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[txttletale]

i am confused by some self described maoists opposing gun regulations and saying the proletariat must be armed, and i remember you once said most of this comes from misinterpreting one thing marx said about an already-armed proletariat, could you expand on that?

because my thinking is, 1) people are materially, demonstratively safer in places with less guns and less excuses for cops to shoot them and 2) ... it's not like places like the US seem any closer to a revolution unless I'm missing something, right? All of this to me sounds exactly like when some extremely online "communists" oppose a labour reform that will make material improvements for the working class because they perceive worse conditions as more conductive to a revolution, which is something that, if nothing else, is horrible optics for any communist to say since it sounds like they _want_ things to get worse, which rightfully would make any working person want to punch them

SRA and similar types drastically take the quote “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary” out of context in a very silly way, interpreting it as 'basically the 2nd amendment', as marx just saying that the working class should all own their own gun as individuals--when in fact marx said this in a very specific context, discussing an organized working class in the midst of a popular democratic revolution against feudalism (such as the february revolution in russia or the xinhai revolution in china) in which the proletariat and bourgeoisie were united against aristocratic and royalist elements, and the need of organized proletarian militias to maintain their weapons even after the success of such a revolution to guard against betrayal by the bourgeoisie of the sort marx wrote of extensively in the case of the french revolutions. here's the quote in its full context:

During and after the struggle the workers must at every opportunity put forward their own demands against those of the bourgeois democrats. They must demand guarantees for the workers as soon as the democratic bourgeoisie sets about taking over the government. They must achieve these guarantees by force if necessary, and generally make sure that the new rulers commit themselves to all possible concessions and promises – the surest means of compromising them. They must check in every way and as far as is possible the victory euphoria and enthusiasm for the new situation which follow every successful street battle, with a cool and cold-blooded analysis of the situation and with undisguised mistrust of the new government. Alongside the new official governments they must simultaneously establish their own revolutionary workers’ governments, either in the form of local executive committees and councils or through workers’ clubs or committees, so that the bourgeois-democratic governments not only immediately lost the support of the workers but find themselves from the very beginning supervised and threatened by authorities behind which stand the whole mass of the workers. In a word, from the very moment of victory the workers’ suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally, against the party which intends to exploit the common victory for itself. To be able to forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.

—Karl Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League (emphasis mine)

it's a total and deeply unserious misinterpretation of what marx actually said, and imo it is indicative less of anything specific to maoism but of the usamerican individualist mindset, who cannot conceive of 'the proletariat' as conceiving of anything other than scattered individuals making personal purchasing and lifestyle decisions. to paraphrase the least annoying mcelroy brother, if you buy a glock you're not arming the proletariat, you're arming the justin. you and your SRA buddies owning guns is not an 'armed proletariat', it's an 'armed just some guys'.

& of course these people will make much hay about the black panthers' use of firearms while once again completely failing to understand what the black panthers actually were (an organization founded on marxist principles) and what they used those guns for (to patrol, in groups, around their neighbourhoods to prevent police from acting with impunity). not for personal 'self defence' but for organized, community self-defense. which kind of gets to the heart of it, a gun is not actually useful for 'self-defense', owning a gun doesn't make you safer, but because of this individualism the specter of the random street hate crime which you can epically john wick your way out of plays an oversized role in the political imagination of these people who, again, cannot envision what self-defense looks like on a community or class basis.

another argument that will be made is that "well, personal gun ownership isn't revolutionary action now, but if there's a revolution how do you expect the revolutionary party to become armed if not through preexisting individual gun ownership?" needless to say i think this is very silly. no revolutionary or guerilla movement in history has ever relied upon the personal gun ownership of its members, because that's a fucking stupid way to operate a serious fighting force.

now that doesn't mean i actually think that gun control legislation in the usa is prima facie a good idea -- i think if the last few years have hammered any point home it's that the cops don't need excuses to shoot people, and that any theoretical program of firearm confiscation would be accompanied by disproportional leniency for right-wing white gun owners and disproportional violence and brutality against latino and black gun owners. i don't think guns are ontologically evil, i think if you want to own a gun that's whatever--but i do think that SRA types are for the most part wilfully deluding themselves that their particular type of consumerism and hobbyism is serious revolutionary activism in much the same way that people who make a big deal out of buying from their local small business queer owned coffee shop are.

[reasonsforhope]

"A 2019 sighting by five witnesses indicates that the long-extinct Javan tiger may still be alive, a new study suggests.

A single strand of hair recovered from that encounter is a close genetic match to hair from a Javan tiger pelt from 1930 kept at a museum, the study shows.

“Through this research, we have determined that the Javan tiger still exists in the wild,” says Wirdateti, a government researcher and lead author of the study.

The Javan tiger was believed to have gone extinct in the 1980s but only officially declared as such in 2008...

Ripi Yanuar Fajar and his four friends say they’ll never forget that evening after Indonesia’s Independence Day celebration in 2019 when they encountered a big cat roaming a community plantation in Sukabumi, West Java province.

Immediately after the brief encounter, Ripi, who happens to be a local conservationist, reached out to Kalih Raksasewu, a researcher at the country’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), saying he and his friends had seen either a Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas), a critically endangered animal, or a Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica), a subspecies believed to have gone extinct in the 1980s but only officially declared so in 2008.

About 10 days later, Kalih visited the site of the encounter with Ripi and his friends. There, Kalih found a strand of hair snagged on a plantation fence that the unknown creature was believed to have jumped over. She also recorded footprints and claw marks that she thought resembled those of a tiger.

Kalih then sent the hair sample and other records to the West Java provincial conservation agency, or BKSDA, for further investigation. She also sent a formal letter to the provincial government to follow up on the investigation request. The matter eventually landed at BRIN, where a team of researchers ran genetic analyses to compare the single strand of hair with known samples of other tiger subspecies, such as the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) and a nearly century-old Javan tiger pelt kept at a museum in the West Java city of Bogor.

“After going through various process of laboratory tests, the results showed that the hair sample had 97.8% similarities to the Javan tiger,” Wirdateti, a researcher with BRIN’s Biosystemic and Evolutionary Research Center, said at an online discussion hosted by Mongabay Indonesia on March 28.

The discussion centered on a study published March 21 in the journal Oryx in which Wirdateti and colleagues presented their findings that suggested that the long-extinct Javan tiger may somehow — miraculously — still be prowling parts of one of the most densely populated islands on Earth.

Their testing compared the Sukabumi hair sample with hair from the museum specimen collected in 1930, as well as with other tigers, Javan leopards and several sequences from GenBank, a publicly accessible database of genetic sequences overseen by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The study noted that the supposed tiger hair had a sequence similarity of 97.06% with Sumatran tigers and 96.87% with Bengal tigers. Wirdateti also conducted additional interviews with Ripi and his friends about the encounter they’d had.

“I wanted to emphasize that this wasn’t just about finding a strand of hair, but an encounter with the Javan tiger in which five people saw it,” Kalih said.

“There’s still a possibility that the Javan tiger is in the Sukabumi forest,” she added. “If it’s coming down to the village or community plantation, it could be because its habitat has been disturbed. In 2019, when the hair was found, the Sukabumi region had been affected by drought for almost a year.” ...

Didik Raharyono, a Javan tiger expert who wasn’t involved in the study but has conducted voluntary expeditions with local wildlife awareness groups since 1997, said the number of previous reported sightings coupled with the new scientific findings must be taken seriously. He called on the environment ministry to draft and issue a policy on measures to find and conserve the Javan tiger.

“What’s most important is the next steps that we take in the future,” Didik said."

-via Mongabay, April 4, 2024

[thescarlettbitch]

Devotional Acts

For love or beauty deities

Skin care

Make up (or embrace your natural beauty)

Dress up a little

Paint your nails

Love letters

Self /love/ iykyk

Change your bed sheets/clean up your room/space

Listen to love songs/songs about sex/loving yourself

You know that trend of people, typically women, painting a canvas black and then painting their legs/ass/hands/boobs and making a form of silhouette art for their partners?

Read romance novels

Play Interactive romance novels/romance games (stardew valley, dream daddy, The Arcana, etc)

For war deities

Listen to angry music

Advocate for yourself

Reinforce your boundaries

Cut out the negative people in your life

Feel your anger, recognize your anger, don't force it down, but don't lash out to others. "I am angry. This thing made me angry. It's okay that I am angry, it is not okay to cause harm to those who do not deserve it." Etc etc

Read biographies or accounts of war, or dystopian novels (accounts of war like Night by Elie Weisel, dystopian like Divergent or Hunger Games)

Learn self defense

Learn about how your area was used in past wars.

Play fighting games (call of duty, mortal combat, etc)

For music/art deities

Create! Learn an instrument

Write a song

Paint for them

Listen to experimental or storytelling music. All music is art, so find a vibe for your deity.

Take pictures of nature, art is everywhere in nature, from the paintings on butterfly wings to the sunset

Read/write poetry

Read poetry books, or books about music or art (think biographies from musicians/artists, or books like Guitar Notes by Mary Amato or such) (guitar notes is a midgrade book but it's the only one I could think of the name of)

Visit galleries or local shows, support local artists

For wisdom deities

Read books, any type, but mostly classics like Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austen

Watch documentaries

Take free online courses on subjects that interest you

Visit and support your local libraries and independently owned bookstores

Find old unloved books at thrift stores

Learn a new skill

Listen to music from different time periods

Visit museums

Play strategy games (chess, supreme commander, etc)

Do puzzles

For nature deities

Raise a plant, or a garden

Listen to nature sounds, or music with nature sounds

Observe nature persevering, vines crawling up a building, dandelions in cracks in the pavement.

Read wilderness guides

Learn about your area's native flora and fauna

Visit local parks

Open windows and let the fresh air in

Scavenge/forage (in safe areas)

Play cozy games (animal crossing, etc)

For death deities

Visit local graveyards/cemeteries (don't forget to be mindful and conscious of others and the spirits there)

Listen to music by artists who have passed on, or music about death

Learn about different cultures' funeral practices

Safely move roadkill out of the road, leave a small offering if possible (again, do so SAFELY)

Read books that have death themes (like Edgar Allen Poe, Wuthering Heights, or They Both Die In The End)

Think about how you want your body to be treated in death. Do you want to be buried? Cremated?

For home/hearth deities

Read cozy books

Play cozy games (sims, animal crossing)

Make your house seem warm and inviting to visitors

Learn how to bake, either from scratch or a box, both are acceptable

Learn how to sew or knit or crochet.

