Psa - Blog Posts

...☝️

Hey y'all, this person is a TERF pretending to be a trans person for reasons that are, I assume, comedic to this humorless husk of a bigot.

They have been reblogged art, selfies, and trans positive posts from me with bigoted statements in an attempt to harass me, and I felt it might be especially important to point them out since they're using some trans terminology and have a trans flag in their pfp. But, don't be fooled. They are using transparent TERF talking points and even referring to themself as a TERF in their comments.

I would advise not interacting and just blocking their ass, like I have.

Sorry OP for butting in but: if you cannot go to the protest in person due to mobility/parental/safety reasons, one role you could play is home base. A home base is a person or multiple people in one space, ideally near to the police station where those who get arrested will get taken, with multiple phones for contacting people, or being the emergency contact for others, and food/water/clothes/meds/bail money for the protesters who get arrested. If they get a call, one person can go and give the arrested protesters whatever they need and bail them out. The space should also ideally act as a safe haven if needs be, for injured, overwhelmed or disabled protesters, and should have multiple rooms for rest and first aid. Anyway, sorry for the long block of text, I just think that this is important. I have acted as part of a home base for many protests, and a lot of people are grateful for the help.

ICE raids are happening.

Any immigrants, no matter how long you have been a citizen of the USA, is at risk of being deported either out of the country as a whole or into what are basically concentration camps. Raids starting in Chicago, Illinois. and spreading to other major cities with high POC and Hispanic populations. The US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have started raiding homes and families in California.

There are no "protected locations" as of January 21, 2025. Hospitals, schools, and churches are all at risk of being raided, where before these places were deemed safe and off limits to raids.

When it comes to spotting an ICE agent, look for these:

Weirdly neat/well kept hair (shaved heads, side parts, military burs for men; low buns, high ponytails, close cropped bobs for women)

Oversized jacket (long and bulky outerwear makes it easier to hide tools/equipment without being suspicious)

Both hands in pockets

Many undercover agents/cops buy cheap plain clothes off the racks so they aren’t seen in their own clothes. This can make their outfit seem awkward

Sweatshirts with the hood up

Sports apparel (warm up jacket, sweats, etc) with non-sports clothes (jeans, cargo shorts)

Cargo pants/shorts (usually full of items like their badge, flashlight, taser, pepper spray, backup handcuffs, zip ties)

Military or hiking style boots, sometimes chunky sneakers (extra points if none of it matches anything in their outfit)

Outline of a gun in their pants/shirt (easy to see when bending, leaning, or raising arms) (NO NOT SAY ANYTHING)

Overly friendly

Overly inquisitive

“How old are you” and “what do you know about this happening” are both red flags, along with generally odd and personal questions

Don’t fit in

Mismatched pairs in public spaces (usually cops do these things in pairs. They don’t talk to each other or acknowledge each other much, if at all)

DO NOT SAY ANYTHING UNTIL YOU ARE 100% SURE

YOUR BEST BET IS NOT TO SAY ANYTHING UNTIL THE SUSPECT STARTS ACTING OFF AND GETTING PUSHY

COPS ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE UNDERCOVER

COPS CAN AND WILL LIE TO YOU

SCREAM “LA MIGRA” AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS

For protesting:

N95 masks

Respirator/gas mask if you have access to one

Water water water water water (I hate to say it, but disposable one use bottles are best here. If it comes to it, you need to be able to drop and run.) Use for flushing wounds, flushing eyes of tear gas, and of course drinking.

Snacks! You'll be doing a lot of walking and/or running and need to keep that energy up. Trail mix, dried fruit, nuts, granola bars, crackers, jerky/meat sticks, fruit snacks, candy, etc. Think of it like packing your lunchbox for a field trip.

Eyedrops (teargas is a bitch)

Goggles (I bring my old snowboarding goggles)

If you are wearing a t-shirt or have exposed skin, put on fake/temporary tattoos. If you are brought into something and they say you were there, showing a picture of you with the tattoos, show them where that tattoo would be and how there’s nothing there. How would you get rid of a giant flower on your forearm in 2 days anyways?

