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gwydion* It's not law yet. "France Votes to Become 55th Country to Ban Spanking Children:" https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/11/259165/france-votes-to-become-55th-country-to-ban-spanking-children/
* "What Angela Merkel Stepping Down Means For Germany:"
* "Manafort told 'multiple lies' after agreeing to cooperate, Mueller says:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/paul-manafort-mueller-special-counsel-filing
* "Cohen spoke with Russian to set up Trump-Putin meeting, Mueller reveals:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/michael-cohen-trump-former-fixer-prison-time
* "5 big takeaways from the new Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort filings:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/07/takeaways-michael-cohen-sentencing-filings/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0908470499cc
* "Trump Goes Off On Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein Ahead of New Bombshells:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-attacks-mueller-team-conflicts-of-interest-as-manafort-cohen-filings-loom
* "George Papadopoulos released from prison:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/george-papadopoulos-prison/index.html
* "thank u, jeff -- Ariana Grande Parody:"
* "Are We Proud Of Him For Not Ruining A Funeral?:"
* "A 'Smoking Saw' In The Khashoggi Murder:"
* Today when I came out for forage, LM was not on my office chair, which is her current favorite afternoon lap location, but when I went to feed the fish, I spotted her nesting comfortably in what had been her favorite sofa nap spot until Tavy came. I had suspected she was scouting the sofa the last few nights. She'd get up on it, look around, and get off again. A couple of nights ago, she even scouted the table. Today she reclaimed her rightful spot and looked so content with it.
* I needed a particular picture of the decorations for a contest: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/180914725302/i-needed-this-for-a-contest-and-this-is-my-image
* My icon on tumblr is a PRIDE flag, and it looks like most queer political blogs and likely anyone who reblogs art history images, I'm getting banned as explicit if they really do the change over on the 17th. I am furious; I am sad. My voice reached a lot of people over there. Not a lot, by famous people standards, obviously. My most popular post only had 33,086 notes when I checked to wrote this, but that's a lot compared to the number of eyes anything I'm likely to say anywhere else is likely to get. It's nearly a half decade old and had nearly 3000 notes in the last month. Not bad for a history rant from someone who made a tumblr because a bunch of my friends had migrated over there during a livejournal exodus. I post a lot, I have regular readers. I'm good enough at it now that most months, something I say gets briefly a thousandish notes a day popular. The thing I posted about "cashless" economy pushing poor people out of public spaces right before bed friday morning had 800+ notes when I checked it in the evening. Again, not much by famous for something real standards, but good for random disabled person writing rants on the Internet about politics standards.
I like it there. I spend several hours a day doing programing and curating. I like all the friends I've made over there. I put a lot of work into building a quite little niche where I liked what I was doing and I liked most of the people I was communicating with. Sometimes something I wrote helped people organize or gave people hope.
I am losing that because of this corporate puritanism bullshit. (And yes, I am aware of how basically this is another thing screwed up in part because we lost net neutrality).
I stand by my refusal to have anything the fuck to do with Facebook. Every news item since it's founding has proved to me this is the right decision. I point to pretty much everything Facebook has done since 2015 as vindication. While I have read interesting twitter chains, The format so isn't for me. *points to like everything I write that isn't a link* Most of the other popular formats aren't for me really.
So I guess my Internet world shrinks to just here and a few other smaller formats, if they don't decide that losing most of their customer is a bad business decision. Livejournal didn't though and the more days that pass with them sticking to their terrible decision, the less hope I have, especially as I notice absences and the draconian steps already undertaken in advance of the cut off date.