Watch cozy movies

Light candles if you don't have a fireplace

Listen to soft music

Visit your friends or family and bring them baked goods

For strong parental deities

Take care of your friends

Make sure your friends eat and are drinking water, do the same for yourself

Tell the people in your life you love them, you're proud of them, they're doing a good job

Read books about found family, self help books

Listen to music that makes you feel safe and loved

Carry a figure that represents them

Take care of yourself the way that they would take care of you.

Cook for yourself. Make yourself feel safe and loved

For health deities

Carry bandaids and Tylenol and extra pads/tampons for people who may need them

Learn about the human body and how it works

Take your meds

Make art out of old pill bottles for them

Know and respect your limits

Watch documentaries about doctors or health sciences

Research holistic remedies and see if any might be of use to you (DO NOT SUBSTITUTE THEM FOR MODERN MEDICINE) be careful of misinformation, and any interactions that certain things might have with your meds

For sea/ocean/water deities

Have a small fountain in your home (you can find them at some dollar stores, or if you're mechanically savvy, make your own)

Salts in your baths

Visit local streams, creeks, rivers, or beaches.

Read about marine life / river life

Read about your local water sources, learn about the water cycle

Collect rain water

Stand in the rain, feel it on you, let it ground you

Listen to music about water/with water sounds/the ocean/the beach

Have pictures in your home/space of the ocean

If you visit the ocean, collect some water and sand and seashells (make sure you follow your own personal gratitude system) to have in your home

Don't fret if you're landlocked, you're practice is valid, you don't need to be at the ocean all the time to feel it's presence. The rain clouds blow in from hundreds of miles away. The ocean is always with you.

Drink water

Carry a small vial of water with you (could be ocean water, river water, or tap water with or without salt in it) you can keep it in your car, in your pocket, or wear it as a necklace

Carry a small vial of salt with you (could be hand harvested from the ocean, table salt, or any kind of off the shelf salt)

For sky/wind/air deities

Let the air in, open windows when possible

Let yourself be free.

Sit outside for a few minutes a day, or longer.

For traveler deities

Pick something up for them on your travels, could be a rock, could be a souvenir

Put a symbol of them in your car

Wear shoes that are good for walking

Drive/walk around to explore new places (you don't even have to leave your town)

Take backroads

Be a (respectful) tourist in every new place that you visit, don't be afraid of looking stupid.

For queer deities

Educate yourself on queer history

Express yourself truthfully

Listen to queer music

Read queer books

Embrace your identity

Read queer poetry, like that of Sappho

Keep yourself safe in spaces that are less open to identities.

Support local queer owned businesses or artists.

Queer art

Love yourself and take care of yourself.

Go to drag shows

Relish in the fact that queerness has been around since the very first civilizations

For Inventive Deities

Do a metal puzzle

Learn metalworking, or just read about it

As always, please feel free to add on, I only work with one deity so please tell me if anything is incorrect or confusing.

Blessed be <3

[loliwrites]

The One You Need | two

🎶 I spent most my life thinkin' love was out of reach, so maybe just this once, you could be the one I need, if you let me be the one you need 🎶

pairing: neighbor!joel miller x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni  summary: when you move into town hellbent on keeping everyone at an arm’s length, your neighbor Joel finds his way into your life. warnings/tags: au, neighbor joel, age gap [reader is late 20s/early 30s, Joel is late 40s], hyper-independent reader, a bit of a misandrist mindset, past relationships, men vs boys, sexual tension, dubcon [tagging to be safe] [slight alcohol consumption but neither is drunk], verbal consent received, reader described as female, no other physical description, protective!joel, soft!joel, dare i say ei!joel, no use of y/n. word count: 6.1k part one | joel miller masterlist  a/n: i’ve done my best to tag as thoroughly as possible, but if you think i’ve missed something, let me know. & tagging @hausofobsession because charlie's the best

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

It had been three and a half weeks since move in day and a few things had become abundantly clear about your new surroundings.

1. Having your own place rocked. You did what you wanted. You answered to no one. If you wanted to have a one person dance party at two in the morning, you did. No downstairs neighbors hollered and banged on their ceiling – your floor. You could paint the walls whatever color you wanted and tear up the flooring if you had the impulse to. Nothing ever again had to be “renter friendly” .

2. Having your own place was a lot of work. There were any number of things that seemed to break, leak, or hang crooked on any given day and instead of ringing up a landlord and complaining, you could only complain to yourself… And then figure out how to fix the broken, leaky, or wonky thing. And it boggled your mind how dust and grime seemed to manifest out of nothingness. Rooms you don’t even remember stepping foot into had somehow acquired a thin film of dust. You were constantly cleaning something or fixing something, and in the most unfortunate of times, your cleaning of something resulted in you also needing to fix it. If anything, owning a home had reinforced to you that you were indeed the man in your life.

3. Joel Miller was practically the mayor of the neighborhood. Everyone knew him. It was impossible to spend any amount of time in the yard and not be bombarded with Joel Miller, Joel Miller, Joel Miller. While he wasn’t particularly outgoing, he seemed to be there when someone needed help. Whether it was Mrs. Cole with her grocery bags or the young, single mother next door to him who needed someone to put her son’s basketball hoop together. He was an everyman. And though he had helped you in a big way on your first day as part of the neighborhood, you’d spent the past few weeks dodging him as much as possible. 

4. And lastly, you needed his help again. At some point during the week, a foul odor had wafted through the entirety of your home. And short of thinking an animal had crawled up and died within the walls, you began scouring the house with as much disinfectant as your sense of smell would allow. Every inch of every room was scrubbed down, and when that still didn’t get rid of the odor, you figured it was time to call an exterminator. Dehydrated, hungry, and about to snap, you opened the refrigerator and was punched in the face by warm, smelly air that burned your nose more than the disinfectant. Ah, the source. 

How long the fridge hadn’t been working, you didn’t know. What you did know was that all the perishables – namely the dairy products – had certainly perished. And after three hours on the phone with a local handyman you’d found online, his ultimate advice was, “get a new refrigerator”. On a normal day, that was easily said and done. You would’ve ordered one the same day and gotten it delivered the next. Only, you’d spent the week prior throwing an obscene amount of money at new furniture to fill the oodles and oodles of empty space you now found yourself inhabiting.

You had genuinely thought about asking Joel for help that same day. At least to get the fridge out of the house because you were sure the smell wouldn’t leave until the entire appliance did. But when you looked out your window, his truck wasn’t in his driveway. And it didn’t arrive back until late that night. There was no way you were going to burden him so late, so you cracked some windows and told yourself you’d ask him in the morning. But the next morning when you Houdini’d yourself out of bed and made a pot of coffee, his truck was already out of the driveway again. An hour and a half later of throwing everything out and deep cleaning it, the fridge didn’t nearly smell as bad. And after a while, you kind of just let it be.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Saturday. A day of rest. Except you were standing on Joel’s porch, curling your hand into a fist to rap your knuckles against his door, about to ask him to do a little work. A shred of guilt was growing inside of you. Yes, he had said to reach out if you needed something. He’d been nothing but neighborly. But you knew what you were doing. The thing where you use a boy for your gain but have nothing to offer in return. 

Joel opened his front door, breathing a little heavier than normal with a sheen of sweat over his face and down his neck. He appeared to be completely clothed, but whether or not you’d caught him in a state of undress and he threw this on, you had no idea. From what you’d observed by peeking out your front window, the single mother that lived next door to him seemed to have a little bit of a crush. Perhaps that crush was reciprocated on his end.

“Sorry, am I interrupting something?” You squinted your eyes shut and partially shielded them with your hand.

“What?” He looked down at himself, tugging on his shirt, “no, I just got in from doing yard work out back.” Joel took a deep breath and slowly let it exhale. He remembered when he could be working hard all day and not even feel it. Now there were days when he went up the stairs in his house and got winded. “How ya’ doin?”

“Good, I… I need your help again,”

Joel grinned, something cheeky that you wanted to slap right off his face.

“Don’t look too excited about it. My fridge is on the fritz and it’s too heavy for me to move,”

There was a part of him that wanted to bring to attention that this was the second time in less than a month that you were coming to him for help. Ultimately he thought better of it. The hard line of your lips and narrowness of your eyes clued him in that you were waiting to rebuke anything he might say. Instead he disappeared from the doorway, leaving you utterly confused, only to return a minute later with an old metal toolbox in hand. He stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind him.

“No, it’s not getting fixed. I’m getting a new one,”

He quirked his eyebrows and looked down at you, “that fridge is only three years old.” He stepped off his porch and started toward your house.

You took a few quick steps to catch up with him, falling in line and then keeping up that pace to stay even with him. It did look like a fairly modern make. “How do you know that?”

“‘Cause I helped Mrs. Wilson get it in her house three years ago. I’d told her to get that fridge because I knew it’d last. Now unless you or Mrs. Wilson did something on it that it’s not meant for, it should still be perfectly fine.”

“What’re you implying?”

Joel shot a wink in your direction, “you have any male suitors over lately? Get a little frisky in the kitchen over dinner?”

Your jaw dropped as you followed Joel up your porch steps. “No! You can see my house from your house. You know I haven’t had anyone over,”

“I don’t spy on my neighbors.” He walked through your door after you’d opened it for him, “are you spyin’ on me?”

“No, I’m not,” you protested, leading him into the kitchen and directing him toward the problem appliance. “But I do know that next-door neighbor of yours, fancies you,”

“Fancies me?”

“Mhm. She twirls her hair every time she talks to you,”

Joel set the toolbox down on the counter and angled his body at the fridge, “does she now?” He wrapped his arms around it, fingers gripping to the sides, and began to shimmy the entire thing out from its little cubbyhole.

The whole display was rather impressive. Despite actively not yearning or searching for a relationship, acts of masculinity did get you going. It was the double-edged sword that lived inside you. Boys – can’t live with them; can’t live without them. Just because you couldn’t rely on men, didn’t mean the desire to sleep with them wasn’t there. But even you knew, that under no circumstances, were you to sleep or have any sort of sexual contact with Joel Miller. Even if he was a rugged display of masculinity. With sinewy muscles that strained beneath his skin when he flexed them. And fingers that surely knew how to wrap around more than just the handle end of a hammer. He was your neighbor. You weren’t going to shit where you ate. But by God if he didn’t look like a delicious meal. 

It’s the reason you picked up so quickly on the tell-tale signs of attraction by Little Miss Next Door Neighbor. She was looking at him the way all women did when they wanted to be swept up by a man. They wanted to be handled, and led, and submissive. Something you could never be. To a man? Absolutely not. 

This argument you were having with no one but yourself was interrupted when Joel called your name with a tone that indicated to you it wasn’t the first or second time he was calling it. You blinked and focused your eyes, finding he was only partially visible – most of him being shrouded by the fridge that he now stood behind.

