love reaching out to a college friend of mine after not talking for some time to say hi and tell her about a big change in my life that relates to people she knows, only for her to respond in a damning manner and unfriend me so I can’t even reply

This is the fucking funniest thing you've ever posted. Logged in just to tell you I hope you get everything you deserve after the fucking appalling way you've treated people who held nothing but kindness and love for you. They know what you did. They do. You'll never get to hurt them again.

Please don’t pirate books at least while the author is alive. I’ll make an exception for actual billionaires and wildly expensive textbooks you cannot afford yet need to complete your studies. I can’t make an exception for assholes, because we’re all considered assholes by someone.  I don’t know how many people realise how many writers who created successful, beloved stories and characters still die poor while other people get rich off the same work. I don’t think people realise that in the UK the current average yearly earnings for an author has nosedived over the last fifteen years to £10,500. That obviously is forcing people to quit writing. It increasingly means writing is a job for people who’ve inherited money or have wealthy spouses who can support them. I don’t know if people realise that in general, writers are poor and getting poorer. I’m sorry, but if you think widespread sense of entitlement to free books has nothing to do with that … you’re just wrong. 

I say I don’t think people realise - the truth is I hope they don’t, because the alternative is that they don’t care. That’s certainly the impression I’ve got from Twitter, where a truly horrifying number of people are arguing that copyright on  all books should expire after thirty years, and you should be able to acquire books for  free after that. This … would not just mean that everyone gets free books. It would mean if you write a book at 30, not only do you lose any royalties from it at 60, but Disney can take it, make a franchise out of it, Scrooge McDuck it up in a pool of money while you starve because writers don’t get workplace pensions.

Some threads on the unintended (?) consequences of this. I can’t go over it all again. John Brownlow NK Jemisin Michael Marshall Smith Me Marina Lostetter Kari Dru and others William Gibson and others

There are plenty of others. It’s not that this actual idea will actually happen, but I do think it reinforces the idea that it’s not only okay, but sometimes actually virtuous to search for ways to enjoy writers’ work without paying for it. Like it’s somehow a step towards a better world. Not just at the reader end, to be fair, at the employer end too. And I do see a lot of people here too who are all about supporting workers unless the workers are writers in which case fuck’em. 

Like. If you want to radically change society in such a way that mass-media conglomerates don’t exist and so can’t exploit us and we’re supported to make art in some other way than fine. But can you start the revolution with actual rich people please, not ask us to live right now, in the society we’ve got, without the money we need to survive it. Finally, a plea: I really, really, do not want to debate this. This whole thing genuinely makes me feel tense and shaky and sick. If you’ve got to disagree - unfollow me, block me, vagueblog somewhere I can’t see it. The Twitter version of this already has me feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I didn’t want to write this post. I just felt I wasn’t going to have any peace until I did.

would also like to add:

Losing Miranda Rights protections wasn’t on my 2022 bingo card yet here we are….

Because what America really needs right now is less ability to hold cops personally accountable for their actions

So this means that you do still have the right to remain silent.

You just now cannot sue if you are not told your rights.

Unfortunately, this will mostly harm those unaware of their rights. So will deeply, and mostly, effect uneducated people and those unfamiliar with U.S. laws (such as new immigrants).

They (cops) are not only further protected, but now are allowed to not tell you when you have that right. Which honestly can just be confusing for anyone.

It’s fucked up and definitely targets marginalized individuals, in addition to protecting cops. Double lose.

The Supreme Court does not care about us.

Now more than ever: DO NOT TALK TO COPS.

If you are taken into custody for Anything, you invoke your right to a lawyer (“I am invoking my right to a lawyer. Here is my lawyer’s number/Please assign me a public defender.”)

Then you shut the fuck up. “I am invoking my right to remain silent.” Do not make small talk. Do not answer ANY questions. If at any point you do (like to ask for the bathroom, a drink, etc) immediately repeat that you are invoking your right to silence. They will try to get you to talk. They’re allowed to try to get you to break your silence, and they will do so. They’ll make you wait for the lawyer.

Every cop show ever has taught you that getting a lawyer looks guilty, and I’m telling you that’s propaganda. Get the fucking lawyer. Even if they just want a statement out of you, even if you called them. Get the lawyer. Shut up.

every time I see LGBTQ discourse I think about that post that said masc cis lesbians get kicked out of bathrooms as cruelly as trans people do so why the fuck are some lesbians transphobic , and I think about how homophobes won’t check for your sexuality before calling us slurs and I think about how my local dyke March considers anyone who identifies as a dyke a dyke because fuck rainbow capitalism we are here to fight for our lives and I think about how my best friends are bisexual and I think about how lesbians have been loving each other in ways that the gender binary has never been able to understand(and never will) and I think about that post that says the worst thing the right did was convince queer people other queer people were the enemy

No: “Dysphoria isn’t what makes you trans, gender EUPHORIA is what makes you trans!”

