#again idk how to put the read more option on mobile

[helpimstuckinafandom]

Thank you for answering my ask.....If you don't mind me asking (again), can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from Percy Jackson novels? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....

Oh god the questions' are getting harder (but thanks for the ask!!!)

**Spoilers ahead for the Percy Jackson series (so anything in PJO, HOO and TOA)**

So top five (in no particular order):

1. Nico di Angelo

2. Piper McLean

3. Jason Grace

All three were explained in my last ask answer since they're in my top 10 of all time.

4. Reyna Ramírez-Arellano

My ace queen! I remember so distinctly disliking her when we first met her in SoN. I thought her being from Circe's island was interesting because it was a cool way of introducing consequences to actions that Percy had never previously thought of (one of many, such as Calypso being left on her island and becoming increasingly bitter, Bob the Titan being memory-wiped, a lot of stuff with Nico, etc). But at the time, I just didn't care about reyna herself until HoH. When she showed up on her pegasus, I remember freaking out with excitment like "yes bitch! Holy shit Reyna's coming!" and being so surprised at my own reaction, because since when did I give a shit about Reyna? But after that I just loved her, and having her pov in BoO was so good??? Like oh my god??? Rereading all the books last summer, I realized I was literally delusional for disliking her (side note, but you are entitled to dislike her, every opinion is valid, but I love her and am allowed to). Like she was great from the very beginning, and then I got to TOA and she was so iconic. I know some people were annoyed when she expressly said that she wasn't into Thalia and they are allowed to be just friends, but I kinda appreciated it in a weird way? Like idk it made sense to me.

5. Will Solace

This was difficult to narrow down, and I feel people rolling their eyes but you gotta understand I thought Will Solace was so cool. Pre-TOA and before I read HOO, I liked him (yeah, for all of the two seconds he showed up, don't judge me). And then he became a more prominent character and I was so hype about it! He is more than just Nico's sunshiny boyfriend, and I'll fight to the grave saying that. He is brave and badass in his own right, he is a deeply caring person and I really have nothing more to say. I've reblogged posts that can explain way better than I can about why he is his own character, and not just some boyfriend thrown at Nico just cause.

Some honorable mentions: Rachel Dare, Apollo/Lester Papadopoulos, Ethan Nakamura (y'all can't say shit about Ethan okay, don't worry about it)

Now the REALLY hard decision of what are my favorite moments. This is just off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some! But (in no particular order):

1. Nico becoming the ghost king in BoL

The way he had me snapping and cheering I should be embarrassed but I am not. That shit gave me chills and I was so proud of him. Honestly, the whole list could be made of Nico moments, but I'm gonna limit myself to just this one cause I gotta be stopped.

2. The dolphin pirates chapter in MoA

That shit was so funny, I can't. And it gave us the iconic "Be-hold! The god's chosen BEVERAGE! tReMbLe before the HOrror of diet coke!" Like come on, that was so fun.

3. Frank and the chinese handcuffs in MoA

It's a downtime moment, but it was really sweet when he came to Annabeth to get help with them. I felt really bad for Frank (even though him and Leo antagonized each other, Leo was very much more of a dick to Frank) and it was just a nice character moment for me. It's sweet that he felt comfortable asking Annabeth because she wouldn't make fun of him for it.

4. Jason apologizing to Leo in Lost Hero

Another downtime moment, but I really like that. Everyone's badass skills in battle and funny moments with monsters are cool, but I really like intimate character moments (romantic or platonic). And the lost trio had a lot of friend character moments, and that's part of why you really feel that those three are best friends. I appricate Jason assuring Leo after the incident with Medea. Honestly, there are a lot of sweet character interactions to pick from for Jason alone, but I'd have to bring out my books and start citing shit lmao

5. Blood of Olympus

Yeah, you read that right - the whole goddamn book. Nothing can compete with the absolute high that book had me on from start to finish. Do you know how shocked I was to find out people hated it? I was so flabbergasted, cause it had everything I wanted. The pov characters were the Lost Trio (which I love so goddamn dearly) and NICO AND REYNAAAAA!!!! When I saw that they had chapters I all but cried, I was so excited. I don't care what anyone says, they deserved povs and they deserved to kick ass. Reyna's backstory was so goddamn interesting and her pov grew my love for her, and her fight with Orion was certified iconic. Nico was doing THE most - I couldn't get enough of his pov, seeing his thoughts was so great. The decimation of Bryce Lawrence? PEAK. Him, Will, Lou Ellen and Cecil sneaking around? Loved it. And I haven't even touched on the peak of Jason's arc, Piper fully coming into her own - like can we just all bask in the glory that was her leading Annabeth with emotion in that one scene? Afagdhdkf - and just Leo's pov in general, because the Lost trio had some of THE best povs in the series, no questions asked. The only thing I didn't give a shit about was Leo going to go get Calypso right at the end, but I was still happy she was getting off that island and that Leo was alive. Like it cannot be overstated how much I love this book, and rereading it last summer did nothing to change that. Is it cheating to list a whole book as a favorite moment? Definitely, but your honour, you have to understand-

((Just wanna give a shout out to another moment that I remembered halfway through typing about Jason's apology: Piper defeating Medea in Burning Maze. The satisfaction I felt in that moment baBY))

Again, thank you so much for the ask! It's pretty fun getting to talk about media that I care this much about, and it's making me wanna reread all the series' again lmaoo

#my asks #pjo #hoo #toa #piper mclean #jason grace #nico di angelo #will solace #reyna ramirez arellano #reyna avila ramírez arellano #again idk how to put the read more option on mobile #so sorry for the long post #long post

[electrosquash]

This may sound stupid but how do I turn off blazeable on my blogs?

And how is this bad? Again, I don't wanna sound stupid or rude. Thank you for the heads up :]

Hi! No worries, you're not the only one with these questions.

On how to turn off the option to get blazed:

On desktop you can turn it off at this link: https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/#blaze It looks something like this

On mobile it's in the account settings menu, there's a lof of screenshots in the additions to my other post like here (i haven't updated since i got a funny little bug that lets me add polls in reblogs of other people's posts so i can't screenshot anything).

Alternatively you can also log into Tumblr in your phone's browser and use the link above there. Don't forget to do it on sideblogs that you don't want to get blazed as well! You can also change the settings per-post in the post menu. I've actually enabled it for my complaint post that's circulating because it would be really funny :D

On how it is bad:

With the way it is set up, people can blaze your posts without active consent. This can be used to bully people, by digging out old or not-adapted posts that were not meant for a wider audience and putting them on blast. This can include vent posts, opinions you might have changed since then, selfies, niche things many people might think are cringe (like 2014 self-insert omegaverse fanfics and the likes ... idk if you've seen the drama that resulted from someone blazing their fic, it wasn't pretty), posts that were only meant to circulate in your carefully curated audience, and more.

Since Blaze's are registered in many minds as advertisement many people will react negatively to them so this opens up a way to bully a lot of people. As usual, people of colour, trans people, and other vulnerable groups will get the worst of it, many are already getting deactivated regularly because of coordinated reporting harassment and since people donate hate organizations all the time they will definitely use the option to make the life of a person they're targeting living hell for 10$.

Staff thought of some safeguards but there are several fallacies:

The option to cancel a blaze before it goes live: Not everyone has access to the internet every day, and staff might accept the blaze while you're asleep / at work / on a trip / in the hospital / on hiatus. Then when you're coming back to tumblr your notes will have turned into a nightmare.

The guarantee that staff will check every Blaze manually to prevent harassment: Let's take the case in which someone's old fic get blazed against their will. How can staff know whether it was blazed with friendly intent (to promote a friend's work) or ill intent (to get people to point and laugh)? They can't as long as it's not against the Terms of Service. In general there will be many false positives (Blazes that get rejected by staff despite being innocent) and false negatives (Blazes that get accepted by staff despite being malicious). After all, the people working at tumblr are only human too. But in this case, false negatives will have devastating consequences - and extinguishing a blaze after it's live will be too late.

Many people don't follow @staff, so many people don't know about this change. In fact many people on that other post commented that they didn't know what Blazes are at all! I think i've read that they will add a login banner to tell you and check your settings, but iirc they had banners like that for the original Blaze function announcement so i don't have faith this will prevent anything.

I should clarify that i don't think the feature itself is bad at all, but it should be opt-in so only people who want to participate get blazed (e.g. art blogs). Or add an active mandatory confirmation by OP instead of a veto option, this would prevent the issues above as well, i think that would be the best option - that way people could leave the option on. I know staff are currently getting bombarded with support requests / flames (please be civil to them guys!) (also sorry. but not sorry. i didn't expect my post to blow up but also i think these are legitimately troubling concerns and i won't make the other post unrebloggable). They're aware of these issues so i hope they will change to one of these options - if they add active mandatory confirmation by OP i would enable to option globally as well (Hint hint this means more money for you, @tumblr, because otherwise many people have and will turn this feature off completely) A bit more time between announcement and go-live (4/20 iirc) would have been helpful as well.

Here's the original announcement by the way:

And since i'm gonna pin the post as long as the other post is circulating: Listen to goatbed guys!

#long post #tumblr #ok to rb

[seal-jelly]

repost bc using the “read more” option on mobile is a nightmare. the image descriptions i put under them glitched out and copied the same paragraph 3 times. deleted them and it caused the other images below the “read more” to also glitch out. am just not gonna put the “read more” lol

here’s some auDHD martin (+ auDHD jon) for adhd awareness month!! based on a true story. new image descriptions (although typed in a way that’s easy to read for me bc i don’t know how to actually type ID’s) below!!

—

• Jon is sitting behind Martin, who is leaning against him, in reference to pressure stims. They are doing seperate activities. Jon is wearing headphones, while Martin is using his phone. Jon says “It’s ADHD Awareness Month”, and Martin replies with “Oh, cool. Forgot about that.”

