Have a great day!

despite me being very passionate, nobody wants to hear about my novel where i imagine planes as types of burrowing creatures. instead people tell me i don't seem very interested in planes or the Planes Enjoyer Convention. this is very mean and judgemental.

eventually i strike up a conversation with someone and they reveal that planes are sometimes used for wars, and they actually like historical "war planes". my heart sinks.

if you do, please do not give it to a woke mind.

You do understand that "woke" just means thinks and cares about others. I sincerely hope my predecessor is "woke". I want them to think about how their design decisions affects everyone.

The first thing I’d do is make the characters actually be adults.  Still young, but adults, in the mid to late 20s range.  Mystery Inc. is a private detective type business that they run together.  In this universe, the supernatural/ghosts/etc are real, but not necessarily common, so when they take on a case, the culprit might be a person disguised as a monster, or it might actually be a real ghost.  The stakes can be higher; sometimes a bad guy is legitimately trying to kill them.  Sometimes the mystery they’re trying to solve is a murder.  Sometimes they actually get hurt on their cases.

Fred: the core of Fred’s character should be that he’s incredibly kind.  Like, give a stranger the shirt off his back kind.  The “Fred can’t talk to potential clients because he might take a case for free and we need to eat” kind.  He’s an honest and good person and sometimes gets himself into trouble because he assumes other people are too.  While he’s not very good at reading people or noticing ulterior motives, he’s brilliant when it comes to mechanical or engineering type stuff, so he’s the one who keeps the mystery machine running, builds their gadgets, and of course, designs the traps.

Daphne: she comes from old money, and her parents absolutely despise her life choices, to the point where they haven’t officially disowned her, but they have basically cut her off, so she doesn’t actually have access to any family money.  Growing up wealthy has granted her a variety of skills, including speaking multiple languages, horseback riding, and fencing.  She’s very into fashion and jewelry (even if she can’t afford it anymore) and has extensive knowledge of both that can occasionally provide a vital clue in a case. And even though her parents have cut her off, Daphne still has a wide network of contacts she can ask for favors sometimes, because she’s personable, and people tend to like her.  Daphne is also very emotionally intelligent, and is usually the one who can spot when someone is lying to them.

Side note - I ship Fred and Daphne, so I think I would start them off as an established couple for this universe.  Dating, engaged, married, I don’t care.  They are stupidly in love, ride or die for each other.  There’s no will they, won’t they, no worries about cheating.  They are in a healthy, happy, loving relationship, and no one (not even Daphne’s disapproving parents) are going to mess that up for them.

Velma: she is the forensics nerd who sometimes gets super excited about the wrong thing at the wrong time (”He was mummified in seconds? That’s so cool!” “Velma!  His wife is standing right there!” “Oh.  Sorry.”).  She’s not purposely insensitive, she just gets laser focused on her work and forgets to filter herself sometimes.  She’s also the one who can get so fixated on solving whatever mystery they’re working on, she’s willing to bend or maybe break laws.  Is breaking and entering really so bad?  Not if it gets them answers.

Shaggy: he is still the comic relief, but he’s the comic relief by being the only person in the group that actually has common sense.  He manages the business’s finances, he’s the only one who knows how to cook, and the others tease him for being a coward sometimes, but Shaggy maintains that if a ghost with an axe is coming for you, running is the only sensible option.  He should also have a range of random knowledge that sounds useless, but sometimes saves the day (ex ventriloquism, origami, the history of spoons, etc).

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

-No clear action plan for anti harassment tools beyond "prioritization"

-Alludes to a "real" reason for predstrogen's ban but doesn't elaborate

-Doesn't comment on the many of Matt's critics who were deleted en masse.

-No explanation of why there are still cisgender porn accounts everywhere.

-No actions to unban predstrogen, or the other affected trans woman users, not even a gesture that they can return. Nada.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you claim there are rumors and "misinformation", then prove it with evidence. If you support the trans community, then reverse the wrongful bans and deletions.

I’m happy there are trans and queer staff at tumblr, but you cannot just say “we’re trans and think this is okay” and miraculously the issue goes away. You’re still a part of the problem.

Matt shouldn’t be the CEO if he’s going to act like a child and ban people for being mean to him. Actively threatening someone’s life is one thing, but banning someone for saying “I hope he gets run over by a car with hammers on it” (paraphrasing, I can’t remember what the original post was) is not the same as saying “I’m going to find you and run you over; I know where you live” with actual evidence of a real threat. And, frankly, you look like a little bitch for being that offended by something that was meant to express anger but with a little bit of silly. People get anon hate MUCH worse than that and those users still haven’t been banned 🤔

It’s interesting how tumblr is usually the place where we can say things you’d normally get banned for on TikTok and the like. We can talk about how we wanted the queen to die and say the same about Charles and Trump, etc, but the moment you criticize staff in this way, it’s no longer okay and results in a ban?

Why isn’t predstogren being reactivated?

What did she do to warrant a ban if it wasn’t the car with hammers thing?

Why on earth did this all start out over a comparison picture of herself before and after starting HRT?

Then it's time to pull out the weary, the forsaken, the downtrodden, the maligned, the OPUHRESSED gender non-conforming cis man! Whose femboy gender identity is comparable to being a trans woman and is so queer that they don't even have to be queer to be queer! It's in fact time to posit that femboys and trans women are closer than the trans women want to admit.

Unless of course you're reacting to a trans woman making the aforementioned egg joke. Then you must act disgusted and appalled that she would dare to imply that maybe they might be trans or trans adjacent or anything that's not the capital C Cis+ which, reminder, is the queerest gender there is. You must decry trans women for pushing the societal expectation that any man who even so much as looks at a skirt to immediately come out as trans which by the way doesn't echo the anti-trans conspiracy theory that "woke" teachers are forcing gender non-conforming children to transition. No no obviously trans women making egg jokes are just as bad as the bigots attempting to force them to detransition.

