Buzzfeed is the latest national news site to report on what residents of Arizona cannot avoid — a hellscape second in the Inner Solar System only to the surface of Venus in parched, inhospitable real estate.
Man, they built a city in the middle of the fucking desert. Color me shocked.
Most of this stuff has been in place for decades. It’s only melting this summer. This is shocking. This is Climate Change. Stay tuned.
yeah… they built cities in the desert designed to LAST in the desert. shit should not be melting. it’s an average of 120F/48.8C there.
hey so i live here and uh….. yeah people’s dog’s paws are being badly burned, people’s skin/bodies are being burned, our homeless population is absolutely frying out here and the people of Tucson happen to be… decidedly dispassionate about the safety of these homeless people so if you’d be so kind, please donate to some of the shelters and organizations out here because there is virtually no shade on our streets and no humidity or breeze at all
and if you live here too, have a heart. i spent the last three bucks in my bank account on water for a gentleman who was out in the hot sun holding a sign at an intersection and he almost cried for it. everyone deserves a little help, especially when it’s 110 degrees before 9 am.
so um this is all the money i have left to my name.
i really… really hate begging for money, but i’m at the point where i’m a mess, panicking, and not sure how to proceed.
i’ve been fighting with my insurance company for a good three months now, trying to get my prescription for Strattera to be authorised so I don’t have to pay 500$ a month for it, and so I can finally get back to work.
I am currently on effexor and it’s just ruining me. I sleep for about 16-18 hours a day on it and my psychiatrist will not listen to me when I say that it isn’t helping.
I need help. Again. And I’m ashamed to have to say it.
I’ll be moving into my parents’ house next month so I won’t have to be paying rent anymore, but I still have to pay:
– $3,000 in taxes because I am self-employed – $130 a month for my phone bill – $70~ a month for my car insurance
and… you know, there are other various expenses, too. I have to keep my cats fed, and myself, and I need to afford other necessities, so, um.
Here’s where I’m at.
I’m struggling, I have almost nothing, and more expenses are coming up. I’m going to have to rent a moving truck to get all of my stuff back to my parents.
And most of all, I still can’t work. I am unable to function because my insurance refuses to approve the prior authorization for the only medication i can have that will help my out of hand ADHD and depression.
I am deeply embarrassed to be doing this because like… honestly, y’all have already helped me so much, and continue to do so, and I’m sick of being like this, but I just. I don’t have a choice.
if you want to toss anything my way, even a dollar, a couple of cents, whatever. My paypal is
nerosfishbowl at gmail dot com
i’m. really embarrassed about this and i haven’t spoken to pretty much anyone about my situation. im very, very desperate.
When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.
There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.
But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.
You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.
It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”
Purity culture tells you that once someone says or does something, they can never go back on it. That’s a goddamn lie. While it’s true that some remain unrepentant and never change their ways and continue to harm others, it’s important to allow everyone the chance to learn from their mistakes. Saying something ignorant isn’t murder. Please stop treating it that way. Let people grow.
This matters a lot. The previous fights for net neutrality were won in part with the support of scrappy online companies like Tumblr, whose CEO, staff and users worked together to send a strong message to Congress and the FCC about the importance of a neutral internet, free from ISPs who slow down your connections to services unless they pay bribes for “premium” carriage.
With Trump’s FCC set to slay Net Neutality, the internet is once again planning a day of coordinated action: on July 12, sites across the net will send their users to the FCC and Congress to demand that ISPs be held to a public service standard befitting the trillions of dollars in public subsidies they receive every year in the form of access to rights of way through our cities and between them.
However, Tumblr is not among the companies presently slated to participate, and sources within the company told The Verge that the company and its CEO, David Karp (once a staunch Net Neutrality campaigner) have been given orders to sit this one out.
