Unique Abilities @unique-superpower-ideas - Tumblr Blog

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Just want to say that you guys can easily tell me any unique power ideas through the ask board, and if I like it enough, I can post it here. I also accept questions on how to use an already common ability in a unique way

Hashtags:

#unique ability submission (submitted posts and my responses)

#not unique powers (posts that aren’t about unique powers)

liberalsarecool

Nearly every complaint and grievance you hear from conservatives can be attributed to capitalist greed, but they can’t let go of the socialist propaganda that poisoned their minds.

Bring back America? Tax the rich. Abolish Citizens United. Support unions. Medical care for all. Fund education. Respect science.

mevil

being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something

creatingblackcharacters

Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾

littlestpersimmon

Hey everyone, if you guys could please help spread the word; central philippines got hit with a devastating earthquake after the whole country just got back to back storms, one being the largest ever recorded this year (typhoon Ragasa); for scale, its significantly faster and bigger than hurricane Sandy. Theres been large scale protests over govt. inaction, but the people of visayas urgently need our help. So many are homeless and hungry and cold rn.

littlestpersimmon

Devastating (again) floods after another typhoon. More people are homeless, animal shelters have been destroyed, roads and cities underwater due to Typhoon Tino.

https://x.com/volcaholic1/status/1985667003265294605?t=1BmeKeyCHJzKzOGsdQPi8w&s=19

Please consider helping out.

volfoss

Please do not neglect my letter and I am really sorry to ask for help from you I want you to help us overcome the suffering of this war 🙏

🍉Hello My Name is Yusra from Gaza 40 years 🇵🇸

we need money so that we can buy the simplest requirements of life and treatment everything is expensive,

I have no source of income and I am the one who supports my family we want to live,

I want to give Mary, dad and mom a better life.

Help us get through this ordeal I trust in your humanity and ask you to share my campaign with your friends and donate to me even a little

My campaign was checked by 90 ghosts

https://gofund.me/a8383601

My name is Yusra, a 40 year-old Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip, which is becoming less and … I PB needs your support for Help Maryam f

$3,083/$30,000

felixfeliccis

My post is getting reblogged by gimmic accounts this fucking sucks

unique-superpower-ideas

The power to attract gimmick blogs

#sorry I just had to do it

writing-prompt-s

You are able to manipulate and manifest your tattoos, moving them around your body and turning them into real-world objects. Wings, a dagger, or even something as mundane as glasses. Always at your disposal.

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.

(202) 224-3121 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.

officialbizness

As a reminder, Resist Bot can help you send your representatives a pre-written message stating your position and passing it on for you.

Text RESIST to 50409 to contact your federal, state, or local elected officials; create movements; and more. Over 30,000,000 letters deliver

#not writing

aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202

Just kill me now

aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202

Alrighty. What do I do to celebrate reaching this wonderful milestone. Anyone who says to watch megamind is shot on sight

deleted-blog-user

We should watch M

thefantasylife

aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202

Stop right now

unique-superpower-ideas

#not unique powers

coulson-is-an-avenger

okay i’m done being nice about this actually. able bodied people owe me and every other disabled person on the planet real money for every time they put the fucking line “im not an inv*lid” into their writing

i understand the urge to have disabled characters defend their autonomy, that’s excellent!!! but if you don’t stop making them punch down and call other disabled ppl slurs, im going to break your legs

cut it the fuck out

(able bodied people are encouraged to reblog, just don’t be an asshole)

coulson-is-an-avenger

@thefallenbibliophilequote To reply to your question (without hitting character limit), I can totally explain what this means, yeah!!

So, it’s a common theme to have a character (usually disabled), put up with feeling infantilized, looked down on, or even struggling to come to terms with the limits of their own ability. A common writing trope is to have this character defend themself and their autonomy by claiming “I’m not an invalid”. This is supposed to mean “I’m not helpless/I can take care of myself in this way/I don’t want to be seen as lesser than”, however, there’s a couple key issues with it.

Firstly, the term “invalid” is… dubious at best. There are some people who have reclaimed the word, but in general, it is still used to stigmatize disabled people, usually those who require outside assistance. Keeping that in mind, to have a character use this specific language to defend themself really translates to “I’m not like those other disabled people”. Which, at its core is both ableist and also just,, really sad and rude.

Some great alternatives to this would be: “I’m not helpless,” “I don’t need you to do this for me,” “I’m not a child,” etc.

There’s some great tags on this post that @esrah-rah-rasputin just added that say:

#If you’ve written something like this in a draft or WIP or whatever and want to fix that #figure out what that phrase is a stand-in for #are they frustrated with being underestimated? Are they wanting to nail down their independence? Are they in denial of what’s going on? #etc etc #replacing that with something based off what they’re actually getting at is going to get across the idea a lot better than just saying that

which is an awesome tip!!!