“S’not working because it’s dirty. Do you have a handheld vacuum?”

Approaching him, you contorted your body around it to sneak a peek at what he was looking at. “It stopped working because it’s dirty?”

“Could be somethin’ faulty inside, but the condenser coils and gasket seals are a mess. My guess is it’s just that,”

“I called some handyman and he told me I needed a brand new fridge,”

Joel peeked his head out to look at you, “why you callin’ some random handyman when you got one ‘cross the street?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, “I was going to but you worked weird hours this week and were never home when I looked out my window.”

“So you are spying on me,” he chuckled. “That’s why you’re jealous of Kelly,”

“Who’s jealous?!” It wasn’t lost on you that your voice rose about an octave or two higher than your normal register. You were sure Joel clocked that, too. “I’m just making sure you know she’s got a big ol’ schoolgirl crush on you,”

“She doesn’t ‘cause we’ve gone out before and it wasn’t a match.”

“Does she know that?” 

“I’d say she does,”

You smirked, having a little fun poking the bear. “How do you know?”

“Because when a woman gets naked and propositions a man for sex, and he says no, it’s usually a pretty definitive sign.”

“Yeah, right,” you laughed incredulously, “no man looks at a woman who’s ready to fuck and says no to her.”

“This man does,” he looked you dead in the eyes and held your gaze. “You got a vacuum?”

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

The resoluteness of Joel’s answer had honestly come as a shock. It was something you knew you’d want to circle back on at some point simply because of how insane it seemed. A straight guy turning down sex from a woman? He had to have been the first man in history to do so. The thought kept you busy while your refrigerator kept him busy. Coincidentally, you both became significantly less busy around the same time.

“It works again?”

Joel plugged the fridge back into the wall and stepped out from behind it. He wiped his hands in a rag you’d brought out for him, which just happened to be one of your old, white t-shirts. He didn’t seem to care. Or notice. “Gotta give it a few minutes. See if it’s gettin’ cold,'' he looked up at you, noting how you began to get a little more fidgety, looking around. He wasn’t sure why; perhaps just itching to get him out of your house. “You got any food for dinner?”

“Yeah,” you said half-heartedly, thinking about how you were about to endure yet another day of some sad, canned soup. “I can whip up a can of something,”

He shook his head and waved you off, “come by tonight. I’ll fix you a meal,”

“You just fixed my fridge.”

“Maybe,” he smiled.

“I should be cooking you a meal,”

He shook his head vehemently, “I haven’t eaten chicken noodle soup since I was about nine, and I don’t aim to start up again.” He pulled open the fridge door, set his hands on one of the shelves and decided it was slightly colder than it had been just a couple minutes prior. “It should be good to go now,” he loaded up his toolbox and locked it up. “Swing by around seven. If you stand me up, I’m coming back over here and breaking the damn thing,”

“Joel,”

“Seven.”

With that, he was out before you could protest again. Somehow both of you knew you’d be showing up to his house that night. Annoyance bubbled up at your surface with the realization that not only did you know you weren’t going to disobey him, but he knew it too. The few hours between him leaving and you showing back up on his porch for dinner had been spent sulking. Whatever this was becoming – you weren’t sure what just friendship looked like with a boy because no single, unattached boy you’d ever met only wanted friendship – was getting to be too much. There needed to be a line drawn in the sand. You needed to draw the line in the sand. And more importantly, after the line was drawn, you and Joel needed to be securely on opposite sides of it.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

But curse this man and his ability to put ideas in your head. Horrible, awful, domestic ideas. The sorts of ideas that made you think this image of him: on the back porch with a beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other, a dish towel slung over his shoulder for quick access, flipping over and inspecting a couple steaks, chewing on his bottom lip as he pondered how close to medium they were getting… was an image you could get used to seeing.

It was how all boys in the past had gotten you.

They wooed you with their little acts here and there of masculinity. Or their wit. Or just cute looks. They made you believe that they were different. That they were honest, and open, and evolved. And you’d get sucked in and follow the white rabbit down the hole. For a while it’d all be good. You would actually believe that you had found an evolved man that you could coexist with and be happy. But after the momentary bliss, you’d come to realize that the wool had been pulled over your eyes. You’d been deceived and lied to. The boy could not manage his own emotions, let alone understand yours. You’d sit in the anger that you betrayed your sense of self to make room for this boy, and only when you’d talked yourself far enough off the ledge, you’d explode like a time bomb. Afterwards, a tiny piece of you would be the only thing left to go around picking up all the other little fragments of yourself. And you’d put yourself back together with tape and a promise that you wouldn’t ever allow another to break you like that again. That is, until another boy found his way to you and made you think he was different. And thus the cycle continued.

“You have family out here?” Joel looked up from the barbecue and took a sip of his beer while he waited for you to answer.

Taking a step forward and buying some time by swigging down a gulp of your beer, you shook your head. “They’re all in California still. Just had to get away. What about you?”

He nodded and closed the grill, “Sarah’s a few hours away at school and her mom’s ‘bout a half hour away. But my brother’s here. I work with him actually,”

“You must be close with him,”

Joel nodded absently.

“But no wife for Joel Miller,” you smiled, half-hidden by your bottle. “I take it no girlfriend either since apparently you don’t like getting laid,”

He laughed. It was the first real, hearty laugh you’d heard from him. It seemed to shake his whole body and he opened the grill back up and plucked the steaks off it, depositing them on an awaiting plate. “I like getting laid. It might be my favorite thing to do,”

“That’s why I think you’re full of shit. Turning down, what’s her name…”

“Kelly…”

“You’re telling me,” you approached Joel slowly, got right up close to him, and dragged a delicate finger over one of his shoulders and down his bicep to prove a point. “A woman… an attractive woman, I’d say… stripped down in front of you, told you to have your way with her, and you said no thanks,”

Joel watched your finger. His tongue poked out of his mouth quickly to lick his lips before he flashed his eyes back to you, obviously finding great pleasure that his gaze in this close proximity made you avert your own eyes downward. “Exactly,”

You half-smiled and shook your head as you took a step back, “bullshit.”

He shut off the grill and scooped the plate up. “Explain to me why you think that’s bullshit,” he meandered past you and pulled his back door open, allowing you the chance to walk in first before he followed you in.

Instinctively, you progressed into the kitchen, where two stools at the counter were awaiting with place settings. You perched in one while Joel set the steaks down by you and continued to the oven where he pulled out a tray of roasted vegetables. “Because you’re a guy,”

“Man,” he corrected and started placing food on your plate.

“A man,” you mocked. When he finished giving you food and moved onto his, “thank you. And men don’t do that. They chase pleasure. They get their dick wet and they move on down the line, leaving a path of destruction in their wake,”

This time, Joel waited to respond until he was seated next to you. He clinked his bottle against yours, “thanks for coming over.”

“To be honest, I was actually afraid you’d blow up my fridge and I can’t really afford a new one right now,”

“But I’m gonna have to disagree with you,” he focused on his plate and cut into his steak. Seemingly pleased with the degree with which it was cooked, he took a first bite. “Men don’t only care, as you so delicately put, about getting their dick wet.”

“Joel, come on, you know…”

“Boys do. For sure. A boy would look at you, a beautiful woman, and see a direct path to his pleasure. Absolutely. And a boy probably wouldn’t care too much about whether or not you were getting as much out of it as he was. ‘Cause he’s getting his, right?”

You nodded, silently pushing a mixture of steak and veggies into your mouth, enraptured with where he was going to take this conversation. And slightly unable to concentrate past the point of having heard him call you beautiful. 

“Men don’t do that. A man would look at you and see that yes, you’re a beautiful woman. But he’d also see that you’ve got a helluva brain, and you’re witty, and funny, and more than a little stubborn. He’d see that you hold yourself and everyone else to a high standard, and he’d want to meet it. And when he slept with you, he’d want to make sure you were getting more out of it than he was,”

Awe-struck was the only word to describe how you felt. Was a guy actually verbalizing everything you already believed? That there was a difference between boys and men. And that most guys thought they were men simply because of their age, when you knew age meant nothing in defining a man. 

Joel took a deep breath and finished off his beer, “I turned Kelly down because I knew if I slept with her I’d be taking on a lot more than I wanted to with her. And despite whatever your experience with men might be, this one’s not out to leave a path of destruction behind him.”

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

What were these complicated feelings inside of you? Someone who prided themselves on being emotionally intelligent and level-headed and yet… you were spinning like a top. On the one hand you wanted to keep everyone a safe arm’s length away, and on the other you wanted Joel to scale the walls you’d constructed and fortified around yourself. For a long time there was an odd sense of accomplishment at how tall and strong you’d managed to build them. Look at how good they were at keeping people out. But now there was someone in front of you that you thought you wanted to let in – only in constructing your walls, you never put in a gate. And that ribbon of apathy, and the moments of enduring loneliness, maybe it was all self-inflicted.

Who knew how to hurt you better than you?

The beer helped dull those thoughts. Finishing off the second as the conversation meandered through Joel’s last relationship. A topic that would’ve given you supreme pause, and yet he recounted it with ease as if he were just a court reporter, tasked with jotting down the facts. He even acknowledged his role in the dissolution of that relationship. His eyes seemed to glaze over and travel to a distant land as he described all the ways he didn’t measure up. How he was never quite what that woman wanted. And how he had no idea how to become what she wanted. On the flip side, he admitted she’d started off as someone that only saw the moon with him. She’d kept some nights from being too cold and lonely. Only when a certain amount of time passed, did she speak up and sort of declare a relationship was there. 

That conversation ended when a third bottle was grabbed for each and moved to the living room. Both on the couch, you with your back pressed up against one of the arm’s of it. Your knees bent with feet planted securely on the cushion. And Joel sitting as close as he could with your legs creating a physical boundary between you. Even his thigh covered your toes, as if seeing how close to the boundary he could get. Despite feeling like this was someone you wanted to let through your walls, however temporarily, your brain still managed to cut off any inkling from your heart – using your body as the vehicle to keep everyone at bay.

“Hmm?” Joel hummed and grabbed your attention back to the present. “‘S’not fair leaving me hanging after I just spilled all my gory relationship details. What about yours?”

You shook your head, trying to appear innocent, “there’s not much to say.”

“Say anything,”

Staring at him, you took a deep breath and a generous sip of your new beer. Then feeling on the good side of buzzed, you stretched forward to move for the coffee table. Seeing your plight and the awkwardness of the angle given that you weren’t inclined to lower your legs to make the action smoother, Joel leaned forward, gently took the bottle from your hands and set it on the table for you.  