• Jon snorts, so Martin asks “What’re you laughing about?”. Jon replies with “You forgot about ADHD Awareness Month?”, putting emphasis on the ‘ADHD’ part of it. Martin realizes that Jon is making a joke about ADHD and forgetfulness, and responds with “OH… I get the joke. I have ADHD and forgot.”, mumbling a ‘silly goose…’

• Jon gets more serious, asking “You wanna do anything for it?”, referring to the month in question. Martin starts talking, saying “Yes, but I’ve been in a super nasty task paralysis lately, so IDK if I’ll… be able to…”, and then realizing that he’s talking about ADHD again, trails off and says “oh…”

• Jon realizes what Martin trailed off for and starts giggling. Martin mumbles a “Shut up…”

#ADHD Awareness Month #my art #tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jmart #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #romantic

[utterdrip]

oooh if rambling is ok can i say a little something that veers maybe into overthinking territory abt early game astarion like you mentioned... a little farewell take before i stop bothering you fr ahsbdifn but we are vibing so hard on this i think

i think running an astarion origin playthrough at least in act 1 is a really interesting look into how he feels about the people around him, at least in terms of trust that early on. so like, you know how you get the option to confess to vampirism to any companion at any time starting the moment you recruit them? the narrator's dialogue and the confession changes based on your approval with that character. it only takes 20/barely out of neutral territory for origin astarion to think of his relationship to someone as "a strong bond" and he has to roll charisma not to fumble the confession after waiting a while to really trust in their acceptance. which is so sad!! hardly hitting medium approval is still close enough for him to consider the relationship a fairly strong one.

it’s kind of interesting to flip that around and think of his perspective on his relationship with the player character by the same measure when he's a companion, because ur SO right, it genuinely does not take much at all for their connection to overshadow. basically anything he's experienced in a long time. his approval sometimes jumps MASSIVELY just for listening to him and humoring some of his jokes, and being ok with his vampirism on top of that can rocket you straight into high approval. all of that means so much to him, where a lot of his other approval changes dealing with stuff out in the world net you a +/-1 most of the time.

it just seems like it really doesn't take long for him to think pretty highly of someone, imo! not that he knows how to approach that. for exactly the reasons you said: this is the first time in a very long time people (at least for the most part) aren’t outright dismissing or belittling him, and once his vampirism is out, he’s being tolerated if not accepted after revealing something that could very easily have gotten him killed if trusted to the wrong people. he gets to talk about things he probably hasn’t vocalized to anyone, ever, about cazador and his past and is potentially met with sympathy instead of scorn, and he’s free to joke about comparatively lighter topics like blood tasting menus or his more morbid “best ways to die” conversation. he’s still obviously on edge for so many reasons, but he’s also… kind of happy? vibing? experiencing some manner of positive emotion toward others? it’s so novel and unfamiliar to him to be treated like a whole person with inherent worth AS a person (rather than valued for his utility or some consumable aspect of himself) and have an entire group of people actually looking out for him, just as they reasonably trust him to look out for them, all without some kind of humiliating price tag attached.

like no wonder he’s suuuuper disoriented and flip-flops hard between vulnerability and trying to manipulate people well into act 2, even if he does like them. he just came out of a 200 year You Are Not A Person And Nobody Care You torture matrix and now people are treating him like a person and caring abt him. but he still feels like he has to pull strings to stay on top of things to survive because that’s how the world still makes any sense to him. idk. anyways! thank you again!! 🫡 i super didn’t mean for this to be an essay so like if you read any of that at all. i owe u my life.

OMG IM SO SORRY IM JUST NOW SEEING THIS IM USUALLY ON MOBILE AND IT MUSTVE GOT LOST IN MY NOTIFS

anyways hello friendo . i have read all of this i lov u and this ask OKAY PLEASE U ARE NOT BOTHERING ME WHEN I TELL U I LOVE THIS SHIT CMON!!!!!!!

okay so This Hurt Me because like. its true! astarion's main approvals early game are just. accepting him . as he is. his weird ass fucking conversations. not enforcing bitchass szarr's meal restrictions. not putting up with obvious manipulators (dream visitor aside because thats Power that he can use(even if u say u dont trust them tho he doesnt disapprove he just calls u my username LOL)) (u get +5 for threatening mizora and raphael) protecting the rest of ur companions from ppl that want to hurt them. protecting HIM from people that want him. like all of those are +5s/+10s and the only other +5 i can think of early game is letting him open the doors to the barn LOL and abdiraks display

but what im saying is like his main approvals are u protecting him, accepting him, and then like vocally and actively showing this off as opposed to passively if that makes sense. like i think a big part of it is being able to see someone who has no part of his old life, his old horrors, but still knows about them care for him. and also letting him make decisions. i dont like how i phrased it as "let" but idk how else to get that point across lol

like i was saying previously he'd really only been around vampires and those he seduced for centuries --so yeah hes gonna be a little warped. and those vampires were moreso "putting up" with him and he knows it. so to have you, a non-vampire, play along with his more,,, "macabre" conversations must be just. startling. because you two dont even have that common factor of vampirism, yanno? but being open to talking abt what ur companions taste like/how you would want 2 die must just be such a pleasant delight.,,,

"humiliating price tag" broke my HEART NONNIE BECAUSE YOURE SO RIGHT like that is obviously how he thinks of himself and his worth !!! like if u make him bite araj afterwards hes like "i didnt even second guess you telling me to do it. but afterwards it made me realize that im still primed to take orders" which is so-- aughuruhghgurugh.

and honestly i think manipulation is more than just a survival tactic in his life like its just . how he operates. so like u said in act ii where he is seesawing WILDLY between being as honest as he is capable of being to the point of vulnerability vs feeling like he needs to have the "upper hand" in his relationship with the player to guarantee his safety -- honestly i see this a lot in act i with the conversations u can have. because if ur having fun with him and not dismissing him, his last lines of the dialogue always seem like he stops himself midthought and is like "Wait. Must Manipulate" and turns on the charm and i lov it so so much because even earliest of early game in act i u can catch him off guard like that

because thats the thing right is that relationships, to him, early game is very much always going to contain a power imbalance. and its so so sosososooooooooooooooo amazing to see how clearly he was trying to be the one to Hold power, while still Feeling like he's the one being used -- he's manipulating us Into using him for protection, because thats the only thing he thinks he can offer. because relationships NEED to have some sort of offer to be worth it. but i was gonna say its amazing to see how that perception of relationships evolves thru the acts and how act ii confession scene and act iii post cazador scene hes holding himself as an equal to the player

does this make sense listen u ramble i ramble back this is our relationship nonnie

#frankie answers #bg3 spoilers #long post / #frankie rambles

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

hello hi idk if you're taking asks but. but I am fascinated by your watcher headcanons and I would Love to hear your thoughts about listeners *pleading face*

HIIIII I AM ABSOLUTELY TAKING ASKS. also i saw what you were talking about in the reblogs of that post and also really enjoyed your whole thing about the war i love when minecraft lore is relevant to this stuff.

everyone be so thankful mobile lets you do read more nowadays because this would be a nightmare if it didn’t.

also!! brief discussion of eye trauma below the cut! it’s nothing in depth but it is right there.

ok so we’re splitting the listeners talk into “full” and “partial” listeners again because it’s the best descriptors for these categories i’ve got even though i think it sounds stupid.

full listeners account for 99.9% of the listener population. listeners, unlike the watchers, cannot be born because of the circumstances of their creation. if you don’t know, the listeners were created when some watchers observing and running evos got particularly disgruntled with how the other watchers were running things (this is explicitly cannon!). to me, this group started with small stuff then realized they could get real weird with their rebellion and did just that.

full listeners, in order to create themselves, have to completely cut off their sight in some way. sometimes they've gouged out their eyes, sometimes they're wearing permanent blindfolds, sometimes they straight up don't have eyes! oftentimes no matter which option it is they wear the blindfold anyways, just because they recognize that without it they’re very off putting to look at.

both full watchers and listeners lack the senses of touch and smell, and even taste is more of an abstract concept than an actual sense for them, leaving only sight and hearing. the listners cut off one of their two real senses in an attempt to cut themselves off from the watchers and while this definitely works, it also makes existing far harder. mcyt is not made for listening to, let's be honest.

listeners, like watchers, feed off emotions, but they require far more to sustain themselves to compensate for the lack of sight. they don't try to avoid eating negative emotions, like a partial watcher might, but they don't usually try to create more to eat, no matter how delicious they may find them. this is less because of any care for the players and more due to the fact that listeners are less powerful than watchers by default. they should have full access to the same power set the watchers have, and they do, but because so much of their food and energy goes towards just sustaining life, they find it much more difficult to do what the watchers do. this is compounded even further by the fact that the watchers don’t want them to do their thing and are actively pushing them out. this doesn’t mean getting things done is impossible for them, far from it! but it does mean it’s significantly harder, and they don’t have time or energy to waste on making people sad right now.

full listeners can be created out of players, but the listeners don't usually go looking to create them, because numbers isn't what they need just yet. right now they're just trying to figure out an actual plan of action to take against the watchers. however, they know they'll need the numbers eventually, so if you ask, they're not going to turn you down. becoming a full listener, as is the case when becoming a full watcher, very quickly distances you from everything that made you you when you were a player. you lose your ability to connect to players rather quickly because everything about how you exist is so radically different, and your memories of ever being a player are quickly overtaken by the constant information intake being a full watcher or listener mandates.

full listeners interact more frequently with players than full watchers do, but find it harder to influence them and to bridge the gap between the planes they exist on to make their speech not rhyme and be actually comprehensible. the listeners talk so weirdly because it takes up too much energy to do it another way.

partial listeners... are not supposed to exist. and maybe they don't? they'd theoretically function how partial watchers do- a player who can still interact with the world(s) as a player, but also has some of the powers of a listener. however, listeners don't really have powers other than whatever the "moving between the place they live and the place the players live" thing is. listeners also don't really want partial listeners, as they find no use for them. their entire deal is working against the watchers, so what could they need with someone who, in their eyes (heh), cannot understand the watchers in the same way they do?

however, while you can request/be convinced to become a listener or watcher, i think there’s also an option to brute force it. technically, if someone was powerful and stupid enough, they could force their way into being a partial watcher or a partial listener... for fun? again, you have to be a little stupid to do this because it is insane person behavior, but it's fun to leave the option open. (whenever i think about the time sausage said that he definitely wasn’t a watcher when he was memorializing liml and then followed it up with a remark about how we just need to listen i think about the partial listeners thing. if anyone would brute force their way into this it would be him.)

#space rambles #my writing #HEHEHEHE TY FOR THE ASK I LOOOOOOVE TALKING ABOUT THE LISTENERS #and this is just how i think they Work this does not at all discuss my thoughts on their motives #(the short version of their motives is that. i don’t like them frankly.) #(i do not trust the listeners they are up to some fuck shit) #(yes they work against the watchers which is a good thing. but they do NOT care about the players.) #(i mean they can’t by definition. but like i also don’t think they’re above doing a death game.) #(they’d just try and make it more ethical lmao) #(like they’re the lesser evil but they’re also the devil we don’t know. and we don’t understand them enough for me to trust them.) #ok actualky that’s the long version that’s basically my whole thing about their motives

[moons-a-loon]

So, I've been gone for a while [a while meaning a month or two.....or three idk I lost count], and most recently I went on a 3 hour trip to ,y grandmother's, and in those three hours, I thought of something really cool [in my head atleast] and it was a stanley parable Càfe.

Now, hear me out, I was really confused with myself at first tbh, because first of all, I didn't know what the entrance would look like. It was thinking of a resturaunt me and my family went to a couple weeks before we left [gold star] and imagined the entrance kinda like that. 'Till I realized that it wouldn't really match the stanley parable when you walk out of Stanley's office.

Then I wrapped my head around that thought, what if the entrance was the office when you steeped out Stanley's office? So I kept that idea and was once again wondering how we could have the narrator. We obviously have to keep the narrator.

