#(and/or has been banned in another country)

[mayakern]

hiiii it's me! devin! ur favorite!

maya is still banned from doing big business things on social media while she takes time to rest and detoxify from the poison that is running social media full time for ten years. everybody clap! yay!

i'm here to share some info on our button-up shirt and dress preorders!

as many of you already know, i lost my anti-preorder campaign due to the high minimum per design. there's been some confusion and uncertainty. carsyn's doing her best but preorders are overwhelming and i have some time today

SO TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS:

how close are you to hitting the minimum goal for the button-up shirts and dresses?

not close lol. as of 4/26 we're at about 8% funded. i refuse to panic until after may 3rd

why the funeral design?

the funeral design won our design poll

initially we were going to run preorders for two designs: funeral as well as astronauts. when we got news that the minimum would be 400 garments per design (we're able to spread that across the button-up shirts and dresses) we decided to cut back to one design. we're really not big enough to expect 800 orders on an $80-90 item

why not another design?

another design did not win the design poll

what would have been chosen other than funeral or astronaut?

deadly florals, hiss from a rose, microorganisms, and hands were all the top placers in the design poll after funeral

can you do solid color?

yes

why didn't you do solid color?

you can buy a solid color button-up shirt or dress from anywhere. the plan has always been to introduce these garments in solid color after their initial introduction

...so can you do solid color?

we will consider doing solid color preorders if these preorders bomb

how much would solid color cost?

probably the same. it's not much cheaper. it's faster to make tho

how much would the ecovero viscose cost instead of cotton?

maybe like $10 cheaper

it's really soft tbh but it's a different weave from the viscose for the skirts. it's my number one fabric for the button-ups but alas the cotton fandom won for now

what happens if preorders bomb?

we cancel and refund all preorders.

maybe we'll try again with a different design or with fewer features after we have some time to decompress from the nightmare that is running preorders (can you tell i hate preorders). if they bomb bad enough we may completely nix patterned button-up shirts and dresses. we don't know yet!

does that affect the picnic top?

the picnic top is completely separate. since it's made out of a different fabric it has its own minimum, so it will not be affected by button-up shirt and dress preorders

and like, to be totally honest, it's way cheaper to produce. we can eat some of the cost and just make them. they're small enough to store easily and they're at a lower price point so we can expect to sell them after we receive them, like the wrap tops

btw, we have other ready-to-ship things already in production. we've been working on a whole secret project. surprise!

why did you launch preorders for the button-up shirt/dress at the same time as the picnic top?

the picnic top sample came in with the button-up dress sample and it needed very little alteration. also maya liked it. also we may be developing an entire line inspired by the picnic top so keep an eye out for that next spring

why is the new button-up shirt more expensive than the old button-up shirt?

it's more expensive to make

why is it more expensive to make?

this is a different factory from the one we used before. it's more expensive because they pay their staff a higher wage and likely have other costs

this is a different fabric from the one we used before. it's a stretch cotton with a GOTS certification

this is imported from a different country from the one we used before. turkey has much higher import fees to the US

what is a GOTS certification?

the short version is the fabric itself is more environmentally friendly and produced with more fair labor practices than standard cotton

you can read the long version here here

can you do fulfillment from somewhere other than the US?

we're working on it. it probably won't lower prices tho, since fulfillment centers also cost money

anyway...

none of this is to shame someone for not preordering. groceries are expensive and things are tight, plus it kinda sucks to spend on a tight budget and not get what you ordered for a few months

(can you tell i hate preorders)

i think there's a lot of surprise since we've never done preorders on a single design before, and that's fair! we debated on doing a kickstarter but a) i hate doing kickstarters b) kickstarter takes a percentage of sales and our profit margin on these is already lower than we'd like it to be

i'm tired and i can't remember anything else i wanted to say. i may answer any additional questions from my own tumblr (@punchyemblem and now i'm gonna get a notification that i'm gonna be jumpscared by) but carsyn will be handling most questions

also don't worry, when you say nice things we still show maya. also she's fine, she's just in her (forced and highly necessary and possibly permanent) limited social media era

#devin time #store stuff

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

I’m still furious at the Brazil mess so I’m sorry if this is incoherent but holy fuck!!!! Im not saying this to minimize Ana’s death, but another person was shot and killed before the concert, and over 1000 people were injured during it as well!! I don’t care whether it was strictly her, the venue, of her team making decisions none of that should’ve happened. They banned outside water, closed the air vents so people in the parking lot couldn’t hear for free, used pyrotechnics even though fans begged her not to make the already 100 degree heat worse. The fact that over A THOUSAND people fainted or were burned by the venues metal grates and she did nothing to stop it and nothing afterward!!! Brazil is one of the places being hit by global warming the hardest and she did all this shit during the hottest time of year, AND flew back and forth between Brazil and her home every night instead of staying in a hotel. She’s been one of if not the biggest individual contributors to pollution for the past 2 years!! Indirectly and directly she is to blame for all this and I think she knows it. It’s probably why she couldn’t muster more than a “I’m so sad don’t msg :(“ insta story post and purposely skipped all her other shows quiet moments. It’s clear she doesn’t care about her fans, especially fans of color. I hope everyone at that concert sues for negligence.

no worries its not incoherent at all!

her negligence was deliberate. idc what any swiftie says she is responsible to a certain extent of the venue and she definitely 100% has the power to make sure none of that shit happened. but she knew and didn’t care (and she definitely knew because they also told her of ana’s death). a moral human being would stop the show and make sure the conditions were liveable and SAFE to be in during a concert but she knew she already had everyone’s $ so she just went on anyways. and i don’t doubt the fact her negligence was aided by the fact that brazil isn’t a wealthy white western country so she wouldn’t face as much backlash. can you imagine if this happened in the U.S. with a girl that looked just like her? her tour would be cancelled. & you’re not minimizing ana’s death at all, you’re just giving proper context to the horrific situation and letting us know her death wasn’t spontaneous but a direct result of the neglectful and actively dangerous conditions. and then to top this all off with her flying to/from her LA home like what a way to say fuck you to her brazilian fans. im so sorry this happened and her racism is undeniable and fatal

#anti taylor swift #ana clara benevides #ask #anon #notyouraryang0dd3ss #eras tour #brazil

[awakefor48hours]

Shows you should save physically immediately

Over the Garden Wall -- It's being pulled from HBO Max on August 31 and knowing HBO, there's a chance it'll be pulled sooner. *I have now made a Google Drive of all the episodes of OTGW. Please, please, please, PLEASE, save these on a physical device.

The Owl House -- Disney has tried to bury this show many times (giving it a weird release schedule, cutting the budget, etc) and has even cancelled the show. Also, Disney+ is going to nuke their catalogue soon and I doubt TOH will survive*I have now also saved all the episodes of TOH. Click here for the posts with all of the episodes

Amphibia -- I know less about the behind the scenes BS than TOH but Amphibia was screwed over by Disney mainly by poor promotion. Also since one of the protagonist is openly bisexual*, like TOH, I really can't imagine this would survive.*Amphibia has also been saved. Go here for the post with all the episodes.

Steven Universe -- Cartoon Network cancelled Steven Universe and gave it a weird release schedule, it has also just been pulled from HBO Max.

