“They scared the hell out of me,” Martinez told CBS News after nine officers with tactical gear and firearms showed up on Aug. 20.
[…]
“My nightgown and I had all these policemen around me. It was embarrassing, humiliating, I was so angry. It was horrible,” Martinez said.
They seized her phone, computer, personal calendar, blank voter registration forms and her certificate to conduct voter registration, according to Martinez.
She’s been a LULAC member for over 35 years and works to expand voter registration among seniors and veterans in South Texas.
“I feel that they’re going to stop a lot of us from going out and doing our work, and that’s what they want,” Martinez told Omar Villafranca.
Here’s their donation form. Charity navigator rates them 4 stars. Let’s make the Texas AG’s bullying backfire by drawing nationwide attention to this organization.
“They scared the hell out of me,” Martinez told CBS News after nine officers with tactical gear and firearms showed up on Aug. 20.
[…]
“My nightgown and I had all these policemen around me. It was embarrassing, humiliating, I was so angry. It was horrible,” Martinez said.
They seized her phone, computer, personal calendar, blank voter registration forms and her certificate to conduct voter registration, according to Martinez.
She’s been a LULAC member for over 35 years and works to expand voter registration among seniors and veterans in South Texas.
“I feel that they’re going to stop a lot of us from going out and doing our work, and that’s what they want,” Martinez told Omar Villafranca.
Here’s their donation form. Charity navigator rates them 4 stars. Let’s make the Texas AG’s bullying backfire by drawing nationwide attention to this organization.
I dreamt that people found out that tumblr posts had a secret hidden text field that you normally couldn’t put anything into that was called a post’s “wungle text”, and it wasn’t normally displayed in any way, but someone made a browser extension that allowed you to write and view a post’s wungle by flipping it over like an index card. The user’s picture and name and all that would be backwards, but the wungle post looked otherwise like a normal post, though empty unless the author had written something in there. It worked in reblogs too.
People were using it for jokes, and a bunch of seemingly boring and innocuous posts got really popular with funny wungle sides.
It looked kinda like this:
The post would be the same height vertically, it would just be a ton of blank space on the wungle side, so if you wrote more text on the wungle than you did on the post itself, it would just overflow and get hidden under the other UI elements.
i would absolutely make an extension for this, if there was an easy way to add additional (invisible) content to a post that could be read by software but wasn’t obvious visually
the other alternative is maintaining your own separate database of wungles which seems intractable
I dreamt that people found out that tumblr posts had a secret hidden text field that you normally couldn’t put anything into that was called a post’s “wungle text”, and it wasn’t normally displayed in any way, but someone made a browser extension that allowed you to write and view a post’s wungle by flipping it over like an index card. The user’s picture and name and all that would be backwards, but the wungle post looked otherwise like a normal post, though empty unless the author had written something in there. It worked in reblogs too.
People were using it for jokes, and a bunch of seemingly boring and innocuous posts got really popular with funny wungle sides.
It looked kinda like this:
The post would be the same height vertically, it would just be a ton of blank space on the wungle side, so if you wrote more text on the wungle than you did on the post itself, it would just overflow and get hidden under the other UI elements.
also about wungle text it's kinda breaking my tumblr for some reason? like when i have the extension enabled it opens all user pages in a new tab and pfps also stopped showing up at some point idk why
Huh that’s weird. The user pages thing happens to me as well but I can’t explain it, on the other hand the profile pictures not working is very weird.
Okay, I just replicated the pfps not loading
by throttling my internet speed to “good 2G”. It seems that this happens when wungle text adds the button before tumblr can finish doing its thing on the header of a post.
“After receiving a tip about a family of Burrowing Owls on the eastern edge of Cheyenne, a photographer rushed to the location in late June. The owlets seemed nearly ready to leave their burrows. Over the years, the photographer has perfected a method using a GoPro on a small tripod, set to take a photo every 5 seconds. They leave the camera behind, allowing the owls to feel comfortable. The challenge lies in the long wait to see if the effort pays off. This shot was taken on June 28th.”
