AO3 IS IN TROUBLE IF CALIFORNIAN AGE VERIFICATION LAW PASSES

An upcoming Age verification bill centered in California will be voted on Monday-- And as always,instead of actually protecting kids, it will lead to more online censorship and privacy risks, as it will force websites hosting to verify their users age by sending their ID, your browser history would be linked to it. if you live California, call your reps and tell them to oppose the bill AB3080 as it highly unconstitutional.

They also deem LGBT content harmful to minors, as well as mentions of weapons and tobacco, putting them on the same level as NSFW content.

Since AO3 headquarters reside in California, much like Reddit, Twitter,Discord and Youtube (and others) who knows how bad the effects would be. Instead of just effecting Californians (even then its concerning.) the effects would be US or even worldwide. VPNs wont help.

Please take actions here (a script is included to help you) https://www.defendonlineprivacy.com/ca/action.php

Find your rep here https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

You can also send faxes using this https://faxzero.com/

If you don't live in California, please talk about this,tag your friends and urge others to take actions, make posts and tweets using the hashtags AB3080 and NoOnAB3080

More info HERE

Also reminder that the arguments of your message don't matter. You're not going to convince your legislator by the quality of your words, so don't worry about just sending in the default message. What their office does is record the quantity of messages sent in.

everyone arguing about whether AO3 is in California or not is severely missing the point of what kind of impact and chain reaction a progressive, liberal state passing a law like this will have. It doesn't matter if your vice of choice is based in California or not please think a little bigger.

Me, watching my kitten hold still for a suspiciously long time: Ollie, are you peeing on my floor?

Ollie: Not

Me: Are you sure?

Ollie, grunting through time and space to push out a chocolate mcmuffin wider than he is tall: Not

Me, helpless, arms full of hot chili: Ollie, no! Ollie no! No, Ollie! God, Jesus, Ollie! Ollie, nooo!!

Ollie:

Artist's recreation of incident

In the latest installment of me Terrorizing Medical Professionals, I got my Wisdom Teeth extracted because one decided to be an asshole and the other 3 were pending assholery, and demonstrated to my dentist that it's entirely possible to out-metabolize Ketamine if you start moving ASAP and also have a freakishly powerful liver.

So yesterday I had my one-month Checkup. It went pretty great, and the dentist asked if any part of my mouth was bothering me.

"Yeah, there's a sharp bit of bone coming out through the side from the extraction in my lower right jaw. The bone spur itself doesn't hurt, but it keeps cutting my tongue, so can you just pull it?" "Oh. Sure! Let me go get everything to do that." she said, and went to go get the tools for the extraction.

...Then there was some kind of confusion at the front desk I could overhear, with someone showing up with an urgent problem and they had to juggle the available staff, so she came back a bit later with the Pliers, said something about something taking "long enough" and went in.

It came out in two pieces, and the most discomfort I had was like, a 3/10 from the extraction itself, but mostly from keeping my mouth open.

...About halfway through, the Hygienist came in, apologizing for being late getting back from the front desk.

"Oh good, you have her the Novocaine!" the hygienist sighs with relief.

"What?" Said my dentist.

"What?" said the hygienist.

Both of them turn to look at the very full syringe on the tool table behind me.

"Honestly this is bothering me way less than the shot would." I said, lightly dribbling blood, and they both turn to me in horror.

"I really hate needles." I explain.

"What." says the dentist.

"Woah." Says the hygienist. "You would have done great in like, The Civil War."

Which is probably the funniest thing anyone's every said about my dangerously high pain tolerance.

Anyway, it was a one-off issue, and a non-issue for me because I think a normal person would have stopped her, so I go back in August if she doesn't recommend me to someone else for terrifying her twice in as many visits.

companies are delusional if they think consumers don't notice shrinkflation. less food in the package, less medicine in the jar, less whatever in the wherever, it doesn't matter where and it's almost always noticeable. like i just finished one box of medicine and we opened another allegedly identical one that we just bought and lo and behold, the four middle medicine segments were gone from the package. they took out four pills from the same sized box and sold it at the same price without any indication on the box other than the small number in the corner. ridiculous

I bought a carton of my favorite tomato soup last week and noticed that the nutrition facts looked weird. So I compared the new one to the mostly empty carton already in my fridge.

