https://brin-bellway.dreamwidth.org/60742.html
Tags:
#oh look an original post
Month: June 2020
Bilbo was declared dead while he was away in the Hobbit (and had to do a bunch of paperwork to get declared alive again) but there’s no indication he was formally declared dead after leaving the Shire, even though most people assumed he had died.
Therefore I posit: having a missing person declared dead in the Shire requires the consent of their next of kin. Whoever Bilbo’s next of kin was at the time of the Hobbit (possibly Otho? I’m not sure) had him declared dead at the first opportunity but Frodo refused to ever do it.
Frodo had anxious hobbit bureaucrats knocking on his door every couple of years like ‘Mr Baggins… blease… it’s been 10 years… he was eleventy-one… can we fill out his death certificate yet’ and Frodo was like ‘absolutely not’.
Early on he genuinely couldn’t bring himself too but after a while it was more that he enjoyed irritating the local magistrate’s office than anything else.
I raise you: the hobbitish bureaucracy has no means to re-declare someone dead. They had no precedent to declare someone who was once-dead dead again. They would need the Thain, the Mayor, and the Master of Buckland to agree to changing the statute, and since the Thain and the Master are too amused by the whole henclucking that they haven’t gotten round to it just yet.
I’m upping the stakes with: last time Bilbo was declared dead when he was, in fact, not dead, they removed the law stating that you can have someone declared dead without a body, so when Bilbo left (happily aware of this legal loophole and snickering) he could never become legally dead again.
I am loving the implication here that Bilbo can literally never die in the eyes of the law. He’d love that.
a hobbit parent telling their kids the story of Mad Baggins and being like “thanks to a loophole in hobbit law he’s technically still alive today”
a hobbit child misinterprets this and lies awake at night worrying that Mad Baggins is still out there and will appear in their room without warning
Alternatively: the laws for declaring somebody dead if they’re missing for long enough are still in place, but the magistrates are just refusing to enforce them in this particular case.
After all, last time they declared Bilbo Baggins dead— which involved filling out all the paperwork necessary to declare somebody dead without a body— he had the rudeness to show up again, forcing them to do a lot more paperwork, and this time with an indignant Bilbo having a go at them while they did it.
As a result, the magistrates have decided that they’re not going to declare Bilbo Baggins dead a second time unless they have a body, a coroners reprt explaining the cause of death, and a three day wake to make sure that he doesn’t get up and walk away again.
Centuries later, hobbit parents tell their children that Mad Baggins is forever gone from the shire— at least until the day when somebody is stupid enough to declare him legally dead, at which point legend states that he will immediately come marching back, demanding an explanation.
The King Under The Mountain will come back at the hour of his kingdom’s greatest need
The Hobbit Under The Hill will come back when some punk dares to say he’s gone for good
Tags:
#Middle Earth #death tw #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #fun with loopholes
Texts From Superheroes
Tags:
#Marvel #X Men #fanfic #covid19 #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #illness tw?
Tags:
#(March 2016) #conversational aglets #advertising #sexuality and lack thereof
Updates to how we enforce our Community Guidelines on hate speech
Tumblr wouldn’t feel like much if it were not for the passionate community filling up our dashboards. You are the reason people turn to Tumblr for a laugh or for a little human connection. You are why Tumblr feels like a home for so many. You care about this place, and you let us know when something doesn’t feel right. Many of you have called on us to further reevaluate how we deal with hate speech, particularly hate speech from Nazis or other white supremacist groups. Today we’re letting you know that we heard you, and we are taking further action.
We’ve listened to your feedback and have reassessed how we can more effectively remove hateful content from Tumblr. In our own research, and from your helpful reports, we found that much of the existing hate speech stemmed from blogs that have actually already been terminated. While their original posts were deleted upon blog termination, the content of those posts still lived on in reblogs. Those reblogs rarely contained the kind of counter-speech that serves to keep hateful rhetoric in check, so we’re changing how we deal with them.
