Mad Madam M

I have! I only drew very few fanart of it despite loving the series so much but I only posted them on twitter, here they are if you’re curious 😭

When people discuss the importance of using things, such as special plates, candles, special clothes- they will say that it's best to use them all the time, and that this makes each day special or something like that.

Which is only part of the picture if you ask me.

It's good not to hoard things forever, but if you use everything all the time, it also leaves certain special times as kind of indistinct from anything else. Like having a Christmas tree up all year kind of takes something away from it.

So here's my rephrasing: special things should have a concrete time of use, not an abstract one.

If you have an outfit you love but have it dedicated to only wear once a year on a specific day? Totally fine! You are using it, and it is contributing something to your life.

If you have plates that you'll only use 'for a special occasion' but haven't touched them in years? Evidently you don't know how to recognize a special occasion and should try and think of more specific qualifiers.

—Did you know that Juneteenth is also celebrated in a part of Mexico? Nacimiento Mexico was once home to thousands who escaped slavery in the US. As many as 10,000 slaves followed a clandestine Southern Underground Railroad to Mexico. —To date, many Black Mexicans from the Texas area retrace a portion of the same route their African American ancestors followed in 1850 when they escaped slavery. —Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions in the village of Nacimiento. —Slave hunters would patrol the southern border for escapees, led by the Texas Rangers but the Mexican army would be there waiting for them (the slave hunters) to turn them away.

It wasn't some kind of upswell of American Patriotism and MUH FREEDUMS. It was rich slaveowners deciding they'd rather start a war than give up their slaves.

We’re in the final 48 hours of our crowdfunding campaign to publish the anthology Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales!

With Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, our authors and artists bring our perspective as queer adults in the 21st century to the stories, some ancient, some modern, that meant the most to us when we were young. Each creator selected a folktale, fairy tale, myth, or legend that had personal significance for them, then reimagined these personal touch-stones as we wish they could be: stories that uphold our cultures, stories that impart the lessons and morals we wish to impart, stories that drive home the cautions we wish we’d received, stories in which people like us are the heroes held forth for emulation. We’ve transformed these stories to be more inclusive, more personal, more understanding of others, and—of course!—much more queer.

Hitting our base goal, of course, ensures we can publish. But hitting our stretch goals is also super helpful, as they enable us to increase the pay of all our creators. We’d love to be able to do that, and raises for this many creators add up fast, so please please signal boost this last push for our Kickstarter if you’re able.

Curious what they’ve made? Check out our many reveals and teasers!

Cover Reveal, art by Jinx Inks

Merch Reveal 1: Stickers by Alessa Riel and Elias Strunck, Bookmark by Jagoda Zirebiec

Merch Reveal 2: Enamel Pendant by Aceriee, Slate Coaster by Clare DeZutti

Merch Reveal 3: Journal by Aceriee, Art Print of the Front Cover, and Window Hanging by Betta

Contributor Post 1: zazrichor, Shea Sullivan, H. Armstrong, and T. L. Sly

Contributor Post 2: Cris Alborja, Kendall Pletcher, E. V. Dean, and Sage Mooreland

Contributor Post 3: Anne Hessel, Elias Strunck, Lyonel Loy, and R. L. Houck

Contributor Post 4: Razz, Florilége, Zel Howland, and J. D. Rivers

Contributor Post 5: Amalia Zeichnerin, Sam Inverts, Isabelle Delisle, and ilgaksu

Contributor Post 6: May Barros, Max Jason Peterson, Joy Summers, and Mikki Madison

Contributor Post 7: Xander Day McCafferty, J. Radin, Em Rowntree, and Nicola Kapron

Contributor Post 8: radicalhoodie, Luck Stellaluna Faer, S. J. Ralston, and Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Contributor Post 9: guoldu, Clare DeZutti, Terra P. Waters, and Robin S. Blackwood

Contributor Post 10: Betta, Aceriee, J. D. Harlock, and Alex Pfaw

Contributor Post 11: As Cores Da Lua (Lulu), Jupiter V, Sue Wilson Munro, and boneturtle

This is a commission I asked @furiarossa a couple of years ago featuring David Xanatos and Owen Burnett as salmon mermen, with Xanatos trying to attract the attention of a female, redhead fox shark 😏

You can find more info about this species along with more art here:

https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist

Install this blocklist using the instructions on the GitHub page. For Firefox, you will need to install uBlockOrigin for this. Google Chrome no longer allows the uBlockOrigin extension, so I'm assuming you're at least primarily a Firefox user - or about to be (see browser alternatives below).