The serving size was the same, but the calories per serving had gone down by like 15. Odd. The ingredients list previously listed tomato as the first ingredient, and then water. Now water is first. They’re watering down the fucking soup and charging the same for it. I’m so fucking done.

"most allegedly haunted houses turn out to have gas leaks!"

no they don't. you are merely skimming the surface of mundane shit that can be wrong with old houses with your one puny little explanation that only fits a very small number of cases. try harder

They should bring back paranormal home inspectors because it is fascinating the amount of spooky happenings they resolved with one surveyor and his clipboard

not surprising AT ALL

as I said in the tags, I believe in ghosts! wholeheartedly! I believe I've had weird experiences that can't be explained any other way!

but

I work with/in old buildings professionally

they are the most temperamental, bizarre beasts you can ever imagine. the number of things that can make strange sounds, drafts, smells, or even motion in an old building are insane. like yeah, maybe you saw a ghost! or maybe you had a gas leak!

but to assume it must be one of those two things is to ignore the vast smorgasbord of Obnoxious Stuff Old Houses Do

Tell me more about the Obnoxious Stuff Old Houses Do.

[cracks knuckles]

now like I said, things I can't explain away have happened to me. "I heard the staff door open and close, complete with motion sensor ding, and footsteps moving around the room it leads into- and also my coworker heard it too, from a completely different area of the house -but nobody was there and there are no other exits from that space" can hardly be chalked up to dust in that sensor

but a LOT of weirdness can

[Tell us more about weird stuff and old houses.]

The haunting ancient Celtic carnyx being played for an audience. This is the sound Roman soldiers would have heard their Celtic enemies make.

Man if I heard that shit while descending upon a strange land with my brethren I'd straight up dig a hole to die in right the and there, fuck the emperor fuck the gods that's a warning straight from the bones of an older evil and whatever is coming is worse than death

agatha agate has a little spot on the top of her head where her fur is white and it’s very thin and the pink of her skin is a little bit visible all the time. turns out she can get sunburnt there

so now she has this stupid hat.

update

Sharing the secrets of your hearth with strangers who will never be able to meet or thank you. Honoring the dead through learning their traditions of the home; emulation and exaltation. A good carrot cake.

I bet all of these women swore that they'll only reveal their secret recipes "over my dead body" and they delivered.

reuters article

I think it's worth adding that every week, sometimes multiple times a week, there are also (much smaller) protests that are explicitly about ending the occupation and stopping the genocide in Gaza, in addition to everything mentioned above. These protests have been happening since almost immediately after Oct 7th and they have often gotten violent with people getting arrested. There are Arabs, Jews, young people, old people, trans people, anarchists, socialists, communists, feminists and pretty much anyone you can think of at these protests. They do not hold Israeli flags.

These protests are not reported on, even by Israeli news outlets, because they ruin the narrative that the Israeli government and the zionist movement want to push: that the Free Palestine movement is calling for the eradication of all Israelis, and that to be pro-Palestine is inherently antisemitic. They need it to be an extreme "us or them" situation in order to manufacture consent for the atrocities they are committing and for their future goal of "flattening Gaza", as many people put it. They need it to be seen as a fight to the death with no option of ever having peace.

It's important to fight back against this narrative. There are many (though not nearly enough) Israelis who believe Palestine should be free and have been fighting for it. Protesting, posting on social media (which is obviously dangerous when living under a fascist government), going to military jail for refusing service, traveling to the occupied territories to protect Palestinians from settler violence, and more. I'm not saying this so people give Israelis a pat on the back - I'm saying this because I see people on here (including huge popular accounts) posting things like "there isn't a real pro-Palestinian movement in Israel", not realising this is EXACTLY what Israel's government and the zionist movement want them to think.

Do not fall for their propaganda!!!

three years ago today, a new me was born

Check out this fucking shit

CHOO CHOO ALL ABOARD MOTHERFUCKERS the transfemme glow up train is leaving the station

Can I throw one in here?

2012-2020 2 years on HRT

If I may...