Gravity Falls -- Once again, Disney+ is going to nuke their catalogue at some point in the future and between Wendy being canonically bi, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland being in a relationship, and Alex Hirsch (being the amazing man that he is) constantly calling Disney out on their BS, I imagine that Disney would be more than willing to nuke Gravity Falls. *I’ve also saved Gravity Falls now go to the main post here to see all the episodes.

and most importantly

Every single show, book, game, fanfiction, movie, etc you've ever loved

We now know that at any moment's notice, streaming services can and will just nuke their catalogue without hesitation. If it's digital, it can be removed and there's a likely chance you'll never see it again.

So, please take some time to save anything you love on an external device. It could be a box set (it can be official or fan-made one), a USB, or anything.

If you have a physical copy of something, it's yours forever and no one can take that away from you.

*Edit because I’ve seen some confusion about this. Read this again, it’s “one of the protagonists” not “the protagonist.” Sasha is the one who’s bi, Anne’s sexuality hasn’t been confirmed.

Also in addition to this, people have reblogged this to say Steven Universe is still on HBO. Since I don’t have HBO, I’ve been going off of what people have been saying and I’ve seen it mentioned that HBO was taking off SU. You should still save it though.

*Edit 2 if any of the links here don’t work, check the original post as I might’ve changed/updated them. If that still doesn’t work, send me an ask or DM I’ll give them to you.

#toh #the owl house #gravity falls #steven universe #su #amphibia #over the garden wall #otgw #others you should probably save > #rwby #she ra #miraculous ladybug #the legend of korra #< any show with a queer cast #(and/or has been banned in another country) #you should save it immediately #top posts

[twpsyn-who]

Talking a little bit about 'boycotting Eurovision' under Keep Reading, feel free to scroll down if is not what you want to see.

The most used argument on the matter of banning Israel from Eurovision is the fact that Russia got banned from Eurovision, which is the worst argument anyone could bring.

Kindly reminder that Russia didn't get banned because of the war with Ukraine. Russia got banned because many countries has threatened to withdraw from the competition. Sadly, that's a big difference.

Yes, the countries has threatened to withdraw because they support Ukraine and see Russia as the party in the wrong. That was their reason. EBU's reason for banning Russian was because those countries threatened to withdraw, not because the war was bad and Russia must be stopped.

This situation isn't the same. Why? Because many countries support Israel in their genocide. Because this time around Palestine is the party in the wrong. Because we're taught to believe that Israel isn't in the wrong here.**

Boycotting Eurovision won't work. There are people out there who don't know the truth and want to watch Eurovision. There are people out there who don't care and will watch Eurovision regardless of the situation. There are people out there who, despite having the facts, still don't see Israel as the bad guy in this situation and will watch Eurovision. Sadly, boycotting won't work unless everyone does it.

The only way Israel will get banned, in my opinion, is by going through the same thing as Russia. If other countries threatened to withdraw- and not any countries, but the ones investing the most in Eurovision, then yes. That will get Israel banned.

Otherwise? The only thing we do is hurt artists that don't deserve it. Artists who use Eurovision as a way to get more exposure and experience. Artists who deserve to be heard.

Don't vote for Israel's entry. Don't stream their song either. Heck, turn off the TV when is their turn to perform.

**This whole situation (the war, not Eurovision) isn't only black and white. Civilians die daily because of this, all of them from both sides. Innocent people who has no fault. Let's not forget that

#Honestly I'm tired of the whole 'Russia got banned Israel should be banned too' speech because is truly bullshit #It has nothing to do with the war per se. It was because countries were unwilling to participate in support for Ukraine #If the whole situation was truly political then other countries wouldn't be able to participate either #Is it fair? No. But that's the situation #Alas Eurovision exist so we forget about the bad in the world for a bit and be more united. Have some fun. Stuff like that #I'm going to get so much hate over this omg. But this is just my opinion/point of view on the matter #Sadly this whole situation isn't even about helping the innocent put in danger by this situation. Is about hate like everything else #My wording is so shitty but people on the internet don't understand shit unless I call 'X bad Y good' so we go with that #eurovision 2024 #Also another reminder that THE WHOLE AUDIENCE chanted 'Cha Cha Cha' during eurovision 2023 and were rotting for Finland to win just to lose #Many entries got fucked up by the jury votes too. Our opinion doesn't matter as much as some of you might think lol #Jury votes GOT CHANGED during another eurovision under shitty reasons (I can't remember which year but there were 5 or 6 countries who got #their votes changed). Eurovision has never been fair #We always get annoyed over it and trash talk it then watch it the next year #Also this is not the same as boycotting brands and shit like that who support Israel. No money go from Eurovision to Israel. #This competition as far as I am aware (please correct me if I'm wrong) doesn't support Israel in any way #Be it financially or by donating arms or any other way #Their only fault is for allowing Israel to participate. That's all #Weapons* don't ask me why I said arms instead sorry #i'm tired lol #Fair warning I won't answer any replies to this post

[sojourner-between-worlds]

"Scripture is sufficient."

Hm. Yup. No one said it wasn't.

"That's why I don't watch X media based on the Bible."

So, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you also don't sing any hymns in your church's worship service then, huh? Because, ya know, the Bible has an entire book of songs already, so you don't need any others.

But I'd bet money that's not the case at all. Because we use media other than the Bible to supplement our worship all the time. From visual aids in Sunday School classes down to the décor, they are things we add. And it doesn't make any of them inherently wrong.

Look. I don't care if you, personally, don't like something or not. That's not what this is about. What I have a problem with is you tacking on a "holier than thou" sentiment to a subjective opinion. "Scripture is sufficient." Yes. It is. "I don't like this piece of media because it adds bits" (that don't contradict Scripture). Personal Preference.

And you are allowed to have personal preferences. But you don't need to justify them or belittle other believers in order to say, "I'm not a fan."

So all I can say is this: if you're going to toss out visual media because "scripture is sufficient" then you'd better be prepared to throw out your hymnals, too.

#yes this about someones opinion of the chosen #and lemme tell you the chosen is a lot more biblically sound than a lot of hymns #or do people just not pay attention to the words theyre singing? #'old' doesn't inherently been 'better' #thats a different story though lol #point being it just rubbed me the wrong way #especially considering the chosen specifically has message before the first episode that basically amounts to #'GO READ YOUR BIBLE OKAY' #like they have NEVER claimed to be a replacement for scripture #in fact dallas has said the opposite so many times that it hurts #rubs me the wrong way like an old pastor i had growing up that said you shouldn't script prayers because it makes them less sincere #which is utterly terrible advice btw #another tangent wheeeeeeee lol #anyway heres a fun fact to leave you with: #the chosen can actually make it into countries where the bible is banned because the app is labeled simply as 'entertainment' #so it's not blocked #if it's between the chosen and someone never hearing the gospel otherwise? #yeah i think you guess what i think about that #anyway #*steps off soapbox* #I feel better now lol #the chosen #the chosen tv series #christianity

[hoodienanami]

i need to keep myself in check bc if i dont i’ll eventually drop a 10k essay complete with cited sources on some poor rando who made the mistake of calling the sex pistols manufactured or ‘industry plants’ where i could see it

anyway theres a big difference between being misinformed about a subject and being willfully ignorant towards reality bc you havent bothered to do any research of your own since the lies youve been told line up with your agendas in some way

#hoodie talks #sex pistols #anywayyyy the whole idea that theyre manufactured comes from their svengali-wannabe manager and has been proven wrong countless times #and none of you know what an industry plant actually is! #its def not four working class teenagers making a band together and then getting banned across an entire country #also if the sex pistols were manufactured then the clash was DEF manufactured lmao #the story of the clash's manager is actually very interesting and worth looking into if youre a fan of the band #[enter funny queue name here] #anyway i highly recc reading England's Dreaming or steve and johnny's autobiographies if you want to learn more about the sex pistols #also the documentary the filth and the fury is free on youtube and another great way to learn more #punk rock posting

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

What is the EARN IT Act?