Yes: “The only requirement to be trans is that you do not 100% identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Arbitrary standards of transness only serve to hurt trans people and give cis people more ammunition against us. Stop hyping up these arbitrary standards and milestones.”

I’ve reblogged stuff like that before, but this is right.

***that you do not 100% identify SOLELY with the gender you were assigned at birth. Multigender and genderfluid people can have gender identities that include their AGAB, but are still transgender identities.

Monoke redraw of my D&D ocs Eros (top) and Amino (bottom)

Backstory under the cut

This is your sign to change your Harry Potter URL. This is your sign to edit your house out of your bio. Trans people are going to see you in their notifs and worry you're a terf or block you. Edit your blog description. Come up with another handle. Thank you.

Spicy description tags instead of Hogwarts houses:

please add more...

Monoke redraw of my D&D ocs Eros (top) and Amino (bottom)

Backstory under the cut

I have an art blog now

There should be way more pictures of modern zoos so i just add some more

Seriously zoos do so much important conservation work as well I hate when people shit all over zoos as if the animals are locked up and not looked after

The SF Zoo has two sea lions. Now, if you know SF, you know that sea lions are a Thing. They’re all over Pier 39 and various other beaches in N California. In fact, the zoo is near the ocean, so there are sea lions not 200 yards from the zoo entrance. So having sea lions in the zoo seems sort of superfluous.

Except the sea lions are blind. One was found as an adult after suffering a gun shot wound to the face that destroyed his eyes. The other was found as an adolescent, weak and starving because it had been blinded and unable to hunt. So they were rescued and introduced and the zoo built them a nice pool where they can swim and sunbathe and people toss them fish. It’s not the biggest exhibit, or the fanciest. But it’s a home for them, where they’re safe and well fed. Sea lions aren’t the most romantic of animals, but they’re a part of SF culture and a lot of us have a soft spot for the loud, bulbous things. And because of zoos, these two get to live long, happy lives.

Whenever anyone complains about zoos, I think about Silent Knight and Henry. 

I think it’s St. Louis zoo that is saving big cats in Africa. Scientists couldn’t figure out what was killing off the local lion population. They were dying off from Canine Distemper. The local unvaccinated dogs of the towns would spread the disease to other animals or have it themselves. When the lions ate the infected animals they would catch it as well. You know what that Zoo is doing to stop this disease? They are going over to those towns and vaccinating the dogs for free. The community loves it and people from other villages comes for miles to get their dogs vaccinated as well.

They also do work with camel populations because the local human population use the camels for food sources the zoos help monitor the camels health.

Another zoo, I want to say it’s the Oregon zoo but don’t quote me on that, is helping female inmates. The zoo works with the female prisons by encouraging the inmates to assist in the breeding and raising of endangered species of butterflies. They plant the specific plants that the butterflies and catapillars need, raise them, and release them. These inmates get noted in any scientific journals that get published. They are giving these inmates a sense of accomplishment and validation.

Zoos not only save species but bring together and assist communities in an effort to save the environment. Zoos, good zoos, are essential to the future and I will fight anyone who tries to say otherwise.

PS you don’t see PETA doing any of this.

One of the local zoos in my area at one point rescued a bald eagle that had been shot and kept it in the zoo to let it recuperate until they freed it again. Some of the zoos in my state will keep injured animals there until they heal again.

Helsinki Zoo is the world leader in snow leopard and Amur leopard conservation, in their care these endangered species have managed to breed more than anywhere else in captivity and this in turn has enabled the re-introduction of these animals back to their native habitats. https://www.korkeasaari.fi/helsinki-zoo/

I work at a zoo that is instrumental in the California Condor recovery program (among dozens of other conservation projects). We went from 42 surviving individuals left to over 400, over 200 of whom are in the wild. We’re part of the amur leopard species survival plan with two young animals who are eagerly attempting to make babies. We host one of North America’s only bachelor troops of western lowland gorillas, preserving the social structure of wild gorillas. All of our bald eagles are rescues who would not survive in the wild. All our keepers participate in field research and conservation work in addition to a full time team of conservationists. We host the most genetically valuable male Masai giraffe in North America, who has sired 5 offspring with 1 on the way, increasing the genetic diversity of his entire species. If you’re against zoos, you don’t know what zoos do.

Super, SUPER important thread.

Also zoos tend to do a lot of breeding and conservation work with smaller, less charismatic species like invertebrates and amphibians. Those species are extremely important in the ecosystem but don’t get the same notoriety as the charismatic megafauna.

Also zoos are the reason that the Przewalski’s horse, one of the last if not THE last wild horse subspecies in the world went from extinct in the wild to merely endangered.

We’re currently in the midst of a massive, nation-wide propaganda campaign to convince you that staffing shortages are a major problem, when in fact they’re the most promising sign the American economy has seen in decades. Labor shortages are what rising wages look like on the ground level, and that’s what the business owner on your local news station is truly opposed to.

my shithole factory finally raised the starting wage from $14 to $16.50 after spending the last three months bitching and moaning about how No One Wants To Work Anymore

so like. it’s working. it’s awesome.