2016 -> 2023; 2 and half years on HRT 🏳️‍⚧️

I'd say it worked out pretty well for me 🤷‍♀️

Fuck it. Feb 14 2021 -> Dec 31 2022

A little over a year on E

Decided to use my favorite pre transition photo from just before my egg cracked. Tbh I made a very pretty boy. I just like being a pretty girl more :3

Jan 2019 - June 2023 (2.5 yr HRT)

2000's nu metal bassist to goth gf pipeline (i do need to play more bass fr)

Oct 2014 -> June 2023 (abt 6 years HRT)

posted on this before, but i took some new bice photos of myself recently, and who am i to deprive tumblr of my cuteness :3c

Nov 2019 -> June 2023. 3.33 Years E

Not my best pics tbh but w/e

This thread is the cutest

Here's my lil Sept. 2019 -> June 2023

October 2018 -> May 2023 💜

June 2020 -> June 2023 🥰

Excellent thread hehe

Same location, 12 years apart, 8 of them on HRT

Yeah ok I’ll join in

June 2020 (-23 months hrt) -> February 2023 (9 months hrt)

Looking at the before pictures always feels a little bit like seeing those pictures of truly vague, undefined lines that a tattoo artist draws to guide their process. The after pictures are like the resulting tattoo that makes you wonder if the artist is a witch because ink on skin shouldn't be able to look that good.

I got a new phone hehehe who needs an iPhone anyway? ♪

Rule one of fandom: there are some things that only exist for us.

Don’t send actors fics

Don’t give them explicit art ever

Don’t tag them in rpf questions or theories

Don’t try to bring them into fandom drama of any kind

Don’t hold them responsible for what the producers and writers decide

They’re still people.  They have private lives, which do not include fandom.

A lot pf people don’t understand this and it’s a shame

ALSO: DO NOT SHIP REAL PEOPLE WHO PLAY CHARACTERS WITH EACHOTHER??? THEY ARE NOT THEIR CHARACTERS!

No.

If you want to bash rpf shippers for *existing*, make your own post.

RPF has been a part of fandom since the beginning, and I’d highly recommend doing some research into the topic; as always, Fanlore is a good place to start.

The problem with RPF is when people breach the fourth wall, which fandom is doing more often as the internet expands and becomes the current culture, and newcomers to fandom either are not taught or do not care about the basic rules (i.e. the purpose of this post).  The problem is not with people having fantasies or telling stories.

Fandom is transgresive by nature as much as it is transformative, because we are thieves and magpies and because here we’re allowed to talk about things that we’re not supposed to in mainstream culture.  I have never seen a space like fandom creates, where people are able to share their desires and fantasies and kinks openly and *talk* about the taboo.

And when people come along and talk about how RPF shouldn’t even exist, it is frequently less rooted in a concept of “this causes this specific harm” and more “this is disgusting and I don’t want it near me, how can this even exist.”  It causes discomfort because it’s rooted in taboos (talking about sexual fantasies in public, openly, even though those same fantasies are well acknowledged in pop culture - think about the concept of the “free pass”).

When people break the fourth wall and get the actors involved, sending fics (or letters back in the old days), explicit images, harassing them online or at conventions and concerts, they have committed actions that cause harm.  And there is real harm, I’ve done my digging and seen the results in bandoms and fandoms (hell, my fandom has done some things over the years.)

Thoughts are not actions.  Fantasies do not make you a villain, telling stories is not a sin (though it has been a crime).  Sharing those things with other people is part of what makes fandom culture what it is.

There are conversations that need to happen about objectification and dehumanization, there are conversations (like this post was meant to be) about maintaining healthy boundaries and treating the actors as people when we interact with them; there are conversations that need to happen about how much more mainstream fandom is now than it was fifty years ago, and what that does to the relationship dynamic we have with our creators and actors, what may need to change as we move forward.  The Hockey RPF fandom’s solution to that problem was to lock a great deal of their content so that the fourth wall could not be breached.

RPF is the single greatest squick I have dealing with fandom; the way people talk in my fandom hits my “someone is altering my sense of reality” button really hard.  I frequently have to blacklist it to control my exposure to the low-level shipping that permeates everything in my community, otherwise I get punchy.  But my discomfort with the topic doesn’t mean I’m ever okay with throwing those people out of the communities they helped build.

I don’t have to like something to defend it.  Fandom is built by people who were told “you shouldn’t do that, go back to the shadows”, and we are not doing vague purity-culture and thought police nonsense tonight.

OP, fantastic post but this rebuttal is a thing of pure beauty. Thank you.