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#i was only going to post this on twitter but people seemed to like this so
jgracie · 16 hours
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⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ SPEED DRIVE!
ferrari driver!percy jackson x fem!reader
masterlist | rules
warnings one swear word!
on the radio . . . speed drive (charlie xcx)
percy knew it was a bad idea leaving his house without at least a pair of sunglasses to conceal his identity. he was craving cookie dough ice cream, the grocery store wasn’t too far away and it was the middle of the night - who would possibly recognise him at a time like this?
the answer is many people. while percy did love his loyal fans, both tifosi and others, even he had to admit they were a little crazy. all it took was for one to snap a photo and post it on twitter and the rest seemed to immediately spawn all around him
“percy, is it true that luke might lose his seat next year?” he heard one voice say as he attempted to weave through the thick crowd of people. why couldn’t he have one second of peace? unfortunately, percy had made another awful decision that night - walking to the grocery store
this left ferrari’s golden boy with two options: either tough out the wall home with fans and paparazzi alike swarming him, or find someone who was willing to drive him home. with cars on the street in front of him were stationery thanks to the red light, percy made his decision
he bolted for the first one that caught his eye, a car that was small, (ironically) bright red and most importantly had an open roof. percy also had to admit the driver was kind of pretty, at least from what he could see from that far away
the light turned yellow and you prepared yourself to continue driving. you’d only recently gotten your drivers license and this was your first time driving without someone more experienced with you in the car, so you were just praying to end up at your apartment in one piece
just as the light became green and you began to drive, some random guy jumped into the passenger seat of your car, causing your heart rate to increase dramatically and your foot to immediately press on the brakes - out of shock or fear (or both), you weren’t sure
“drive!” he nearly yelled at you. you just stared at him, your mouth agape. it was way too late at night for this. at your state, percy huffed and leaned over to the wheel, beginning to steer for you
this snapped you out of the daze you were in and you slapped his hands away, your brows furrowing in anger as you drove, “who the fuck are you and what do you think you’re doing in my car? i’m pulling over right now, you need to get out.”
“no, please, i promise i didn’t mean any harm! can you just drop me off at my house?” he asked. you didn’t need to look at him to know he was incredibly desperate. who was this guy? as you recalled his face from when he first got into your car, you realised he did look a little familiar, but you still couldn’t figure out his identity
at your silence, percy continued, “i’ll do anything, do you like car racing? i can get you tickets for that!”
okay, so he was rich rich. you didn’t know the first thing about racing, but one of your friends was obsessed with formula one. specifically, a driver called peter jameson (or something along those lines). still, you rolled your eyes at his offer, disliking the way he attempted to bribe you
“no, it’s fine, you don’t have to do anything. where do you live?”
after percy told you his address, the car ride was silent. neither of you knew what to say to the other. you were still shaken by his sudden appearance, and percy was trying to conceal the blush that coated his cheeks. he was right, you were beautiful. the moon made your skin glow and your eyes brighter. from the death grip you had on the wheel, percy could tell you were new at driving. cute
“thanks a lot, you have absolutely no idea how much you helped me tonight,” percy said as he got out of your car. part of you was a little sad to see him go. sure, he freaked you out, but something about him was magnetic - maybe it was those sea green eyes that put all of poseidon’s oceans to shame, or the light dusting of freckles you hadn’t noticed until now
giving him a small smile, you said, “you’re welcome. have a good night.” you stayed for a little and watched as he entered his home, a bittersweet feeling tugging at your heart
once you’d gotten home, you noticed he’d left something on the passenger seat. a strip of paper with a line of messily scrawled numbers lay on the leather
call me. (917) 173-1839 — PJ
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canirove · 3 days
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Friends, lovers… and an orange | Chapter 3
Previous chapter | Next chapter (coming out on Friday)
Masterlist
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Adele had been on her daily run for less than twenty minutes, when she noticed that a car was following her.
"Shit, fuck" she said under her breath, looking for a place where she could hide or ask for help. But she was in a residential area, so she sped up until she made it to the closest open business she could find: a flower shop.
"Hi, good morning" she said, trying to catch her breath. "Could you please do me a favour?"
"Of course" the woman from the shop smiled.
"Could you check if there is a grey car waiting outside? I think they've been following me."
"Oh dear" the woman said. "Wait here. I'll go outside as if you've asked for some of the flowers I have there."
"Thank you" Adele replied.
"You were right, there is a grey car outside" the woman said when she walked back into the shop. "I saw a man leaving the passenger seat, nod towards here, and then talk to the driver."
