#there are sources on that post the very least you could do is check them before you think you need to correct me

[metamorphesque]

hi! sorry this is so abrupt, but i was hoping that you could boost this gofundme campaign. it has been vetted by gazafunds (you can check by searching "help the helpless mother & her 3 children in gaza" in https://gazafunds.com/all). there are also unique photos and videos in their gofundme description!

al-ameen was a three-year-old with leukemia who passed away on may 14th after his family has unable to afford medical treatment. this campaign is for his mother and remaining three siblings: ahmed, rema and mohammed. they have had no source of income since their father went missing months back. this family has already been through unthinkable loss. it's the least we can do to support them in a time of grief and crisis.

here is the link to their campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/financial-help-for-the-family-of-alameen

the campaign goal is extremely reachable at only £15,000. however, it's only at a quarter of the goal. i've been promoting al-ameen's family's campaign on my personal blog, but i simply do not have very much reach. it would mean so much if you could share this link!!

Please help Al-Ameen's family by donating or sharing this post!

#help palestine #help gaza

[simplespacedust]

@dead-catgirl

This message is a reply to a comment that i received on an earlier post, that was too long to put in my notes. the original post is linked here: https://www.tumblr.com/simplespacedust/752572123941355520/hey-so-im-gonna-talk-about-pro-shippers-and-anti?source=share

Hello! You're being respectful in my replies here so let's have a conversation about this! The first comment/point that you made about pro-shipping as an ideology I have already responded to in the most recent post on my blog so if you wanna read what I have there you can check that out.

For the second point about therapy and pro-shipping, I can’t really take your experiences with your personal therapist as a valid point in the argument because I have no proof of that, or any therapist encouraging it as a coping mechanism. But let’s even pretend that we could. In this hypothetical, maybe if a therapist encourages a person to write fictional porn of characters as a way of coping with their trauma, I still don't think they should be posting it on the internet, because I believe that does more harm than good. If you (the general you, not you specifically) REALLY need to write stories about people assaulting minors to cope with the fact that you were assaulted as a minor, then at the very least keep it to yourself. Airing out your personal trauma via south park characters raping each other does not seem like a good idea because it makes you more vulnerable to people on the internet who could use that against you, and it risks doing harm to others.

For the third point that you made, about people who cope by reading or looking at other’s art, is where we have to start looking at a larger picture than one person who wants to get off on minors being raped. The net impact of posting something like that to the internet, while it may make one person temporarily feel better by sending a surge of dopamine to their brain, reading or seeing something like that could severely harm the mental state of others. It's about the net impact and the bigger picture.

In your fourth point about children on the internet being unsupervised, I agree with you that children should not be given free reign over the internet. However, they are. Again, this goes back to the idea of net impact specifically by looking at an argument in a practical sense vs. how it would be in a perfect world. There are tons of unknowing kids who get into this unintentionally every day. I cannot provide proof of this just like you cannot provide proof of what your therapist said, but I knew someone personally who was on social media and got sucked into an online space FULL of pedophiles who would post drawings of children and say revolting things about them. I was the person who had to call my friend’s mom and get them help after their involvement in this. I saw what they were saying to each other, and while I was not traumatized, others that asked me what happened had to stop me mid-way through my description because they couldn't handle how vile it all was. Again, real world implications over ideal world scenarios.

For your fifth point, I don't believe anti=safe in all cases no matter what. Pedophiles are fucking everywhere and it is disgusting, but creating art that indulges that only furthers the issue and creates more spaces on either side for them to slip into. For your sixth point, i am aware that a healthy, stable adult, upon seeing pro-shipper media, will not instantly become brainwashed and wanna fuck kids. But this goes back to the real world vs. idealistic scenario. Kids are bound to see that by nature of the internet, and it doesn't matter at that point. It can and will do harm to them. 

Now, after all the points that you made, you made a rather assumptive point about me personally, saying that I had seen pro-shipper media and gotten upset or triggered by it, and that I was able to tell it was immoral and not get brainwashed by it. I have seen pro-shipper media accidentally. While I did not get triggered by it/have a mental health episode in response to it, I did find it gross. And yes, I can tell that it was immoral and wrong. The problem is about the people younger than me that couldn’t/wouldn’t have the capacity to react the same way.

I have been on the internet for a long time. I know what I am getting into and I know how to handle seeing things that are gross to me. Again, ideal world vs. real world. Kids who see sexual content of a problematic nature are much more likely to not be able to handle what they see properly. Some kids may even become sucked into it and experience trauma of a sexual nature, thus making your coping mechanism create trauma for another person. No coping mechanism should EVER run the risk of traumatizing another person. That is selfish and inconsiderate imo. 

No worries about the essay in my comments, I appreciate you being respectful and organizing a clear argument without calling me offensive names and/or just swearing at me endlessly. This point that I am making actually has very little to do with me. Again, if I see pro-shipper art, I can just scroll and be fine. It's about the people that can’t. It’s fundamentally about empathy and healthy boundaries online, and understanding the impact that things you post can have on other people, mainly children.

[rudjedet]

every day i am subjected to takes

"inexplicable" my ass

#there are sources on that post the very least you could do is check them before you think you need to correct me #i don't mind people going 'huh this info is not what i was told' but your first instinct should be to cross reference #not kneejerk into 'OP is very definitely wrong' when what OP did was make post correcting common misinfo #OP *can* be wrong even if OP is an egyptologist but please. at least be normal about this instead of doubling down on the misinfo

[phoenixyfriend]

Michigan just gave us the rhetorical weapon that could push Biden and the DNC to turn their backs on Israel.

Okay so this is amazing news. Michigan was going to be a key state in the push to get Biden, and the DNC as a whole, to start pressuring Israel, and they have just proven that they have that power.

Background: Michigan is a swing state, and it has 16 votes in the electoral college. Winning Michigan was a major factor in Biden's win back in 2020, and much of that rested on the Arab-American vote. It was also a major factor in Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in 2016. She lost the state by ten thousand, seven hundred votes.

Praxis: For obvious reasons, Arab-Americans are incredibly upset with Biden's support for Israel, and support in that demographic has gone from 59% in the 2020 election to less than 17% now. As a form of protest, Arab-Americans in Michigan started a campaign to get voters to check "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary. This is an actual box that can be checked, though some less-organized pushes also suggested writing in 'ceasefire' like New Hampshire primary voters did.

The goal was to get at least 10,000 'uncommitted' votes, as that is how many Hillary lost by.

As Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab mayor of this majority-Arab city, said:

"We're not sizable enough to make a candidate win, but we're sizable enough to make a candidate lose."

(Source: NPR, 2/25/24)

Result:

As of 10:49 PM EST, 2/27, there are thirty-nine thousand uncommitted votes, according to CNN, which is doing live coverage.

NPR was reporting 30k at 10:14.

As a caveat, New York Times is saying that each of the last three Michigan Dem Primaries had about 20k uncommitted votes, so the 35k isn't all the push for pro-Palestine stances in Congress, but that's still a jump of almost 20k, which is way, way more than the goal.

And they aren't done counting the votes yet. Barely 30% of votes are in. The goal has been blown out of the water.

Other states are reaching out for advice on how to replicate the results.

This is big news.

So can we relax?

Fuck no.

Do what Michigan did. Vote in the Dem primary, and vote uncommitted or write in "ceasefire."

But on a more daily basis, if you have a Democratic candidate, lean on this.

Tell them it will be repeated elsewhere.

This could very well lose the election for Biden and more. The Democrats can't afford another four years of Trump, and they know it. The loss of Michigan can and will tank this election for them, especially since other states that helped Biden win, like Georgia, were also won on demographics that are growing increasingly upset by the situation in Gaza.

Go to the Michigan section of this post and use that in your calls and emails.

But remember. Call your reps. Call your senators. Call your governor, if you'd like. And if they're a Democrat, you bring this up. Be polite, the staffer isn't making these decisions. They might just be an intern. But bring it up and tell them that we are going to lose the presidency if we do not sanction Israel and actually pressure them into not only pulling out of Gaza and the West Bank, but paying reparations.