Wigs fall under the same category as tattoos. The person they're claiming to be you has a blonde bob and you have green hair past your shoulders.It also makes it possible to go with a completely different color without the use of hair dye. This means if they try to arrest you later and try to prove it was you by taking your hair and testing for dye, it won't come back the way they hope. (Thank you @violetrosepetals for this addition!)

Hide your hair. I tuck my hair into my beanie since it’s short. If you have longer hair, try to do the same or tuck it into your shirt. Balaclavas are also a good choice, as they cover both your face and hair.

Power bank

Chargers

Helmet. Any is fine, my personal choice is a skating helmet since they’re rounder and can take more damage, but tactical is also good

Hand sanitizer

Gloves with hard knuckles (tactical gloves). These pack a good punch even if you don't have the correct form. Don't have those? Wrist guards for roller skating/skateboarding work kinda like that too. More of a slapping motion, but still hurt like a bitch. Extra points if they're all scuffed up from use and falls.

Bandanas. Somebody might need one for their face or hair, maybe you need to get dirt off somebody’s face, maybe somebody got injured. They’re great for anything and everything.

Cash (try to stick to cash, your card can be tracked)

Medications if you take them. If you get arrested or happen to somehow be away for longer than expected after the protest, it’s always good to have emergency meds

FIRST AID ALL THE FIRST AID (Tourniquet, Quikclot, chest seal, trauma shears, gauze, bandages, duct tape, and all the usual stuff you’d have in there)

Good shoes. Boots and sneakers are your best choices. Not heels, not platforms, not sandals. Good boots or shoes that won't come off your feet too easily when you run. Steel toed shoes are a great option. Your toes won't be squashed, but also it'll hurt someone a lot more if you start kicking.

Spare socks. Trust me. You can use them to stop bleeding if it comes to it, but also you can put rocks in there and boom weapon. Also if the socks you're wearing get wet.

As much covering clothing as you can handle. Plain jeans, plain hoodie, plain t-shirt, keep yourself as anonymous as possible. Black and baggy is best.

Photocopy of your ID, not your real one.

Sunscreen!

Make sure your clothes have pockets, even if you have a bag. You want everything to be easily accessible.

Do not wear contact lenses. If tear gas is used, that will make everything so much worse. Wear your glasses or go blind. If you have overly unique or identifiable frames, goggles are your friend here. Get some goggles that will fit over your frames, preferably ones that are tinted.

If you use mobility aids, cover defining features. Logos, brand names, colors, stickers, all of it. Take some old plain t-shirt and tie it around your wheelchair’s backrest. Wrap your wheelchair frame in cling wrap, then duct tape, or plain black self adhering medical tape. Cover stickers on your cane or crutches the same way. Electric chair? You have a little more work, but you can do it. Wrap it up. Same idea. Walker? Same thing. Cover. It. All.

If you are bringing a bag, make sure that bag is as plain as possible. No pins. No patches. No keychains. Except maybe a pride flag so people know which team you're playing on.

Scarf or keffiyeh if you have one. They have many uses!

Write a reliable phone number (of someone who is not at the protest with you) on your body. On the off chance you get arrested, that is your emergency contact.

Pocket knife.

Pepper spray/mace/bear spray

if you get tear gassed, shake around first before using water. Most tear gas is more of a powder and water has a high likelihood of just spreading it around. (Thank you @actually-a-bread-loaf for this addition!)

Tennis rackets also work wonderfully for chucking tear gas canisters back at those throwing them. Anybody asks, you're going out to play tennis with friends later. Baseball bats also work! (Thank you @azul-nova-24 for this addition!)

Anything you can throw. Soup for my family.

IF YOU CAN, LEAVE YOUR PHONE AT HOME

IF YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT WITH YOU, TURN OFF LOCATION SERVICES ON ALL APPS AND TURN OFF BIOMETRICS (FACE ID AND FINGERPRINT) SO YOU CAN ONLY UNLOCK YOUR PHONE WITH YOUR PASSWORD

COPS CAN FORCE YOU TO OPEN YOUR PHONE WITH YOUR FINGERPRINT OR FACE ID

MAKE SURE SOMEBODY KNOWS GENERALLY WHERE YOU ARE

If you see a potential or active raid, take pictures and note the time and location. Post online if you can, as well.