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

[phone] connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

#earn it act #internet censorship #restrict act #us politics #net neutrality

[dduane]

For people's attention

Via old colleague Cheryl Morgan: this warning.

(For reasons unclear to me, I seem unable to simply use the Tumblr link-to-post option here. So, please see below for the meat of Cheryl's message:)

One of the things that has protected trans rights in the UK over the past couple of years is that the Tories are too busy, and too cowardly, to actually repeal the Gender Recognition Act, even though many of their MPs very much want to get that done. The anti-trans lobby is unhappy about this, and is therefore taking matters into its own hands by taking legal action. Very soon, their case will reach the Supreme Court. Should they win, the consequences for trans people in the UK (and equality law more generally) will be catastrophic. The Gender Recognition Act says, unambiguously:

Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

However, as I understand it, the argument that will be put before the Supreme Court is that allowing a trans woman to be treated as a woman is, de facto, discrimination against cisgender women, and therefore illegal under the Equality Act. As the Equality Act is a more recent piece of legislation, its provisions should supercede those of the GRA. Hopefully it is obvious that, should this claim succeed, it will open the doors to equivalent claims such as, “letting Black people into my whites-only pub is discrimination against white people,” and “building a wheelchair ramp is discrimination against able-bodied people.” Thankfully such claims are less likely to pass the Supreme Court. But the chances of this getting through are very high. And if it does, not only will the GRA be rendered useless, it will create a climate of fear in businesses all around the country. Because it will be possible for a business (or school, local authority, etc.) to be sued for discrimination if they inadvertently allow a trans woman to be treated as a woman. This will lead to a lot of proactive bans being issued at places like public toilets, gyms, clothing stores and so on. Most of the people caught by this will be gender-nonconforming cisgender women, because despite what the anti-trans lobby claims, they can’t always tell, and neither can anyone else.

...And once you've been stopped going into a women's room because you don't look (pretty) woman enough... well.

Another writer has been funding the less humane side of this argument. The people funding the humane side are short of funds to assist them making the less toxic side of the case.

Please help if you can.

#Good Law project #trans people #trans issues

[primofate]

Kiss your Genshin best friend to see his reaction

Summary: You’ve been best friends for a whilenow, and you definitely have those little feelings of maybe wanting to be more but you just don’t know how to convey it. So you take a leap of faith, put a hand on his cheek, and give him a peck on the lips. Something you’ve never done before. Hey, actions speak louder than words, right...?

Characters: Aether, Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Bennett, Chongyun, Cyno,  Dainsleif, Diluc, Gorou, Itto, Kaeya, Kaveh, Kazuha, Lyney, Neuvillette, Razor, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, Thoma, Venti, Xiao, Xingqiu, Zhongli, gn!reader

Warnings: inspired by an old tiktok trend even though I don’t have tiktok cause it’s banned in my country, lol but it was also a request by an anon, not proofread

Aether

Stunned does not even describe the entirety of it

He’s speechless and staring at you for a good five seconds before his brain starts to work again

“Wait, what was--” touches his lips to try and recall if that really happened or if he was trippin’

“Wait, hold on,” starts laughing at you and grabs at your wrist.

Proceeds to stare at you for another 5 seconds to process the information overload.

“Would you...wanna try that again?” with a loopy yet unsure grin

Albedo

Blinks once and leans back, away from you.

The surprised expression only crosses his face for a second.

He’s trying to logically piece together things and not jump to conclusions cause that’s just not him.

“...Did you, make a mistake?” When you shake your head no he grabs your hand and pulls you closer up against him.

You’d think he’d be more subtle but he might have been waiting for that for just as long as you were.

“Just making sure...before I experiment on your lips again,” 

Alhaitham

has a blank look on his face. You can’t tell what he’s thinking (then again, you never can).

closes his book, leans forward to grab your hand and to pull you closer. He’s staring holes into you now.

“W-What?” You stutter, still feeling flustered by your own actions.

He makes you look at him by tilting your chin up, but gently, and his eyes narrow at you.

“...If you're against this, now's the time to speak up," as he leans closer just an inch from your lips, gauging your response, his breath hot on you.

But he doesn’t give you time to respond and gives you a kiss more passionate than you expected.

He got his answer when you kissed back.

Ayato

arm latches on around your waist before you can even pull back and turns the quick peck into a full kiss.

He doesn’t half-ass anything and is even bold enough to pepper kisses down your jaw. 

You’re a little overwhelmed at his response, not expecting it to be this positive.

“Hm?” chuckles. “I’m only giving you what you asked for. One is hardly enough, no?”

Bennett

Has the “?!?!” expression

Simply half confused half shocked

Frozen in both fear and nervousness.

Cannot help but replay the kiss a thousand times in his head before he stutters out

“Y-Y-Y/N?!” and doesn’t even know what to say

Goes red

“T-T-That was a kiss, right?” You nod and he goes even redder if possible

Can’t comprehend it and straight up asks you why you did it. Your attempt at being obvious has failed.

It’s not that he doesn’t like you, he simply just can’t believe it. 

Chongyun

just dies. pray for him.

A bit like Bennet but more of a “!!!!!!” reaction and immediately goes red without any prompting.

Has to turn away and calm himself though you can still see his red ears. 

You ask him a moment later if he’s okay

“F-F-Fine! I’m...extremely pleased!” Then turns around when he realizes what he said and waves his hands to try and explain. “I-I mean, you don’t have to do it again! I’m just--” 

Decides shutting up would be a better option and keeps his mouth closed while his eyes are tacked on to the ground.

Cyno

silently flustered. feels heat on his cheeks but just stares at you for a moment. Then turns away from you to gather his thoughts. The type of guy who looks tough but has “Y/N kissed me” running 800 times in his mind just to process it.

Coughs into his hand and clears his throat before turning back towards you. You’re starting to think you’re going to be rejected.

“Did you...Was that a mistake?” he just wants to be cautious.

You tell him it wasn’t and he feels embarrassed all over again.

This time just rubs his neck and looks at the ground before suggesting quietly “...We can try and make it longer next time,”

Dainsleif

At the first touch of your lips, not even 1 second in he recoils his head back and looks at you with eyes that are a fraction wider

It makes you think that he didn’t like it, since his averse reaction was so fast.

In reality he just doesn’t wanna cross a line that the two of you can’t undo but you take it the wrong way and apologize to him.

He snatches your wrist in a split second, “Don’t apologize. I just...” his eyes wander over to your lips and you see him gulp. 

“I just want to make sure this is what you really want...” he says this while learning forward, just waiting for you to be the one to connect the two of you again.

Diluc

Does not even realize that the moment you lean in he ALSO leans forward and welcomes your lips. 

Also does not realize that his hand has comfortably placed itself on your hip. 

Kiss lasts longer than you intended and when the two of you finally pull back there’s astonishment in his eyes, but the good kind. The type where he’s taken aback by how good and right that felt.

He doesn’t withdraw his hand on your hip but he does cough into his hand and avert his eyes for a moment.

“...That was...rather unexpected...No, I’m not displeased at all...” he explains himself, gets the courage to finally look at you again and breathes out a question, his lips look more luscious than usual but so do yours, in his perspective “May I...once again?”

Gorou

Tail freezes, ears perk up.

His eyes don’t even close and he’s stunned, hand half up about to cover his lips but he seemed to have malfunctioned.

