#they're such a big part of this blog and the reason for it's existence so i'll choose them and my principles over faking a view i don't hav
Note
Are you aware that I'm-a-gay-fish and Zu ship dr//m/are ?/genq
okay so it took me a while to answer this but i finally found the words to so here goes; yeah i do know, and i totally understand if you don't ship it, neither do i, but there's nothing i can do about it?
they're allowed, so long as they don't harm people, to do whatever they want on their own platforms. and before you ask me if i support *ncest, would you actually ask someone if they support toxic relationships and murder whenever they ship two unhealthy killers with mental problems? because that's funnily enough what most people do around here! you can say it's not the same, and that they're romanticizing it, but i can personally detach myself from fiction enough to realize that while this concept depicted in their art shouldn't be recreated in real life, that doesn't mean they actually engage or support people that do that irl- they asked zu the same question so many times, and frog doesn't either and i've known gayfish for three years! you're well within your right to stop associating with them or distance yourself from their content but i myself won't.
i know fiction affects reality to a degree, don't twist my words please, but if you're too young to consume that kind of content with a nuanced perspective or is triggered/affected by it then as long as they tag their content properly then you can unfollow, block and move on. i have a habit of following and reblogging people's works before looking at their bios and before i know it find myself having to choose between two sides i don't belong to and i frankly don't want to! anti this or proship that- in this online era you have to adapt by keeping your cool and curating your own online experience and viewing people in black and whites is stressful, painful and dangerous for everyone involved. i don't even reblog the content you probably have a problem with, and i'm honestly still scared of the response i'll get-
i will not blame or hate whoever unfollows or blocks me for this, it's to be expected, but please don't think about it like some bad vs good guys dilemma? sometimes thought provoking morally grey ambiguous stories with messed up characters spark more positive discussion and healing than people looking into it because they suffer from the same delusions and want a justification-
like realistically, in my blog, most ppl here are basically shipping two literal skeletons with magic in their bones who are sometimes almost the exact copy of one another, and who theoretically have a very similar dna, and sometimes they make shipkids, which, if you know anything about *ncest, is one of the main reasons why you shouldn't bang your siblings - mostly from a moral standpoint because that's so gross i can't even think of it, but also because any offspring would suffer greatly from physical and mental diseases hidden in their genetic code- like. you could argue it's not the same but it's sancest for a reason. and even when they're widely different sanses, you wouldn't think fell x sans is wrong (at least in this specific community) but really we've all just gotten numb to how weird that sounds. trust me, there's a reason we don't talk about our ships to outsiders HHH
TL,DR: so while i greatly encourage you to block people and content you don't want to see/associate with, including me! i hope i made it clear why i, personally, don't care about dreammare and whoever ships it.
#thank you to anyone who made it this far and gave me a chance to voice my opinion :')#sorry this is long but i want to make it as precise and close as many holes as i can with my arguments before i receive an ask about it#it's fine if you do btw i wanna clear any doubts and i know for a fact a loot of you will either leave or be conflicted and trust me i know#it's the whole reason why i was avoiding this conversation! i kept on hoping everyone was on the same page but we're not and that's okay#truthfully i can only hope that the people who'll leave this blog after this take the opportunity to question the fics and media they like#-in the future. don't force yourself to enjoy something you don't but nothing is as cut to the point as 'this is gross stop talking'#for the record you won't see me reblog any dreammare or anything about it because i don't even like them like that so why would i HHH#also i'm sorry but zu is quite frankly the sweetest person i've ever met and frog has been supporting ME for as long as i can remember!!#they're such a big part of this blog and the reason for it's existence so i'll choose them and my principles over faking a view i don't hav#have an amazing day everyone and thanks again for passing by muah muah :'D <333
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Worker misclassification is a competition issue
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/2024/02/02/upward-redistribution/#bedoya
The brains behind Trump's stolen Supreme Court have detailed plans: they didn't just scheme to pack the court with judges who weren't qualified for – or entitled to – a SCOTUS life-tenure, they also set up a series of cases for that radical court to hear.
Obviously, Dobbs was the big one, but it's only part of a whole procession of trumped-up cases designed to give the court a chance to overturn decades of settled law and create zones of impunity for America's oligarchs and the monopolies that provide them with wealth and power.
One of these cases is Jarkesy, a case designed to allow SCOTUS to euthanize every agency in the US government, stripping them of their powers to fight corporate crime:
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/sec-v-jarkesy-the-threat-to-congressional-and-agency-authority/
The argument goes, "Congress had the power to spell out every possible problem an agency might deal with and to create a list of everything they were allowed to do about these problems. If they didn't, then the agency isn't allowed to act."
This is an Objectively Very Stupid argument, and it takes a heroic act of motivated reasoning to buy it. The whole point of expert agencies is that they're experts and that they might discover new problems in American life, and come up with productive ways of fixing them. If the only way for an agency to address a problem is to wait for Congress to notice it and pass a law about it, then we don't even need agencies – Congress can just be the regulator, as well as the lawmaker.
If there was any doubt that Congress created the agencies as flexible and adaptive hedges against new threats and problems, then the legislative history of the FTC Act should dispel it.
Congress created the FTC through the FTCA because the courts kept misinterpreting its existing antitrust laws, like the Sherman Act. Companies would engage in the most obvious acts of naked, catastrophic fuckery, and judges would say, "Welp, because Congress didn't specifically ban this conduct, I guess it's OK."
So Congress created the FTC with an Act that included a broad authority to investigate and punish "unfair methods of competition." They didn't spell these out – instead, they explicitly said (in Section 5) that it was the FTC's job to determine whether something was unfair, and to act on it:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge
The job of the FTC is to investigate unfair conduct before it becomes such a problem that Congress takes action, and to head that conduct off so that it never rises to the level of needing Congressional intervention.
Now, it's true that since the Reagan years, the FTC has grown progressively less interested in using this power, but that's broadly true of all of America's corporate watchdogs. But as the public all over the world has grown ever more furious about corporate abuses and oligarchic wealth, governments everywhere have rediscovered their role as a public protector.
In America, the Biden administration altered the course of history with the appointment of new enforcers in the key anti-monopoly agencies: the FTC and the DOJ's antitrust division. But more importantly, the Biden admin created a detailed, technical plan to use every agency's powers to fight monopoly, in a "whole of government" approach:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby
Now, this can give rise to seeming redundancies. Take labor issues. The NLRB is a (potentially) powerful regulator that had been in a coma for decades, but has awoken and taken up labor rights with a fervor and cunning that is a delight to behold:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth
At the same time, the FTC has also taken up labor rights, using its much broader powers to do things like ban noncompetes nationwide, unshackling workers from bosses who claim the right to veto who else they can work for:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal
But the NLRB doesn't make the FTC redundant, or vice-versa. The NLRB's role is principally reactive, punishing wrongdoing after it occurs. But the FTC has the power to intervene in incipient harms, labor abuses that have not yet risen to the level of NLRB enforcement or new acts of Congress.
This case is made beautifully in Alvaro Bedoya's speech "'Overawed': Worker Misclassification as a Potential Unfair Method of Competition," delivered to the Law Leaders Global Summit in Miami today:
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Overawed-Speech-02-02-2024.pdf
Bedoya describes why the FTC has turned its attention to the problem of "worker misclassification," in which employees are falsely claimed to be contractors, and thus deprived of the rights that workers are entitled to. Worker misclassification is rampant, and it transfers billions from workers to employers every year. As Bedoya says, 10-30% of employers engage in worker misclassification, allowing them to dodge payment for overtime, Social Security, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, healthcare, retirement and even a minimum wage. Each misclassified worker is between $6k-18k poorer thanks to this scam – a typical misclassified worker sees a one third decline in their earning power. And, of course, each misclassified worker's boss is $6k-$18k richer because of this scam.
It's not just wages, it's workplace safety. One of the most dangerous jobs in the country is construction worker, and worker misclassification is rampant in the sector. That means that construction workers are three times more likely than other workers to lack health insurance.
What's more, misclassified workers can't form unions, because their bosses' fiction treats them as independent contractors, not employees, which means that misclassified construction workers can't join trade unions and demand health-care, or safer workplaces.
Contrast this with, say, cops, who have powerful "unions" that afford them gold-plated health care and lavish compensation, even for imaginary ailments like "contact overdoses" from touching fentanyl – a medical impossibility that still entitles our nation's armed bureaucrats to handsome public compensation:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/27/extraordinary-popular-delusions/#onshore-havana-syndrome
Cops have far safer jobs than construction workers, but cops don't get misclassified, so they are able to collect benefits that no other worker – public or private – can hope for.
Not every employer wants to cheat and maim their employees, of course. In Bedoya's speech, he references Sandie Domando, an executive VP at a construction company in Palm Beach Gardens. Domando's company keeps its employees on its books, giving them health-care and other benefits. But when she started bidding against rival firms for jobs funded by the covid stimulus, she couldn't compete – two thirds of those jobs went to other firms that were able to put in cheaper bids. Those bids were cheaper because they were defrauding their workers by misclassifying them. Thus, publicly funded projects were overwhelmingly handed over to fraudulent companies. Fraud becomes a fitness-factor for winning jobs. It's a market for lemons – among employers.
Employee misclassification is a pure transfer from workers to bosses. Bedoya recounts the story of Samuel Talavera, Jr, a short-haul trucker who worked for decades in the Port of Los Angeles. For decades, his job paid well: enough to support his family and even take his kids to Disneyland now and again.
But in 2010, his employer reclassified him as a contractor. They ordered him to buy a new truck – which they financed on a lease-purchase basis – and put him to work for 16 hours stretches in shifts lasting as much as 20 hours per day. Talavera couldn't pick his own hours or pick his routes, but he was still treated as an independent contractor for payroll and labor protection purposes.
