My beloved yakuza themed discord, the Minnesota Fats Clan Kiwami, has just turned four years old. That’s incredible! I love running it and all the friends I’ve made through it and it brings me an indescribable amount of joy to see it still thriving

if you want in on the nonsense it’s a 16+ heavily LGBT server with everything from mahjong nights to a bot that fucks up images for you to long discussions on horse hostesses (horsetesses), here’s your chance

https://discord.gg/mdMZ6uCH6q

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also if you follow my ryu ga gotoku online translation blog maddogofshimano.tumblr.com I do all my translating in fats clan first, so you can get early access

parotcardsroxy:

art tips that actually help. tracing pictures is fine. try not to shade with black. draw as much as you can all the time and make it shitty im so serious. dont buy expensive materials its not worth it. never post your art to tiktok. raise your commission prices. sparkle on be yourself

drdemonprince:

As of May 15th, image sharing platform Imgur will be purging its site of all not-safe-for-work and anonymously posted content. As part of the site’s new terms of service agreement, Imgur’s definition of “not safe for work” is concerningly broad: it will be removing not only every upload deemed to be pornography or sexually explicit content, but all depictions of nudity (no matter how artistic or educational they are in nature) as well.

Imgur was created in 2009, and has remained one of the most popular image hosting sites on the internet for decades. Its 300 million active users access content on the platform over 60 billion times per month. Compared to other image hosting sites of the early 2000s, such as Photobucket, Imgur has a reputation for being a place to host niche, originally created works, including memes, personal artwork, image macros, fan art, and yes, highly specific porn and fetish content that caters to small yet passionate communities.

Until 2016, the only way to share images on Reddit was by passing them through Imgur first. If you didn’t already have an Imgur account when you were making a Reddit post, you mostly likely uploaded it without bothering to create one, so your image files were posted anonymously. But Imgur is now mass-deleting all images that can’t be linked to an existing account. This means that the vast majority of image posts on Reddit that predate 2016 will be completely broken after Imgur’s new terms of service are adopted. That’s not just posts with pornography or nude photographs that are getting removed, which would be a sizeable data loss itself, but nearly eleven years worth of digital history.

The impact this mass deletion will have can’t be overstated. Reddit has been a crucial hub of information sharing, social networking, and documentation for approaching twenty years now. Over 1.6 billion individual people have made their mark on the site in one way or another — sharing their home renovation projects, posting tattered photographs of long-dead relatives and asking for assistance in getting them restored, pooling together genealogical records, showing off their latest power-washing job, demonstrating how to construct leather harnessesexchanging theories about their continuity of their favorite German science fiction epics, and far more.

Many of these in-depth Reddit posts are absolutely reliant upon images. And every single one of them that came before 2016 can potentially be ruined following the Imgur purge. Even many posts that were made after 2016 will be destroyed as well, because many Reddit users who upload images to Imgur never create official accounts.

Whenever sexual content is driven from social media, there is little in the way of public mourning. If anything, there is a tepid acknowledgement of the harm that will befall sex workers, alongside outright celebration that at last these sites will be scrubbed of the most unseemly and dangerous sides of human nature, and at last rendered “safe.” But condemning future generations of queer and kinky people to ignorance and loneliness is not saving them. And exposing someone to sexual content too early in life is not the only form of sexual harm. Denying a person a chance at self-recognition can be equally traumatic, and violent.

Those of us who do decry the sanitization and Disney-Worldification of the internet are frequently likened to predators who wish to expose our bodies and proclivities to children. Our mere existence as adult sexual beings with adult bodies is deemed a threat. Paradoxically, we are also mocked for taking the removal of erotic art so seriously. Porn is somehow viewed in our culture as both frivolously pointless, and profoundly terrifying.

But in reality, sex is not dangerous. And sex is not frivolous. It’s a rapturous, inevitable, and an essential force in human life. Sex isn’t for everyone, but it is one of the most precious ways to experience inhabiting a body, and refusing to acknowledge the existence of sex makes it impossible to fully appreciate human history, identity, or any form of art.