You have the right to remain silent. State that you wish to remain silent. Avoid giving information about anybody's immigration status. You have the right to refuse to sign anything before speaking to an attorney. You have the right to refuse searches of your car, your home, and yourself. Schools do not collect a child's immigration status.

I do not want to scare anybody, but this is what life is right now. That man does not care how long you have been a citizen of this country. If you are not a white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian male, you are seen as less than by men in power. You are not less than. You are a threat to them, and they are scared. Keep it that way.

Even if you're not currently protesting, it's good to know this just in case. Things are happening very quickly, and there is a very high chance of it changing very quickly within the next four years.

Here's the link to my post on what to bring in terms of first aid.

If you cannot attend protests, that’s fine. Do what’s best for you. Even just reposting information helps.

This is an updated version of this post,

Updated January 27, 2025.

PSA to New Tumblr Users

DON'T CENSOR YOUR TAGS. DON'T.

Write out 'Suicide' Write out 'Rape' Write out 'Abuse' & 'Assault' & 'Gore'

If you don't use the real words in your tags? People won't be able to filter those out and stay SAFE.

You need to tag properly to keep everyone safe.

Don't water down warnings just because social media has trained you to water them down.

hey anyone who sees this! if you haven't heard, tumblr is selling your data to ai! to prevent this, please direct yourself to your settings and scroll past 'general settings' all the way down to a little tab marked 'visiblity'. click on that and turn on the 'prevent third party sharing' slider! have a good one and stay secure folks

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

This is probably still good OpSec, but mostly I need to reblog this to cite it for a paper.

Fuck this one hits home.

How to approach a wheelchair user in your way

-> A visual guide

[ID: a graphic with simple figures. on the left is a column of 3 identical images of a wheelchair user sitting in front of a pedestrian. on the right are examples of do's and don'ts. the first don't is a person attempting to step over the wheelchair user. the second don't shows a person attempting to push the wheelchair user. the final image is a do with a person saying "excuse me" to the wheelchair user]

❌ stepping over wheelchair users

❌ pushing wheelchair users

✅ asking politely for the wheelchair user to move

why isn't there much info about coathanger pain with POTS?? or at least why is this not more common knowledge? i don't think i've ever seen anyone talking about this. every time i've asked about it (+other POTS symptoms it comes with in my case) in chronic illness spaces people have suggested everything from fibro, MCAS, a CFS leak, a herniated disc, CCI, etc. but nobody ever said "coathanger pain."

but dysautonomia international posted a silly little graphic on their instagram and now i have my answers to why i was having a ton of symptoms that did suggest a herniated disc but there were no signs of disc herniation upon getting an MRI and for some reason it was triggered by working morning shift/having to be upright for a long time in the mornings. i would get excruciating, searing pain that feels pike a knife has been shoved into the base of my neck and the whole of my upper back would have this icy burning sensation. accompanied by me losing the ability to think straight, losing my coordination, and slurring my speech. i left work crying one morning because of how much pain i was in before i eventually came to the conclusion i couldn't do morning shifts.

that's coathanger pain. my spine is okay (i think...for now, anyway.) according to The Stuff they don't know what causes coathanger pain necessarily but they theorize it has to do with reduced blood flow to those areas of the body (which would track since POTS tends to involve blood pooling in the extremities and such.) it's also not exclusive to POTS and is associated with dysautonomia or orthostatic intolerance in general i think.

One example of the power of obtaining the autonomic history is the Coat Hanger Phenomenon. In people who have neurogenic orthostatic hypotension or orthostatic intolerance, they can complain of pain, or like a charley horse kind of sensation, in the back of the neck and shoulder areas in the distribution that’s like a coat hanger. And it goes away when the person is lying down. That’s an important symptom. And the way I explain it is that the muscles that control your head are tonically active, otherwise your head be falling down all the time. Tonically active. That means they’re using up oxygenated blood all the time. Well suppose you’re in a critical situation where there’s a drop in blood flow at the delivery of oxygenated blood to the head. In that situation these muscles are not getting enough oxygenated blood. They’re tonically active, so they’re producing lactic acid and you get a charley horse, just like you’d have a cramp anywhere else. It’s a skeletal muscle thing. So, I think when somebody complains of Coat Hanger Phenomenon, that’s a very important sign or symptom. And that is not invented. That’s a real phenomenon. It points to ischemia to the skeletal muscle holding your head up.