#michigan #united states #michigan primary #primary voting #democratic primary #current events #phoenix politics #voting #praxis #politics #pro palestine #gaza #palestine #israel #2024 election

[brokenbackmountain]

hi! sorry this is so abrupt, but i was hoping that you could boost this gofundme campaign. it has been vetted by gazafunds (you can check by searching "help the helpless mother & her 3 children in gaza" in https://gazafunds.com/all). there are also unique photos and videos in their gofundme description!

al-ameen was a three-year-old with leukemia who passed away on may 14th after his family has unable to afford medical treatment. this campaign is for his mother and remaining three siblings: ahmed, rema and mohammed. they have had no source of income since their father went missing months back. this family has already been through unthinkable loss. it's the least we can do to support them in a time of grief and crisis.

here is the link to their campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/financial-help-for-the-family-of-alameen

the campaign goal is extremely reachable at only £15,000. however, progress as been stagnating. i've been promoting al-ameen's family's campaign on my personal blog, but i simply do not have very much reach. it would mean so much if you could share this link!!

Please donate to the fundraiser for Al-Ameen's family; if you are unable to, please share it.

As of making this post, it has received 2,334/15,000 Pounds.

#palestine #free palestine #sb #signal boost #gaza #free gaza #fundraisers #gofundme #gfm #reblog #all eyes on rafah #all eyes on palestine #all eyes on gaza #keep eyes on rafah

[sgiandubh]

The door faces North

This has been, by far, one of the most complex investigations I have ever done in this fandom, and I am truly sorry for the long wait I had to inflict on many of you & for the uncharacteristic radio silence in DMs and comments. During this peculiar journey, I checked, double-checked and cross-checked as many details as I could and I carefully considered at least two different theories, of which I still think they do not exclude each other. I am now confident enough to make not only an educated guess, but also a daring bet on SRH's next whisky move.

Also, sorry for the length of this post. Truly sorry - think of the completely pulverized night sleep I had to give up, in order to bring this to you.

But first, a word on Marple's obvious PR tip on the Hopetoun Estate refurbishment and distillery old/new project. I am fair game enough to tell you the obvious: her overall recounting of the principals is roughly correct, spare perhaps one or two minor details. Correct, but dry - she limits herself to the technical documentation submitted by Golden Decanters and The Hopetoun Estates Trust to the West Lothian Council for approval. She correctly points out that S is not a visible part of the deal, at this point in time and she does a decent summing up of a very, very, VERY plethoric amount of bureaucratic information. She concludes, and I think she is partially right, that he might be interested in becoming an investor (I am taking things a bit further, though). But in doing so, she focuses on the development phase of the project only: the possible connections with SRH and his own spirits business are less, if at all, obvious.

I am going to give you my view of all this charade and, if I am going to mention (and probably repeat) some things already found by her, I am going to focus on the people: this is where the whole story starts to become remarkably interesting, at least to me. After all, I remember promising you some more clarity. Here's an honest, fair play take.

Little did I know, when I started to write about that (now defunct) company, Midhope Castle Distillery, Ltd (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/748597198794670080/the-info-provided-above-is-correct-but-outdated?source=share), that my investigation would turn to this:

... for it was to be just an almost random layer of a juggernaut matryoshka of defunct or still active companies, featuring roughly the same people and no less than 6 different name combinations centered around Midhope, Hopetoun, etc.

The following pics will give you an idea - feel free to open them in a separate tab, for clarity . I preferred this synthetic approach, because otherwise you will curse the shite out of me. But it had to be done, with or without Depon, Advil's Greek cousin (and before you ask a graphologist, this is my handwriting, and nobody else's 🙃):

The only explanation for the whole almost frantic Midhope/Hopetoun crisscross/hopscotch (LOL) combos I can think of is two people trying to secure one (several?) credit lines or to attract significant investors for their project and ultimately failing to do so. But I might be wrong (although I doubt that, thank you). Out of this entire maze ( I swear I now have a migraine), there are only two active companies remaining: Golden Decanters Ltd (renamed GD Spirits Ltd, in April 2022) and Midhope Ltd (renamed Skosk Ltd, in July 2023). It is on them I am going to focus my gaze.

GD Spirits Ltd was incorporated in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England (just across the Scottish border), probably for tax reasons, on March 11, 2015, the nature of its business being listed as 'wholesale of wine, beer, spirits, etc.'. It started with a team of two women: Julia Mackenzie-Gillanders and Ann Medlock, whose names we are going to see over and over again in all the eight corporate avatars. Later down the timeline (LOL for three decades and a half), on January 30, 2018, they were briefly (until July 19, 2018) joined by two very interesting professionals: Mrs. Margaret Boswell, an attorney at the very prestigious international law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel (Paris and London offices)...

...and Ken Robertson, former Corporate Affairs Director at Diageo Whisky, a subsidiary of the international Diageo group, one of the major players on the world spirits' market:

The second company, Skosk Ltd, was incorporated in August 2021, in Perth, Scotland, its nature of business being listed as 'distilling, rectifying and blending of spirits', with the clear intention to align with the exacting criteria prescribed by the 2009 Scotch Whisky Regulations:

[ Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_whisky - sorry, I don't have time to wax lyrical on this, and neither do you]

This time, we only meet again the two distillerettes, Gillanders and Medwick. Up until now, at least, nobody else (attorney, former sales executive, whisky expert) has joined the platoon - TBC? I would not speculate and leave all options open.

There is little to 0 transparency on Skosk's financial situation, at the moment and to be honest, it looks very much like S's co-star (hehe)'s Irish business venture...

... but I was a bit more lucky, and the numbers more chatty, as far as GD Spirits was concerned:

Paging all shipper chartered accountants out there, but to me, it doesn't look great, at the moment. Cash is ridiculous, the net worth is hemorrhaging and the current assets are negligible, compared to 2020, when I think they managed to secure one or two credit lines, but not nearly enough for what they needed. Just enough to pay themselves and their external consultants and cover the operating costs, if you ask me.

The revised Planning Statement, of 8 February 2024, posted first by Marple, echoes my initial guess (COVID blew it up, see link to the first post) and the above assessment:

Mark this: 'Discussions are now proceeding with investors and there is a realistic prospect that work will begin in the near future (2024/2025) to implement the permission.' Given that they will start with the road and parking rehabilitation and upgrading, probably overlapping with the distillery building, it would make sense to begin this autumn at the earliest, with the most urgent: access to the site itself.

The initial Planning Statement, dated 9 July 2020 and re-posted on March 21st, 2024, tells a more detailed story. This is part and parcel of the current project as well, since the revision is just pointing out the changes operated, not the entire rest, which remains unchanged. You be the judge:

Also keep in mind this tiny, tiny thing: the Business Plan is 'submitted (...) under Private and Confidential Cover'. See where I am looking?

The initial plan was (and still is) for GD Spirits to produce their own booze, using Midhope's own barley (this is very important for the rest of my theory!). They even offer an overview of the real impact of their project on the local economy:

20 to 38 initial new job creations for a £ 15 to 30 million investment is not 'huge', madam Marple. Cumbernauld is huge. This? This is rather modest, if you ask me. But hey, what do I know about the labor market, right?

That initial Statement tells also the story they want to tell about the genesis of their idea, the scouting for the right location and a couple of other interesting details:

So they are telling us they started to look for the perfect location in 2018 and oh, hello, they found the Hopetoun Estate rather quickly, already starting the pre-planning application consultations as early as July 2019 (don't get me started, please):

If so, then why did they incorporate not one, but two different companies clearly linking them to the Estate (Hopetoun Estate Distillery Ltd and Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd) the same day and as early as May 23rd 2017 (and both dissolved in December 2022), as my above penciled timeline (LOOOOOL) shows? Who is really behind this project and why this entire ballet? It's like me pre-emptively looking for rental properties in (let's randomly guess) Lisbon, when it's just wishful thinking, heavily projecting and with 0 guarantees I will be posted there, right? I mean, I adore and deeply know Lisbon and I would be thrilled to go there. But I am not currently looking for any rental property, just like that, because that would be a #silly, rookie mistake. In their case, I think there's a different situation - again, you be the judge.

A first answer, as to who is really behind that project, was given by the UK media, back in 2020:

How odd, when we know that both Mrs. Boswell, the well-traveled attorney and Mr. Robertson resigned from GD Spirits in July 2018. Do they still say hi to the two distillerettes? Do they quietly keep an eye on the project? Are they silent partners? Business angels? Shareholders? Time to remind you that under UK law, there is 0 visibility on the shareholder's structure of a company. You just see the officers (Director, Secretary, etc), on the Company House website. On an umpteenth, last- second cross-check, it became apparent that Mr. Robertson remained involved in another company of the distillerettes, Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd (yes, the one mentioned above), until its voluntary strike-off, in December 2022.

Their best laid plans do mention OL, and how could it be otherwise? But all this £ 15 to 30 million hullaballoo for 20.000 people only (who counted them and how?), on a seasonal basis?