Honestly now I’m making it canon that Malte doesn’t know 90% of the languages he speaks but he’s deceiving everyone into thinking he speaks any language.
also about wungle text it's kinda breaking my tumblr for some reason? like when i have the extension enabled it opens all user pages in a new tab and pfps also stopped showing up at some point idk why
Huh that’s weird. The user pages thing happens to me as well but I can’t explain it, on the other hand the profile pictures not working is very weird.
Okay, I just replicated the pfps not loading
by throttling my internet speed to “good 2G”. It seems that this happens when wungle text adds the button before tumblr can finish doing its thing on the header of a post.
Wat do you mean? How are you meant to wungle the text? Just click on the extension in the extensions list on mobile or under the puzzle piece on desktop (you can even pin it for easier access) and then type in text to be wungled.
Finally after clicking or tapping the wungle button just paste what was copied to your keyboard at the start of a paragraph in a tumblr post. That pasting should look like it did nothing until you look at the post outside the editor and click the wungle text button on it.
thank god anything at all useful is being torn down and made illegal so that the computer can just be a box you turn on to watch ads for fake phone games
I hate to say it but there is an america-centric bias to my posting, I am an American who posts about a political topic that is at its worst in the US and Canada (urban design)
I don’t post much about other countries because I haven’t been there or seen the situation there, I have visited exactly 2 countries outside the US, Italy and the Netherlands, I want to fix that but I haven’t had the chance. I don’t want to speak to places I haven’t been and talk over the people there.
A few months ago, I wrote a small guide on good disabled characters and why they were good that gathered quite the attention, and I thought that doing another more specific guide this time would be interesting for writers or just people that are curious ! This guide will include general informations, some things to do, some things to avoid and some ideas that might revolve cane users’s lives.
Things to know about cane users
Cane users are pretty diverse, and putting us in little boxes usually isn’t the best idea if you want to make a character that has substance and isn’t just “the disabled one”. Here some infos about cane users that might be helpful knowledge !
Canes don’t have ages. Most cane users in media are portrayed to be old, but truly, anyone can have the need to wield a cane ! I’ve been using mine ever since I was 17.
Can users can have a large variety of problems for their canes. Some canes are used to avoid pain from effort. Some canes are used for balance purposes. Some canes are to make walking less exhausting (works the same as walking sticks !) And sometimes, it’s multiple problems at once.
Not everyone needs their cane 24/7. Some always need it, some can make small efforts without it but overall often need it, and some people, like me, can spend quite a lot of time without it. I almost never use my cane in my house, and mostly take it outside !
People with canes can run. We’re not necessarily slow, I’m even faster than a lot of my friends.
Not using a cane can come with consequences, but not always. Some people might be able to walk without a cane but then suffer horrible consequences, but for others, canes are just a commodity for specific occasions.
Canes don’t have to be looked down upon. Look at some characters with canes that look cool as hell ! Arsène Lupin, Roguefort Cookie, Brook … Their canes serve their style !
We can be pretty healthy. Some people can have canes just because they were born with a bent leg and that’s it. Our cane doesn’t define our health status.
Canes aren’t a curse. Think of them as something positive. It’s a tool to make our lives better. You don’t see someone sitting on a chair and think “awh, it’s sad that they need a chair”. It’s more something like “hey it’s cool that this chair is here so they can sit down”
Things to do
Make them use their cane. And when I mean use, I mean that canes are just funky long sticks usually made out of metal. Have fun with it ! Let them use it as a weapon ! Trust me, one hit in the knees with a cane and you’re DOWN. Use it to reach stuff that’s too high for everyone ! Have fun. Be creative.
Let them decorate their cane. It’s an extension of their body ! You usually put on clothes that you like, don’t you ? It’s the same for a cane. If they like cutesy stuff, let them paint in it pastel colors ! If they like a more flashy style, add some stickers on it ! If they’re a fancy person, give them a beautiful crafted cane with jewels on it !