Sorry this got so long, I just wanted to make sure I was being clear, but I hope this helped clear it up!!! Happy writing to everyone 💙💙!!

#ableism #writing tips

theoneeyedwriter

writing characters with one eye

i can pretty much guarantee that ↑that↑ is not a heading you see everyday.

now i will not be giving advice on writing cyclopses, (though it may be sort of the same thing) i still hope this will be helpful for some people out there that are looking to provide a more diverse cast to their wip!

i have never ever ever read a book, watch a show movie etc etc that involves a character with one eye. (aside from those badass characters who wear eye patches bc they lost sight in one eye in some badass way)

for context: i am one of many people who was born with microphtalmia, an eye disease that results in one or both eyes develope smaller than normal at birth. i myself was born with a smaller left eye, which resulted in my left eye being removed exactly twenty days after birth.

microphthalmia (along with many other eye diseases) typically leads to being half or fully blind. i lucked out and only lost my left eye which i am so so thankful for.

i would really really love to see more representation for my community in literature, especially so people would come to see that being half blind isn’t as unusual and weird as people make it out to be.

without further ado, i present to you, a list of information, facts, and first hand experiences from yours truly!

i’ve had prosthetic eyes made to fit my eye socket for about fifteen years (i’m 16 lol) (the first 6ish months after the surgery i never had a prosthetic)

in my life i’ve had four different prosthetic eyes made because just like other people, my eye socket grew alongside the rest of me, meaning the prosthetic needed to be made bigger

i’ve had my current prosthetic for four years now, the past ones lasted about 2-3 years at a time. this one will probably last me through the rest of my life unless i need/want a new one

as opposed to most media/assumptions, my prosthetic (along with most prosthetics) is PLASTIC (people always think it’s glass) and only half a circle!!

i’ve had three surgeries related to my eye

i do not have depth perception which makes doing certain things very difficult (estimating distance, how close/far i am from something etc)

driving is not affected too much, i just have to turn my head more than other people. i believe being blind in the right eye might be more difficult, but i couldn’t say

doing my make up is kinda easy, except for eyeliner is a pain in the ASS since most people close their eye to do it on their upper lid, but clearly i can’t close my right eye whilst doing it lol

my family as well as my friends and even myself often forget i have a prosthetic, which sometimes results in awkward/funny situations

i hate walking with people on my right bc i can’t tell where they are unless i’m constantly looking down at my/their feet

i sucked at basketball bc i had such a disadvantage (no depth perception, i could only see half the court, i was constantly turning my head) but professional swimming is much easier for me since it’s not a contact sport and doesn’t really require for me to be paying attention to a million things at once

i rarely have to take my prosthetic out, and if i do, it’s either to clean it, (we do get eye crusties on our prosthetics just like other people do when they have pink eye or sever allergies) it’s bothering me/really dry, or i want to take it out to show/scare people lol

a lot of people don’t realize when i first meet them that it’s fake bc my recent prosthetic is amazing accurate to my real eye. others notice and assume i have a lazy eye since it doesn’t move

for some reason people think i can’t cry out of my left (prosthetic) eye??? i still have a tear duct??? i actually think more tears come out of my left tear duct than my right lol

i am extremely self conscious about it, but i know there are other one-eyed beauties out there who aren’t which is amazing!! i try to live vicariously through them lol

i make sooo many jokes about my eye lol, and i’m usually ok w other people making jokes as long as they aren’t like overly rude/offensive, then i’ll feel a lil bad about my self

people never really made fun of it, but kids in middle school likes to wave things in front of my left eye/on my left side that i couldn’t see which got really annoying after a while

getting custom designed prosthetics are available, but they’re really expensive (so are normal lol) they costs thousands of dollars, just like other prosthetics do

i run into things that are on my left side ALL THE TIME it’s actually kinda funny lolol

i try to hide my left eye/turn more to my left side in photos bc my eyes aren’t always looking in the same direction, which really gets to me

i wear glasses for both protection and bc my right eye is -1.75 lmao but i did used to wear non-prescription glasses purely for safety

i do have contacts to wear during the summer, swim meets etc, for when i don’t want/can’t wear my glasses but need to see. bc of this, i have a second pair of glasses that have no prescription

if doctors/scientists managed to figure out a way to fix microphthalmia (a birth defect), or do a sort of eye transplant, i would not be able to have that done to me because all parts of my left eye have been removed from my body

microphthalmia is NOT the only disease that results in the haver losing sight in one or both eyes!! there are many others, but it is not my place to share any experiences for something i have not experienced!!!

