photograph of a seal with a blobby splotchy silver pattern on its back that resembles light refracting in water, next to a photo of light's flowing white stripes at the bottom of a pool. Second set of images is a fawn ccurled up in the grass, next to a forested trail aglow with dappled light spots. end id.]

[redrum-sketches]

dappled with light

[winry-lucy-beth]

I've recently learned that escaping enshitification is actually really easy. When I was younger I would use FOSS (free and open source software) because I usually couldn't afford anything else. Back then the paid options were usually significantly better than the unpaid options so when I finally got money I started using the paid stuff and completely forgot that Foss existed.

If you don't know why Foss is awesome its not just that its free. Open source software has a huge set of advantages. Most software is proprietary meaning that its code cannot be viewed by other people. Open source softwares code can be viewed by everyone and people can contribute their own code to make it better. Open source is often more secure than proprietary because more people have more eyes on it and more people have contributed to it's security. Its also easy to know how much privacy you have with every software because you can read the code. No more "trust me bro I'm not harvesting and selling your data" you know if they are collecting and selling because the code is publicly available.

In the last two months I have been switching almost completely to Foss. I was worried at first because when I stopped using Foss over 10 years ago the average Foss software was genuinely worse than the paid proprietary alternative. Thankfully things have really come full circle. 90℅ of the software I have tried in the last 2 months works better than the proprietary alternative and is 100℅ less obnoxious.

So here is a list of every Foss software I have tried and recommend. There is way more than this available. This list is just what I have used and like personally. Anyone can feel free to add and we can turn it into a master list. Please just take these as a place to start and do your own research to see if these softwares will work for your use case before you fully ditch your proprietary software.

Operating systems

Graphene os: android alt. Security and privacy focused. The most secure and private smartphone currently available.

Linux mint: easy to use linux, 100℅ better than windows.

Pop!: The Linux distro you should use if you have nividia hardware and want to play games using said hardware. Very intuitive and easy to use.

Kubuntu: Ubuntu Linux with KDE desktop. This is the linux distro one I am currently using and I don't have any plans to jump ship again. Better than windows and better than Mac. The companion app for your phone makes life soooo easy. Its pretty and easy to customize to a ridiculously granular level. No fucking notes.

Kindle jailbreak- ko reader: use jailbreak to free your kindle from the tyranny of the bezos. It will download ko reader which is a Foss OS that has every fucking feature you always wished kindle had and let's you read whatever the fuck you want, and have whatever the screensaver you want (no more ads!). Soooo fuck amazon and use this. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough.

Linux FOSS: (some available on windows and android as well)

Calibre: Foss desktop eBook library. Packed with features. You will want to use this with koreader to make managing your kindle easy.

Manuscript: skrivner alt. Does absolutely everything I need.

Bitwarden: password manager (use a keepass fork if you want self hosted)

Next cloud: private google drive and cloud alternative that you can self host if you want but it's not required. App available

Proton VPN: to the best of my knowledge it is the only Foss no log VPN you can get. You can pay for higher speeds. App available

Quad9dns: free encrypted DNS provider. App available.

News software:

Use any Foss RSS reader and for the love of god stop getting news from social media. Take control of your feed!

Apps (I only know for android)

Fdroid: great app store to find Foss android apps and download them.

Antennapod: you can get all of your podcasts fetched to one feature rich app via RSS feed. No need to rely on spotify or music steaming services.

Openreads: it's good reads but private and 100℅ stored locally. No amazon, no social media aspect, it just tracks your reading, you can import your good reads but if you want to import from storygraph you have to make a good reads burner account, import to good reads, then import to openreads. The menus Navigation on this one is a bit cumbersome but honestly good reads app is worse.

Newpipe: YouTube frontend that let's you have YouTube subscriptions, watch YouTube in the background, and blocks all ads, without logging in to YouTube. You will want to use this one with a VPN set to Canada (or any other country) so YouTube doesn't keep blocking it in order to force you to sign in. But even with that extra step its worth it for the privacy and the lack of ads.