High-end restaurant, luxury B&B, event spaces, you name it. Interesting, to say the least.

And, for the people in the back, who still think SRH has a 100 years lease at Midhope (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, the stupidity!):

This is why he commented as a 'member of the public'. At face value, there is no public involvement into that project. Yet. But it is my belief there is a vested interest in all this, justifying the comment, the visit, those papers rolled in his fist, etc. At first, I thought that was a visit to Lallybroch by the Exec Producer of OL's Season 8, to discuss technicalities - and shared that privately with a wonderful friend only. I mean, why not and still perfectly possible. But then, as I could not sleep tonight and felt guilty to have you all waiting, I started to connect some tiny dots.

Like this one, for a start:

Yes, I know, Marple told you that FIRST, I would not dare say otherwise, because if I did there would be a transcontinental screech. That trademark application was filed at the US Patent and Trade Office in September 2023 and I thought (and still partially do) it was a potential rebranding solution to The Sassenach's EUIPO nightmare (much exaggerated by the fandom's toothbrush experts):

But you also know I am an idiot and I always check people's CVs, when I follow a thread. This morning, the one Distillerette I am particularly interested in is Mrs. Julia Hall-Mackenzie-Gillanders (née Scales) and not like *urv would be.

Her LinkedIn profile is exceptionally talkative, too:

... and a BA (with Honors) in Fashion Design, class of 2005, at the Northumbria University.

The Financial Times article 'From packing boxes to wine deals worth millions', you can read on her LinkedIn page, tells a very interesting story. It is the story of a shy underdog (lots of temple bells clinging, at the moment), who made it by sheer persistence. It starts like this:

'When a painfully shy young woman contacted a fine wine merchant and said ' I have no qualifications- can I help?', she got the job and today is signing deals worth millions of pounds.'

It obviously did ring a bell and if SRH knows she exists (she is married, *urv!), and I dare to speculate he does, it must have struck a deep chord. Would I do business with her? I wouldn't speculate, although I am not very sure. Would he? He'd probably listen very carefully to what she has to pitch, for a start.

And what she has to pitch is also very interesting, in his world. A brief look at the Golden Decanters' website shows a first high-end single malt sourced collection of 4 exceptional expressions already sold out:

And when they mean high-end, they mean gold leaf labelling and all the tralala:

And, some last minute news, too:

Remind me, because I am an old woman, after this white night: wasn't The Sassenach (no comment, we agree to disagree and I am very skeptical), a blend?

We have these dots, then:

Bold Underdog ->spirits business->high-end collection of single malts sold out->business partnership with owners of Midhope Castle, fictional Lallybroch in OL, including a distillery and whisky production with Midhope/Lallybroch barley -> visit by the male lead and spirits entrepreneur (also the fictional Lallybroch laird) to Midhope/Lallybroch and vested interest in the estate's most recent business project....

What if The Sassenach would be included, for a start, in that new Blended Collection? And could it really be fanfic to imagine a future high-end, limited edition, Lallybroch whisky produced at Midhope, with Midhope/Lallybroch barley? It wouldn't be the first time, would it: after all, they did it with that limited tequila batch.

As I said, because I am (remember Someone? LOL) a 'silly cow', I was hoping he wouldn't do it. But my guess is he might very well do exactly that, with those people and under that label.

It's half past eight AM, local time and I need a strong, black coffee.

I rest my case (and I am bracing myself for the screeching). I will answer Anons later, after I come back from the hairdresser's. Appointments must be kept at all costs. Thank you all for your patience.

#boozewars #business #fandom #shitshow

[copperbadge]

Hey Sam, this came across my feed on twit and I wondered if you’d heard about it at all? :(

https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingo/comments/18sx06i/big_layoff_at_duolingo/

Direct link for the curious. Short version, a post on Reddit reported that Duolingo laid off a "large percentage" of its staff, replacing them with AI. I hadn't heard about it, but I knew there were reports about Duolingo trimming its offerings and losing a lot of goodwill after revamping itself a year ago; they've been public about their use of GPT-4 AI starting last March, and it was a tentpole of this year's annual convention, so I was aware of that as well.

The Reddit post is by a former Duolingo contractor, who also shares their severance letter, which is terse to say the least. They state that of their four-person team, two people were let go, with the others left to "babysit the AI". They say that they're a translator and that the people who remained were recast as "curators" for AI translation.

But the post is also not otherwise sourced. So here is everyone's periodic reminder that if the only source is Reddit and Reddit isn't citing other sources, you need to dig a little.

All journalistic sources I've seen (that aren't paywalled, like the Bloomberg article most of them cite) are visibly using the Reddit post as their entre, but also state that the percentage of contractors who were let go is about 10%. That's 10% of contract workers, not 10% of all staff, although admittedly I don't know how many people Duolingo employs, contract or otherwise. 10% is a meaningful chunk, but Duolingo has said that the contractors were let go because their projects had wrapped. While company reps state that this all could be related to the use of AI, they've also said that it's not a 1:1 replacement.

Mind you, the company isn't offering much in the way of backing that up, either.

So there are a couple of issues. Some workers probably were let go simply because their work was finished; the Reddit user doesn't seem to be one of those. We are still seeing that at least some of these jobs were replaced by AI, which is undoubtedly a harbinger of things to come. We don't know what impact this will have on the app. We don't know what kind of work the majority of those people were doing. There's a thread in the Reddit post about whether the voices are now "AI voices" but there's no citation to back up the idea either. They definitely aren't doing AI voice generation for the Latin, where one of the voice actors has a nice voice and also a very loud pet bird.

There is a bigger issue of contract work in the digital and translation industries in the first place; a lot of these people should have been full employees and would have had more protection from this if they had been. Translators have also been brutally devastated by machine/AI translation, which is its own issue. But these are separate and much larger problems that are in no way unique to Duolingo.

I don't like taking this stance because I feel like I'm defending both Duolingo and AI, which isn't my goal. My goal is to remind people that if you see a single source offering a vague statement, you should fact-check. 10% is likely a lot of people but it's not "a huge percentage". We have no real numbers on who was fired, just this person on Reddit saying they're a translator and they were let go. Do I believe them? Absolutely, I have no reason not to and the basic gist is backed up by statements from Duolingo. Do I trust this person's intel? Not especially, after the loud axe-grinding noises they made while posting. Do I trust Duolingo, whose goal is to make money and not look bad while doing it? Not especially either, simply from the standpoint of "the bigger the company the more they're likely to screw you".

But the point is we don't have good data, and this is a complicated and nuanced issue involving a lot of different factors. So either you have to let it go on past, or you have to be prepared to dig a little deeper than a person posting to Reddit about getting laid off.

In any case, Duolingo is one of the few activities that brings me joy right now (I know, I'm working on the issue) and is the only language learning structure that has ever actually worked for me, so despite the new intel and despite the fact that I know a lot of people think of Duolingo's revamp the way I think of Tumblr's new dash, I'm going to keep on with it.

(Plus I paid up for a year, so I might as well at least use it until the year runs out and then reassess.)

#your daily news digest #sam learns italian #duolingo

[astraltrickster]

Since the wave of mass site migrations there is one REALLY worrisome trend I've been noticing: the number of radfem posts I've been seeing ending up on my dash, reblogged unknowingly by people who think they're just base-level feminist statements, has all but gone back to c.2014 levels. Everything seems good on a surface level, but I spot one dogwhistle, or something strikes me as being a little too absolutist, and I check into that...and sure enough, the road leads back to terf city.

So here's a quick PSA:

Please be careful with your Feminism 101 sources.

See, terfs and their close relatives KNOW we don't like them here, so they don't tend to lead with their well-known hatred of trans women. On top of that, there is a problem with a subset of radfems on this site who purport to be trans-inclusive - i.e., they openly support trans women...but DESPISE trans men (often more than they hate cis men, because of the whole "joining the enemy"/"gender traitor" myth pushed by terfs) or any nonbinary person who aligns partially with manhood or masculinity, especially if they're AMAB (they often think they can "save" - i.e., conversion-therapy - the AFAB ones).

