#our method of mobility

[chantlight]

y’know I’ve actually been thinking Anatolius and Antonia might’ve been allies of a sort before Sidony killed her. they are/were both aligned in their desire to return Nevarra to a rule by council, and they both wanted the Mortalitasi’s importance in Nevarra to be officially recognized rather than having to scrape and bow to pressures from the Orlesian Chantry. however, Antonia wanted the council to be dominated by the Mortalitasi, to essentially have them rule, and was far less scrupulous in her methods than Anatolius. those would’ve been rifts between them.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #like ‘we could be close allies but our methods are too different’

[bobbiedebruyn]

So you just joined Tumblr?

Tumblr basics + Fandoms/Gifmaking

Congratulations, you just landed at Tumblr! This hellsite (affectionate) can seem intimidating and complicated at first, but once you grasp the basics of it it’ll quickly turn into your own personal little hut in the forest. Tumblr is a website where you and only you curate your dashboard, you’ll see the content that you seek on your own. In this post, I’ll explain the basics of Tumblr and the basics of how fandoms function here with the help of Bob. Okay, let’s get started.

1. Blog customization

The first thing you should do as soon as you land on Tumblr is add a profile picture and header before you interact with people. You want to be distinguishable from bots and therefore avoid getting blocked. You can also add anything to your bio, there's no character limit. Some folks add their name and pronouns, but there are no rules about that. There are also no rules about profile pictures. It can be a picture of you, a picture of your dog, a picture of a rock, or a picture of your favorite character. If you plan on staying on the fandom side, you might notice that a lot of fandom blogs have colorful-looking icons (a cutout of a character on a colorful background), for these icons and also headers I suggest checking out source blogs that make those icons. For starters, @iconheadersource is a goldmine where you definitely going to find something that’d suit you and your blog.

Tumblr on mobile and Tumblr on desktop are two different creatures when it comes to customization. On the desktop, you can customize your blog with coding (HTML + JS). Now Bob will demonstrate to us some examples of blogs on desktop.

If you want to customize your desktop blog, I suggest checking out @phantomcodes and @glenthemes for the codes.

Tutorial on how to install themes

Using javascript on Tumblr pages

2. Search Engine

Nice! You've made your blog look pretty! Now, let's shift our focus to the search engine and ways to discover content. As mentioned earlier, you curate your dashboard by looking for things you enjoy and like. Search using hashtags or the names of your interests (TV shows, movies, birds, music, etc.) to find your piece of cake. For instance, folks who create posts about TV shows you like use tags to ensure their posts reach others interested in the same thing. So, let's go ahead and search for something right now.

Once you search for that specific tag, you are redirected to the corresponding tag page. Here, you can see that posts are sorted by "Latest" or "Top" (indicating posts with the most notes). On the right side, you will find related tags and blogs which are frequently using the searched tag. By following the tag, both the tag itself and the posts tagged with it will automatically appear on your dashboard in the "Your tags" section. You have the option to filter tags according to your preferences. In the settings, you can choose to block specific tags if you prefer not to see content related to some particular topics.

The only method for sharing posts and content on this website is through reblogging. On Tumblr, reposting others' content, including art, gifs, and fics, is not accepted. Reposting means downloading art, gifs, etc., creating your own post, and then sharing it. And that's a big no-no, strongly discouraged. Your likes essentially function as bookmarks, and you have the option to set them to be private. When you save something, it doesn't appear on your friends' dashboards.

We don't censor things here, and I advise you not to do so too. If you need to mention a word that might be potentially triggering or could be flagged on another social media, feel free to say it. Many users have specific topics and tags filtered out, so if you use variations like "K!tKat" instead of "KitKat" in the tags, it can bypass the tag filter, potentially causing more harm as people will see content that triggers them. And remember to always tag posts that have flickering or flashing!!!

If you want to organize your reblogs or make comments on a reblog, use the tags section and not the comments section itself. This is called "#add tags." Feel free to type whatever you want, but keep in mind that the original poster receives notifications when someone reblogs their post and adds tags. Yes, all tags are visible to us.

Okay, so let's quickly recap this information with the help of our dear friend, Bob.

3. Social interactions

So let's move on to one of the crucial topics - how to make friends on Tumblr? Personally, I don't think there's one particular formula for that. Sometimes you just see a funny bloke posting about something as random as desert rain frogs, grab them, and go "You're my friend now" and that's how you become mutuals. 

However, there are other, more common ways to become friends with someone. You can start by reblogging someone's post, adding tags to the reblog, and then following the person. Create your own posts, tag them to ensure they reach the folks who are interested in the same things as you, and participate in fandom events and challenges if you're into that. Interact with people you want to befriend, message them, send them asks. You will eventually find your crowd. You'll also find swifties, and fans of supernatural who never moved on from that destiel love confession four years ago, they also can be your friends, at some point, you will become friends and chill with each other. Be open to new interests to make sure your dashboard is not dull and boring.

Tumblr doesn't have the supposed hierarchy, and you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise, you curate your own experience and blocking is pretty normalized here. Notes and followers (which are private for everyone) don't really matter, stick to your beliefs and your vibe and you'll be fine. We're all equal losers here.

4. Fandom / Gifmaking

Fandoms play a significant role on Tumblr, they're closely tied with gifmaking. As a fellow creature of fandom, I'm adding this part because we don't gatekeep - more gifmakers and fandom enthusiasts mean a better fandom experience. As I mentioned earlier, everything has its tag, making it easy to find your favorite TV show fandom by searching for the tag. This is also how you can connect with people who share an interest in that specific TV show. Upon entering the tag, you'll stumble upon numerous moving pictures – these are GIFs. People create GIFs of everything, from their "blorbo" (the term for favorite character) to beloved ships and favorite moments. There are also plenty of creative GIFs with different coloring and complicated effects. And the best part? You can do it too!

There are a lot of ways to make GIFs. Some people use Photoshop, and some use Photopea which is an excellent accessible option. I'll be linking posts for Photoshop under this text. For Photopea tutorials and guides, please check out @photopeablr.

I've been making GIFs for three years at this point, and those are the tutorials I used when I was just starting out:

how to make a gif:

comprehensive guide 101

basic gif making tutorial + mvp player installation 

gifmaking for beginners

how to install MVP player on a PC

film downloading & screen-capping tips

correct photoset dimensions 

coloring

how to fix orange-washed characters

how to: coloring east & southeast asian celebs

channel mixer

colored background

color manipulation

vibrant coloring

how to brighten dark scenes

color isolation

effects

glitch effect

blending

crossfade transition

gradient effect in the text

gradient text

red colour accent on the b&w gifs

how to add a gif in a template

blurring gif backgrounds

using templates

text

text tutorial 1

font resources

understanding fonts and typefaces

split text

subtitles

other

icon tutorial

gif headers 

For more tutorials, inspirations, and resources - please check out @usergif. It's a good source blog for all gifmakers.

Wait but what's a source blog? These are blogs that center around a specific theme, creating content for a particular topic. They are managed by multiple editors, these blogs track their own tags to reblog content related to the theme. They can be source blogs dedicated to gifmaking (just like @usergif), a TV show, a movie, a character, a celebrity, a sports team, or literally anything else. Typically, these blogs incorporate terms like "network," "source," "central," "creators," "hub," or "daily" in their usernames, making them easily distinguishable from regular personal blogs. Examples of source blogs that come to my mind right now are @dailyanakin, @heartstoppercentral, and @nancywheelercentral.

Let's also talk about tracking tags, which are often included in blogs's bios, whether they're from source blogs or solo gifmakers. You can add these tags to your posts when creating a gifset related to a specific source blog or something you know a particular gifmaker would appreciate. Basically, the gifmaker can search their tracking tag, much like a regular Tumblr tag, and view the most recent sets in which someone used their tag.

The last thing I want to talk about are usernames, and main and side blogs. On Tumblr, we have two types of blogs: the main blog and the side blog. The main blog is the initial blog created when you sign up for your account. This blog has full functionality and all features, allowing you to follow other blogs, like posts, and send asks to other blogs. In addition to the main blog, you can create side blogs on your account. Side blogs lack some of the features of main blogs; you can't like posts, follow other blogs, or send asks from a side blog. They have slightly different functionality – a side blog can be password-protected, have multiple users, and allow you to send direct messages to people. Other users can follow your side blog, and you can receive asks from them.

Many people use side blogs as URL holders. For instance, when a new TV show is announced, someone might be the quickest to save all canonical character names. You can then message that empty side blog to inquire if they're willing to trade that specific URL or if it's available for a giveaway. Canonical URLs are often challenging to obtain, so many people add letters in between or at the end or use symbols like "-", and they also mix names and surnames of different characters.

5. The End

Okay, so we've just covered how Tumblr works, how fandoms operate, and how to get into gifmaking. I hope this guide by me and Bob has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to my ask box or simply ask Bob. I hope you enjoy your stay here, and that your experience with this website will be a positive one.

#tumblr #welcome to tumblr #tumblr etiquette #how to tumblr #fandom community #fandom culture #photoshop tutorial #gif tutorial #gif resources #kas.txt #mine

[hsllfirescoopsreblogs]

Fic Recs (steve harrington)

just some of my favorite one-shots or series i’ve read on ao3 and few from tumblr. all works ranging from 1.5k to 30k+ i believe. 18+ readers!

some have a tumblr that i tagged, but others i couldn’t find . i am doing this on mobile which is a bit difficult haha! i read these all (except 2) on ao3 so the links will be ao3. i know some are here on tumblr but i didn’t realize till after reading and making this! <3

steve harrington

come home by @stevie-petey <3💕

-"come home to me, okay?"

"always," steve promises

in between saving will, then hawkins, then somehow the world, you fall in love with steve harrington.