For Google Chrome or mobile browsers, this will work with uBlacklist. See the GitHub page for full details on compatibility.

Remove AI Widgets:

If you go to your uBlockOrigin Filter lists page, you can select to filter out AI Widgets - this should completely remove the 'AI Mode' widget/button from your Google search page, in addition to the work done by the Huge AI Blocklist.

Using the uBlockOrigin Huge AI Blocklist filter has made my Google searches look like they used to, and gives me genuine search results.

Look at this. It's beautiful. It's informative. It's not a heap of burning trash bloated with fake information made up by a hallucinating chat bot.

We can go even further: return to the old school search results.

Now, the above results are great and should be free of generative AI junk, but some people would rather not see any of the summary widgets or 'people also ask' box at all. Fear not! You can remove all that by using the 'Web' mode in the Google search bar. Click the 'More' drop down menu and select 'Web'.

Huzzah! Incredible. It's like a functional search engine again.

You can make this the default Google search mode in Google Chrome using Method 1 from this page (https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/). Unfortunately, I don't know if there's a way to do this in Firefox too. This is why for the most part I still use DuckDuckGo (see below) as my default search engine, and only use Google to supplement my searches on the rare occasion I'm just missing something.

Remember, if you clear your cookies, your search engine preferences will reset, including any settings you enabled/disabled to avoid AI. This applies to DuckDuckGo as well; check your settings every time you clear your browser!

Extra filters (optional):

I've also added four filters (their order doesn't matter) to the My Filters page. Full disclosure: I'm not sure they still work, or may only work on Chrome, but I'm keeping them anyway, just in case.

From https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1i7kg83/comment/m8lllwr/: see which solution in the list works for you, it seems to be different for everybody.

google.*##div[jscontroller]:not(:has(div[jscontroller].YzCcne)):has(.YzCcne)

From https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/:

www.google.com##.Beswgc

www.google.com##.olrp5b

www.google.com##.hdzaWe

Make sure you hit the apply changes button when you add filters.

Browser alternatives: escaping Google Chrome.

If you haven't jumped ship from Chrome yet, I'd recommend doing so. Sometimes Chrome outperforms Firefox for niche purposes or because a website doesn't bother to fully support non-Chrome browsers, but the days of Chrome being the superior browser are long gone — by about 10 years. If you're trying to escape Chromium browsers, beware that a lot of the popular Chrome alternatives are just Chrome in a different hat.

Firefox has been the most popular non-Chromium browser for years, and for good reason. However, the company running Mozilla Firefox has annoyed their users, me included, by refusing to take an anti- generative-ai stance, and even included AI features in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Most Firefox users specifically use it because they hate Google's enshittification and want a privacy-focused, clean browser that doesn't hog their RAM and CPU for no reason. So, you can imagine that Mozilla's attitude has pissed us all off recently. You can turn off the AI features in Firefox with the built-in settings, but the company has recently steered straight into the burning garbage heap by saying they want to make the browser based on AI.

Waterfox and LibreWolf:

There are really good alternatives based on Firefox (open-source) which are not affiliated with Mozilla (the company), if you don't like how it operates. Waterfox and LibreWolf are even more trimmed down and privacy-focused than Mozilla's Firefox, and don't use AI. Anti-ai statements: Waterfox and LibreWolf.