So I thought of little earbuds. Little earbuds that you can get at the entrance. Or you get them from stanley when he appears [which we are getting too], so the narrator can be someone who has a similar voice, narrating everything they do from the first thing they do when they put on the earbuds.

So now that we've covered that, now we can move on to meeting stanley.

Now, usually all the options revolve around the two doors. Which, is where we will be meeting stanley. He will be waiting for you between the doors.

The desk will be out a bit (like those bakerys where they display all the pasterys and stuff). Which, instead of glass (well, it's kind of glass) it's a screen. It turns on after you've made reservations and it shows places in the original and ultra deluxe version game places. Where you can pick where you want to eat. And, if you haven't guessed already, when you've picked a place to eat, the adventure line™ will guide you to where you wanna eat. Whether it's the memory's zone, or whether it's the boss's office. You can eat anywhere. Even the meeting room (or the apartment).

But I haven't really figured out how the outsides going too look. That confused me so much.

But I somehow know where the person who the narrator is going to be. And even do something to meet the person.

Every once a year, the càfe will host an event, that if they can figure out which place is the favourite of the year. And if a person guesses right, then they get to have everything free and meet the person who narrates the Càfe. But if two or more people guess right, the person who entered it earlier the the other people will be able to get the prize.

Thats all I wanted to say. I needed to share this otherwise I would die 💀 thanks for reading this this took like thirty minutes too to on mobile (I'm faster on console but i only have a phone)

#stanley parable #tsp narrator #tsp stanley #tspud #tspud adventure line #tspud stanley #tspud narrator

[yamagucji]

some tips for writing blogs, especially those who are just starting out. these are some things that works for me and may or may not work for others.

how to add a read more link on mobile

type :readmore: on a free space, then hit the enter or return button

personally i think they’re very helpful because it lessens the space you take up in your dash, and might encourage more people to rb

+ you can also add this on a spot where it gives a sort of cliffhanger, essentially making people want to ‘read more’

headers, banners, and dividers

though not necessary, it’s good to have a title for your work. make sure it’s bold and doesn’t blend in with your notes (aka pairing, warnings, etc.). this also helps when someone wants to look up one of your works in your search bar

i don’t really make banners or covers for my works. but some good apps that i know of would be picsart and canva. if you’re looking for ideas, i definitely recommend going into canva

wondering how to make those really small, thin dividers? you can make them using picsart! to make a divider hit tools > free crop > brush > size (adjust it to your preference > then draw a line along the edge of your photo > save

using the divider you just saved, go back to picsart and edit it again > draw option > hit rainbow square at the bottom left corner > hit suction/droplet symbol right below the check mark > color in the white spots bc for some reason picsart glitches and makes dividers look white-ish

new blog? just opened an account?

this is gonna sound really frustrating. but... tumblr needs to check if you’re a bot or not. what does this mean? it’s likely that your first few posts won’t show up on the search bar. you may not even get to edit your header/pfp yet ://

this happened to me and there was no visibility on my account at ALL. what helped me get ‘verified’ is that i followed a LOT of accounts, liked a bunch of posts, made some posts here and there. now that lets tumblr know you’re not a bot

visibility

the tumblr tagging system usually only allows the first 5 tags in your post to show up. so, what can do you about this? only use FIVE or less tags in your post. wait about 15 minutes or more until you can add some more tags in your post, and they usually all show up like that

another important thing about using tags is not to generalize! especially if you’re using a popular tag. but also don’t specify it too much where barely anyone looks it up. for example, if you’re writing a gn piece about oikawa, i recommend you use the tags such as: oikawa x reader, haikyuu x reader, oikawa x gn!reader, haikyuu headcanons, etc

a good rule of thumb is to use character x reader tags first, then leave the full name or fandom tag last

FOR NSFW: tumblr doesn’t let any tags with nsfw show up. so, give your nsfw works another tag. maybe #namegetspicy idk, you figure it out

FOR WARNINGS: especially if you’re a dark content creator, i highly encourage you to add tw:xyz tags. if you already have a warning note at the top then that’s great. but even better for readers who prefer to actually block these tags that way they never get to see it

another important thing to note is that people have different timezones. it helps if you rb your work at a different time of the day, in case people missed it! (icymi) i’ve noticed that reblogging helps to make your post show up in the tags

interaction + feedback

first and foremost, you are not obligated to write for your followers, and neither are your followers obligated to interact with you. remember that everyone has their own individual lives, and they have their own things to do— so do you, too.

make friends! become mutuals with other writers, visit their ask box. i know it can be daunting having to initiate these things, but you might just turn out to have fun! you can’t expect people to interact with you if you’re not interacting (back). it’s... kind of a two way thing yk? no need to be afraid to interact with other writers. oh, and rb other writers works!

pspsps join tag games or do ask games. it’s fun and very interactive

it never hurts to ask for feedback. i usually do this in a more subtle way because i don’t really expect a full on analysis on my works. maybe a little, is this okay? or feedback appreciated. sometimes it takes a little bit of coaxing for the silent readers

formatting your posts and blog

i generally put in the title at the top in big, bold letters

then comes the header/divider. helps to make the post more... visually appealing ig?

it’s important to add warnings (if any) and the pairing. the audience is not all female, and it might be a little frustrating for male readers having to find out its an x fem reader piece like halfway through your fic

if you have multiple works posted, it’s really really helpful to have a navigation page!

you can organize the posts you make with tags! for example, if you’re shitposting, you can use a specific tag for that. if you have a nsfw related post (ESPECIALLY when your blog is open to the general audience) please make a tag for it

themes + colors

if you have a color in mind but don’t know which direction to go from there, i recommend looking up color + aesthetic

looking to use the same color? download a name color app that’ll give you a hex code for any color you want to use. then, you can type in that hex code for when you’re choosing a color for your tumblr bio

wondering how to make your header image small like mine? just choose a photo for your header and turn off the stretch image option

want to use a different text color that tumblr doesn’t offer? it’s not as complicated as you think. you’ll have to go on a desktop to do this and do some html (but trust me, it’s not very difficult). look up “HTML noob but trying my best - how to use colored text on desktop”

^^ i don’t have the link for the color text tutorial so you can try looking it up

how to make an aesthetic navi and masterlist

step 1: decide a theme! if you’re stuck, think about a character + color/season/mood or look up “[insert] aesthetic” to find some inspiration. or you can try looking at other blogs too

step 2: find a color scheme! it’s easier if you choose fewer colors. if you want to use the same color for both divider and text, download a color name app in order to get the hex code of that color.

step 3: add categories to your navi! most navigation pages include a link to masterlist, about/byi, and rules. your navi should have a title that indicates that it’s... a navigation page. you can add thin colored dividers with the same color to make it easier for followers to navigate

step 4: you can choose to create a ‘cover’ or a picture for your navigation and masterlist! again, i recommend you use the canva app as a starting point

extra: search up emoticon symbols to spice up your titles!

reminder for you as a writer

you’re not obligated to do any of these things. i’ve noticed that we tend to build pressure on ourselves when it comes to content and interaction. remember, this !! is !! for !! fun !! when you realize that it’s no longer fun, then know that it’s time to take a break. and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of self care.

^^ c/p from this post lol

at the end of the day, follower count and interaction doesn’t define you. again for the love of beings, you’re here on your own accord.

will be adding more if needed/asked.

#cupid; talks! #cueuepid

[ayoalex]

Why is Team RWBY since the beginning present as a dangerous team?

Ok, before I begin this post I have to warn that:

1- I'm not an expert, this is based on my basic knowledge as someone that used to do martial arts as a kid, play a lot of video games and watch a bunch of anime/cartoon or read manga

2- This is going to be a long post, sorry 😞

3- You are always welcome to discuss in the replies or to correct in whatever I could get wrong, again I'm not an expert so don't be shy to call me out. Btw, English is not my first language so it's possible I could have some grammar mistakes.

4- Do not want to see any type of hate for any character 🤨

5- And last, decided to post this here because I prefer RWBY Tumblr community than Reddit one 💀

Let's begin!

When they present RWBY at the beginning of the project we got a glimpse of what they can do individually in the short films know as Red, White, Black and Yellow as well as some aspects of their character, backstory, etc.

As RWBY continued their journey we could see they seem as a force to be reckoned with when together but seem to be lacking in some aspects when they were alone.

The ones that didn't do better alone was mostly Ruby and Weiss while Blake and Yang seems to be able to hold their own alone (tho Blake seems to be in her flop era in the last volumes 💀).

So, let's talk about them as individual first.

Ruby: we all know her, leader of the team and the youngest of them all.

Ruby do pretty well alone when she's fighting Grimms, specially those that aren't that hard to go against. She's basically a prodigy and for that she got into Beacon earlier (and the fact she has silver eyes 😬).

She's the few people in Remnant that use a scythe as a weapon and she's pretty damn good with it; as told by a lot of character using that weapon is hard af so probs for her to be able to be so fucking smooth and amazing with Crescent Rose.

As told by Ruby herself in V1 while talking with Jaune, she did her weapon and here comes her first problem.

Not practical. Crescent Rose is a bad ass weapon and I absolutely love it but it's heavy and takes a lot to use it. It's a rifle as well so Ruby basically has to be a sniper to be able to go well with it.

It's a weapon that doesn't goes well with a team as can get in the way unless the user becomes a support for the team instead of being at front.

This is basically a metaphor of how Ruby is kinda a lone wolf at the beginning and awkward af with people.

But! She later gives some upgrades to Crescent Rose that helps her change the direction of scythe which give her adaptability! Which is completely important!

Now, if I take Crescent Rose away of Ruby what happens?

She's dead bro

Ruby is useless in close range combat, specifically physically one. We can see that in a lot of moments through the volumes.

She usually use her semblance as an advantage, which with her weapon works perfectly but without it is... Meh. It only helps her to speed up.

In Volume 5 Ozpin calls her out for that and then trains her, we then see Ruby being able to actually block and evade attacks without the use of her semblance... Until Ozpin took control of Oscar 💀

She knows basic stuffs, mostly with her defense but she lacks attack.

We don't actively see an improvement of this part in the future as she's seen to struggle keeping up with Harriet. Tho I'm going to give Ruby the fact that Harriet was being emotional and "aaahhh go crazy go stupid" In there.

Tho, Ruby lacks in this she make up by being a quick thinker and strategic.

She's the one that comes up with the plans and she's fast on her feet as well, she knows how to use her teammates perfectly to the point on coming up with duo attacks for them. She use her creativity to be able to defeat enemies as we can see at the end of V6 against the crazy old lady.

In general Ruby lacks close range fighting skills as well hand to hand combat + she can be really reckless and not actually think stuffs through it at first which can lead to disaster (she's getting better tho!)

Weiss: so... Oh boy, the ice queen comes next.

Her first actual win in a solo combat was Marrow if I remember correctly.

So here's the thing, as a solo fighter Weiss is the weakest link because she relies heavily in her semblance, get her someone that can break her aura fast and that's it, she loses.

But her semblance is really REALLY good.