(a stranger things rewrite).

dancing with our hands tied by @andvys

-You and Steve have never seen eye to eye, and it never changed, not even when you were pulled into a world of monsters and risked your life to save him. But tension had always been between you both, something that neither of you ever wanted to admit -- but how much longer can you take it when the pull between you gets stronger and stronger each second you spend by each others side?

paint me red by eddiemunsons ao3

-You're one of Vickie's best friends. Her girlfriend, Robin, is in need of a distraction for her best friend, Steve Harrington, who you vaguely remember from school. Which is where you come in.

i’m your idiot by thebestandworstdayofjune ao3 @thebestandworstdayofjune

-Steve Harrington has a way of worming himself into your heart, and social situations you had done your best to exclude him from.

small hands, big heart by finalgirlharrington ao3 @sexybabystevie

-Steve Harrington has a massive crush on you, but his recent lack of luck in the romantic sense has him stuck on how to make a move. Plus, something about you makes him nervous in a way he's never been – in a way he likes. His simplest solution? Flirting via the old 'comparing hand sizes' method.

promise by Harley_Honey_Quinn ao3

-Reader learns about Steve's feelings thanks to some Russian truth serum.

kiss me by @corrodedseraphine

-Your friend is desperately trying to find a person who will give him something more. Wanting to feel what it's like to be loved again and after many failed dates he gets the idea that it's time to go back to King Steve's famous tactics. Telling him that it's not the best idea gets you involved in a deal where you have to help him get another girl. Will helping the boy you're in love with turn out to be a good idea? Probably not.

every rose has its thorn by @corrodedseraphine

-Christmas is coming to Hawkins. It is a time of joy and forgiveness. It turns out that your sister's best friend is looking for a new place to live, and you happen to have a spare room in the apartment. It wouldn't be a problem if that friend wasn't Steve Harrington. A man whom the more you try to avoid even more often comes back like a boomerang.

hearts on the telephone line by t_lostinworlds ao3 @t-lostinworlds

-You thought Steve was okay dealing with a long-distance relationship after you moved for an exciting internship in New York. But you were proven so wrong when your boyfriend finally poured his feelings over the phone. Because distance wasn't making his heart grow fonder, it was breaking it.

competitively stupid by t_lostinworlds ao3 @t-lostinworlds

-It was stupid, jumping off a cliff just to prove that you were better than Steve fucking Harrington. But you were competitive. You were not losing to him. But you know what was stupider? For it to take a near-death situation for you both to confess what you truly feel for each other.

perfect blend by Your_Writer ao3

-No one likes their summer job. Working at a coffee shop was sticky, exhausting, and overall boring. In fact, the highlight of your day was the charming, gentle eyed sailor scooping USS Butterscotch just across the way.

the things we don’t say by rdrickheffley ao3

-Steve Harrington once was the bane of Y/n's existence. He had always been an arrogant asshole and a terrible kisser. She never understood how others fell for the boy's eye-roll worthy charm. Now it seems like he will do anything to prove her wrong about anything.

next time? by rdrickheffley ao3

-Three instances where Steve and reader find themselves in intimate situations.

candyfloss and confessions by ACourtofSnakesandStars ao3

-You’ve been in love with Steve Harrington for years, like every cliche come to life. You’ve battled monsters, found friends within kids with superpowers, and you even managed to graduate. Yet the one thing you’ve never been able to do, is tell Steve how you feel. But maybe you don’t need to wait any longer.

a night to remember by RaeWrites94 ao3

-Steve has to attend his 10 year high school reunion and somehow manages to convince you to go as his date and his fake girlfriend. You've had feelings for him for a long time, but figure, why not? You could probably survive an evening of pretending he liked you back and come out unscathed. Right?

with bated breath by brianmay ao3

-Rumors fly after you attend Steve Harrington’s party one weekend in September. Thinking they were his doing, you do everything in your power to avoid him, which proves easier said than done.

cross my heart (and hope to die) by @talesofesther

-Every time Steve gets hurt, you're there to help pick up the pieces; you just weren't expecting him to fall for you in the process.

tales of a love between the lines by @talesofesther

-Sometimes the thing we want most is right in front of us, and Steve might be just that for you; all you have to do is see what he’s been showing you for a long time.

love is easy by seidenbros ao3

-The day you wrote I love you on a post-it note before you'd said the words out loud, and it's the best note Steve ever got.

everything means nothing if i can’t have you by iridescentpetrichor ao3

-Steve and Y/N go on a double date to impress the other one, but it's only so long until the tension between the two breaks.

you’re not by frostandflames ao3 @frostandflamesfanfic

-The year is 1985, you're on a school field trip to cheer on Hawkins High at the championship game before spring break. When the game doesn't pan out as expected, you're even more surprised to discover the one and only Steve Harrington in only his underwear at your hotel room after being locked out by his teammates. What happens when the two of you have a little heart to heart?

last christmas by frostandflames ao3 @frostandflamesfanfic

-You and Steve had always been childhood friends-and remained that way. As Steve ping-pongs around in his relationship status, you have a hard time keeping your feelings to himself as Nancy surrounds his entire world. What Steve doesn't know is his relationship to Nancy may end your own with Steve.

the scoundrel and the princess by @mrshipsmcgee

-after an awkward run in with Tommy Hagan, Steve Harrington is invited to an awful party where he meets a beautiful stranger.

also have a ton under the (steve harrington x reader) on my blog! credit to the maker of the gif from pinterest!

#fic rec #fic recommendations #stranger things #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #x reader #one shot #imagine #f!reader #series #smut #fluff #angst #enemies to lovers #ao3 #stranger things rewrite #stranger things au #gn reader #stranger things x reader #steve harrington fic rec #steve harrington fic recommendations #joe keery

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for demanding a kid's mother compensate me for the expensive protective screen he ruined?

I (24F) used to work in a tutoring center with two classes, my class had around 8 kids, the other class had more because the tutor there is more experienced. I was having trouble managing my time and keeping up with all the classes the kids had. There was this one kid Mike (6M) who is a good kid but slightly mischievous, but I had a lot to say about his mother, I don't like her because she doesn't care. For example, the center closes at 6:30 and she's always like 1 hour late to pick him up, sometimes when I'm in a hurry to leave, I end up having to give him a ride myself because I can't just leave him alone and she doesn't pay me for the extra work. She even started to expect me to give her kid rides whenever she has plans, and never offers to pay. I could've been more strict with her but unfortunately I have social anxiety and have trouble asserting myself, but it's common sense to pay people for these sort of things.

Sometimes she even leaves for a trip OUTSIDE OF THE COUNTRY after she drops him off at the center (for her job- but it's her personal business and she could literally choose a different time or at least arrange for a pickup for her kid??)

Also Mike has two smartphones that he brings with him everyday and is very protective of them. I have no idea if both of them belong to him but that's irrelevant, the point is somehow he's allowed to carry two smartphones at the age of 6, I find it weird. And apparently the mother isn't even aware of it?! (As will be explained later)

It's been a minute so I don't remember what else I didn't like about this mother but there WERE other issues.

Anyway, the center was unofficial and there weren't any real guidelines for me to follow and I was new and very inexperienced so I often went to the other tutor (36F) for advice and copied her teaching style. For the poems and songs the children had to memorize, she suggested I use a recorded audio on my phone to help them with it instead of having to reread the entire thing for them over and over.

So I used this method a lot. At first I used to hold the phone for them and stay near them, but as time went to I started to trust them with my phone as I see how they handle it but I stay close to it. This continued for like a month and nothing happened to my phone. Sometimes when they are done and waiting for their rides I even let them play games on my mobile sometimes and yet nothing happened.

But one time there was a lot of homework so for Mike and another kid on the same grade I played the audio on loop and left the phone next to them, I warned them from messing with it and left to help another kid with her homework.

As I'm busy with this other kid go back to Mike and I find out he peeled the my phone's protective screen on purpose and he was laughing? Yes he's 6 but he knew exactly what he was doing. He often didn't let anyone touch his phones and often checks for damages and goes on rants about how handle a phone.

I went to the other tutor for advice and told me that was unacceptable and the mother should compensate me for it, so I decided to finally assert myself and immediately messaged her to tell her what her kid did and told her the screen costed me over 100$ (which is a lot of money in our currency) and my job was part time so my monthly salary was only about 660$ and it was the only job I had so obviously I couldn't afford it on my own.

She responded by telling me her a 6 year old doesn't understand the value of these things and it was my fault for lending him my mobile. I replied that I only allowed him to borrow my phone because I saw how he treated his two phones and listed several examples of how he handles them and takes good care of them and understands what damages them.

Her only response was: "Who said he has two phones?"

I was so done that was her only argument, but before I could reply she called management to complain about me demanding her money, they promised to resolve the issue and hung up to hear my side of the story.

My boss told me I was very bold to assume the mother would pay me, while the other tutor was on my side, and I learned in a private conversation with my boss that she wasn't a fan the other tutor's teaching methods.

Needless to say, I quit, for many reasons but this was a big factor so AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[reasonsforhope]

Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

#older news but still relevant and ongoing #africa #south africa #togo #uganda #covid #ai #artificial intelligence #pro ai #at least in some specific cases lol #the thing is that AI has TREMENDOUS potential to help humanity #particularly in medical tech and climate modeling #which is already starting to be realized #but companies keep pouring a ton of time and money into stealing from artists and shit instead #inequality #technology #good news #hope

[blackpearlblast]

"Our goal is to persuade 50 million Americans to participate in a Tax Blackout this April 2024 by refusing to pay at least 5% of their income taxes and donating that money to community-building organizations and emergency relief for Gaza. Otherwise, we are asking people to not pay whatever additional amount they would owe after filing and prepare their W-4s for long-term resistance. Studies have shown that by mobilizing just 3.5% of the population, demands for change are more likely to be answered. We understand 50 million people, about 16% of the population, is an ambitious goal, but if we are to stall the march of the Capitalist Death Machine long enough for us to dismantle it cog by cog, we must present a more united front and show up fiercely for each other."

tax blackout 2024 is a campaign against the united states government's funding of israel utilizing the method of the tax resistance. more details coming soon!