This lead to an terrible decline in Talavera's working conditions. He gave up going home between shifts, sleeping in his cab instead. His pay dropped through the floor, thanks to junk-fees that relied on the fiction that he was a contractor. For example, his boss started to charge him rent on the space his truck took up while he was standing by for a job at the port. Other truckers at the port saw paycheck deductions for the toilet-paper in the bathrooms!
Talavera's take-home pay dropped so low that he was bringing home a weekly wage of $112 or $33 (one week, his pay amounted to $0.67). His wife had to work three jobs, and they still had to declare bankruptcy to avoid losing their home. When Talavera's truck needed repairs he couldn't afford, his boss fired him and took back the truck, and Talavera was out the $78,000 he'd paid into it on the lease-purchase plan.
This story – and the many, many others like it from the Port of LA – paint a clear picture of the transfer of wealth from workers to their bosses that comes with worker misclassification. The work that Talavera did in the Port of LA didn't get less valuable when he was misclassified – but the share of that value that Talavera received dropped to as little as $0.67/week.
Worker misclassification is rampant across many sectors, but its handmaiden is technology. The fiction of independence is much easier to maintain when the fine-grained employer-employee control is mediated by an app (think of Uber):
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men
That's why those scare-stories that AI trucks were going to make truckers obsolete and create an employment crisis were such toxic nonsense. Not only are we unlikely to see self-driving trucks, but the same investors that back AI technology are making bank on companies that practice worker misclassification through the "it's not a crime if we do it with an app" gambit:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no
By focusing our attention on a hypothetical employment crisis that will supposedly be caused by future AI developments, tech investors can distract us from the real employment crisis that's created by app-enabled worker misclassification, which is also the source of much of the capital they're plowing into AI.
That's why the FTC's work on misclassification is so urgent. Misclassification is a scam that hurts workers and creates oligarchic power – and it's also a mass-extinction event for good companies that don't cheat their workers, because those honest companies can't compete.
Worker misclassification is having a long-overdue and much needed moment. The revolutionary overthrow of the rotten old leadership at the Teamsters was caused, in part, by a radical wing that promised to focus the Teamsters' firepower on fighting worker misclassification:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/19/hoffa-jr-defeated/#teamsters-for-a-democratic-union
This has become a focus of labor organizers all around the world, as worker misclassification-via-smartphone has infected labor markets everywhere:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#an-injury-to-one
Bedoya's speech is a banger, and it reminds us that labor rights and anti-monopoly have always been part of the same project: to rein in corporate power and protect workers from the insatiable greed of the capital class:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men
#pluralistic#automation panic#automation#scotus#market for lemons#worker misclassification#ftc#competition#antitrust#trustbusting#ftc act#ftc 5#unions#labor#jarksey#alvaro bedoya#nlrb#whole of government
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misha's masterlists
Hi, I'm Misha. Thank you for diving into my stories and supporting my writing :)
My fanfics [+this blog] are dedicated to Steve Harrington. All fanfic series, one-shots, blurbs, etc. listed below are written by me. Do not repost or share anywhere without proper credit. Thank you.
SERIES MASTERLISTS:
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"Oh, so we DO love Steve..."
Steve Harrington x Bauman!fem!reader
enemies to lovers, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, S2-S4, post S4 universe hot-take, end-of-the-world / dystopian setting, ugly fights turned smut (...but with hella plot). 18+
[PART I] | [PART II] [PART III] | [PART IV] | [PART V]
[PART VI] | [PART VII] | [PART VIII]
[Part IX - blurb] | [Part IX - full]
[Part X] | MORE COMING SOON
SUMMARY: WHEN THE UNEXPECTED NIECE OF MURRAY BAUMAN GETS THROWN IN THE MIX, THE GANG HAS NO IDEA JUST WHAT THEY'RE IN FOR. SCRATCH THAT - STEVE DOESN'T KNOW. YOU GET ALONG WITH EVERYONE WELL. YOU BANTER WITH THE ADULTS, WHO APPRECIATE YOUR HELP. THE KIDS LOVE AND WORSHIP YOU. YOU'RE HELPFUL ALL AROUND. BUT AS FAR AS STEVE IS CONCERNED, YOU'RE JUST NUISANCE. AFTER ALL, YOU'RE THE REASON HE LOST THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE AND MISSED OUT ON A LIFE THAT "COULD'VE BEEN." IF YOU HAD JUST KEPT YOUR SORRY ASS OUT OF THE PICTURE... IF YOU HAD NEVER GONE WITH NANCY AND JONATHAN AFTER THEY LEFT YOUR WHACK-JOB UNCLE, MURRAY BAUMAN'S, BUNKER? HE WOULD BE HAPPY. SO F*CKING HAPPY. BUT HERE YOU WERE. YOU WERE BASICALLY THE COOLER (...AND SURE, MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE) FEMALE VERSION OF MURRAY BAUMAN. YOU WERE SARCASTIC, QUICK-WITTED, TOO SMART FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, AND APPARENTLY BUILT FOR THE WAR. SURE, YOU WEREN'T AS BRASH AS YOUR UNCLE. BUT IN STEVE'S EYES, YOU WERE SOMEHOW FAR MORE OBNOXIOUS. HE DOWNRIGHT HATED YOU.
HE WILL FOREVER HATE YOU...
BUT WILL HE?
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"You're there. You've always been there."
Steve Harrington x OC!fem!reader
Childhood friends to lovers. Sloooowburn. Angst. Romance. Smut with plot. Action. Told from second-person view, reader is Nicole (character from S1), different POV, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, pre-S1-S4, eventual post-S4 universe.
[PART I] | [PART II]
Summary: Steve Harrington was six years old when he met you: Nicole St. James, the girl who carries the other half of him. Since 1972, the two of you have been inseparably tethered by the soul. You give Steve a home in his big house with no parents, and he gives your introverted heart a longing for someone. The King of Hawkins High and princess of this small town, you tell each other absolutely everything...except that you are in love with each other.
Everything changes that one afternoon at school, when you catch the school's social outcast -- Jonathan Buyers -- has been stalking Steve, his posse and his girl, Nancy. Little do you both know, the monsters in your favorite fairytales are real. And you're both going to have to fight them together.
You both share the best days and worst days, through childhood and teen years, until you both find yourselves roped into the perils that exist beneath your feet in Hawkins.
But through it all, despite all the doubt, Steve knows one thing: you're there. You've always been there.
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"At the Chateau, We'll Be Alright."
Steve Harrington x Jonathan Byers x fem!reader
A crossover au inspired by Saltburn and Call Me by Your Name.
Additional Inso from Joe's theater performance as in Spring Awakening.
Song Inso: "Chateau" by Djo
Strangers to best friends to lovers. Slowburn. Angst. Romance, with polyamory themes and schemes. Smut with hella plot.
[MULTI-PART SERIES] COMING SOON. Click here for a preview.
Summary:
The reader lives with her parents at a fancy chateau, in France. This year, her father offers their home as a housing sanctuary to a select student or graduate. He decides to invite two graduate students to live with their family over the summer, coming from different working class backgrounds, and help with their academic paperwork as a professor of archaeology.
Steve Harrington: a rich kid from a swanky boarding school with a bad boy reputation and too much charm for his own good. Surprisingly, his grades say otherwise. A’s and B’s, his parents claim that is seeking one-on-one tutoring so that he can progress in his studies — but it sounds more like an excuse to ship him off for longer periods of time, giving them an out for having their son around during the summer. The pretty boy’s all about ladies…but that’s only because he hasn’t met a boy who awakens his bisexuality. Yet.
Jonathan Byers: a kid from the lower working class, excelling in his studies and AP programs at the same boarding school as Steve which he only got into because of community sponsorship and grants. Quiet wallflower, little to no friends, a bit cynical. A closeted gay, he’s more determined to stick with being perceived as “ace” than come out of the closet. Until he goes to stay at a chateau with a handsome boy, and a beautiful girl who understands him.
Twists, turns and terrifying risks, you all put your hearts on the line that summer at the Chateau. Add the reader's cousin Eddie into the mix, along with her best friend Robin, Steve's ex-girlfriend Nancy, Jonathan's estranged mother and your progressive parents alongside Steve's absent parents -- it's a cruel summer.
#steve harrington#steve harrington fanfic#steve harrington smut#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington angst#steve harrington imagine#steve harrington x you#steve harrington stranger things#stranger things fanfiction#mishas masterlists#oh so we do love steve#steve and bauman
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look, I know polls are silly and fun and so I want you to understand writing this rant is silly and fun for me but EMON? Emon is the Critical Role Entry for Most Place of All Time? I must call bullshit. And so:
Friends, fellow critters, and people who have me blocked but hate read my blog each morning over breakfast: Emon is not even the Most Place on the Material Plane. It is not even the Most Place in Tal'Dorei. Hell, it's not even the Most Place on the fucking Bladeshimmer Shoreline, which includes a destroyed city now overtaken by bandits, and a cave system that hosts both a rift to the Far Realm and a different rock than residuum that can make a different magical drug than suude. Emon is if you took the aggressively mid vibes of Washington, DC and transplanted them to the inconvenient location and city of refuge for flaky people who avoid gluten for non-medical reasons of Los Angeles. The second Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III invents the motorcar that sumbitch is going to have traffic bad enough to summon Tharizdun. Also there's a literal pit of fire that's been burning for 30 years that both hasn't been adequately addressed but also doesn't really seem that interesting. Like oh a bunch of dragons destroyed your city? Big deal. Draconia got so fucked up it doesn't exist anymore, and at least Westruun has some fucking charm. At least Pike and Grog actually lived there, whereas Vox Machina got a house in Emon and proceeded to spend their time literally anywhere else.