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
"It's ok, I won't leave you alone" the woman smiled again. "Come to the back of the store with me. I'll make you a cup of tea while we wait for the police."
"Thank you very much, ma'am" Adele said while trying to contain her tears.
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"And?"
"They are gone" Luca said, sitting next to his sister. "I'm pretty sure the police scared the hell out of them."
"Good" Adele said. "They deserve it for doing the same to me."
Paparazzis. The men who had been following her, were paparazzis.
Turns out that the girls at the restaurant where she and Mason had had dinner, the ones she swore had said their names, recognized them the moment they walked in and had spent the whole night taking photos of them and posting them on social media, the press writing articles about it not long after. And if you only saw the photos, they did look like a couple on a date. The smiles, the way they were looking at each other, Adele touching Mason's hand...
"Is there anything else I could do for you?" the woman from the flower shop offered.
"Oh, no, don't worry. We are leaving" Adele said. "But thank you very much for your help, the tea, the company... You are an angel."
"Just doing what anyone would do" she smiled.
"I'm not so sure of that" Luca said. "But thank you for taking care of my sister."
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"I can't fucking believe it!"
"Mase..."
"No! They followed you! They harassed you! They crossed so many lines!"
When Luca and Adele had made it home, Mason was already there, pacing around the living room. And when he saw her, he had ran towards her and hugged her in a way he had never before, completely catching her by surprise.
"But now it is over" she said. "They know that if they do it again, we will call the police and they will be in trouble."
"Yes, them. But what about the other photographers? What if they do the same? This is not ok, Addie. It is not."
"What should we do, then?" Luca asked. 
"Ignoring it like everyone has suggested us hasn't worked, so it's time we take matters into our own hands."
"Mase, what are you going to do?" Adele asked him while watching him furiously type on his phone.
"End this" he grunted.
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"I know it is early for Christmas or my birthday, but I already know what I want as a gift: for the press to stop harassing my friends. Do you think that will do anything?" Jourdan asked Adele over the phone.
"I don't know" she sighed. 
That had been the message Mason had posted on his Instagram stories and twitter account, and so far, people were going nuts about it. Them, and his agency. They hadn't liked that he had done something like that without consulting them first, but he didn't seem to care.
"When are you coming back home?"
"In a couple of days when Mason is done with his job. His agency booked us the tickets."
"Is that wise, tho? Traveling together after everything that has happened?"
"I don't know" Adele said again. "I honestly don't know what to do anymore, what is a good choice or a bad one. But if there are paps at the airport, at least I know I'll have him by my side."
"Addie..." Jourdan chuckled.
"What?"
"That sounded as if... As if you are starting to feel something for him."
"What? No! We are just friends!"
"Yeah, yeah. But maybe this thing about people believing that you are together is starting to like... rub off?"
"Jourdan, no. We are just friends."
"Ok, ok. Just friends" she repeated. Though she didn't sound too convinced.
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"I wish the flight had been longer" Adele yawned, resting her head on Mason's shoulder while they waited for their luggage.
"You shouldn't have slept that much. Jet lag is gonna kick your ass" he laughed.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
"Just try not to fall asleep here, ok?"
"I don't think I would be able to even if I wanted to. What is going on?" she said, turning around to see what was causing all that noise.
"Fuck" Mason whispered. The paparazzis. They had found them and were inside the airport, security trying to keep them away.
"What are we going to do?"
"Mr. Mount? Miss Turlington?" a security guard said next to them. "Please follow me, I'll get you out of here."
"But our luggage..." Adele said.
"Don't worry about that now, Miss Turlington. Please follow me."
"C'mon" Mason said, grabbing her hand and starting to walk. 
"Please let us through. Please" the man said while trying to push the photographers away. They had followed them after seeing Mason and Adele leave, and there were so many of them.
"Mase..."
"It's ok, we are almost there. I've got you" he said, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze. He was walking in front of her, protecting her from everything and everyone. If he hadn't been there, Adele was sure she would have not survived it. 
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"Addie, are you sure you are ok?" 
"Yeah, yeah. For once I'm not complaining about being jet lagged." Because it meant spending most part of her day sleeping and not having to leave her house and face the paparazzis waiting outside. "How is Milan?"
"Beautiful as always" her mother Elizabeth said over the phone. "But I was thinking... Why don't you come to Paris with me? We could have some time together like we used to."
"I don't know, mum..."
"C'mon, Addie. You used to love spending time with me during fashion month! And it will help you distract yourself a bit."
"I'll think about it" she said. 
