#but it makes a difference

[punkstylerecovery]

“It could’ve been worse.” It could’ve been BETTER. It could’e been EASIER. It could’ve been lovely. It could’ve been beautiful, it could’ve been fun. It could have been simple, it could’ve made you HAPPY. 

You can drown in two feet of water just as simply as you can in an ocean. Stop downplaying what happened and neglecting your feelings. Kill that idea with fire. Or at least acknowledge that what happened was bad without immediately trying to justify or dismiss it.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[cemeterything]

anyone who thinks dostoevsky's writing is dry and humourless is missing out on passages like this

[sturgeonposting]

Do you love the colour of the sturgeon?

Which one?

[borrelia]

if you donate one single us dollar to the unrwa, you will have donated more money than you would have by clicking that stupid arab.orb link every day for four and a half years. yes, they do actually donate money to the unrwa, but even with tens of thousands of clicks, most of that money is the baseline $90 they send every quarter. from 2023 quarter 4, half a million clicks turned into $380.57. maths out to six hundreths of one cent per click. just donate to unrwa.

[silverfox66]

I adore this recent trend (if that's the right word) of letting an orchestra play classical music on a festival. It's magical to see thousands of festival-goers going absolutely wild on Beethoven. Mosh/circlepits, crowd surfing. It's wonderful to see the orchestra and the audience having the time of their lives.

[jesncin]

"Who Is Superman? A Private Interview with Lois Lane" a fancomic about hope and connection. I've had this story in mind for so long and I'm very excited to be able to share it at last. Thank you for reading, and happy Lunar New Year!

[jamjoob]

Screencap redraws for fun

[embervoices]

[Transcript of a conversation on Bluesky]

K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com

One holdover that's stuck with me from Trump's term in office is how few people actually call in. My congressman's office said they were BOGGLED at how many calls they had gotten on a particular issue, so I asked how many...

They replied, "Seventeen."

jamie quinn 🏳️‍⚧️ @threnody.bsky.social KOSA is moving through the senate right now, where it has significant support. but nothing's final until it's final. if your senator's a democrat, call & email. use this script. it's timed to 1:00 and it won't take long. even with enforcement moved to the FTC, this bill is too easily weaponized.

[Embedded Text Image Transcript]

My name is _ and I'm one of your constituents. I'm calling to urge you to vote NO on KOSA - the Kids Online Safety Act. The bill's sponsors claim it will protect kids by placing a duty of care on online platforms to prevent anything that could be harmful.

The power to decide what's harmful has been ceded to the FTC. FTC leadership is made by presidential appointment. Current president Lina Khan may proceed fairly, but what happens when the next Donald Trump is in the Oval Office? What if it's Trum himself? Do you trust a Trump appointee not to abuse this enforcement power?

KOSA claims to protect kids, but it's poorly designed and, given time, it will absolutely and without question, harm LGBTQ children, adults, and anyone who needs information on reproductive health or abortion.

KOSA author, Senator Marsha Blackburn, said she introduced KOSA in part - and I quote - "to protect minor children from the transgender in our society." The Heritage Foundation proudly said they'll apply pressure through KOSA to block information about abortion, reproductive health, & LGBTQ issues.

Vote NO on KOSA.

[/Embedded Text Image Transcript]

K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com

So, yes, your voice does make a difference because if everyone else is thinking "Well, my voice doesn't matter so why bother" then you and sixteen of your online buddies can go ahead and straight-up boggle a congressman.

Feb 15, 2024 at 12:34 PM

[/Bluesky Transcript] (Emphasis mine)

[laughingcatwrites]

As a reminder that good exists out there, a coworker recently confessed to me that he found out his child is questioning their identity (kid's gender redacted for this post). The kid is keeping it from him, so he can't say anything to them or show that he knows, but he's doing his best to get mentally prepared and educated so that he'll be ready whenever his kid does feel comfortable enough come to him.

For context, this guy is a big, bulky middle aged dude who loves sports and typical outdoor "manly" activities. As his coworker and friend, I know he's a kind and sweet teddy bear of a person, but his kid probably views him as a stern, authoritarian figure, the way most teenagers view their parents. His family lives in a conservative area, so I'm sure between that, their dad's looks and interests, and the fact that their dad is a Figure of Authority, the kid is worried that they won't be accepted.

But you know what? When he found out about his kid, the first thing he did was reach out to his closest queer friend and ask for resources for parents of questioning children. His biggest fears are that his kid will be bullied or discriminated against and won't feel comfortable enough to be themself. His second action was to find himself a mentor in another parent who went the same situation (kid coming out in a conservative town). The other person is preparing him for some of the struggles his kid may face and the fights he may need to take on as a parent to make sure his kid is safe and treated well.

Something I want to emphasize for people focused on language as the primary method of allyship is that when we spoke, he used some outdated terms and thoughts about gender and sexuality. That does not make him bad. These were the terms and thinking used about questioning teenagers when he was growing up and he never needed to learn more current ones. But now that he does have that need, he's throwing himself in head first because that's his kid and he's darn well going to make sure that his kid feels welcomed and has a safe place to be themselves even if they never come out to him.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[foundfamilywhump]

the question, you see, is not ‘is it too ooc for this character to cry’ but rather ‘what circumstances would push this character to cry’

this is the whump wisdom, go forth and make that character cry

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Sorry, but having Zuko actually fight back against Ozai during their Agni Kai is just wrong. He was a child, only 13 at the time, afraid to fight his own father and was mutilated as punishment, because Ozai saw Zuko's begging and unwillingness to fight as unforgiveable weakness.

The Angi Kai isn't meant to be a showcase of Zuko's fighting potential (that's what the Zhao fight is for), but to show the utter cruelty of Ozai.

[junglejim4322]

do you think a 5'4 and 6'2 height difference is predatory?

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