(Dr. Goldstein, The Dysautonomia Project)

worsening cognitive dysfunction, slurred speech, and worsening coordination because blood's not getting to my brain. bordering on emergency-room-level pain in my upper back and neck because not enough blood is getting to those parts of my body. got it.

anyway, i legit have NEVER seen this discussed until recently and i thought i should share.

"gnc straight man being called a faggot doesn't experience homophobia" what the fuck are you talking about. there's absolutely no logic in anything like that. we have kids who literally killed themselves because of homophobic abuse in schools and you would dare to tell them it isn't homophobia that killed them because they weren't actually gay? insane. and so fucking cruel

apparently people are now purchasing thick water to make slimes with because of a trend on tiktok

thick water is for disabled people who can’t swallow properly. stores usually have extremely limited supplies of it.

please don’t buy thick water for fun or to make slime with. it’s literally the only way some disabled people can drink anything. It’s not a fucking toy

Your fave magic babe is now available on my redbubble store as prints and other items ✨

Sigh so here’s the other story – my condition right now is chronic and crippling severe, and so far medical help has failed and other options aren’t covered by my insurance. I live in a very difficult home environment too, so being in bed all day is causing problems and I don’t think I can get better on my own. In short, everything is a catastrophe. 

I’m working on commissions from May but I am very slow, can barely function, so I need to see a doctor soon or I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to do art at all. No patreon, no game, no giveaway, no nothing. I am scared to death and have been holding it in inside and trying not to panic but I am.

In short, I…need help. 

I would be extremely grateful to anyone who buys my prints and merch, since I don’t have the luxury of taking on any more commissioned art, but I seriously do need to help my father afford my medical expenses. He’s trying his best and I’m scared he’s going to lose everything because of me.

I’m putting my ko-fi up here as well.  Donations are extremely appreciated!

I apologize, and thank you so much for hearing me out. You all have been so kind to me.

PSA

If you have chronically ill and/or immunocompromised friends, you have to tell us when you are sick. Not just with COVID or the Flu. Even a cold can be a massive deal for us. This is not optional.

And if we tell you we cannot be around you for a while for our own health and safety, you should know it's not you, but you also do not get to be offended.

Also, unless you have a really good reason not to, wear a mask when you're sick. It's a small sacrifice to protect those around you, it's really not hard.

Thank you.

PSA People with visual impairments use the internet as well

I love the fact the so many people on tumblr go out of their way to help people with hearing impairments, it really shows how progressive and thoughtful people can be. However, one thing i rarely see brought up is people with seeing impairments. In 2013 i was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease called keratoconus, my vision is incredibly blurry and without special accommodations, i wouldn’t even be able to type this or use the internet at all. I see all the time where people will caption videos for those with hearing impairment which is absolutely amazing, but i don’t see a lot of people even acknowledging those with seeing impairments.

I know that a trend has emerged where you can post on tumblr in cursive font. I know its just fun for people, but I can’t see it all, i can’t read it and i often find myself left out of jokes or memes due to my eyesight. Another example would be those posts where there will be something odd or funny in the picture and people will post it with the caption,”don’t say anything.” Not only does this leave out people who honestly just can’t understand the joke (people with mental illnesses included) but it also leaves out the seeing impaired. I don’t like to make a huge deal out of anything, but i would greatly appreciate seeing more people being accommodating to those with seeing impairments as well.

My hometown is on fire, my cousin lost their house, my uncle probably also lost his house, my parents may be evacuated soon. Please keep Napa in your thoughts

Please please please

I saw a post about “Please stop hitting on women while they’re at work” and I 100% agree with it, which is why I’m making a separate post to say please don’t hit on people in general when they’re at work.