Therefore, on a single-post level, it is very, VERY hard to tell the difference between a basic feminist statement that, yeah, patriarchy exists and that means there are lots of awful double-standards around gender where women broadly get the shorter end of the stick and these standards AFFECT every individual in a society and that's something we should work to change, and a statement that these things are absolute and inevitable, either because Biology or because those double-standards are too deeply ingrained to EVER overcome without giving up and starting over from scratch (whichever is convenient), and the only solution is hardline female wombyn-born-wombyn separatism or at LEAST excluding trans people from public life for, at best, making it too hard to tell who's ~safe~. In fact, sometimes on that single-post basis, they could potentially even be identical - though less frequently than many people thought in the heyday of "OP was a terf so I stole this post but anyway all men are walking rape threats and need to accept that any reasonable person will always hate and fear them on sight".

So what can you, random newbie, do to avoid unwittingly passing one of these messages on without turning into some kind of horrible "feminism is cancer" chud?

Well, one of the easiest ways is the Shinigami Eyes browser extension, but I personally don't like to rely on it because 1) you can't use it on every platform (sorry mobile app likers), 2) in my experience it's somewhat common for "trans-inclusive" radfems to be flagged as safe because someone saw their positivity for trans women but not their hatred for trans men, and 3) I just don't like to promote the use of browser extensions as a substitute for learning what radfem rhetoric is and why it is, in fact, anything but feminist; it is very beneficial to terfs if the ONLY thing you know of their rhetoric is "they hate trans women".

The hard but better way is to actually familiarize yourself with what to look out for. Here is an inexhaustive list:

Category 0: Tags to add to your blacklist

Your blacklist filters out posts with the blacklisted tags in the reblog you're seeing, OR in the root post. Therefore, if a radfem post that looks like it's just base-level feminism does breach containment somehow and end up on your dash through someone else, it will still get caught if it's tagged with any of these:

Terfsafe

Radblr

Radfem

Terfs/radfems do interact/do touch/please interact/please touch, etc

Category 1: Terf-ese and dogwhistles

Some of these, especially those near the top of the list, are immediate telltale signs. Others are less certain, but they should at least raise some eyebrows.

"Gender critical" - literally a synonym for terf just used to make the ideology sound more legitimate; they often claim that terf is a slur

"TIM/TIF" - "Trans-identified male/female", a way to delegitimize trans identities

"Febfem" - female-exclusive bisexual woman; a bisexual woman who rejects her attraction to men; essentially a modern term for "political lesbian" (a group which claimed that lesbianism is not a sexual orientation that some people just Have, but a political choice to reject men)

"Butch flight" - the claim that trans men are butch lesbians transitioning to escape lesbophobia and gain male privilege

"Adult human female" - this very simplified dictionary definition of "woman" is something of a rallying cry

"Let girls be tomboys/butch" - some people say this in response to old repressive gender roles in things like dress codes, or even people holding trans women to a higher standard of femininity than cis women, but if that is not explicitly the context it's very likely that this means "stop the evil plastic surgery racket from force-transing every little girl who even looks at a truck, which they're TOTALLY doing"

The inverse, while less common (terfs tend to be very open about not wanting men to be feminine in any way because of "deception" and "false security"), is also one to look out for - sometimes it's a statement against binarism and gender essentialism, sometimes it's basically an assertion of the Blanchard "feminine homosexual man vs. autogynephilic man" model of what a trans woman is

"Compulsory heterosexuality/comphet" - an aspect of heteronormativity whereby it's common, especially for younger people, to try to force themselves to experience heterosexual attraction when they don't. Useful as it may seem, the term was coined by radfems. Most people who are not terfs or other radfems who want to discuss it will discuss it under the umbrellas of heteronormativity and amatonormativity

Hogwarts houses - this is a sneaky one; far from everyone who read those books or even enjoyed them is a terf, but since JKR's full-tilt descent into fascism via the gateway of transphobia, terfs HAVE been using this as a way to seek out their own and mark themselves as safe; let this also serve as a reminder that if you are NOT a terf PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR BIO; it WILL both draw them to you AND cause you to be immediately distrusted by anyone else, saying "I DO NOT CONDONE THE VIEWS OF JKR" will not help because terfs can and do lie about that too in communities where they have to stay crypto, at best you're granting them plausible deniability

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females"

Usernames referencing "female" reproductive anatomy - may be a good sign if they're attached to trans-positive modifiers like "boy" or "they", but a username like "divine-vagina" or "ovariesofpower" (note these are theoretical usernames, not ones I've encountered in the wild; if someone does have one of those usernames and isn't a radfem I'm deeply sorry) is probably a terf

Hatred of makeup and plastic surgery - look, no one likes the beauty industry, no one is going to dispute that beauty standards are a nightmare, but this is frequently a smokescreen for hating gender confirmation or anything that helps with the "deception" inherent to transness; be ESPECIALLY wary of anyone talking about "TikTok plastic surgeons trying to sell their services to impressionable teenage girls", this usually translates to "gender confirmation surgeons telling young transmascs that there are options for them", and remember that you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't, there is no third option

Category 2: Ideological concepts to look out for

This is some of the beginnings of crossing the line from feminism to radfem bullshit - if the rest of the post seems cool but starts heading in these directions, don't assume it's hyperbole; get it as far away from you as possible.

Patriarchy, men-oppressing-women, is THE root system of injustice from which all others spawn. Some will acknowledge that other factors may intersect, but will still claim that they are lesser. Bringing up the long history of white women getting men of color, especially Black men, killed via weaponized fragility and false claims of sexual violence, is just a series of flukes and pointing it out to refute this notion that men vs. women outranks all other inequalities is just whataboutism.

Because patriarchy is so far-reaching, it affects every individual, and because it trumps all other axes of oppression, this means that in every interaction between any man and any woman, the man will be the one with more power.

Men, due to socialization, biology, or both, are categorically incapable of recognizing women as full people. This is not only a broad pattern, but an inevitable fact, true of every individual man, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.

There is a singular Universal Female Experience. According to terfs, this is an external force; trans women don't have this socialization experience, therefore they can never truly know what it's like to be a woman. According to tirfs, it is internal; trans men process their experiences internally as men from birth to death and therefore have no claim to truly understand any experience of misogyny directed at them.

The experience of being a woman is, first and foremost, suffering. It is therefore to be expected that a certain subset of people would transition to try to escape it - but it's the wrong answer, and this practice of either self-destruction or betrayal must be stopped at all costs. Anyone who wants in on the miserable experience that is womanhood, on the other hand, is at best insensitively looking at a burning building and going "wow, that looks so warm!", blissfully but cruelly unaware of the misery of the situation, and at worst is lying to satisfy a fetish.

Women are categorically incapable of abusing men, because patriarchy outranks all, down to the individual level. Some may also say that this is true because of biological differences in physical strength. (Very feminist, isn't it, to say "the strongest woman is still weaker than the weakest man and nothing can ever change that"?)

There is, fundamentally, no difference between a person with some subconscious misogyny problems and an incel mass shooter; both will abuse women, and therefore both must be treated as threats.

Because the power differential between men and women is so great, a woman cannot TRULY meaningfully consent to sex with a man; all sex between a man and a woman is rape.

Because rape is such a common trauma among women, the very existence of men - or penises, for that matter, even fully clothed ones - in a space where a woman doesn't expect them is traumatic and itself tantamount to rape.

Lesbians don't just have their own unique flavor of oppression experience like any other queer subgroup; they are in fact THE most uniquely oppressed and vulnerable of all, because being a lesbian is first and foremost not about attraction to women, but rejection of men (recall the ties to political lesbianism). Some radfems will embrace contradictory labels or slightly varied personal definitions for other queer subgroups - but if you're anything but a Kinsey 6 who would never even consider making an exception, and 100% a binary woman, you CAN'T identify as a lesbian. You cannot identify as a lesbian if you wouldn't dump your partner or try to conversion-therapy "her" if "she" came out as transmasc. To a tirf, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you're on the butch-transmasc cusp, if they're willing to admit such a cusp exists in the first place. To terfs, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you would ever date a trans woman, let alone if you ever have.

Again, this is far from being an exhaustive list, but it covers most of the most common things that set off my own alarm bells. Additions are more than welcome.

Remember, the danger of letting radfem posts slide because they seem okay on the surface is twofold: one, you're directing more people to their blogs and exposing them to more people they may then target, and two, when those concepts that cross the line bleed out into your gender theory, the result is bad for you and everyone around you.

#internet culture #internet safety #serious tag #internet bullshittery warning #tumblr culture

[gunsandspaceships]

Many degrees of Doctor Stark

It is widely known that 616 Tony has several doctorates. The number varies from 3 to 7, but it doesn't really matter whether he is 300 or 700% Doctor. He is one. And he doesn’t use his title 99.999% of the time.