You can make them a little shy or uneasy about their cane. Some people don’t feel worthy of confident enough to wield one. It’s not rare to see people think they’re “not disabled enough to do so”
But on the other hand, you can do the complete opposite !! Make them proud of that cane ! Make them act like they’re feeling pretty and more confident with it ! One thing i like to think about with my own cane is that I look like a cool gentleman. That boosted my confidence immensely.
Things to avoid
Don’t make it their whole world. And by that, I do not mean that their cane shouldn’t be a defining trait of their personality. Think of Toph from ATLA. She is blind, and you usually can’t think of her character without describing her as blind. However, that isn’t her entire personality trait. Make cane users have a goal in life, friends who enjoy them for who they are and not just pity them, have fun … Don’t just make them the disabled one.
Don’t try to make the character’s life just a plain disaster unless it’s the focus of your story and you really know what you’re talking about. Having a character who’s always in pain, who feels bad about relying on their cane and/or who’s angry at the entire world for being disabled is a REALLY tricky subject to use if you don’t want them to be either a mass of unhappiness and angst for no good reason or some inspirational porn of the character who inside is deeply tortured but outside keeps up a facade because they shouldn’t cry to avoid making others uneasy.
Do not, and I repeat, do NOT try to heal them, especially in a magical way. Bad idea. A lot of disabled people’s goal isn’t to be healed. It’s to live a normal life. Making it so the ultimate goal for them is to be healed makes it as if they were worthless as long as they were disabled. Making their situation better physically or mentally is one thing. Curing them completely is really bad. “But some disabled folks want to be cured !” True, true. But if you are able bodied, I’m not sure if you can have the right mind to understand all of the complex details about this situation that leads to someone’s life choices and the end result may look like you think the only thing that can make disabled people happy is being freed from their condition. I think it’s best to just avoid it altogether. If you need a more nuanced idea, try to give them a solution that still has a few downs ! For exemple, a prosthetic that feels like a real arm, acts like a real arm and basically replaces it perfectly is a full cure. But a prosthetic that takes time to adjust to, needs repairs sometimes and doesn’t look 100% like an arm can be a better narrative choice
Smaller thing, but don’t make the handle uneasy to wield if you draw the character design. You can decorate most of the cane, but if you have chunky spiky decorations on the place you’re supposed to clench your hand over, you’re gonna hurt yourself. I’ve seen quite a lot of jewel handles or sculpted metal handles and usually their not good. If it’s detailed metal, your hand will end up cramped in little parts and it can hurt. If it’s a jewel, it’s so easy for it to slip out of your hand it’s unpractical.
List of tropes/ideas of scenes/details about canes to help you write new situations !
If you walk with a cane during winter, you can’t put your hand in your jacket to get warm and there’s a high chance your hand will get freezing. So after a long walk, you get an excuse for another character to hold their hand and warm them up.
If the handle is metallic, you get the opposite problem during summer. You can burn yourself so easy ! Easy accident if you want someone to help and get closer to the disabled person without it necessarily involving their disability.
Canes are SUPER useful when you’re walking upon heights. They make things really easy, just like hiking poles on mountains ! I live on volcanoes and whenever we clim on a harsh slope, I’m always the first to get up there. Good moment for your character to get a boost of confidence if they get all the way up somewhere before their friends !
The first time using your cane feels magical. If you have chronic pains, it makes you feel like your pain disapear. If you can’t walk right, it feels like everything is suddenly alright. The moment where a character chooses to wield a cane can be huge for character development. It’s a moment of fear because of the impact a cane has on their appearance, but also a moment of confidence and relief.
Canes fall. All the time. And after a while, it becomes fucking comical. Trust me, putting a cane against the wall, seeing it fall and doing it three times again in a row while it doesn’t want to stay up makes you embarrassed but also makes you want to laugh because of how stupid it looks.