Like she could stand in one place, do her thing and that's it but there's a thing... Weiss is too logical and sometimes narrow minded, her winning against Marrow was amazing and made me proud because she used EVERYTHING in that damn room to her favor. She was creative!

For her type of semblance that's important!

At the beginning she was too STIFF with her semblance but it got to the point where she has learned to be fast on her feet. Use her semblance in a better, creative way AND be a support in the team.

But now, without her semblance Weiss is a good fighter, being a mix of ballet with fencing/swordplay. Really pretty to see and then take off the damn weapon and she's pretty useless.

See a pattern here? Team Whiterose are completely useless without their weapons and semblance, mmmm

Overall Weiss is a freaking monster thanks to her semblance. She has gotten better to it, to control it and stuff, became more creative and less stiff as well as quick thinker but she needs to get better in hand to hand combat... Please, I'm begging.

Blake: ah yeah, our favorite emo cat girl.

So, Blake is crazy. That's it, that's everything I'm going to say about her.

Ok no, but seriously her fighting style is chef kiss

Blake use of her semblance is amazing, like this girl knows what she's doing when fighting.

Her weapons are great as well, like they are sword, a gun, then that freaking ribbon where she goes all Spiderman with everyone. Amazing!

Tho, she comes with an advantage that no other in her team has.

As explained by different characters in the series, Faunus has physical advantage over humans, not only some of them can see in the dark, but they seem to get some characteristics of the animal they are based off.

A good example is how agile Velvet is thanks to the fact she's a rabbit faunus or the way Sun jumps because of being a monkey faunus.

Blake being a cat faunus gives her ton of advantage, she's stealthy, agile, fast, listen better than the average human, etc

Combine that with her semblance, weapon and fighting style and you have an amazing fighter.

But Blake is reckless and that have cost her in the past. Not only that but while she seems to know only basic stuff in hand to hand combat, relies a lot in her semblance and lately she use her ribbon way too much.

That gives an opportunity to the enemy to take her out easily as we saw in her fight against Vine.

I'm going to say that Blake is generally a good fighter and probably one of the best in Team RWBY in general words but lately she seems to focus a lot in her ribbon which makes her an easy target, idk if this on purpose because Blake have always dislike her semblance or it just they don't know how to make Blake fighting style anymore but it kinda annoys me how she has been reduced to a damsel in distress in some fighting scenes.

Overall Blake is a top notch fighter and her weakness are small details that she slowly overcoming.

Yang: ah yeah, here comes my girl (stupid Tumblr mobile isn't letting me putting her name in yellow 😡)

As you guys know I'm a hoe for this girl so I will try to be objective here.

Yang is the strongest member of the team, not only physically but mentally as well.

So, by far she has my favorite fighting style of all the damn characters, I just love watching Yang fight. I think is because I did martial arts as a kid and then some kick boxing in college so idk.

Listen, this girl is so damn practical, her weapons are absolutely genius.

She's probably the few (maybe only one?) Character that actually took an existing fighting style and did her weapon around it + uses her semblance around it which is practical and smart af

Which comes to one of my favorite things of Yang, how tactical she is. Like Yang is what Ruby could be if it wasn't because of the damn weapon.

Like you guys don't get, Ruby weakness is Yang strength.

Yang since the very beginning showed us how of an amazing fighter she is. You thought Ruby is a prodigy? That Weiss is a monster? Blake is out of this world? Well Yang is fucking God.

I know I KNOW, I said I was going to be objective but it just MISS YANG XIAO LONG IS WHAT CINDER WISH SHE COULD BE, I SWEAR TO GOD, THIS GIRL IS BETTER THAN SOME OF THE ADULTS IN THE SHOW.

Ok ok ok

Yang is emotional tho, which cost her a lot (like A LOT, she lost her arm), in the past she was angry 24/7 (still is but baby got it under control 🥰). People are going to say "well not in v1, 2 and 3!".

I'm sorry but that girl has angry issues and the only moment she gets to be angry is when fighting so yeah, she would angry fight everyone and you know what? She still was an amazing fighter while doing so cuz she would kick everyone ass, being tactical about it, find her opponent weakness and absolutely looking hot while doing so.

Anyway, Yang doesn't have like a huge weakness like Ruby or Weiss, literally are small details. She's pretty much versatile as Ember Celica give her the option of shooting at her opponent. Since the beginning she was pretty much one of the best fighters of all the kids, probably coming second after Phyrra.

Her semblance use is pretty good as well, she seems to have a better grasp of it than some of the other kids and know how to manipulate it without overusing it.

Which btw is what made me have like a huge problem with V4 with the whole Taiyang stuff cuz Yang already knew how to fight like he was telling her, so idk I feel that was an insult to Yang as a character because the reason she lost her arm was because of stress, tired, being in battlefield and hello her partner is in danger.

RWBY

Now that I finished with them individually we can see that RWBY has 2 support fighters, 1 versatile and the other one a basically upfront fighter. Which comes in handy a lot of fights.

But it isn't this what makes them a formidable team but it's their chemistry.

Since the very beginning we see they do the most important thing in any type of relationship, communication.

As Weiss has her problem with Ruby at the beginning she end up talking with an adult about it and then getting call out for her poor behavior, that makes her change her approach to Ruby but before all that she did communicate Ruby what her problem was with her which made Ruby to talk with Ozpin and change her approach to study and her team as well.

We see that Yang and Blake goes well since the beginning as well, and they communicate a lot better than Ruby and Weiss at the beginning. To the point that we can see it in their teamwork.

When it comes to Weiss racism the rest of the team communicate her to stop it and then you have Blake and Weiss discussion about it where we got a glimpse of Weiss life in Atlas as well the revelation of Blake being a faunus and an ex member of the White Fang. This makes Blake run away which later Weiss criticized while telling her that they should talk first and communicate better.

The priority of RWBY as a team is communication. Ruby communicate her plans to the rest of the teams, Weiss her feelings, Blake her knowledge and Yang... Ok maybe Yang needs to work in this department.

This makes their teamwork really strong and their bond just continues getting deeper.

Add to this the fact they learn to use each other in a better way, as having both Weiss and Ruby as support helps a ton, Blake to distract their opponents and Yang to finish them off.

A good example of this is probably the train part in V6, where Yang fights all of the Grimms closely, Blake tends to fight them at some distance while helping out and Ruby with Weiss combination of support make the job hard for the Grimms.

This is exactly why JOYR had such a problem with a new Grimm, Yang needs someone to catch her back while she finds a way to destroy the Grimm which is usually provided by her teammates meanwhile RWB didn't had the boost of strength that Yang gives them in battle to be able to finish off the Hound.

Even in duos RWBY are a hard opponent to go against, probably the duo that would have a hard time is Freezerburn as we see in V3 and still I think if you put them fight together currently they would be a duo you wouldn't want to cross lol

They shouldn't have a problem with trios either but usually Yang is the strength of the group and basically the tank so is understandable that RWB had a hard time adapting without her there.

There's a part in the book Before the Dawn where Coco talks about RWBY and how they are a really strong team and even say that while JNPR aren't bad, they were basically carrying on with Phyrra since Jaune wasn't the fighter he is today. (Plus other problems that Renora have as fighters but this is something for other day).

RWBY in general has a great communication between the members, a great leadership, strong bonds and amazing fighters. They know how to adapt to each other styles and some members even complement each other (Yang and Blake).

Other thing that should be talk about its how basically Ruby and Weiss are too similar and too different at the same time to the point that they should clash a lot (which they used to do) but thanks to the fact they communicate their teamwork is amazing and in their own way they make it work.

It really helps that Ruby with Weiss can have the luxury to go upfront against an enemy while having Weiss to back her up which is something she can't do with Yang or Blake.

That's mostly because their teamwork is a metaphor of their own relationship as well as Yang and Blake teamwork is a metaphor of their own relationship.

Usually Weiss is the main support of her team since she's a large range fighter thanks to her semblance which is basically what she gives to her teammates outside of the battle.

RWBY basically fight is how they are with each other outside of the battle as we can see in multiple instances.

Yang being the tank and strength in their fighting style is exactly what Yang is to RWB, she's basically the heart and soul of the team and without her a lot of their attacks doesn't have the strength necessary for it to work as well as we can in V8 how long it took to RWB to know what to do while Yang already knew what she had to do with JOYR. She's the action.

While Ruby is the leader and sometimes call the shoot, she guide the girls through battle and help both with support and action. She usually starts the fight as a sniper until she sees an opening to fight up close which is a thing she actually do with her team. She takes a step back before talking with any of them and helps them navigate through situation in their lifes like promising Weiss to being on her side at Atlas to sometimes intervening between Weiss and her family.

Blake in the other hand is more of a wild card, she's usually Yang personal support as their styles complement each other but in most situations she does it on her own, unlike Ruby, Blake usually is more of an upfront fighter and only being support when Yang needs her which is a thing outside of battle. She usually does her own way, and while she support both Weiss and Ruby is with Yang where we see a more intimate support.

This is what makes RWBY dangerous, their bond and chemistry is something they worked hard to have as they started with difficulties, is a thing the 4 of them appreciate and love, it really helps they know how to communicate and do so to be able to have a healthy relationship between each other.

Right now we are finally seeing a lack of communication between RWBY, specially between Yang and Ruby.

As we all know RWBY is a direct parallel of STRQ which means this miscommunication between Yang and Ruby is important for their future as a team. Is implied that they still have each other back but it's necessary for Yang to open up to Ruby about what's going since this could create a breach if not treated.

Conclusion: stan RWBY and stan LOONA 😌

#rwby #team rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #whiterose #bumbleby

[queerlymasculine]

this is a really long post and I have yet to discover a way to put a read-more on posts while on mobile. RIP. I'll tag it as a long post, but that's the best I can do. mobile does have filtering, btw, so you can hide tags and content (including usernames btw) that you don't want to see, so blacklist "long post"

anyway

in tonight's edition of "growing up in fundamentalist Christianity was a deeply traumatic experience for me on top of the trauma I was already experiencing at the same time,"

I have realized once again why the way primarily cisgender heterosexual people talk about kink has never vibed with me.

fundamentalist Christianity is all about how pleasure is bad. if you feel pleasure, you are not doing enough. you are not a good person if you are feeling pleasure (or even if you're feeling calm and comfortable). suffering is the point. you should be suffering all the time. you should be uncomfortable. suffering is good. suffering is the right thing to do. if you are struggling and constantly telling yourself you're a bad person and constantly aware that you should be doing more, you're on the right track. but you're never a good person. everyone is fundamentally bad, and the best we can do is work insanely hard to be less-bad.