Sex’s removal from public discourse and digital record keeping is a hateful, genocidal destruction of one of the most precious aspects of the human experience. We are right to mourn for it. And we are right to fear what comes next, after our bodies are rendered unviewable and our dreams unspeakable.

the first time i posted this essay link, tumblr removed it for being sexual content and then blurred my account. jesus fucking christ. read the piece, please. our ability to communicate and find one another online is rapidly eroding and this is no light matter

whetstonefires:

I do have a piece of writing advice, actually.

See, the first time I grew parsnips, I fucked it up good. I hadn’t seen parsnips sprouting before, right, and in my eagerness I was keeping a close eye on the row. And every time I saw some intruding grass coming up, I twitched it right out, and went back to anticipating the germination of my parsnips.

But it turns out parsnips take a bit longer than anything else I’d ever grown to distinguish themselves visually. It’s just the two little split leaves, almost identical to a newly seeded bit of kentucky bluegrass when they first come up, and they take a good bit to establish themselves and spread out flat before the main stem with its first distinctive scallopy leaf gets going.

I didn’t get any parsnips, not that year, because I’d weeded them all out as soon as they showed their faces, with my ‘ugh no that’s grass’ twitchy horticulture finger.

The next year, having in retrospect come to suspect what had happened, I left the row alone and didn’t weed anything until all the sprouts coming up had all had a bit to set in and show their colors, and I’ve grown lots of parsnips since. They’re kind of a slow crop, not a huge return, but I like them and watching them grow and digging them up, and their papery little seeds in the second year, if you don’t harvest one either on purpose or because you misjudged the frost, so it’s worth it.

Anyway, whenever I see someone stuck and struggling with their writing who’s gotten into that frustration loop of typing a few words, rejecting them, backspacing, and starting again, I find myself thinking, you gotta stop weeding your parsnips, man.

transmonstera:

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seeing other trans people be happy and enjoy being trans is not a threat to you. to doubt their transness because they’re (perceived as to be) not as miserable as you is, however, a threat to them. - transmonstera

[IMAGE ID: “to measure the validity of other transsexuals by their misery is to hold the cissexual narrative higher than your own right to joy” in bold white text. the background is a number of yellow measuring tapes and rulers. the base of the measuring tapes has a sad face sticker on the side. the background is solid black. END]

eraserheadadult:

eraserheadadult:

eraserheadadult:

the one trope that never fails to Get Me is normal butch x insane femme

butch whos kind of down to earth and rolls with the punches & femme whos utterly deranged and out to win her man (female). shes like hes the specialest girl ever and if you dont clap for him i’ll blow up this fucking building

like 90% of the responses to this post feature characters who are literally not butch but thats ok i too love projecting on fictional characters and lying to myself

blumineck:

I hope that clears things up a little! 😉

thevampdad:

Enjoy some more kazumaji sketchin~

I love the idea of y0 Majima and Kiryu being bros and doing stuff together.

Also some handcuffed kiryu spice~ ;Dc

Filed under: yakuza

manywinged:

manywinged:

nothing will make you think “i have got to get weirder” more than finally feeling comfortable enough around other people to admit to interests of yours that you think make you a freak and a weirdo only to realize with a combination of embarrassment and relief that you’re like a normie to them

“sicko feedback loop” is a warrior’s bond stronger and more meaningful than marriage

homoidiotic:

i Love vaccines, autism, abortions, homosexuals, sex changes and crime

beatrice-otter:

end-otw-racism:

Timeline of OTW Hiring of a Diversity Consultant

We have been seeing some claims that OTW has already hired a Diversity Consultant. We wish that were true! At this point all that’s been done is appoint a volunteer to research diversity consultants 

Here is a timeline, as best we can construct, of this issue. 

June 2020

OTW first talked about hiring an external contractor in their June 2020 statement on racism, and said they would start researching options “in the coming months”

From this, we hope to build a long-term strategy that will include specific internal goals and structural improvements, which can be further divided into clear, actionable steps that we can incorporate into our upcoming Strategic Plan. As part of this, we will be considering various avenues including, but not limited to, reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group, and will be actively researching credible resources in the coming months.  We recognize that this careful approach will take time as we need to make sure any steps are taken responsibly and with a clear scope and objective, while also keeping up with the other duties and obligations of OTW governance. However, we believe that it is an important step to take in creating a stronger OTW for all.ALT