“Y-Y-Y-You can’t just--!!”

There’s so many random things running through his mind:

Did you eat dango for a snack? Cause your lips sure tasted sweet.

How are they so soft? Sure he’s stared at you a couple of times but he didn’t think your lips would be THAT soft.

How is he still alive? He feels as if he’s been sent to heaven already.

Snaps out of all his thoughts by shaking his head, tries to keep a straight face. “W-Warn me next time!” 

but his tail is uncontrollably wagging.

Itto

Possibly the one with the most wide-eyed and dumbfounded reaction. 

Speechless but savors the taste of your lips.

When he finally comprehends what happens (took you some hand waving in front of his face), he grabs you by the waist and pulls you in for another one. Head dipping confidently, no questions asked and just goes for it.

“W-Wow! Uh...I mean! Didn’t know you were such a good kisser! W-Well. Actually! I can’t really be sure, we gotta try that again and see!”

Eager and oh so ready. Like he found a new hobby.

Will pounce on you if he has the chance.

Kaeya

Sees it coming before it even happens and welcomes it. It’s like he was practicing for it his whole life.

Immediately has his hand pressed against the back of your head to deepen the kiss and lean closer to you.

It definitely lasts for longer than you thought it would. 

He pulls back with a grin but doesn’t let you go.

His whisper sends shivers down your spine and he runs a finger under your chin to tip it up “You know this isn’t going to end with just one, right?”

Also the type that would pull you by the waist and he would fall back in bed while you topple on top of him. 

Kaveh

Will have a dumbfounded/shocked/?!?!?!?!/wth expression on his face for a good 10 seconds before he starts functioning again. At which point you’re just about ready to turn around and run away from him.

“Wait! Where are you going?! You can’t just run away after that!”

You retort back that you don’t even know what else to do or say since he’s just gone silent.

“Well--I’m just--What do you expect me to say when you suddenly kiss me like that?!” 

Is now covering his mouth but is also blushing and doesn’t know what to do.

“No! It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just...Does this mean what I think it means?” 

You counter back with “Well what do you think it means?”

low key the two of you just go back and forth for a while cause you both are just too damn embarrassed about it. 

Kazuha

It all seems so natural with this guy.

When he sees you coming in his hand rests on your cheek automatically and he receives the kiss gracefully. 

The kiss doesn’t deepen, but you feel that he has urged you to lengthen it a little.

When the two of you pull apart it’s not a sudden jerk back, it’s a slow and only slight slide away. 

He’s looking at you as if he’s seen the stars in the night sky for the very first time.

He doesn’t utter a word, but his look says it all and he dips down again for another kiss, just assuming that you’re alright with it.

Lyney

doesn’t let you pull away and makes the kiss longer. It’s like he was waiting for it to happen and was prepared. 

Has a grin when he pulls back, one arm round your waist, unwilling to let you go.

“Hah, thought you had me there didn’t you?” winks and conjures up a rainbow rose from somewhere and presents it to you.

“Oh but my dear Y/N, I’m always one step ahead of you, remember that,” he teases and dips in to whisper in your ear.

“That’s how I know that you want another kiss, am I right?”

Neuvillette

Is frozen when you kiss him, and frozen for a second more when you pull away but quickly gains his composure back.

“Y/N...” he starts, as if trying to piece his words carefully. “I can only hope that you’re aware... I don’t offer affection to just anyone...” 

There’s a brief silence and you tell him that you’re aware but he doesn’t seem to have processed your response and instead asks you another question.

“...Is it the same for you? Am I right to assume that this...kiss...isn’t because of just a sudden fleeting emotion...or a result of just impulse--”

You stop him midway and tell him it’s out of love. 

He seems to again be frozen in thought, until he slowly bridges the gap between the two of you.

“...In that case perhaps we should try that again...I could taste more of nervousness than anything else, Y/N. Maybe a second time will seal it,”

just wants to kiss you again. properly. 

Razor

Blinks. Processes. Blushes

Shy smile on his face but he’s a simple person who communicates better with actions so he kind of understands your intentions.

He moves forward to give you a quick peck on the cheek (that’s the only thing he’s brave enough for) as if returning the favor

then he turns around and pretends to be busy doing his own thing when in truth he has a flustered face on and is just trying to hide his giddiness from you.

Scaramouche

Grabs your wrists, both of them, and demands an answer. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”

He’s not scowling, but there’s a glare on his face and yet there’s a subtle shyness to it. Like you’ve offended him but he doesn’t want to show it.

“If you’re going to do that, you have to do it properly, you dumbass,”

Pulls on one of your wrists so that you’re nearly crashing towards him (just the way he likes it) and clumsily wraps his arms around you and kisses you. 

He pretends he knows what he’s doing but has no idea and it’s probably also his first kiss.

Tartaglia

The one that chases after your lips with a laugh.

You kiss, you pull away, but his lips are following yours as you pull backward and it’s just so funny that the two of you can’t help but giggle.

But he always gets what he wants so he cups your face in his hands and gives you a proper kiss. 

“Should’ve done it earlier, it’s hard just being your friend,” winks

Also one who will ask for another, and then another, and then another so you’ve gotta have your boundaries set, he’s so good at begging for more kisses too.

If he’s not satisfied and wants more, is also the type to trap you against a wall until you give him another.

Thoma

Has a gasp caught in his throat.

instinctively has his fingers on his lips

“Y/N was that...intentional?”

eyes wide in pleasant surprise and when you nod your head he breaks into a small charming laugh.

“I’m sorry, I made you wait. I’m a little embarrassed that you made the first move but...”

There’s a glow on his face and an unparalleled gentleness in his eyes when he brushes his thumb across your cheek. 

“this time, let me do it,” as he leans in for a fireworks behind your eyes kiss.

Venti

Blinks. Is surprised only for a split second then laughs. 

“Ahhh so that’s why you’re so jittery today!”

Would wrap his arms around your waist and pull you on his lap. 

“No need to be nervous kitten, I’ve been waiting a while too. Come on, just one won’t do!”

Ridiculously giddy and doesn’t hide it. Like a child who has found a new candy store.

At some point he will remind you that you were the one who made the first move. It’ll probably be one of his most favourite stories to tell.

Xiao

You caught him by surprise. 

He holds your hand but turns his head away to look at something else, trying to keep his blush covered. 

You keep moving to the side he’s turned to only for him to swing his head the opposite direction when you do so, still trying to hide.

“Quit--Quit moving around! I just--” growls under his breath that you won’t let him have his moment in peace.

Suddenly grabs you to plant a clumsy kiss on your lips again.

Then becomes embarrassed all over again.

Xingqiu

Surprised, but kind of in a neutral way. 

He’s always liked you and is comfortable with you so he’s delighted, but also outwardly calm about it.

“Hm...Shame. That was a little too quick,”

Inwardly he might be freaking out a little bit.

“I’m...not all that knowledgeable when it comes to these things. But I can assure you that I enjoyed it,”

Tugs at your hand to “hint” that he’d like to try again but probably will have a hard time conveying that he wants to try again using his words.

Zhongli

His lips part a little when it happens and he regains composure fairly quickly.

“Hm...” Will close his eyes to think about it but will also beckon you closer with an upward flick of his hand.

Takes your hand and kisses the back of it. It’s tender and patient and he looks up at you while he does so. 

“There’s no hurry...I’m the type of person who...” trails his hand up your arm, to your shoulder and traces your jawline. “Likes to savour things...”