#palestine #gaza #free palestine #free gaza #tax blackout #tax blackout 2024 #tax resistance #war tax resistance #general strike #< feel like people engaging in the general strike would be interested in this

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"Open" "AI" isn’t

Tomorrow (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

The crybabies who freak out about The Communist Manifesto appearing on university curriculum clearly never read it – chapter one is basically a long hymn to capitalism's flexibility and inventiveness, its ability to change form and adapt itself to everything the world throws at it and come out on top:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

Today, leftists signal this protean capacity of capital with the -washing suffix: greenwashing, genderwashing, queerwashing, wokewashing – all the ways capital cloaks itself in liberatory, progressive values, while still serving as a force for extraction, exploitation, and political corruption.

A smart capitalist is someone who, sensing the outrage at a world run by 150 old white guys in boardrooms, proposes replacing half of them with women, queers, and people of color. This is a superficial maneuver, sure, but it's an incredibly effective one.

In "Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI," a new working paper, Meredith Whittaker, David Gray Widder and Sarah B Myers document a new kind of -washing: openwashing:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807

Openwashing is the trick that large "AI" companies use to evade regulation and neutralizing critics, by casting themselves as forces of ethical capitalism, committed to the virtue of openness. No one should be surprised to learn that the products of the "open" wing of an industry whose products are neither "artificial," nor "intelligent," are also not "open." Every word AI huxters say is a lie; including "and," and "the."

So what work does the "open" in "open AI" do? "Open" here is supposed to invoke the "open" in "open source," a movement that emphasizes a software development methodology that promotes code transparency, reusability and extensibility, which are three important virtues.

But "open source" itself is an offshoot of a more foundational movement, the Free Software movement, whose goal is to promote freedom, and whose method is openness. The point of software freedom was technological self-determination, the right of technology users to decide not just what their technology does, but who it does it to and who it does it for:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

The open source split from free software was ostensibly driven by the need to reassure investors and businesspeople so they would join the movement. The "free" in free software is (deliberately) ambiguous, a bit of wordplay that sometimes misleads people into thinking it means "Free as in Beer" when really it means "Free as in Speech" (in Romance languages, these distinctions are captured by translating "free" as "libre" rather than "gratis").

The idea behind open source was to rebrand free software in a less ambiguous – and more instrumental – package that stressed cost-savings and software quality, as well as "ecosystem benefits" from a co-operative form of development that recruited tinkerers, independents, and rivals to contribute to a robust infrastructural commons.

But "open" doesn't merely resolve the linguistic ambiguity of libre vs gratis – it does so by removing the "liberty" from "libre," the "freedom" from "free." "Open" changes the pole-star that movement participants follow as they set their course. Rather than asking "Which course of action makes us more free?" they ask, "Which course of action makes our software better?"

Thus, by dribs and drabs, the freedom leeches out of openness. Today's tech giants have mobilized "open" to create a two-tier system: the largest tech firms enjoy broad freedom themselves – they alone get to decide how their software stack is configured. But for all of us who rely on that (increasingly unavoidable) software stack, all we have is "open": the ability to peer inside that software and see how it works, and perhaps suggest improvements to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBknF2yUZZ8

In the Big Tech internet, it's freedom for them, openness for us. "Openness" – transparency, reusability and extensibility – is valuable, but it shouldn't be mistaken for technological self-determination. As the tech sector becomes ever-more concentrated, the limits of openness become more apparent.

But even by those standards, the openness of "open AI" is thin gruel indeed (that goes triple for the company that calls itself "OpenAI," which is a particularly egregious openwasher).

The paper's authors start by suggesting that the "open" in "open AI" is meant to imply that an "open AI" can be scratch-built by competitors (or even hobbyists), but that this isn't true. Not only is the material that "open AI" companies publish insufficient for reproducing their products, even if those gaps were plugged, the resource burden required to do so is so intense that only the largest companies could do so.

Beyond this, the "open" parts of "open AI" are insufficient for achieving the other claimed benefits of "open AI": they don't promote auditing, or safety, or competition. Indeed, they often cut against these goals.

"Open AI" is a wordgame that exploits the malleability of "open," but also the ambiguity of the term "AI": "a grab bag of approaches, not… a technical term of art, but more … marketing and a signifier of aspirations." Hitching this vague term to "open" creates all kinds of bait-and-switch opportunities.

That's how you get Meta claiming that LLaMa2 is "open source," despite being licensed in a way that is absolutely incompatible with any widely accepted definition of the term:

https://blog.opensource.org/metas-llama-2-license-is-not-open-source/

LLaMa-2 is a particularly egregious openwashing example, but there are plenty of other ways that "open" is misleadingly applied to AI: sometimes it means you can see the source code, sometimes that you can see the training data, and sometimes that you can tune a model, all to different degrees, alone and in combination.

But even the most "open" systems can't be independently replicated, due to raw computing requirements. This isn't the fault of the AI industry – the computational intensity is a fact, not a choice – but when the AI industry claims that "open" will "democratize" AI, they are hiding the ball. People who hear these "democratization" claims (especially policymakers) are thinking about entrepreneurial kids in garages, but unless these kids have access to multi-billion-dollar data centers, they can't be "disruptors" who topple tech giants with cool new ideas. At best, they can hope to pay rent to those giants for access to their compute grids, in order to create products and services at the margin that rely on existing products, rather than displacing them.

The "open" story, with its claims of democratization, is an especially important one in the context of regulation. In Europe, where a variety of AI regulations have been proposed, the AI industry has co-opted the open source movement's hard-won narrative battles about the harms of ill-considered regulation.

For open source (and free software) advocates, many tech regulations aimed at taming large, abusive companies – such as requirements to surveil and control users to extinguish toxic behavior – wreak collateral damage on the free, open, user-centric systems that we see as superior alternatives to Big Tech. This leads to the paradoxical effect of passing regulation to "punish" Big Tech that end up simply shaving an infinitesimal percentage off the giants' profits, while destroying the small co-ops, nonprofits and startups before they can grow to be a viable alternative.

The years-long fight to get regulators to understand this risk has been waged by principled actors working for subsistence nonprofit wages or for free, and now the AI industry is capitalizing on lawmakers' hard-won consideration for collateral damage by claiming to be "open AI" and thus vulnerable to overbroad regulation.

But the "open" projects that lawmakers have been coached to value are precious because they deliver a level playing field, competition, innovation and democratization – all things that "open AI" fails to deliver. The regulations the AI industry is fighting also don't necessarily implicate the speech implications that are core to protecting free software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech

Just think about LLaMa-2. You can download it for free, along with the model weights it relies on – but not detailed specs for the data that was used in its training. And the source-code is licensed under a homebrewed license cooked up by Meta's lawyers, a license that only glancingly resembles anything from the Open Source Definition:

https://opensource.org/osd/

Core to Big Tech companies' "open AI" offerings are tools, like Meta's PyTorch and Google's TensorFlow. These tools are indeed "open source," licensed under real OSS terms. But they are designed and maintained by the companies that sponsor them, and optimize for the proprietary back-ends each company offers in its own cloud. When programmers train themselves to develop in these environments, they are gaining expertise in adding value to a monopolist's ecosystem, locking themselves in with their own expertise. This a classic example of software freedom for tech giants and open source for the rest of us.

One way to understand how "open" can produce a lock-in that "free" might prevent is to think of Android: Android is an open platform in the sense that its sourcecode is freely licensed, but the existence of Android doesn't make it any easier to challenge the mobile OS duopoly with a new mobile OS; nor does it make it easier to switch from Android to iOS and vice versa.

Another example: MongoDB, a free/open database tool that was adopted by Amazon, which subsequently forked the codebase and tuning it to work on their proprietary cloud infrastructure.

The value of open tooling as a stickytrap for creating a pool of developers who end up as sharecroppers who are glued to a specific company's closed infrastructure is well-understood and openly acknowledged by "open AI" companies. Zuckerberg boasts about how PyTorch ropes developers into Meta's stack, "when there are opportunities to make integrations with products, [so] it’s much easier to make sure that developers and other folks are compatible with the things that we need in the way that our systems work."

Tooling is a relatively obscure issue, primarily debated by developers. A much broader debate has raged over training data – how it is acquired, labeled, sorted and used. Many of the biggest "open AI" companies are totally opaque when it comes to training data. Google and OpenAI won't even say how many pieces of data went into their models' training – let alone which data they used.

Other "open AI" companies use publicly available datasets like the Pile and CommonCrawl. But you can't replicate their models by shoveling these datasets into an algorithm. Each one has to be groomed – labeled, sorted, de-duplicated, and otherwise filtered. Many "open" models merge these datasets with other, proprietary sets, in varying (and secret) proportions.

Quality filtering and labeling for training data is incredibly expensive and labor-intensive, and involves some of the most exploitative and traumatizing clickwork in the world, as poorly paid workers in the Global South make pennies for reviewing data that includes graphic violence, rape, and gore.

Not only is the product of this "data pipeline" kept a secret by "open" companies, the very nature of the pipeline is likewise cloaked in mystery, in order to obscure the exploitative labor relations it embodies (the joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians" comes out of the South Asian clickwork industry).

The most common "open" in "open AI" is a model that arrives built and trained, which is "open" in the sense that end-users can "fine-tune" it – usually while running it on the manufacturer's own proprietary cloud hardware, under that company's supervision and surveillance. These tunable models are undocumented blobs, not the rigorously peer-reviewed transparent tools celebrated by the open source movement.

If "open" was a way to transform "free software" from an ethical proposition to an efficient methodology for developing high-quality software; then "open AI" is a way to transform "open source" into a rent-extracting black box.