Here is a brief list of places on the planet of Exandria in the Material Plane - not even across Critical Role's main campaigns/EXU, which includes such non-Exandrian places as "living city of people who mind-melded and escaped to the Astral Sea during a century-plus-long war of the gods"; "Ligament Manor"; "Ryn's groovy pied-a-feu, man I wonder what made the scorch marks on that furniture, anyway", and "THE MOON THAT IS ACTUALLY AN PRISON FOR A THING THAT EATS GODS AND IS POSSIBLY HATCHING" - that are more of a place than Emon:
Jrusar: 5 spires no waiting, sweet cable car system, city almost entirely destabilized by goo creatures as part of an overly complicated plot to blow up the aforementioned moon
Bassuras: (literally "garbagetown") Run by Mad Max gangs and everyone is cool with it; regular sandstorms; one of those gangs apparently sits atop a hive mind and NO ONE has examined this (except for them)?)
Whitestone: has a tree planted by one god over a buried temple to another god that was corrupted in the name of a third, shittier god; overrun by zombies but it's fine now; streetlights and two bears that are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.
Yios: The canal system of Venice meets the colleges per capita of Boston meets the orcs from your fantasies, also there's some kind of kitchen-based organized crime ring so intricate it could be its own campaign (so, also like Boston).
Vasselheim: literally no one understands what the fuck its government system is. Old as balls. Temples everywhere! Temples full of trees. Temples full of blood! Temples full of an old guy who will kick your ass. A sphinx that regulates the monster hunter mini-game. Presumably the giant titan full of the ancient cannibal dwarf city is like, still there, as a new fixture, since I don't see how they're moving that.
The arctic: where teleportation doesn't work, there's a river of lava in the middle of the snow, ancient ruins full of snow globes full of actual people, and the Chaos Bisexual Emerald - and that's just a smattering of what Eiselcross has to offer.
Since this is about space and not time we can toss Aeor and Avalir too, since they once were places, and while we're at it whatever the fuck is going on with the Shattered Teeth and its permanent fog cloud and fish dream cult and capitalist shipwrecked merchants.
And, of course, any arbitrary square millimeter of Wildemount, frankly, has more Mostness than the entirety of Emon could muster under absolutely ideal conditions. But for the sake of one place per region, let's hand it to Rosohna (city of eternal night for practical purposes, built over the Evil God Headquarters); Uthodurn (underground! Giant goats! Elves and dwarves, living together, mass hysteria!); Hupperdook (steampunk gnome party city); Nicodranas (Fjord, Jester, Veth, Marion, and Yussa literally all live there at once; plumbing used to be courtesy of an imprisoned marid...but watch out); and Blightshore (Blightshore).
In conclusion: Emon is boring, nominating it was a mistake, there are literally sealed gods in other parts of the world and also way better taverns, good night, and what the fuck.
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I’ve just found you from whoetoshaw’s blog and WOW! I love your blog! 💞
🎀 anything with Freezy?! Maybe like a reunion/rekindling type-thing from back then to now? Like friends who were shipped back then and date now? I hope that makes sense 🥲 Xx
aww, thank you!! I was waiting for a prompt like this 😭 I hope you like it!
September 2016.
January 2017.
liked by calfreezy, wroetoshaw, joeygraceffa, and 872,519 others
yourusername Through My Eyes 2016 out now. So much has changed for me over the past year, I (finally) got my own place, I've met so many new people, and we hit 5 million subscribers!! Thank you all so much for all you've supported me through this year, and let's hope for an equally amazing TME of 2017! 💞💞
ynfan4 Oh I've been waiting for the highlight of my year!!
taliamar Good to see my festival feature is still the best part of the video. So proud of you girl ❤️
ynxcal4ever At 14.52 when it's just Y/n and Cal in their kitchen for the last time before she moved out and they remade the first ever thing they cooked together 😭😭 I'm so emotional right now
calfreezy I would say I had a glow up but after watching this I realised that I've always been mindblowingly attractive
yourusername The real reason I had to move out was because your big head was leaving dents in the wall anymore and I didn't want to feel like I was living with two Harrys xoxo 😘😘
wroetoshaw Oi! What did I do?
yourusername Broke my LED mirror by throwing a controller at it.
sdmnsundayz Y/n is a Saint for putting up with them.
January 2020.
liked by youtube, oliviarodrigo, miniminter, and 1,982,370 others
yourusername Through My Eyes 2019 is out now. Enjoy a year of travel across the world and the family who kept me strong through all of it. Thank you all for every line we've crossed and every milestone we hit this year, I love you all so so much 💘💘
calfreezy This is my favourite one out of all of them
yourusername Is it because you're in pretty much every frame?
calfreezy Obviously
freyanightingale Ibiza you will always be famous!
taliamar We need to go back ASAP
yourusername Opening scene to the next tme planned? I think so
ynslover 'Cal and Y/n' this, 'Y/n and the girls' that, yes it's cute but can we take a moment to appreciate how STUNNING she looked in this video???
ynfreezy LITERALLY. Like shes always been stunning but something in the foreign air made her a literal goddess it's not even funny
calsfreezys the bi panic was panicking HARD
taliaxynxfreya Currently crying over the fact that Y/n and Cal were together in most of the shots
w2minter There's no way they're not together.
January 2023.
liked by emmachamberlain, gracieabrams, faithlouisak, and 3,419,778 others
yourusername through my eyes 2022, you are my soul. despite me saying this every time I post one of these videos, I mean it now more than ever. from hitting 25 MILLION subscribers (what???), to hosting interviews at the MET gala, to truly falling in love, thank you to you all, and thank you to the universe for guiding me to where I am now. I truly cannot put my gratitude into words 💞💞💞
faithlouisak beautiful girl, beautiful video, beautiful vibe. the best part of every year xx ❤️❤️
yourusername love u more than words can describe ❤️
calfreezy I guess the amount of clips of you laughing makes up for the lack of me
calfreezy barely, though
calfreezy I better be heavily featured in the next one
yourusername I'll make a whole video dedicated to you if that's what you want
ynfan124 how do his tantrums work on you 😭
yourusername I've learned through many years that its better to just give him what he wants
mintertalia Y/N SOFT LAUNCHING???? this is a make or break for the cal and y/n shippers
yn2s yall still exist? give in, it's been years, if they were going to reveal something then they would've done it by now
mintertalia bro stfu you're a ship account for two people who've called each other siblings 😭
yourusername just posted !
liked by ksi, calfreezy, mikesmic, and 3,998,770 others
yourusername @calfreezy satisfied?
YNXCAL NO FUXKING WAY
ynslover YOU CANNOT JUST DROP THIS ON US QUEEN
calfreezy it'll do
yourusername what if I broke up with you
calfreezy you'd miss me too much
taliamar cuties!!
freyanightingale what happened to soft launching it? 🤣
yourusername got bored, felt like causing drama
#calfreezy x reader#calfreezy#calfreezy imagine#calfreezy x you#calfreezy x y/n#youtube fanfic#youtube x reader#youtube#youtuber x reader#youtuber!reader#wroetoshaw#miniminter#ksi#zerkaa#tobjizzle#behzinga#sidemen imagine#sidemen#eden's 2k tea party 💞
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I don’t know if it's appropriate on this blog but I'm just going for it. How do people make friends in fandom? How do you all manage it? I've been bouncing from fandom to fandom for more than 15 years and have been mostly lurking for the better part of those years. It has been very hard to find friends just in general because of my shyness and all this antiship/proship discourse is making it even harder to even consider putting myself out there. Everyone just seems insufferable. Even the ship and let ship crowd.
A thing I've noticed is that while the proship spaces have better attitudes towards fiction/fandom/fanfic in general there exists this weird hate boner about people with canon ships (in my personal experience, just last week I stumbled on a tweet from a self identified proship account telling people that they shouldn't read fanfic of their blorbos because they are canonically together which made me go huh) and there exists this strange superiority complex, a "you're not enlightened like me" attitude (it's very strange and especially prominent among people who identify as proship and ship the big m/m ship in fandoms of material catered towards male audiences, ik this because I was guilty of this superiority too at one point). Honestly, this "enlightenment", the hypocrisy of preaching ship and let ship but only the way I deem correct (last week I saw a big a proship account shade shippers of a specific rival ship right under their thread about how we shouldn't generalize and I think I lost brain cells) and condescending attitude of "I am not boring like you" and "You're doing fandom wrong" is one of the reasons that has turned me off those spaces more and more. I've noticed it once and can't unsee it because it all gives off this mean girl (gender neutral) energy and puts me off interacting.
On the other hand a lot of the ship and let ship spaces that prefer the canon ships tend to be very anti adjacent even if they actually practice ship and let ship (screaming and crying about sexualization of minors, throwing out phrases like porn addict around). I've seen some very strange sentiments about Europeans there (like thanks for informing me that all of us are monstrous bloodthirsty cannibals I guess) and Japan (which is ironic because it's mostly anime fandoms doing it). It doesn't make me wanna associate with them either.
--
*dying*
Nonnie, do you know how staggeringly often I get this question?
A big part of the answer is to not be a lurker. There are reasonable people out there, but they're much less visible than loud assholes, so the best way to find them is for them to find you.
Many of my closest fandom friends are people I met offline, either because they live near me or because we went to cons together. Others are people who turned up in replies on tumblr regularly. You need repeated contact that's memorable enough to recall the person as a distinct individual. I sometimes find that hard online. It really depends on frequency and them having something to say plus a good writing voice.
I know lots of people are shy or prefer to be lurkers. I get why. But you'll rarely meet anyone that way.
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About Anarchism and Security
Alright, I promised @cofiandme to answer this, once I had time, so let me answer it now.
Quick quote of the question under yesterday's anarchism blog:
@cofiandme: Without prejudice and a genuine inquiry: If anarchism is "having no ruler" and, in theory, still have rules, who enforces these rules?