I am picky about what I want in a social media platform. I need it to be free, to allow denate, longer form posts, and not require tech I don't have. I need it to not autoplay at me. (I never bothered with MySpace when that was a thing because one look at all the autoplay noise and flashy pages and I noped on out of there0. I do not want to be forced to use my legal name. I have had stalkers try to follow me home through the social media maze, and while someone concerted enough can for sure do it (like the journalist who traced me through a friend's blog after skye's murder), it's not worth the effort for the average asshole. I like it that way. I like being in control of how much information I give. I live pretty fucking openly these days, especially compared to when I was teaching, but I like it being my choice. The only camera i have is literally my laptop, so sites that are all about pictures taken by the user are no good to me. I liked building an aesthetic brand on tumblr through my reblogs, but I'm not a picture blogger and never could be. I loved a lot of the weird, funny, thoughtful, or moving fanish things I'd come across in a day. I loved things like having a small, but dedicated group of Black Sails enthusiasts to debate my byzantine exegesis with and other people's wonderfully detailed things of a similar nature done from other perspectives and with different types of expertise. I love the serious ASoIaF debaters, because no way could I get that much out of those books myself and it's added hugely to my enjoyment. I loved Tumblr CSI just generally, where people with way better TVs than I would seek out things like what brooch was Kurt Hummel wearing, or what outfit a particular black Lighting character had on, and I loved that there was a German Art history type who tracked down each of the pieces of art in Black sails and they would then write about their symbolic meaning in the context of the show. It is weird and delightful that so many people with so many really interesting brains are out there contributing in ways I never could but which I appreciate. More than half the shows I watch were sold to me by people enticing me lots of cool photosets or commentary or what have yu. Tumblr has brought me so much fun.
So many voices are about to be silenced or scattered; a community I love gone. I will likely miss it more than even Denver MUSH, or early livejoournal when it was still full of my friends most of whom were still posting regularly. I may miss it more, because I can't see anything like an obvious replacement, and if one turns up tomorrow, that's another half decade of building a community of mutual and followers to get the sort of momentum I had a week ago. It's just so stupid and pointless to destroy that for a business decision that seems incredibly self defeating. At least with Livejournal I could see why they made the series of terrible self defeating decisions they did that hollowed it out into a Myspacelike wasteland. It was gradual, as management kept changing hands to increasingly clueless new owners.
This things tumblr has decided to do it itself in one swell foop is so obviously blatantly going to fuck their ad revenue and chase most of what's interesting on there away. It's going to fuck over a lot of micro-businesses, mostly run for subsistence by disabled and other marginalized people who've spent years building a following and for whom this is their most effective sales tool.
I just... Damn.
I am carrying on anyway as if we weren't sailing off the edge of the world in a little over a week. They have made terrible decisions before, but usually rescind them. Never on anything like this scale before and not with half a year's planning, so idk.
* Snerk: https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2018/12/07
* BPAL: Krampus (2012) (Yule (LE)): Sinister red musk, black leather, dusty rags, and wooden switches. Just Below shoulder.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* Trans Helplines: https://www.translifeline.org/
* Want to complaint about Betsy DeVos's plan to coddle college rapists? https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/29/2018-25314/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-in-education-programs-or-activities-receiving-federal#open-comment
* "Trump’s New Wall to Keep Out the Disabled:" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/trumps-disability-public-charge.html
They are soliciting public comment on these draconian regulations until December 10th here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCIS-2010-0012-0001
* Naral https://actnow.prochoiceamerica.org/donate/supportnaral/#.W7nPzmNRfIU
* Planned Paranthood: https://www.weareplannedparenthoodaction.org/onlineactions/hkv0R7LN0E-Q-U5mXFaXRA2?sourceid=1004272&ms=4NALz1800K1N1A&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4I2IxID03QIVA7bACh3CCwHWEAAYASAAEgKlD_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
* "Resources for Male Victims of Abuse:" http://butlerbookbinding.tumblr.com/post/178933672694/resources-for-male-victims-of-abuse
* Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is doing a fundraiser for legal defense of refugee children in ICE detention. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/activism/deliver-them-from-the-hands-of-the-wicked/
* Donate to HIAS to help refugees: https://act.hias.org/page/6048/donate/1
* Want to contribute directly to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services fund? "Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services:" https://www.raicestexas.org/
* Support Kids at the Border: http://brigdh.tumblr.com/post/175022384240/support-the-kids-at-the-border
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* This is a cool person and the swimsuits are being made from an ethical source. LGBTQIA+ swimsuits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NerdyKeppie?ref=l2-shopheader-name§ion_id=24021616
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com or paypal.me/Gwydion
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* "What Angela Merkel Stepping Down Means For Germany:"
* "Manafort told 'multiple lies' after agreeing to cooperate, Mueller says:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/paul-manafort-mueller-special-counsel-filing
* "Cohen spoke with Russian to set up Trump-Putin meeting, Mueller reveals:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/michael-cohen-trump-former-fixer-prison-time
* "5 big takeaways from the new Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort filings:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/07/takeaways-michael-cohen-sentencing-filings/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0908470499cc
* "Trump Goes Off On Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein Ahead of New Bombshells:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-attacks-mueller-team-conflicts-of-interest-as-manafort-cohen-filings-loom
* "George Papadopoulos released from prison:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/george-papadopoulos-prison/index.html
* "thank u, jeff -- Ariana Grande Parody:"
* "Are We Proud Of Him For Not Ruining A Funeral?:"
* "A 'Smoking Saw' In The Khashoggi Murder:"
* Today when I came out for forage, LM was not on my office chair, which is her current favorite afternoon lap location, but when I went to feed the fish, I spotted her nesting comfortably in what had been her favorite sofa nap spot until Tavy came. I had suspected she was scouting the sofa the last few nights. She'd get up on it, look around, and get off again. A couple of nights ago, she even scouted the table. Today she reclaimed her rightful spot and looked so content with it.
* I needed a particular picture of the decorations for a contest: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/180914725302/i-needed-this-for-a-contest-and-this-is-my-image
* My icon on tumblr is a PRIDE flag, and it looks like most queer political blogs and likely anyone who reblogs art history images, I'm getting banned as explicit if they really do the change over on the 17th. I am furious; I am sad. My voice reached a lot of people over there. Not a lot, by famous people standards, obviously. My most popular post only had 33,086 notes when I checked to wrote this, but that's a lot compared to the number of eyes anything I'm likely to say anywhere else is likely to get. It's nearly a half decade old and had nearly 3000 notes in the last month. Not bad for a history rant from someone who made a tumblr because a bunch of my friends had migrated over there during a livejournal exodus. I post a lot, I have regular readers. I'm good enough at it now that most months, something I say gets briefly a thousandish notes a day popular. The thing I posted about "cashless" economy pushing poor people out of public spaces right before bed friday morning had 800+ notes when I checked it in the evening. Again, not much by famous for something real standards, but good for random disabled person writing rants on the Internet about politics standards.
I like it there. I spend several hours a day doing programing and curating. I like all the friends I've made over there. I put a lot of work into building a quite little niche where I liked what I was doing and I liked most of the people I was communicating with. Sometimes something I wrote helped people organize or gave people hope.
I am losing that because of this corporate puritanism bullshit. (And yes, I am aware of how basically this is another thing screwed up in part because we lost net neutrality).
I stand by my refusal to have anything the fuck to do with Facebook. Every news item since it's founding has proved to me this is the right decision. I point to pretty much everything Facebook has done since 2015 as vindication. While I have read interesting twitter chains, The format so isn't for me. *points to like everything I write that isn't a link* Most of the other popular formats aren't for me really.
So I guess my Internet world shrinks to just here and a few other smaller formats, if they don't decide that losing most of their customer is a bad business decision. Livejournal didn't though and the more days that pass with them sticking to their terrible decision, the less hope I have, especially as I notice absences and the draconian steps already undertaken in advance of the cut off date.