Some "open AI" has slipped out of the corporate silo. Meta's LLaMa was leaked by early testers, republished on 4chan, and is now in the wild. Some exciting stuff has emerged from this, but despite this work happening outside of Meta's control, it is not without benefits to Meta. As an infamous leaked Google memo explains:

Paradoxically, the one clear winner in all of this is Meta. Because the leaked model was theirs, they have effectively garnered an entire planet's worth of free labor. Since most open source innovation is happening on top of their architecture, there is nothing stopping them from directly incorporating it into their products.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/leaked-google-memo-admits-defeat-by-open-source-ai/486290/

Thus, "open AI" is best understood as "as free product development" for large, well-capitalized AI companies, conducted by tinkerers who will not be able to escape these giants' proprietary compute silos and opaque training corpuses, and whose work product is guaranteed to be compatible with the giants' own systems.

The instrumental story about the virtues of "open" often invoke auditability: the fact that anyone can look at the source code makes it easier for bugs to be identified. But as open source projects have learned the hard way, the fact that anyone can audit your widely used, high-stakes code doesn't mean that anyone will.

The Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL was a wake-up call for the open source movement – a bug that endangered every secure webserver connection in the world, which had hidden in plain sight for years. The result was an admirable and successful effort to build institutions whose job it is to actually make use of open source transparency to conduct regular, deep, systemic audits.

In other words, "open" is a necessary, but insufficient, precondition for auditing. But when the "open AI" movement touts its "safety" thanks to its "auditability," it fails to describe any steps it is taking to replicate these auditing institutions – how they'll be constituted, funded and directed. The story starts and ends with "transparency" and then makes the unjustifiable leap to "safety," without any intermediate steps about how the one will turn into the other.

It's a Magic Underpants Gnome story, in other words:

Step One: Transparency

Step Two: ??

Step Three: Safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ih_TQWqCA

Meanwhile, OpenAI itself has gone on record as objecting to "burdensome mechanisms like licenses or audits" as an impediment to "innovation" – all the while arguing that these "burdensome mechanisms" should be mandatory for rival offerings that are more advanced than its own. To call this a "transparent ruse" is to do violence to good, hardworking transparent ruses all the world over:

https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence

Some "open AI" is much more open than the industry dominating offerings. There's EleutherAI, a donor-supported nonprofit whose model comes with documentation and code, licensed Apache 2.0. There are also some smaller academic offerings: Vicuna (UCSD/CMU/Berkeley); Koala (Berkeley) and Alpaca (Stanford).

These are indeed more open (though Alpaca – which ran on a laptop – had to be withdrawn because it "hallucinated" so profusely). But to the extent that the "open AI" movement invokes (or cares about) these projects, it is in order to brandish them before hostile policymakers and say, "Won't someone please think of the academics?" These are the poster children for proposals like exempting AI from antitrust enforcement, but they're not significant players in the "open AI" industry, nor are they likely to be for so long as the largest companies are running the show:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4493900

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #llama-2 #meta #openwashing #floss #free software #open ai #open source #osi #open source initiative #osd #open source definition #code is speech

[mrs-kodzuken]

Hii there!! I have an idea about a scenario where haikyuu boys would get flustered when their fem!crush is being a gentleman to them. I think having oikawa, iwa and akaashi would be interesting. Have fun!

She’s the gentleman ♡

Pairing: Keiji Akaashi x fem!reader

WC: 1.6k

Genre: fluff

CW: fem!reader, reader is more of a gentleman than akaashi is (surprisingly), fluff, friends-to-lovers, short and sweet, reader is very proper in words, the crush reader has is hinted at which gives it a friends to lovers theme

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

"No, yeah, I completely understand if you would want to cancel our session." I responded over the phone to Keiji Akaashi. He was my study date partner today since we have different methods of learning for our huge exam on the following Monday.

"Would you like to wait it out to see how it is?" His response came to me through the mobile device, not giving credit to his soft spoken voice.

"That would be lovely. I really appreciate it, Akaashi." I glanced down at my pristine loafers, per school dress code, as I waited for the conversation to finish.

"Great. Is meeting by the entrance gates fine for you?"

"Yes. We'll walk together to The Manor Mocha and then study there. I'll see you then. Goodbye Akaashi." I finished my sentence then hung up the phone call.

I shifted my eye focus towards the sky only to see that the clouds rolling in did not seem to be leaving anytime soon. Thankfully, The Manor Mocha was only less than five minutes away from our school's campus—which was Fukurodani.

As I walked patiently to class, I could not help but to notice every student around me had been awfully over prepared for this weather or extremely under prepared.

As guaranteed, my best friend, Kotaro Bokuto, was significantly under prepared.

"Good morning, Bokuto. The weather does not look compatible with what you're wearing." I stated, as I glanced him up and down. His outfit was completely fine, but it lacked any outer wear and I didn't see his golden an umbrella anywhere.

"Morning, (Y/n)! I think I'll be fine! The sun will come back out and I won't have the need for an umbrella." He smiled, wholeheartedly believing in that.

"If you say so Bokuto, I'll be heading to class now. I want to make sure to let the teacher know about this weather and if we have any school drills we have to do because of it. Give my 'hello' to Akaashi when he arrives." I said to him before walking off and continuing my route to the classroom.

Even though Bokuto and I were best friends, in accordance to him, I found that he and Akaashi seemed more of best friends. However, the difference between them both is very profound in every way.

Akaashi is only a second-year but he is already able to take such higher courses that us third-years take which is why we're having a study date in the first place.

As I made my way to my morning classroom, I noticed the teacher was not around so I just made my way to my seat. It was by the window on the left side of the classroom, my favorite.

I peered out at the weather, silently hoping that it wouldn't rain because that would only cause such an inconvenience for my plans I made for later. However, my study session will go on regardless of what the weather is like.

Students began to file into the classroom soon after and then the lesson began right after our teacher called attendance. I loved taking notes into my spiral notebooks, it helped me a lot during study sessions and that helped with the making of flash cards.

Soon, the school day flew past and it was already almost time for school to be over. However, my hope got dampened as I heard the sharp clap of thunder and soon the ground began splotching into darker colors. The reason being that, unfortunately, it began to rain.

I had come prepared, of course. I always kept a spare umbrella in my locker just in case a scenario like this happened. I wasn't too sure if Akaashi had brought one though.

When the school bell rung, an announcement came out as well. It was mostly about the weather and how safety is a priority when leaving campus.

Soon, I gathered myself and prepared to face the weather as my classmates bustled about. The chatter and excitement of the weekend was heard throughout the halls as I made my steady way to my locker.

Being polite, on time, and organized was one of my virtues that I treasured deeply. It was what made me who I am, which is why I had a spare umbrella. After changing my loafers into my regular shoes, I grabbed my black and white polka-dotted umbrella.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my blazer pocket. Reaching in to grab it, I saw the message from Akaashi when my phone screen lit up.

'I'm waiting by the gates'

I responded with, 'Okay. I'll be there in just a minute.'

After confirming that he was still okay with our study session, I opened my umbrella as I stepped outside of school and immediately felt the strong winds, which whipped my hair against my face.

I squinted as I saw Akaashi standing by the entrance gate, however, what shocked me to my core what that he was almost completely soaked. He had made some make-shift umbrella out of his blazer and shoulder bag.

"Oh gosh! Are you alright? We best hurry so you don't end up sick." I rushed out, seeing him up close was worse. His hair seemed to be dry but there was only so much of himself that the make shift umbrella could keep dry.

"I'm fine, just a bit cold from the rain." He gave me a half smile and I shared my umbrella with him as we hurried along to The Manor Mocha.

By the time we were there, I'm pretty sure Akaashi was almost, if not completely, drenched. I quickly opened the door for him, which rang a small bell throughout the café.

Akaashi seemed almost shocked that I opened the café door for him, but I didn't show the curiosity on my face as I closed my umbrella and followed suit behind him.

I gathered us a dining table just in case we decided to stay as late for dinner. I assumed Akaashi went to the bathroom to try and dry off as best as possible. As I waited and arranged my laptop, notebook, pens, and sticky tabs together. I thought about cancelling the session if the wet clothes were too much of a burden to him.

"Hi, what can I get you started with?" A waitress with brown hair tied back into a low bun came up to my table. She pulled out her notepad from her apron pocket as well as a pen.

"Good afternoon, I'd like an ice vanilla latte with almond milk please." I politely ordered to her.

"Anything else, hun?"

"I do have a date, however, I am unsure of what he favors so please just add an order of mini cinnamon muffins please. Thank you so much." I smiled up at her, getting one in return.

As soon as she left, Akaashi came back out of the bathrooms.

"Akaashi, I am so sorry that your clothes got dampened. Would you feel better about canceling or continuing?" I asked him as I got up out of my seat when he sat down.

"It's fine, no worries. I don't mind continuing because I do need to memorize these functions for the exam." He lightly laughed, which reassured me.

"Great," I stood up and got behind his chair to push him in then sat back down, "I've already set all of my things out, so just let me know when you're ready." I smiled at him, happy to be studying.

"(Y/n), I have a question abo-" Akaashi was cut short of his sentence when the waitress came back with my iced latte as well as the muffins.

"Thank you so much. Akaashi, would you like to order anything?" I asked, as the waitress stood, waiting for a response as well.

"Just a black coffee with creamer please." And then, like before, the was off with the order and I turned back to Akaashi.

"What were you saying before she arrived? You have a question?" I asked him, grabbing a mini cinnamon muffin.

"Yes, why do you treat me the way you do?" His soft eyes peered at me, a twinge of pink coating his fare skin.

"Oh, what do you mean?" I asked him, very confused by the question.

"Well, it's just that you held the umbrella, opened the door for me, and pushed in my chair. Those are all things that I didn't expect you would do. It kind of flustered me a bit." He laughed nervously.

"Oh! That's just how I am. I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable?" I asked, not wanting to ruin the atmosphere of our study date.

"No, you're fine. If I may ask, for our next date, please let me open the doors for you and be the gentleman. I would like to return the favor." He looked away for a second, then focusing back onto me.

Was he asking me on a date?

"Of course! This will be a date, not just a study date, correct?"

"Yes, it will be." I could see his ears slightly turning to a nice shade of pink which was so cute. It's a good look on him.

"Great, oh, look! The sky is clearing up a bit!" I pointed out, sitting by the window always did have its perks.