Ok, but what about the MCU?

It is never mentioned whether Tony has a PhD or even a master's degree. Kinda weird. Both the absence of mentions and lack of degrees, since Tony is so smart and productive.

Let’s check, maybe he actually has some.

Here we have a file from a deleted scene from The Avengers (2012):

As we can see, the work is sloppy – there are inaccuracies in his hair color (it’s not black, it’s brown), and the fact that he speaks French was not included. Can we rely on this paper? Let’s not 100%, but we can still use things that don't contradict the movies.

The fact that he received his BS in Engineering from MIT does not contradict this, so we can mark it as valid. He started in 1984 when he was 14 years old and graduated in 1987 when he was 17.

We see no further education in the file. But we know something that this file doesn’t. We watched the movies.

Remember, in Civil War at 0:13:25, in the scene where Tony sees his parents for the last time, Maria tells Howard, “Be nice, dear, he’s been studying abroad”. Tony is 21 here, this is December 16, 1991. Looks like he is on winter break.

But wait… Didn’t he graduate in 1987 and stop then? Well, Maria tells us he continued.

Between 17 and 21 there are 4 years. What could he have done in these 4 years? A lot, right? He is smart and productive, we know that. A master’s degree usually takes 2 years. Tony could earn it in 1. 1 or 2, we still have 2-3 years that we need to fill with some kind of studying. I doubt he just went back and got another bachelor's or master's. That said, he was working on his PhD.

We don't know where. “Abroad” is a very broad concept. Maybe he went to Europe to study at Oxford? We do not know. Perhaps he stayed at MIT and just went somewhere else for the fall semester. We do not know. But he did go somewhere for (most probably) a PhD.

The question is: did he finish it?

Well, his parents died in Dec 1991, and we know from the first Iron Man (0:04:50) that Stane was the interim president of Stark Industries from that date until 1992. Most likely, Tony became CEO before his birthday, that is, May 29, which corresponds to the stated age of 21. He had a few months between.

We don’t know where he was in his degree at that time. But we know he is smart and productive. He doesn’t need 4 years to write a dissertation.

So, there are 2 options:

1) He did not complete his doctorate and devoted himself entirely to the company;

2) He completed it in the few months he had and then took over the company.

Here’s the evidence for the second option:

“Confusing matters more, a recently deleted LinkedIn profile for Tony Stark indicated he received doctorates in engineering physics and artificial intelligence.”

Source: https://alum.mit.edu/slice/who-iron-man

Given all the information and analysis we have, as well as a little logic, we can conclude that Tony has a Ph.D. Even two. He had time to do them. Why doesn't he use his title? Well, maybe for the same reason 616 Tony doesn’t? He doesn’t usually brag. Check out this post if you have any doubts about my statement.

Here are some additional hints:

He gave lectures at scientific conferences (IM1 and IM3 - Bern 1999).

His scientific expertise was not limited to engineering and his company's affairs (all the movies, but specifically I can point you to IM3– the scene with Maya Hansen and her Extremis-enhanced plants in Bern).

“He must have graduated after 1990, because the '90 Brass rat was the first one with the skyline on the edge.” MIT alumni commentary https://alum.mit.edu/slice/who-iron-man

Conclusion (actual): call him Doctor Stark, guys, he deserves it. Despite his modesty about his scientific achievements, Dr Stark has a couple of master's degrees and at least two PhD degrees in the MCU - in engineering physics and artificial intelligence.

#tony stark #iron man #marvel #mcu #the avengers #iron man 3 #captain america civil war #doctor stark

[saintarmand]

gonna post some screenshots from a particular user in the vampterview community and the users liking their garbage posts, just in case some of you haven't heard. should become obvious why i'm highly suspicious of anyone who interacts with any of these users.

please just read the posts. sorry i'm not providing image descriptions, please dm me if you need them and i'll add them when i can!

the first post is just one example one of many on this blog, the second one might seem innocuous if you see it on your own but in combination with the others, not so much. please pay attention to the people liking these.

then we have an anon complimenting the wisdom and maturity of this person, who then replied with several paragraphs:

and got likes from two of the same users and two others.

then they self reblogged one of the posts from earlier and continued:

obviously this last post is the most egregious, and not everyone is bold enough to press like knowing that likes are public and could affect their reputation in the fandom. but i am going to assume that the people liking the other posts, which weren't all in public tags, are this person's followers and have seen all the other posts and believe this kinda shit is acceptable. and that speaks volumes about them as people.

i'm personally not going to assume that everyone who's ever liked or reblogged from any of these users did it knowing what kind of people they are (i didn't always know that either, and have probably reblogged from at least one of them before i did) but i am highly suspicious of anyone reblogging from them or interacting with them in a friendly way, and if i see people i follow doing that, i am going to unfollow unless i have very good reason to believe they genuinely had no idea, in which case i will message first.

i hope none of my followers need me to actually explain why what they're saying is absolute garbage but if you genuinely don't get the problem, dm me and i can find you some links about racism 101 i guess

EDIT/UPDATE:

someone asks nalyra what's going on

she later adds this, linking to a post that links back to this very post you're reading right now

track you UNliking something? GIRL WHY DID YOU LIKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

i do love how if you read this and don't bother clicking the link she sounds kind of reasonable, and even like she's taking accountability (she's not denying anything! she's linking to a source so people can judge for themselves!) just not SO much accountability that she'll actually say what she did. gotta click those links to find out, and let's face it, the majority of the people who see her post are simply going to assume she's being unfairly targeted again. i mean, she posts about it all the time! why bother even checking, it's not like she would ever link to, say, screenshots of her liking a post that says affirmative action is the only system of oppression based on race and anti-white racism is real

EDIT #2:

another screenshot i forgot to include from the same day of nalyra liking another untagged post from cosmic

#s

[small-but-mighty]

Meet Mable!

I’ve been putting off telling this story because I wanted to focus on the other stories that these animals have to share. Anyways, my sister finally told me it’s an important one to share. So, meet Mable!

Mable is actually my bunny. She is a wonderful beautiful lionhead with just the right amount of “bunitude”. However, she hasn’t always had her luxurious long mane.

One day, one of the animal cruelty officers from work (the RISPCA) got word of a rabbit in rough condition posted on Craigslist. So, she went and investigated and ended up bringing the rabbit to our clinic for veterinary care. The little rabbit was in ROUGH condition. All four limbs were covered in urine scolding, and there was not an ounce of fat on the body, you could feel the bones. Just incase somebody who isn’t bunny savy is reading this, rabbits must always have a source of hay, this enables them to have the fiber required to keep their insides moving, if their digestive system were to stop, it very quickly can kill the rabbit. The little bunny brought to clinic, was on the verge of this happening. The small animal manager texted our team and said that this little bunny was coming into the shelter and that our vet was not sure she was going to make the weekend. I asked if our vet wanted me to take her, to at least pass on a home with love. What I thought was going to be a weekend just to give a little bun a home to pass, turned into the start of a long journey.

She survived the first weekend, and by then… she stole my heart. This little baby was only about three months old, and she had a fighting spirit. She was a bit shy about me, but she knew I was helping her, taking her meds like a champ, and chowing down on all the hay I could offer. I knew I couldn’t let her go. That Tuesday (it was a long weekend!) I brought her back to the clinic, it was time to start the process of finding out just how truly bad her legs were. This meant she had to be put under anesthesia. While under anesthesia the veterinarian was able to perform x-rays on her legs, which showed that the urine scolding on her legs (this was caused by her living in her own filth) was so bad, the infection went down to one of the bones. Great. We made the weekend, we woke up from anesthesia, but now we have to pray we can treat this infection. Or else she would have to become a little tripod. Now becoming a tripod would not have been the end of Mable’s story, I remember doing research about tripod rabbits, just incase! However, nobody wants to ambulate a bunny’s leg…..

So after removing all the dead skin from all four limbs, I was able to be there when Mable woke up from her anesthesia. It was no longer a mission to just survive, we were gonna heal now. For months, Mable wore cast like bandages on her legs and got antibiotics twice a day. These had to be changed twice a week by a vet. We started out with all 4 in casts, then we went to just her back legs, until it was just her one really bad leg. FINALLY, all four legs were free! The first time I ever saw this bunny binky, I almost cried! She was able to do that, because of the time, patience, talent, and dedication our team had.

She still wasn’t done yet though! There was still one more big procedure she had to make it through. Her spay! I will always advocate for spaying and neutering your bunny, but my goodness was I nervous! The little fighter has already gone through so much and she had to go through a surgery now! Of course she came through like it was nothing though.