When you get a cane, you stop being invisible. When you walk outside, generally speaking, people don’t look at you. They don’t care about you. But when you get a cane, people start to stare at you for no other reasons that you have a cane. Half of them are just curious, especially if you’re young. The other half has a very specific look. The “oh, you poor thing” look. Which is, trust me, particularly awful to get, especially when you’re just existing and doing nothing special. How does your character react to this ? How do they feel about it ?
I believe that is all I had in mind. I may add some more details in the future if I get other ideas, but this should already be a good start. I would be thrilled to answer questions if you have some, either in my askbox or through DMs.
I will tag this post with characters holding canes that aren’t necessarily considered cane users but that some people may be interested in writing as such. Feel free to tell me if you’d like to see tags being added !
Edit : I’m highly encouraging everyone to look at the tag section under this post where a lot of other can users are sharing their experiences !!
This post is so good it makes me want to create a character with a cane immediately
love seeing revisionism in the wild “free the nipple never meant you can walk around topless every where that’s still sexual harassment it just meant for like breastfeeding and stuff”no it literally means you should be able to walk around topless anywhere because get this. breasts aren’t fucking sexual organs.
I remember when I was about 12, I watched a show on TLC that followed people as they got somewhat uncommon medical procedures.
There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it’s stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.
And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a “man nipple” (can be shown) and a “woman nipple” (no no must obscure, ‘tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that’s the moment when it becomes a woman’s nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.
But it’s the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.
“Free the Nipple” was calling out arbitrary bullshit like that, because someone just existing with their body parts should not be considered obscene, and the double standard that men can be topless but women can’t is so blatantly ridiculous. All nipples are just nipples. If you get turned on or bothered by them, that’s on you.
my favorite subreddit is r/IsTodayFridayThe13th which makes a single post each day (Yes or No) answering the question. Every single Thursday the 12th everyone goes “This is ridiculous! I’ve been waiting too long for Friday the 13th. I’m not even going to bother checking this sub anymore; I’ve given up hope completely.” and it makes me laugh every single time
I can assure you that the Wungle is completely self contained and sandboxed! It only has the permissions required to exist on tumblr.com and your clipboard.
There is no way it could escape!
thank god anything at all useful is being torn down and made illegal so that the computer can just be a box you turn on to watch ads for fake phone games
thank god anything at all useful is being torn down and made illegal so that the computer can just be a box you turn on to watch ads for fake phone games
I believe that LLMs are not yet good as a technology nor are they being used in any positive manner.
Trying out Character AI confirmed my beliefs. Using it made me feel kinda pathetic. Sure fiction with Y/Ns might “be cringe” (screw cringe culture!), but this feels fundamentally different.
It is pathetic.
Its like I’m writing the interaction myself but worse. It’s less fulfilling and worse than even the crappiest, worst organized RP.
I don’t understand how anyone uses it for more than 30 minutes a week as a kind of haha jokey joke “look at what it said” type of thing.
This is actually v important and needs to be reblogged
Gonna just share this:
My European Studies professor decided a few weeks ago to take a Friday and instead of following the syllabus, he spent the entire hour and a half comparing Hitler’s actions from a European perspective to that of what Trump is doing in America. He never repeated a single point, and even used video and photos like this to show the comparison.
To make things better, he had us do an in class assignment for participation points. He first played a clip on youtube of one of Hilter’s speeches, subtitled and 3 minutes long. He then played a clip of one of Trump’s rallies. Our assignment? Copy down every single sentence that matched in translation down on a sheet of paper or a word document that wasn’t repeated. The person with the closest amount to what my professor found got a candy bar.
My professor found, in just three minutes of a speech, that Trump matched 65 different phrases/sentences to that of Hitler’s translation.
65 nearly identical phrases used in his speeches. Take a moment to think about that.
The number of times I have been delighted by witty banter only to find out later that I was “Flirting” is both unfortunate and disappointing.
“haha so what about that guy, huh?”