Me: Society does. Basically the idea is that people are responsible for themselves and their community. (Additionally there is also the basic idea that humans are actually not inherently violent or anything, but are forced into violence through things like abuse and poverty.)
@cofiandme: society? How so? Does that equate to morals and vague faculties? I too agree that men are not inherently evil, but I am pretty sure that they're self-centeredness (like what you've said, "people are responsible for themselves") will bring out self-interest, which is not necessarily evil but will inevitably result to some disputes, knowing resource limitness, scarcity, and all — how do anarchist society settle this? Within themselves too?
So, it has to be said at this point that we do not have any documentation of any large scale society, that lived by anarchist rules. While it stands to reason that those indigenous cultures that were basically living under a sort of anarchism when there was settler contact, those were often already quite descimated by the time it was documented. And modern anarchist communes rarely reach a size of more than a few hundred.
What I am trying to say: For the most part, we only have theory right now. But it should obviously noted, too, that we are only animals and surprisingly animals do manage to exist for the most part without murdering and raping members of their own species.
At the very, very basic level, anarchism assumes that people's nature is neutral, if not outright good. Because we have seen time and time again that whenever societal forces we have break down, people will help one another, rather than fight each other. Hence the assumption that people are neutral/good, but current systems are bad.
Before all else, we do need to break down the hierarchies of capitalism, by making sure that neither absurd riches, nor poverty should exist.
But also working at the abolishment of other hierarchical systems like the patriarchy and white supremacy. As well as create access to help networks for everyone. That includes especially healthcare - including mental healthcare.
Right now, most crimes are linked to poverty. Poverty forces people to commit crimes, and once people get into trouble with the law once (let's say for stealing food or selling drugs), there is a chance that this actually pushes them further into crime and violence. This is in fact more true, the harsher the anti-crime system of a country is. Hence: If you abolish poverty, you will already limit crime.
Then we have the other two big factors of crime: Hate-crimes and crimes commited out of mental health struggles. (Of course all the factors can be linked.) Working against discriminating structures would drastically limit the hate crimes. Mental health support the other.
So, why am I telling all that? Well, because it is basically the anarchist belief, that system changes would lower violent crime massively.
Now, let's get to the part with the rules.
A very, very basic assumption: Most people do not avoid violence against other humans because of laws, but because violence does actually feel bad.
But yes, society does need rules. So, instead of rules being unbending and only affected by a selected few, everyone gets to have a say about the rules, that would directly affect them. In old times and small communes, this usually happened/happens via a sort of townhall meeting, where everyone gets a chance to speak and then people cast their vote. If we had this as a system for a wider society, these processes would probably be digitalized. (There are a couple of other models/additions for this, that are possible for this, but the direct approach is technically the most anarchist.)
As for the enforcement: In general the anarchist idea is that punishment is not the way to go, but rehabilitation. And of course cops do bring so many issues with themselves... So basically the enforcement idea is, that everyone should be allowed to intervene, when violence happens. And that in general again the society as a whole should get a say in what happens with people - though generally never seeking punishment and rather a solution that aims for rehabilitation or, if that is not an option (like, you will probably not rehabilitate the nazi mass murderer), for security detainment.
And, see. The thing about "self-centeredness" is, that we as a society under late stage capitalism have one big issue: Our society is an individualist one. But this is actually counter to human nature. Humans are not individualist animals. We are social animals. A social rule that serves the many is in fact the one that best serves all the single beings within it.
/end long ramble
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Thursday Thoughts: On fandom and a sense of belonging
I love @ao3commentoftheday, in general. But I particularly love how succinctly and beautifully they summarize how, as we participate in fandom, we are ultimately (even if it's unconsciously) seeking out community.
Yesterday, I reblogged their transcription, where they reflect on why fic writers specifically — and creators and artists, generally — seek and savor engagement metrics (e.g. kudos, comments) when they share something online. As they summarized: it's because kudos and comments are the only tangible points within an online space that can be presumed as points of connection. As signals of community.
To quote them:
"For me. That's the piece that's missing. That's the piece that people crave, the thing they're looking for. It's not about the comments, it's not about the numbers, it's about connections and relationships. And that's the part that's missing."
Additionally, in response, @ishtarelisheba reblogged and added a big YES-AND — underscoring that, in addition to finding community, it is both reasonable and valid for writers/artists/creators who are sharing their work online to expect a positive feedback loop. Because who wouldn't want the confirmation that one's efforts and vision are not only seen but also appreciated by someone else in the world (especially because the artist made a point to put it out in the world in the first place?).
As they so beautifully summarized:
"Very few people actually want to work hard on a piece of art, a piece of writing, a sculpture, a dollhouse, a carving, a sweater for their dog, and just Gollum it and never show another person. For most creators, showing your creations to others is vital for that creative part of your soul to thrive. Of course you should love what you do and enjoy what you make! But don’t ignore the part of you that wants to hold it up two inches from someone else’s face and get love and enjoyment from them, too, just because some false platitude instilled a sense of shame for that pretty much universal need."
Both of those needs — connection and validation — can and do exist whenever anyone enters a space, either online or offline. And, in addition to saying we seek out community when we enter fandom, I would even take it a step further (hold on, Corporate Nina is entering the chat) and say that we are seeking out a sense of belonging.
I'll link some articles explaining this in a bit more depth below, but — as summarized within this organizational study in the Harvard Business Review — we experience a sense of belonging within a group when we experience the following (in parentheses, I've added some of the online "engagement" equivalents that we probably look for to find indicators of belonging):
We are seen for our unique contributions (hits, views).
We are connected to other group members (servers, blog communities, social media platforms).
We are supported in our work and in our artistic and creative development (comments, kudos, reshares, other individuals in the fandom talking up your work).
We are proud of the group's values and purpose (sustained enthusiasm/desire to participate and create in fandom).
I know that these tenets were crafted based on workplaces and formal organizations — but I don't think it's a far reach to apply them to fandom. Because, at its core, fandom is still an organized, social body comprised of individuals coming together based on a common goal and/or shared interest. It's like a school. Or a workplace. Or a social group, in that regard.
And, regardless of why and how someone finds themselves within fandom (or any organized space), it is not only valid for someone to want to receive indicators that they're welcome and that they belong — but it's also a biological and psychological human need to feel connected and validated within a social space (you can read about this phenomenon in the 2020 MIT study that cites that we receive neurological signals akin to physical hunger when we crave social connection).
On a more personal note:
Over the past few weeks, I've been wrestling with this sensation myself. Mostly because I initially intended to join this particular fandom in order to simply write — and I was surprised when I realized that no, I wanted more than that. That, as cited in the quotes above, I did truly want to make friends, connect with others, and find community. To connect with others to a degree that, in full transparency, I don't typically do, both online and offline.
I did think that I found a little pocket of community. And I enjoyed it a lot, felt like I thrived and like I might have found those people that "got" me...
And, sadly, that sense of belonging I thought that I experienced ended up a bit of a facade.
Now, I'm in a space where I'm trying to figure out where, how, and (sometimes) if I even belong in this space. There are a lot of things that I like to add, that I get a lot of joy out of — but I also receive a lot of indicators on a daily basis that maybe, just maybe, I'm not as welcome here as I originally thought...
Basically, it's interesting to be a participant in fandom in this day and age, when it is both so easily accessible to enter the space and so challenging to navigate and assess authentic connection.
I don't necessarily know what the answer is. I know I'm bringing some of my equitable organizational design principles into my thought processes here (and I know that some people think I'm overthinking this but whatever) — but I do think that there are both individual responsibilities that need to be upheld and systemic changes that need to be made in order to sustain a sense of belonging for all participants.
But, in the meantime, I'll just continue to assess meaning in this space for myself, continue to lift up others, and continue to suss out where and with whom I can find those bits of connection and validation. Because I would really, really, really like to think that I still belong here.
---
Final note: as promised, here are some articles about sense of belonging, in case you're interested.
"Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger" (Nature Neuroscience, 2020)
"Create a Sense of Belonging" (Psychology Today, 2014)
"Missing Your People: Why Belonging Is So Important And How To Create It" (Forbes, 2021)
"Sense of Belonging: A Vital Mental Health Concept" (School of Nursing and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 1992)
"What Does It Take to Build a Culture of Belonging?" (Harvard Business Review, 2021)
#on fandom#sense of belonging#online community#fic writing#writer problems#thursday thoughts#nina-bean writing#sorry i'm always on my soapbox
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omfg so im reading your linguistics paper rn and im at the part where you talk about how its taboo to post abt the vday vid or dailybooths etc. but i feel like the chains have loosened over the years so to speak? cuz like, on twitter people have just. posted full dailybooth screenshots, or reference the 2009 phan song all the time which itself refs vday. and im wondering if thats like, because the community had gotten smaller after the dapg hiatus that ppl were more lax about it, or if it felt like dnp were more lax about it, or if these are all younger fans who werent aware of this etiquette at all but since so many younger fans have been joining like post coming out they just dont see it as taboo at all? some self-policing does still occur, specifically w ppl reposting dans nakedbooths, but its def not the case of YOU HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY SILENT ABOUT THIS anymore. i havent even finished reading yet but im enthralled
OOH thank you for the question i have so many thoughts on this actually. (context)
i think there's multiple reasons why the taboo on discussing the vday vid & other deleted social media things has grown lesser? under the cut bc i got wordy.
partially i'd chalk it up to the change in phandom demographics. like, there's a way lower proportion of us now who were around for the direct aftermath of the first major leak in 2012, or who even were a part of the phandom when a majority of folks had been present for that. things were so bad and painful then & in the era directly afterwards! people still learn about that but the knowledge of how bad things got is always going to be different from the lived experience.
