#i Believe in us!

[knghtlock]

but also to be. un-silly for a second. the whole "canons are better than ocs discourse" has always existed in some shape or form for the past... twelve years i've been on tumblr? and we do this every three months, where people reblog posts that are supportive of ocs after oc writers are like "hey this thing is happening again, people are being dicks to ocs AGAIN" only for the cycle to repeat again in the next three to four months with no real change.

also, everyone always talks about people outright stating they won't interact with ocs but nobody ever talks about the smaller things in people's rules ( that also affect disabled people and people who can't always be on tumblr ) like activity requirements, limit on ooc chatter, or ic thread requirements, which you can't get when people don't write with you and when people don't write with you, you gotta let people know you aren't dead via starter calls and what-not. and then it becomes a cyclical thing where eventually, oc writers have to post headcanon after headcanon for weeks on end, write drabbles and make aesthetics, and be that first person to reach out on ims, post starter call upon starter call only to , eh, maybe write a few times a week if you're popular and a few times a month if you aren't. and that's before you factor in if your oc is marginalized, by the way. it is not a secret that disabled , queer , poc or god forbid , fem or androgynous ocs get significantly less attention than male-presenting cishet ocs, and it has been this way for longer than anyone will admit, and especially if your muse is intersectionally marginalized. kinda like real life, which i kinda come on here to escape from, dunno about you.

i don't know, man. maybe we need to all remember that people have real lives and tumblr is a collaborative hobby. maybe we need to start reaching out to each other more. i'm not saying there is no hope, but i am saying that we do need to change , lest we be doing the same shit again every three months until the oc writers leave or tumblr implodes.

also, obligatory "if you hate ocs just because they don't have the economic capital to become one of your beloved canon characters, you suck." the difference between a canon and an oc is marginal at best and because of capitalism and popularity at worst. like there are ocs on this website that i am more interested in than some canon characters & i consider to be unofficial canon to me. there are some people who have taken a neglected canon character or a shittily-written canon and turned them into their own oc that i like INFINITELY more than the canon version! imagine not experiencing that kinda love and joy for a friend's creation. wack as hell.

as for... action steps ? i dunno man. follow an oc. like one of their starter calls. ask them about their character. if you don't get something about their backstory, just ask. start a thread with an oc and keep it going. write a starter call for an oc, or send THEM memes! if you're an oc writer, you can write with your FELLOW ocs ! do unto ocs what you would like done unto you.

[ljf613]

I want to believe that one day toko will become a very popular ship with a huge fan base. once the zukka didn't even exist, and now this ship is much more popular even than zvtara. So I want to think that Toko will have a wonderful future!

You're actually so right for this, Anon!

It's funny, because a while back I was scrolling through the old Toko group's forum on DeviantArt, which hosted Toko Week for several years back in the heyday of the ship/fandom, and I came across this post from the Mod (who is currently on tumblr as @clarkeismyqueen and also manages the @toko-week blog), letting people know that she was also going to be moderating a different ship week that year:

In other words, she was going to be running an event for a ship that was so obscure that even people who shipped Toko (which enjoyed a small amount of popularity at the time but never at the level of the really popular ships) wouldn't have generally considered or even seen anyone else talking about.

But what exactly was this ship? "Sozu"? Before seeing this post, I'd never even heard of any such ship before! Maybe it faded back into oblivion the way so many smaller ships (including Toko) did over the years? It was probably something super obscure like Song x Azula, or maybe Song x Zuko.

And then I saw the next line and did a double take:

Wait, what? You're telling me the ship that is now literally one of the most popular "couldn't avoid coming across the content if you tried" ships in the fandom was once so unheard of that even the Toko shippers were unaware of its existence?

Well then, if it happened for them, why couldn't it happen for us?

[ineedaplacetostay]

Toich is catching up on the poll!

HAND IN UNFUCKABLE HAND, Y’ALL

[officialedelgard]

together. with our sapphic power. we can harness the worlds energy and manifest isabela in da4

[titleofpersonage-p01]

[dendrochronologies]

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

[reasonsforhope]

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

[arunneronthird]

in the batcave where i feel safe

[apollos-boyfriend]

so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.

and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.

and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive

[koiryuu]

also add in the tags if you want how your tolerance has changed over time!

[dduane]

...Just read this thread. JUST READ IT.

[feluka]

In front of the Journalists' Syndicate, Cairo, Egypt, on 15th January 2024.

The crowd chants:

مصر مشاركة في الحصار معبر بيننا و بين اهالينا الصهيوني متحكم فينا طول ما الدم العربي رخيص يسقط يسقط اي رئيس عملوها احفاد مانديلا و احنا فخوف و فعار و مزلة عايزين المعبر مفتوح

Translation:

Egypt participates in this siege! A crossing between us and our people! Controlled by Zionists! As long as Arab blood is seen as cheap, Any and every president must fall! Mandela's grandchildren have done it, While we are seized by fear, shame, and humiliation! We demand Rafah Crossing open!

[ibtisams]

We are very close to a temporary 5 day ceasefire in order to exchange women and children hostages and allow aid into Gaza.

I hope everyone continues to put pressure on their local representatives and urge them to call for a ceasefire to ensure the Israeli government allows this to happen. If you’re from the UK, US, Canada or Australia here is a linktree with resources on how you can call/email your local reps

[bixels]

Wish regular folks on the internet would stop towing the line and continuing to act like furries are some weird, deviant thing nowadays. I’ll be watching Vinny Vinesauce and a hot male furry design will show up in a game and he’ll go ‘oh. Oh god. Oh god chat no. OH GODD WHY. EUGH CHAT STOP. (makes an inhuman noise) WHY ARE HIS TITS SO.’ Like, man, relax. His tits are so because it’s hot, get horny like the rest of us, next question.

[andthebeanstalk]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[cvndlemoon]

⋆ ˚｡ ⋆ "put me in a movie" ౨ৎ ⋆｡˚