July 2021

In July 2021, a year later, they announced that they had created two new “officer” roles, including one to start researching diversity consultants. (OTW uses the terms “officers” & “staff”, but those are currently unpaid volunteer roles)

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW  The Board of Directors hosted a public meeting on July 11. The main discussion involved the creation of two new officer roles: to aid us in introducing paid staff, and to research options for diversity consultants. Thank you to everyone who came to the meeting and gave their input! As always, if you have any feedback or questions about their work, you can email the Board.ALT


April 2022

 In April 2022, almost a year after THAT, they appointed one of two Diversity Consultant Research Officers & said they would be starting work. (I guess technically that’s still “coming months” from 2020? lol)

The Board of Directors is pleased to announce that it has appointed a Diversity Consultant Research Officer to help the OTW formulate its next steps towards hiring a diversity consultant or firm. The role remains open for internal recruitment as the Board would ideally like it to be held by two people for the sake of redundancy and sharing out the workload. The Board also held its quarterly public meeting at the beginning of the month — thanks to everyone who came and asked questions!ALT


January 2023

In January 2023, when asked about the timeline for working with a diversity consultant, OTW said they hoped to “conclude the project” in 5 years. Also they had not yet appointed a second officer. 

I asked my usual question of how the diversity consultant research officer's work is going and if they've encountered any difficulties in looking to hire a paid consultant, and Nat said: The research is still on its early stages. Our officer has shared their ideas with us and we are debating together what our roadmap, so to speak, should look like. They haven't encountered any difficulties so far, but we aren't yet at the stage of contacting potential hires. They also haven't appointed a second research officer yet, though still hope to do so.ALT
Satsuma then asked, "Any general ideas about what the timeline for said roadmap will look like? Would appreciate even very broad figures here — unclear if we're talking one year, five, or ten."  To which Nat replied: Because the research relies on volunteer work, it can be difficult for us to provide a realistic timeline for large projects in the OTW. Speaking very broadly, our goal is definitely to conclude this project in the next 5 years - hopefully less, if we don't find any meaningful difficulties and are able to carry our work as planned. But being more specific than this just wouldn't be based on any concrete prediction we're able to make. Which is very frustrating indeed. So I asked if there was a way to pay someone to do that work, and Nat said, "That is definitely an option, punk, and we haven't entirely discarded it. However, there are many advantages by having the research being made by someone who knows the OTW well from the inside, and that's not something we can pay for.ALT


March 2023

Which brings us to the most recent OTW Board meeting in March 2023, almost another year after the officer had been appointed, when we received the first update on what they had been working on.

kcdayton: Today, we would like to share an update about the OTW's work on anti-racism and diversity in our organization. This section will be a permanent addition to all Board of Directors public meetings going forward, as we realize the OTW needs to be more transparent and proactive with regards to keeping fans in the loop with regards to what we have been able to do so far to make our organization and projects safer and more welcoming to fans of color. We know we have not historically been efficient enough when sharing updates - we hope this will be a step in the right direction, and are committed to continue sharing as much as we can on a regular basis. We are also studying whether any other communications paths could be feasible for our organization. We appreciate the feedback and suggestions fans continue to share with us, and we consider every idea carefully.ALT
In our first update, we'd like to talk a bit about the work our Diversity Consultant Research Officer has been doing. As a reminder, the role of this officer is to liaise with the organization in order to assess our specific needs for an external diversity consultant, and also to look into available consultants who could work within our organization and our specific challenges, such as a fully online environment, international workforce, the full anonymity of most of our volunteers, and so on. In the first quarter of 2023, Zoë has presented the Board with a plan to contact different stakeholders in our organization, so she can get a clearer picture of what OTW leadership and volunteers expect from a consultant, what concerns they have, and what they see as priorities for this work. She will be reaching out to the organization gradually, to make sure she can dedicate proper time and attention to each person who wishes to communicate with her.ALT
Additionally, she has begun some preliminary research into potential hires, and while it is still too soon for us to determine whether specific companies would be suitable and able to work with us, we are hopeful that we will find a company to that can contribute in a meaningful manner towards making the OTW a more diverse and anti-racist space. Board has also met with the Strategic Planning committee this month in order to discuss, among other things, the Diversity section of the upcoming plan. We know that many people are anxious for updates on this area since the OTW's Vision Statement got published last year, and we would like to reassure you that discussions and feedback are ongoing, in order to help us create a plan that is helpful, efficient, and has achievable steps for our organization.ALT
When two people asked if there was a timeline for this work, kcdayton replied: Zoë expects the first round of interviews, focusing on OTW leadership, should last about two months, in between asynchronous and live chats. Once that part of the work is reaching conclusion, she'll begin planning for a wider round of feedback and discussion with OTW volunteers, which will likely take a few months, depending on how much response there is.ALT


