born to lose | live to win

building a collection

(x)

far and away my favorite genre of post

obviously I never stop thinking about them. I should do something like get a hobby.

obsessed with jorginho's undies saying 20 across the ass too. he is so fucking FUNNY love him

Enhance:

Iconic doesn't even begin to cut it

so I like to collect blondies. if the boy is blonde, I'm putting him in my pocket. not all blondes are pocketable, but this is my shortlist:

now tell me, which one of these boys is the ultimate blondie? please vote!

Your friendly Black History Month reminder that Black Jews are JEWS.

Born Jews, Jews by choice, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Mizrahi, Israeli, diaspora…they are an integral part of all of our communities and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

We still have work to do as a community to uplift Jewish POC, particularly Black Jews, but to my Black Jewish friends out there know that I see you and I will keep trying to do the work.

Happy Black History Month. ❤️

during Black History Month please remember that Black Jews also do face antisemtisim. we go through the hardships of being Jewish. do not assume we are any less Jewish because of our Blackness

thank you

-sincerely a Black Jew

this kid is 14 oh my god is no one teaching children to protect themselves online anymore…

Meanwhile us olds are like: I don’t have a carrd and I’m not reading yours

Please don’t advertise your personal information, anyone could find that and use it however they want.

Oh my fucking god it isn’t 1998 anymore no one cares

??? Wtf does this mean??? 80% of employers google you before hiring you, child predators use that info to groom kids, abusers use that info against victims, police/government track activists online? Do you honestly think the internet has gotten safer since 1998????

also don’t tell any rando who wanders onto your blog with unknown intentions the specifics of how they can trigger you???? no????

the fact that its not 1998 anymore is exactly WHY you should be more fucking careful. do you have any idea the tools people have now compared to then? the fact that its gotten exponentially easier to find people in real life based off online info while young people have gotten extremely comfortable sharing all their personal details is deeply concerning.

im sorry no one ever taught you internet safety but that is NOT because its not important anymore. ITS MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT EVER WAS. please listen to the people whove been on the internet longer than youve been alive. our intentions are good and internet safety is vital. especially if youre queer, which i know for a fact a lot of you are.

Listen, guys and gals and nonbinary pals. I know you’re going to think this is all overblown. But give me two minutes of your time.

My current roommate and I met on Tumblr. In the first three minutes I knew her I KNEW HER ADDRESS FROM HER ETSY. She only lived three miles down and one block over from me. Once we became friends, it took me literally fifteen minutes to drive to her house.

“Okay, but you guys are friends, roommates even, you love each other, what’s the problem?”

The problem is, this story doesn’t always have a happy ending.

The problem is, in another story I’m still 32, but she’s 15 instead of 43, and I’m an asshole.

The problem is, I am an adult. If a first meeting goes wrong, I have a car, a cell phone, and a tire iron in said car that I could defend myself with. What do you have?

The problem is, if you put identifying information out in the open, it could cross paths with someone who only lives 15 minutes away. And maybe they don’t care, and maybe they’re a chill person! That’s often the case.

But maybe they’re not.

“But I don’t put that kind of information—”

Listen. I’m gonna tell you I went to high school at General McLane and grew up by the cove. I’m going to mention that I HATED walking to my bus stop because it was out by the highway. At some point in our conversations, I mention that I’m walking down to the corner to get some ice cream.

Go onto Google and see how long it takes you to figure out, within a quarter-mile radius, where I grew up.

I can tell you how long it took me, using only the information I just provided you: two minutes. I looked up the school and got the address. That gave me the town name. I put that into Google Maps. I found Edinboro Lake and another body of water near it. Zoomed in on the streets near that second body of water, and boom. Cove Drive, right next to an ice cream shop, opening onto a highway.

You now have a radius of less than two blocks where I might have lived.

Do you feel a little less safe putting that information out there? You should. Because I didn’t use any special programs, any elite hacking knowledge. I used nothing but Google, the name of a high school, and two offhand conversational mentions, and in two minutes I’d narrowed it down to a single block. Go ahead—try it yourself.

