Yeah... Am still trying to get baby Eli out of my system

Eli with his grandparents and his gruncles

Yeah... Still on my baby Eli obsession...

Me: I should chill and slow down and rest more...

Also me: I need to draw baby Eli related things for my happiness!

Drawing baby Eli is brings me joy...

Eli with his godmothers...

Was practicing and it once again got out of hand.

No Regrets!

DDoS Attack Against AO3: Correcting Misinformation

Normally I don't make any posts like this, but I have an interest in cybersecurity and sadly I've seen people are being really ignorant about this recent DDoS attack against the site AO3 (Archive of Our Own), so I thought I'd remind people of a few things:

1. Anonymous Sudan appears to have no actual link to Sudan at all, or to any previous hacktivist groups that once operated there. This masquerade is probably based in anti-immigration and other racist sentiments, and utilizing those sentiments in other people to scare people and set up Muslims and Sudanese people as a target. This should be obvious from the language used in their note, but this was already known prior to this particular attack.
2. This so-called Anonymous Sudan has actually been very active recently—remember that they claimed to attack Reddit, Flickr, Riot Games, a huge number of Microsoft web portals like OneDrive and Outlook, etc. before AO3, so AO3 was totally a logical target for them since they've gone after smaller entities before. DDoS attacks like this are easy for any script kiddie to set up, so it's not weird that they'd go for a smaller target like this.
3. Honestly this group of posers probably just wants money, everybody. They sent AO3 a ransom note asking for Bitcoin (and just in case people don't know, do not pay a ransom if at all possible if this ever happens to you).

My advice to people who've noticed this attack is two-fold: calm down since this is part of a larger pattern that has literally resulted in basically no loss for the end-user of any of the sites, and... I don't really know a better way to put this, but don't believe everything you read. A religiously-motivated hate group wouldn't use terms like "LGBTQ+" and "smuts," and it's so blatantly obvious that the timing of every single one of these attacks is being used to smear Muslims and Sudanese people if you think about current events for like. One second. And if you look up Anonymous Sudan, you'll see their string of attacks and how all experts know that they have nothing to do with Sudan at all. Even AO3 itself told everybody that the group is lying about their motivations... though I think I'd go further than that personally because even their name itself is almost certainly a total sham.

To be clear: this post isn't targeted at anyone in particular. I've just seen a lot of people falling for this overall or not realizing this is part of a pattern, and I also wanted to remind everyone that this isn't anything to be concerned about. What is something to be concerned about is not doing research or thinking critically and then unwittingly spreading racist ideas.

you know that tumblr post that goes "I don't want my fantasy media to be realistic, I want it to be convincing"?

I think a corollary to this is I don't want my fandom experiences to be unique, I want them to be sincere

That's why I enjoy reading the same tropes over and over again. Those authors are writing those stories from a genuine love of both the tropes and the characters.

It's why I enjoy 17 gif sets about the same 3-second interaction on screen. Each one of those sets was pulled and recoloured and captioned and adjusted because each one of those gif makers wanted to capture that moment and celebrate it.

It's why every "I'm glad you enjoyed it" reply makes me smile when I get one on a comment I left. Because I know replying to comments is hard and kind of awkward, but I also know that the author really *is* glad and I'm happy that I could let them know I enjoyed their work.

I love things that are new, sure. But I also love things that have been done a million times already because I know the person doing it loves that thing too. I love the love they're showing. I love the genuine joy and celebration and community it fills me with.

Please return us to a world where Notp and squick are used for a ship you don’t like instead of just making up a load of bullshit about how immoral it is or w/e lol