I work at a bakery and we have this sweet 16 about to turn 17 year old boy who works up front of our store. He used to work at the place next door to us and, while he was there, a girl he was working with developed a bit of a crush on him and asked him out.

He said no, that he has a girlfriend (which she already knew) and thought they could just continue on being friends and coworkers.

Since beginning work at our bakery she stops in every single day and talks to him for the entirety of her 30 minute long break. He has told her multiple times that he’s at work and can’t stand around and talk and when I asked him if he was uncomfortable his response was a very relieved “Oh, God, yes.” 

He’s tried to talk to one of the owners about it and his response was “You can talk to her after work” not realizing this poor boy is being made incredibly uncomfortable on a daily basis in the work place. 

When we told him he could come into the back to find something to do if he needed to he was so incredibly thankful and relieved. This girl spent twenty minutes standing up front waiting for him to come back after he said he had to go do something. Twenty minutes in the front of the store ever after being told he can’t talk to her. He doesn’t know what would happen if he says that he doesn’t want to talk to her and is genuinely nervous every time she walks in.

The only reprieve he gets is from the bakers in the back saying “I get it. Come back here” because the Owners don’t understand that he, a male coworker, can be made uncomfortable by these unwanted advancements being made toward him. 

Please.

This post isn’t made to undersell not hitting on women while they’re at work. I get that and that’s why this separate post exists.

Please.

Don’t hit on people when they’re at work.

Don’t hit on people when they can’t tell you no. 

say it with me

liking a character ≠ condoning their actions

understanding a character ≠ condoning their actions

relating to a character ≠ condoning their actions

never assume that only because someone likes/understands/relates to a character that they see this character as “perfect” and don’t recognise their flaws

It's so weird talking to people who's view of "here's the way life is for everyone" is shattered as soon as they talk to someone with disabilities (physical, mental illness, any). Like you'll say you'll have a problem and instead of helping you they'll argue with you about how you're not actually facing that problem. Like,

Me: Hey, I'm really struggling to find a job and a part of it is my resume. I was depressed & psychotic during highschool so I didn't do anything to gain skills or achievements to put on my resume. I also don't have anyone to put as a reference. What can I do?

Them: You can add your skills, hobbies, clubs you're in, and different volunteer work you've done! You can also get your teacher as a reference.

Me: I already know what to put on a resume, my issue is that I don't have things that I can use. Also, I'm in my mid 20s so I don't know if I can put my highschool teacher as a reference.

Them: Well if you're a part of a church or an activity group, you could add that. Also, think of any projects you've worked on in the past.

Me: I already know you can put these things on a resume. I'm not looking for suggests of things I've already done, I'm looking for what I can do now if I haven't done anything.

Them: There's no way you didn't do anything during highschool?? What about some odd jobs you definitely did for extra money, like babysitting or mowing the lawn?

Me: I spent all of highschool either in modified classes or in bed doing nothing - not even hobbies, what about that do you not understand?

And then you talk to someone who's also disabled and they're like "Here's a bunch of jobs you can do from home that don't pay much but look good on a resume, here's some free online courses that also look good on a resume, here's how you can be making small amounts of money in the meantime, here's some things you can put besides a professional reference, and here are your rights if your future employer tries to take advantage of your disability - which you probably shouldn't tell them about unless you need accommodations."

And suddenly my will to continue trying returns!

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

i feel like this is important enough to put on here.

if you have any videos on youtube make sure this is unchecked

Really disappointed honestly

IMPORTANT: TUMBLR HAS MADE A DEAL WITH MIDJOURNEY/OPENAI.

YOUR ART AND IMAGES ON TUMBLR ARE BEING USED TO TRAIN AI MODELS.

The opt-in is automatic, but you can turn it off in settings.

Go to "Blog Settings" -> "Visibility" -> "Third-Party Sharing" and turn on "Prevent third-party sharing for [blog]". (This post shows how to do it on browser and on mobile.) You need to do this with every sideblog. (Note: The option in settings might not appear if your app hasn't updated yet. You can still opt out via browser.)

Spread the word. Everyone on Tumblr needs to know about this.

