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I'm having more and more days where I just feel the need to sleep and cry and hide from the world because I'm exhausted and I really can't keep doing this reactionarily I need to start getting better about taking regular vacation time so I can be steadier

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i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh

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idk i don't think it's terrible to joke about common themes and even tropes in poetry and fiction. like some things are funny in the way that they pop up so often and are sometimes overdone & hamfisted.

the problem for me is when people on this site post poetry or short prose and someone reblogs it with a joke and that version of the post gets big notes. and that happens on here like every other month.

regardless of whether it's "good" or not, that's someone's art and unless they've already published it, this this is likely the only place they're "publishing" so the comments & tags here will be the only feedback they get.

and if they push back at all, they're portrayed as bad sports. i joined this site as a creative writing blog when i was 15 in 2008 and over the years i've seen so so so many young writers here play along and laugh it off when one of their poems becomes the new joke, because at least then only their writing will be criticized, not them.

i'm not by any means suggesting that no one is rude and terrible to visual artists here as well but i will say there isn't a hugely popular tumblr trend of reblogging someone's drawing and commenting "lol this is corny and stupid" and then that version gets 100,000 notes with everyone agreeing and laughing.

people seem to find it uniquely acceptable to make fun of poetry, something so vulnerable, because it exhibits vulnerability. there are literally "iconic" copypasta memes from this site that were originally teenagers' poems.

try being nice

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“The immediate, default media framing is to give credence to the allegation that speech critical of Israel or critical of Zionism is antisemitism,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “This has everybody on the defensive. Nobody wants to be accused of supporting or enabling antisemitism.” DA offices have received significant pressure from local pro-Israel groups to apply hate crime charges to protest-related incidents—and police and prosecutors have expended significant resources on such cases, even when they involve relatively minor allegations. Despite this, DAs have had trouble actually securing hate crimes convictions: Judges and grand juries have mostly tossed out charges, or juries have voted to acquit defendants. But by that point, those facing charges have already been significantly impacted. They have been identified as perpetrators of hate across multiple media sources—including, at times, in official DA or Department of Justice press releases—and have lost jobs, been suspended from school, or used significant resources to pay bail or legal fees. “Part of the lawfare repression strategy is that the legal process itself is the punishment,” said Jackson. “A criminal defendant who’s totally innocent can still be dragged through a terrifying, miserable process that can ruin their life.” To be sure, hate crime charges since October 7th have not been reserved for pro-Palestine protesters. A Chicago man who stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian American boy the week after the Hamas-led attacks was convicted of murder as a hate crime in February. And, as in the past, defendants continue to be charged with clearly antisemitic hate crimes unrelated to Palestine, like sending Nazi-coded threats to Jewish clergy or attacking congregants outside of synagogues. But the ease with which the laws have been mobilized to menace those associated with a popular anti-war movement raises questions about the value of hate crime statutes as a tool for justice.

[...]

“There is a pre-concerted movement to criminalize activism for Palestinian rights, and in that context hate crime charges are often a way of intensifying and escalating punishment,” said Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford University who has extensively studied hate crimes. With the Trump administration pledging in February to pursue more federal hate crime charges against pro-Palestine activists, and more states adopting a definition of antisemitism that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish animus, these recent prosecutions may mark the beginning of a chilling new legal paradigm.

17 June 2025

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in a world where a prominent branch of anti-trans activism focuses on fearmongering about "parents' rights," trans rights and youth rights become inextricable.

trans kids deserve to be called the right pronouns and the right name by schools and doctor's offices, regardless of "parental consent." trans kids deserve to undergo the right puberty at the same time as their cis peers, regardless of "parental consent."

the very concept of "parents' rights" is a smokescreen that enables the abuse and dehumanization of children by adults. this is bad for cis kids, too.

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I recently had a conversation with a man at a club who enthusiastically and in great detail described to me the generator he wanted to build and being the child of engineers, I'm used to smart people sounding fairly unhinged when they get sufficiently deep into their area of expertise so I listened for as long as I could before gently raising the concern that the design he described would require him to successfully violate the laws of conservation of matter and let me tell you it was disheartening to see this man become deeply affronted and simply wander off to find a more agreeable conversational partner.

Was just informed that "any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor" and hoo boy we are really in a crisis of anti-intellectualism.