I'm not kidding. it sounds crazy because it is. it sounds unhealthy because it is.

and that's the narrative people have about submission. maybe suffering isn't the right word because I feel like at least 51% of people in kink understand that if you're playing with any kind of pain, you should be enjoying it at all times. I feel like most people think pain should be a fun time for you if you're going to do it.

maybe sacrifice is the better word. submission seems synonymous with sacrifice. submissives, it seems, give something up, and dominants gain. a submissive lacks, and a dominant has. people talk about it as though that is what submission -- maybe more specifically the type of submission that includes an aspect of service -- entails. that sacrifice is the core of submission.

and honestly I don't fuck with that, given the trauma I experienced. I can see in theory how one might enjoy that, I genuinely do. it's not for me, but that doesn't mean I don't understand what the appeal is.

but I don't fuck with it. I lived with that narrative for years, and it contributed to the other horrible things I was going through, and I'm over it, none for me thanks.

and yet, here I am, in a d/s relationship (intentionally not capitalized because I find the obsession with capitalization exhausting and demeaning), and here I am, with the desire to serve.

it should be noted that this desire to serve is exclusive to my owner and has grown organically in me. I didn't want this before I met hir, and I only want this with hir.

so, how do I make this make sense? how do I align my desire to serve with the fact I refuse to operate under a framework where discomfort, sacrifice, and suffering are expected of me?

because there's no obligation. there are no consequences if I don't want to or am not able to. I will receive the same praise and love, and I will be desired either way. there are no conditions on pleasure. hir pleasure is never more important than mine. pleasure can look different for each of us -- for example, sometimes it's pleasurable to orgasm, sometimes it's pleasurable not to -- but we both deserve and get pleasure from what we do.

when I think about performing acts of service for hir, it's a pleasurable thought and I have every reason to believe the experience in real life would feel the same way. I want to do them because I want to, which seems reductive, I'll grant you that. I want to do them because the idea of doing them brings me pleasure. the fact it will also bring hir pleasure is a beneficial side effect.

(obviously I wouldn't do them if ze didn't want me to. what I'm saying is that I don't feel compelled to do them because I believe I have to in order to please hir.)

i wouldn't want to do these things if I didn't feel safe. my desire to do them is one of the most pure feelings I experience. it's not complicated. I don't feel like I have to. I don't feel like I need to. I don't feel like it will make me a Better Submissive if I do them. I don't think wanting to serve makes me a Better Submissive than people who don't want to. it's just a thing I want to do because it is a way I can express how I feel about hir.

I wouldn't feel this way about someone who wanted me to do it or expected me to. I don't find acts of domestic-flavored service inherently rewarding, most likely because of the way I was raised and the society in which we live. doing these things requires a lot from me, and when it's expected, the emotional payoff is never enough to justify the cost incurred.

ze doesn't expect it. even when I express certain desires, ze never holds me to them, ze never expects me to want to do the same things every time we play. the lack of expectation and concurrent lack of punitive response -- not just lack of discipline play but also that ze never reacts negatively when I express my needs, ze never gets angry or frustrated with me, etc -- makes me feel safe.

ze is a really good person, and I'm not just saying that in the same way that people always say the person they love is a good person. ze is like.......... a really good person. I've only ever met a handful of other people who are good like this. ze is the kind of person who is so good that you kinda can't trust it at first because you're like, "okay nobody is actually that good. nobody is actually that kind and good and patient and smart and loving and genuine."

but like.... ze actually is like that.

and I just, the way I feel about hir, I don't know how to express it in a different way. there aren't other ways to express this facet of it. there certainly aren't words for it. this is the only way that can properly communicate it.

I just want to serve hir because that's the way I feel about hir and because I feel that ze deserves it. I don't think any of the random doms on here deserve it from me because I know I'm better than them. they're not good enough for me.

but ze is good enough for me. that is why ze gets to play under this framework with me. ze is kind and good and loving and gentle and soft, and I deserve that. similarly, I'm kind and gentle and loving and supportive and able to be honest about my needs, and ze deserves a partner and submissive with those qualities.

and I believe ze deserves the kind of devotion I have for hir. I believe ze deserves the way I feel about hir.

so it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. nothing about being hirs feels like I'm giving anything up. I genuinely see everything we do as me getting something. there's no loss or sacrifice at all. other people might look at what we do and view it with that lens, but their interpretation would be wrong.

to me, kink is just an umbrella of different ways to experience pleasure. it's a choose your own adventure thing with a wide range of options. the only two mandatory requirements are enthusiastic consent and safety, both physical and emotional.

kink should just be a nice time that you enjoy with people you like and trust. it shouldn't be boring or a chore. it should be fun and fulfilling. it shouldn't be sacrifice. there shouldn't be a price.

I want to serve because it feels good, that's all. I will only serve when it feels good. that's how it works for me. I might enjoy something right now and do it, but if tomorrow it doesn't feel good, I don't do it tomorrow.

and for me, I don't mess with extra steps. if it doesn't feel uncomplicatedly good, then I'm not going to do it. I don't have anything to prove. if a dominant needs a submissive to Prove™️ they are the dominant's submissive, I am not the partner for them and they are not the dominant for me.

my time is valuable, people. I don't waste it on shit I don't have to. if I choose to share my free time with you, it's because I want to, and I don't respect people who feel entitled to more than what I want to give them.

this is a good example of why I choose to be with my owner -- I have literally said the words "I want you to feel entitled to me" to hir lmao. ze has never acted like ze feels entitled to my time or attention. that tells me ze respects me and that ze believes my time and attention have value because decent people don't just go around expecting valuable things for free.

I know ze respects me. so I want hir to feel entitled to me because I want to be hirs and I want hir to feel that I belong to hir. I want to know ze feels and understands how I feel.

i don't personally see the benefit of living under a narrative of sacrifice. I tried it, and it fucked me up. I work with a narrative of pleasure and wanting to serve my owner is a product of that narrative. it is pleasurable to serve hir. it is exclusively pleasurable. it's healing, too. it is healing to adore someone this way and to be adored in return. it is healing to want to serve someone deserves it and who appreciates the entirety of it. it is healing to be this safe.

idk what the point of this post is, other than lacetop is great and you really can just do the parts of kink that are fun for you and forget the rest.

#long post

[protect-namine]

source

Oh god what did I just read... I don’t know what I’ll do if I lost that much money (OP said it was from their debit card, not their credit card, which makes this 10x worse).

This is a reminder to check that you have your stuff secured:

If you can use a credit card (responsibly), do so because you’re using the bank’s money and therefore they will have better fraud protection services for you. Using debit card means you’re using your money, credit card means you’re using the bank’s money, which means they’ll protect it better. (idk how credit works in the US, but the basic rule of thumb with credit cards if you’re wary of incurring debt: spend only what you can pay for, and not a cent more. Treat it as your digital cash and nothing more)

If you do use debit cards regularly, set up a separate savings account and put most of your money there. Have only a small portion of your money in the checking account where you regularly do transactions, so that when shit happens, the other person won’t be able to steal all of your money from you.

Use trusted payment gateways as much as you can and turn on 2FA on everything. If you can go the extra step, use a password manager.

If your card is attached to app stores like google play store, check that the app notifies you of purchases and requires authentication for purchases. Sometimes these things aren’t necessarily a scam (although this case most likely is one), but the situation could be as innocent as your child using your mobile device and unknowingly spending money on in-app game purchases.

If you get a fraud text on your phone, always always always check what it is, and also check your account statement regularly (I do mine every two weeks or so)

If you play genshin (or I guess any gacha):

Do NOT buy secondhand primogems, those are likely scams and fraudulent, in fact just don’t spend money that’s not yours

Hide/Crop your UID from screenshots. I know console players have more secure accounts (thanks Sony, I guess?), but do this as a precaution anyway. Better to be safe than sorry.

Gacha games have predatory mechanics. Be very very mindful of them. Explore other hobbies or other (non-gacha) games as well so it doesn’t take over your life. Remember: gacha is video game gambling. Know what you’re getting into. (Genshin is fun even with no or limited spending, btw)

If you decide to spend money, spend with reason. Learn how to budget and play with limited spending (set aside a set amount of money per month for games, only spend a maximum of that amount, and make sure to note how much you spend -- this is basic budgeting rules that applies to everything, not just gaming), make sure you’re not spending money for more important things like bills, food, etc etc. Also: if you’re really gonna spend, welkin is the most cost-efficient to buy, consider topping up only for a few characters. Use the pity system to your advantage so you can plan out your expenses.

Genshin is a PvE game where you can hyper-invest on any character and make them good. I promise you that you will be okay if you don’t get your preferred five star. There will be banner reruns and you can try again next time. You don’t need to speedrun this story-heavy, single-player game that doesn’t have guilds or leaderboards or competitive PvP mechanics (the only competitive gameplay is single-player Spiral Abyss and it’s completely optional). I promise you’re not missing out if you don’t get something now. You can catch up. Don’t give in to FOMO.

Genshin is fun with or without spending but please please be careful out there guys, and don’t cause trouble for other people like OP in the reddit thread.

#mine musings #genshin impact #liveblogging genshin #long post #well i can't edit this now since it's been reblogged but #when i said don't cause trouble for other people i mean don't steal money or commit fraud #i just realized the wording on the last part was kinda vague

[mikyouknow]

tell us ur thoughtssss! if anyone tries throwing hate at u, u can block them, they aren’t worth ur time :/ we wanna hear what ur thinking !!

Aww anon 🥺😭😭 idk if you meant this to be sweet but this really touched my heart ty ily🥺<3

(So I started answering this then realized it got so long so I decided to put a read more option which I’ve never done on mobile before so hopefully this works lmaoo but I just have so many thoughts 😅)

Well aight so Thoughts,,

My god aight imma try to put this well, imma just speak what’s on my mind with all of this, just my interpretation of everything rn 😅

So basically,

Something that kinda, idk, bothered me was when I watched this stream and George kept privately messaging Quackity and them being so giggly about that and all of it seeming v suggestive and them having other suggestive inside jokes that they kept giggling about and bringing up like,,,, it really made me feel so bad for Dream and he seemed so left out, and it also reminded me of the last George/Dream/captain stream when George would mute and call Quackity and that again gave me that off putting feeling with how he did that whilst being with Dream and being so secretive about it,, I’m not saying cheating vibes cause that is absolutely way too extra but idk how else to describe that icky feeling i got from that moment esp😬

And here’s the Thing about all this too; I’ve noticed George loving the whole jealous Dream thing, he truly seems to love to provoke that and it almost seems to me he might be doing that stuff so loudly infront of Dream with Quackity cause he wants a reaction out of him,,

But then also there’s ofc a chance he’s just genuinely growing that close to Quackity and is more distant with Dream and idk so much of that just makes me feel so damn sad for their relationship but mostly for Dream, no matter if it’s his best friend being taken from him or someone he might have feelings for, it’s sad to see 😣 also with how George and Quackity recently tweeted about how they’re now sleep calling and all that, it’s like George is either trying to replace Dream for whatever reason, or make him jealous, and idk which one it is honestly.