"It sure is, which means that I can walk you home once we're finished, if that's okay." He asked me honestly.

"I would love that Akaashi." And soon after that conversation was over we started on our study session as planned. I couldn't push away the feeling of butterflies in my stomach when Akaashi had asked me out.

Staying true to his word, when the date was over, he walked me home.

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

a/n: I excluded Iwaizumi and Oikawa only because I felt like this fic would have been too repetitive, however, I will be in the making of fics for them both soon! I hope you enjoy nonetheless anon!!

you all know my header rules, if not see pinned post!!

#kodzu fics #kodzu writing #kodzu indulges! #kodzu girl blogging #haikyuu fluff #hq fluff #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq imagines #hq x you #akaashi x reader #hq akaashi #haikyuu akaashi #akaashi keiji #akaashi fluff

[ovaruling]

fell down a rabbit hole of hyperfemininity “doll” style accounts on tumblr and insta and i feel like i just increased my risk for cancer in some horrible unknowable way

i can’t imagine wanting to participate so little in an active life outside of selfies and curated image/aesthetic that one is willing to frost themselves like a cake in this method and essentially be entombed in a day-to-day where basic movement, functional mobility, sweating, eating, drinking, sleeping in comfortable positions, being outdoors, hand dexterity vital to our species, and doing anything that isn’t sitting still or lying down is essentially rendered if not outright impossible then sufficiently exhausting enough to make it dreadful

nothing new to report here but always worth a reiteration that the idleness you commit to when you undertake to make yourself into a “doll” for the admiration or attraction of men should honestly be considered a level of torture with profoundly flesh-eating effects on the human psyche

[lyrebright]

so! you want to rip a fic from fanfiction dot net?

I’m sure at this point we’ve all seen the posts about FFN’s inevitable demise. Not to downplay how much that would suck, for all we riff on FFN--but people have been saying that for literal years at this point, and while I do not doubt that FFN is dying, it’s probably not going to up and vanish on us in the next week. It’s got some good time of chugging and wheezing along left yet.

But among the panic there are people asking sincere questions about what can be done to save fics from FFN in the case of the site going down and taking literal decades of fandom history with it, and I’m seeing a surprising amount of people saying that the only way to do it is to either screenshot the fics or type them out yourself because copy/paste does not work on FFN. And that is just blatantly not true. There are many ways in which you can save fics from FFN. Here are just a few:

You can copy/paste directly from the mobile site. This is probably one of the easiest methods for anyone to do. Just click on the URL of the chapter you’re reading, and change the www. to m. Hit enter and the page will reload in mobile mode. You can now copy/paste the chapter right into a word document. You will have to go chapter by chapter.

CTRL+S. Go to the fic you want to save, and hit ctrl+s. Save the damn webpage. This will keep it in the exact format of the webpage, which you could see as a pro or a con, but it will also keep the ads, which does suck. You’ll also have to go chapter by chapter with this method but it does go a lot faster than manually copy/pasting the text.

HTML to PDF. This method I’m admittedly a little less sure about, since when I used it it was like, 2013 and I was in highschool so I’m not sure how viable it still is, but--just a quick google search should find you a website that will let you save a webpage as a PDF file. I have folders and folders of fics I saved back in highschool using this method. It will again have to go chapter by chapter and just like saving the webpage will keep the format of the site intact--down to keeping the ads.

Use a fanfiction downloader. Two I’ve been using for years are FF2eBook and FicHub. You put in the link of the fic you want to download and it converts the entire thing into a file for you. Yes, the entire thing--you don’t need to manually go through chapter by chapter. By default, both sites download in epub format, though FicHub does have a few other options. I’ve never really experimented with them though because I’m personally fine with epub, and there are a million epub to pdf (or other file type) converters out there.

And there you go: a handful of ways for you to save your favourite fics before FFN goes under. Again, I don’t think it’s something to be too worried about, but the best time to do your part for fandom preservation was yesterday. The second best time is to get started right now. There is no reason to wait for FFN to be on its death bed to start saving fics. I’ve been doing this for years just so I have fics to read offline. 

I’m a little too young to have been around for livejournal, but I was one of those weirdos that posted their first fics on quizilla. I remember when quizilla just...changed. And so much was lost. Looking back, almost none of what was posted on quizilla was actually good, but it was still something that someone put time and effort and passion into creating, and it was important.

There is almost no way that when FFN inevitably goes down that its entire archive will be saved. But we can do our best to save as much as we can. Stop panicking and start saving.

#ffn #fanfiction.net #fandom history #fandom preservation #ffnet #ao3 #archiveofourown #fanfic #fanfiction

[mindblowingscience]

In efforts to tackle the leading cause of blindness in developed countries, researchers have recruited nanotechnology to help regrow retinal cells. Macular degeneration is a form of central vision loss, which has massive social, mobility, and mental consequences. It impacts hundreds of millions of people globally and is increasing in prevalence. The degeneration is the consequence of damaged retinal pigment cells. Our bodies are unable to grow and replace these cells once they start dying, so scientists have been exploring alternative methods to replace them and the membrane within which they sit. "In the past, scientists would grow cells on a flat surface, which is not biologically relevant," explains Anglia Ruskin University biochemist Barbara Pierscionek. "Using these new techniques the cell line has been shown to thrive in the 3D environment provided by the scaffolds." Nottingham Trent University biomedical scientist Biola Egbowon and colleagues fabricated these 3D scaffolds with polymer nanofibers and coated them with a steroid to reduce inflammation. Using a technique called electrospinning, which produces nanometer-wide fibers by squirting a molten polymer through a high-voltage field, the team was able to keep the scaffold sufficiently thin.

Continue Reading

#science #stem #medicine #health #biotechnology #nanotechnology #vision

[pillowfort-social]

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 with a Community Update after a very eventful end of 2023. We’ll give you a look at what Staff have been doing behind the scenes, an update from our Developer Team, and a preview of what’s in store for the platform. Community Stats: 

As of January 19, 2024 Pillowfort currently has over 170,467 registered users and over 9,928 Communities. The rest of this post is under the cut.

In 2023 we have…

Avoided shutdown thanks to your generous support.

Launched Pillowfort Premium

Tested and launched Drafts 

Added new premium frames. 

Updated our Terms of Service.

Updated our Business Plan.

Continued work on the PWA & Queue.

Blocked ChatGPT Bots our platform.

Announced our upcoming policy on Generative AI.

Increased weekly invitations keys to from 10 to 50. 

Continued patching bugs. 

Welcome New Users!

Welcome to Pillowfort. We are so glad you are part of our community. If you haven’t yet, check out the Pillowfort101 Getting Started Guide.

Thank you for keeping Pillowfort Alive! 

Your support during the End of Year Fundraiser helped us avoid ending contracts with our Staff and averted the end of our platform for another six months (July 2024). We can not express our gratitude enough to you. This has been an extremely challenging and stressful time for each member of the team. We are going to work hard to keep Pillowfort online. You have motivated us to continue the fight to be a viable platform. You may have noticed that our donation bar has reset to $5,000 at the beginning of January. This number is our monthly operating costs going forward.  Each month in 2024 that we meet our funding goal it will extend Pillowfort’s life past July 2024. 

Generative AI Ban Policy Update

We will be implementing our updated policy regarding Generative AI in the next site update. Prior to when the policy will be implemented we will share with the community what our definition of Generative AI is and our moderation process. 

We're aware that there are concerns about how moderation systems surrounding generative AI have been abused and used for harassment on other sites: we have consulted with experts on how to avoid those issues, and the suite of moderation methods from international universities also assist with identifying harassment. Abuse of reporting systems will be taken seriously by Staff.

End of Year Fundraiser Limited Edition Badge Gift Form

The form for gifting the Limited Edition Badge to other users who couldn’t donate is now live! Click Here to Fill Out the Form. (Note: We’ll be also making a separate Staff Alert with the link as well.)

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#long post #pillowfort #pifo #pillowfort.social #community update #january 2024 #pillowfort.soc #pfstaffalert

[sofasoap]

Accidental meet cute

Pairing : Kyle “Gaz” Garrick x F!reader

Summary: What happens when your friend tries to be a cupid behind your back?

Part of Gaz Fest 2023

Warning : M rating. Semi-crack, meet cute. Coarse languages.

A/N: Thank you @glitterypirateduck for organising the writing festival!! * cheering *

Thank you @siilvan and @jynxmirage for listening to my brain storming blabberings :) Based on real life event ( ..80% of it ) see End A/N.

Enjoy!!

Moving away from the crowd as you finish watching one of the bands onstage, in search of some beverages to quench your thirst. 

You were dragged along to the music festival by your friend, which to be honest, you had no interest in attending at all. After being nudged and bribed ( well, thinking back, more like coerced) by your friend and with promises of staying in a caravan instead of roughing it out in a basic tent and possible muddy floor, you gave in.

“Come on! My parents said they can lend us their old caravan, there’s enough space for four of us in there. There's a toilet and a basic shower.” your friend trying hard to sell you the idea. “ Plus, you seriously need to get out and experience the sunlight. You can’t coop up at home all the time, and complain about you never getting a chance to find your ‘soulmate’ “ putting her hands up and doing an air quotation mark, she exasperated. 

Well, that is true. You aren’t the most outgoing person, and it is time to finally do some socialisation, to enjoy life a little bit, and maybe, just that maybe, you can break your record of partnerness life. 

You didn’t quite expect the tricks and plots your friend went to trying to find you a date.

As you were ordering a glass of wine from the mobile bar not far away, your phone started ringing. Frowning as you stare at the unknown number, you hesitated for a few seconds before picking it up. 

“Hello???” 

“Heyyyyy is this uh…what’s her name again??” the speaker on the other side of the phone turned away to call out to someone in the background, and you heard a mumble which sounded like your name as a reply. Is that your friend Emma’s voice???

“OH yes hey hey.” They greeted you again with your name. “I got this number from your friend, and my friend Kyle, who I might add is a very handsome fellow, is quite willing to meet up with you.” A vague muffled protest could be heard in the background, but was quickly shushed by the speaker on the phone. 