so that's reason one: i think that within the fandom the strongest emotional reaction to the existence of the vday video & deleted social media posts will always exist in ppl who were around in 2011-2013 & similarly deeply ingrained in folks who joined right after that in 2014-15. and i think there's still a lot of us but there's also just like.. so many less of us now, too. the vast majority of my mutuals from 5 years ago have abandoned or deleted their blogs.
i do think another part of why things have gotten less taboo is bc it's no longer something that has the potential to out dan and phil/how directly they've acknowledged the social media posts (& to a lesser degree the vday vid)?
like. dan literally used screenshots that he almost certainly got from the phan directory in basically i'm gay. they acknowledged that the manchester eye meant something to them in giving the people what they want/witl (watched them at the same time, can't remember which had that in it). i know they knew how people would react to them mentioning iconic teen dalien moments in the big wheel in the sims.
there's also the fact that like... angry phil DMs/copyright strikes are a thing of the past? i'm not going to tell people where to find the vday video but it's stupidly easy to locate on more mainstream platforms at this point in time. shit, that brings me to another point: fans who joined more recently weren't around for the era where blogs were getting taken down for what they were posting. another reason it's more chill now.
like, the openness of the secret is like, something that makes seeking out the taboo less of a thrill?
but on the other hand! learning in detail abt the vday vid and old social media posts is something i think people find less necessary now? that used to be the most concrete like... phan proof. proof they were queer. and now that they're explicitly gay and openly together to the degree that they are it's like. the value of the information has lessened.
to go in a different direction. i definitely wouldn't call it a formalized etiquitte that the youngun's just don't know, especially when it comes to the social media posts—they've always circulated and even 5 years ago when i wrote that paper they were more openly talked about even tho the vday video wasn't (though again: 5 years ago was still wayyyyy more lax than 2013/14).
ultimately there's always just been so much clout tied up to knowing about the vday video & social media posts? so even though being too blatant has always been a taboo transgressing that norm with skill has also always been a phandom value.
i'm not going to get too far into the ways that dan and phil's fandom literacy and the fan response of archiving everything play into things bc i think i covered that well in my paper but yeah!
i don't have a good conclusion but: less % of the fandom being present for the aftermath of dnp being outed by the leak + greater aknowledgement of these subjects by dnp + less value for the information in the vday vid & deleted social media posts = more casual attitude towards vday vid & social media posts and a healthier phandom overall
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okay i AM going to turn reblogs off for this one --
i think we need to talk more about the collective trauma of being part of an online community that a different online community is directing coordinated, nonstop harassment towards. this is the part of the post i am so close to deleting or leaving in the drafts, because i'm (still!) anticipating anon asks like, how dare YOU, an asexual, compare YOUR experience to that of REAL queer people -- and i have no experience of being a transfeminine person on tumblr but i get the impression it is way way worse than aphobia was at its height. but like -- the experience of having your queer subcommunity harassed sucks! hardcore sucks! and has a variety of shitty knock-on effects on the health of the community! and i wanna commiserate with other people who've had that experience!
(also, i can't stand the sj "how dare you compare bad thing A to bad thing B when B is clearly much worse" rhetorical move. sometimes bad things are bad in similar ways and it's useful to talk about that similarity without necessarily making any claims about relative severity.)
i also think we need better tools and mental models for thinking of harassment as not just a one-to-one relationship, but a many-to-many relationship -- "moderation" as a concept seems to exclusively deal with individual posts or at best individual accounts, when, like. the social graph exists; clustering algorithms exist; i don't trust their reliability enough to want to bring down the website banhammer on anyone in a particular cluster, but i would absolutely fucking love a "block this blog and everyone within three degrees of separation of them" button. or something along those lines -- hey, i'm just spitballing here. a mental model of bad actors on a website as not just individual bad actors, but badly-acting communities with internal dynamics.
in every community of recreational bullies i've ever closely observed on tumblr (terfs, truscum, aphobes, various flavors of shipping drama), the following dynamics are present:
members of the community socially reward other members for engaging in harassment, and encourage new members to engage in harassment
members of the community screenshot and pass around often-equally-rude responses from the people they're harassing, as "proof" that these people are Incredibly Harmful and therefore the harassment is Morally Good, even Important, and that the harassing community are actually embattled victims valiantly fighting the oppressor
usually an Opposition Community forms, with the mission of harassing the bully community and exactly the same group dynamics, and the "original" bullies + opposition bullies become a self-sustaining feedback loop of harassment, because each group is constantly giving the other one more material to pass around and rile themselves up with
each community forms an incredibly specific and characteristic dialect of shorthand language that updates frequently as the community they're harassing gets wise and starts blacklisting keywords (when i was most recently on a terf blocking spree, "febfem", "TiM", and "moid" were big ones). engaged community members rapidly become unable to interact with anyone who is not Very Online, isolating them so that the community is now their main social circle
eventually the community comes up with some chain of reasoning, no matter how strained, for calling the objects of their hatred pedophiles
occasionally someone in the community will actually Go Too Far and bring down the banhammer on themselves. they remake their blog within days or weeks (due to the profit incentives of running a social media website, users are sucked into becoming hopelessly addicted -- especially users who are in so deep that they can no longer figure out how talk to people who aren't up on the Incredibly Specific Group Vocabulary). they are promptly passed around as a martyr
you'll notice that the main forces that keep the feedback loop going are a feeling of victimization -- if you feel like you're a righteous, oppressed victim, then you can justify little a death threat as a treat against the evil outgroup who is oppressing you, right? -- a community that rewards its members socially both for harassing others and for being harassed, and isolationist tendencies that make it difficult for community members to get social reward anywhere other than within the community.
it seems that, if you want to be able to deal with a group like this, you need to have some strategy for countering those forces -- whereas conventional moderation efforts mostly feed into the victimization mindset. maybe you need to somehow wall off the harassing community and the responding opposition harassers from each other, so that as far as each group is concerned the other one doesn't exist. maybe you need better tools so users with the characteristics that the harassing community targets can block the entire harassing community all at once. i don't actually know! but i doubt we're going to get anywhere without at least a basic understanding of system dynamics!!
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Physics Friday #4: WTF is Dark Energy/Dark Matter? (Part 2)
Important Note: 50 people is a lot! (well after I blocked all the bots it was under that). And I never expected it to grow so quickly. But also I've noticed that a lot of people move in and out of following this blog. And I think one reason is because some people just want to see the physics/maths/astronomy instead of that plus random shitposts.
So what I'm going to do, is for all future posts like this, put this in a second blog to separate it from this one. And every time I post to that one I'll re-blog it here so that there's space for those who just like to see science-y stuff.
The second blog is @oliviabutsmart.
Preamble
Education level: High School (Y9/10)
Topic: Cosmology, Particle Physics (Astronomy)
This is the second part of three to the Dark Energy vs. Dark Matter post. In this part, I'm going to cover the possible ideas behind what dark matter is.
From the last part, what you need to know is that:
Dark matter and dark energy are completely different things, they're both dark because we can't see it
When we look at galaxies and orbits, what we expect is that most of the mass is concentrated in the centre (galactic bulge)
What we actually end up seeing is that there's a lot more stuff in the outer reaches of the galaxy, and we can't see any of it
This hidden matter, called 'dark matter' is what we have to use to correct our equations
Introduction: The chad MACHO vs. the virgin WIMP
Now unlike what this tile says, I don't actually think that MACHOs are better, it's just a play on- .... you know what I mean.
So, given what we know, we need to find a source for this hidden matter. The best place to start is to take a look at what we do know about dark matter:
It doesn't interact with the electromagnetic force (or if it does, it's very rare) - this allows it to appear as 'invisible'
It does have mass - as it affects the motion of stuff in galaxies
It needs to be plentiful outside of galaxies
It generally doesn't interact with other forms of matter
So now we have three different candidate groups for dark matter:
Weakly-interacting particles, including WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles)
Really big objects that happen to not radiate a lot (also known as MACHOs)
Modified theories of gravity on the large scale
We also need to worry about the way in which this matter is produced. Which is where the cold-warm-hot metric is introduced. It has less to do with temperature and more with speed, particularly in the early universe (see free streaming length for more details - I'm oversimplifying).
What's important is what this "free streaming length" does. Larger lengths corresponds to the formation of larger structures first, then smaller internal structures later.
A cold dark matter model corresponds to dark matter with a small speed in the early universe. In the current day, we think that this is the best model - as it allows for the formation of galaxies first, then clusters of galaxies later - something that we have observed.
Hot dark matter is on the higher end of the speed spectrum and is more equivalent to the formation of big super-galactic sponges before the individual galaxies appear.
The Jocks of the Galaxies: MACHOs
A MACHO is also known as a MAssive Compact Halo Object
Massive - it's heavy
Compact - "self-contained" in a way, it doesn't interfere with stars and it doesn't radiate much
Halo - it exists in the galaxy's "Halo", a region surrounding the galaxy
Small or Primordial Black Holes
The immediate thought, right of the bat, is to think of a black hole. I mean, it's heavy, and it sucks up literally everything. You may object because of hawking radiation but it's very difficult to see that. So what we get is effectively no radiation.
The problem comes with the fact that it's heavy. Where are you going to get all of this stuff into one place? And won't you be able to detect the effects of these objects on star systems?
The early universe was small, really small, and there was a lot of stuff all compacted into this area. Is it not possible that portions of space end up "pinched" and turn into black holes? Well, maybe!
These black holes from the early universe continue on into the modern day to form the dark, unseeable 'mass' on galaxies.
The problems come with hawking radiation (and not because of the aforementioned radiating) ... black holes naturally emit radiation. A topic I may cover in more detail in a future post. But for now, because of this radiation, black holes actually shrink in size over time and eventually disappear.
This puts a lower bound on how small a primordial black hole can be. As any smaller black holes would've popped out of existence by now.