And then ofc there could very well be other explanations behind like all of that but, just with how I’ve been feeling like dnf are so off and more distant in their vibe with each other now in comparison to before, and all of this happening hand in hand with Quackity coming in and taking up a lot of George’s time and flirting with him like crazy,,, it’s hard not to assume there’s a lot of tension being built around all that rn 😬

#agh I really wanna apologize for how long this got #I do not think you expected this whole novel as an answer to that ask lmao #but I had thoughts and I took the opportunity to let it out D’: #thanks for the ask it made my heart warm <3 #I also saw the dteam went live as I was writing this #but uhhh I think imma sleep instead of watching that right now actually #I left the previous stream earlier cause I was just uncomfortable honestly and I still kinda am #but here’s thoughts !! there they are and they’re very raw and a Lot lmao #I decided to be honest on this one so 🤠🤠 #dnf observer answers ask #dnf #rant #honestly #I have way too much to say about all of this lmao why my brain be analytical like this 😔 #also sorry anon for taking so long to answer this I rewrote this like three times cause I didn’t wanna come across wrong lmao #really wanna word myself correctly here #but I just have so many thoughts on all of this

[heart-forge]

Hello! So I read through your posts and was intrigued by your thoughts on cp2077, I for one am excited for the story, despite some of the issues that have been brought up by several reviewers. Is it possible for you to elaborate on why one should hold off on the game etc. Like is it due to the lack of proper representation or? I understand if it's not possible since there are some out there who go too far when someone has different opinions. Anyways good day!

Under a cut, and still doesn’t involve any spoilers but it just got long even for me so to avoid sending mobile users directly to hell, we’re hiding it.

I can’t say much about it that isn’t secondhand. The game’s out on the tenth, and then I think we’ll see what we see in more detail there. All I know now, as I’ve said, is that trans reviewers have, at their most glowing, said that they feel isolated as a trans V (so very few to no plot-relevant trans characters, most of which are there to deliver one or two lines to the effect of “I’m trans!” and then disappear forever), and we knew way back when they announced that they were binding gender to voice that at best, their inclusion of player trans characters (notably not including non binary options) was confused and to some, hurtful.

News came out just today about how there’s a very purposeful, unavoidable flashing light sequence in the early hours of the game that mimics literally medically used seizure inducing flashing lights. They’re patching it, but somehow they made it past certification with those included and offered no warnings beforehand, and as people with epilepsy have pointed out, it’s so purposeful and central that it seems like it was meant to be seizure inducing (although I don’t think it’s out of malice: I think they literally just didn’t think about what it would do to people who do have seizures, and instead focused on how cool and disorienting it would be for people whose lives are not in danger; so a tale as old as time for “oh we didn’t consider the idea of disabled/chronically ill people playing our game”).

And, of course, the death march which I already mentioned.

Now, there’s not a perfect answer for “what to do when the media I love needs me to be critical, but I also want to support it still for the sake of the devs/so that my lack of support is not misinterpreted (aka the old “I didn’t support this media with problematic gays in it and the CEOs chalked it up to never putting gay folks in a game again”)”. And, as with most things, people with actual power (game reviewers, distributors) have the actual power to put their foot down (and rarely do, for a variety of reasons: no point hounding game reviewers because they are always at the mercy of a) their higher company and b) their personal safety and mental health).

From my standpoint, consumers can do a lot while still interacting with a game. I mentioned waiting for sales (although keep in mind this could be a long wait), going in on a game with friends depending on what platform it’s on (Leyla and I initially went halfisies on Witcher 3 because we didn’t have a real interest in playing it until the show, at which point we were already side eyeing CDPR) and then library sharing where possible (or disk sharing, depending on how geographically possible that is: idk I haven’t done disk games in an extremely long time). Leaving reviews which are critical of these sorts of things and not just “10/10, wish trans NPCs were better integrated” because a five star on Steam is a five star on Steam regardless of what was said. 

Very important is listening to people when they talk about being apprehensive of the game (and eventually what their broader opinion is), because today I’ve gotten fully off Twitter because cis male game figures (Youtubers, journos, etc) were like “hahah lots of discourse happening right? let’s all talk about something else” because as with all things, they are the least effected because they are representation baseline in all things. That isn’t even getting into all the people who implied that CDPR doing a pre-release patch to amend the epilepsy section was going to ruin the experience for them because they weren’t seeing the real game even though real people were being really medically harmed by said sequence which was not vital to the plot.

Try to get involved with individual devs, not in an aggressive way because again, frequently low level devs do not have creative license on squat. Just follow them, so if there ever is some sort of issue you can hear it firsthand, broaden the issue a bit. 

I’ve said as far back as the Witcher games that a lot of CDPR’s problem seems to be reckless carelessness, which gets more damning the higher up on the corporate ladder you go, as it were. Things are integrated without proper consideration for optics, without care given to sensitivity research, with the idea that because they don’t mean to do harm, they’re in the green. Maybe that’s a rosy outlook, given their social media situation, but sometimes for your own mental health you just gotta believe that people are dumber than they are mean.

But I guess the tl;dr is that to support the devs, you gotta consume the content. A lot of people, myself included, will not be consuming the content because the risk of harm is higher than the possibility that I will enjoy it. If you still want to consume, then it does support the devs to do so, but review it and at minimum you got to be docking it some stars for the death march. I know when Lovestruck went on strike it was immensely helpful that people reviewed the app and the individual stories while specifically mentioning us and that they supported us. The app score going down paired with this very specific feedback was a clear point. Write a thoughtful review with what you liked, and what needed work. Remember to mention the death march. People forget so quickly about dev crunch because there’s such long gaps between studio releases and so much hype built by their marketing in the meantime.

Also you can read this really poignant thing Leyla wrote about firsthand crunch. She is both passionate, correct, and living that anti-crunch life in the real world.

#talkForge #orange you glad I put it under a readmore #Anonymous

[mothbug]

maggie i’ve been trying to suss out the plot of ur bug lesbians for so long please tell me abt them. somehow it got into my head that they were?? like jaeger pilots? please confirm or deny

i can’t do a read more on mobile so i’m sorry in advance (coming back here after i’ve written this: it makes no sense. it’s all rambling. sorry. and i just put things everywhere randomly so this won’t even be typed chronologically)

yeah there’s giant fun robots! most of them are normal and fine but like a few of them are very fucked up

so there’s four pov characters and at the start of the story three of them are on the same ship and the fourth is the target they’re chasing? only one of them knows they even HAVE a target and is trying her best to stall because she and the target were roommates in fucked up robot catholic school. the other two are playing crazy 8s and being romantic and also terrified all the time but also doing a lot of theorizing about things because they know SOMETHING is up they just don’t know what’s going on. Bc you know. their commander won’t give them any information. and also avoids them because she hates narrative parallelism

also the one stalling is also having her blood drunk by her giant robot. and maybe being mildly possessed by it? so it’s maybe The most fucked up robot. it’s also a giant dog and a good boy. and an heirloom of a fucked up family. which may explain some stuff but honestly i think nisa’s mom was just a bitch and it didn’t have anything to do with the robot she’s just like that.

and she’s stalling bc she Knows she won’t turn perovskia in she knows she wouldn’t let her get hurt she Knows it’ll change her life forever if she finds her and she’s just not ready to face that. but yknow she has to so it was all just very silly of her but when something will change your life dramatically it’s terrifying even if you know that things currently Suck.

somewhere in here Arkansas’s family is threatened and it’s. upsetting. and i’m not sure what direction to go in with it but it will be important because her family means a Lot to her. she has two very good kind dads and a little sister named Tinsel. basically she has the only functional biological family out of all the characters and they make me :’) I also think they eventually meet Idabel and ADORE her and since she grew up without parents it’s just a very strange and emotional experience and. h. they r Wives. and the Trust family is all very sweet and kind even if Arkansas struggles a lot w gifted kid syndrome like i think her dads did their best even if they fucked up sometimes yknow. idabel goes fucking wild at the arcade like legitimately bloodthirsty and arkansas is just like i love my furious and powerful wife

anyway there’s some (a lot of) homoerotic space fighting (which perovskia usually wins BECAUSE she remembers when she and nisa used to spar and can predict what she’ll do. nisa ALSO remembers this bc. ofc she does. but perovskia had to learn how to adapt after Events bc her physical health changed a lot and she had to learn to be more careful about overexerting herself and also now knows how to swordfight. and moves more fluidly and confidently. so what nisa expects to happen often doesn’t bc perovskia’s fighting style has changed so much while nisa hasn’t really bothered to refine hers. anyway) perovskia (the gay little target that does a gay little crime and makes fun of you to piss you off) is like hey. what if you all committed treason it’s really fun and sexy. and then her adoptive mechanic mom gives everyone spinal surgery so their bodies don’t shut down and they won’t die :) that’s a thing by the way i won’t elaborate bc uhh :( but it is why perovskia has all the. nerve damage and chronic pain. i can elaborate on the actual Pre-story perovskia stuff later bc i think about it A Lot and it has a lot of bearing on her character but it’s also. before all this. but anyway if she hadn’t been bleeding out on Slice’s front lawn specifically she Would be dead. and there’s some fun narrative foil character shifts that happen four years before the main storyline but i will not say bc i’m tired

after this is Vague in my mind but a lot of it is Perovskia and Nisa reconnecting and just. talking. but being weird and repressed and deflective about anything Meaningful. And I have written a Lot about this so there’s more than I can condense but it’s very fucking good and. Idk. it’s a big shift in the narrative at this point and they’re just Agonizing about their dumb little feelings and it’s good. and P doing some work to make their giant fucking spaceship more stealthy. and Idabel and Arkansas being really cute and also going THROUGH it because i mean. a lot is happening. And it’s nothing either of them ever expected to happen but they’re like. hopeful for the future or whatever don’t look at me. It’s just like. put all of these characters on a spaceship in the middle of nowhere in transit and they all Have to have conversations even if they don’t want to because it’s HARD. nisa is forced by slice to learn how to make pancakes

Slice makes stew. They’re good at stew and contraptions and having a mild new england accent somehow. also canonically back in the scrapyard they would make things like the knife wielding tentacle constantly and perovskia would just stumble upon them. slice changed the live laugh love sign to say die cry hate because perovskia made fun of it. they r her mom.

so now they do some fun fun robberies and various crimes and it’s so sexy and i don’t think N and P are like. fully caught up at this point or know where they stand, so there’s a lot of very fun banter and having to work together despite really being afraid but also yearning to get to know each other again and just connect with one another honestly and openly after four fuckin years apart. because they’re both so different now but also very much the same. horse staring out into sea MAN. the thing is there’s no direct like. reason for them to avoid each other (at first P was shocked and overwhelmed and felt a little bit betrayed when she found out who was chasing her until she found out WHY. oh i forgot to mention Nisa BEGGED to be assigned commander for this mission bc she knew anyone else wouldn’t hesitate to get Perovskia killed. Forgot to mention that it’s IMPORTANT she fucking loves her so much god DAMMIT) but it’s just. tense and there’s a lot happening and it’s just. Ghhhdhbnm and ofc I and A have picked up on it since P showed up but it’s like. ok so what is Happening here. OH AND ONCE THEY START WORKING THINGS OUT IDABEL DOES START BEHAVING LIKE NISA’S SHITTY LITTLE SIBLING AND ACTING FUCKING DISGUSTED BY THEM ITS VERY FUNNY. they’re like perovskia you’re pretty cool what’s up with this. nisa sucks and also is a bitch. and perovskia says SHE CAN GET IT. and idabel says GET WHAT? BANNED FROM OLIVE GARDEN? and perovskia fans herself and is like yeah~ and idabel was just joking around but now is debating between mercilessly making fun of her and hitting her with a cricket bat. but god when P and N just get to hold each other in silence and security and just be. it’s . they. god. fuck. man.

oh i know this is a space story but perovskia just straight up has a sword (and some knives and maybe a gun idk) don’t ask me why idk but it’s very lesbian of her and she does gay little flourishes and is just. very annoying and i like her a lot. she’s very dramatic like her alias was madame revenant when she was living in the scrapyard and just doing some petty crimes like. she embroidered that jacket herself nobody calls her that she’s just a goofball. also warrior cats exist and she makes warrior cat fan animations. that just has to be true so warriors has been preserved for centuries. also she was presumed dead for a while uhh don’t think abt it too much but she likes that aesthetic.