You pull your phone away, staring at the screen, utterly confused. What the hell is this about??

“Hey handsome!! Take this!!” 

Kyle looked down at the wrist band a random passerby just threw into his hand, with what seems to be phone numbers written on it.

“If you are interested, ring the number!!”  Ah so he was right. “Wait,” Pulling the girl back, “Interested in what?” 

The girl giggled, “My friend! We are trying to get her out of the dating desert.” Holding up the wristful of bands, “We made a whole lot of these and now giving it out to people, see if we will get some luck. Oh, she doesn’t know about it though.” Kyle cocked an eyebrow, silently questioning the girl’s method without the said person’s consent. 

“OH he is definitely interested, you got a picture of her?” Kyle’s friend perked up beside him,leaning his head onto his shoulder as he wrapped his around around the other. “What a coincidence, we are trying to get our good buddy here,” patting Kyle’s shoulder and in the process nearly spilling the beer in his hand. “Some actions as well. He’s been wayyy too busy with work to brush some rust off his dick.”

Trust his good friend to say something decent. 

The girl just laughed, and took out her phone, scrolling through the photo album and flipped the screen towards Kyle and friend. “There, that’s her, third from the right. What do you think?” 

“Sorry but who the hell is this and how in the hell did you get my number??” You semi yelled into the phone, as the background crowd noise and the band on stage started playing again.

“Your friend Emma! She was giving out numbers to people!” 

OH that bitch… you turned around to look at your two other friends, who are currently holding drinks in their hands, with a stiff smile on their face, looking semi guilty but not sorry at all. 

“Surprise!”  One of your friends laughed nervously as you glared at them, hands up trying to defend themselves. “We just want to help you..”   

“Hello?? Hellooo? You still there?” you turned back to your phone, ignoring your friend’s comment. “ Put Emma on the phone for me, PLEASE.”  You try to sound as polite as possible to the stranger on the phone as you requested for your friend, but a hint of anger still sips through. 

“So, explain yourself.” You growled. 

“Oh, you’ll like him, I promise.” Dodging your anger, Emma quickly put forward her case, “Look, I can see him right in front of me, I chatted to him for a bit, and his friend, who is equally as cute,” she sighed, “ come on, just come over to meet him! He fits all your criteria, plus, he did mention you are his type. So, just pop over to the beer bar on the other side of the main stage, he will meet you there.” 

“I don’t think your friend is that interested in me by the sound of it… ““Relax! She is TOTALLY interested!” Just before you hung up the call you briefly overheard Emma reassuring… Kyle? 

Ah well. Why not? Let’s give it a try. This isn’t much difference to some blind date or meeting up through a dating app right?

And for the second time, you gave in to your friend.

“What did Emma say he looks like??” your friend whispered into your ear, as the three of you looked around the bar area, trying to spot the guy.

 Looking down at her phone, checking the message Emma sent through; “Let see.. Uh, Dark skin, short curly hair..taller than you? Brown eyes.. And.. scar on his cheek on the left? How vague can this woman be…”she mumbled. 

Your eye stopped at this tall dark man standing at the corner of the bar. 

There he is, in a simple white singlet, ¾ blue jeans and matching cream colour shoes and jacket tied around his waist. 

Casual, yet stylish. And wooah boy, the tight fit clothing definitely shows off his lean but well toned muscles beautifully. Is it suddenly getting hotter in here?

“I think that’s him there….” you whispered into your friend’s ear as you pointed to him.”he is the only one that fits all the description…” 

“Let me go scout him out.” Before you can say anything or pull her back, she marched towards the bar, full of purpose. 

She subtly slid into the gap between him and the patron next to him, ordering a drink, while trying to side eye him at same time. 

Her eyes brighten up as she spotted something, and turn towards facing you and your other friend, nodding furiously. 

“OH! Is that the wristband Emma gave you?” you heard your friend speak loudly. Gosh, how much more embarrassment would your friend bring you? You mentally facepalm yourself as your other friend drags you towards the bar. “You must be Kyle! Where is Emma and your friend??”

You can see him getting startled as he jumps slightly, turning around to face her. “Um, they took off about ten minutes ago, saying there was a band that both of them needed to check out…um, who are you?” Waving her hand dismissively, “It doesn’t matter who I am, it matters who SHE is. Come come, come meet my friend, the mysterious lady you are going to try woo tonight.” She stepped forward and half pushed you towards the bar area, “Alright, two of you have fun! We are going to check out the food stalls outside!” 

With that, your friend just left you and Kyle, standing in the middle of the bar, staring at each other awkwardly. Fidgeting with your hand, you decided to break the ice first. “Hey um, So, you are Kyle?”  holding your hand out, you introduced yourself. 

“Kyle, Kyle Garrick, but everyone calls me Gaz,”  you raised your eyebrow, confused. He chuckled, “Inside joke. Don’t worry.” waving towards an empty seat right beside you, “you must be tired walking all the way from the otherside of the festival ground in the mud. Take the seat.” Oh a gentleman, you thought, tick a box. 

“Thanks Ky… Gaz.” After turning around ordering yourself a drink, you start asking him questions. “So.. seen any bands you like?”

Gaz shrugged. “ I’m not familiar with any of them to be honest with you. I got dragged here by my friend because he said I need, ah, more, ahem, companionship.” Gaz quickly took a sip of his beer, hiding his embarrassment of hidden meanings of his words. 

Eyes wide, you perked up, “OH I thought I was the only victim!! My friends, the ones you just met,” waving into the air into nowhere while rolling your eyes. “dragged me here because they said I need to find someone to relieve my sexual frustration.” 

Gaz burst out laughing at your bluntness. “Sounds like we have much in common. Should we form a self-help group to recover from the trauma our friend has bestowed upon us?” Gaz gives you a wink and flashes you a wide smile as he jokingly suggested. 

Very cute smile too. How perfect can this man be? Got humour,physically attractive, a gentleman.. You have to admit, Emma might have helped you to hit a jackpot here. 

“Well, to form a group, we have to start up a member list.” You tilted your head as you whipped out your phone,smirking. “And better set up regular meetings to talk about our problems right?” Using all the flirting energy you haven’t had a chance to use.. At all? You are going all out. 

“So, we should set up a date then?” There’s a mischievous yet excitement in his eyes and bright smile as he takes your phone to enter his own number in there. 

“It’s a date.”  

“You going to shag him tonight?”

“Shut the hell up Emma… and Thanks.” 

Ok. so I said it's based on a true event. and 80% of it's truth. idea came from my receptionist, who excitingly told me about her experience at a country music festival she went to last week. She made up a whole lot of wrist bands with her name and phone number on it, and both her friends and her were handing it out during the festival. she did end up striking a date :) which is happening this week LOL. So.. it works??

tag list :

@deadbranch

@kaplerrr

@homicidal-slvt

@lia0-0

@floral-force

@saltofmercury

@siilvan

@rileyslibrarian

@mistydeyes

@okayyadriana

@a-small-writer-in-a-big-world

@jynxmirage

@nrdmssgs @schr-torta @glitterypirateduck @cumikering

@roosterr

@groguspicklejar

@obsolescent @whydoilikewhump @b1rds3ye @devcica

@caramlizedtomatos

@argella1300 @tiredmetalenthusiast @liyanahelena

#gazfest #kyle gaz garrick x reader #kyle gaz garrick x female reader #kyle garrick #kyle gaz garrick mw2 #kyle gaz garrick fluff #kyle gaz garrick x you #sergeant kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick imagine #kyle garrick x reader #kyle garrick x you #kyle garrick fluff #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2022 #sofasoap writes #one shot series #meet cute

[afloofwithmultipleinterests]

🔆 Opposite Day! ☽

A Security Breach tickle fic, featuring the Daycare Attendant(s) Sun, and Moon! (Both boys get equal amounts of Wrecking or your money back-)

As a result of a crappy visit to parts and services, Sun finds Moon has a new sunny accessory around his faceplate and the daytime counterpart is far from satisfactory. However, when Moon goes to do repairs, those new ray sensors decide to make themselves known, and not in the way that was expected.

Thank you @coy-lee and @laughterfixs for helping me edit this fic! 😁 I appreciated the help, and as much as I would deny, the high pitched screeching that came out of our editing method 🤣

Anyone that comes across this fic should like, totally check out their shit. They make some MMMMMMMMMM!!! GOOD SHIIT!! Anyway, with that said enjoy!☺️

Sun's rays were gone. No joke, the now bald animatronic looked like a McDonald's egg patty. The other day, the Daycare Attendant(s) took a trip to parts and service for a tiny upgrade to their sensory system, and a little adjustment to their mobility settings. Everything seemed spick and span coming back from parts and services the day before- so, how come he isn't now? Oh how he and Moon HATED to go to parts and services... They seemed to do more damage than help.

Sun huffed, hooking the lunar-wire to his back to pull themselves up to their room. Typical matentience staff. He entered the room inward from the balcony, a close up view of trash cluttering the floor, and children's drawings painting the walls. They were going to have to solve this problem on their own, like always. Crawling into the dark depths of Moon's room. The daytime bot shifted control to the naptime animatronic. Moon had fixed them before using other bots, so maybe he could find a way to reactivate his-

Oh. ...

There they were.

His vision froze on the mirror in his half of the storage room, possibly more confused than Sun in the moment. Moon tried moving the rays, much to his shock that he could move each individually, or all together if he wanted to. This was to his brother's annoyance, as the security bot began to play with them by making himself look like a cat, or axolotl, even a pokemon by stretching the top two rays out as far as they could go!

"Well that is... peculiar..." he stated in a nonchalant fashion.

Peculiar? Those were HIS RAYS! This was more than just peculiar, this was DISTURBING!

"Oh don't be so dramatic Sunny... it's not THAT bad~ I think I like this new look."

Moon posed like a geek in the mirror, flaunting his new rays in various positions like a model. He looked absolutely ridiculous! Sun's rays didn't even match him.

