I Envy Writers.

Why do people stop commenting on fics if they’re more than a week or two old? Please comment on old fics. Tell me you like my one shot from 2014. Tell me you like my old multi-chap I finished in 2016 that I spent a year writing. I will be fucking thrilled.

To all the Writers Suffering from Depression

It’s okay. Your desire to write will return. Your desire to do other things you love will come back, too. You’re not weak. You’re just having a hard time right now. Try not to add self-judgment on top of everything else. Depression is hard enough without blaming yourself for it.

We (in the US specifically) live in a productivity-obsessed, emotion-phobic culture which blames individuals for “failing” when they are anything but hyper-productive and relentlessly optimistic. This cultural narrative so pervasive that it’s difficult to see the high standards we set for ourselves for what they really are: Complete and total bullshit.

Despite the rampant cultural garbage that teaches us to interpret emotional ups and downs as an aberration, MANY writers and artists (and people in general!) struggle with depression and other mood “disorders.” It is not uncommon for us, among other things, to go through periods of hyperactivity followed by depressive episodes in which we get very little accomplished. I am not saying you shouldn’t try to alleviate your depression or work to find ways to minimize your suffering in the short or long term. I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with you, and you aren’t alone.

I’m going to say that again:

If you’re having a hard time writing or enjoying writing right now because you’re depressed, you aren’t alone.

I wish I had some kind of magical answer. I don’t. But I do know that accepting your depression and loving yourself anyway beats the hell out of berating yourself for feeling like this. So, with that in mind, this might be all I have to offer:

I think you’re doing a great job. I’m sorry you feel like shit. I’m on your side whether you’re writing or not; whether you feel good or not; whether you’re being “productive” or not; whether you wanted to get out of bed this morning or not. You’re still a writer to me, even if you’re not writing right now. You don’t have to prove yourself to me or anyone else. I love you, and I hope you feel better soon.

*cracks knuckles* Are you ready? 1, 5, 10, 12, 17, 22, 26, and 29!

Yay! Thanks for the ask!

1. The System?Alphabetical, if a series doesn’t have the title name in it (i.e. Harry Potter) than I still keep keep it shelved next to the first.

5. The largest and smallest book you own?The largest: The World of Thedas Vol. 2The smallest: The Pocket New Testament

10. Favorite graphic novel?The Last Unicorn graphic novel. Lovely art to go with a beautiful story.

12. Inconsistent editions within a series?Actually, yes. I have one larger book in the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce and one really large copy of the Lord of the Rings and a tiny Hobbit.

17. Book you bought because of cover design?Most of them. Is that sad? I think it’s very sad. If a cover doesn’t intrest me, I’m not likely to pick it up without a recommendation.

22. A reoccurring intrest/theme?Fantasy. I loooove fantasy. Granted I will often go to the YA section, but you can never beat fantasy.

26. A book you would prescribe to an aspiring author?The Harry Potter Series. I know that seems like an odd answer, but I have several reasons.1) Harry Potter is a beloved series for every age.2) J.K. Rowling started at rock-bottom, a single mother who wrote when she could fit it in. Many publishing companies rejected her until one finally gave her a shot. Afterwards, her books were so popular that they are in almost every country and have been translated into several languages. Movies have been made of them.3) J.K. has literally gone from no one to one of the most influential authors of our age. If she can do it anyone can.

Nothing has been as inspiring as her legacy.

29. Favorite book from childhood?Anything Dr. Seuss.

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

Anne Lamott

Love it! It's so Sadira!

Did @sinedra 's Sadira for a Halloween prompt. The randomizer said cute grim reaper and I was like...bet.

Facebook / Twitter / Ko-fi / Buy the book

I'm not even slightly sorry.

Common Phrases Correctly

i just found this website that can randomly generate a continent for you!! this is great for fantasy writers

plus, you can look at it in 3d!

theres a lot of viewing options and other things! theres an option on-site to take a screenshot, so you don’t have to have a program for that!

you can view it here!

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 tumblr's nsfw ban hitting the entire internet this spring 2022

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

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven't seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.