nyctolovian

[nyctolovian]

The thing is, I devalue myself instinctively. Like, I see someone's work I think, this is amazing. But then I immediately tell myself they don't care to hear about from me, so I don't say anything. I have to fight against a lot of conditioning from grade / middle school. I was literally the kid no one wanted to be friends with. I only got picked over another, more awkward girl.

And I think that is something, maybe we all do a bit. We all hold back because we assume the other person is so much cooler, more popular, they won't want my comments.

But I've learned, everyone wants someone to talk to them, wants someone to tell them they're doing good.

It's scary, but lets reach out, tell someone you like what they're doing. It's not cringe, it's appreciated.

[nyctolovian]

Hey teenagers.

You aren't slick. We adults know you look at our smut. We know no amount of minors DNI is gonna stop you from looking at our smut. We were teenagers once too, you know?

But please. Don't interact with people about sexual things online. Reading somebodies adult fic is fine. I don't like it, but you're gonna do it. Commenting on that smutfic, or joining a discord server for it, puts everyone in a really dangerous situation. Thats an entirely different level of risk. Not even with people your own age, since you can never know for sure.

[nyctolovian]

I was at a courthouse once, and saw an indigenous australian woman in a dressing gown very carefully and gingerly making her way down the steps outside the courthouse, surrounded by family who were helping her down the stairs. We asked if she was OK, because she looked awful. She looked like she should have been wrapped up in bed with blankets and hot soup, not on the steps of a courthouse.

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts:

[nyctolovian]

💀

[nyctolovian]

So today I got a rather unkind comment on AO3 (one could call it hate), but I believe it to be a bot for several reasons:

Guest account, but username attached

Said username exists but person is unlikely to be reading Tolkien fic (according to their Tumblr and AO3, they are in other fandoms)

Two grammatically correct sentences

Super generic text that could apply to any fic:

"I've seen better fanfiction written by a toddler. Get it together!"

I'm curious, did anyone else get comments like this? Let me know.

And to those who have gotten rude comments and are now worried/upset: Maybe it was just a bot too. Either way: You're awesome for putting your writing out there for others to enjoy and you don't deserve to get rude comments for it. If you want feel free to message me to compare cases and discuss details :)

[nyctolovian]

I was at a courthouse once, and saw an indigenous australian woman in a dressing gown very carefully and gingerly making her way down the steps outside the courthouse, surrounded by family who were helping her down the stairs. We asked if she was OK, because she looked awful. She looked like she should have been wrapped up in bed with blankets and hot soup, not on the steps of a courthouse.

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts:

[nyctolovian]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[nyctolovian]

Hey yall bc I've been keeping an eye on this the Itch.Io bundle for the PCRF is now live

they had an issue last week with itch.io so they had to postpone opening for a few days but for those who wanted to d/ona/te it's here!

[nyctolovian]

raiding the fridge AGAIN

#one piece

[nyctolovian]

My cartoon for this weekend’s @guardian books

[nyctolovian]

So some good news! I only need $225 left to get the abortion pill in time (due to an assault a few weeks ago) AND I also just got an email saying I've been hired for the store manager position! I may cry, things seem to be getting better so I'm hoping it lasts, but this pregnancy still has me beyond terrified. I'm doing card tarot readings and @scarsofbeauty and @saturnpandora are doing art commissions.

$157 left!

pp: [email protected]

ca: $kendyhoney (my ca is still acting up)

[nyctolovian]

it is so incredibly sad to constantly see kids on instagram and tiktok who are younger than my brother have to literally beg for shelter, food, water, medicine, and their right to exist as human beings

i mean, this young girl is only ten years old, yet she is essentially responsible for convincing random people scrolling through instagram that her and her family’s life are worth fighting for

on top of that, their gofundme is not even 10% funded and time is running out, please if you can’t donate, just share

please don’t let this little girl die begging

[nyctolovian]

[nyctolovian]

heads up: this games charity bundle was finally approved on itch.io! it opens this friday, april 12th, and will run for a week. all proceeds will go to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund.

you can check out the bundle on itch.io and follow @vgforpalestine on twitter for more updates!

[nyctolovian]

I got very loudly deadnamed and misgendered multiple times at the doctors office today. This new receptionist ignored the preferred name on my profile to deadname and misgender me loudly, louder than she talked about anyone else in the waiting room. My birth certificate says "F" nex to sex, my medical documentation reflects this, and I was still deadnamed and misgendered.

And the saving grace was a woman and her child. I wear cat-ears and the child too young to speak loved them, and kept pointing and looking at me. I'm assuming her mother kept saying "yeah, she's wearing cat-ears", "yeah, that woman has cute cat-ears", and the like. Her child was enamoured with them, and that woman didn't misgender me once. And each time my very obviously masculine deadname name came up, she looked upset at the receptionist, but not once did she give me a bad look.

It doesn't have to be much. You don't need to be a knight in shining armour, or in someones face. Simply a quiet refusal to play along with someone elses bullshit is enough. It was enough to turn a trying and tiring moment into something that put a smile on my face and joy back into my life. It wasn't a lot but it mattered to me.

[nyctolovian]

yknow those ppl who insisted f1nnster was a disgusting femboy pervert encroaching on the safe space of valid transsexuals? i wonder if those ppl now feel any regret for what they posted. or if instead theyll just pull a Gender Calvinism and say its ok because he was always-already a woman, even retroactively.

see in the trans community you have to be trans in like, specific and palatable ways. you cant be ambiguous about it, you cant be playful, you cant be arch. your gender is a document you sign in blood, and maybe it's okay to revise that document through the proper channels, but don't you dare try to pull anything over on anyone. you had better use the right gender words, and repeat the right discourse pts, and then maybe when you are doxxed for being a faggot, we will care about you. because you identified as trans just in time, just quick enough for it to matter when something happens to you.

i know this is me, bitching about a minority community that is vigilant and paranoid. i know why we are vigilant and paranoid. but we have to stop doing this. stop policing peoples' genders, even when you think it's "punching up." you don't know if someone is in the closet, you don't know anything at all.

fuck, man. did we learn anything from isobel fall? like, anything at all? maybe we shouldn't interrogate people about their gender and sexuality so much. it seems like it is causing more harm than good.

[nyctolovian]

Master doc that contains different resources and support for many countries including Palestine, Congo, Haiti, Hawai’i, etc ((op is underneath the link))