for once i just want to see a clumsy character who has one eye that WASNT a result of some tragic event.

so please please please consider including a character with one working eye in your wip. it would mean the world to myself and all the other members of the community (there’s a lot of us, trust me) plus, i wouldn’t mind starting an acting debut playing a half-blind female protagonist, that would be so dope.

that’s about all i can think of for now! please send an ask or reply to this post if you have any questions, i’m willing to answer any!!! and if you happen to be a member of the one eye club, please add to this post!! that would mean the world to me:)

leonajasmin-writeblr

Blind in one eye since birth here! Just adding on a couple of things if your characters just have a genetically shoddy eye instead of losing it to an injury/health condition:

- Most people cannot tell which eye I'm blind in. The only differences between them are I have a much bigger limbal ring in my good eye and my left eye 'wanders' when I'm tired due to an operation I had on it when I was little (too young to remember).

- I sucked at sports like rounders (and baseball I guess, but I've never played it) because my dominant hand and blind eye are on the same side :)))) But that doesn't mean we suck in all sports or that we only do individualistic sports; I'm at the highest rank in my martial arts my association allows me to be at my age. I'm just more defence-based than average since my guarding hand is my blind-side one, although this is individualistic.

- I have a very heightened awareness of how close things are to me since my eyes lack in that department (my depth perception sucks). So I tend to stand in the edge of crowds, and also because there's less stimulation on my blind side to make me jump.

- Some people will prefer if you stand on their sighted side, others their blind side; it's personal preference. My grandma is always on my good side so I can see her when we're talking, whereas my mum is always on my blind side so nobody comes in on that side and scares me. I don't know about other charities, but I do know my local sight charities do favour you going on their sighted side. This could just be a quirk of your character, or it could be down to their background/personality.

- Most people who are blind in one eye are not classed as disabled in a traditional sense unless they have problems in their good eye as well. I have to do fitness to drive tests more often than the average person, but I have a full driver's license.

#not unique powers #writing tips

frognonbinary-deactivated202412

i’ve been doing my homework on how to break into a writing career and honestly. there’s a Lot that i didn’t know about thats critical to a writing career in this day and age, and on the one hand, its understandable because we’re experiencing a massive cultural shift, but on the other hand, writers who do not have formal training in school or don’t have the connections to learn more via social osmosis end up extremely out of loop and working at a disadvantage.

frognonbinary-deactivated202412

like, i didnt know about twitter pitch parties!! i didnt know about literary agents and publishers tweeting their manuscript wishlist, in hopes that some poor soul out there has written the book they really want to read and publish!! this isnt some shit you learn about in school! you really need to know the ins and outs of the writing community to be successful!

frognonbinary-deactivated202412

for anyone interested, here’s what i’ve learned so far in my quest for more writing knowledge:

1. Writer’s Market 2019 is a great place to start– it gives you a list of magazines and journals that you can send your work to depending on the genre as well as lists a shit ton of literary agents that specify what genres they represent, how you can get in contact with them and how they accept query letters. this is a book that updates every year and tbh i only bought it this year so i dont know how critical it is to have an updated version

2. do your research. mostly on literary agents because if you listed on your site that you like to represent fluffy YA novels and some asshole sends you a 80k manuscript about like…gritty viking culture, you will be severely pissed off. always go in finding someone who you know will actually like your work because they’re the ones who will try to advocate for you in getting published.

3. learn how to write a query letter. there are slightly varying formulas to how you can write an effective query letter. you’re also going to want to get feedback on your query letter because its the first thing the literary agent will read and based on how well you do it, it could be the difference between them rejecting you outright and giving your manuscript a quick read

4. unfortunately, you’re gonna want to get a twitter. Twitter is where a lot of literary agents are nowadays, and they host things like twitter pitch parties, where you pitch your manuscript in a few sentences and hashtag it with #Pitmad #Pitdark, some version of pit. a lot of literary agents and publishers will ALSO post their manuscript wishlists, which is just the kind of books they’d like to represent/publish, and they hashtag this with #MSWL (it is NOT for writers to use, only for agents/publishers)

5. connect with other writers, literary agents, publishers at book events. you will absolutely need the connections if you want to get ahead as a writer. thats just kind of the state of the world.

promptsforthesoul

lupine-dreams

Important info is important -.-

frognonbinary-deactivated202412

UPDATE: so i just got signed by an agent bc of twitter pitch parties. for any aspiring writers, you dont HAVE to go the twitter pitch party route, its just another way to get noticed a bit faster

multiple-characters1-acct

Rebloging for my own benefit, but anyone else who wants to be a writer needs to know this too.

