wormbussy

The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands is a micronation near Australia.  This is their flag:

The Gay Kingdom (as it is colloquially known) was founded in 2004 in protest against Australia’s legal stance against same-sex marriage.

Here are some of their stamps:

They are currently ruled by Emperor Dale I, and their currency is the Pink Dollar.

they have a declaration of independence that talks a bit about gay rights and then just flat out copies the “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” part from the american declaration of independence. and here’s the best part: the founding group actually elected their emperor. he was originally going to be called the “administrator” of a republic. their website, however, says that “upon legal advice, his title was changed to that of Sovereign on the grounds that under Australian law a defacto prince trying to claim his crown cannot be charged with treason”. so they made it a kingdom and he now claims to be a descendent of edward ii.

everything about this is glorious and everyone should know about it.

As previously mentioned, the idea originated at Pride (Brisbane 2003) in reaction to punitive anti-marriage legislation

“On the 14th day of June 2004, at this highest point in the Coral Sea, Emperor Dale Parker Anderson raised the gay rainbow flag and claimed the islands of the Coral Sea in his name as homeland for the gay and lesbian peoples of the world. God Save our King!”

The campsite/capital Heaven was named after the London nightclub

War was declared on Australia in September 2004

The aforementioned stamps were issued in July 2006 “with the aim of creating a high and distinctive reputation amongst the philatelic fraternity”

They were never recognized legally/internationally as a micronation (and in fact Anderson refused to attend a conference in 2010 because they weren’t actually trying to be a sovereign nation)

In Feb 2017, Abetz was objecting to the flag of a “hostile nation” being flown

None of the signup methods require a password. It only takes email and birthday. Minimizing time on the signin or signup screen makes it harder for people quitting to avoid relapse.

"Characters" on the website will send messages "on their own" (prompted by the site) to try to invite inactive users back after as soon as 1 day of inactivity. This is likely to force FOMO, or make users feel more like they owe the bots a response. Unhealthy attachment stuff.

Account deletion is an essential part of every service that should go smoothly, right? Right? Wrong. It takes 1-2 weeks for a Character AI account deletion to be finalized, and account deletion requests have a high chance to not go through if you're not using the app.

Rephrasing: People leaving Character.AI are pushed to download the app in order to delete their accounts, if they haven't already. This makes it harder for people to quit and stay gone. Failing to quit an addiction makes it harder to quit successfully in the future, so this feels like a feature, not a bug. On top of that, the delete account menu reads like this:

I have fortunately, somewhat, recovered easier than most. However, I am still aware that there are some who do not have it as easy in terms of recovery as I did, or have as healthy of a support system / distractions to aid that journey.

If anyone is still dealing with AI addiction, or recovering from psychosis induced by AI, please be aware that you’re not alone, and recovering from psychosis is possible. Just try and restart from the beginning of your base knowledge, and continue forward from there one step at a time.

Most people in France don't have air con outside of the very south because again, it's not normal to get highs of 45° and lows of nearly 25° for a solid week in June. Even in the south that's late July/ early August weather and even there would be considered extreme weather. It's France, not Arizona.

Most people in France don't have air con outside of the very south because again, it's not normal to get highs of 45° and lows of nearly 25° for a solid week in June. Even in the south that's late July/ early August weather and even there would be considered extreme weather. It's France, not Arizona.

oh, and on that note, hindus have been literally begging yall to refer to it as the hooked cross. i personally tried to ask europeans why they're calling it the swastika and not the hooked cross, when hitler (and the nazis, iirc) literally referred to the sign as hooked cross, and they piled on me. yall keep clinging to the false translation made by a white man for whatever reason, refusing to use the actual vocab used by the genociders--and yes, i am actually going to whine about vocab because words and points of view matter.

what nazis used was not the swastika. it was the hooked cross. acting as if anyone and everyone who uses the swastika and/or defends its use is a monster among humans is wildly immature.

If someone is talking about swastikas in the context of naziism and antisemitic hate crimes, you do not need to bring up the fact that it is actually a Buddhist or Hindu symbol of good luck or prosperity or peace. We know that. We know. You have eyes, you can see that those are not the swastikas we are talking about. Please please please can you use an iota of reading comprehension.

i dont know mate, its probably because those people see you spitting out the name swastika and feel the need to defend their own culture and identity (i'd say religion too, but i see sanatan (what yk as hinduism) as a philosophy and not a religion but thats a whole other thing entirely)? because you keep using the word swastika? ever thought of that? because hindus are already oppressed in their own lands, are hate crimed every now and then, and centuries of oppression and hinduphobia have made them incredibly sensitive to such things? that they're just trying to take care of the culture they managed to save? how would you feel if someone referring to israel's faults--whatever they are--kept saying "star of david" this and "star of david" that? would you not feel the need to correct them, defend your identity?

"Oh, but you see this picture etched on the desk isn't angled right to be the nazi symbol-" I no longer trust that anyone arguing this really believes this.