I took Mable home on January 20th, 2023, and her official adoption day of when she was medically cleared was May 23,2023. So it was a very lengthy process of healing, my entire last semester of college actually.

Today, Mable is the most spoiled bunny! She has her own bed, so many toys and treats (including those that come in her monthly subscription box), and so many people that love her! She recently had her first yearly check up where she got a clean bill of health!

You can sometimes find Mable with me at the RISPCA, where we have told our story to kids at our humane education camp, and even to potential adopters or those who are trying to learn more about rabbits when they attend our bunny related events!

Mable is a huge part of my life and even though she is a tiny little gal, she really has shown both me and the world just how mighty she is. Next time you visit the RISPCA, look around the adoption areas and the smallie room, you may just find her picture around!

#animal rescue #bunny #animals #rabbits #animal welfare #animal cruelty #animal rights #rispca #lionhead bunny #lionhead rabbit #Mable

[thatdeadaquarius]

m thinkin abt the “blunt vs flowery” language thing and…… in the year of our lord 2023, i don't even want to imagine how far back we'd have to go in genshins timeline until we see ‘hey shawty' written on a cave wall-

you try to be better about it, sometimes, using only the fanciest words and the most floral of tones, but all you ever succeed in doing is giving zhongli flashbacks to the archon war-

in the same vein: modern humor. would literally make them think "is this some sort of divine joke im too mortal to understand?" except even the archons need to cite sources on why a piece of bread falling over would be funny- maybe you slip sometimes, but you only ever get halfway through like “i’m neurodivergent and a minor” before you realize they don’t know what that means— “what if i had blue hair and pronouns” but they’re just sitting there like… doesn’t everybody have pronouns….? and kaeya has blue hair- are you implying he’s divine? what about chongyun?? xingqiu??????

anyway um. this is me bringing up my unfortunate (but very funny) habit of saying “i’ll boil you like soup” whenever i’m mildly inconvenienced and hoping it triggers Thoughts about the casual/slang threats we make and how they cope

sorry if this reads incoherently it’s 1am for me rn— also i’m debating becoming a regular anon here, are your applications open? 👉👈

SORRY IF I RAN U OFF BY NOT REPLYING QUICKLY!! BUT I’D LOVE TO HAVE LABELLED ANONS! I’ve already added some taken name I could see in my mailbox so check the pinned post and choose whatever isn’t taken! phrase or emoji, etc.! :)

this isnt super long bc ur stuff seemed chill on its own/idk what I could add! So I just focused on one aspect

gif is literally everyone reacting to you trying to speak “flowery” like them lol

ALSO u guys probably dont remember bc I took so long but I’m still writing/going to post that Blunt Lang. AU Fanfic One-Shot! so here’s some quick headcanons ill add on ive got anon!!

No TWs/Content Warnings. SFW.

so this was gonna be chill but-

BESDIES RANDOM SHIT LIKE MEME REFERENCES

THAT WONT MAKE SENSE TO THEM BC INHERENT INTERNET/DIGITAL UNDERSTANDING NEEDED

WHAT IF ALL UR JOKES OR REFERENCES ARE QUITE LITERALLY, ANCIENT??

like anon said about even the archons having to pull out sources/cite your stuff to understand it, like finding really old tablets/scrolls/carved wall words 😭

u giving Zhongli a history lesson/brush up LMAO

If ur annoyed at them u just need to make more jokes, leave em scrambling for their pocket notes LOL

I like to think since you sound the OLDEST

that the ancient shit like Phanes/Four Shades/Seven Sovereigns are the closest in speech

(look theyre all alive and shit for my genshin, goddamit i still gotta tell u guys abt my genshin fill-in lore au)

and they’re closer to the “beginning of history” in teyvat so theyd get more references

theyd literally understand u the best and they like, all in the Abyss or like deep in Teyvat,

so u just casually strolling up to Azdaha’s place instead like

“How’s your day been Azhy?”

“Same as the days many before, my lord. How are thee?”

“Good enough, hey, why don’t I bring some food from my old world by that I’ve made for you to try out? Something new, y’know?”

camera pan left to see Zhongli looking up, then back down as he scribbles notes trying to better understand, Xiao has crossed his arms and is squinting, Ganyu is behind Zhongli and is trying to peek over his shoulder, Cloud Retainer and other adepti have like hidden nearby to overhear lol

♤

FLASHBACKS FOR ZHONGLI-

HE’S OVER HERE LIKE

“Please do not disturb your countenance my Wànsuìyé, the vernacular is pleasant to mine ears and sufficient for speech.”

“I shall, uh, try my best Zhongli, thought I know ye have- wait- thy have? Whatever, accepted it, I shall keep attempting to better match thee!”

HIS FACE-

He’s literally just → 😰😣💀

(flashback to at least 1 really ancient/old god he had to fight for his life against, they were the hardest battle he’s ever faced, and Azhdaha was helping him by that point too, so it wasn’t even like he won alone… rip zhongli got ptsd)

He keeps trying to subtly stop you from practicing it, he also desperately discourages others from helping you 😭

(Zhongli was about to be called Rex Lapis again when Venti was trying to get on his last nerve by constantly encouraging you to speak fancier, but in the incorrect way, at dinner with them one time)

Like that last content with them pretending not to kow each other but 5x the tension and Venti is fooling around even more so than usual lol

THANKS FOR SENDING IN YOUR IDEAS!! I FUCKING LOVE HEARING OTHER PPLS BRAINROTS OVER STUFF!! AND SORRY AGAIN IT TOOK FOREVER!! ITS BEEN A ROUGH YEAR OF UNI FOR ME/IM GRADUATING!! <333 TYSM ANON!!

Safe Travels,

💀 ♒

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonderss / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylazaa / @genshin-impacts-mee / @wholesomey-artistt / @thedevioussmirk

#fuck my tags #I hate that tumblr doesn't remember for me #im not a machine dammit i cant remember all this shit #genshin isekai #genshin impact #genshin impact sagau #sagau #genshin sagau #genshin reader insert #genshin imagines #genshin god reader #my asks #rip to ppl who wanted longer content from me srry #its coming soon i promise #trying to post p2 of possession au and get that one shot blunt lang au posted :D

[justenjoythegossip]

WHAT ABOUT NOW ? DO YOU SEE HOW COMPLICIT CHRIS IS?

Very quick recap of recent events: Some very staged pics of Chris & Abba in Lisbon surfaced yesterday at approximately the same time, hours after some good old classic teasing and trolling. The previous weeks, we had a few interesting events that all seemed to point to a possible (but unlikely) separation: a sight of Chris’ doppelganger with no ring, Abba on a ski trip with her friends without her ring, Chris posting Dodger in MA for Valentine’s, Chris posting pictures of himself in LA without his wife, the very questionable Medium article about their alleged split… 

Chris’ participation in the latest silly stunt & the point of recent events..

I know a big chunk of his fandom has given Chris the benefit of the doubt since the start of this shitshow. Chris liked to joke that he is quite the “meatball” but as RDJ his frequent costar has said, he is very “shrewd”. And I believe it’s now pretty obvious Chris knows exactly what he is doing and he is more than complicit in those PR games. 

Chris came back to Instagram just in time for the Back Friday, with a very different grid and a much more professional account. When he posted that story of his beloved dog Dodger running in the snow on Valentine’s eve, it was the FIRST time he had posted a private moment since his return to Insta. The first time and it wasn’t random. He then posted 2 pics of him with the Russo brothers that were taken a month prior to their being published. A month before and it wasn’t random! 

The optics were pretty obvious, he was showing himself to be alone. He was selling a narrative. Alone on Valentine’s day. Alone at a party in a city where his wife says she lives. Oh and by the way, his kinda wife did pretty much the same thing at the same time, showing herself on a ski trip without her ring. It was a concerted effort as both sides worked IN UNISON to paint the picture of a possible separation as a misdirect. 

And to that, let’s add the super sketchy Medium article that discussed their alleged split. I wrote a post about it if people want to check it out… https://www.tumblr.com/justenjoythegossip/742890431073992704/will-albas-immaturity-racism-and-alleged?source=share

The role of that questionable Medium article in that latest stunt…

I strongly suspected his team was behind that article. But now even more so and for several reasons. First of all, that article supported the exact same narrative that Chris & Abba were selling at the exact same time. I have difficulties believing in a coincidence. Obvious plants in the fandom made such a big fuss about this article while being very adamant about not having written it. Both DM & ENTY (overkill much?) pinned this article on “crazy fans that took it too far”. Last but not least, the article was posted online 3 days before team PR blogs mentioned it. So his team knew about it. And I strongly suspect that they would have had taken that article down if they had wanted to. But they didn’t. 