We identified nearly a thousand blogs that were previously suspended for blatantly violating our policies against hate speech. Most of them were Nazi-related blogs. Earlier this week, we began the process of removing all reblogs stemming from the original posts on those previously suspended blogs—that’s approximately 4.47M reblogs being removed from Tumblr.
Moving forward, we will evaluate all blogs suspended for hate speech, and consider mass reblog deletion when appropriate.
Consulting outside experts
We wouldn’t make a change like this without considering the impact to your freedom of expression. We do not want to silence those who are providing educational and necessary counter-arguments to hate speech. We reviewed our approach with a variety of outside groups and experts to make sure we have aligned with their recommended best practices.
There’s no silver bullet solution, AI, or algorithm that can perfectly target hate speech. That’s why we have a dedicated Trust & Safety team, and why we have an easy way for you to report any hate speech you do see.
If you see something on Tumblr that violates our Community Guidelines, please report it to our Trust & Safety team for review.
Lastly…
We are, and will always remain, steadfast believers in free speech. Tumblr is a place where you can be yourself and express your opinions. Hate speech is not conducive to that. When hate speech goes unchecked, it eventually silences the voices that add kindness and value to our society. That’s not the kind of Tumblr any of us want.
Thank you for speaking up. Please continue to help us make Tumblr the place you want it to be.
<3
>>Earlier this week, we began the process of removing all reblogs stemming from the original posts on those previously suspended blogs—that’s approximately 4.47M reblogs being removed from Tumblr.<<
So by the sound of it, if you’ve reblogged any debunkings or tangents or possibly even unrelated posts from a blog that *also* posted hate speech (by whatever standards they’re using for that), it’s getting thrown down the memory hole.
Hey guys, I wrote a Tumblr reblog once disagreeing with the idea that deleting an OP blog should delete all of its posts’ reblogs. Do you know what happened to my post? It fucking vanished [link]. It lives on because I personally ensured it.
Now is a good time to remind everyone that tumblr-utils [link] incremental backups do not delete old posts if the original gets deleted, and the Wayback Machine sure as hell does not delete them.
Hey, so, about tumblr-utils:
Last week its API key stopped working: trying to use outdated versions of tumblr-utils will now result in “HTTP Error 401: Unauthorized”. The *current* version of tumblr-utils, if I’m understanding this bug report correctly [link], works but is globally rate-limited: no more than 1,000 blogs per hour and no more than 5,000 blogs per day across all tumblr-utils users.
But there is a workaround: apply for an API key *yourself* [link], then go into the Python code and replace the API key with your own (don’t worry, you don’t need to speak Python: knowledge of plain English is enough to make it obvious which bit is the API key). I just did this and it seems to be working now. Note: you must be logged into a Tumblr account to request an API key.
—
(I’m going to put this in a reblog of this thread because it’s one of the most fitting threads available, given that this information really should be on Tumblr specifically (where the people most in need can see it and share it) and I swore I’d never make another Tumblr-hosted OP. (And you can see why!))
Tags:
#reply via reblog #oh look an update #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #PSA #amnesia cw
Asexual Sex Toy Review: Tenga Egg, Asexual Activities Annex
{{Title link: http://annex.asexualactivities.com/solo-activities/sex-toys/reviews/asexual-sex-toy-review-tenga-egg/ }}
This review was Too Hot For Tumblr™, so here it is, brought back from the dead.
Also, looking for more feedback/thoughts about the way the pictures and video are handled here, as they’re a bit more involved (and graphic, although no actual nudity is involved) than the earlier examples.
I like the three-tier description/filter/original system for the images. I think it fulfils both halves of the dual purpose of content warnings very well: giving [people who don’t want to see it at all] an opportunity to back out, and giving [people who are okay with choosing to see it but don’t want it to take them by surprise] a heads-up.