So look. I agree there should be more queer folks involved in the creation of media, particularly mainstream media. (Other groups too but I’m speaking on queer folks right now.) Queer people are underrepresented and shoved to the side and poorly portrayed and that sucks, and there should be more of us involved, particularly when it comes to telling our stories.

HOWEVER

Nothing good comes of the idea that ONLY queer folks should tell queer stories or portray queer characters, or that it’s okay to critique and harass straight folks purely for telling queer stories.

Why?

1. Segregation is not going to work in our favor. We know how “well make your own, then” plays out when the other group has the resources and institutional power. Especially if there’s no one even making them pay lip service to “separate but equal.” It’s not going to be any better if the segregation is self-imposed.

2. Saying straight folks can’t make queer media gives them a convenient excuse to simply not include any queer characters at all in the majority of stories, and I thought we hated that? I thought that was explicitly a bad thing? We WANT straight creators to be doing their best to write us well so we’ll be represented in a full range of mainstream media. Saying they can’t do it right and shouldn’t try lets them off the hook.

3. It puts closeted queer creators in a bind. Either they stay closeted and be harassed by angry queer folks, they come out and expose themselves to harassment from bigots, or they simply never tell queer stories, their own stories. The world gets worse for some subset of queer folks and fewer authentic queer stories get told. Net loss.

4. It makes the small pool of out queer creators the arbiters of queer narratives, which sucks for people who don’t see themselves well represented. There is no single definitive queer narrative and the smaller the pool of Approved Creators the more we risk instating a false one.

5. It opens the door to further divisions within the community. If a straight person can’t possibly understand a trans person well enough to write about or act them, can a cis gay person? So should a cis gay man ONLY write characters who are cis gay men? Ridiculous. No, all queer people are not alike and do not have the same experiences. So either we need to overcome that to learn about and empathize with other people and stand in solidarity, or we’re all going to splinter off into our own little bubbles which, again, is explicitly bad for both our real-life community and our fiction.

We want people to write about others who aren’t like them. We want people to write about others who aren’t like them. We also want people like us to have the opportunity to tell our stories but making it an exclusive privilege can only backfire.

“I would buy a mansion” “I would buy designer” “I’m getting a pool” Don’t give me that lame ass if I won the lottery shit. You’re all pathetic. If I came into a significant amount of money, you know what I’d do? I’d go to the Ren Faire, B-line straight to the cloaks. I’m talking floor length, heavy, wool, felted details, huge hooded cloaks that are like 450 a piece and all handmade and I’d get me one. Maybe even get one of the smaller ones that hangs off the shoulders and lands just above the elbow that are 90 by themselves. And I’d be the baddest bitch around because I’d wear that shit everywhere. It’s 115 degrees? I’m sorry do I look like I give a fuck? I have a cloak bitch I don’t need your fahrenheit bullshit. And you’re a FOOL if you wouldn’t do the same.

you've been hit by

you've been struck by

a roman senator ₍ₓ₂₃₎

I've seen a lot of fics disappear from my bookmarks, some 10+ years old, because they were added to an unrevealed collection. It makes me wonder if people realize what your fic being added to a collection actually means and if the authors approved it automatically without realizing what would happen.

If someone adds your fic to their collection, they can hide it! They can mark the collection as unrevealed and your fic will be unreadable to anyone other than them! If you're writing works for a surprise event, like a Secret Santa, this is really nice.

But if you're just writing and someone adds your fic to a collection for their own personal use and marks it as unrevealed, that. . . really sucks.

I bookmarked this fic in 2017, almost 5 years ago. Knowing me, the fic itself was probably at least a couple years old at the time I bookmarked it.

This is a 5+ year old fic that is completely inaccessible now because it was added to a collection that, as far as I can tell, is literally just for the collection owner's own reference. There's almost 30 fics in the collection, all of them unrevealed.

Please don't blindly accept collection requests and if your works ARE in a collection, make sure that they aren't being hidden without your knowledge or consent.

Are you able to remove a work from collection after you allow it or is it just a story that's just fucked?

Yes, you can remove your works! From the faq:

I'm not sure if you get an alert if your fic is marked as unrevealed though, so keep an eye on the collections that your works are part of.

There's also an option in your preferences to accept collection invitations automatically. I would highly recommend making sure that that option is not selected.

I realize this might be a dirty trick pro-censorship fandom harassers might try to pull on some people, so yeah.

Boosting for visibility.

Begging Staff to let me get a look at how the fuck does Tumblr's algorithm work

Title: Peter Darling

Author: Austin Chant

Synopsis:

Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is. But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.

[image: tweet by hereforsasuke: "how to tell a book is about to go the fuck off". embedded image is a photo of the Peter Darling dedication page, reading "This book is for every villain who ever inspired a queer awakening, and for every queer child who ever saw a piece of themself in the enemy."]

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it is no longer out of print!