His voice has the ability to make you tremble with some sort of excitement. “Now then...Let’s try that again,”

Support me at ko-fi and read some exclusive fics!

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Masterlist

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#genshin impact drabble #genshin impact headcanons #xiao x reader #xiao #zhongli x reader #zhongli #thoma x reader #ayato x reader #itto x reader #kaeya x reader #diluc x reader #scaramouche x reader #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #venti x reader #kazuha x reader #dainsleif x reader #albedo x reader #xingqiu x reader #bennett x reader #chongyun x reader #genshin fluff #genshin impact fluff #neuvvillette fluff #neuvillette x reader #lyney x reader

[caramelcuppaccino]

hey everyone. turkey has been struck by a very strong earthquake around four am. even now, many regions are being struck still. the weather is cold and snowy and people had to leave their homes. many people have lost their lives (edit: it’s been reported that the number is 1004 now (edit: more than 1500) (edit: more than 2000) (edit: more than 3000) (edit: 5434) (edit: more than 12.000 peope have lost their lives) (edit: more than 34.000 people have lost their lives) (edit: more than 40.000 people have lost their lives) (edit: more than 9000 injured people) (edit: 22.000 injured people) (edit: 31.777) (edit: more than 62.000 people are injured) and there are many people who are stuck under the wrecks (edit: number unkown) it has been reported that around two thousand buildings have collapsed and keep collapsing (edit: more than 9000) turkey has declared a fourth level alert state. the ‘’level 4’’ alarm condition includes an international call for help. if you can and would like to, this is the most reliable organization you can donate to:

(ps: akad and red crescent are not trusted by turkish locals. especially afad because they are lying about the help they send and the number of people. please refrain from donating to them. AHBAP is the most trustworthy organization that sends help immediately).

((please do not hesitate to contact me if you need help with the website/language while donating))

(((1€ and 1$ almost equal to 20 turkish lira. so even a little amounts means a lot to us.)))

((((it has been reported that around 194.000 people are under the wrecks and still waiting to be rescued))))

(((((people are sharing notices of victims who are still under the wrecks and waiting to be rescued on twitter ever since the earthquake and turkish government officially announced that they are banning twitter. this is the reason why we don’t want you to donate to afad and red crescent; they only listen to the government. they don’t care about the people.)))))

HOW TO DONATE:

HOW TO AND WHERE TO DONATE

FOR UK:

ANOTHER FUND FOR SYRIA AND TURKEY:

HOW TO DONATE:

#turkey #earthquake #tw earthquake #tw death #help turkey #turkey earthquake #Instagram

[zinniajones]

Text of thread at https://kolektiva.social/@zinnia/110418489814171631:

Yes - this is what is happening in Florida due to SB 254, which was signed into law on Tuesday 5/17/2023, taking immediate effect. This immediately cut off 80%+ of adult trans people in Florida from having their HRT refilled, because SB 254 uniquely prohibits only nurse practitioners from prescribing only gender-affirming medications.

This has already been in effect for 7 days now.

Trans adults in Florida have already been cut off from their HRT refills for a week now, including those of us who have been stable on these medications for years or decades.

This is VERY different from the general situation of trans youth care bans in 19 states, many still working their way through the courts.

This has *already* happened, to *all* of us: all trans adults in the third most populous state in the US.

The number of trans adults on HRT massively exceeds the sliver of the population that are under 18 and are prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

These laws, advanced under the pretext of 'protecting children', are now directly impacting a far larger group of people who are not children and are not subject to those pretextual concerns.

Other arguments about withholding public Medicaid funding for transition treatment also do not apply here: SB 254 does not even allow receiving this care through private insurance or paying cash out of pocket. The care isn't simply not covered - the care itself cannot be provided regardless.

What is happening in Florida requires special attention above the situation of trans youth care bans nationally. This is having a vastly larger impact quantifiably.

It will have worse impacts qualitatively as well: adults are responsible for taking care of and protecting trans kids and making sure they do not hurt themselves.

Whereas as a trans adult, we have no one standing guard at the brink but our own self and the void to which we are accountable.

These are the facts as they stand right now. These are the facts as they have stood for a WEEK and NO ONE nationally is putting any attention on this because there are 19 trans youth care bans all across the country going on, along with everything else targeting trans people and the LGBT community broadly.

This is a specific harm that is happening now and has been happening for 168 hours.

It is not a hypothetical issue to raise awareness of, as if it were at the stage of some proposal that needs to be fought back. This has already happened and is happening right now. Active harm is happening until this law is rolled back.

For all of Florida's history since the inception of the applicable regulatory and licensing bodies, nurse practitioners have been allowed to prescribe hormone therapy, testosterone blockers and other relevant gender-affirming medications.

That has been the case since I moved here in 2011. There was no reason why this wouldn't be the case. It's also the case in every other state.

This new law is a carveout of prescriptions when used for one purpose, gender-affirming care, from nurse practitioners specifically, in a way that has never been done before. It affects all ages.

It has immediately obstructed access to HRT prescription refills for more than 80% of TRANS ADULTS in Florida.

It has also prohibited first appointments for HRT via telehealth with in-state or out-of-state MDs or DOs - first appointments must be in person. This will require expensive and time-consuming travel that is beyond most trans people's means: driving to Georgia from Florida can take 8 hours.

This was an intentional targeting of almost all trans adults in Florida, and the means by which we have received our generic, FDA-approved medications for years. And it included closing every possible door that would let us find another way to keep taking the medications we have taken for...

Well, for me it was 3,891 days when the clock stopped

#tw forced detransition #detransition #Florida #SB 254 #trans care ban #adult trans care ban #transphobia #HRT #transition #transitioning #hormone therapy

[foldingfittedsheets]

Hands down one of my worst experiences in high school was when the seniors decided to extort the entire school by using tactics that were banned by the UN to get them to pay for the senior party! If that sounds like a wild sentiment stay tuned because this shit got crazy.

I was living in Arizona at the time and I was a freshman. Our campus was largely open air, with walks between class room buildings and some covered outdoor tables. Our event began with a morning announcement. The seniors were collecting donations for the senior party, and when they reached their goal, their fundraising method would stop.

Their fundraising method:

To pipe the entire schools speakers with "If You're Happy and You Know It" on loop. To this day, I cannot hear this song without experiencing a degree of rage and madness that is frankly alarming. One of the worst parts of the entire thing was that the recording they chose had the female singer do a little clap and say "Yay-ha-hey," at the end. So it wasn't just the song, it was this awful little cooldown stinger at the end.

If this sounds a lot like psychological torture you'd be extremely correct! This practice has been banned in some countries, but the good old US hasn't ruled it a human rights violation, and what a fun silly way to raise money, that definitely wasn't damaging to adolescent psyches!

Every morning for 15 minutes before school began, every passing period, every lunch, and after school for another 15 minutes they blasted that fucking song on unceasing repeat through every speaker in the school. Everyone found different ways of coping with this and mine was to observe my classmates descent into madness and categorize the stages.

The first stage was almost completely consistent, and it was a smug almost exasperated eye rolling phase. Often accompanied by derisive comments about the song or the tactic, this phase was extremely mildly annoyed. Most people figured it would blow over soon, and no one anticipated this continuing for a week and a half, creating a miasma of fraught tension.

The second phase was elevated annoyance, starting to snap and be less amused characterized this level of irritation. People would try to cover their ears or put on headphones, humming aggressively to block out the syrupy repulsive children's performer with her loathsome little clap. This phase had people picking their absolute least favorite part of the song. Her inflection on certain words, her timing between verses. I think it's pretty clear already which part I hated most.