The descriptions are good both at giving a chance for informed consent and at letting you know what’s going on (if you choose not to look); the filtered images are definitely less in-your-face than the originals, offering both a way to see what’s happening and a way to prepare yourself before moving on to the originals.
I find the tabbed display intuitive and easy to use, though to be fair I’ve only tried it on a laptop and not on mobile.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #asexuality #The Last Tumblr Apocalypse #nsfw text
Bruce Wayne, mostly to annoy Alfred and partly because he genuinely doesn’t believe anyone will care about his antics, claims that his almost ten year disappearance from Gotham was because he was cryptid-hunting across Europe/Asia.
(He was learning to be Batman but whatever.)
“Yetis are real,” he tells Vicki Vale. “And one day, I will make contact.”
Bruce establishes himself as a cryptid enthusiast pretty quickly and blames most of his suspicious childhood injuries on dumb things he did trying to photograph Bigfoot behind Wayne Manor.
So anyways, Batman shows up and Bruce is a smart guy so he knows that Batman being partially myth and urban legend is going to help his crusade against darkness. But he’s also smart enough to know that people are going to start getting suspicious if Batman shows up at the same place Bruce Wayne is and Bruce Wayne constantly denies his existence.
He sets his plan into motion at a bank robbery he happens to be involved in. After sending Alfred off with his costume, he slips back into the bank in time to be there when the police arrive so that he can give his statement.
Bruce makes sure to play it up: his eyes dart around nervously, his voice pitched with excitement, and asserting at the end of his statement that, “I cannot be sure, but I am pretty positive that we were saved by a large, bat-like creature.”
The officers are like ‘yeah ok whatever man’ because Bruce Wayne once fell off of a water-tower because he thought he saw Mothman flying in the night sky, but some of the other witnesses describe seeing a weird bat-thing too so really who knows at this point.
Whenever Bruce Wayne appears publicly somewhere the Batman saves the day, he always makes sure to give a statement about Gotham’s new cryptid and how he intends to be the first on actually catching it in the wild.
“This… Bat-man creature seems to have a moral code,” he tells Vicki Vale. “If I could just,” he clenches his fist, gazing wistfully out onto the street. “Meet him…..”
This also allows for him to ply James Gordon for information without arousing suspicion. And because Gordon has a soft-spot for the little orphan he comforted during his worst night, he usually is willing to give Bruce a little bit of info on cases that the Batman has been working on.
Bruce: Batman is real, don’t lie to me.
Gordon: I can neither confirm nor deny those rumors. *gives Bruce a knowing smile*
Bruce: I heard that he tore through Falcone’s racketeering club the other night!
Gordon: Well…. *glances around* We did get a call from the docks the other night. SOMEONE tied up most of the gang and left them for us to find…
Bruce: Most of the gang?
Gordon: We think five of them are still on the run.
Bruce: Hmmm……
And of course, Batman does eventually become less of an urban legend and more of a known entity.
Bruce, busting down the doors of GCPD: BATMAN IS REAL!!!!!!!!!
Gordon: *puts head in hands, sighs*
And like maybe one time Oprah or someone confronts Bruce like “Hey people are saying that maybe YOU might be Batman” and Bruce just like… fucking loses it on live TV and is alternately crying and talking about how Batman is REAL and he pulled Bruce out of a VERY DIFFICULT TIME and how without Batman Bruce would be LOST and if people want to ruin the SANCTITY of that BOND well FINE.
And then like… Batman Incorporated becomes a thing and Bruce is all teary-eyed and smiley doing news conferences and showing off the blurry picture of him shaking (Dick)Bats’s hand and talking about how “I just always believed and I knew this story would have a happy ending and when I clutched his talon in my hand I knew that I was home.”
Bruce similarly becomes famous for insisting the Superman is a fraud put on by the government.
Tags:
#Batman #cryptids #fanfic #story ideas I will never write #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #embarrassment squick?
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #death tw
Brinens and Things - Tumblr Mirror 