And yes—I can do this for my roommate, too, even having never been to her hometown. All I need to know is the name of her town and a story about crossing the street and a neighbor’s yard to get to the Walmart.

Do not put this information out there, guys. 95% of people you will meet online are legit. Many are delightful.

But some are not. And those are the ones you need to watch for.

THIS.  Almost 20 years ago, I took a class on internet security. Nothing fancy, just an overview of the ways that people with bad intentions can gain access to your accounts and information. The number one security risk? People. You. It doesn’t matter how safe you make your systems when a tiny bit of social engineering and half a brain cell can get you to give them the info they need.

Our “final exam” was to find all of the information that we could on the teacher. Now, he supposedly knows everything that you should and shouldn’t do, right? So we shouldn’t be able to come up with much. Except, apparently I’m really good at finding info on the internet. I managed to find his hometown, high school, year of graduation, and even yearbook pictures. I passed the class, but it just goes to show that any schmoe can come up with enough info to track you down and hurt you.

That list of ‘just the basics’ filled me with a feeling of disbelief and horror.

We all remember the Twitter thread where a person IDed the storage unit of a guy hoarding hand sanitizer from a single photo, right? They weren’t a genius. I mean, probably they were very very smart but mostlh they were methodical and had a little experience deducing things from the most inconsequential details. I believe one was a bit of gutter.

Please be careful and just…know what you are putting out there. Especially if you are young and there is anything about you or what you do that could make you a target.

And don’t list your triggers under any circumstances. Most people won’t go to the trouble of trying to find your address, but if you annoy some folks with something you post on this here hellsite, someone will absolutely eventually send you the most horrifying shit they can find, and that is, like, extremely preventable.

This is so long and I’ve reblogged it before but GUYS do NOT be the person in op’s screenshot.

Ever played Geoguessr? It just drops you in a random spot on Google street view and you have to figure out where you are. My friends and I routinely pinpoint the spot to within feet with a few minutes of googling. It’s not specialized skills or programs. It’s a free GAME.

"art garfunkel contributed nothing to the songwriting in simon & garfunkel" girl he was the muse!😂

There are plenty of fandom grandma’s. People who will give you the rundown of ye olde Star Treck fandom. It’s only weird if you make it weird.

@spockslash​ was 77 when she died. Her children have kept her blog up and all her posts. She had an NSFW side blog for her Kirk/Spock slash interests. She was posting actively on Tumblr right up until like a week or so before her death.

I am 50. I just spent the past half hour folding laundry and singing the songs I wrote for my favorite OC/canon ship when I was 17.

You never age out of fandom. Never. Don’t let anyone tell you so.

I started ficcing in 1995 with a notepad and pen. I started posting fic online in 1999 and I have zero intention of stopping. You know why? Because it’s not about what other people want - it is about me enjoying the thing I love and spreading that love around.

The world will tell you that people in fandom - especially female and queer people - shouldn’t be old. That it’s creepy. That it’s weird. Because queer folk and womenfolk are not allowed to do things they enjoy for fun and pleasure most of the time, but especially not when we’re aging. It’s not socially acceptable. We’re meant to quietly go back to being out of sight and out of mind. Look at modern media. Look at the dearth of older female and queer characters anywhere.

To the people who think that, bugger you backwards with a rusty fork. I love what I love. I will continue to do so. I will continue to embrace my joy and I will continue to share my joy with like-minded people. I’m not letting any ageist/sexist/miscellaneous-ists tell me how and when and why I should stop.

If the sports fandom can cope with having old men in it, the geek fandom sure as hell will have to learn to cope with having the rest of us.

I also have to ask, like, who do you think runs fandoms? Who’s paying for and coding AO3? FFN? Tumblr? Fanwikis? Who do you think is running fandom events like theme weeks and big bangs and watch parties and fic exchanges and holiday events MOST of the time? Coordinating big charity events like the Fandom Trumps Hate auction, or the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico charity auction? Who do you think organizes and makes up the majority of attendees for fan conventions? Who do you think is out there writing gorgeous 100k+ novels full of rich life experience? Who do you think is out there writing knowledgeable, hot smut?

