ruralparamedic

As Sonic slammed through the enemy’s weapons Knuckles slid to a stop next to Shadow and threw his body protectively over the black hedgehog’s smaller form, a hand resting on Shadow’s head, and face turning to snarl at the soldiers. Only when significant damage had been done did Sonic skid to a stop, standing between the soldiers and Shadow with his arms spread wide, blue lightning rippling off his form. The quiet that fell over the field wasn’t complete, but it was still numbing. “Stay down, new hedgehog. I’ll keep you safe,” Knuckles spoke quietly to Shadow when he tried to push himself up despite the form over him. He smelled of blood mixed with ash, and Knuckles could hear the slight wheeze in his painfully heavy breaths. It was a simple command, but Knuckles was uncertain if the way Shadow’s form relaxed after a moment was a good thing or not. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open.

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“Mr. Wachowski. Care to enlighten me why you’re here?” Commander Walters returned the greeting. “Well, I live here,” Tom answered with a brief smile. “Green Hills is right over there, in case you weren’t aware. We’d appreciate it if the military wasn’t firing off weapons so close to town.” “A minor incident. We have it under control, and will be leaving shortly.” Sonic snorted and opened his mouth to shoot a bitter reply, but Tom stopped him with a hand. “Great! Well then, I’ll just pick up my kids, and we’ll pretend this never happened. We can tell the town you were cleaning up a rogue Eggman drone?” Tom suggested brightly. That got Commander Walters to crack a fake smile. “Ah. Yes, that should do nicely.” “Cool! Keeping it simple. I like it,” Tom breathed, clapping his hands together and turning slightly. “Honey, is kid number four safe to move?” “Four?” Commander Walters spoke in mildly confused protest. “Uhhhhh yeah. Two right here, and then two over there with Maddie makes four,” Tom returned easily, pointing to Sonic and Tails near him, and then Knuckles and Shadow as Maddie reached them. Commander Walters cleared his throat. “I’m sorry Mr. Wachowski, there seems to be a misunderstanding. Project Shadow is property of G.U.N.. I can’t allow you to take it.” “Huh,” Tom voiced, forcing a pause. “That’s strange. I thought slavery was illegal in the United States.” “You know what I mean.” “No, I actually don’t. Care to enlighten me how kidnapping a lost child and subjecting him to experimentation and indefinite imprisonment is something the government does?” Commander Walters’ expression twitched, and Tom started nodding his head. “Yeah, we figured some things out,” Tom confirmed the unspoken, possible question. It prompted Commander Walters to change tactics, shifting his shoulders and drawing a breath for a new conversation. “We’re simply containing a dangerous weapon. It’s standard procedure.” “Excuse me? The only dangerous weapon we’ve had to deal with recently was that moon slicing cannon your people built. The one that my kids stopped, because some nutcase stole it from you. Remember that?” “Didn’t he almost kill you in the process?” “Because he thought I was you!” Tom snapped. ”And seeing what you've done to him now I can see why his first reaction to seeing you was to fight!” “He's dangerous-” “He is a child!” Tom bellowed. “And if you would treat him as one, as a person, instead of a weapon he may have come to like you instead of wanting to kill you the moment he saw you! Now are you going to take my suggestion and get the hell out of here without a fuss, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?”

____________________

“I think he passed out.” Maddie faltered for a moment, but then pushed through, somewhat reassured since they were already in the clinic. “Alright. That’s okay, bring him over here,” Maddie directed, pointing to a shallow bathing station. “We need to get him clean. Can you get his gloves and shoes off?” she gave for further instruction before turning to her three boys. “Knuckles, take your brothers to the front room and call Uncle Wade to come help watch you three.” “But I wanna help!” Sonic protested, already having been dancing around their feet staying out of the way but also trying to stay as close as he could. “I know, but this is a little more intense than I’d like you to have to deal with,” Maddie assured, running her hand over his head. “I’ll be good, I’ll listen.” “No, Sonic,” Maddie stressed. “I’m gonna have to do surgery to fix his ribs, and I don’t want any of you to see that. Okay?” Sonic’s eyes went wide, and Maddie raised her hands to steady him if needed. It was a little blunt, but she didn’t have time to keep trying to convince him. “It’ll be okay, boys. I’ll take care of it. So just be good for Wade, alright?” “I’ll watch over them, mother,” Knuckles assured, moving forward with Tails already clinging to him and putting a hand around Sonic. “Come. Let us contact our Uncle, then construct a plan to welcome Shadow home.”