Adele had always loved being backstage with her mum during fashion shows, getting to see how everything worked. And more than once, she had been asked to walk. But unlike Elizabeth, she hadn't been born to wear heels. 
"Ok. But think about that hot chocolate from Cafe Angelina..."
"That's cheating, mum" Adele chuckled.
"But if it convinces you to come with me, then it will be worth it."
"Let me call Mase first and ask him what he is doing. If we both are in Paris at the same time..."
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"I'm skipping Paris, I have a shoot in Italy for the perfume I told you about. So go have some fun with your mum, don't worry about me."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure" Mason smiled over facetime. Though it wasn't his usual smile, the one that made his dimple pop.
"Mase, are you ok?"
"Yeah, I am. Why?"
"I don't know. You look a bit... Off."
"That's this phone's camera. I think I need to get a new one."
"Ok..." Adele said. But for some reason, she didn't believe him.
"You have to promise me something, tho."
"Something like what?"
"One, that you will eat some chocolate macarons for me."
"I will" she chuckled.
"And two, that you will enjoy Paris. Wear something fun, take as many photos as you can, attend some parties with your mum... Don't let them ruin it for you, Addie. Do you promise?"
"Promise" she smiled. 
"Great. Now I better go, my agent is coming."
"Wait, have they... Have they found out yet who tipped the paps at the airport?"
"I gotta go, Addie. Bye" Mason said before hanging up, leaving her thinking that something was definitely going on with him.
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anonymous-dentist · 2 days
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It's been a couple of days since the last QSMP lore stream and merch drop, and there have been two DRASTICALLY different responses from the fandom:
What the fuck oh my god why did they do this what the fuck >:( I'm very angry >:( I'm on twitter btw
Yayyy omg the Lore is back!!! :D :D :D Fuck twitter btw
I've seen SO MANY passive-aggressive posts coming from users on this website that are all saying something along the lines of, "I'm happy that the server is getting back on its feet! The eggs aren't in a coma btw, they're just out of service (looks at angry twitter users who can't get over the fact that things aren't being solved immediately)."
And, really, I think almost everybody on this website has missed the reasons why other fans are upset over the recent lore stream and the merch drop. They think it's all just whining about how things haven't been solved immediately, but it's really actually all about how things don't seem to have been solved at all.
See, the thing with the Egg Lore Stream was that, uh. None of the admins currently on hold know whether or not they have a job, including known egg admin Ryan. You might know them as Sunny's Actor, and they were pretty taken aback when Egg Lore was revealed to be happening last Saturday... without Ryan, or seemingly any other known admins whatsoever, knowing. And Ryan isn't a former employee, they're a current employee. They haven't been let go.
Ryan, and other current employees, have all been stating that communication between the QSMP higher-ups and the other admins hasn't gotten better at all. Nobody knows if they even still have jobs because the only way they find that out? Through livestreams.
Ryan, and any other suspended egg admins sticking around, only found out that they aren't, like, fired because of a goddamn lore stream.
And for former admins? It's interesting how the admin team put Pomme and Dapper in the little coma machine despite Pomme's actor, Lumi, and the French all saying that they'd rather Pomme die than get replaced, and Lumi isn't going back to the server. And Dapper's admin, Shade, isn't going back without Lumi.
So imagine being them and finding out through this stream that, oh, wow, you're just going to be replaced. An entire language group is quite possibly going to be lost, but it's fine! Actors can just be replaced, right?
Just like how Twitter admins can be replaced by a bot after being fired in the middle of the night with no warning.
Oh, and shall we mention how it seems that the whole Money Thing isn't going anywhere? How we had a paid writer admin come out and say that even after the changes were starting to be made internally that the higher-ups changed the writer's description of the Pomme figure to be as soulless as possible, because if there's one thing the QSMP admin team seems to have, it's a grudge against the French. But then, remember? The writer said that, despite being paid for February and being promised to get paid for March, that they haven't been paid? And they don't think they ever will be?
And how they thought they would be fired for speaking to their friends, aka former admins?
I think that quite legitimately every admin that has come out after leaving the company, or who is still part of the company but who still made a statement anyway, has said that they hope that the QSMP can continue because they believe in the project, but they don't know if it will because nothing seems to be changing behind the scenes.
But, yeah, sure, okay, say it's all just people whining about how change hasn't been immediate. It's people just complaining about the lore! They need to grow up, right? They need to touch grass? Right?
But, well. Being critical is absolutely vital. Does that mean people should harass the admins? Absolutely not. But that does mean that people should be like, "Hey, so why is the admin team still being so shady?"