“He was nice at the start. A bit older than me. I thought it meant we’d be on the same wavelength for once, y’know? That he’d outgrown the frat boy, tool bag phase and moved into a more evolved one. It got physical quick and it was… awful.” You glanced down at your hands, remembering for the first time in a while about what sleeping with that guy felt like – a trial run with hari-kari, complete and self-inflicted betrayal.

With your pause and sensing obvious discomfort, Joel reached across his body and got a loose grip on your shin. He gave it a soft squeeze that felt like permission to stop if you were so inclined. But it didn’t hurt like it used to; as if you had been able to remove yourself from the equation and were now just recounting the plot of some terrible film you’d seen once.

Shrugging and with a half-smile he couldn’t place, you looked back up at Joel, “he had a good time.”

“Was it ever good for you?” He mumbled as though he didn’t actually want to hear the answer. And because you hadn’t reacted in any way to his hand on your shin, he took a chance and used that grip to lower your leg across his lap.

“No, but I’m a helluva actress.”

He raised his eyebrows and absently took hold of your other leg and lowered that one across his lap, too. Now the literal barrier you’d put between you had been carefully circumvented. “He never stopped to figure it out?”

You shook your head, “he was getting his, Joel. See, it’s hard to figure out when you’re dealing with a boy. They hide it well,”

Joel reached forward and set his half-empty beer next to yours on the coffee table. When he reclined back to his previous position, his hands migrated to your feet and squeezed them with a familiarity of an old married couple who’d been practicing this dance for decades.

“It ended two and a half years ago, so a distant memory,”

He only nodded. You thought he’d have something about that. Something like what’ve you been doing for two years without a man. But maybe he figured you were doing just fine. Probably better. So he only squeezed your feet again before his hands migrated a little further north to your knees, fingers just barely dipping between your thighs that you’d managed to keep pressed together. Finally he asked:

“No fillers in the meantime?”

It made you laugh. Any number of innuendo could be applied to his question. It was also at this point that you felt your resolve fading. The will to keep him at bay becoming less of a conscious effort. “No fillers. Not really my style,”

“Not a one night stand kinda girl?” He smirked and shot a playful glance at you. There was no chance he was unaware that the press of your thighs together had lessened. Any further action of his hand would’ve resulted in him going wherever he wanted, however he wanted. But he didn’t. His hand remained where it was, gaining no further purchase and adding no extra pressure.

“Would you be if sex was never good for you?”

He chuckled and threw his head back against the couch, “fair enough.” He shook his head, absently staring at the ceiling. Only when he’d gathered his thoughts and words did he shift his gaze back to you. “People are simple creatures,” there was a slight pause and though you opened your mouth to refute that, he continued first. “I mean the biology part. It’s not hard to get a woman off,”

“Okay, hotshot. Let me go get a horn for you to toot a little louder,”

He grinned widely, showing off nearly every tooth in his mouth. The look made you smile as well – like a kid getting caught opening presents before Christmas. “There’s a lot of hard tasks in this world,” he pursed his lips and shrugged, “making a woman come isn’t one of them.”

The heat you’d felt rising in your chest and neck after he’d successfully moved your mattress into your bedroom was returning. Only this time, you felt it settle in your cheeks, and you wondered if he was aware of it. Your eyes were glued to him, wide, trying to pick up on as much visual information they could get. What you found was Joel adding the slightest of pressure between your knees to spread your thighs just enough for him to pivot on the couch and face you squarely.

You swallowed down a lump in your throat, eyes flicking over the sight of him: the way graying curls moved across his forehead, or the way his eyes never left yours. Not even for a second. Not even when he was positioning himself closer to you, kneeling back on his shins with his thighs nudging yours upward at an angle. He smiled softly, a gentle thing that instantly put you at greater ease, and leaned in closer to you, planting his hands on the couch on either side of your chest.

“Can I kiss you?” His focus wandered down to your lips when they parted. 

In all your years of life, no one had ever asked that, and it took you aback, scrambling to make sense of the English you believed you were fluent in. But you nodded quickly and assumed that would’ve been the green light. Probably would’ve for most people, but as you were coming to learn, Joel wasn’t quite like most people.

He smiled and bowed his head, taking a breath to gather himself. In the meantime, his hair was close to your nose and the muskiness of his scent was everything you thought and wanted it to be. He raised his head and looked at you again, his eyes practically pleading. “Can we make that verbal?”

“Yes,” you exhaled. But when it didn’t result in his lips meeting yours with haste, you tried again. “Kiss me,”

Like a fire ignited under him, Joel closed the rest of the gap between you. Hands drifting to your cheeks, he cupped your head with the most practiced of ease and pressed his mouth to yours, first with closed lips to test the waters before the next action was the parting of his lips on yours. His tongue searched for entrance into your mouth, finding it when a soft breath was exhaled.

While trying not to talk yourself out of this moment, you also tried to think about the last time you’d been kissed like this. Or kissed at all, period. But like this, with want, and desire, and passion. Like all of Joel was made for this exact moment: to kiss you with the intention of every fiber of his being; to make your brain go foggy and blur out everything that did not add to this need. It was as if he could sense you slipping away from him, focused elsewhere instead of letting yourself buy into this, and he recaptured you with a soft bite to your lower lip. He re-positioned his hands; one at the side of your neck and jaw, and the other gripping onto your hip, adjusting you further until your ass was pressed up against his crotch. 

He forced himself to pull back, slight enough to be able to speak but still close enough to press his forehead against yours. “Stay with me. Don’t go somewhere else,” 

Your instinct was to protest, that you weren’t about to leave, but realized he’d picked up on the thing you were wondering about. The thing no guy had ever picked up on, or cared to, before. The distance your brain was willing to create between itself and your body.

“Joel,” you whispered, sounding slightly more needy than you would’ve hoped. 

“I know,” he murmured back. His hand ditched your hip for a split second and took hold of your wrist. Led it up over his shoulder and to the back of his neck, until the backs of your fingers brushed along the ends of his hair. Without fail, you softly clutched into it. “Stay with me. Right here,” his hand went back to your hip and your lips reconnected. Open-mouthed with his tongue pressing into yours. He tilted his head to the side and groaned into your mouth, sending a vibration down your throat, past your chest, through your stomach, and straight to your core.

You hummed back into his mouth, for once closing your eyes and letting yourself live in the feeling his lips could administer. The heat that had already been living in your cheeks seemed to amplify with the size of him around you. His broad shoulders meeting a wide chest that seemed to dwarf you. Large hands that effortlessly cupped around your hip or engulfed your cheek. He was everywhere at once and when he ducked his head lower to kiss your neck, landing a love bite on your jugular, it took extra measures to keep yourself grounded and there for him.

Your hand slowly released the hair at the nape of his neck, and slid down over his shoulder to his chest, followed the seam at the side of his t-shirt until your fingertips reached the hem at the bottom. With fingers tucking beneath the fabric and meeting the skin at his oblique, you felt him exhale a hot breath against your neck, his hips shifting beneath you. As you ran your hand north, you took stock of the muscles your fingers passed, and how while still present and firm, they’d grown less pronounced with age. A softness to his body that he’d earned the right to after years of hard labor. Or so you assumed by the feeling of calloused hands on you. 

Gauging what you wanted from him as your hands worked their way upward, pushing his shirt up with them, he groaned not wanting to take his lips off your neck, but doing so anyway to sit back. With a swift motion, he tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor unceremoniously. He wiped his hand down over his mouth and shook his head as if in disbelief as he pressed his hands back into the couch on either side of you, “god, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

His eyes danced their way over every feature on your face as if trying to commit them to memory, before they drifted lower, down to where your hips met his. But all this unadulterated looking sparked a flame of timidness inside you, and your instinct to quell the nerves was to grab for him, urging him back to you. If he was busy with his lips on you – any part of you – it’d keep his eyes from boring holes into you. His lips met yours again with fervor, this time forcing his tongue into your mouth. A helpless moan floated out of your throat and Joel responded by laying a hand at your neck. Fingers around it but applying no pressure.

“Bed. Please,” you whispered so low you wondered if you had wanted him to hear it or not. 

But it was like he was attuned to you and your body more than any previous guy had been. And in hearing your request, he moved his lips back to your neck and you felt a smile spread across his face, pressing against your skin.

“Please tell me you’re not drunk,” he mumbled against your skin. So tight that it distorted his words and had you humming for instant clarification. He lifted his head and looked back down at you, as if his eyes alone would be able to figure out the answer. “Drunk?”

You ran your hands up to his chest, “on two and a half beers?”

“That’s not an answer,” he let out a breath and drifted his hand from your neck, down to your chest where he gave one of your breasts a squeeze. You noticed at the same moment, he reached around to your ass but avoided it to simply adjust himself in his jeans.

“I’d have to be drunk to want to sleep with you?”

“I reckon it’d help,” he grinned boyishly and bent in again for another tongue-led kiss as though he couldn’t help himself.

You grabbed either side of his face in your hands and curled your fingers into his beard. “Not drunk, just want you,” there was a lack of movement on his end and you weren’t sure if he was short-circuiting or trying to figure out if someone your size could indeed get drunk on two and a half beers. Either way, you tapped his ribs, “now, if possible.”

[libraford]

Okay so here's the rundown of everything that happened with the radio station because omg is it some drama.

In the 90's, there were a lot more independently-run radio stations. There wasn't IHeartRadio and there wasn't SiriusFM or JackFM. A dude could just have a radio station frequency and start a radio station as long as they complied with FCC regulations. And one of these radio stations in Columbus was an alternative station called CD101.

That frequency was sold to a classical station, which is fine because the exchange was friendly. And then the station moved to a different frequency, CD102.5.

So I know it may seem like radio DJ's are just weirdos with microphones and that's just not true- they are TALENTED weirdos with a microphone. You have to be personable, you have to know about the music you're playing, you have to be enthusiastic. And this station was pretty good about programming- they played local music, they played deep cuts, they played weird shit. There were programs for oddball and punk and goth music. They ran charities, they were at local festivals, they were in parades. Their radio station even had a small concert venue attached to it and they would invite visiting musicians to play. Like it really was about community.

But.

Radio stations are expensive, and they get more expensive every year, and in 2020 they were unable to renew their FCC license.

And then a couple months later, they were back again under CD 92.9. A radio station rented out the frequency to them and they were able to get back on the air. It was like nothing ever happened.

I'm not going to know what happened between the owner the frequency (Mark) and the owner of the station (Randy) because there's a lot of people talking about Mark overcharging on rent and Randy being late or short on payments.

An agreement was drawn up to have Randy buy the frequency over a period of (I think) 5 years. But the price was high and the terms of termination were brutal (if he was even one day late on a payment, it constituted termination of the contract). And Randy found those terms to be unreasonable.