Proton mail: one of 2 more private gmail alts. But you should note that email cannot be 100℅ anonymous or private.

I think that's it. There are still a lot software varieties I am slowly finding.

[centrumlumina]

LibreOffice is a FOSS Office suite that can handle word docs, spreadsheets, presentations and databases.

[prismatic-bell]

I know people get mad at the name, and I understand why, but straight-up I've been using GIMP for 15 years and it's a good solid art program made under the GNU program. It's worth a look.

[penrosesun]

To add:

Blender is an amazing FOSS suite for 3D modeling and animation, as well as digital sculpting and motion tracking. Pros use it. It’s a staple in game development. It’s what the Academy Award winning film “Flow” was made on. It’s not the bland name alternative to an industry standard; it is an industry standard.

Krita is a fantastic FOSS application for digital painting. Everyone I’ve ever talked to who uses it has loved it to death.

OBS is the absolute go-to choice for screen recording and live streaming. You can use it to record your entire desktop or a specific window, capture audio from multiple sources, and even add overlays, webcam feeds, or transitions to your videos.

VLC Media Player is the best media player, hands down. It’s lightweight, it’s reliable, it supports virtually every audio and video format known to man, and it has built in media conversion and even basic editing. I truly can’t imagine why anyone would use a media player that isn’t this one. It’s just the best there is, easily, no contest.

Audacity is a fantastic multi-track audio editor and recorder. It’s free and it’s good, and podcasters love it for a reason.

And believe it or not, Thunderbird is a really good email client now. I’m not even joking. If you used it back in the day and hated it, please give it another chance, because the glow up is unreal.

[beep-beep-im-asleep]

Waterfox for a web browser! It's a fork of an older version of Firefox, more secure and no built-in bullshit AI, while still working with all the same Mozilla add-ons and themes. Maybe once a month I'll stumble on something trivial that doesn't work properly, usually a video that won't load or something, but for 99.99% of things it's been perfect.

[mtftk9]

panicked when i heard crouton.net was down so i went and got the crouton from the wayback machine in case anyone needs it

[psychotic-gerard]

knew this woman who used to be a gay man and when he was a gay man he liked ‘ironically’ referring to himself as she/her and so when he came out as a woman he decided the next logical step was to also switch his pronouns to he/him.

[skarnish]

[tammog]

[tallowandport]

ao3's in the hospital having a scheduled surgery at the moment. everyone huddle 'round and comfort Tumblr while they sit in the waiting room.

[thingsaday]

this post generated such a powerful mental image that I had to doodle it

[sigynpenniman]

[queer-neurodivergent-and-tired]

[renamonkalou]

[dvmplingmami]

renamonkalou:

The family home of architect Sami Angawi, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Holy shit….

[madgastronomer]

Real life solarpunk.

[madgastronomer]

I just read the links, and omg this is even better.

So I looked at it and knew it was using the open courtyard and the pools and fountains to do a lot of the work of cooling the house, but it’s also got drip irrigation for all of those plants (which adds more moisture to the air and also helps cool it in addition to being an effective and efficient way of watering the plants), it’s got a roof garden and other eco-conscious stuff. It combines modern construction techniques with classic Arabic art and architecture.

And his home is a cultural center.

He holds lectures, concerts and salons in his home, with guests and speakers from around the world. He’s founded multiple institutions to preserve Islamic history and architecture. He’s an activist against the extremist factions he says are trying to hijack Islam.

His home is going to be part of an international institute offering degrees in Islamic history and science, as his legacy, housing a collection of over one hundred thousands of his photos, drawings and writings about Islam and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

This is serious real-life Islamic solarpunk for real.

Tumblr likes the idea of solarpunk, even if there’s not a real body of work about it yet. Well, we’re missing that people are already doing this for real, and have been for a long time.

I am not generally an architecture fan. It’s nice and all, but it doesn’t do a lot for me, especially modern American stuff. But I am totally bowled over by this and must now go look at everything he’s ever designed.

[musicalfeellings]

@renniequeer @natalieironside