We could also opt for using smaller black holes that formed more recently, but that also comes with the initial issue of how do we make them?
Red Dwarfs, Brown Dwarfs, Black Dwarfs, or Rouge Planets
Often stars don't go out with a bang. In fact, it's more likely that they simply fizzle out. Black dwarfs are what results from this. And because of it they're just dark solid spheres of material.
Some stars are just small and dim. Red dwarfs are incredibly, INCREDIBLY common in our galaxy. It might be possible that we don't see them because they are so dim.
Some stars don't even form, they just don't ignite. These failed stars turn into brown dwarfs. They are unusually large gas giants with a faint glow.
Some planets get knocked out of their system - for any reason. These planets, without light, wander the galaxy alone.
These four objects, are large, dark, and too small to really interact with anything. And it might be the case that these rouge objects are more common than we think! Enough to account for the missing mass.
The issue is just how we are able to find them so far out of the reaches of the galaxy. Hypothetically, we could say that because of the lack of abundant gas in the outer reaches we end up with failed or dim stars.
Dark Stars
This is both the most interesting candidate for dark matter, and also the least documented. Primarily because we're talking about objects made of shit we haven't even seen.
Dark stars come in two varieties, ones made of dark energy, ones made of dark matter.
Dark energy stars are effectively legacy candidates of black holes, that the dark energy in the universe 'pinches' like in our primordial black hole scenario.
Dark matter stars require us having some sort of particle concentrated in a star-like object. It is of course, a strange idea, and it additionally requires the existence of small particles contributing to dark matter.
There's actually a good PBS Space Time video on this. And I recommend you watch it as I do not have the chops to understand this stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUhOL38346Y
The Little Nerds: WIMPs, WISPs, and other particles
The easiest (and most likely) answer is that we're looking for some sort of small particle somewhere in the universe in big concentration.
The core idea is of the WIMP, a very large particle (large being relative i.e. as heavy as maybe an atom), which doesn't interact much.
We want larger particles because, well, then we can have less than them. It's easier to explain that then having particles that are incredibly numerous.
But there's also another type of candidate: WISPs. The S stands for slender. Maybe we don't actually require massive particles, maybe we can have a particle that doesn't interact with stuff. That in order to interact with it you have to be really close to it and so you just don't end up interacting with it.
Neutrinos
Neutrinos are the most obvious candidate. Because we already know they exist. And we know where they are produced.
Every time you undergo nuclear fusion, you actually produce neutrinos as a bi-product. When you have collapsing and exploding stars, this neutrino radiation becomes so numerous it could fry you.
The benefit of neutrinos is that they only interact via the weak force, which only operates when you're really close to the neutrino. This makes neutrinos a type of WISP.
So why do we not declare that this is dark matter? The issue is that neutrinos are hot dark matter. So if they made up dark matter it wouldn't fit with what we see when we look outside.
We could go for a new, yet similar particle, the sterile neutrino. However we end up falling into the same pattern of needing to find an undiscovered particle.
The Axion
Axions are a hypothetical WISP particle that interacts using either the strong force or the electromagnetic force. They are our best traditional candidate for dark matter. A particle that does exactly what we want it to do.
It's sort of like the "string theory" of dark matter candidates, the cleanest looking idea which we still don't have good evidence for.
Strangelets
Strangelets are particles containing the strange quark. They are candidates for dark matter because they fall more into the WIMP class than anything else.
The scary consequence of these particles is that they become more stable with more particles, so they could effectively turn other matter into strange quarks until an entire planet or star is consumed by them.
Fuzzy Dark Matter
Sometimes when you need a big particle, you actually should look for a small one. Fuzzy dark matter basically hypothesises that there are particles that are incredibly light, allowing them to form wavy fields of stuff that contributes to the mass of galaxies.
Quantum Weirdness and SUSY
SUSY, or supersymmetry, is a foundational component of string theory that states that force is directly translatable to mass. That for every fermion particle type, there exists an equivalent particle that acts as a boson. And every boson, there is an equivalent fermion.
You don't need to worry about the difference between bosons and fermions outside of that they are force carrying, and normal particles respectively.
SUSY, and other weird quantum effects are additionally proposed candidates to dark matter, as they can generate new and weird particles or forces that might contribute to the missing mass. But also, they have had a bad reputation in more recent years for returning negative results.
What if Gravity is Just Wrong?
So this is our last category. Forget the large black holes and the tiny new particles, maybe gravity is just wrong! That we got general relativity right on the scales of planets and stars, but not at all when it comes to larger masses like galaxies and clusters.
Modified Newtonian Gravity
Modified newtonian gravity, or MOND, is the idea that, when acceleration is low enough, the motion of particles stop following the rules dictated by newton's laws. Specifically becoming F=ma^2 instead of F=ma.
This, however, implies that ALL of newtonian mechanics becomes affected by this change, so it's often proposed that this modified newton's law affects only gravity compared to other forces like electromagnetism.
We can also develop this idea into our more fundamental understanding of gravity, General Relativity. Using what's known as Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity.
The problem is that this is a pretty big change to make. Disproving gravity - it sounds less like a sound theory and more like a conspiracy theory. But of course, that's how we would've treated previous theories of gravity when they first came out.
Another problem is that the current proposed MOND theory still requires the existence of some form of dark matter MACHO or particle.
Entropic Gravity
Entropic gravity is another interesting theory, especially because it also acts as a theory of quantum gravity (i.e. solving the biggest problem in all of physics).
Basically, gravity actually doesn't exist, but is instead a cumulative effect of quantum disorder. Emerging in the same way that temperature emerges from the second law of thermodynamics.
This helps us solve the dark matter problem by demonstrating that gravity changes as we scale things up. Similar to how temperature looks different if we were, say, looking at whizzing atoms in a box compared to a warm block of metal. And MOND theories end up emerging if we extend the scales beyond that of stars and planets.
Yet, the problem still remains, that this requires us disprove the existence of gravity. It would take quite a lot to try and do that. Including accounting for how we get from the probabilistic world of the quantum to the tangible normal world.
Conclusion: So ... Which one is right?
Short Answer: None
We don't really have enough experimental evidence to prove any of these to be the true source of dark matter, or even a combination of different sources. There is experimental data of course, we've been looking for ages. But a lot these experiments either don't give conclusive results or just limit the possible ranges of their properties.
The search for dark matter is ongoing, and is still certainly under the works. It's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in physics, and just like other theories, the ideas we come up with just end up getting disproven or are too hard to prove to begin with.
This post was a whopper! It took a lot more research and reading to wrap my head around all of the different concepts, as it is just beyond my area of knowledge. But hopefully, I at least explained it well enough for y'all to understand.
As always, feedback is much appreciated. I know I didn't cover things in too much detail, but what can you do when there's so many proposals. I more wanted to talk about the general base ideas of each one instead of getting into the nitty-gritty for a few.
Next week I'll focus on something related to computer science, and finally the week after that, cap things off with a discussion on what Dark Matter is!
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Snow Mountain Ville by Angela Ester
It's Wednesday, and it's a world overview, and for once this one isn't on the Exchange. Woo! But, it is an older world, uploaded in 2012, and it's a mountainous one. Mountain worlds will catch my attention even more than desert worlds will, so...yeah.
And this one's very pretty! Perpetually snow-capped mountains with more in the distance via a distant terrain (Sunset Valley's, I think), a big waterfall, lots of evergreen trees. Feels like home, to me. Just needs some aspens. (And, @echoweaver, it could be an excellent Warrior Cats world?)
It's a fairly big world, but I think it's still 1024x1024, and the playable area is pretty condensed, which IMO makes worlds easier to play. The world requires all EPs that existed at the time that it was uploaded, which is up to Pets. I don't think it requires anything from stuff packs or the Store, and there is no CC included or needed, as far as I can tell.
The world has many lots both community/rabbithole and residential. I'd say about 40% of the houses are fully furnished, and the rest are empty. (More about the residential lots after the cut.) The world has many duplicate rabbitholes (two hospitals, three science buildings, twi business buildings, a bunch of diners and bistros, etc.), but I suspect it's mostly for the look of the buildings rather than their function. For instance, the science rabbitholes look pretty industrial, and they're sitting in the part of the "downtown" that looks more industrial. With all those rabbitholes, it means there'll be plenty of job opportunities in the town, but if you use the Job Overhaul mod, it also means that the job your sim wants (or that you want them to have) might be drowned out by redundant offers from the redundant rabbitholes. So, you could delete some of the extras and replace them with something playable but with the right "look." Or, you could use the Transmogrifier to turn the extra rabbitholes into non-functional deco buildings. Whatever. My point is, they don't have to remain rabbitholes. LOL
The world has all of the available-at-the-time spawners except the WA fish ones, and they're well-distributed throughout the world.
The title of this post is a link to the world's upload on the creator's Blogspot blog. I'm not uploading a .world file this time because this world isn't on the Exchange, and the creator is active and creates lots and worlds/neighborhoods for TS2, TS3, and TS4. She is active on YouTube, but I wasn't able to find a Tumblr for her. So, I thought I'd advertise her on Tumblr, too. :)
If you download this world and find yourself liking it, I recommend taking a look at the creator's other downloads. There are four or five other worlds as nice as this one, as well as many lots in different sizes and styles that would fit into this world or others.
There's more specific info and many more pictures behind the cut.