Tl;Dr version: Girls, respect yourselves and DEMAND that others respect you as well. You are human and deserve to be treated as such. ;*

i went on a lil rant 2day on twitto and now im sharing it with yall 

your annual reminder:

don’t support autism speaks this month

don’t “light it up blue”

don’t use the puzzle piece symbol

however!

do support autistic content creators

do support “red instead” and the infinity symbol

remember to listen to the voices of marginalised autistic people!

happy autism awareness/acceptance month! go tell your local autistic pal that they’re awesome! if you’re autistic, remember to practice some self-love!

A few of these are probably referring to the date posting bug thing, but AAAAAAAAAAAH!

Holy fuck I live here and didn't know it was this bad

Ok yall. A serious topic right now, far from the other topics I mention on this blog.

Arizona is literally on fire.

The state has at least 4 wildfires going on and thousands of firefighters are fighting this, but we have less than half contained on the biggest fire. (42%)

Our biggest fire is the Bush fire, that has already covered 180k acres.

Now I know what most of you might be thinking, 'oh, this is Arizona, it happens a lot.' Well let me tell you that Arizona doesn't get large wildfires often. Surprise, it's not common here. We usually get smaller wildfires which we put out quickly, most often in a day.

Our firefighters are trying their best to get these fires contained but due to the immense heat and the strong winds, its getting difficult. Lots of people who live close to the fires had been evacuated already.

I can only see the smoke covering what used to be our beautiful blue skies. Its been like this for days.

These fires started on June 13th but the majority of news about this is from Arizona. I have found only few other news casts talking about this. Our state is suffering (most of it in ruins) and it feels like we're not being heard about this.

This post is not to put down any of the protesting or other important news. I just want people to be aware of what is happening here right now.

We're on fire.

as someone who tried and almost succeeded in overdosing at 15,

DONT FUCKING DO THIS. YOU'LL KILL THEM FASTER.

LISTEN UP AGAIN KIDS STOP REBLOGGING THIS FUCKING GARBAGE POST. IT IS 100% FUCKING BULLSHIT AND CAN AND MOST DEFINITELY WILL LITERALLY KILL. DO YOU NOT SEE WARNING LABELS THAT SAY “DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING”? THEY AREN’T FUCKING AROUND. YOU CAN FUCKING BURN THEIR ESOPHAGUS BY CAUSING VOMITING, CAUSE CHOKING, DROWNING, OR MAKE IT WORSE! AGAIN DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING DOWN ANYONE’S THROAT. THEY. CAN. DROWN. IF SOMEONE IS LOSING CONCIOUSNESS ALL THE CHIT CHAT IN THE WORLD WILL NOT PREVENT IT AT THAT POINT THEY ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER. “Buuut i don’t wanna take them to the hospital!!!” WELL SUNSHINE GLAD YOU’D RATHER HAVE A DEAD FRIEND THAN A LIVING ONE BUT YOU’RE IN LUCK CALL FUCKING POISON CONTROL. THEY ARE NOT THE COPS. THEY WILL HELP YOU. AND IF THEY SAY GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL YOU GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL. NO EXCUSES. 0. NONE. I have seen this shit cross my dash SO MANY TIMES so PLEASE fucking reblog this and prevent some well meaning idiot from accidentally killing someone they love!

Sexualizing nuns is 🙅‍♀️NOT🙅‍♀️ sexy

PSA!!! This applies to all fandoms!

Ok so I’ve seen a lot of people posting things that are against certain Headcannon/ship things. If it’s a safe headcannon/ship please don’t do this!

Safe do Not include things that:

- glorify pedos

- glorify abuse

- are racist

- are sexist

- just generically hateful towards a group of people

I get it’s supposed to go against toxic people but there are other ways to do that! It ends up hurting people who use that ship/Headcannon for comfort or enjoyment. Saying things like ‘it will never come true’ or ‘that character isn’t gay’ doesn’t help anyone. We know, you’re just making things more toxic.

Raising awareness about a Headcannon or ship is not being hateful. An example is clarifying something about a culture or illness (mental and physical) for writers or to dispel rumours and harmful stereotypes around something. If you aren’t sure whether it’s raising awareness or hateful, don’t post it!

This has been a PSA!