Idabel takes the best to this new life of crime they are fucking FOR it she gets a FLAMETHROWER and Arkansas is like. wrow honestly my favorite thing abt them is that they’re both fucking INCREDIBLE pilots. like they know what they’re doing. and nisa is really really bad at it btw she cannot pilot a mech well. but this block of text isn’t about her i’m talking about THEM. Their chemistry is so good they r just. 🥺. and they both become Fast friends with perovskia because she’s just pretty likeable?? and ofc nisa’s jealous bc a) you guys don’t even like me :( but also b) that’s MY friend. it’s very funny. honey of course they didn’t like you you were being very unpleasant to be around. but arkansas does rlly wanna be friends with her and she and idabel have so much sibling energy it’s insane. i think they’d abel and cain each other for a scooby snack but also kill for each other. because they’re tiny girls who will growl at you solidarity and also probably hang out and just destroy things with bats sometimes. they all become closer and get a rlly sweet found family dynamic it just takes a While. oh also idabel is basically the chosen one and can set things on fire with her hands but it’s barely touched on because i think that’s a really funny thing to just ignore. but i also think it does become important because it’s largely fueled by anger and emotion and. h. i think idabel has a lot of feelings ok. Arkansas and Perovskia bond over having fucking anxiety disorders and have caprisun drinking competitions. i think it’s just like. these people all have similar trauma and need people to lean on when things are hard so they stick with each other once they have the option to split apart because by then they’re friends and work well together and Care. auto tuned baby crying mp3.

Alia and Agent Variety show up somewhere around here? They’re Slice’s very cool wives and Alia has a Vechicle Collection and own fucking stupid race cars and stuff and I love her. perovskia is afraid of being in vechiles so she has to take a fucking benadryl every time they have to make a getaway. Variety isn’t actually an Agent anymore and I also love HER because she’s very fucking good. they started out as just contacts slice had but it turns out they’re all in love <3 alia is also actually a sports car racer like. unprofessionally. illegally. which is just very cool of them.

Also i don’t think it has. a very BIG end, yknow? it’s like, they’re doing very good things and are up against a lot, and I don’t think they like.. singlehandedly take down the government or anything because they’re only a few people. but i think they get a happy ending and get to grow old while making positive changes to the world around them. like i don’t think they’ll be able to solve everything but they’re sure as hell gonna do what they can. But idk maybe they actually do get like. some good shit done. but again they’re not. an army. they’re a bunch of 20-somethings and their rube-goldberg-machine-creating chaperone. but i think they should get a fun climactic moment so i guess this is all to say i don’t. have an ending planned. but there should probably be one at some point.

OH AND the giant evil blood sucking dog vineyard vines robot Definitely almost kills Nisa (or at least fully destroys her in some way) and. it’s very narrowly avoided and she’s very very weak for a while because it took a lot out of her. also the dog robot does make grape vines grow and uhhhh any grapes that show up are 100% full of the pilot’s siphoned blood. also i think there’s still some remnants of that bitch in nisa’s mind afterwards bc an old mechanical god is hard to get rid of. but it’s mostly ok.

Also the bug people are just. a thing. like every person in the most recent generation in this specific society are at least a little bit genetically experimented on because. it sucks there. and i think if your parents bribe the government you can be a little Less fucked up but yknow. everyone’s a little weird. this was an excuse to put bug ppl in here they’re just the folks who were probably the most fucked with and i have many bug people here because i think bugs are cool and i want them to look like weird little bugs. This was all also an excuse to give the main characters fangs bc i’m gay. i don’t think randomly fucking with your genetics will make you a bug in real life so do not try this at home or at all PSA

SPEAKING of the society ok it’s very much obsessed with earth nostalgia and stuff and very yknow. basic cyperpunk shitty capitalism you know the drill you’ve seen space operas whatever but it’s also weirdly oligarchical? and like? it’s weird and bad and kind of a corporatocracy?? and. fuck. idk man they’re a fucked up space catgirl greeble-y amazon with catholic imagery. The Academy is also a thing but. idk how to describe it more than i already have it’s just kinda shitty boarding school. And after a certain point ppl can get sent on like. missions and stuff? in their fucking robots? but again i’m not sure what For. an option could be that there’s nearby Shit and nobody can tell if it’s safe because space is weird? also it’s only about 3200 so i’d say like. whole societies out in space is a relatively new thing and there’s some weird shit going on. so they sometimes send teenagers out in robots to see what’s up and that ends SUPER well for EVERYONE. hmm something SHOULD be going on actually there should be some weird eldritch space stuff. it should be connected to the more fucked up robots. it should also be Core’s fault somehow because uhhh capitalism and lack of foresight? anyway here’s women kissing i don’t know things. WAIT FUCK I FORGOT TO MENTION HOW SHADY SOME OF THE STUFF GOING ON IS LIKE THE DEATHS OF THE CREW PEROVSKIA WAS ON UHHH JUST TRUST ME DUDE like they are NOT afraid to get kids killed which was IMPLIED but also like it goes a little deeper than that and uhh i don’t know exactly what’s happening. but i’m sure it’ll all fall into place eventually. basically it’s very fatt shitty faction vibes idk how else to describe it. man it‘s like. just. there’s stuff happening they have goals and ideals and there’s probably more to it than i know so far bc stuff happens but i don’t KNOW what i’m tired and have been typing this for a year i don’t want to talk abt the bad capitalists i want to talk about tenderness and girls but unfortunately the ways in which the girls are tender are deeply informed by the environment they grew up in so i do have to think about it even if they all deserved better.

i think they all get a cat or a dog or something eventually. like they all deserve it. i think the final home they build together is actually pretty reminiscent of the scrapyard house. i think they get to live there for the rest of their lives and. just build something small and wonderful for themselves :’)

also i forgot to put men in the story they exist i just forgot about them. there’s nisa’s one ex i already forgot his name but he’s mentioned i think.

#IM SO SORRY FOR HOW INCOMPREHENSIBLE THIS IS I DONT HAVEA PLOT I HAVE CONCEPTS #ocs #long post #LONG FUCKING POST I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH #death ment #body horror cw #maybe #catholicism ment #again just to be safe #injury ment #possession tw

[punishedalexandar]

so the organized Belarusian opposition has recently published a list of demands and i thought they’d be worth going over in addition to everyone who is covering the protests themselves.

the manifesto can be found here in russian (archive.org link as i’ve started getting a 508 error in between compiling this and writing it as a tumblr post). i will not go over every word there but i encourage you to read it yourself if you feel my summary is incomplete.

the second paragraph of the introductory section starts out saying “To create a modern labor market with low unemployment, opportunities for young people, economic potential for investors and entrepreneurs, it is necessary to establish a new balance of interests.” here it bears emphasis that according to the world bank belarus’ unemployment rate (source, world bank) is 4.5%, putting it on par with Austria. remember that low unemployment is the first thing listed by opposition economists, as this will be relevant later. when they tell us they are looking to reduce unemployment and create opportunities for investors in a country with regionally normal unemployment rates, what they mean is they want to create opportunities for investors only.

we now move on the the first bullet-point in the section “Problems to be Solved by Our Reforms”

“The labor market is over-regulated. Difficulties in hiring and firing employees“ this is for sure an odd criticism to make considering we were just told unemployment is apparently the main problem. i don’t know about you guys but i sure wish the labor market here was over-regulated and it would be more difficult to fire people. im not one to use reaction gifs but this would be a great place for a confused sassy black woman.

the bullet-point list is concluded by a repeated statement of grievance against the state for overstepping its bounds in determining the terms of an employment contract “reducing the incentive to work.” if your employer was lobbying for their right to increase the “incentives to work” in their contract with you, what do you think that’d look like ? what does that term mean in a practical sense, would your employer have to lobby the government to offer you lucrative overtime pay or would they rather lobby to reduce your base wage and then add a performance-adjusted “bonus” ? the second point simply states that “The government's job creation and retention policy focuses on maintaining large state-owned enterprises through cash infusions, though the resources of the state in the economic crisis are declining.” again as if a job retention scheme is inherently a bad thing.

on to the next list, “Goals and Objectives of the Reform”

“Development of a promising system of full and productive employment based on the priority of generally recognized principles of international law.“ it would be nice to know what is meant here by “recognized principles of international law” unless of course that means selling off of the before mentioned state jobs to international businesses at below-market value as was done in virtually every country in eastern europe in the last 25 years, in that case i would not like to know what they mean by that expression.

“support for the unemployed and workers at risk of job loss” just seems further contradicting all the previous grievances of how hard it is to let people go, so is your plan to jeopardize their position and then give them training and assistance to make up for the loss of job security you caused or ???