Things can't be fixed immediately, but it's been over a month. The problems with communication are still continuing! They haven't stopped! It's just that nobody on this website is listening to the admins anymore.
Trusting ccs is fine and all, but keep in mind that they didn't know what was going on before, either. With the general lack of transparency still going on behind the scenes, how would they know if it's all been fixed now?
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gammija · 5 months
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i keep constructing elaborate political speeches in my mind. as if somehow if i could just talk to pvv-voters compellingly enough, explain to all of em why this is moronic on every level, they'd all suddenly find out that they're actually leftists at heart who just heard a few facts wrong
#as if the racism is an accident instead of the driving force#i spent too long looking at twitter replies and there are a lot of people who voted for wilders so obviously a lot of different types too#theres the naive ones who genuinely seem to regard politics as kind of a game thats being played to the sidelines#you cheer for your team but it doesn't ACTUALLY have an effect on reality. So stop complaining! cheer up!#theres the dumb ones who 'just wanted something different' and who thought 'well the Left screwed things up'#- weve had a centrist/right government for over a decade -#'so lets try the right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯'#and then theres just the unapologetically islamophobic who DEFINITELY are NOT racist~#they júst want all brown people to go back to 'their own' country#and if you call thát racist! well then! you are protecting the fundamental rights of muslims right to religion so obviously you also suppor#extremist governments in the middle east! and those are also discriminatory! which somehow makes the pvv nót discriminatory even though#they're drawing a direct comparison between themselves and these extremist governments! so there!#... anyways#very very very minor point but this also once again strengthens my resolve to not reblog or dive into every terrible news story from#usamerican politics despite how guilt-trippy posts about them get;#cause the only people on tumblr ive seen reblog aaanything at all about these results are dutch themselves#ik its not like we have a similar influence to the entire usa at all. but neither does random kentucky county elected official number 9 and#i still hear about them all the time#it makes sense for the circles im in dont get me wrong. just annoying.#joos yaps#delete later
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faerygardens · 9 months
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I did want to keep you guys updated since I haven’t seen anyone talking about it, elon musk put a massive, strobing, light up X on top of the twitter building directly facing a residential building and essentially flashbanging everyone living in said building with how bright it is
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most of the examples i see of this are in a vacuum harmless but i do find it concerning how often i witness an exchange on the internet that’s like:
some complete fucking rando on social media, potentially a self-branded expert of some kind but probably not even that, like literally just a person with internet access: did you know that actually [information that may or may not be factually accurate, because it’s literally just some person saying stuff on twitter]?
other people: wow this is so helpful, thanks so much for telling me, i had no idea
like even when the thing the person is saying is true i find this concerning. because like, Some Person On Twitter should not be an automatically accepted source on…… anything. like it’s fine to read something like that and be like “oh interesting i’d never heard of this” and then do some more digging. or i mean if it’s not serious it’s also fine to be like “oh huh cool if true” lol. but it stresses me out how many people are wandering around with their default reaction to certain kinds of alleged information, regardless of its provenance, being “thank you for enlightening me, o kind stranger,” and not, “hm, i wonder if there is literally any basis for believing this other than that someone said it was true?”
#you think someone would do that? just go on the internet and lie?#i thought about this bc i remembered the p*yt*n b**chd**th louisa may alcott thread lol#and how the replies on twitter were so like….#like it wasn’t even ‘i’d never considered this but now that you mention it you make a good point’#(which like. He Did Not. but whatever)#like the tone of it was very ‘thank you so much for enlightening me with your expertise’#with a side of ‘it’s crazy how this objective historical fact was only brought to light by Some Guy On Twitter With A Podcast’#like there was no awareness of it even *as* an argument being put forth#that’s the element of this that i find a concerning behavior pattern even though in this case it reallt#does not matter that much#like it wasn’t people agreeing with this bad argument. that’s annoying. but it’s different#than people taking something as like empirical fact literally just because the person saying it said that it was#anyway but i was also sort of thinking about this phenomenon re: a mutual’s post on the twitter definition of intrusive thoughts#because i feel like i see this a LOT with psych stuff#where someone will be like ‘hey did you know that [behavior or feeling] is ACTUALLY [term for a symptom]?#and people will be like ‘wow thanks so much for educating me kind stranger’#like you should really aim to build into your thought process some degree of#‘this sounds interesting but back up. do i have other reasons to believe that it is actually true?’#nobody’s perfect and i let stuff slide without noticing i’m sure#but many people really seem to think ‘uncritically accepting what someone who seems cool says’ is like the correct approach#it is not!!!!#don’t take my word for it :) use your brain to decide if i am right (i am)
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Snap, ur basically a microceleberty on a tumblr blog. I would be surprised if your inbox WASN'T utter chaos with the amount of fandoms you're in.