#writing #writing tips

blindbeta

Myths That Harm Blind People

MYTH: All “real” blind people are totally blind and only those “real” people can use canes.

TRUTH: Most blind people have some residual vision in one eye or both. In fact, less than 15% of blind people lack vision and light perception. ANY of these people are allowed to use canes, especially for crossing the street. Canes help with safety and allow others (drivers) to identify blind people. Even if these people have some vision, the cane lets people know “oh that person can’t see well or at all so I shouldn’t expect them to get out of the way or to see me approaching”. When crossing the street, a person with a cane will hold their cane out in the street for drivers to see. They will use their hearing or what vision they have to ascertain if there is a car approaching. Usually the car will stop, allowing the blind person to cross.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: -You harass people who don’t “look” blind. -You believe blind people who look both ways before crossing the street, moving around you, or move toward/away from bright lights are “faking”. -You yell at, hit, and sometimes break the canes of those blind people you decided are faking based on your limited understanding of blindness. You make them explain themselves when they shouldn’t need to. -You make ignorant posts online about these ideas, spreading them around. -You make people afraid to use their canes when they need to.

MYTH: Blind people don’t use phones/computers

TRUTH: All phones and computers have accessibility features. This includes VoiceOver or large text. Some people simply hold the phone close to their face. Being able to use a phone does not mean anyone is “faking”. This shows how assumptions based on ignorance lead to other, more harmful assumptions.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: -You accuse people using canes and phones of “faking” with zero understanding of the consequences. -You use this as an excuse to harass, yell at, and bully blind people for “faking”, both on the street and online. -You assume blind people don’t use social media which makes you think you: are free to make ignorant ignorant jokes, post pictures of blind people using phones, and ignore blind people online when they say something bothers them because “what? Blind people don’t use the internet”. -You post inaccessible content - no image descriptions or audio description for videos, etc

MYTH: Blind people have superior hearing

TRUTH: Blind people do not have superior hearing. They just rely on their hearing more.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: This one is just annoying. It makes sighted people feel better or like blind people have something they don’t. It also gives them an excuse to assume blind people would have no problem crossing the street because they can just use their superior hearing.

MYTH: Blind people cannot read

TRUTH: Blind people CAN read. Look up Braille, accessibility in phones and computers, audio books, etc. Similarly: Blind people only read Braille.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: This is something people like to say as a joke, but a surprising amount of people mean it. Many people know about Braille (and compare it to sign languages for some reason, but that’s another rant), and will often use these myths to exclude blind people from online spaces.

I made this because these myths are prevalent even in supposed progressive spaces. People will talk about ableism and in the same breath, make one of these assumptions. While it is frustrating that no one bothers to do the research, it is only assumptions and not well-meaning questions that hurt the blind community. Questions allow a person to respond; assumptions do not.

These assumptions have nothing to do with being a bad person, hating the blind community, etc. Therefore, they can apply to anyone. I would like for everyone to explore how they have interacted with or spread these myths and simply change their behaviors. In this instance, your intent only matters so much. It is your behavior that creates change and makes things easier for that blind person you pass tomorrow. Not harassing them, not accusing them of faking, will make their lives 100% easier.

I started this blog so that writers could include blind characters in their stories, thus easing some of the pressure of navigating confusing online myths that slip into otherwise meaningful research. In addition to including blind people in our fiction (either as characters or acknowledging them as consumers by ensuring accessibility), we should make things easier in real life by taking down these myths and correcting those who believe them. Even if we come across as harsh or humorless by doing so. And if you are someone who still wants to believe these things, ask yourself why you are so committed to “helping” blind people in ways they have expressed does not in fact help them at all. Thanks for reading!

#long post #blind #blind people #myths #writing tips

helenasurvives

calling all authors!!

i have just stumbled upon the most beautiful public document i have ever laid eyes on. this also goes for anyone whose pastimes include any sort of character creation. may i present, the HOLY GRAIL:

https://www.fbiic.gov/public/2008/nov/Naming_practice_guide_UK_2006.pdf

this wonderful 88-page piece has step by step breakdowns of how names work in different cultures! i needed to know how to name a Muslim character it has already helped me SO MUCH and i’ve known about it for all of 15 minutes!! i am thoroughly amazed and i just needed to share with you guys

theredscreech

Cultures include Yoruba, Sikh, Vietnamese, Polish, and dozens more!

thatdisasterauthor

Oh snap, this is AWESOME.

#writing #writing references #writing reference

fullhalalalchemist

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 tumblr's nsfw ban hitting the entire internet this spring 2022

February 1, 2022

I’m so 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 has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized 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, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” 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.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.

What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.

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.

The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM 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.)

NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. 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 Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s 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.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.

I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.

It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.

202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.

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