What was the goal then? Well I don’t need to tell you that given how staged those Lisbon pics are, they were planned for some time & curated (oh yes, Abba’s movie is coming out soon but surely another coincidence). Chris, Abba and their teams knew it was coming, so by breadcrumbing and hinting at a separation, what they did was to ADD SHOCK VALUE to their latest stunt. To get people more excited. To have their emotions run as high as possible. 

Because let’s be honest, what they just did is basically “same old, same old”. So that narrative of a separation helped achieve maximum impact with minimum effort.

Team PR’s role in this latest stunt and the lies they are currently selling…

By drawing so much attention to that sketchy article, Team PR blogs tried to give Chris & Abba’s separation as much hype as they could. Kudos to them for still lying with a straight face. But I guess it’s easier to do that when you are sitting behind a keyboard. https://www.tumblr.com/justenjoythegossip/737798414679605248/pr-spin-credibility-of-team-prteam-real-and-the?source=share

So now after the pics of Chris & Abba in Lisbon, they are selling more lies, but the 2 key ones being that:

The pics are either old and or fake because they are photoshopped and they don’t mean anything

Abba is the one that photoshopped the pic with Chris’ side unaware of it. 

There is a lot to unpack here and to debunk so I am sorry I’ll try to be as succinct as I can. Let’s state the obvious, Chris is the powerful Hollywood star while Abba is a no-name actress from a small country. She is not in charge of anything, his team is likely in command while she is kept on a short leash. She isn’t even allowed to speak in public (remember the GQ event). So to claim that Abba is pulling the strings is absolutely ludicrous. Having said that, neither Chris or Abba is running this shitshow. CAA is most likely in charge. 

Also even if you believe that the pics in Lisbon are fake (more on that later), it doesn’t make one bit of a difference but it does mean something (more on that later as well). There is absolutely no way that either Abba’s side or Chris’ side would leak anything, especially pictures without the other side knowing about it and approving it. If either one of them made the mistake of being seen somewhere when they are supposed to be someplace else, the house of cards would fall down. These people do know how to disappear when they want to or to be seen when they want to. So again, regardless of what you believe of those sights in Lisbon (real or not), Chris was complicit. Without a question. But Team PR blogs always try to soften the blow by presenting Chris as a poor innocent victim to make him look more sympathetic and they present Abba as this arch-villain trolling Chris’ fandom. Their constant lying serves one main purpose: to distract from the actual truth. So let’s spell the truth out. Chris and Abba’s shitshow isn’t over. They lied. Once again. Chris is more than a willing participant in those despicable PR games and Abba is not in charge.

The necessary discussion about Photoshop and the reasons for its blatant use…

I definitely dreaded talking about Photoshop because this subject tends to trigger people, and also because Majorscammer has turned that topic into a complete joke. Since I’m not a tech person, I will discuss it strictly from a PR/marketing standpoint.

Digital retouching is used all the time to try to make a product more appealing to the public so that they buy it. It’s no different in PR. Sometimes, an actress might want a slimmer waistline, an actor who is super self-conscious about his age next to his teenager looking wife might want some wrinkles erased or a fuller set of hair. Photoshop does not equate fake. Sometimes they are just slight (or big) alterations but it’s still very real. 

One friend who is a tech guy did tell me that sometimes when you use AI to alter a picture, you get “weird” mistakes in the pic. So again, the weird digital retouching in a pic might be totally organic. But obviously most of the time, it isn’t organic. And indeed, a pic can be badly altered on purpose because it serves a clear purpose. And agencies do use badly photoshopped pictures as an efficient tool in a PR strategy all the time for the simple reason that it’s meant to get people to talk. It is supposed to drive traffic and feed the discourse.

So again, I won’t discuss whether one pic in Lisbon might be old while the other might be legit or not but seems to have many issues. Why? Because it’s pointless as there is no way to know the truth and more importantly it serves as a distraction. The point is, the truth is right in front of our eyes. They are still selling the narrative that they are a married couple and they use cheap tricks to keep the fandom engaged. 

Chris’ love/hate relationship with his fans and the evil/corrupt tactics in the PR strategy

Chris has very often said that he has the best fans and that he loves them. But I would argue that his relationship to his fandom is far more ambiguous that he would care to admit. We have witnessed a few hints that would suggest that Chris doesn’t value his fandom as much as he should. Scott made certain remarks where he definitely threw his fans under the bus. Even recently on a podcast this past summer. There was also an interaction on Twitter between Chris and Yvette Nicole Brown where Chris thanked her. It was right after Chris & Abba’s first papwalk. And Yvette made some very negative comments about Chris’ fans that were totally over-the-top and unhinged. 

But more importantly, I would argue that actions speak a lot louder than words. And what has Chris signed on? A PR strategy that involves teasing his fans, trolling them, toying with them, manipulating them, gaslighting them and more disgustingly villainizing them. He can claim that “the industry makes you do things you don’t want to do” all he wants but it’s a rationalization. The truth is many of his peers haven’t resorted to such despicable tactics.

Many people have claimed that he has looked ashamed as hell when he was next to her. People have speculated that it was likely because she is a fat shaming, racist, antisemitic, arrogant Nazi sympathizing yacht girl but I don’t think so. I think he has looked embarrassed because of the optics of their relationship, because he looks so much older next to her. This is probably why they were wearing masks for their first papwalk, why all the content that comes out is so heavily curated, why he didn’t want to walk the red carpet with her for the Ghosted premiere etc. Why do I say that he is not ashamed of her Nazism? Well, for the simple reason that he and his team chose her and they very likely knew who she was from the very start. Abba was in a (PR? Real?) relationship with Lucas Bravo before she was linked to Chris. And Lucas and Chris share the same publicist: Meghan. It’s not very believable that she didn’t know who Abba was when they signed on this PR. So if Chris feels any shame other than his age, hopefully it comes from the fact that he knows that this PR strategy that demonizes his fans is despicable. And it is morally and ethically corrupt. 

Laura Benanti’s hilarious sketch as she impersonates Melania Trump for the Colbert show

To end on a much lighter note, I would like to recommend this amazing comedy bit performed by Tony Award winning actress and comic genius Laura Benanti. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8crpSnfl6Hs (start video at 1’54”)

It’s both hilarious and so on point but also very informative on the strategies used in PR tactics. I won’t spoil the ending of the sketch but I think you’ll understand right away why I chose this to illustrate this post. 

[katy-l-wood]

Delete your Threads account. You know what Meta as a company has done, you know the kind of person Mark Zuckerberg is. You've lived through Gamergate, the elections, covid, the fucking lot of it, and yet you're still willingly making an account on Threads. How can you possibly justify that?

Second ask: Scratch that, I hadn't read your most recent posts. Sorry for being so rude.

Third ask: "Still going to keep an eye on it" For what exactly? For it not to be as bad as it is? For it to get even worse before you decide it is wrong? You know who Mark Zuckerberg is. You know what Facebook is. Be up front: you don't actually care or stand for anything, you're only afraid of losing business. Have some dignity.

So you decided to be rude as fuck, "apologize," and then come back and be more rude?

I was incredibly clear in that post of why I am going to keep an eye on Threads, despite the concerns: Twitter was a valuable source of live news, especially during natural disasters, and Threads is the first potentially viable replacement for that. IDK if you actually follow me, but if you do you'll know I do a lot of work around natural disaster communication. Twitter was invaluable as a communication source during natural disasters. Full stop. It is not up for debate. But hey, if you want a source with more authority than a random tumblr blog, here, have a nice shiny research paper:

Mind you, that was written in 2010 and the importance of Twitter as a communications tool during natural disasters has only increased since then. There is no other tool out there, no other website--news or otherwise, that can provide such granular, specific updates when shit hits the fan as Twitter did. The only better, quicker source of information I have found during natural disasters is listening to actual radio chatter from the departments involved in whatever problem, and that can be very tricky to do if you don't know where to look or have the right equipment. There is no other site where I can go specifically follow so many of my local fire departments, my local emergency services, my local National Weather System stations, and get live pushed updates from them every single time they post.