So, they announced that the radio station would be going off the air February 1, 2024. And we're all pretty upset! Like, not to be like 'this station saved my life,' but this was a pretty consistent source of event news for me and its how I learned about a lot of concerts and artists. They played one of my friend's bands pretty often and its like 'hell yeah, I know that flutist!'

The DJs of CD92.9 said their good-byes on Facebook.

Meanwhile...

The new DJ of the new station announced that it was always his destiny run the station, and that the new station would be More local music, More deep cuts, More weird shit- and No Billie Eilish. "Out with the old, in with the new."

On one of the old DJ's good-bye posts, the new DJ tried to recruit him to the new station.

"Really? You're trying to poach me on my good-bye post?"

Mark makes a statement that the station will be committed to 'continuing the legacy of CD92.9' and will be using the same programming, the same music, the same DJ's.

Randy says 'the fuck it will, that wasn't the deal' and files a C&D. The DJ's are allowed to work for the new station if they so please, but the new station is not going to inherit shit. They cannot use the same programming, their staff, or any of the thousands of recordings they've use in the past 30 years. Any branding or attempt to brand as similar to CD92.9 is a breach of contract.

A facebook group formed around the support of CD 92.9. How to help, how to get their online stream onto your phone, upcoming events, sponsors to support, and a healthy amount of bitching. Admittedly, some of the posts were REAL stretches- like... I'm sorry darling, I know you want it to happen, but you are NOT going to get them on copyright infringement because their red X logo looks kind of like a similar red X logo from a radio station in Milwaukee.

CD92.9 goes down, 93X goes up.

He does play some more uncommon music, sure. But he doesn't announce who the artist is so its kind of like... what's the point in that? If you just play a local band, but we don't know who the local band is, how are we going to go to their concerts? He'd also talk smack about some bands and its like... don't? You're a public face now.

And then there's the radio edits, which he chose not to play on occasion, so the radio was full of f-bombs. FCC violation.

And as a DJ, simply not charismatic. Like I realize he's not Blorbo from my radio, but like I said- DJing is a skill.

So I just didn't listen. It wasn't worth my time to try. I found a different, less cool station to listen to in the car and I listened to the stream at home.

The mood of the facebook group shifted more towards support for the sponsors, events planned around 92.9, news about who is leaving and who is staying and we just kind of let 93X exist.

The promise of 'no Billie Eilish' fell through pretty quickly. Their music selection dropped to the usual 'alternative music' packet of Imagine Dragons and Twenty-One Pilots. And eventually...

They went off the air. After one month of airtime, it is now an oldies station.

93X DJ said 'well, congratulations you got what you wanted.' Which is half right. We wanted them to tank and our old station to succeed. We're still hopeful about the second part.

The Dispatch ran an article about the short-lived station. Ends with:

So just for like... summary-

Ya'll took over the station with a committed listener base, claimed that you'd be just continuing business as usual, tried to poach their talent, hired someone with no problem talking shit, and when your station failed...

... you want to blame a Facebook Group?

Are you a child?

Anyways, if you'd like to hear an alternative rock station in Columbus that's just doing their best, here's a link to the stream!

[glitteraddams]

(2549) BAKER ASTEROID IN THE SIGNS …

aries

more independent in the kitchen. you follow your own lead. love to add new ingredients, being creative, taking risks. interested in baking at an early interest. started as a personal hobby. brings you joy and good self reliever. can be a bit competitive. fast learn. you’ll either be a home baker or be a pastry arts professor. supportive family.

taurus

traditional baker. you stick to rules. loves the textures, smells, taste of baking. your love is influenced by family tradition and homemade sweets. brings you comfort. prefers a comfortable, homey environment when baking. pays attention to detail. success in local community. unintentionally critical towards your creations.

gemini

loves to experiment. interest started from being curious about sweets. experience different opportunities in pastry arts. means positions, traveling, environments. can get bored easily with repetitiveness. fast learner. easily distracted.

cancer

baking style is based off comfort, warm, and familiarity. can be in family baking business or will be in there future. use intuition for measuring and baking in general. sensitive to criticism.

leo

confident about your craft. gain recognition or possibly fame. luxury goods attracts recognition. pays close attention to the beauty of your treats. financial success.

virgo

very detailed. prefers healthy alternatives and organic ingredients. loves studying and analyzing methods. recipes too. wants perfection.

libra

the beauty and appeal is everything to you, drawn to elegant sweets. loves to decorate and share your craft with others. possibly enjoy baking when talking to people. feel better with a baking partner. struggle making decisions.

scorpio

extremely devoted to baking. drawn to unusual ingredients, interesting flavors. feels empowered when baking. prefers baking at home or a small baking, privacy is important. loves difficult or complex recipes or baking experiences. a bit controlling. cannot handle criticism. trust issues occur in collaborative baking.

sagittarius

prefers international sweets. enjoy traveling to other places to bake. use diverse and unique ingredients. may face challenges in navigating cultural differences in baking crafts.

capricorn

traditional baker. quality over quantity. successful baking career. sees baking as practical career choice. hands on leaner. perfectionist.

aquarius

use baking to express humanity values. interested in traveling to bake. might do online baking classes or workshops. loves collaboration. can cause social impact with your pastries. family might encourage you to bake. balancing creativity and practicality might be hard.

pisces

uses intuition and creativity to bake. might love fantasy and art. that causes your interests. emotion connect with baking. could be coping mechanism. loves using artistic abilities in sweets. personal attachment to baking. needs a supportive, non-judgmental environment. could be very emotional in business setting.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Frequently Asked Questions

This post answers the following questions:

Who are the Catalans? Where are you?

Which are the Catalan Countries? (each Catalan country)

Where can I learn the Catalan language? (free online resources and where to find classes)

What social media accounts can I follow that post in Catalan?

If your question isn't answered here, you're more than welcome to send me an ask!

1. Who are the Catalans? Where are they?

Catalan people are a cultural group who come from the area known as the Catalan Countries. We speak the Catalan language (a language that descends from Latin) and have a distinct culture (cuisine, traditions, holidays, dances, music, literature, etc) and history since the Middle Ages.

Our nation is the Catalan Countries, located in the coast of the Mediterranean sea, in South-Western Europe.

As a result of past wars and invasions, most of the Catalan Countries are under Spanish rule and a part of it is under French rule (+1 city in Italy). In fact, Spain and France have harshly persecuted, illegalized and tried to exterminate the Catalan language and culture for a long time, well into the 20th century. But Catalan people have survived the ethnocide and we still exist, even though we continue to face discrimination and there are some settings where it's still not legal to speak Catalan (for example, public schools in the French-controlled part, or European Union ambits, among some others).

There is also Catalan diaspora around the world.

We are not a closed culture, we are very open to foreigners learning our language and culture, and the Catalan diaspora often organizes celebrations for our holidays or groups to do traditional activities (most famously the castellers, aka human towers) that everyone can join.

2. Which are the Catalan Countries?

We say the Catalan Countries in plural because it's made of different areas for historical reasons. The Catalan Countries are all the areas where Catalan is the native language, which have historically been part of a whole, and which share a common culture (with local variants, of course). Here they are:

From North to South:

Northern Catalonia. Capital city: Perpinyà. It's under French administration (part of the region Occitanie in the new French regions system, used to be Languedoc-Roussillon in the old one).

Andorra. Capital city: Andorra la Vella. It's an independent microstate.

Catalonia. Capital city: Barcelona. It's under Spanish administration (it's the Catalonia region in the Spanish regions system).

Eastern Strip, also called Aragon Strip. It's under Spanish administration (it's part of the region of Aragon in the Spanish regions system).

Balearic Islands, including Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa (in English also known as Ibiza) and Formentera. Capital city: Palma. Under Spanish administration (Balearics region in the Spanish regions system).

Valencian Country. Capital city: València. Under Spanish administration (called Valencian Community in the Spanish regions system).

El Carxe. Tiny rural area. Under Spanish administration (part of the Region of Murcia in the Spanish regions system).

L'Alguer. One city in the island of Sardinia. Under Italian administration (part of the region of Sardinia in the Italian regions system).

3. Where can I learn the Catalan language?

We are thrilled that you want to learn our language. Catalan people love it when others learn our language. Here I'll link you to classes and free online resources.

If you want face-to-face classes outside of the Catalan Countries, you can check this website to find if there's a university that offers Catalan classes near you. There are 101 around Europe, 25 in North America and Cuba, 5 in Asia, and 4 in South America. Students from these courses can also participate in language stays and internships in the Catalan Countries.

If you're already in the Catalan Countries, you will easily find courses for foreigners which the government offers for free or for a cheap price (depending on the level and each person's economic situation). Check out your local CPNL (Consorci per la Normalització Lingüística).

If you want to learn independently on the internet, there are two resources I recommend the most, both are available online for free.

One is the book "Life in Catalonia. Learn Catalan from..." that you can find in various languages. Here I add the link to the official government page where you can legally download the PDFs for free, you only have to scroll down and click under where it says "text complet". You can find the book Learn Catalan from English, from Spanish, from Arabic, from Tamazight, from French, from Hindi, from Urdu, from Punjabi, from Romanian, from Russian, and from Chinese.

The other resource I recommend the most is the online course Parla.cat. It has different levels for beginners or advanced learners. You have to create an account (it asks for an official document number, don't worry about it, it's not a sketchy site, it's because it's an official course paid by the government of Catalonia and if you immigrated to Catalonia having taken this course would officially count as a language course and can give you some benefits). You can either use it for free (all the learning material is available in the free version) or you can use the paying version. In the paid version, you will get assigned a language teacher from Catalonia who can help you and correct you.

There are many more resources. You can find more free resources in this post, this post, or in this link.

Here you have some recommendations to start practising. And remember that you can watch Catalonia's public TV streaming service 3Cat for free from anywhere in the world!

4. I want to follow social media accounts that post in Catalan. Can you tell me some?

Of course! According to the WWW Consortium, Catalan is the 35th most used language on the Internet, out of the more than 7,000 languages in the world.

Here's some lists with recommendations by topic:

Anime and manga

Cooking

Travel accounts

Videogames

Fashion and lifestyle

More lists will be coming soon

If your question wasn't answered, you can send me a question clicking here. 🙂 You can also browse this blog by topics here.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I was here just a minute ago but I also wanted to ask if you know how to get involved in writing communities? I'd love some writer friends but I just don't know how to find people

Getting Involved with Writing Communities

First you have to find some writing communities to get involved with. One option is to see if there's a local writing group you can join. These groups often meet in person at libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops, where they discuss writing-related topics, do group writing sprints, etc. This not only gives you a chance to meet and hang out with other writers, it also provides the opportunity to meet potential critique partners, beta readers, and make new writer friends. Try visiting your local library, independent bookstore, or coffee shops to ask if they know of any local writing groups that meet there.