First up, we'll do some overhead pics of the world in map view and Edit Town. Here are both views for most of the world:
You can see the redundant rabbitholes in the map view pic, mostly in the "downtown" area in the upper right of the pictures. There are also two salons, two firehouses, and two consignment shops in the world, though only one of each is categorized as such. The others are categorized as art galleries, for some reason. Both of the firehouses are EA, as is one of the salons and one of the consignment shops. I don't know if there was a rationale behind the duplication, but if I were to play this world, I'd probably replace the EA salon and consignment shop and one of the firehouses with something else, probably lot types for the later EPs. There are also some other community lots that are missing proper categorization. For instance, there's a laundromat that's categorized as no visitors allowed. Again, I don't know if this was intentional or if something just got messed up in the packing process or when I converted the sims3pack to a .world file. Whatever the case, it's easily changed/fixed.
Here are map view and Edit Town pics of the rest of the world:
As you can see, these lots are mostly residential, and there are a number of empty lots as well. I like that the residential lots in this world are broken out into distinct sections. So, let's take a look at some of them.
First, there are some apartment lots in the "downtown" area. A couple of them are EA lots from Late Night, though they may have been edited (I didn't look), but the others are original and are furnished. Some pics:
Then, in the lower right of the pics of the main part of the map, you can see a block of 27 residential lots. These are all identical one-bedroom houses on 20x20 lots, and they are all identically partitioned inside but empty. They look like this on the outside:
I don't personally have a use for 27 one-bedroom houses, so I would switch some of these out for other small bungalow houses I have that have more bedrooms, or build some new ones. But if you do have a use for 27 one-bedroom houses and are OK with the tract housing look, you can easily change exterior colors and add different plantings and stuff like that, so that they don't all look exactly the same, and then furnish up these little guys.
Speaking of little guys, another residential area is the small island connected to the downtown area by a bridge. It's in the top center of the overhead pics above. There are 8 small lots situated on a walk path on that island, and 3 of those lots have furnished houses on them. Again, they're little one-bedroom houses, but they're really cute, and they're spread out amongst the trees, some with mountain views and some with ocean views. Here are two of them:
I'd use these as my starters, personally. Assuming I'm starting with single sims.
And here are some pics of some of the other residential lots in the more "suburban" residential areas of the world, where the step-up/wealthy lots are. Plus there's another such pic before the cut on this post:
Overall, I quite like the residential lots in this world. Some of them are EA lots, but I think they've been edited a bit because they aren't the impractical eyesores that EA lots tend to be. The yellow mansion aside, they're very much my style because I prefer more compact houses. They're just easier to play, IMO, because you don't lose your sims in them. That said, I do think there are too many one-bedroom lots in this world because I tend to think that most players want their sims to procreate, and small, one-bedroom houses aren't very conducive to that, at least not in the long term. But, as I said, this is easily remedied, if you agree with me.
Next, we'll have a quick look at some of the community lots, most of which are in the "downtown" area:
Respectively, those are:
A cat park next door to one of the firehouses
The non-EA consignment shop
The library (on the left side of the pic) and the non-EA salon
A little park next to the city hall. There are a number of similar little parks in the "downtown" area. Some of them have some playground equipment on them, some just have seating. You could easily add more stuff to them, if you wanted to. Plus there's a full-blown playground next to the block of 27 one-bedroom houses.
A nectary with a big community garden next door
A chapel set up for weddings. Directly behind is the graveyard with a mausoleum. They are separate lots, but with no space between them.
Annnnd we'll finish off with some random scenery of this very pretty world. :)
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Todays rip: 12/02/2024
V-v-v-v-v-a-V-v-v-v-v-v-r
Season 6
Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume DQ
Rip credited to "Green Monika Takeover"
youtube
Requested by crickqt! (Discord)
If you're truly deep in the trenches of SiIvaGunner like I am, then over the course of reading all of these blog posts, you may have noticed a rather...curious omission from my coverage. I've covered jokes both obscure and relevant, storylines big and small, rips of every part of the spectrum from Outertale to Loopdeloop Griddy to Sex - Steve Harvey. Yet all of these have one thing in common: They're all from within the SiIvaGunner channel. And as should perhaps be expected, SiIvaGunner is far from the only place where high quality ripping occurs nowadays.
SiIvaGunner was, of course, not an entirely original concept to begin with - mashups using video game music have existed for ages, and Chaze the Chat himself has made it no secret that the channel was an evolution of a subculture from SoundCloud, inspired heavily by the works of toonlink, as I mentioned back in Aphex. Yet the channel certainly carved out its own niche and style: its presentation as bait-and-switch mimicry of the actual GilvaSunner channel, paired with the mysterious insistence on full anonymity of each rip's creator, gave SiIvaGunner its own feel, one that it would only further refine as the fanbase grew and lore began to develop. For those first nine months, there was nothing else on YouTube like SiIvaGunner.
Yet when the channel's true "ending" was announced in the last quarter of 2016, near the end of Season 1, several people were distraught to see it go after just a few months. And keep in mind, it took until February of 2017 to get any sort of confirmation that SiIvaGunner was actually going to be sticking around beyond occasional events - and before November 2016, we didn't even know if the channel would return at all. So it comes as no surprise that, on October 1st 2016, we'd see the birth of the first true "fan channel" aiming to continue SiIvaGunner's legacy - TimmyTurnersGrandDad. And even as SiIva returned, TTGD grew to form a fanbase of its own, its own smaller community, with many of SiIva's rippers even contributing different things to both channels in parallel.
I'll be completely earnest with you all - the reason I haven't covered fan channels on this blog before is due purely to my own lack of experience with them. I've been glued stuck to SiIva alone since 2016, and the rabbitholes of the various fan channels simply appear too vast and deep to go down the same way I myself do here on this blog for the main channel. But, TTGD aside, there is one fan channel that deserves special mention, one that has quite often intermingled with SiIvaGunner itself and has such an immediately recognizable identity from all others - the namesake of V-v-v-v-v-a-V-v-v-v-v-v-r itself, Vvvvvavvvvvvr.
To put it concisely, while TTGD aimed to initially be a SiIvaGunner successor, then moved to be more of a SiIvaGunner alternative, the nature of the Vvvvvavvvvvvr channel has always been a fair bit more...dubious. You'll notice it just from clicking on the channel yourself - everything from the profile picture, to the header, to the titles and thumbnails of the videos uploaded to the channel have a far more chaotic, unpolished, almost "trashy" feel to them. This is because, with little exception, Vvvvvavvvvvvr aims to be almost entirely unfiltered - with minimal quality control and a submission process open to anyone, its effectively a big sandbox for rippers of all skill levels to submit to, the output almost best described as the SiIvaGunner equivalent Twitch Plays Pokémon. And much like that phenomenon, Vvvvvavvvvvvr somehow, through the unfiltered voices of hundreds of contributors, managed to find its own voice, its own set of recurring jokes, and eventually develop its own lore to tie it all together.
References to Vvvvvavvvvvvr aren't exactly a rarity on SiIvaGunner, either. The YTPMV Rock my Forum, as featured on LAST YTPMV^2 OF 2016 by ripper Xarlable, eventually took off as Vvvvvavvvvvvr's primary channel meme; almost every time the meme has been referenced on SiIvaGunner since, has been in tribute of the fan channel. V-v-v-v-v-a-V-v-v-v-v-v-r, then, is no exception - uploaded during the period of which the Vvvvvavvvvvvr had supposedly ended for good, its a loving tribute to just about every joke featured prominently on the channel, in the form of an incredibly varied medley rip. Scatman John, Reese's Puffs Rap, The Michael Rosen Rap, Chadtronic, Rock My Forum - its not as if these memes have never been featured on SiIvaGunner before, but they're (to my understanding!) such core parts of Vvvvvavvvvvvr in particular, that their usage in combination here makes the tribute's intentions clear.
As if that wasn't clear enough, certain segments of the fast-paced C-R-O-W-N-E-D are dedicated to referencing specific Vvvvvavvvvvvr rips (formally "vips") on an individual basis. A section using sentence-mixed AVGN clips, for instance, uses the same clips, sentence mixed in a similar fashion, as Crazy Bus Tylenol. There's references like this strewn all about this dense medley, yet as many in the comments have made clear - none of them get in the way of V-v-v-v-v-a-V-v-v-v-v-v-r just being a fantastic rip on its own, without any context or knowledge of the fan channel itself.
While I don't fall into that category in particular, as I'm of course aware of the fan channels that are more active now than ever - I am still very much an outsider. Yet I've once again been privy to take a peek down the rabbithole through this request, and I learned a lot about Vvvvvavvvvvvr as a result: Its a genuinely valuable platform with a fun and zany community, however small it may appear from the outside looking in. The near complete lack of filter or quality control means that anyone, even you reading, could submit something to the channel, a first step toward a great ripper's journey - a good number of SiIvaGunner's members who first joined around 2018-2021 got their start by contributing things to fan channels just like Vvvvvavvvvvvr. And though I may never become a full-on fan to the same degree I am SiIva itself, I'm of course eternally grateful and happy for their existence - through collaboration and teamwork, these channels help keep the art of high quality ripping alive.
#todays siivagunner#season 6#siivagunner#siiva#ripper unknown#Green Monika Takeover#vvvvvavvvvvvr#siivagunner fanchannel#timmyturnersgranddad#ttgd#kirby#kirby crowned#c-r-o-w-n-e-d#kirby music#kirby return to dreamland#Youtube#Bandcamp
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I just think it needs to be said that adults have to regulate themselves in online spaces in a way that is responsible for minors in fandom spaces. This will be long im sorry.
And im not specifically talking about adults with lists of DNI minors and block anyone at or under a certain age as well as make it clear their blog may not be safe for minors (ie spaces with a lot of nsfw content). Though curating an experience is a big part of being responsible of course. This post though is mostly delving into adults' behavior and how you need to be aware of your behavior.