It's "let men be feminine" which as we all know trans women are the gatekeepers of femininity. It's trans women who are the sole oppressors of GNC men. Like when they reclaim transmisoginistic caricatures that have already been claimed as "femboy icons" by *GASP* head cannoning them as trans! They're stealing femboy representation! Heaven forbid the creator legitimizes the transness of their beloved traps. Which as we all know is a slur against GNC men and not a porn category that dehumanizes trans women and gets slapped on any transfem artwork on any site that allows for community recommendation of tags/labels. It's not like it literally started on 4chan with chuds going "haha ur gay" jokes about being attracted to Bridget. Who by the way still has the femboy community are still pissing their panties on reddit about the BETRAYAL of her trans confirmation.

Do you not see how trans women oppress gender non-conforming cis men and should be held personally responsible for coddling their precious fee fees! Do you not see how the one group that reaps the most benefits from transmisoginy, who gets fame and wealth for presenting as fem while assuring everyone that they should not worry for they are still cis, do you not see how they are actually the most affected by transmisogy? And how that makes any trans woman using TME/TMA a savage infighter who seeks to divide our community?

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1) The word translated as “forbidden” is “toevah.” While that translation isn’t … wrong, it’s sort of like saying “McMansion” means “really big house.” There are a lot of connotations in that word. The specific issue with toevah is that we … sort of … don’t know anymore exactly what it meant. Based on context, it seems likely that the word referred to something ritually forbidden. This part of Torah was written not only as a guide for future generations, but also to say “so, look around, see your neighbors? DON’T DO THAT.“ Thus, if we interpret “toevah” to mean something that’s forbidden to do as a ritual before G-d, then the verse says nothing whatsoever about Adam and Steve and their two kids and their dog–it’s saying you shouldn’t have sex with another man in the Temple as a sacrifice.

2) Following the same “this is ritually forbidden” logic of toevah, this verse may also be interpreted as “don’t do sex magic,” which was a thing in. Like. A lot of fucking cultures at the time.

3) Hebrew is a highly gendered language, and the grammatical gender in this verse is really really weird. One of the “men” in this verse is given female grammar. Why? Who fucking knows, man, this isn’t the only grammatical oddity in Torah. (There are also places where G-d is referred to as plural, and also as female.) One suggestion is that this is a way of creating a diminutive–that is, that the verse should be read as “a man should not lie with a boy.” Now, it’s worth noting that modern secular scholarship has concluded the written Torah was written down around the 6th century BCE, and most non-Orthodox Jewish scholars are like “yeah, all things considered, that sounds pretty legit.”

Do you know what else was happening around the 6th century BCE? What laypeople tend to mean when they say “ancient Greece” was happening.

Do you know what happened a lot in that time period in Greece? Dudes forming relationships with younger boys, like ages 10-15, and using them for sex in exchange for financial gifts, mentorship, etc. While we don’t know just how young some of these younger boys may have been, we do know some were prepubescent. In light of this, and also something I mentioned under the first point–”see your neighbors? DON’T DO THAT,” if this verse is interpreted to say “a man should not lie with a boy,” then it’s pretty clearly “my dudes, my fellows, my lads, don’t be fucking pedophiles.”

4) Because of the grammar I mentioned in #3, it’s also possible that “should not lie with a man as with a woman” is actually referring to a place, not an abstract personhood: a man shouldn’t have sex with another man in a woman’s bed. In the time period, a woman’s bed was sort of like–that was her place, her safe sanctuary. It was also a ritually holy place where babies were made. By having sex in her bed, you’re violating her safe space (and also introducing a man who may not be a male relative, thus forcing her into breaking the laws of modesty). If this verse is read this way, then it should be taken to mean “don’t sexually violate a woman’s safety and modesty.” 5) And as an offshoot of #4, this may be a second verse relating to infidelity. Which woman’s bed is any random dude in 600 BCE most likely to have access to? His wife’s. But laws were administered differently based on whether the person they pertained to was slave or free, male or female, and so on–thus, a man committing adultery with a woman would be treated differently than man committing adultery with a man (especially because the latter would carry no chance of an illegitimate pregnancy).

That's the Atlantic and the Caribbean on a particularly pronounced day.

This is the Indian and the Pacific. It's not always this obvious everywhere but the dividing lines are very much there.

Oceans have their own properties as far as temperature and salinity and unless something like a storm or a current forces them to mix they won't. Mostly this applies to vertical mixing and it gives you things like thermoclines and haloclines but water is wierd and won't mix horizontally either.

The ocean basins tend to have their own currents that go in a circle and define that ocean, and those patterns mix the water within that ocean. Like a washing machine.

And while the ocean gyres are real, as far as i know they are not self contained. Theres many large ocean currents that mix water between the different gyres and a whole global cycle of cold/warm water. I wish i had my old geography textbook on hand rn cuz I only remember parts of this.

I think the best way to explain XIV is that it's a game that you can play for a very very VERY long time but you can also take your time and digest it at your own pace. It's not designed to eat your sub money every month, the developers have outright said "hey, get what you want out of our game, no matter how long you sub"

There's a *lot* of content in the game if you're invested, but the base game (The main story) is wonderful and more than enough of a game to satisfy. There's no grind if you don't want to engage in that.

There's an entire hub dedicated to mini games, there's a roguelite dungeon mode, there's boss fights, there's high-tier raiding and it's all built around a super solid story!