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I can't get over how Sinners is such a rich text on assimilation and whiteness and the dangers of "civility" and music as a way to look both forward and back

And it's also a phenomenal vampire movie where a lot of hot people get covered in blood and there's a B plot about eating out girls

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Gonna add some more thoughts onto this:

My wife and I have both worked in residential facilities. I have resided in two for at least temporary periods. And for the last several years, my wife has been staying home explicitly to be a full time caregiver for me due to my disabilities.

When your caregiver cannot go home and take a break from you, it can be incredibly destructive even on healthy, loving relationships. When your caregiver is your partner, the line between "you control my access to daily functioning" and "you are facilitating my access to daily functioning" can become RAZOR thin. When your caregiver is family, negotiating "I understand you CAN do this but it would be better if someone trained did it" for certain tasks can be difficult, especially if someone is struggling to manage their own anxiety enough to make the best care decisions.

I have a strong preference for assisted living, even knowing what I do about the legitimate criticisms of the available forms of assisted living. It's a bit of a baby and bath water situation. Just because I tend to think the entire residential care system is fucked from its foundations, doesn't mean I think the concept as a whole is the problem. The approach certainly is and many of the weird dehumanizations that come from it are excruciating to try and navigate. But at the same time, there will ALWAYS be people for whom "living alone" or "living with loved ones" is really and genuinely NOT a safe or acceptable option. Rather than wholesale abandoning those of us who may find ourselves rarely or chronically in this position to a system we arbitrarily side line as inherently dehumanizing [an assertion that is based, even if unintentionally, on the idea that our dependence on others for basic need-meeting is ITSELF dehumanizing, and I really and truly hope people understand why that's not okay.], we should make every effort to ensure that professional caregiving is available and accessible in a wide variety of forms to help people in ways that actually improve their autonomy across the board.

Because it isn't the "being provided professional care" that limits out autonomy. Our autonomy is limited by the disability for which we require professional care. Receiving that care allows us to finally reach a baseline level of autonomy others often take for granted.

I get really confused, and even angry sometimes at lower support needs people who don’t understand the true meaning of autonomy and when it comes to caregivers and guardianship.

I mentioned ONCE in a group about wanting to go into assisted living and looking into it. Immediately got dog piled by people saying to absolutely not go into assisted living because itd “take away my autonomy” and “I should just live with others for as long as possible.”

Assisted living, group homes, guardianship, whatever, can very much mean that someone actually GAINS autonomy. And independence. The goal is for quality of life. We should be focusing on quality of life instead of what YOU want. What YOU want as a lower support needs person because you’ve heard bad stories.

Higher support needs people often don’t get the decision. It’s life or death for them. Y’all HAVE to realize that.

Stop forcing your narrative on young higher support needs people who are looking into different options for their care. Yes. It’s SCARY to be put in a bad situation, but often times it’s trial and error for us. Y’all HAVE to realize that. We don’t have the privilege to pick and choose between if we just live independently or go in a group home. It’s group home, or death, or living in a fucked up, maybe even abusive situation already.

Stop it.

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fuuuuck i just realized that the future idealized version of myself cant exist without current me being the catalyst for change and doing hard things. has anybody heard about this

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Lmao my appt canceled on ME, what a delightful moment of synchronicity

Oh I'm so unspeakably tempted to cancel my last appt of the day and just be done for the night......

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Oh I'm so unspeakably tempted to cancel my last appt of the day and just be done for the night......

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Apparently there was some kind of race scheduled at a local park or something so I've been trying to avoid the main trail but a little while ago when I had to cross near it I overheard the following shouted exchange

Higher feminine voice: woo, look at you go! You're jogging! Keep it up!

Lower masculine voice (panting): you know it! Last place is still a place, baby!

And goddamn if that didn't rewire my brain a little bit.

Last place is still a place, baby.

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Apparently there was some kind of race scheduled at a local park or something so I've been trying to avoid the main trail but a little while ago when I had to cross near it I overheard the following shouted exchange

Higher feminine voice: woo, look at you go! You're jogging! Keep it up!

Lower masculine voice (panting): you know it! Last place is still a place, baby!

And goddamn if that didn't rewire my brain a little bit.

Last place is still a place, baby.

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Conversation with a Native Son: Maya Angelou and James Baldwin

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"Writing tragedy is easy, I just imagine someone I want to punish and then imagine them in love." Good lord maam

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Hey did yall know American Duchess is currently giving away a free pattern for a 1910s era wrap cape????

Now you do.

Enjoy