dont call me a microcelebrity it's going to do irreparable damage to my ego and im going to become even more insufferable
#snap chats#HONESTLY ILL BE TBH RN something mustve shifted in the water cause only now are my RGG asks gettin wild#can we imagine the chaos if i actually did keep all my shit to one blog My Fucking God#see thats why i make new blogs tho to keep it all organized and so i can give the ecosystem time to heal before im found again :)#and then my inbox explodes#NO BUT REAL TALK REAL TALK i love how i can tell who's been on my trail and who legit just got here#cause people who Just Got Here ask me like#'actual' questions about the series or want to expand on a topic from the series#and then the people who been here are sending me asks abot king of skill and fire emblem#i love it it's a beautiful thing#but anyway to the 'microcelebrity' thing id hardly call myself that if i may be modest and/or an idiot#it never feels like it- i mean i get a lot of asks so that's one thing#i guess it's cause i never see myself mentioned outside my spaces which.#thatd imply im looking for people to say things about me..... which im not good god dont perceive me#at most i know someone reposted my DB animatic to reddit and that blew up#and i know the RGG reddit takes my posts a lot. So I've Heard#but thats about it- my bubble is generally still very small i never really get much attention outside of here#tho i wouldnt expect people from reddit to make a twitter or log on to twitter just to message me#idk where this ramble's going 'microcelebrity' triggered my brain and now im sharing every thought ive had bout possibily being one#feels conceited to say i am one tho. but it also seems facetious to /not/ partially admit to at least being recognizable in some spaces#ok NOW im stopping this ramble i dont know where im going i have class soon and i dont wanna go#i will tho. dont skip class kids
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mootmuse · 1 year
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devastated and confused that the jai lava kusa tag is near completely empty. have none of you realised how absolutely astoundingly smoking fucking hot ntr jr is in that movie
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ok i love akeshu roleswap and all this new content abt it is Great but i wanna vent bc. a lot of the time when i see swap aus they don't quite gel with how i think it should be and i go :/
like idk for example i think in a swap au goro's outfit as the pt leader should be black. bc like, the pt's are morally gray/on the wrong side of the law. his outfit is white in canon bc his idea of true morality is too perfect and idealistic. too childish. he hasn't reconciled that vision of justice with reality so he ends up with these two extremes. but in a swap au, he should be able to reconcile these extremes bc he no longer has the same hangups as he does in canon. his sense of justice is more singular instead of an oppositional contradictory dichotomy.
maybe the problem is i want the swap au to be too direct. too like, exact parallel to the game. but that's kind of what appeals me about it? that akira and goro are so similar that under different circumstances their roles could swap and the story would stay the same. but people change things too much and kinda undermine what appeals to me about it. or on the other hand, they keep too much from canon. goro shouldn't be as jaded as he is in canon in a roleswap. akira shouldn't be as open. their circumstances have shaped them into different people than canon and the au should reflect that.
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sochilll · 2 years
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.
#i invited my best friend since we were 12 to my graduation next weekend#and she said yes of course#a few days later she stopped responding to me#it’s been over a month now#i haven’t messaged her again because the last thing I sent was sort of serious and it hurt a lot that she never responded to it#i know she’s fine cause she’s been posting on her priv Twitter regularly#I don’t think she’s coming to graduation and I don’t think she’s even going to tell me she’s not#i think if I hear from her this week I’m going to tell her not to come#I’m so tired of this#she cancels last minute like 90% of the time#and for some reason it’s only ever on me#she always seems to make it when she’s hanging out with other people or has a concert#like it sucks a lot and it hurts and she keeps sending these long apology messages about how she knows she hasn’t been good about replying#and she misses me a lot#but at a certain point it’s like if you really felt that bad and really missed me that much we wouldn’t be having this conversation so often#also there was a point in middle school where she stopped replying to me and we didn’t talk for like two years#and this feels a lot like that#idk it hurts#she used to be my person#we would tell each other everything and talk all the time#and now more and more it feels like she doesn’t really care anymore#and I’ve been sort of trying to make peace with that for a while#but the graduation thing in particular is getting to me#especially cause my brother and his gf already aren’t coming#and it just sort of sucks that I don’t even have enough people to fill the tickets I get#and she agreed. she didn’t have to. she could’ve said she couldn’t#but she said she would come. and that she wanted to come#she said ‘you don’t even have to ask’ and she’s not going to come#personal#anyway sorry lmao I just like need to vent
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orcelito · 1 year
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Genuinely wondering how many Twitter users r actually coming to tumblr. Like is tumblr the de facto alternative to twitter?? I know there's been a lot of overlap in fandom communities, + a large number of former tumblr users that migrated over to Twitter back when the porn ban started (which notably marked the decrease in average insufferableness here & increase over there, but I digress).