The next phase was a bounce back out to absurdity. It became funny how annoying it was and people would sing along as if to challenge the song's authority over their psyche. This paired exceptionally poorly with people in phase two as they'd often lash out at the people giving more voice to their hell.

The fourth phase was a dead-eyed madness. People would stare straight ahead and their lips would silently mouth the familiar words. The song had pounded its way into their very soul and was inextricably linked to auditory output. They often didn't even realize if they began chanting along.

The fifth and final phase was pure uncut pubescent rage. Kids would scream, attack each other, and in a truly epic end to the event hurl a cafeteria chair with such force at the speaker in the cafeteria to irreparably damage the sound system.

The seniors got funding for a party, but some of it had to go to repair the damages, which were substantial.

#ramblies #funny #ffs foibles #high school #when I transferred back to my home state they tried something similar with the song “Blue”. The teachers were threatening to walk by lunch #I'm honestly astonished that none of the teachers rebelled in arizona? It had to be just as bad for them and it played in classrooms

[myboyfriendjake]

usually don't post about non-fandom stuff on here but just wanted to take a quick moment to say that what's going on in palestine is not war, it's genocide.

what the israeli government is and has been doing to the palestinian people since its founding is disgusting, and if you support israel, do your research and don't interact with me. if you support israel, i can't see you as human because no one with a heart would support ethnic cleansing and mass murder

they've been taking more and more of their land since israel was established (originally 56% of palestine's land, now they have over 80%)

bombing hospitals (they've bombed a number of hospitals, including children's hospitals, cancer wards)

over 10,000 palestinians have died so far in this conflict. these are civillians

palestine does not have a military. israel, on the other hand, has a military with about 20 billion usd in funding every year, plus billions in aid from other countries

israel cut off energy and water for gaza. why do they have power over another country's electricity and water supply? and why this collective punishment of all palestinians for something a terrorist group did?

bombing hospitals, places of worship, and collective punishment are all war crimes and technically illegal, but most countries and journalists are turning a blind eye to that

banned chemical weapons - white fucking phosphorus - are being used in gaza on civilians

over 80% of the people in hamas are palestinians who were orphaned by israeli airstrikes. israel is the reason hamas exists.

if you are human, please try to spread awareness. many foreign journalists aren't even allowed into gaza as israel is controlling access to palestine. thousands of palestinians have died, and many governments and media sources are supporting this genocide.

the more we keep spreading the message, the more people will know, and hopefully we can help in some way.

#i stand with palestine #free palestine #palestine #israel #gaza #genocide in gaza #genocide in palestine #if you unfollow me for this then #how do you sleep at night ig? #please spread the message

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)

Today (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tonight, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.

Why does Apple hate repair so much? It's not that they want to poison our water and bodies with microplastics; it's not that they want to hasten the day our coastal cities drown; it's not that they relish the human misery that accompanies every gram of conflict mineral. They aren't sadists. They're merely sociopathically greedy.

Tim Cook laid it out for his investors: when people can repair their devices, they don't buy new ones. When people don't buy new devices, Apple doesn't sell them new devices. It's that's simple:

https://www.inverse.com/article/52189-tim-cook-says-apple-faces-2-key-problems-in-surprising-shareholder-letter

So Apple does everything it can to monopolize repair. Not just because this lets the company gouge you on routine service, but because it lets them decide when your phone is beyond repair, so they can offer you a trade-in, ensuring both that you buy a new device and that the device you buy is another Apple.

There are so many tactics Apple gets to use to sabotage repair. For example, Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on the subassemblies in its devices. This allows the company to enlist US Customs to seize and destroy refurbished parts that are harvested from dead phones by workers in the Pacific Rim:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Of course, the easiest way to prevent harvested components from entering the parts stream is to destroy as many old devices as possible. That's why Apple's so-called "recycling" program shreds any devices you turn over to them. When you trade in your old iPhone at an Apple Store, it is converted into immortal e-waste (no other major recycling program does this). The logic is straightforward: no parts, no repairs:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

Shredding parts and cooking up bogus trademark claims is just for starters, though. For Apple, the true anti-repair innovation comes from the most pernicious US tech law: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

DMCA 1201 is an "anti-circumvention" law. It bans the distribution of any tool that bypasses "an effective means of access control." That's all very abstract, but here's what it means: if a manufacturer sticks some Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its device, then anything you want to do that involves removing that DRM is now illegal – even if the thing itself is perfectly legal.

When Congress passed this stupid law in 1998, it had a very limited blast radius. Computers were still pretty expensive and DRM use was limited to a few narrow categories. In 1998, DMCA 1201 was mostly used to prevent you from de-regionalizing your DVD player to watch discs that had been released overseas but not in your own country.

But as we warned back then, computers were only going to get smaller and cheaper, and eventually, it would only cost manufacturers pennies to wrap their products – or even subassemblies in their products – in DRM. Congress was putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, and it was bound to go off in Act III.

Welcome to Act III.

Today, it costs about a quarter to add a system-on-a-chip to even the tiniest parts. These SOCs can run DRM. Here's how that DRM works: when you put a new part in a device, the SOC and the device's main controller communicate with one another. They perform a cryptographic protocol: the part says, "Here's my serial number," and then the main controller prompts the user to enter a manufacturer-supplied secret code, and the master controller sends a signed version of this to the part, and the part and the system then recognize each other.

This process has many names, but because it was first used in the automotive sector, it's widely known as VIN-Locking (VIN stands for "vehicle identification number," the unique number given to every car by its manufacturer). VIN-locking is used by automakers to block independent mechanics from repairing your car; even if they use the manufacturer's own parts, the parts and the engine will refuse to work together until the manufacturer's rep keys in the unlock code:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

VIN locking is everywhere. It's how John Deere stops farmers from fixing their own tractors – something farmers have done literally since tractors were invented:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

It's in ventilators. Like mobile phones, ventilators are a grotesquely monopolized sector, controlled by a single company Medtronic, whose biggest claim to fame is effecting the world's largest tax inversion in order to manufacture the appearance that it is an Irish company and therefore largely untaxable. Medtronic used the resulting windfall to gobble up most of its competitors.

During lockdown, as hospitals scrambled to keep their desperately needed supply of ventilators running, Medtronic's VIN-locking became a lethal impediment. Med-techs who used donor parts from one ventilator to keep another running – say, transplanting a screen – couldn't get the device to recognize the part because all the world's civilian aircraft were grounded, meaning Medtronic's technicians couldn't swan into their hospitals to type in the unlock code and charge them hundreds of dollars.

The saving grace was an anonymous, former Medtronic repair tech, who built pirate boxes to generate unlock codes, using any housing they could lay hands on to use as a case: guitar pedals, clock radios, etc. This tech shipped these gadgets around the world, observing strict anonymity, because Article 6 of the EUCD also bans circumvention:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Of course, Apple is a huge fan of VIN-locking. In phones, VIN-locking is usually called "serializing" or "parts-pairing," but it's the same thing: a tiny subassembly gets its own microcontroller whose sole purpose is to prevent independent repair technicians from fixing your gadget. Parts-pairing lets Apple block repairs even when the technician uses new, Apple parts – but it also lets Apple block refurb parts and third party parts.

For many years, Apple was the senior partner and leading voice in blocking state Right to Repair bills, which it killed by the dozen, leading a coalition of monopolists, from Wahl (who boobytrap their hair-clippers with springs that cause their heads irreversibly decompose if you try to sharpen them at home) to John Deere (who reinvented tenant farming by making farmers tenants of their tractors, rather than their land).