I am picky about what I want in a social media platform. I need it to be free, to allow denate, longer form posts, and not require tech I don't have. I need it to not autoplay at me. (I never bothered with MySpace when that was a thing because one look at all the autoplay noise and flashy pages and I noped on out of there0. I do not want to be forced to use my legal name. I have had stalkers try to follow me home through the social media maze, and while someone concerted enough can for sure do it (like the journalist who traced me through a friend's blog after skye's murder), it's not worth the effort for the average asshole. I like it that way. I like being in control of how much information I give. I live pretty fucking openly these days, especially compared to when I was teaching, but I like it being my choice. The only camera i have is literally my laptop, so sites that are all about pictures taken by the user are no good to me. I liked building an aesthetic brand on tumblr through my reblogs, but I'm not a picture blogger and never could be. I loved a lot of the weird, funny, thoughtful, or moving fanish things I'd come across in a day. I loved things like having a small, but dedicated group of Black Sails enthusiasts to debate my byzantine exegesis with and other people's wonderfully detailed things of a similar nature done from other perspectives and with different types of expertise. I love the serious ASoIaF debaters, because no way could I get that much out of those books myself and it's added hugely to my enjoyment. I loved Tumblr CSI just generally, where people with way better TVs than I would seek out things like what brooch was Kurt Hummel wearing, or what outfit a particular black Lighting character had on, and I loved that there was a German Art history type who tracked down each of the pieces of art in Black sails and they would then write about their symbolic meaning in the context of the show. It is weird and delightful that so many people with so many really interesting brains are out there contributing in ways I never could but which I appreciate. More than half the shows I watch were sold to me by people enticing me lots of cool photosets or commentary or what have yu. Tumblr has brought me so much fun.
So many voices are about to be silenced or scattered; a community I love gone. I will likely miss it more than even Denver MUSH, or early livejoournal when it was still full of my friends most of whom were still posting regularly. I may miss it more, because I can't see anything like an obvious replacement, and if one turns up tomorrow, that's another half decade of building a community of mutual and followers to get the sort of momentum I had a week ago. It's just so stupid and pointless to destroy that for a business decision that seems incredibly self defeating. At least with Livejournal I could see why they made the series of terrible self defeating decisions they did that hollowed it out into a Myspacelike wasteland. It was gradual, as management kept changing hands to increasingly clueless new owners.
This things tumblr has decided to do it itself in one swell foop is so obviously blatantly going to fuck their ad revenue and chase most of what's interesting on there away. It's going to fuck over a lot of micro-businesses, mostly run for subsistence by disabled and other marginalized people who've spent years building a following and for whom this is their most effective sales tool.
I just... Damn.
I am carrying on anyway as if we weren't sailing off the edge of the world in a little over a week. They have made terrible decisions before, but usually rescind them. Never on anything like this scale before and not with half a year's planning, so idk.
* Snerk: https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2018/12/07
* BPAL: Krampus (2012) (Yule (LE)): Sinister red musk, black leather, dusty rags, and wooden switches. Just Below shoulder.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* Trans Helplines: https://www.translifeline.org/
* Want to complaint about Betsy DeVos's plan to coddle college rapists? https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/29/2018-25314/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-in-education-programs-or-activities-receiving-federal#open-comment
* "Trump’s New Wall to Keep Out the Disabled:" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/trumps-disability-public-charge.html
They are soliciting public comment on these draconian regulations until December 10th here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCIS-2010-0012-0001
* Naral https://actnow.prochoiceamerica.org/donate/supportnaral/#.W7nPzmNRfIU
* Planned Paranthood: https://www.weareplannedparenthoodaction.org/onlineactions/hkv0R7LN0E-Q-U5mXFaXRA2?sourceid=1004272&ms=4NALz1800K1N1A&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4I2IxID03QIVA7bACh3CCwHWEAAYASAAEgKlD_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
* "Resources for Male Victims of Abuse:" http://butlerbookbinding.tumblr.com/post/178933672694/resources-for-male-victims-of-abuse
* Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is doing a fundraiser for legal defense of refugee children in ICE detention. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/activism/deliver-them-from-the-hands-of-the-wicked/
* Donate to HIAS to help refugees: https://act.hias.org/page/6048/donate/1
* Want to contribute directly to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services fund? "Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services:" https://www.raicestexas.org/
* Support Kids at the Border: http://brigdh.tumblr.com/post/175022384240/support-the-kids-at-the-border
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* This is a cool person and the swimsuits are being made from an ethical source. LGBTQIA+ swimsuits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NerdyKeppie?ref=l2-shopheader-name§ion_id=24021616
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com or paypal.me/Gwydion
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html