Moon chuckled at Sun's party-pooper mindset, deciding to give one last pose in the mirror by imitating Sun's side of their statue.

'Haha... really funny Moon.'

"Hehehah... I'm glad you think so! I think it's hilarious~"

After his obnoxious laughter stopped, Moon decided to focus on the task at hand:

Fixing this.

Moon jingled his way over to a lone, deactivated security bot to pry it open and steal away some lone wires, connectors, sensory chips, even a couple of servos. Taking the new repair supplies with him, Moon kicked open a loose plank among the closet floor to reveal stolen parts and service equipment.

Sun really doesn't like knowing this stolen staff equipment was here, but... this was really their only resolution. Moon has since cut off their hidden security camera from seeing the surplus of tools, otherwise they would have probably visited the shock conditioning chamber again.

"Don't be nervous," the lunar bot soothed, "I'm not going to hurt us. This is a minor fix. First I need to examine how exactly this happened."

Moon's fingers lightly excavated the rays. Even though he could move them, he for some reason couldn't feel them... how odd. Involuntary movement arose from the tiny triangles as he lightly measured the edges of them from bottom to top inbetween his index finger and thumb.

Sun gasped inside of his head at the foreign sensation, doing all he could to try and retract his rays, but they wouldn't budge.

"Is something wrong Sunny? It doesn't hurt, does it?"

Moon wanted to be extra careful with his opposites rays. They were the equivalent to hair with nerve-endings, or a less gross example being the inside of a human ear.

'N-no! It doesn't... just- be-Ee Carefuhul…'

His brother's thumb had feathered over the center of his sunrays... It was terribly ticklish- but, he had to stay quiet. Moon didn't know he was sensitive in THAT way on this area... If he did, he wouldn't hear the end of it.

Moon warily accepted the warbled answer, his finger now venturing to the back of their faceplate. Everything felt in order back there... Dangit! If only he had a mirror.

'Actually-'

Moon froze at the sound of Sun's thoughts overlapping his own.

Surely if Sun had a physical body, he would be fidgeting with his fingers.

'I have a mirror. It's just… hidden.'

Moon cocked his head with confusion at the response.

"Where?"

The two then played a little game of 'hot-cold' until Moon came across a tiny, dirty carpet.

'hot HOT! BURNING!!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!'

Moon burst into giggly hiccups, raspy and Disney villain sounding. Their antics truly made his smile grow wider, even on the cloudiest of days. The lunar animatronic lifted the carpet to find a rather gruesome looking hole, wood splintered all around it in the shape of a foot.

'There was a... happy little accident that happened a while back when I was dancing. So much so, I kiiiinda decided to use it to keep things in like you do with that plank!'

Sun, the rule follower, the rule stickler, the anxious little Golden retriever that stuck to his programming... he STOLE things??

... Moon was so proud!

Sun was finally growing a backbone to scavenge!

What mainly decorated the hidden section were supplies intended for childcare purposes... also a purse.

"Seems you're more of a thief than I am!" Moon chuckled, rummaging through the compartment, placing his hands on the handheld mirror inside.

'I wouldn't go that far.. I merely like to have supplies management refuses to give us.'

"Oh, you mean like some parent's purse you stole? They still have their wallet in here!"

'.... I'm done talking now.'

"PFFFT-"

Moon snickered over his friend's grumpy nature, covering the hole back up with the rug and skittering back to the mirror in his room.

He held the mirror behind his faceplate before flipping one specific nerve ending switch ontop of their head.

"There. Our faceplate and your sun rays have the pain receptors turned off... Let's see..."

Moon took the back hatch off of their faceplate to see where the error was.

Aha, the orange and blue wires.

The orange wires intended for sun's rays were plugged into the activation port for his hat hatch... speaking of which- he realized he wasn't WEARING his hat at all... did that mean Sun-?

Nope. Sun didn't have his hat today... He guessed that maybe maintenance didn't properly plug the hat turning system after the upgrades, nor pushed in the stability settings for transitioning. While reaching for the plug, the long ribbon around Moon's wrist SLOWLY feathered across three of Sun's rays. It took him by surprise, so he couldn't stop his reaction.

'OHOHOMY GOODNEHESS-'

The animatronic stopped in his tracks, a bewildered look replacing the neutral one from before. Now that was straaaaange..

'N-No it wasn't! You just need to get back to the task at HaahahnnhnnhnhnnNHNND!? EEEEK!!'

Moon's hands had since traveled from the back of their faceplate to feel over two of Sun's rays.

"Such a peculiar reaction Sunny... I'm certain something may be wrong with your rays... Seems I might need to Investigate further."

Investigate? Uh oh...

'You really don't need to do this, it's probAHAHABLY NYAHAHA!!'

Moon drew a continuous spiral on one of them, while scratching at the other like a lottery card.

"You seem very happy brother~ Whatever could be soooooo funny, hm?" The lunar animatronic teased as the rays attempted to cha-cha away from his fluttering digits.

'OHOHO- NoOhohothing! NOHoTHing at ahall!!"

Moons fingers stopped for a moment to trace the edges of each ray starting from the bottom.

"Oh? It doesn't sound like nothing little star... my my my... you couldn't be-"

Moon got to the top two rays, and began to skitter his fingers quickly behind them.

"Tickle-tickle, tiiiicklish here? Could you?"

'SQUEAAAAHH!! Yohou MEheahHeaANIE! yohuhuu jeherrkyJEHERKjeEeherk!!'

"JerkyJerkjerk? Oh goodness, Sunny. I'm Offended. Maybe I should teach you a lesson... hehe..."

Moon smirked in the mirror as he began to spin Sun's rays in a circle.

'Wh... whahat are you doing!?'

The animatronic wiggled his fingers, continuously staring in the mirror so sun could see his demise. The moving digits moved closer until-

🎶"The rays on the sun went round' and round'~" 🎶

He began to sing the tune to wheels on the bus while tickling the life out of Sun's ultra sensitive rays.

'MYAHAHAYAAAA!! QUHIHIT IT!!'

🎶"Round' and round', "🎶

Ontop of his rays.. Skitter skitter, itch itch, wiggle wiggle~

🎶"Round' and round'!"🎶

'AHAHAAHA IHIHIT TIHICKLES TOO MUHUCH!!'

🎶"The Rays on the Sun went round and round'~"🎶

Behind his rays.. Skitter, scritch, skitter skitter, wiggle-

'EHEHEEEEHAHAHAAAA!! YOUHO BUTT!!' 

"🎶All through the day~!🎶 Ooh- more name calling? That means another verse is in order!"

'NohHOuuHuHUhu!!! MOHOHOONIE NOHO!!'

The lunar attendant changed things up a bit by making the rays retract, and eject while spinning.

🎶 "the rays on the sun went in and out~" 🎶

Moon used all of his fingers, targeting specific rays that had retracted, waiting for them to pop out in order to tickle them again.

Pop! Wiggle-wiggle wiggle~

Pop! Skitter-skitter skit~

Pop! Tickle-tickle  tickle~ 

'AHAHAHAAAA!! IHIM WAHARNING YOUOHO!! Yohou BEHETTER STAHAP!!'

Moon could sense that Sun was actually having a lot of fun through their thin, invisible mental wall, so he decided to crank it up a little.

 "🎶In and out~ in and out!~🎶 or what, give me a headache? You can't touch me~!"

Gitchygitchygitchy, itchy itchy, tingly tickles spread everywhere after Sun's threat, and the teasy song didn't help

' MWAHAHAAAA!! WEHE'LL SEEEHEHEEE!! EhAhahAaa!!'

🎶"The rays on the sun went in and out~ all through the day!"🎶

It was instantaneous when the power seemingly went out in Moon's arms. Great, another problem that he now physically couldn't fix.. maybe he would have to go down to-

As soon as Moon looked down, he immediately noticed a change in his arms...

"Yellow?" He asked aloud, extremely confused… that is until he realized.

They weren't HIS arms anymore...they were-

Sun's.

The yellow hands cracked their fingers and knuckles as a huffing, wheezing Sun voice inside of Moon's head starting to laugh without mirth.

'Heheheaha... ihi... I warned you~'

It turned out Sun's theory was correct earlier about the light sensors being breachable due to plug inactivity.. now to get some MUCH needed revenge.

The yellow limbs began to lightly trace over Moon's torso, making him squeak and sputter.

"Wahait!! I- We can tahalk about this Sunny!"

'Talk? You mean like how you tickled me to speechlessness? Sure, we can do that!~'

Moon let out a squeal as the digits dusted over his ribs, fluttered under his arms into his wires, feathered over his neck, traced over the edge of the moon crescent of his fa-

"SQUEAA!!" Moon screeched as Sun traced over the lower section of the crescent that would be considered his 'jaw'. Sun stilled at the reaction, baffled at the energy that erupted from seemingly nowhere. Moon felt Sun's sinister intentions bubble inside of their processor. The previous attacker grew nervous at the silence and the lack of movement from Sun's arms

"I-I uh-" Before Moon could say anything, Sun attacked. One hand flew to Moon's sensitive little tummy as the other danced over his jawline, drawing spirals in the moon crescent's craters like Moon did on Sun's rays earlier.

"SQUEAAAAAHEAHEAAAA!! EHEHEHEHE! -HIC-! ahahAhahahahAHAH!!" The sensation was overbearing!

Sun was used to tickling. Sun got to play with the kids all the time... however, since Moon was naptime duty on main, he hasn't built up quite the sensor tolerance Sun has, nor the fan speed.

Sun's left hand rapidly scrunched against the middle of Moon's tummy, barely touching his dent... OH how ticklish it felt- he never thought his tummy could feel so tingly.

"IHIHIT- EHEHEHEEEE! SUHUHUNNY- PLEHEHAhahaAh!!"

'Please? You're gonna have to specify! Did you mean please go faster? Do these tickles make you happy moon? Do they? Do they? Awww of coooourse they do!~ Why else would you be so giddy?'