(TOP - “5. Modernization of infrastructure (roads, electricity, thermal energy, telecommunications, water supply, waste collection and environmental protection”

BOTTOM - “to attract investors”)

the rest of the list is really just more repeats or meaningless terms like “fighting corruption”

now we’re getting to the meat of the reforms: how they are proposing to realize them. in order to generate employees, they are proposing to: support the liberalization of hiring practices (most likely meaning introducing zero hour contracts), threefold reducing the individual tax rate, adoption of the patent (as a practice), threefold reduction in rental rates for objects owned by the state, reducing administrative burden by half. 

as a result of these changes, 300k jobs will be created in the next two years. the plan says verbatim “These places will be occupied by both young people and workers dismissed from state-owned enterprises.” now i must confess i did not go to business school but i feel like if you fire 300k people, and then re-hire (most of) them with worse contracts, while paying less to rent the factories or land they worked on before anyway, you really cannot say you “created” 300k jobs. idk tho just how i see it.

other highlights include “we should be allowed to sell you shittier quality products so you have to buy more of them”

gotta have a section on Small Businesses. everyone loves mom and pop stores and cool startups, best not think about how its precisely their smallness that makes it so easy for large (foreign and domestic) companies to buy them because they don’t have the overhead to withstand larger companies operating at a temporary loss to compete. precarious small businesses trying to not be pressured into bankruptcy are going to be an excellent sponge to soak up all those employees we dismiss from state-owned enterprises and force to move cross country to get jobs (it literally says labor migrants from other regions and cities in belarus will fulfill this demand for workers. why do they have to migrate ? i dont know)

ok now that we’ve fried the small fish here comes the big boys. “3. Take all possible measures to attract foreign investors, including transnational corporations (TNCs).” finally a chance for the proud and appropriately-valued youth of belarus to work in call centers and machine tool manufacturies owned by T-Mobile and Volkswagen.

here’s what they simply have to do to get those charitable transnational corporations to toss these cold slavs a penny: large-scale privatization, land market (ie. privatizing forests or areas with natural gas or mineral deposits), creation of legal guarantees for property rights, acceptance of EU-given standards for goods an services (shout out to the real ones who know the EU literally has regulation allowing the use of cheaper and more dangerous pesticides and perservatives on goods meant for export to the eastern part of the EU “in order to be able to sell at competitive prices in countries with lower relative value of the same currency we forced you to use”) 

im gonna start skipping around more because there’s a lot of repetition, a lot of “once we fire all these people we can re-hire them, and that means we’ll create another 100k jobs” but this phrase specifically stands out and demands having attention called to it. detoxification of assets is business talk for when you steal something and then just say it wasnt stolen and everyone agrees that was very cool actually.

and here we have the experts who developed this proposal. 

Lev Margolin - a Belarusian economist who regularly prostrates himself in public begging the IMF to impose privatization, even calling for public unrest in 2016 in order to force the international community to intervene and force those measures.

Yaroslav Romančuk - a libertarian politician, president of the Mises Center for Scientific Research thinktank. in an interview with Radio Free Europe - Georgia published Aug 15th, openly stated that there were interests in ukraine associated with the pro-EU euromaidan movement interested and willing to oversee transition to a free society. he also named Mikheil Saakashvili as someone who he would like to be a mediator between the opposition and president lukašenka. Saakashvili is the former president of Georgia, having come to power during the 2003 Rose Revolution (hi mr Soros), whose tenure is highlighted by a strong push towards NATO membership, increasing the military budget by a multiple of 30, and starting joint drills with the US Army. he also privatized georgia’s healthcare system, leaving a great deal of the population without healthcare as they were stranded between being able to afford private, but not being poor enough to qualify for the public option. a short five years after becoming president, allegations of corruption, money laundering, extortion, and abuse of power were made against him, in response to which he had early elections which he won amid widespread accusations of voter fraud. hmm. later he would be so popular he had to flee to ukraine in 2014 after euromaidan where he was appointed governor of odessa and given ukranian citizenship (yes, in that order). crazy how ukraine doesnt allow its citizens to be extradited or something. anyway yeah thats the guy the opposition wants to be the mediator between them and lukašenka

Stanislav Bogdankevič - former chairman of the Belarusian National Bank ousted on suspected embezzlement and money laundering charges and also an IMF beggar. hobbyist advisor to ukrainian politicians and belarusian politicians acting in ukraine.

Mikhail Čigir - former prime minister of belarus, seems to be household name soft opposition, has interviews with RFE Belarus but doesn’t seem openly linked to the IMF or calling for widespread privatization like the rest on this list.

if you’ve made it to the end or this is the last thing you see before scrolling by, i want to emphasize that i am in no way contesting the accusations of voter fraud. there is not a chance lukašenka got 80% of the vote as he claims, nor am i defending treatment of the protesters. the people in the streets are overwhelmingly participating an organic social movement against the government. however it is rarely the people in the street who get to make the decisions following this sort of toppling of a system of power, rather well funded and well organized groups with ties to foreign interests who have something to offer to the international community (political and financial) in exchange for approving and orchestrating regime change. it is worth talking about what their plans are, and how similar plans have affected people in neighboring countries that were in similar situations. what i wish for the people of belarus is the ability to pursue fulfilling personal lives that are not marred by choices like “can i afford to start a family ?” 

#belarus #alyaksandr lukashenka #yaroslav romanchuk #sviatlana tsikhanouskaya #will prob edit and add tomorrow luckily im being paid big lukašenka rubles so i can say whatever as long as it ends with IMF kill yourself

[robin-in-a-hoodie]

Even with Mark his anger is swepted away time and time again by his girlfriend and sister asking him to trust them. They are basically going ICE/the cops and asking a victim of the grouos inhuman treatment to trust the system. You know I don't think there is a single positive portrayal or reference to a person living with cluster B tendencies in the whole show. One side patient is misdiagnosed with bpd but it turns out that was wrong and the medicine hurt her.

It has like. Five parts so this is just an answer to anon who knows what they asked because I'm always on mobile and it's hell

Anyway long story short it was an explanation of why tama is abelist and it was well written and thank you for taking the time to do this, but while i agree on some points, i respectfully disagree. You are welcome to continue disagreeing with me but I'll answer fully since you took the time to explain (sorry if this sounds sarcastic, it isn't)

Yes, there absolutely is a lack of positive rep for people with personality disorders and that is a problem as well as the choise of "psycho" and co as insults are not. Good. But this is if anything a cautionary tale, a "if you lock people up don't expect them to be kind" type of story

There are tier five survivors we meet, both Mark and Oliver, who are not perfect and are dealing with their trauma and not necessarily in a good way, and they are indeed asked to trust but they don't, because they can't, and everyone is very understanding to the fact that they can't

I agree that the whole trope of "victim was actually a monster" is not the best one, but some people truly are dangerous, and the dhow recognises that a. Tier five is simply inhumane and cannot go on and b. Sometimes locking people up is literally the only option because some people, very rare ones, are simply too far gone and they are willing to kill people, *kill people* for very not last resort kind of reasons. I think the amount of emphasis that the am archives put on explaining just how fucked up tier five was and just how awful tier five was and how much it created the monster in the first place drives home that "people shouldn't be locked up" narrative better than anything, but still recognises that murder... Happens. And we can't just let people who do murder just. Exist. I'm not exactly talking about Helen, although her too, i know the prison system is not about improving as a person thus i don't think prison would help her, but think about Tylor who just made people go inside out because she could. Tier five was not the right call but something needed to be done, and something will need to be done for future tylors, and i don't think the writers know what will be the exact solution the same way we here don't really know. So they left it opened, like it's opened here.

Mark and Oliver are written great in my eyes and there's an emphasis on their trauma and mistrust and the fact they can't just forgive and forget. They are very clearly written as the victims of horrible unspeakable things, i think it's very clear in show but if it doesn't read that way to you there's not much i can do about it

I don't. See. The ice/police correlation at all honestly they aren't asked to trust tier five or the am as a whole, just that Joan and Sam are doing their very best to try and fix at least this one part of it. The am isn't inherently bad, it's a hospital, the police and ice are inherently bad (you could argue other countries have the police not quite as inherently bad but still currently very bad but you know, this isn't about it)

Idk how coherent this is but tldr, tama deals with what can and probably will rise from locking people up, that this will inherently lead to more problems than it solves either in the way of trauma or in the way of they will murder you and anyone who trues protecting you way, maybe one of these is extreme but it happens, and while it's on the person to not murder it's on the people in power to not push people to feel like murder is the only choice. I feel like this is very obvious in the show but you are more than free to disagree, and again thank you for the ask, if you ever wanna chat my DMs are opened :)

#ask #apparently #i know i know this is useless without the rea #fuck #the rest of the ask but it's three am #and i don't know how to use this website #but anon knows what they asked #so that's just me replying to them

[merlins-mushrooms]

God I haven't been able to stop thinking about this concept for the past three days, I've spent every single minute I'm at work stewing over this and fleshing it out and I'm ready to burst. Long post ahead because for some reason I can't put a 'read more' when I'm on mobile.

Okay. Imagine, if you will.

You and Cedric are young, maybe teenagers, maybe young adults, but you're young. Cedric is absolutely enamored with you, and you feel the same. Doesn't matter if you two are longtime friends, point is that something is blossoming between the two of you.

Winnifred notices and is simply thrilled. Goodwyn notices and is... devastated.

You aren't magical. Not a single drop of magical blood courses through you. Goodwyn knows Cedric is already a lousy sorcerer, what hope does his grandchildren have if they come from a father who is a bungler and a mother who can't even cast a spell?

Ignoring his wife's constant gushing about you and how happy you make Cedric, Goodwyn does everything he can to drive you two apart. He sets strict curfews for Cedric, but soon catches Cedric sneaking out. So he charms Cedric's bedroom door to remain locked at night. When he learns that you've started sneaking into Cedric's room through the window, Goodwyn requests extra guards around the tower to endure you can't prowl your way in.

All of these restrictions only motivate Cedric to learn spells and charms to aid him in defying his father. They also irritate Winifred to no end and she takes on a sort of double agent role, pretending to be on Goodwyn's side, but looking the other way if she sees the two of you or knows you're breaking his dumb rules. She adores you, and knows how happy you make her son, and she won't let Goodwyn ruin it.

(This next idea is super specific please don't ask how I conjured this I really have no idea, the idea sort of just manifested in my brain and I was like "oh okay this is neat" and went with it)

So Enchancia has a tradition that ladies of eligible age (18-20ish maybe, idk) have a sort of debutante ball where they "come out" to society. It's not mandatory by any means, parents are the ones who choose whether to present their daughters at this ball. It's held in the castle ballroom every year, and the royal family and castle staff attend. Because tradition, I guess.

You never imagined your parents would make you go through that process, so when your mother tells that she's taking you dress shopping, you kind of just "?!!??!!?" and Cedric teases you to no end. The two of you always made fun of those snooty girls whose parents paraded them around like livestock, showing off that they come from good breeding, or whatever. Karma is a bitch, though, and now you're going to be one of those girls. You eventually come around to the idea, knowing that your parents weren't going to take this super seriously, it was mostly being done to please your extended family and to take part in a historical tradition. Suddenly this ball didn't seem so horrible. The idea that you'd be receiving all this positive attention just for being a woman of your age, as archaic as it was, seemed kind of nice. The only problem is your escort situation.

You had planned for Cedric to be your escort, since it seemed to be the logical option. The two of you were... involved? Courting? Flirting? Whatever you two were doing it was definitely surpassing friend territory. However, when Cedric brings it up to his parents, they inform him that castle staff are not permitted to be escorts. Members of the royal family aren't allowed to be escorts either. No one knows why. Again, tradition. Winnifred hates breaking the news to Cedric, but Goodwyn is practically doing a jig. This is perfect! You'll find someone else to escort you, and with any luck, you'll fall for them by the time he evening is over. You and Cedric will be history, and his future grandchildren will have a chance to carry on his legacy, since god knows Cedric won't be able to.

It's perfect.

#this post is getting long so im going to continue this later