Do Twitter users propose going to other places, or do they default to bringing up tumblr? I can't tell if I'm seeing that just bc ppl on tumblr naturally will talk about people talking about tumblr, or if it's genuinely that widespread.
#speculation nation#like to be fair i think the alternatives are like... tiktok and instagram. which are fundamentally different structures of social media.#beyond just the difference of algorithms. it's a difference of culture too. based on videos and images as the mediums#for posting. afaik they dont have the option to just Make Posts.#like text posts. or do they? 🤔 instagram might but also i havent been on there since like 2016. and only Barely even then.#i think tumblr really is much more comparable to twitter in terms of the style of sharing.#though it's a much more lawless place. i feel like a lot of twitter users dont know what theyre getting into.#ive also seen some people scared of coming over here because of it 😛#like just try not to make too many waves and you'll be fine. ive been here for over 10 years now#& i find it to be a pretty comfortable place#then again the culture just meshes well with who i am as a person. aka why ive never bothered to leave.#i suppose as a longtime user more website activity is something i'd want In Theory.#i'd prefer to keep using this site for as long as it's here. and it's only going to stay open if it's profitable.#honestly astounding how it's continued even through all the bullshit losses. but it finally seems like theyre making things work.#the blaze feature is very annoying at times. but was honestly a very good idea for making a profit on a website#that is largely hostile to advertisers. i in fact support it (in theory). though i wish it was better moderated.#uh. im getting off topic.#but yea just like how im looking forward to increased p5 fandom due to the ports. im looking forward to increased tumblr usage.#could be awful! only time will tell.#but as an IT person who understands just how much bullshit goes on behind the scenes with websites#yes we want the website to be at least semi popular. it's not going to stay open if it's not.
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respectissexy · 1 year
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If you are not on Twitter but are interested in what's going on with Elon Musk's Twitter, never fear, I am back as your Twitter Correspondent.
So, on Thursday, 4/20, Elon removed all the "legacy verified" blue checks. That means that if you are, say, Taylor Swift or the Pope, and you have a blue checkmark because you have proven you identity and want to avoid being impersonated, that check mark went away unless you paid the $8 to subscribe to Twitter Blue.
The assumption was clearly that, despite all their blustering, when push came to shove the power users would nut up and pay for it, if only to avoid their fans being scammed using their likeness.
That didn't happen. As of 4/21, only weirdo Elon stans had blue checks. Those stans immediately got mad, because they had intended to purchase access to an exclusive club, and all the cool kids left as soon as they arrived.
To make matters worse for Elon, several influential shitposters began posting about #BlockTheBlue, a movement to block all paid Twitter bluechecks, and some even released scripts that would automatically block all bluecheck accounts for you.
However, some people retained their blue checks who swore they hadn't paid for them -- in particular, Stephen King and LeBron James, who had tweeted that they would refuse to pay.
Elon admitted that he had paid for these users' blue checks out of his own pocket. Is he trolling? Is it a weird simp move? Hard to say.
Now, as of 4/22, a whole mess of famous people have bluechecks who aren't paying for them. This seems to be a move to confound the automated Block The Blue scripts. Lil Nas X is tweeting angrily about how he doesn't want his blue check. People are speculating that a new policy has been silently rolled out to automatically assign a blue check to every user with over 1 million followers. Several people have pointed out that this amounts to false endorsement, i.e. implying falsely that a notable person uses or endorses your product without their permission, which is a crime. Blue checks have been posthumously assigned to Anthony Bourdain and Terry Pratchett, whose estates my money is on to be the ones to actually sue.
dril, famous shitposter and Block The Blue promoter, keeps being assigned a blue check as an apparent punishment for crossing Elon, but you can lose your blue check by changing your display name. (It seems really wild to tie the blue check to the display name and not use the username, but it became necessary after the era where all those legacy verified folks unleashed their inner Jaboukie and changed their display names to Elon Musk. As recently as last month a legacy verified user with 100k followers got banned for impersonating JK Rowling apologizing to trans people.) So dril just keeps changing his display name every time they bluecheck him. Elon and dril have been engaged in this game of cat and mouse all day. The "Elon bans dril and we all throw trash at him like New Yorkers defending spiderman" meme will probably come to fruition today or tomorrow.