If you want an online community, there are plenty to choose from. Facebook has a lot of great writing groups, usually organized around a particular genre, writing advice expert, writing method, etc. For example, author and advice expert K.M. Weiland has a Facebook community called "Wordplayers" for readers of her Helping Writers Become Authors books. The Self-Publishing School web site has The Write Life Community. You might even find online writing groups for people in your city/state/country.

There are also other internet options, off Facebook, such as various writing forums, Discord servers, group chats, etc. You can also get involved in broader writing communities by following writing-related hashtags, following high profile posters, and following/interacting with people whose names you see over and over again.

Once you find some communities to join, it's a great idea to just observe for a little while. Get to know the rhythm of the community, who's who, what's what, and how things generally function. Then start with small interactions, working your way up to replies and eventually posts, making sure you're adhering to community guidelines.

I hope that helps! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[mistressofpuppets86]

Fireworks of our own

Pairing: Present day James Hetfield x reader (NO USE OF Y/N)

Synopsis: You’re settling into life in a new town and a new state after a massive and massively unexpected inheritance. You become close with the highly recognizable and hot as fuck heavily tattooed… and somewhat recently divorced… silver fox that you learn lives across the street from you.

Warnings: 18+. There will be smut. Minors, fuck off. RPF. 1st person POV. 20-ish year age gap. Reader is early 40s, James is 60. Reader’s race is not mentioned or described, but is AFAB and female identifying. Due to the lack of female readers with my body type when body type is described/hinted at, reader is also short and somewhat plus-sized, and has small breasts. Unprotected sex. Public sex. Creampie.

Moving into the large expensive house I’d inherited in Colorado turned out to be one of my smarter decisions.  The house used to belong to my step-aunt and step-uncle.  I didn’t find out until after they were both gone that they’d made an agreement codified in their wills.  What it boiled down to was that their biological relatives were a bunch of greedy vultures who loved to squabble over anything of value, vying with each other for the best of whatever it was and only caring about what benefit there was for themselves in literally any situation.  It shocked me as much as anyone when I was the one named sole beneficiary of their entire estate.  I don’t know what would have happened had I turned it down, but turning down enough of a bank account to make me independently wealthy plus a variety of stocks and other investments that were continuing to provide income and a plush house in the ski town of Vail was not something I would do.  I never had to work again if I didn’t want to, and the house was entirely paid off.  It would have been complete idiocy to reject all that.  In further interest of not being a complete idiot, I also took measures as soon as possible to ensure my step-aunt’s and step-uncle’s wishes were respected.  In the event of my untimely death, ‘those people’ would still inherit nothing.  I used the same lawyers my step-aunt and step-uncle had to ensure my will was as ironclad as theirs had been, in case ‘those people’ contested mine as my step-aunt’s and step-uncle’s had been contested when I was named sole heir.

What surprised me was how friendly the rest of the residents were, and how patient they were in getting me integrated into the community.  Being autistic and having ADHD made social interactions feel weird and awkward to me when I was around new people.  Everyone in Vail was new to me.  I’d moved here alone and used a moving company to do all the hard work for me.  My friends were all online and lived in other states if not other countries so it hadn’t seemed like a big deal for me.  Especially since I was such an introverted type by nature.  But something about Vail put me at ease and made it easier for me to open up to people.  It helped that they were understanding of my differences and made an effort to work with them rather than treating me with pity or like I was something to be shunned.

The real shock was my across-the-street neighbor turning out to be James fucking Hetfield of all people.  Thankfully he’d been amused rather than weirded out by my reaction to seeing him and learning he was my neighbor now.  I didn’t hide that I was a fan, but I did at least try to keep things mellow in his presence.  It helped that he was super down to earth and generally a fun guy to be around.  It didn’t take me long to relax around him while we talked and got to know each other.  I definitely had my freak-out once I was alone in my house though.

That was months ago.  Now we’re at a local park for a Fourth of July community event.  I had worn a cute spaghetti strap lavender dress with white flowers on it.  The hemline fell to a little below my knees, and there was a slit from the hem to mid thigh on the left.  The skirt part was flared enough to mostly hide my chubby belly while the bodice was a little fitted to give me some shape, with lightly padded breast cups that flattered my small bust.  I’d paired it with black strappy low-heeled wedge sandals and my hair was brushed and twisted up in a claw clip.  I spritzed on some orange-vanilla-cinnamon body spray, and was ready.  I had never been a makeup girl so I didn’t even own any.  James had given me a look I couldn’t interpret when he’d rung my doorbell so we could drive over together, but he’d also offered me his arm with a playful grin.  I’d happily taken it, grinning back and trying to ignore the way my heart fluttered in my chest as we walked to his vehicle together.  He was looking especially good himself today.  Well-fitted jeans, a t-shirt that hugged his lean body just right and showed off his tattoos, and one of his many pairs of black boots.  One of his many cowboy style hats sat on top of his silvered head.  Normally that kind of thing didn’t have any special effect on me.  But when that sort of hat was on him, it made the song lyric ‘save a horse ride a cowboy’ come to mind.

He parked and we walked toward the entrance.  When I saw just how many people were gathered in the park, my steps faltered.  It was weird.  I’d had no crowd anxiety at the few concerts I’d managed to get to, but this made me hesitate.  Maybe it was because at concerts I was surrounded by fellow metalheads and felt safe there.  Even when I didn’t know them personally we were already bonded through the music and shared love of the same band.  That connection and feelings of belonging and community weren’t present here at the park.  I’d barely stopped walking when I felt James’s arm drape over my shoulders and pull me in close to him.  I looked up at him even as I leaned against him and wrapped an arm around his waist.  Instead of the irritation or other negative emotions I had expected to see in his face and eyes there was nothing but understanding, patience, and reassurance.  “We’ve got this, babe” he murmured, giving me a squeeze.  I smiled up at him and gave his waist a squeeze as my heart flipped in my chest at the endearment and his embrace.  Then we entered the park together.

Once the initial anxiety had dissipated I was able to relax and enjoy the afternoon.  James insisted on paying for everything no matter how much I protested and reminded him I had my own money.  He countered that it was the gentlemanly thing to do.  Having no answer to that, I gave up trying to prevent him from doing it.  What was even more surprising to me was that he didn’t end up mobbed by fans.  I was sure at least some people recognized him - especially with his tattoos so readily visible and recognizable - no one approached for autographs or photos or anything.  With as at ease as he was, I could only be happy for him that he could still go out in public and do normal things like anyone else.  

We both lost most of the carnival games we played, but James had a decent win at one of them and insisted I pick out the prize since he intended for me to keep it anyway.  I chose the plush possum - about the size of a housecat - as soon as I spotted it.  I tucked it into the tote bag I was carrying, positioning it so the fuzzy head was sticking up out of the top.  “So he can see everything going on” I joked, making James laugh.  

As night fell we found ourselves at the edge of the grassy area that had been set aside for fireworks viewing.  With the setting sun, the warmth from the day seeped away and left everything on the chillier side.  Enough that it made me glad for the two blankets we’d brought… one to sit on, and one to cover up with.  We ended up with him using the tote bag as a pillow, and me - at his insistence - using his shoulder as a pillow.  Not that I minded, of course.  His arm wrapped around me and kept me close beside his warm solidness.  Without thinking about it, I rolled onto my side and snuggled closer with an arm over his waist.  I felt him stiffen for a second and panicked that I’d overstepped, but then I felt him relax and his arm tightened around me in a brief squeeze.  “Comfy?” he asked playfully, his voice low enough only I could hear what he said.

I shifted my head to look at him and my heart skipped at how close his face was to mine.  It was difficult to see much in the darkness but I could make out the amused quirk of his lips.  “Very much so… babe” I replied just as softly and playfully, pointedly tossing his earlier endearment back at him.

James let out a quiet bark of a laugh.  “Shit.  And here I thought I’d gotten away with that” he joked, the tip of his nose brushing against mine.  I knew he could feel my racing heart but he said nothing about it.

“Mmm… you kinda did, in a way” I murmured, rubbing my nose against his in turn.  “Clearly I didn’t mind you calling me that since I didn’t raise any protest.  And I certainly wouldn’t be laying like this with you right now” I pointed out even as I felt him roll onto his side facing me.  He murmured a quiet agreement, his lips close enough to mine I could feel his breath as he spoke.  Then his lips were on mine, tentative and testing at first then with more confidence and assurance when I responded eagerly and kissed him back.  A soft moan left my throat and my leg slid over his hip, my own hips pressing against him.  I felt the rumble of his moan too and his strong hand spread over the curve of my ass, pulling me even more tightly against him.  Tight enough I could feel his hard cock through his jeans.  I rolled my hips against his and deepened the kiss.

Carefully, James slid my dress up over my hips to my waist and my own hand tugged his jeans zipper down, fingers delving into the fabric to free his length.  I could feel exactly how thick he was too, my hand wrapping around him and stroking until his hand gently took hold of my wrist.  “Gonna bust like a virgin boy if you keep that up” he growled softly in my ear.  “And I wanna be in you when I bust” he added with a nip that made me whimper in pleasure as much as his words did.  I let him take control again, his long fingers tugging my panties to the side and guiding his tip through my slick folds.  “Holy fuck you’re soaked” he murmured as he sank into me.  I made a noise of need, and he quickly smothered the sound with another searing kiss as his hips slowly rolled and he thrust into and out of me.

The way he filled me was absolute perfection, and each drag and push of his cock would have had me moaning loud enough for us to be caught even over the noise from the fireworks show starting had he not kept his mouth on mine and my tongue busy with his.  It was bliss and torture at the same time that he kept his pace steady, his movements small but intense so we could both finish but hopefully not have our activities noticed.  “James… getting close” I murmured against his lips, my pussy fluttering around his cock as he brought me closer to my peak.

“Good.  Cum for me, my love.  Cum all over this cock” he murmured back.  The command in his tone, him calling me his love, and the way he was fucking me sent me over the edge.  He kissed me hard to keep my moans muffled, grunting softly and bucking into me hard as he followed me over that edge, his hot seed shooting deep into me and filling me to the brim.  We lay there in each others’ arms after, his cock still buried inside me, kissing slowly and languidly for a short while.  But then the finale of the fireworks happened and we knew our cover would be up soon.  He withdrew from me and tugged my panties back into place before his cum could leak out onto my thighs.  Then he kissed me once more and rolled onto his back to tuck his cock back into his pants and zip up.  We pulled our arms out from under the blanket to make everything look innocent just in time for the end of the display and the other attendees to start packing up to go home.