With that, Sun sped the tickling up on the poor little tummy and ticklish little craters.

"OHOHOHO NOHOHO!! NAUGHAHAUGHYTY THIHING!! NauAHAHAUAHTY- NAUGAHATYHEHE! NYAHAHAAHAAA!!"

'Gitchygitchygitch! Oho tickle tickle little Moonshine~'

Sun's voice echoed in sickeningly sweet baby talk.

'Is the tiny, little astronaut that ticklish to you? Hm?? Them walking allll over your tummy, and face? Over your cute little craters?'

The left yellow hand began to mimic walking motions, wiggling each 'foot' into his moon plate with each step, circling and tickling in each tiny crater he could find.

"EHEHAKAKA!!" The lightswitch- he NEEDED to get to the light switch.

Sun inwardly gasped, beginning to tickle more skillfully instead of playful skitters as Moon's plan echoed through their mind. Not only did the solar animatronic have a lot of tolerance, but he also had a lot of experience giving tickles out, especially to adults as per his playful and teasy nature.

The nighttime animatronic sputtered and spat chortle to cackle as the hands began to travel. His ribs, his hips, even seeing the sensitivity of the little buttons on his chest, his neck.

And. It. Tickled. HORRIBLY.

Moon could barely keep himself up in these circumstances. His legs felt like jello, yet somehow, some way, Moon managed to make it over to the lightswitch.

'Ah ah ah! Not so fast~'

Moon was forced downward, sun's arms somehow pulling the rest of his body away from the lightswitch and to his ankles. Upon this the devilish yellow fingers inched around his ankles, and heels, tracing eights and infinity signs all over to throw him off. Moon screeched as his 'Achilles heel-s' were discovered. The animatronic couldn't move an inch from this terribly ticklish situation as both hands held his ankles captive. It was when the hands forced his foot up did he lose balance. The naptime attendant fell on his butt, his shoed feet at the very mercy of his brother.

'Let's seee~ what's behind curtain number one?!'

The first shoe came off, revealing the foot underneath. Moon's feet were much like his hands, accept it had sensory cushioning on the bottoms to prevent finger crushing. The yellow digits lightly traced the sensory pad, and under moon's toes before coming back to the top of his foot.

"KEEEEHEHEHAHAHA- NAHAT THE FEET SUHUHUN- NOHO-"

'Not the feet? Not the feet? Is it possible they're terrrribly sensitive to kitchies? Hmmmm?'

KITCHIES!?

Sun lightly scrunched over the top of the revealed foot before pulling the other slipper off.

Moon wiggled his toes as his brother traced lines all around the tops of his feet, paying attention to the tippy top of the little beans.

Snorting, Moon quickly tried to think of a plan through his laughter and Sun's teasing... AHA!

He wouldn't think what the plan was but he was going to do it.

'Do it if you dare~ I'll get at the bottoms of your feet if you try anything funny moon…'

Funny? Why would he try anything funny? He was the least funny person he kn-

Suddenly, Moon's hat projectile launched from the top of ther faceplate and upward at the lightswitch, leaving Sun to gasp internally.

‘You sneaky little rules twister- that's it!’

Just as Sun began to mercilessly skitter everywhere on the bottom of Moon's feet, the light switch had been flipped, turning the lights on.

His arms are now on the outside of Sun's body...

Oh... this was going to be fun~

"I uh-"

Before Sun could even come up with something to say, Moon's fingers flicked and fluttered vigorously around Sun's Tummy and ribs, even under his arms at one point.

"OHOHO MY STAAAHAHAHAAARS!! NYAHAHAAHAAA- MOOOHOHOOOON!"

'Paybaaaack~'

"Paybahahack!? YOUHOU'RE THEHE ONE WHOHO STAHAHRTED-"

bam the wires.

"AAAAAHAHAHAA- OHOHOKAY! OKAHAHAY! MEHEHERCY!! I PLEHEHEAD THE FIHIHITH!!"

As soon as the words left Sun's mouth, Moon stopped.

The conjoined animatronic twins turned on their internal fans, cooling their shared system as they lay on the floor.

Sun airily laughed the rest of his giggles out, eventually calming down.

"Hehe..aha.."

'Did you have fun?' Moon asked as their system returned back to its normal heating stats.

"... Maybe."

'Hehehe~ thought so!'

After a moment, Sun wobbled to his feet regaining his balance to step to the lightswitch again. Moon gave his brother the ability to swap their limbs again, so when they turned the lights off again, he would be able to fix them.

The lights turned off with a swift flick, changing Moon back into himself again, as bald and shiny headed as king Neptune without his crown. His hat was laying on the floor, but he'd pick that up later.

Without hesitation, he traversed back to the mirror again to fix the wires.

… were they that tangled before?

Perhaps Moon and Sun's ticklish scuffle tangled the wires up more than they were… their back faceplate cover was off during it.

"... well this will be difficult."

'HEY- uh… actually… what if we just… didn't fix it?'

Moon smirked at that, his attention fully on his brother now, that of which Sun felt. A bit nervous, he continued.

'I mean- if I'm able to swap your limbs out for mine… w-we can just… I don't know… keep that feature?'

That sounded like a fun little quirk… especially if they wanted to do something like this again.

"You know… that's not a bad idea. Who would really notice anyway?"

And from then on… nobody really did. Well- not except for when laughter could be heard coming from the fazbear theatre.. but Sun and Moon publically chocked it up to daycare antics rather than any insinuated malfunction if an employee were to ask.

Yet another secret well hidden by the mystery(ies) that was(ere) the Daycare Attendant(s).

#sfw tickling community #fnaf tickles #fnaf security breach #moondrop #sundrop #tickling community #fnaf #lee!sun #fnaf sundrop #fnaf moondrop #lee!moon #ler!sun #ler!moon #tickle fic #fnaf tickle fic #fnaf tickling #lee sun #lee moon #ler sun #ler moon #tickling #fnaf fluff #fluffy fic #canon sun and moon physics #aside from some aspects like the back faceplate cover.. there are a few upgrades in this fic #fnaf daycare attendant #daycare attendant

[ghelgheli]

Exertion of the revolutionary power would make the police domination more brutal but wouldn’t increase it. This domination cannot possibly increase, for today our enemy has mobilized all its forces to discover and suppress the militants. It only uncovers its real nature and would completely unmask its face revealing to all the people its violence which, so far, in the absence of any vehement revolutionary movement, it has deceptively disguised. Thereafter, it is the enemy who has to expose its face more clearly at each step in order to survive and suppress ever more swiftly and, consequently more brutally, its revolutionary enemies. The enemy increases its pressure on all the classes and strata under its domination by the exercise of counter-revolutionary violence against the militants. Thus, the enemy intensifies the contradictions between these classes and itself, and by creating an atmosphere which it is bound to create, it propels the political consciousness of the masses to leap forward. It wildly attacks everything like a wounded beast. It is suspicious of all but its allies who are its sources of power and sustenance. The methods it inevitably employs, however, would just as inevitably work against itself. It wants to prevent the masses from participation in a revolutionary movement, yet each moment pushes more of them toward that course of struggle. Thus, it imposes the struggle on the people, seeing the continuation of its domination harder than before, it makes the people’s tolerance of this domination more difficult than before. The masses join the struggle, put their power at the disposal of their vanguard and vindicate the specific strategy of the revolutionary struggle with their active participation. Furthermore, we must demonstrate that the theory of “let us not take the offensive in order to survive”, is in fact nothing else but saying “we should allow the police to destroy us in embryo without meeting any hindrance.” There is nothing more rejoicing to the enemy than to have us as harmless victims. It shoots anyone remaining at the barricades. Either, one has to answer each blow with a blow in return or has to come out of the barricade holding a white flag. There is no death more precocious than dying at the barricades without shooting.

Amir Parviz Pooyaan (b. 1946, killed in combat 1971), founder of the Iranian People's Fedai Guerillas, in The Necessity of Armed Struggle and Refutation of the Theory of “Survival” (1970/1971) [pdf hosted by marxists dot org]

#reading #vatan #amir parviz pooyaan

[wonbini]

Hello, this is SM Entertainment.

I would like to tell you about Seunghan, a member of Rise (RIIZE).

Seunghan sincerely apologizes and reflects on the disappointment and confusion caused to the team and members as well as to the fans due to his privacy-related issues that have recently been illegally leaked and circulated through SNS and online communities.

Because of this, Seunghan feels a mental burden and responsibility.

After much deliberation, I have expressed my intention to stop activities for the team.

We also decided that it would be unreasonable to continue our activities in this situation, and we decided to suspend our activities indefinitely, respecting our opinion that we do not want to cause any more damage to the team and members.

Therefore, Rise will be active as 6 members except Seunghan from today (22nd).

Although it is a sudden situation, we ask for your understanding as it was decided through careful discussion with the artist himself, and we feel a great responsibility for the part that we neglected to manage the artist even before their debut.

Once again, I deeply apologize to the fans.

However, the videos and photos that are currently being leaked and disseminated were taken during a private time as a trainee before their debut, and have been reproduced several times to cause misunderstandings through intentional secondary editing, such as using video with a specific source.

In addition, unauthorized leaks and disseers of the videos and photos continue serious defamation against artists by spreading fabricated and distorted information that is different from the facts by mobilizing malicious methods that generate non-existent messenger conversations and unfounded false facts.

As soon as we were aware of the above facts, we monitored and collected a significant amount of evidence to identify unauthorized leakage and distribution, and we plan to file a complaint with the competent police station this afternoon.

In addition, we are further reviewing legal measures for specific people, including defamation of artists due to unauthorized leakage and distribution, as well as various illegal acts such as cybercrime and intimidation.

We are for artists and teams.

And for fans who love the team, we will not only sue, but also respond strongly to all secondary acts, such as creating, disseising, and reproducing reckless rumors related to artists through additional posts, without any agreement or goodwill.

We will continue to do our best to protect our artists.

Thank you

#i will die #seunghan #riize