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mx-paint · 2 months
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ms-demeanor · 8 months
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any thoughts on the new post that staff went scorched earth on which is now making the rounds abt tumblr live? it basically screenshots all the tos and claims if you've ever opened the app (or in some rbs, unsnoozed live) tumblr has gotten your data. on the one hand i feel like this is fearmongering, but on the other its true that MOST sites have your data as is so its pretty standard. you seem pretty knowledgeable abt data gathering so i was wondering abt your take
This is going to be pretty unkind but watching tumblr users interact with staff and live is a great primer on how conspiracy theories happen.
Nobody on this fucking website knows how to read a ToS, nobody on this website knows how anything fucking works (sorry, this is not a dig at you but how would tumblr "get" your data from you clicking or unclicking live; the only data that tumblr has on you is the data that you have put on tumblr what data do people think that clicking the "new" button is scooping up that is anything beyond interactions or posts or IP addresses which are the things that tumblr already has information about like you do not introduce new information into the tumblr ecosystem by clicking a button you haven't installed anything you haven't changed permissions on your browser if everyone is so goddamned scared about live stealing their data i strongly recommend they stop using anything but public internet through an anonymizer and making sure location data is shut off on all of their devices and anyone who is flipping their shit about the type of data that live is collecting but who is using chrome on any device needs to chill the fuck out about live and flip the fuck out about google)
this is like that post about twitter's content policy that circulated the other day or that post about deviantart's content policy that circulated ten fucking years ago nobody knows how to read legal documents and nobody knows how to read technical documentation and this comes together into unholy matrimony on the no reading comprehension at all moral panic website
live never violated the GDPR it was just rolled out in the US first but the entire userbase decided that because it hadn't been rolled out simultaneously in the EU and the US that it was SO UNSPEAKABLY PRIVACY VIOLATEY THAT THE EU HAD BANNED IT FOR ITS CRIMES with, like, nothing whatsoever backing that up because, again, even at its most intrusive Live collects about as much data as Twitter or Yelp, both of which are *capable* of meeting GDPR standards with that level of data collection (even if musk sometimes makes decisions that violate GDPR).
Live is significantly less intrusive than any facebook product, than Amazon, and than any Google product. If you use youtube logged in, don't worry about live, the horse is out of the barn and tumblr is the least of your worries *regardless* of live. If you regularly use Google as a search engine please god learn how to evaluate and compare risks across platforms because Live is like a coughing baby compared to about a dozen things that most highly online people interact with every single day.
If you don't want to use live don't use live. Clicking the button doesn't magically transfer your secret FBI file to tumblr and even agreeing to the ToS doesn't share anything that tumblr doesn't already have if you don't continue to interact - if you don't interact with live after agreeing to the ToS it's not collecting any data except your non-interaction.
For everyone who is losing it over Live just turn off your goddamned location on your fucking cellphone and turn off your location on your goddamned computers and that's it, you're good, you're fine, relax. If your response to "turn off your location" is "but I need it for _____" then don't worry about Live, whatever "_____" is was already collecting and selling your data.
Do you use an activity tracker? Congrats, you have much, much bigger privacy issues to worry about than tumblr live.
Okay but also I yelled about that post and the very many ways in which it was incorrect in January.
And I happened to take an archive of the page at that time because I'm a paranoid motherfucker.
And if you want my guess as to why staff went "scorched earth" on that post it's probably because if you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the archive, OP calls on everyone looking at the post to send a kind fuck you to the CEO then tagged his tumblr.
If you look at the other posts that went scorched earth in relation to tumblr staff they were also posts that very pointedly directed a lot of ire at a single staff member.
I don't think that any individual tumblr staff members are above criticism and I don't think that staff as a whole is above criticism but part of learning to read a ToS is understanding that someone can be shitty and vague and use TERF talking points and skirt the line and be technically okay under the ToS while someone can have a legitimate gripe about another user being horrible and manage to violate the ToS by accidentally spinning up a harassment campaign or suicide baiting someone.
Shitty people like nazis and terfs thrive on being edge cases. They are very good at finding a boundary and standing juuuuuuuuust on this side of it and going "la la la I'm not violating the ToS, you can't stop me!" and that blows and it leads to a lot of people encountering a lot of shitty stuff on a lot of websites but personally I'm pretty glad that there's a lot of gray area because when you cut out gray area that's when you see things like It's Going Down getting banned as extremist content alongside white supremacists. Please continue to report nazis and terfs, and when possible go deep into their pages to report because a pattern of behavior is more likely to get recognized as hate speech than a single post that gets reported a hundred times. Please block as many people who it's harmful for you to interact with as possible because it's clear that staff is not going to do the kind of work protecting users that users would like staff to do.