OTW was asked about the five year timeline, & this time we were told that they hoped the project would be concluded OR have “made great progress” in five years, again moving the goalposts.

Currently

Looking at this timeline, this could make it eight years before we see anything substantial (3 til now +5 more) in significantly addressing this issue. This is unacceptable. We know they have the funds to hire consultants.

This is why we’re demanding that OTW make good on their commitment and hire someone in the next 3-6 months. It’s not an unreasonable ask given that the officer has already had more than a year to work on this and we are 3 years out since we were told this was a priority. 

#it’s because it’s a lose-lose situation#no one wants to do such work voluntarily#however were they paid it would likely be on the same rates Big Data companies give its moderators#and were Ao3 stop being a non-profit it might as well belong to Meta… see what would survive under corp rules#so personally… don’t rely on Ao3 or fandom culture for your ideas 

You’ve completely misunderstood what the ask is, here.

We’re not asking for AO3 to have moderators.

We are asking them to hire the diversity consultant they said they were going to hire three years ago. A diversity consultant would have nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the site. Their job would be to look at the way the organization is run, the institutional culture, the policies and procedures, and help AO3 adapt them so that they are less hostile to people of color. Things like, “is the way we recruit volunteers equitable, or is it biased, and how could we fix that?” “is the institutional culture such that people of color are likely to feel isolated and unsupported (and thus be more likely to quit or burn out than white fans) and how do we make it better?” “does our internal procedure for handling abuse complaints work fairly in all cases, or is it biased against reports about racism, and how do we fix that?” “Is there a racial or cultural issue at stake that we’re not seeing as we discuss this other issue?”

A diversity consultant wouldn’t be looking at individual works on the site to see if they were racist; a diversity consultant would be operating at a much higher level than that.

Also, I’m not sure why you think hiring moderators–or a diversity consultant, for that matter–would require AO3 to lose its nonprofit status. Most nonprofits have paid staff! A nonprofit can’t have an owner who is taking profits from it, but that is NOT the same thing as paying your employees.

As for moderating … AO3 already has a team of volunteers that do that. (I believe it’s called the Abuse team?) I haven’t seen any requests for the scale or style of moderating that you get in for-profit social media behemoths. What I have seen is people asking them to look at their existing Abuse policies and see if there is something they can be changed so that their response to certain types of harassment will be to actually do something about it rather than say “it doesn’t violate our ToS.”

Note that this campaign is not telling AO3 what changes we think they should make to their ToS and policies and procedures. This campaign is saying “hey, remember how you admitted there was a problem three years ago and promised to do something? the problem is still here. What progress have you made in untangling the issues and figuring out how to make the problem less bad?”

iron-cutler:

Exalted is a really cool game, and of the Exalt types, Liminals are almost definitely my favorite. However, official rules don’t exist for them yet. To solve this problem, I spent a little over a year making a homebrew ruleset for playing them. It’s not finished yet, but everything at the link–character creation guidelines, rules for play, and Charms–is relatively finalized and completely playable. However, I do plan to keep adding content onto this until I see it as being complete.

If you read these rules or play using them and enjoy it, please let me know what you think! Feedback and criticism on this would be very valuable to me.

myclericalromance:

i went to a tiny counterserve diner once and accidentally poured sugar instead of salt all over my hashbrowns and was eating them sadly anyways. the waitress took them away and started making me another one and I tried to protest, but she just snorted and said “we’re not catholic here”. now every time i’m doing something painful out of obligation i think about how that is not repenting, this body is not a catholic establishment, there is no nobility in suffering.

skwc:

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happy birthday majima!!! 🐶🔪💜

Filed under: yakuza