But Apple's opposition to repair eventually became a problem for the company. It's bad optics, and both Apple customers and Apple employees are volubly displeased with the company's ecocidal conduct. But of course, Apple's management and shareholders hate repair and want to block it as much as possible.

But Apple knows how to Think Differently. It came up with a way to eat its cake and have it, too. The company embarked on a program of visibly support right to repair, while working behind the scenes to sabotage it.

Last year, Apple announced a repair program. It was hilarious. If you wanted to swap your phone's battery, all you had to do was let Apple put a $1200 hold on your credit card, and then wait while the company shipped you 80 pounds' worth of specialized tools, packed in two special Pelican cases:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Then, you swapped your battery, but you weren't done! After your battery was installed, you had to conference in an authorized Apple tech who would tell you what code to type into a laptop you tethered to the phone in order to pair it with your phone. Then all you had to do was lug those two 40-pound Pelican cases to a shipping depot and wait for Apple to take the hold off your card (less the $120 in parts and fees).

By contrast, independent repair outfits like iFixit will sell you all the tools you need to do your own battery swap – including the battery! for $32. The whole kit fits in a padded envelope:

https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-x-replacement-battery

But while Apple was able to make a showy announcement of its repair program and then hide the malicious compliance inside those giant Pelican cases, sabotaging right to repair legislation is a lot harder.

Not that they didn't try. When New York State passed the first general electronics right-to-repair bill in the country, someone convinced New York Governor Kathy Hochul to neuter it with last-minute modifications:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-signed-into-law-by-new-yorks-governor/

But that kind of trick only works once. When California's right to repair bill was introduced, it was clear that it was gonna pass. Rather than get run over by that train, Apple got on board, supporting the legislation, which passed unanimously:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/79902/apples-u-turn-tech-giant-finally-backs-repair-in-california

But Apple got the last laugh. Because while California's bill contains many useful clauses for the independent repair shops that keep your gadgets out of a landfill, it's a state law, and DMCA 1201 is federal. A state law can't simply legalize the conduct federal law prohibits. California's right to repair bill is a banger, but it has a weak spot: parts-pairing, the scourge of repair techs:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair

Every generation of Apple devices does more parts-pairing than the previous one, and the current models are so infested with paired parts as to be effectively unrepairable, except by Apple. It's so bad that iFixit has dropped its repairability score for the iPhone 14 from a 7 ("recommend") to a 4 (do not recommend):

https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en

Parts-pairing is bullshit, and Apple are scum for using it, but they're hardly unique. Parts-pairing is at the core of the fuckery of inkjet printer companies, who use it to fence out third-party ink, so they can charge $9,600/gallon for ink that pennies to make:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Parts-pairing is also rampant in powered wheelchairs, a heavily monopolized sector whose predatory conduct is jaw-droppingly depraved:

https://uspirgedfund.org/reports/usp/stranded

But if turning phones into e-waste to eke out another billion-dollar stock buyback is indefensible, stranding people with disabilities for months at a time while they await repairs is so obviously wicked that the conscience recoils. That's why it was so great when Colorado passed the nation's first wheelchair right to repair bill last year:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

California actually just passed two right to repair bills; the other one was SB-271, which mirrors Colorado's HB22-1031:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB271

This is big! It's momentum! It's a start!

But it can't be the end. When Bill Clinton signed DMCA 1201 into law 25 years ago, he loaded a gun and put it on the nation's mantlepiece and now it's Act III and we're all getting sprayed with bullets. Everything from ovens to insulin pumps, thermostats to lightbulbs, has used DMCA 1201 to limit repair, modification and improvement.

Congress needs to rid us of this scourge, to let us bring back all the benefits of interoperability. I explain how this all came to be – and what we should do about it – in my new Verso Books title, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Image: Mitch Barrie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_Skeleton_AR-15_completed_rifle_%2817551907724%29.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

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kambanji (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kambanji/4135216486/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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Rawpixel (modified) https://www.rawpixel.com/image/12438797/png-white-background

#pluralistic #vin locking #apple #right to repair #california #ifixit #iphones #sb244 #parts pairing #serialization #dmca 1201 #felony contempt of business model #ewaste #repairwashing #fuckery

[allfearstofallto]

Nice

Yandere childe x reader

1.7k

Synopsis: He'll buy you absolutely anything your heart desires, but he longs for you to describe things as more than just "nice"

TW: Yandere, abusive themes, bribery, NSFW themes, toxic relationship, Dub-Con

AN: I haven't written in FOREVER so forgive me if it's not awesome or if it feels incomplete. My last account got shadow banned :(, doesn't help that I was already pretty depressed before that. No time for sob stories here, it's been two years since I've written anything and I miss writing, thanks for joining me!

Gems that dazzled and gleamed stars in the night sky, silver that was carved painstakingly from the mines in Liyue, an appearance that was beautiful, but still kept up with the most current fashion trends. He had truly outdone himself with this one, this has to be the one that would take your breath away. The one that would make you leap into his arms and pepper his face with kisses from your sweet lips that he rarely got the chance to taste.

When it came to gifts for you, there was no price tag. Childe would spend every mora he had if it meant he could even get a smile out of you and spend he often did. Money meant nothing to him, being a Fatui harbinger, his paychecks were larger than he knew what to do with. After sending money back home to his family, he still had so much left and nothing that he longed for other than your affection. So, why not spend it on something else he cared about?

Your eyes ghosted over the ring he was showing you, encased in a black velvet box with red satin holding it up. It wasn’t an engagement ring, he’d assured you of that multiple times after you were taken aback by him holding it up to you. He knew you weren’t ready for that just yet, and he was willing to respect your wishes, but he still wanted to give you something to wear on that pretty little finger to show that you were his while you waited for the real deal. Your engagement ring would be much, much larger than the one he was gifting you now and it would incorporate details from both of your home countries.

The expression on your face was unreadable. It wasn’t quite a grimace, but it wasn’t a smile either. It was the usual face you made when you were given something. An equal mixture of discomfort and unease. “It’s…nice.” you mumbled quietly as he slipped the ring onto your finger.

There was that word again. Nice. It made him sick to his stomach every time he heard it fall from your pretty lips. But that was always what you said about his gifts, as if you couldn’t think of another word to describe how you felt about them. Rare spices imported from Sumeru? Nice. A custom hanfu made from only the finest silk to wear to the lantern rite? Nice. Wine aged for almost a decade and shipped straight from Mondstadt? Very nice.

You spoke that one word, but even then it felt like you were straining yourself to say that much. On multiple occasions, your displeasure with receiving such expressive gifts was expressed, but he told you that that didn’t matter. Mora was just an object to him, something that held no value, and yet you still held each gift as if they would collapse under your touch.

“You can tell me if you don’t like it,”

“No!” you quickly retorted back, holding your hand up to examine the ring once more, “Its…” you purse your lips to stop yourself from saying the word, knowing that he would only be upset with your lack of what he considered to be a proper answer, “I like it.”

With a sigh and a dramatic slump of his shoulders, he reached up and cupped your face. His hand felt like solid ice against your cheek. Childe often claimed that that was another thing he loved about you so much. How warm your body was in comparison to himself. He told you that when he someday took you to Snezhnaya to meet his family, you would be his personal heater, that he wouldn’t let you go for even a second during the duration of your stay there.

“You don’t even wear the earrings I got you anymore,” Childe’s long fingers traced from your cheek to the lobe of your ear, grazing the empty hole where jewelry would go.