However I just can't get angry on behalf of a blogger who got nuked for saying "Hey everyone who hates this feature that we all hate please go tell the CEO to fuck himself at this URL specifically" - that is an extremely clear violation of the ToS because it is absolutely targeted harassment.
So now tumblr-the-userbase is going off on its merry conspiracy way skipping through fields and lacking reading comprehension and saying "users are getting banned for reporting the crimes of tumblr live and its gdpr violations" and ignoring the fact that the post was nuked because the last line was saying "hey everyone, let's all individually tell the CEO to fuck off in messages sent directly to him that are certainly not going to include any threats, exaggerations, gore, etc. etc. etc."
If I were to make a post that had 50k notes and the last line was "and while you're at it, please send tumblr-user-ms-demeanor a personalized message telling them why they're a terrible person so they know what we think of them" it would absolutely be reasonable to say that was harassing that user. And that post did it with the CEO. Who is not above criticism (and I have my criticisms! I don't think he really gets tumblr and that's a problem!), but jesus fucking christ don't tag the goddamned CEO or any other staff member in a call to action asking users to send them messages saying "fuck off" this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever seen a tumblr conspiracy theory coalesce around.
Anyway thank you for giving me a place to vent i've been getting more and more pissed about this for three days. Everyone feel free to kindly tell tumblr user ms demeanor to fuck off.
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inhonoredglory · 9 months
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Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality
Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.
I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.
Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,
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We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.
I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.
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Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)
That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.
Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.
But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.
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And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.
I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)
But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.
Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).
Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.
(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)
At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.
“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.
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Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.
Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.
But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.
Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)
Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.
Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”
____
In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.
Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.
Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.
And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.
And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.
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torpublishinggroup · 1 month
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"Warning Signs Your Machines Are Trying to Kill You!" by TJ Klune
(Legally, I’m required to tell you that when smart phones first became popular, I bought one and then asked for the address of the app store because I thought it was a physical location I had to go to in order to download apps and not something already on your phone. Also, I was recently told I speak like an old person so as a warning, there will not be any slang you youths typically hear, especially on Tumblr. Any slang I’ve learned in the last five years has been against my will. I still don’t know what FOMO means, and I don’t care.)
1. Oh no! You and your family are trying to enjoy a movie night, but Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) wants a sacrifice at the altar of their god, BeeZos. Should this happen, do not attempt to give Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) a cantaloupe with googly-eyes on it and say that it is your baby. Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) knows the difference between fruit and children. Instead, ask the machine to order dog food, and it will forget about eating humans for a little while.
2. If you own a very fancy vehicle that can drive itself, always make sure to carry a brick. That way, when the car locks you inside and attempts to drive you off a cliff into a gas station, you can break the window using the brick. You will then have to jump out, but make sure you do so in time so you can watch the wicked-ass explosion when the car hits the gas station, and you can revel in your victory over your car.
3. This one will hurt. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Chances are, you’re reading this on your phone right this second. To be safe, after you’ve finished reading this post and have clicked on the affiliated links to purchase my books, you should throw your phone into a volcano and then move to South Dakota where there are no machines, only wind and cows. That way, when everyone else gets the 5GZombieVirus that people on Twitter (I’m not calling it the other thing, shut up) seem to think is real, you’ll be safe with your cows on a windy day.
4. Get rid of your air fryer. Don’t ask me why, just do it. Red flags all around. Danger, danger.
5. Do you know of the Clapper? That thing first launched in the late 20th century (I wrote it that way to make me feel old) where the commercials showed cranky old people unable to reach their light switches, so they got a thing called a Clapper that turns your lights on and off when you clap? Guess what? Those will be the first things to try and kill you. If you love your gram-gram, save her from the Clapper. When she asks why you are destroying it with an ax, tell gram-gram it’s because you love her.
6. Do you live in a smart home? The kind where everything is connected to the internet, including your refrigerator? The refrigerator that holds your perishable foods? And oh, would you look at that: how many ice cubes have you kicked under it rather than picking them up when they fall to the floor? A dozen? A million? The refrigerator remembers. And it will spoil your food in seconds. What then? What are you going to eat? Canned food? Not if the refrigerator falls on top of you!
Unfortunately for you, this is where it must end. I hope this has given you enough information to help you survive the inevitable. If you do not heed my warnings, well. Who cares. I’m not in charge of you. Do whatever you want. Just don’t come complaining to me when gram-gram gets the clap.
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