“What did you two think of the show?” a man around my age with a woman who looked to be about the same age at his side asked us as James helped me to my feet and we started folding up the blankets and gathering our things by the light of cell phone flashlights.  James and I exchanged a mischievous look and grinned.

“It was great” I replied, my voice even.  “Best display I’ve ever seen” I added.

“I was just telling my girlfriend how much better the show was this year than last year” James added, his eyes and smile full of mischief.  I felt my cheeks heat but I grinned back and made a comment about how I was glad to have been part of it.  Warmth blossomed in my chest at him declaring me his girlfriend.  The other couple seemed a little surprised but continued the conversation and didn’t seem to be judging either James or I over the obvious age gap between us.  I couldn’t tell if they knew who James was and accepted it as a general celebrity thing or if they were just chill like that.  Either way worked for me.

James draped his arm over my shoulders again and I put my arm around his waist as we walked back to the parking lot, each of us carrying things as we had done coming in.  His cum slowly leaked out of my hole and soaked my panties as we walked.  When we got to the vehicle, I reached for one of the blankets to put on my seat for the drive home.  He raised an eyebrow in question.  “If I don’t put down a barrier, I’m going to leave a wet patch on your seat from your cum soaking through my clothes” I said bluntly, leaning in close.  He smirked at me and held me close with his hands on my hips.  My arms went around his neck and he kissed me gently.

“Mmm… worth it though” he teased, making my cheeks heat again.  He kissed me once more and gave my ass a double-handed squeeze.  “Now let’s get home so we can get fully naked.  I wanna taste your pussy before I fuck you properly and have you screaming my name while I fill you with my cum again” he growled softly in my ear.  I shivered and made a needy sound that brought a grin to his lips.  When he released me and went to the driver side with long strides, I wasted no time getting into the vehicle and closing the door, buckling my seatbelt.  My panties were wet with more than just James’s cum, and I was eager for not just the rest of the night with him but the rest of our lives together.  I knew, somehow, that we belonged only to each other now.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

I don't have an online source yet other than a tweet in Hebrew, but I heard a report about at least two Hamas divers who tried to invade Israel through the sea. The threat has been neutralized, but this shows once again, that as long as Hamas exists, the civilians in southern Israel are NOT safe. That's along with Hamas still firing rockets at Israeli civilians whenever they can.

This morning also saw another independent Palestinian terrorist attack, this time on one of the major roads leading into Jerusalem. Two Israelis have been stabbed and injured, a 25 years old man, and a 19 or 20 years old woman (I heard contradicting reports, so I'm citing both options). The terrorist was 15 years old, and has been neutralized. He reached the scene of the attack riding on electric bicycles. Just a reminder, inciting and recruiting a teenager to carry out a terrorist attack is morally wrong, if not downright criminal, and it should be where everyone's ire is directed.

The IDF has confirmed that it has killed a Hamas leader in Lebanon, Mustafa Hadi. He was in charge, among other things, of promoting terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets outside of Israel.

I've heard a journalist saying that there are enough aid trucks entering Gaza, the issue is that Hamas is confiscating about 60% of the humanitarian aid brought in. The info is confirmed in this article, about a new pilot the IDF is trying, to try and bypass Hamas. If the last attempt (which backfired) was to bring aid in from the south, and the IDF would secure it as it's transferred to the north (instead of handing it to local elements for the transfer), now they're going to check the trucks in the south, but bring them into Gaza directly in its northern part.

I've already expressed my POV about what is probably the worst speech given at the Oscars this year, maybe ever. Now, the Holocaust Survivors' Foundation has denounced the Holocaust-hijacking, anti-Israel speech at the Oscars as "factually incorrect and morally indefensible." The ADL sent out the same message.

I've already pointed out that the absolute majority of survivors were and are Zionist (as were many of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust), but I think it really matters that the survivors who are still around are using their own voices to speak out against this distorted narrative. Will this director and others like him, who have hijacked the Holocaust for their political messages, actually listen and apologize? I kind of doubt it. Holocaust survivors are to be listened to! ...But only if they're one of the 5 or so who hate Israel.

And while we're at it, it should also be mentioned that the red hand pin that many stars wore at awards ceremonies this year stems from a symbol featured in many anti-Israel protests, leading back to the 2000 brutal lynching and murder of two Israelis who took a wrong turn into the Palestinian city of Ramallah. I think it says a lot in itself, that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular SAFELY walk around Jewish majority Israeli cities every day, or live in them, but Jews have to fear for their lives when they enter, even accidentally, Arab areas that have been ethnically cleansed of Jews. Regarding the red hand symbol, I'm not saying that every person using it fully understands its origin, that it became a feature of anti-Israel demonstrations only after the lynching, it was never spotted at them before that, it became a prominent feature of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), I'm also not saying this is the only use of a red hand as a protest symbol ever, so people who saw the pin would have easily been unaware of its origin in this context. But it feels like another sign of the same problem: people are ignorant about this conflict, yet they allow themselves the freedom to talk about it, or use its symbols and terms, without truly understanding them, and without seeming to care about the consequences. It's a bit like someone who might have watched Dukes of Hazard, and started wearing a pin of the Confederate flag, initially not knowing (but later also not showing any care for) why this would hurt the feelings of many African Americans.

Here's another reminder from November 2023, that informed people knowing about the origin of this symbol pre-dates the Oscars:

BTW, I should probably mention that the Italian press crew, which documented the lynching and the proudly presented bloodied hands of one murderer, shared the footage despite threats to their lives from Palestinians (while another Italian film crew threw that one under the bus, promising that their TV station abides by the rules of the Palestinian Authority, implying they comply with the PA's censorship of Palestinian-committed violence). An American news team from ABC, was attacked and prevented from documenting the lynching. A British photojournalist, Mark Seager, who tried to document the lynching as well, was attacked by Palestinians, his equipment was destroyed, and he said he would have nightmares for the rest of his life. Back in 2009, Fatah (the ruling party of the PA) used the lynching to claim they were more deadly towards Israelis than Hamas. ANYONE who lived through this, as many Israelis and Jews did, or even just heard about it growing up, would not easily forget the symbolism of the red hand in this context.

This is 13 years old Mai Zuheir abu Subeich.

She was an Israeli Arab Muslim Bedouine. She excelled as a student, and dreamed of being an English teacher. Family members say she was even already teaching her siblings and cousins. On Oct 7, she was killed when a Palestinian rocket from Gaza hit her home, in the Negev desert. This Ramadan, as IDF soldiers continue to fight in Gaza, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bedouins and Druze, please remember they're fighting to keep the Muslim citizens of Israel safe from Hamas, too.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[kat-sribbles]

October 9th, 2001: The Beginning of Something

Ever since Quarantine of 2020, I’ve always wondered where fall out boy first ever performance was. I’ve been a fan of FOB for about 9 years now and never fully went into their history of how they started, so quarantine gave me time to do research. I came across a video of a Black Sabbath cover band and in the description of the video said that this was fall out boy first ever show they did, they played alongside two cover bands that were Chicago hardcore locals. After looking at this video for awhile, it had a date and location. October 9th, 2001 at DePaul University at Cortelyou Commons. There was my answer to the question…but it didn’t feel satisfied enough, I need to know more about this show and if there is footage of this show. This is where my search starts going into more depth.

Fast-forward to this summer of 2023, with the help of two friends, I started to do more digging on the first show. I went back to the video and saw that the channel had uploaded another video from that same night. When I looked the description of that video, it had said “This was Fall Out Boy's first show. No, we do not have any video of them. They were awful.”

(Which I do not mind that they were terrible, even the guys said it was a terrible show). I then started to search this channel name on instagram, I found that this guy who uploaded thee videos was the bassist of Stillwell (the band that is shown in the video) and is the founder of the independent record label, Forge Again Records. My friend reached out via the instagram that I found and we asked a few questions. (See picture below) he was very kind to answer some of our questions that we had about that night ( we asked about how they were booked for that show and if there was any flyers promoting this show at all).

What he told us:

He got a call from Ben Rose (the drummer at the time) and asked to be put onto the lineup last minute (this is why there most likely wasn’t a flyer with their name on it)

They opened the show that night since he needed someone to open.

He then guided us into looking at the Oral History of TTTYG from AP Magazine (issue 303). I have a copy of the mega collection of all the issues that FOB was in from AP and quickly found some key notes. (Show pictures below) not only did our search gave us some clues but also made us open to other lost media that might be out there as well!

Joe was given a link from Patrick (Patrick’s mp3 page) after meeting Joe at a borders bookstore in Wilmette

The first implication of FOB being mention was in a GuestBook post that Patrick made (picture below) on May 31st, 2001

At the show, they did not have a name yet, they were only referred to as “Pete’s New Band”

Their second show, they opened for The Killing Tree at an unknown southern Illinois college auditorium, and this is the show where they got their name from.

With all of this information, we come to a halt. We are still trying to find anyone who would possibly have this footage, there’s possibly might be someone but not 100% sure yet (I wanna note that I did look on DePaul’s archives online and couldn’t do much without going in-person to look at their archives since I do not live in Chicago, I went as far as contacting the head digital archivist at DePaul and they do not have any footage, they would only have the footage if it was donated to them). We still need help finding some Information and anything pre-tttyg.

If you know anything please contact/email us at foblostmedia@gmail.com

(Wanna mention that I did make a similar post, you can check that out as well)

Happy 22 years of being a band & best friends @falloutboy

(And we love you back!)

(Disclaimer: please do not message the guy we contacted, he was already contacted by us and answered our questions on what we needed)

[youzicha]

Lately I have been noticing that I could no longer find several tumblr posts I made in the past. I happened to have a local copy made with tumblr_backup.py, so I made a script to go through all post and see which are still online. It turns out that 19 of my 3572 posts had been deleted, and just show a "The URL you requested could not be found" message.

Tumbl silently deleted 0.5% of my blog! 😬

I'm guessing the issue is a new system, where if someone gets deleted for violating terms of service, then all reblogs of all their posts also get deleted. For example, all reblog chains where the root post was by @tilthat or @loving-not-heyting seem to be gone. I have been wondering about it for a while, and today I saw @as-if-and-only-if independently noted the same phenomenon.

(To be clear, none of these 19 deleted posts in themselves violated the terms of service in any way. And for that matter, loving-not-heyting didn't actually violate the ToS but was the target of some mass-reporting campaign.)