When Twitter DDOSed itself last week and put a limit on the amount of tweets people could view and forced people to be logged in to view anything at all, the effect was immediate and BAD. People suddenly couldn't view things like missing person alerts, or weather alerts. I had people messaging me because they were trying to check the National Weather System autoalerts for their area on Twitter due to being caught in a sudden storm, but they couldn't get on to check.

Love it or hate it, Twitter had an immense amount of value and it got that value--at least in the case of natural disaster communication--because the stubborn ass government decided it was big enough to be trusted with official lines of information. Very, very few other social media sites have ever had that trust from the government. Look at how they banned TikTok on all government devices. But they DO trust Facebook, and Instagram, and Meta. Which means their chances of trusting Threads and migrating over there when Twitter finally takes its last breath are ASTRONOMICALLY higher than expecting them to go anywhere else.

We can debate the privacy and moral issues of the Metaverse and those involved until the cows come home, but it does not change the fact that if my mountain is on fire I'm gonna get information about where that fire is from wherever the fuck I can. I'm not going to wait around for it to maybe show up in a "live" updates news article from CNN from some reporter half a continent away in New York who doesn't know anything about where I live and gets the roads wrong because they just don't know. I'm going to go to the website full of my neighbors and local firefighters and see what's happening right that second.

Do we need to fix the privacy and moral issues? Yes. But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater either. Not using Threads or any other Meta product isn't the answer here. Using them with extreme caution and only for very specific needs, for the time being, is. Long term, we need to be focusing on privacy based legislation that would finally put these companies in their place. But until then, again, I'm going to keep following my local fire departments wherever they go.

P.S.: If you're going to keep the shitty attitude, fuck right off and unfollow+block. You're not wanted here.

#Threads #I was honestly going to make this post anyway due to how some people are tagging the original post #So here #I could honestly debate this all day #lol #But I have shit to do today and right now that is breakfast #Natural Disaster Communication #Twitter #Death of Twitter

[avatar-news]

Update 2: We finally figured out what happened with this whole Kyoshi movie mistake, and it has a pretty mundane explanation lol. Read an in-depth explanation here if you’re interested!

Original post below:

Update: Aang movie is first now in schedule shuffle!

Paramount and Avatar Studios’ slate of animated Avatar movies coming to theaters: Kyoshi (2024), Zuko (2025), Korra (2026)

It’s the post you’ve all been waiting for. I’ve finally compiled, confirmed, and cross-referenced enough sources to feel confident in posting what Avatar Studios’ first three movies are about, in what order, and (with a big grain of salt, okay?) when they’re coming.

You might be aware that there’s been a flurry of Avatar Studios news out of the 2022 Annecy International Animation Film Festival in the last few days-- they revealed that three movies are actively in the works right now, they confirmed my report on the director of the first movie, and they showed the first teaser for it to the press in attendance.

Let’s tackle that teaser first. After checking with a couple of sources who were in attendance, we’re pretty sure that what was shown was General Fong’s fortress, which was first visited by Aang and the Gaang in Avatar: The Last Airbender Book Two: Earth, Chapter One: The Avatar State.

It was either this exact clip/screencaps from the original, or something very similar. That visual was followed by text saying “the Avatar returns” (a popular tagline these days) and the earthbending symbol. Which brings us to...

The first animated movie coming from Avatar Studios is the prequel I reported on before, and it’s a “prequel” because it stars the most recent earth Avatar before Aang and Korra: Avatar Kyoshi.

Next, I can confirm that the second movie will be the one I exclusively revealed last month: a story focused on Fire Lord Zuko.

Lastly, and this is a brand-new reveal, the third movie is set in the era of Avatar Korra, after the end of the animated series.

I should note that these are all very high-level descriptions, for example I don’t know the exact focus of the Korra era movie, although I’d personally be willing to bet it will be Korra herself. But ultimately, I guess I should put a disclaimer that I don’t know that level of detail, except for the specific case of the Zuko movie being about Zuko himself. Technically, I don’t know that the Kyoshi movie will “star” her, but I can’t really imagine it won’t, you know?

AS FOR THE DATES. I debated whether to put them or not, but I decided to make things spicy and go for it this time. I want to make it clear that these are NOT my estimates, they are legit info cross-referenced from at least two sources, but...... it’s really early info subject to change and not meant to be any sort of commitment from anyone. I just figured that by the time we get to these years, no one will remember this post. 😂 Release dates could shift around as they almost always do in this day and age, but it’s just because that’s a natural thing that happens. So with all that being said, you can very vaguely look forward to animated Avatar movies coming to theaters once a year starting in 2024, with the first three being:

Kyoshi (2024)

Zuko (2025)

Korra (2026)

(Obviously those are not the movies’ titles.)

This next part is my estimate: I would personally expect LATE 2024 for the first one. Again, it’s super early. As for the rest: again, big grain of salt. As production goes on, maybe they’ll decide they want to do every two years instead, or any number of things that could lead to the slate changing.

It’s just really important to understand that this is just a snapshot of Avatar Studios’ CURRENT plans-- their NOT announced, NOT confirmed plans. I wouldn’t announce or confirm anything this early either, and there’s a good reason they aren’t-- they haven’t even revealed their first ever movie yet, much less committing to a slate. So please keep all that context in mind; don’t expect them to reveal anything about any Korra movie any time soon-- there are two movies before that that probably won’t even reveal anything any time soon. That being said, this is legit info and not just speculation/guessing, and it also might NOT change. I think release dates are honestly highly likely to change, but I don’t think it would be unlikely if the three high-level concepts of Kyoshi/Zuko/Korra stay the same. Assuming my sources are correct about those in the first place of course. :)

Alright, that’s enough disclaimers, I’ll let you run amok now. And yeah. KORRA’S BACK.

#news #movie #prequel movie #kyoshi movie #zuko movie #korra movie #annecy 2022 #avatar news exclusive

[sgiandubh]

Tools of the trade

Came home an hour ago from a reception I literally fled (busy week in this respect, unfortunately). And I kept being internally nagged during the short taxi ride, by what is probably at least this season's Anon. Landed in @bat-cat-reader's inbox with regard to Marple's most recent innuendo:

I had to know more about this, since I had no idea such deep diving tools were now available for pretty much everyone. Here's the gist of how it works, in pics and a quick review:

What Snoopreport promises its subscribers is to basically keep them posted on the targeted accounts' online behavior patterns...

... without the need to publicly follow them on Insta (sounds familiar?)...

...leaving no trace (zero accountability, because it uses only public data: this can be interpreted differently, in a different legal system/context, since several European countries, as I already discussed, have more protective legal provisions for a person's right to his/her own image)...

... at minimal costs (I suppose the most cost-effective, if we assume this is one of the used monitoring tools, would be the small business pack, allowing the super sleuth to track 10 different accounts, for peanuts):

A review of this product I have checked here (https://www.techuntold.com/snoopreport-review/) points out the obvious Achilles' heel of this app. Snoopreport obviously does not work for private accounts:

Which brings up a logical question: could the (in)famous 'resource' be S's private Insta account, in which case it would be very difficult for the sleuth to admit stalking it? Is it even technically possible to stalk a private Instagram account and remain unseen?

The answer to the latter is yes: other actors of this apparently very lucrative market, such as Glassagram (https://glassagram.com/), do not have Snoopreport's scruples and monitor even private accounts.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory and to be honest, it gave me the chills:

Serious reviews (https://www.techuntold.com/glassagram-review-spy-instagram/) are raving about this one, calling it the best app on the market, mainly because you can save all the snooped content on your own device:

... and the price, for stalking (their own choice of vocabulary, not mine, for once) an unlimited number of accounts is reasonable:

Best of it? They've been around since 2017.

In a nutshell: is it legal? it would seem so, in the US, not so sure about the UK/EU. Is it moral? It's up to you to decide what to think of a firm which has no problem admitting to encouraging stalking (but hey, don't listen to the nutcase here, huh?) and uses completely different real-life situations (infidelity, kids' monitoring) to assert its legitimacy and utility.

What I mean by this very long and illustrative post is this: you do not need inside sources/information to have one day the idea of crossing what is obviously (at least in my book) a red line. You just have to be able (lots of free time), willing (asserting power over a very thirsty and not so digitally skilled audience) and voilà: a Super Sleuth is born.

It is one thing to analyze and speculate, based on open sources, to your heart's content. It is a different affair altogether to obsessively monitor someone, with so much detail and personal (& financial) investment, over a substantial period of time. I will die on this hill and you will never change my mind on this one.

Is the emperor naked? I wouldn't venture speculating. What I do know, is that this emperor is a very, very sad one.

#fandom