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Iiiiiii have a lot of scattered incoherent thoughts about Shadow getting adopted that I cannot figure out how to string together in a straight story, so I'm just doodling and writing the lil bits that pop into my head. 8 |

Something about Shadow trying to find his inhibitor rings again, but he only gets the 2 for his legs and G.U.N. finds the other 2 first, which leads to Shadow trying to steal them back but inevitably getting worn down by them and his own chaos energy beating him up. So he gives in and goes to Green Hills to find Sonic for help because "I thought that...since you wouldn't kill me… even after all I did, all I said, I thought that maybe…. maybe… you could help me"

This all took long enough that the Wachowski fam had enough time to talk things over about everything.

This also might be the 'I may have beat Shadow up a lil too much haha whoops' headspace 'cause he ended up with this list of injuries by the time the fam got him:

2 displaced broken ribs on the right (stabilized by Maddie with pins to be removed later)

broken right arm

broken left leg

injured right lung (causes wheezing mostly)

large laceration on right torso and right thigh

I'm still not sure if I want Walters to be the one there chasing Shadow or if it should be the other military lady and Walters helps stop them and let Tom and Maddie take Shadow 8 |

We usually know who is on what ambulance unit and where the other ambulances are. They have GPS trackers on them/on the ambulance's phone, so dispatch can see where they are. Jasper is a small town, so their EMS/Fire dept is likely small as fuck. So the first responders all likely know each other and what's going on.

NO ONE can track this weird ass ambulance. Dispatch has no idea where it came from.

The other medics in Jasper being like "what fucking unit is that" or "what THE FUCK." There's no department marking or star of life on Ratchet's alt's exterior, but it has lights and sirens. Which is fucking illegal.

Imagine you have a chill best friend who is the voice of reason between the two of you, but he goes through a trauma that turns him into a roiling pit of rage. You keep reaching out to him and he keeps shoving you away. He is suddenly getting fusion cannon boners from beating the shit out of potential allies, and you have to beg him not to blow said ally's head off. Your friend frames this restraint as "the last time I will show mercy."

When Orion says "Don't be like Sentinel", I don't think he means "Um, have you considered that ACTUALLY this is not The Proper Way to change the government?", I think he means "You are losing yourself and it's scaring me and it's hurting you."

February 1, 2022

I’m so so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

WHAT IS THE EARN IT ACT?

The EARN IT Act has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal's EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.

What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of "protecting kids" to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids.

The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works -- without fear of liability for any "failure." Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on "obscenity" as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill?

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don't know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the "make child pornography worse" bill, but here we are.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.

I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.

It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.

202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

More sources to read about this bill:

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-earn-it-act-is-anti-evidence

Fight for the Future’s Statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678EW8v09z8&t=1s

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20220131/22423648395/senates-new-earn-it-bill-will-make-child-exploitation-problem-worse-not-better-still-attacks-encryption.shtml

EARN IT Act treats Myths as Facts.

https://surviveearnit.com/what-is-the-earn-it-act/ From 2020, but little has changed about the bill.

https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/earn-it-act-back

Center for Democracy and Technology’s Statement

There was this post circulating around Tumblr a while back talking about how “useless” it is to try and call your senators. But, while it’s less effective than most of us would like and you should do other methods if you can, the main wrinkle to people pushing back against that is that it does matter if a bunch of constituents are complaining about the same issue in aggregate, notifying that it’s a widely held sentiment.

“People have always felt a sort of ownership over art, and that’s actually good. It’s why you keep a book on your shelf and return to it, it’s why you hang a picture on your wall that speaks to you. But when this gets out of hand and you mistake access or a personal connection with your rights, as happens so often in our Internet age, it leads to a dangerous sense of entitlement. That’s why readers feel empowered to complain, directly to the creator, that a book or show doesn’t have absolutely everything they want: the romantic pairing they’d hoped for, the language they find most friendly, the ending they desired. And it’s also why, for instance, the last Harry Potter book leaked on the internet before it was officially published: fans saw the book as something they were owed, not the product of labor that deserved compensation. Not that J.K. Rowling needs more money—but she, and all authors, deserve to have their work recognized as work.

And of the authors that reported that they were, in fact, full-time authors, only 63% had ANY earnings to report. The average of those who did earn something was $43,247. Which means, looking at the difference between the median and average, the average is heavily weighted by the superstars.

MOST of your favorite authors are either working a second (or third, or more) job, have a partner who earns more money, or is living hand-to-mouth, or some combination of the three. 

Libraries are your friends. Most have ebook collections now. I know readers gotta eat, but writers do too.

Amazon can afford to throw money from exploited workers towards random shit like making an MMO and trying to destroy libraries. Libraries cannot fight that kind of financial might. It's our job to see amazon, tell it no, and choose libraries instead. As often as we can.