From this page: https://programming.dev/post/42546774

In short: LibreWolf is for those who want a “locked-down” fortress out of the box, while Waterfox is for those who want a privacy-conscious browser that still feels like a normal, convenient daily driver. Choose LibreWolf if: You want the highest level of privacy without having to manually edit config files, and you don’t mind occasionally “fixing” a broken website or re-logging into accounts. Choose Waterfox if: You want a privacy-respecting browser that supports Firefox Sync, has an Android counterpart, and handles streaming sites/logins without any extra friction (it supports WideWine out of the box, which lets you stream DRM protected content (netflix, hulu, disney, etc). — [email protected]

I've heard good things about both of these browsers and will investigate them further to decide whether to personally switch from Mozilla Firefox.

DuckDuckGo:

I would also recommend installing the DuckDuckGo extension to your browsers and setting it to be your default search engine.

I've had DuckDuckGo installed on my browsers, Chrome or Firefox, for like 10 years now. It is a good search engine, it's unobtrusive, and blocks trackers, cookies, and does not save any data about you. I've also used it as my default mobile browser for years, along with Firefox mobile, which you can add the AI Blocklist to (see again the GitHub page). I haven't tried the DuckDuckGo desktop browser yet, but I imagine it works just fine like the mobile version. I think DuckDuckGo's browser is also Chromium-based, at least indirectly. I use Firefox with the DuckDuckGo extension so I can have a widely-supported, non-Chromium browser, but include all of DuckDuckGo's anti-tracking features.

Note: DuckDuckGo has included AI in its browser product, however you can opt-out of all AI features with the built-in settings and they will not push it on you like Google does. I hope they remove AI features entirely in the future, but for now I am comfortable with the barriers in place to keep AI out of my face. Firefox also has AI features like Chrome does, which you can turn off with the built-in settings.

There's also noai.duckduckgo search, an alternative version of its normal search engine which removes AI-generated images and turns off AI results/assists by default. Even though DuckDuckGo's inclusion of any AI features annoys me, its policy to make these features 100% optional builds trust with this browser/extension/search engine.

You can always use Google search if you need to, but with uBlockOrigin and the AI Blocklist filter added on, at least you shouldn't have AI-altered search results or the AI overview anymore.

Other browsers exist, probably:

There are certainly more non-Chromium alternatives out there, but Firefox, Waterfox, and LibreWolf are the top three recommended to me. That link to alternatives, plus this ComputerCity page are the best lists I could find in a brief search. If you google "non-Chromium browsers" you'll get a lot of mixed results which require a bit of digging to realise they're not really recommending you what you looked for at all.

I've heard about Ecosia over the years, and while I like the idea of a search engine that plants a tree for each query, I don't think that's actually what happens — at least, that's what they used to be reputed to do, but I believe that's an unsustainable business model which has likely changed. In 2026, Ecosia says it uses 100% of its profits for the planet and runs its search engine off clean energy. That's cool! It's still Chromium-based. And it also uses generative AI for chat bots, so I don't trust its principles on environmentalism. I need to do more reading on this to form a stronger opinion about it.

I hope this post has helped at least some of you have a better experience browsing the web and googling your questions.

is wanting to be a wife and mother a requirement for being a woman?

why might OP be annoyed with replies assuming that this post is about being aroace or transmasc if a woman doesn’t want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to sexuality and romantic interest that might make a woman not want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to gender identity and expression that might make a woman not want to be a wife and mother?

core concept: what is gender essentialism?

is it gender essentialism to imply that all women inherently want to be wives and mothers? could this be what OP is critiquing?

look at the notes OP responds to. is it gender essentialism to imply that being a wife and mother is so affixed to womanhood that to not want to be those things means you’re incapable of sexual/romantic feelings, or not a woman?

I watched this documentary once about drinking culture in the UK and in it there was a doctor who was emphasizing how alcohol is a known carcinogen and drinking too often has these health risks.

She also admitted that she drinks alcohol more than the recommended amount.

Like somebody trying to inform you about what you’re doing isn’t always a demand that you change your ways. You can choose to do something that’s bad for you. You can choose to do something that’s mean or inefficient or boring or rude or whatever other negative descriptor. You’re just going to experience the consequences of doing that. And sometimes people will try to inform you of the possible consequences. That’s not automatically an attack on you.