nonbinary rat

A) the most venomous lizard in north america is called the Gila Monster

B) I’m no expert obviously but that boy there sure looks like a Gila Monster

C) from the Gila Monster wikipedia article, here is the funniest doctor that ever lived:

"I have never been called to attend a case of Gila monster bite, and I don't want to be. I think a man who is fool enough to get bitten by a Gila monster ought to die. The creature is so sluggish and slow of movement that the victim of its bite is compelled to help largely in order to get bitten."

people don’t just deserve clothes, they deserve nice clothes that are well made and fit their personal style

I hope this message finds you in the best of circumstances. I write to you today with my heart heavy with concerns and hope at the same time, hoping that my words will resonate with you.

My family lives in the Gaza Strip, where their daily life has become a constant struggle for survival in the face of genocide and starvation. Every day that passes, we struggle to make a living and dream of a better life, a life not threatened by shells, hunger and fear.

I have reached a point where I cannot bear to see my loved ones suffer any longer. I want to save my family from this hell, and give them a chance to live in a safe and stable place. I chose Egypt as a place to go, where we could start a new life away from all this pain.

For this reason, today I turn to you with a request for support and assistance. The cost of moving my family from the Gaza Strip to Egypt is far beyond my means. I need your generous donations to fund this trip and secure a better future for us. Every contribution, no matter how small, will make a big difference in our lives.

I know there are many people in need in this world, but I ask you to look with compassion at my situation and the circumstances of my family. Your help will save a life and restore hope to our hearts.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and interest. I pray to God to reward you with all the best for your giving and generosity.

with all gratitude and appreciation,

Verified by @el-shab-hussein 🙏

If you live in the EU, you absolutely need to pay attention to what's to come. What is Chat Control, you may ask? In a (failed) attempt to combat child abuse online the EU made Chat Control, Chat Control will result in getting your private messages and emails to be scanned by artificial intelligence aka AI to search for CSAM pictures or discussion that might have grooming in there. And on top of having your private conversations handed to AI or the police to snoop in, like your family pictures, selfies, or more sensitive pics, like the medical kind, only meant to be seen by your doctors, or the "flirtatious" kind you send to your partner, you either have to ACCEPT to be scanned...or else you will be forbidden from sending pictures, videos, or even links, as said here.

Kids should absolutely be protected online, without question, but the things that Chat Control gets wrong is that this is a blatant violation of privacy, without even considering the fact that AI WILL create tons of false positives, this is not a theory, this is a fact. And for all the false positives that will be detected, all of them will be sent to the police, which will just flood their system with useless junk instead of efficiently putting resources to actual protect kids from predators.

It also does not help that politicians, police officers, soldiers etc will be exempt from Chat Control if it passes. If it's for the sake of protection, shouldn't everyone get the same treatment? Which further prove that Chat Control would NOT keep your data of private life safe. Plus, bad actors will simply stop using messenger apps as soon as they know they're being tracked, using more obscure means, meanwhile innocent people will be punished by using those services On top of this, the EU also plans on reintroducing Data retention called "EU Going Dark". Both Chat Control and EU Going Dark are clear violation of the GDPR, and even if they shouldn't stand a chance in court, its not going to prevent politicians from trying to ram these through as an excuse to mass surveil European citizens, using kids as a shield. Even teenagers sending pictures to each other won't be exempt, which entirely goes against the purpose of protecting kids by retaining their private photos instead. Furthermore, once messaging apps are forced to comply with Chat Control, the president of Signal, a secured messaging app with encryption, have confirmed that they will be forced to leave the EU if this is enforced against them.

If Chat Control also ends up targeting any websites with the option of private messages, you better expect Europe to be geo-blocked by any websites offering such function. I would also like to add that EU citizens were very vocal in the fight against KOSA, an equally bad internet bill from the US-- and it showed! Which is why we heavily need the help of our fellow US peers to fight against Chat Control too, so please, because we all know if it passes, the US government will take a look at this and conclude "Ooh, a way to force mass surveillance on citizens even more than before? don't mind if I do!" It's always a snowball effect.

KEEP IN MIND THE EUROPE COUNCIL WILL LIKELY VOTE ON CHAT CONTROL THIS 19 JUNE OF NEXT WEEK TO SEE IF IT WILL ENTER TRILOGIES OR NOT. Even if it does enter Trilogues, the fight will only be beginning. Absentees may not count as a no, so it is crucial that you contact your MEPs HERE, as well as HERE, and you can also show your support for Edri's campaign against Chat Control HERE.

You can read more on Chat Control here as well, and you can find useful information as to which arguments to use when politely contacting your MEP (calling is better than email) here, and beneath you will find graphics you can use to spread the word!

YOU CAN ALSO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER (linked here) TO HELP ORGANIZE AGAINST CHAT CONTROL NON EU PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO JOIN TOO!

https://discord.gg/FPDJYkUujM

PLEASE REBLOG ! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT ! Let's fight for our Internet and actually keep kids safe online! Because Chat Control and EU Going Dark will only endanger kids.

PLEASE REBLOG! NON EU PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO REBLOG AS WELL CONTACT YOUTUBERS, CONTENT CREATORS, ANYONE YOU KNOW THAT MAY HELP GET THE WORD OUT !

Okay, but check out this video from mid-May 2022 of a Kestrel Dad who just kept piling up voles and mice beside his babies when the mom was injured/killed/mia’d by owls…but then watched one of his babies just swallow a lizard and went “OH. I can feed them small food!” and learned to tear it apart!

….the three chicks who were taken out of the nest for intensive care after the mom disappeared were put back in, and he just started feeding them, too.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"Censorship of some topics in fiction and art is good and I would be happy if it were to be enacted in a way I approved of"

and

"some things should be banned from ever being written or read about in fiction"

are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.

Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.

If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.

Either you’re for it or you aren’t.

The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.

Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?

When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.

Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?

When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.

Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.

Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.

Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??

The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.

The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.

This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.

In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."

Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".

Take for example the argument the pro-censorship keep perpetuating, sexual abuse. Say there’s an author that writes a story basically fetishizing it. Am i gonna like it? No. Will I read it? No. Would I support the author? No. If I owned a publishing company, would I put that book under my brand? No. I probably wouldn’t let the author come back in the future either.

But if I were to write a law that said they can’t write that, then it’s going to spread like a wildfire. Stories that paint it in a bad light will be censored too. The thing is, there’s no “this book is good so it won’t be banned, this book is bad so it will be banned” about it. Bad people will throw the same laws we use to silence them right back at us, until nobody can say anything.

With that out of the way..

If I don't get nuked, by the way, my intent is to keep talking about this. The idea is to put staff in a damning position. If I disappear, if the people in my tags saying they have no plans to delete disappear, then y'all know exactly what happened and why. If I don't, then I'm still here, making sure y'all keep hearing the news about who they've nuked this time.

This shit has gone on long enough. It's fucking pride month, and Staff has been scorching and salting the earth on transfems here more strongly than ever. Vetted Palestinian blogs are vanishing in complete silence. People of color are on worse egg shells than ever. We have to stand together.

I could not be more gravely serious when I say make this a PR nightmare for them. Get journalists looking at this case. Make the story inescapable. Tumblr is erasing all the trans women. Tumblr is erasing dissent. Tumblr is sliding into full draconian lockdown and is using sheer administrative force to try to take control of the narrative.

FUCK YOU, MATT. FUCK YOU, STAFF.