“You know I can’t wear those at work,”

“Then quit your job,” He spoke those words so quickly, with no hesitation, a part of you was convinced you imagined it. But you working was a constant conflict of interest between the two of you, something you’d even argued about before.

The situation grew heated that day. Both of you, yelling back and forth about what you thought was right. You remembered seeing his eyes glow at the same time as his vision that rested on his hip, making your stomach drop. Childe would never hurt you, would he? But even you didn’t know the answer to that, you could never be too sure about what was going on in the mind of a harbinger. So you backed down slightly, telling him that it was something you would consider, and that answer sufficed with him for the time being.

“Childe-”

“Ajax,” he cut you off. He hated when you used his codename, claiming that as his future wife, you alone should be allowed to call him by his given name.

“Ajax," you exhaled harshly after speaking his name, "I really would like to work and be independent,”

For just the briefest of moments, his eyes went dull, his smile fell, his facade faltered and he was his true self. It only lasted for less than a second, the average person might not have even seen it, but you’d spent so much time with him. You knew his tells. You knew that even though he was smiling again, it was completely fake. He was angry, even if the gleam in his eyes didn't show it.

A cold kiss was pressed against your cheek, just a peck to get his point across. When he pulled away, still making eye contact, he was still so close that you could feel his shallow breath on your skin. He squatted down slightly to meet your eyes and whispered against your lips, “I don’t plan to let my wife work. Why don’t you quit now, have a little practice before we’re wed?”

He said that as a suggestion, but you knew it wasn’t one. With Childe there were only orders and threats, nothing in between. You had no choice on whether or not you’d get to work, on whether or not you got to live alone, on whether or not you married him. In his eyes, you were already his, and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.

A lump was caught in your throat as you tried to figure out what to say. Could you even tell him that the prospect of marrying him was something that seldom crossed your mind? Something that even when you did think about, it brought a twinge of fear into your heart. That on multiple occasions, you considered leaving him, but your unease around him was what was making your stay.

“I…” you finally met his gaze as you tried to force words out of your tense body. His eyes felt so cold and the hand that he had managed to snake its way down onto your shoulder was gripping your flesh tightly. It was a warning that what you said next would matter, “I should just-”

“You should quit,” he spoke the last part of the sentence for you, not caring about what you truly wanted to say.

Eyes turned downcast, you gave a slow nod. There wasn’t much of a choice with him anymore, he was hellbent on that being your answer. He had given you an order, if you didn’t react the way he wanted you to, you would regret it.

The grip that was on your shoulder loosened, exhibiting that you had pleased him and another kiss was placed on your cheek as a reward. This time his lips touched just below your eyes, where tears were threatening to fall, “That’s my girl,” another peck right against your lips, “How about I buy you something special, huh? For being so good.”

You swallow slowly, trying to keep yourself from falling apart in front of him, clenching and unclenching your fist as a way to self soothe. Your voice was shaky as you delivered your stiff answer, “Sure. That sounds lovely.”

“How about a new pair of earrings,” he followed this up by lightly biting the side of your ear, “or maybe a new necklace,” you felt his warm tongue slide down from your ear to your collarbone, making all the hairs on your body stand up, “Or maybe even a new dress,” he spoke into your neck, his hand reaching down and trying to slide the dress you were wearing up your thigh, exposing your your bare skin to the air.

You jolted your body backwards, your hands placed against his chest in an attempt to keep the distance between the two of you. He was moving so fast. Too fast. Even though it had been a while since you and him had last been intimate, for him to try it again so suddenly was worrisome.

You didn’t dare look at his face. There was no doubt about it that he was upset at your response to his touch, he never liked when you rejected him. The hand that was placed against him, was taken into his. The way he held you was gentle, but you could still feel force behind his movement. The thumb of his hand traced the back of your palm as he held you, before lifting it up and placing a kiss against it. Right on your finger, right on the very expensive ring he’d just bought you, almost as a way to draw your attention to it once more.

“What’s gotten into you? Hm?” he had an eyebrow cocked and a grin on his face, “Pushing me away like that after I got you something so precious? You’re going to hurt my feelings.”

“I just don’t think I’m in the mood for this right now,” you mumbled, switching between looking at your dress you were fiddling with and his borderline unblinking eyes.

Silence fell over the two of you, to the point where you could hear your own heart beat, the sound of blood pumping in your ears, the sound of his breaths that were slightly heavier than normal. Childe was rarely quiet. It was hard to get him to keep his mouth shut. In a way his anger was scaled based on how loud he was, the quieter, the worse.

His large hand came into your sight again, making you flinch about what was coming ahead, but rather than being struck, he used his thumb to trace your lips, “Figure something out.”

#yandere genshin #genshin #genshin x reader #yandere genshin impact #childe #yandere childe #yandere childe x reader #mdni

[thesocklesswonder]

Ohio's mental health authority is trying to ban transgender healthcare - esp for people under 21 years of age, BUT they are asking for public input! Hurry, though, as it's only through 5pm local time (US Eastern Standard Time) on January 19th!

Changes to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services rule, "5122-14-12 | Private Psychiatric Hospital: Program, Specialty Services, and Discharge Planning", are to prohibit any kind of transgender care for those under 21 in a psychiatric hospital. Full document here, but be aware it is to a pdf

The rule includes the text, "Medical services shall not include any of the following: ...the prescribing, administering, or furnishing of any prescription drug or hormone...", which means if someone under 21 enters a private psychiatric hospital and who is already on puberty blockers or hormones, the doctors there would be prohibited from giving them the prescription they already have.

A new proposed rule for the same Ohio department, "5122-26-19 | Gender Transition Care" states the requirements for anyone needing transition care under this department. They are targeting the most vulnerable with these rules: young people who have mental health issues who also need transgender care. Full document here, but be aware it is to a pdf

Included in this rule: A doctor may only provide transgender care after three requirements have been met - a psychiatrist who has experience with the patient's age group must be employed by/contracted with the provider, an endocrinologist who has experience with the age group, and the provider has a comprehensive written plan that includes a detransitioning provision.

It also requires any such patient to have a thorough mental health evaluation and counseling period of at least 6 months prior to any transgender care. It also appears to become part of their medical record.

In addition to a ban on any transition surgeries, even if the patient jumps through all of those hoops, is a curious item that prevents doctors from referring patients out to other doctors that can provide care:

Another thing that made me pause was what seems like a scare tactic:

The terms "orchiectomy" and "penectomy" mean the removal of testicals and penis, respectively. The word "castration" could only be redundant or referring only to chemical castration, which seems to not fit in with gender reassignment surgery (correct me if you know it does fit). "Castration" is a scary word for most people with penises. I think it would likely provoke a knee-jerk response, like, "Oh, no, castration is bad. No castration! Enact these rules to keep people from being castrated!"

⚠️ The time is now to tell the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services what you think about this! ⚠️

The option to comment on these needless restrictions can be found at the link in the first paragraph, but it's just an link that takes you to your email app. You can also just email them directly at [email protected] no later than 5 pm EST on Friday, January 19, 2024.

Please reblog to get this message out! We all have a stake in how rules and laws are enacted. They often lead to more in other states/countries. So, even if you don't have a stake in this personally, please make sure others see it.

Why do I care? I don't live in Ohio, but I have friends all over, including Ohio, who need transgender care. You might know someone like that, too.

#transgender #trans healthcare #ohio #ohio law #lgbtq+ #comment #comment period #mental health #transition #transitioning #transgender healthcare ban #ban