I can pretty much guarantee you that it’s not thirteen year olds, and it’s probably not even 15 or 18 year olds for the most part either, especially when it comes to doing anything with large quantities of money, like paying for servers or doing complex coding or auctions. I remember being in fandom at 13, 15, 18, 20…. the spaces started out for me as “I am aware I am visiting an adult space, which I will learn how to navigate appropriately until I am able to help build with them.”

Like, listen. There’s teenagers in fandom space, but fandom space isn’t specifically a teenage space, and CERTAINLY not a teenage-only space. Fandoms are places where you might get in the door as a teen, but the majority of the residents and creators of the spaces aren’t teenagers. They’re people who grew up here surrounded by the supportive adults that formed the spaces, and that have helped to maintain the community into their adulthood so that future generations can continue to enjoy the same as they did.

Getting to be 25, 35, 45, and on, that’s not you overstaying a welcome in a place you don’t belong. That’s you settling into a neighborhood that was built for you, one you have probably helped to build, and one you will continue to help shape through whatever time you desire to stay.

I love that teenagers are here, I love that they’ll get to share experiences similar to my own when I was a teenager, forming friendships and having access to a huge number of stories and art and a vast, diversely populated and largely loving community that just isn’t available in most real-world spaces and communities. I’m So glad they have these resources. But I also hope that those teenagers remember that they’re in a space that, while welcoming to them, was not made specifically for them, and that it certainly is not a space where they can come into and say to the folks who built it or grew up in it before them: “you don’t belong here anymore.”

Because that’s not true, and it’s not acceptable behavior.

So, I’ve been pulled over a few times in my life. Not many, but a few. And I’ve also been in a couple of cars that got pulled over. And let me tell you, if you were actually doing something wrong, the officer doesn’t make any small talk, just straight into “I clocked you doing 70 in a 55.” The only time I’ve ever gotten the “do you know why I pulled you over?” was the time when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and I got let go even though he insisted to the end that I was doing 87 in a 70 (white privilege at work).

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” is a trap. It means there’s a good chance the officer doesn’t actually have a good reason to ticket you, and is trying to get you to waive your 5th Amendment rights and incriminate yourself. If you make a guess, that’s a confession of guilt.

But there’s another trap, that I’ve heard of but haven’t yet experienced. It’s “do you know how fast you were going?” With that one, they’re hoping you’ll say no, because then they can name whatever speed they want – you just said you didn’t know how fast you were going, if you deny the speed they name then you’re lying to them.

Oh, I’ve had that one. Go with “yes.” Don’t give them a number, just say “Yes.” Then they still have to offer a number and you can deny it without contradicting yourself. They could just ask you, at that point, but that’s suspiciously similar to saying they don’t know, and they tend to avoid doing that.

Reblog to save a life

if you scroll past this just because it doesn’t affect you personally, i see you.

Also, you can always go to court and contest a ticket, and a lot of times you’ll win. Or if the cop thinks you’ll win they won’t even show up and you’ll win by default.

They like to target out of state plates because anyone who would be majorly inconvenienced by a court date two months away is a lot more likely to just pay it.

The moan compilation I’m fucking SCREAMING!!!

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

-Malcolm X (1962)

(Originally found on insta from @ashleighchubbybunny)

“A grandma of mine had a big grand piano at home that I could tinker with as a child, my other grandma could play a song or two on it. At some point my mother asked me if I didn't want to play an instrument myself. I used to take lessons, now I try to teach myself songs.”

“I've been a donkey fan since childhood. My dream was to eventually own a donkey myself or an entire donkey farm. For a birthday, my parents fulfilled that dream with a sponsorship for two donkeys, and then another donkey was added, whom we saved from the abbatoir. I see myself as responsible for helping them and spending time with them. It's just a nice feeling to walk next to a donkey who you know would have died without your help. The topic of animal welfare will become a bigger one for me in the future, I have only just started to take the first steps.”

don’t you guys ever just…get tired of finding something wrong with every goddamn thing? of mining every turn of phrase for offense? of mocking deeply felt emotions because they’re not ironically detached enough for you? just like…sit and listen to some birds for a while. knit a scarf. engage with something on the object level instead of this relentless smirking meta.