Me: what about him
“Well you seemed super into him”
Me: what why
“…dude you were flirting all night”
Me:
Me: Whoms't™™
I found out several of my female coworkers were planning on trying to get our male coworker to ask me out because “You guys kept flirting” but I was like “We were literally just goofing around. Like we literally just told jokes to each other. Literally just stuff that friends do, the same stuff you and I do.” I was definitely 100% NOT flirting but everyone thought I was
“You were laughing at everything TJ did!”
“He paper clipped a banana to the ceiling, Isabelle. That’s fucking bonkers”
While I’m talking about social stuff I had to learn as an autistic person
There’s a LOT of social interactions between human beings whose purpose really boils down to being like that thing dogs do where they go “omg YOU’RE a dog??? I’M a dog!!!!!” And that’s not a bad thing. Highly ritualized “meaningless” displays of human connection like friendly greetings and talking about things like weather actually do serve a purpose which is like idk ritualized displays birds do. YOU’RE a human? Omg I’M a human!!!! Wow!!!
And they don’t have to be your favorite flavor of interaction. You can even think they’re silly. But they DO serve a purpose or else they wouldn’t be a thing.
There’s lots of good and folksy responses to “how are you doing” that don’t involve either lying or undermining the ritualized purpose of the greeting exchange, too. My great grandmother Ethel for example was a big fan of “well, I’m a-doin’”
“Things like ‘How are you?’ and 'Have a nice day’ and 'What do you think of the weather, then?’ What these sounds mean is: I am alive and so are you.”
- Wings, by Terry Pratchett.
It sounds so cute when you put it this way
When I was a teenager I really hated and gamified smalltalk, but… Then I got cockatiels. And cockatiels have a thing called “contact calls”. Basically, it’s a particular set of noises they make to know where each other are without looking at them directly. There’s variations, when the flock member is close it’s a very sweet little sound, when they don’t know where you are this can progress to a panicked shriek.
I kind of loved mimicking it. It let me interact with my birds in a whole new way that meant a lot to them, and it turned out to be incredibly helpful when my (completely unrecall trained, fully flighted bird) got startled in a bad gust of wind on the way between aviary and house and ended up circling in the bad weather, totally disoriented… And calling for us. It let her figure out how to get back down to come home.
Gradually I realised that lots of animals do this, actually. Cat activation noise is a contact call. Dogs do it in some kinds of whines. Social birds have big repertoires of them. It’s just a ritual to keep in contact.
Then… I realised that’s what a lot of those small rituals of smalltalk actually are. They are the act of petting an anxious or excited dog to soothe it, or letting each other know you’re still in the room together. Humans have a huge variety in the way they use these, but I stopped finding a lot of them so annoying when I realised what the rituals were actually for.
I mean, I still prefer to use the non-word versions among friends and other people amenable to it, but. I find it, given in good faith, kind of endearing now.
“Not beating the ___ allegations” is such a ‘now’ turn of phrase, implying as it does a world where everyone’s behavior is always on literal trial by a guilt-presuming judge and jury that consists of anyone who happens to be paying attention.
Not beating the panopticon allegations
There’s a grain of truth in that, but I like the goofier interpretation that suggests you were… just, facing allegations of whatever you were doing.
“not beating the ___ allegations” only works if ___ was funny to begin with. “not beating the being short allegations” about that beloved mutual you don’t the size of. this sort of thing. “not beating the loved and cared about allegations” is a fun way of saying “I keep telling you, and it’s true”
i love how there’s the genre of fix-it fic where the author goes into great granular detail of how our heroes manage to avoid or undo whatever character death or other unpopular choice occurred, in a way that abides by the laws of the fictional universe and definitely required a substantial plot outline, and then there are fix-it fics where the author just went “that’s bullshit and didn’t happen,” and we as readers all go “agreed. carry on.”
thank god anything at all useful is being torn down and made illegal so that the computer can just be a box you turn on to watch ads for fake phone games
whenever i’m discussing baby names with a weird woman i always make sure to try and sow the seeds of tragedy. ‘isn’t eridan a cute name for a boy? it’s greek.’ this is the pseudointellectual’s noblesse oblige.