This seems way too extreme! In particular, this also deletes any additions to the reblogs that I made. I think I lost about 25 paragraphs of text this way, including one post I was quite pleased with and linked to in my "about" page. I submitted a ticket to tumblr support about this, so I guess we can see if they reply.

For reference, the list of affected posts were:

170398028834 175556946859 archived 178197879739 185163158244 185896080194 189092060189 189128209769 189900172914 190043031089 archived 190505167429 archived 618486073074548736 archived 625812269040877568 archived 631284494808285184 archived 641949861623824384 archived 658157163330568192 archived 670399930215645184 674829347640786944 693772616920612864

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Any advice for those of us looking for supportive friends who also share our love for words and passion for writing? Perhaps online avenues/ (active) writing groups or ways to go about searching for local events or workshops in our communities? ♥️

(First off, love your writing!)

I did a bit of digging on this, and for the most part, it's online writing communities that seem to be frequently suggested. Other than going the university/local community route, which would vary depending on where we live.

Since I can't give you any good advice on this, here are a few tips I found online for finding a writing group:

Find a local writing group near you. Visit a nearby community center. They offer different types of gatherings and courses and might have a writing workshop or group that’s taking new members. Also, check the listings at your local library where people often gather for literary talks or groups. In general, writing groups have a set time and day that they meet. For example, some clubs might meet every second Tuesday of the month. Find a writers workshop that fits your schedule.

Go on a writing retreat. Unlike most other writing groups, going on a writer’s retreat will cost money and is usually a destination event. It’s a writing-intensive place where people go to dedicate all of their time to writing and to connect with other writers. If you have some time to get away, find a writing retreat where you can dedicate a week or more to just writing.

Join different writers’ associations. There are a variety of writer’s associations with local chapters. Connect with an association like National Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo—which has group meetups at local libraries. You can also find a writing group by genre, like Romance Writers of America or Mystery Writers of America. Whether you’re in New York City or Milwaukee, you can also find indie writing groups by location. For example, in Los Angeles, there is the Independent Writers of Southern California, which offers workshops, classes, lectures, and writing groups.

Look online. In this day and age, finding a writing group is as easy as searching online. Search for a meetup group near you with other area writers. Narrow your search by genre if you want to commune with writers who have a similar passion. There are groups for authors of every genre.

Find online writing groups. If you’d rather find a virtual group of writers to work with, look online. Here's a list of writing community websites recommended by Writer's Digest.

Start your own writer’s group. If you’re having a hard time finding a community, start your own creative writing group. Recruit other local writers by posting a note at a coffee shop or library, asking members of your book club to join, or posting on social media. One advantage of starting your own group is you can make it what you want. For example, you can start a general writing group that welcomes all writers, like screenwriters, sci-fi writers, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers, or you can keep it to a specific genre. Build your own community, pick a day, find a location, and start realizing the benefits of being a part of a writing group.

Sources: 1 2 3

Hope this helps. But I feel I'm the wrong person for this question. So if anyone has better suggestions, please let us know!

[embracetheshipping]

IMPORTANT VOTING INFORMATION

Now more than ever, it is important to make sure that you are registered to vote and that you fully understand all the requirements for in-person, mail-in, and absentee voting. Double check your registration OFTEN to make sure nothing has changed. Don't give Republicans ANY reason to disqualify your vote.

The video below explains some concerning trends happening in swing states. And while her point about the Montana and Oklahoma issues may not be as nefarious as projected (there are articles online saying the issue in Montana was a glitch and the Oklahoma purge has been ongoing by independent auditors), the other ones are more credible as deliberate attempts to suppress voters.

Regardless, it is in your best interest to make sure you are fully informed of what is going on regarding voter registration and laws in your state.

Transcript:

So Trump is now saying he doesn’t want a second debate with VP Harris. And you could say that’s because he got shellacked in the first one and doesn’t want to embarrass himself again, but I think something more nefarious is going on.

Trump is not campaigning in swing states. He’s not trying to sway new voters. And he keeps going around saying he doesn’t even “need votes”, that they “have all the votes they need”. In fact, he just did an interview with Fox News where he said he “wouldn’t run in 2028 if he loses”, but then he said, “Let’s just hope we’re successful in this one.” Not, “Let’s hope we win this one,” “Let’s hope we’re successful.”

People should think it’s weird that Republicans don’t seem to care about how bad their candidate is. That they don’t seem to care that Project 2025 came out, and we can all read for ourselves how awful their plans for America are. And it’s weird that so many swing states are suddenly changing their election laws and purging voters, or making it harder to vote, or count the votes just weeks before the election.

Look at what’s going on around the country. The Secretary of State of Montana just “accidentally” left Kamala Harris’s name off the absentee ballot. They sent the ballots out to absentee voters without VP Harris’s name on it.

The Texas Tribune just announced that Texas officials have absolutely scrubbed their voter rolls, and people should go out and check it they’re still eligible to vote.

Oklahoma purged 450,000 people from the voter registration list last week. That is one-fifth of their state’s voters who have to re-register seven weeks before the election.

Georgia’s GOP Board of Elections just passed a whole slew of new rules, including the biggest one being that they have to hand count every ballot. But they already have a rule that says they can’t start counting ballots until Election Day. So counting 5.5 million votes is going to require a lot of time and a lot of staff that many local jurisdictions in Georgia simply don’t have. So when the votes can’t be counted on time, that’s going to give space for the MAGA lawyers to come in and claim the election is defaulted or fraudulent , and kick the entire election back to the state House, or subsequently, the whole state misses the deadline to certify the Electoral College votes, and they either don’t send electors from Georgia at all, or they potentially pick their own alternative slate.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just said that all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have to have the “correct handwritten date on the outside of the envelope, or the vote inside won’t count.” I mean, sure, check to see if your envelope is dated correctly, but why would the handwritten date on the outside of the envelope disqualify the vote inside? Doesn’t it have to be postmarked and / or received by an official agency before even being opened?

Republicans even tried to change the rules in Nebraska for how electoral counts would be awarded less than 50 days before the election.

You have to ask yourself, “what are they doing?” And why do they keep accusing Democrats of trying to cheat? Talk about projection. This is the same party that was pushing for the SAFE Act in Congress and threatening to shut down the government if they didn’t get it. Their claim, which luckily, we have currently moved on from, is that they were just making sure every voter was an American citizen, which of course is important. But it has never been a real problem, no matter what Republican propaganda tells us. But they conveniently forget to mention that the SAFE Act also said, if you didn’t have a passport, something that fifty percent of the population doesn’t have, then your birth certificate had to match your ID. Which of course, would be impossible for say, any married woman who took her husband’s name. And there are lots of people who say, “So just use your marriage certificate to prove that you changed your name,” but the SAFE Act says absolutely nothing about your marriage certificate or license to count as ID, and it takes time to find that document and submit it and process it when we only have weeks before the election.

We need to be incredibly clear. The Republicans were looking to outright disenfranchise the women of America, Republican and Democratic women of all ages, I might add. And it’s not just women they’re looking to disenfranchise, because while the gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson’s scandals have been sucking up all the air in North Carolina, the RNC was quietly trying to block the UNC students from voting. But they recently lost that lawsuit.

If you have to keep changing the laws to get elected, you’re not winning elections. You’re sabotaging elections. The whole thing reminds me of that quote by the Russian communist leader Joseph Stalin, who said, “The people who cast the votes don’t decide the election, the people who count the votes do.”

So look around at what’s happening in America right now. The Republicans aren’t trying to win. They’re trying to make sure the Democrats can’t win. And while that should freak you out, I sincerely hope it also inspires you to get your friends and family out the polls and vote wholeheartedly against this kind of behavior.

[i-cant-sing]

Been thinking about what it would be like if the reader found out about Dimitri’s true life as a mob boss and forever hates him for it.

They’re terrified of Xavier falling into a life of lawlessness trying everything they can to prevent him from a life of crime. Reader spends most of their day trying just some how to bring Dimitri to justice and to held accountable for his crimes. They also feel an immense amount of guilt since their basically living off of blood money now.

And Dimitri would probably just find their rage adorable.

Yesss 100000% reader is actively trying to make Dimitri get caught and brought to law because 1. That's the right thing to do as a good citizen 2. She doesn't want Xavier to grow up in the underworld and take over the throne when his father is gone. 3. She hates Dimitri, that bitch stalked her and drained her accounts and trapped her in so many ways, fuck him.

And yeah she feels guilty living off his blood money, as she so told him when she said she's going out to get a job!!! And Dimitri is just looking at you with amused eyes as you brag about how you're going to make an honest living with clean money that you'll earn from your new job as a Baker at the local bakery, and he's just going "aww, I'm so proud of you babe!🥰🥰🥰" not mentioning that he's the one who had a local bakery made near the house and had surveillance cameras installed, his own men working there (as both employees and customers and they better guge you a Good tip) and had them hire you so that not only can you come home early but also so that he can keep an eye on you while you have this false sense of freedom and independence.

And reader is always going "no, I will buy my own clothes!" And she's like obviously going to thrift because she wants to use her own money to get Dimitri caught by the cops, but oh will you look at that? All thrift stores are suddenly empty and oh will you also look at that?! The luxury brands are having the biggest SALE of history!!!

As far as gift going goes, that's something Dimitri does not compromise on. He's buying you as many gifts as he wants, and obviously, you'd just discard them to the side and never use them. So, Dimitri is clever and will use his son like- "oh honey, will you look at that? Xavier got you a gift! Yeah, yeah, he picked it out himself and used his OWN pocket money to buy it (and at this point, everyone knows the 5 year oldest pocket money is a black card with no limit). Won't you be nice and wear it? You're not going to break a child's heart by not using his gift, will you?"

Reader is just huffing and puffing in her room as each of her plan gets foiled somehow because Dimitri keeps on finding loopholes. And Dimitri is just beaming as he watches you from the cameras, licking his spoon clean as he finishes another one of the pastries you'd made (he buys the entire shop everyday, usually by ordering online anonymously or by making his men buy them for him) because God forbid if you'd ever make something for him.

He bets you'd taste sweeter than any of these desserts.

He smirks as he gets up and leaves his office to go to your room.

He can always find out😈

[3months2mordor]

We're preparing for our LotR Pre-US Election read along by getting our books together. If you don't have a copy of your own and want one, we'd absolutely suggest buying from your local independent bookstore, new or used (as a former bookseller myself, indie bookstores rock!- Mod Elanor). There's also your local library!

But if you don't have access to a physical book we've found a few options online for you to use for free.

We're so excited to get reading soon!

Internet Archive 1987 Houghton Mifflin edition (needs free account)

2. Internet Archive 1981 BBC Radio adaptation (starring Ian Holm as Frodo)

3. This Spotify Playlist of audiobooks.