For example, if you're an adult who purposefully curates a blog dedicated to fandom discourse, harming other people in the fandom, vagueing, and just having general toxicity about people ESPECIALLY when the targets of said harassment and toxicity are often the youngest in the fandom this is something you really need to reevaluate yourself about for a million reasons but including how this harms and serves as a poor example to younger people what a fandom space is meant to be. Like when I see minors involved in these types of toxicity, not to say they shouldn't be informed or held accountable or the ppl harmed should forgive them, but as an adult I mostly feel sad. I feel sad because I hope they're going to be okay when they're my age and look back on themselves. I hope they're safe esp when the adults around them act like this kind of behavior is normal and okay even though they've long graduated high school (even though ot wasn't okay then either for the record). Like does it not bother you that you're an adult who feels superior sending hate campaigns and ask box harassment and cyberbullying to minors on the internet because you're insecurities are that large and you've no ability to regulate them healthily? Does it not bother you that you teach young ppl in the fandom to do similarly by your actions, and affect their experience? Does the harm not bother you?
Because it should bother you. When you grow up especially in online fandom spaces you do need to be more aware of not only your words in general, but how many people may look up to you and use you as example and that you have a responsibility to be healthy online for the sake of yourself, others, and esp the youngest of the fandom.
Because it hurts to think ppl can grow up in fandom to think "oh sending kys and gore and dead animals over [insert discourse] plus potentially bigotry is normal because everyone around me does it and I want to fit in and I also fear speaking up against the adults who do this because you know the harassment".
And you might say "well cup im just gonna block all minors the end I get to harass people forever hahaha haha!" And well okay, but for another post (plus ones I've made before) there's still a million reasons this is fucked up you see but I'm just focusing on one aspect rn in this post.
And then there's the adults in fandom who all of a sudden hit my age and all they do is belittle kids and the way they act and there is all of a sudden a Certain Maturity that needs to be upheld for Everyone but Especially Adults.
So on the first point this includes adults who are like "I hate kids!!!! They are so [insert anything negative]" and it includes any comment to meta/writing/art/etc that is like not allowing a younger person in fandom to grow. Like the way I talked as 11 years on the internet was incomprehensible and frankly would've been subject to "omg kids are so cringe ew!" For sure these days, ig I was lucky my online friends were also 11 at the time. Looking at my old fandom Meta posts when I was 15, like I could imagine the way I see adults talking about takes like "oh shit I was worse!" Which is just a bag full of insecurity for me, but I also can't imagine being young in fandom and directly experiencing such critiques all the time. Like does it not bother you, once again? That you don't want to see kids in fandom grow into their creativity and co-exist safely in fandom as they do in public and experience overall and public joy? Why do you hate I mean hateee kids as an adult and why does their joy spark hate and misery in you (you might need therapy or to work that out srsly). And do the effects of your actions not bother you? What do you think you're doing other than silencing the creativity and joy in people and invoking ways to people please or for minors to Act Mature (in reality acting the way these adults want to avoid harassment ofc!) Instead of of course just experiencing joy and fun and community as they would normally.
And that brings me to my last pt of the effects of you hit [adult age] and must Act Mature and not Care About Cringe Fandoms or Watch Cartoons and do anything that would indicate you god forbid Don't Have a Real Job. This is the reality for growing up in fandom its finite once you're 19 no more Cringe of course /s! Because I've been subject to this take before as a criticism, and I've seen essays about how adults who watch Bluey are destroying the world forever, and I can take it because I go to therapy and I'm secure in my own maturity where it matters and joy where it matters. But imagine how younger people in the fandom feel. Like you're basically telling kids "btw once you're at Adult Age you must stop having fun forever and you must have a Real Job (or Education) and stop enjoying Immature things like fandom (even though I am in fandom btw im not a hypocrite saying this) or you're a freak immature adult who will never grow up". Like wow.
Like the conservative and near unnuanced take of to be Mature you need a real job (whatever that means) and to only watch adult shows in a normal manner (again whatever that means) aside, like you're really telling kids to grow up and be insecure. I'm serious! Like of course as you grow up it's important to mature no duh, but with real maturity means realizing there are times to be serious and there are times to enjoy things. Maturity doesn't mean I can never watch bluey god forbid else I have a not real job or become media illiterate as a consequence (esp when actually marketing wise a lot of kids shows are meant to also be entertaining for adults watching with their kids... and lo and behold your media literacy doesn't go away magically the moment the show starts). Like you really want younger ppl in fandom to be miserable and grow up miserable and create a cycle of miserable lest they become Cringe Adults that watch a harmless cartoon and enjoy it.
I'm never good at ending rants like this but conclusion. Get a grip on yourself and insecurities and be really careful how you foster fandom community for yourself but also to those that grow up in these spaces too.
As always add on/send asks/correct me/add nuance/etc. ❤️
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You can talk about the issues with people often conflating the situation with native americans like me to those of the palestinian people and not realizing they're differing situations- without being just vitriolic and hateful towards USA natives.
The idea addressing colonialism is bad is such a privileged take why are you putting it in scare quotes? Colonizers are bad regardless of how it happened. It comes off to me as deeply racist and insensitive to mock native people just because some people misappropriate our terminology.
I wanna come in here and be very open about the clarification here. I don’t think addressing colonialism is bad. Seems like you might be new around here, because addressing colonialism is a big focus of this blog and of my personal life.
The quotation marks do not, in any way, serve as a mockery of Native terminology or a condemnation of decolonization. The original ask was focused on how non-native misinterpretation of decolonization forced everyone to accept a label of either “native” or “colonist”— never both, never neither. That extremely limited and binary labeling is the only reason the quotations exist. Obviously, there are more complex nuances to decolonial terminology, because that binary is itself a form of colonial thinking. I was in no way intending to say that the terms were bad or incorrect, just that they are often used by colonial-minded activists harmfully and inaccurately.
The quotation marks are intended to easily and visibly show misuse of terminology, so as not to confuse it with accurate use. That’s something I do on here all the time, especially with Zionism. It’s an incredibly complex term that most USActivists misunderstand. A secular Labour Zionist and a Religious Greater Israel Zionist will probably find that they don’t actually agree on nearly anything. But goyim on tumblr who don’t understand the word use it to mean “one of those Nazi Jews that I don’t agree with”. When referencing their use of the term, it’s formatted as “Zionist”.
That’s not to say Zionism is fake or bad or shouldn’t be done. (It also doesn’t mean it’s good and should be done!) There are some parts of Zionism I agree with, and some parts I don’t agree with. The use of quote marks around “Zionism” are politically and morally neutral. It’s just to indicate that the person using the term is not using it accurately.
I hope this clears up the misunderstanding, and I’m sorry I gave off the impression that I don’t value, support, and and work towards decolonization. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
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Wow… I always thought you were inclusive to all fans. Guess not.
Spoilers
I tried to be, and I still try to be to MOST fans, but I have limits and I have lines. I know it's probably been obvious, but I've really drawn back from being socially active in the fandom. I take stands, occasionally, but for the most part, I just block and move on. My block list on tiktok is long, because if I don't like content, I block rather than get upset.
I don't really look at my home page, anymore. Going onto AO3 hits me with so many (niche and specific to me) triggers in a day, that my reason for not reading others' works has shifted from, even though I'm working on managing it, my Dyslexia to just being unable to navigate my own triggers. This isn't anyone's fault, it's mine.
If I'm being honest? My mental health is in the dumpster and while this has a wide variety of reasons, if I can protect it in any way I can, I will. And if this includes having to tell a certain group of fans that they're not welcome on my blog? Unfortunately, that's what has to happen.
I'm not a stranger to fandom wars, as stupid as I think they are, I'm not a stranger to the aggression that happens here. And I have, definitely, been on the other side a few times. My first proper introduction to fandom was Supernatural and FNAF. I STILL deal with seeing posts talking about how a ship I didn't ship is superior to one I do ship for no fucking reason. I understand liking a character, and I understand having villain characters that you still like and love, and I can appreciate the "he's my precious pookie bear and does nothing wrong" mindset to a certain extent.
But I think ignoring Makarov's actions, even if he's a fictional character, even if it's just a game, is ignorant, in today's climate. A prime example of why I cannot get behind it is Russian Terminator. I have... so many reasons I can go through why this man is just awful, but my wife is slightly more educated, so I'll let her take the reigns on that one if she wants. However, he sucks. Objectively. But because he's masked and ripped, I see so many edits of him. So many.
I see people call themselves his "simps" and actively ignore and block those who try to point out his horrific actions and opinions and views and values to them. This man is not a fictional character. He's a real person.
I have always been a huge advocate for "live and let live" in fandom spaces. To an extent that even my wife and I get into arguments over it. My only limit seems to be pedophilia, for personal reasons. And I am not telling you to stop writing Makarov. I'm not even telling you not to find him hot. You can giggle and kick your feet when he "activates your praise kink" in the first mission, I don't care I won't stop you.
But I don't want that in my own space. I protect my peace. This ranges from silly things that just bother me (pricegraves) to big things like this. As my wife stated, Graves committed war crimes. Yes. He killed civilians, and that's inexcusable. But, I feel like this is comparing a passion killing, to systematic murder. Graves would have committed those crimes in any country, but the US. France, England, pretty much any country he could have gotten away with it.
Makarov targeted a country of Arabic people, because he knew about the aggression and islamophobia that exists in the west. He knew that if he pulled some strings a little, he could very easily turn a country just looking for peace into a country of terrorists, in the western media's eyes. This is irredeemable in my eyes.
So, no. I try to be inclusive. Pricegraves fans are still welcome to interact with me. They know by now that I won't write it, I don't really entertain it, and to go to my wife. The same for FarahAlex shippers, and really anyone who ships something on my No-Ship list. (Though please get the memo on that second ship, I'm never gonna budge, I'm sorry.)
I'm sorry if you feel alienated, I know it probably sucks. Trust me, I understand. But, unfortunately, I want to protect my peace, and I want my blog to continue to be my own safe space.
Thank you for understanding.
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