I’m just super fucking bitter that once the flint water crisis got it’s 15 minutes of fame people stopped giving a shit. The water is still poisoned, people! Donations have plummeted and people have been forced back into drinking and bathing with the water! The medical effects of this are astounding, cases of legionnaires disease have skyrocketed, people are having seizures, people are having weird rashes break out over their body, people (including me!) are having their blood poisoned, and it’s not just lead! it’s coliform bacteria! it’s THMs! it’s all in the water and it gets into the bloodstream and breaks down blood vessels, causing bruising and petechiae and internal bleeding and no one gives a shit anymore and it’s only gotten worse like how many people are going to have to die until people realize this is still a problem
I would like to add that the people of Flint cannot sell their houses, because selling a house with leaded water is illegal. Additionally, households with children can’t stop paying for the water because living in a house without running water is cause for CPS to take their kids. Flint has been living this way for over two years.
There is nothing more important you can do in the world right now than striving to love and believe in yourself.
People are good. You’re good. I believe that from the bottom of my heart, and I’m never going to stop. I’m tired and exhausted of the world that has taught us to hate and fear ourselves and each other.
I’m not having it, and I refuse to partake. Especially here, where I am surrounded largely by young people, progressives, LGBT people, people who care and fear for the state of the world.
No matter who you are, no matter what you like or don’t like, no matter what you’re doing:
We need you. I need you. Your voice matters, your feelings matter, your life matters. You bring good into the world. Never doubt that for a second. Believe it about yourself ruthlessly, lovingly, desperately and without compromise.
And believe it about the friends and loved ones around you, too.
Especially now when there are so many with so much power who have forsaken their identities, their logic and reason, the foundation of their very worlds along with their hearts’ capacity to truly care about others in any genuine way, believing in ourselves and the people who accept and love us as we are is vital. We cannot afford to do less.
Saw a post where someone says Thomas Sanders “is almost 30 and actively encourages minors to send nsfw art.”
Found out that what actually happened was that a kid who purposefully took their age out of their bio before submitting the art because they were afraid Thomas might get in trouble later forgot about it and re added their age and then people went digging through Thomas’ blog after he made an ace positive post and found it. Dog pile ensues. Thomas apologizes for mistake and says he should have found out the person’s age before publishing.
Y’all have GOT to stop acting like a fucking gaggle of church gossips about this stuff. There is a universe of difference between accidentally accepting something from a minor and ACTIVELY ENCOURAGING it. But someone uses that phrasing and it just gets repeated and twisted even after the minor in question explains what happened.
People already act suspicious of gay men that are just “too” nice and I’m so tired of people constantly looking to prove someone is actually the worst kind of person ever just because they don’t agree with them.
Back up your arguments rather than digging for unrelated dirt.
I don’t care about this guy. At all. But before you make serious charges with real-world repercussions (like pedophilia), you must at least have the common sense and restraint to look at the original evidence and consider any available information that contradicts it. Not just hit reblog because it makes you feel like you belong and gives you a rush of power. That’s some Cultural Revolution Red Guard-spirited bullshit.
I’m sorry if your parents failed to raise you to even the most minimum human standards of decency, but you’re out amongst humans now, time to learn.
Signal boosting because I have seen mutuals reblogging stuff about he regularly posts nudes (which seem to be shirtless pics ironically tagged nsfw) and that he solicits nsfw art from minors.
holy shit. thomas sanders is a fucking SAINT and he still gets this bullshit?! the poor guy is the most Unproblematic Fave I can possibly imagine on the face of the planet and people will still do this
why?????????
Let us also not ignore that the whole reason people went looking for dirt on him was because he made a post supporting asexuals.
This is what I was talking about in my post earlier when I said TS. This is how vile and disgusting you aphobes are because you want inclusionists to do something about our problematics when you can’t even control your own.
I think my favorite bad anti-dirkjake argument is when people go “Oh Brain Ghost Dirk/The Masterpiece happened in Another Timeline” because they genuinely seem to think it diminishes the weight it carries in the canon when actually
all they’re arguing is that Jake not only loves Dirk but loves him consistently, across multiple timelines, and demonstrates it by either:
A) choosing Dirk as his protector, which not only comes with gay romantic coding but also references a movie with philosophical undertones, reflecting both of their main interests
B) choosing to act as Dirk’s protector, which has also comes with gay romantic coding and especially connotations of jealous and protective love
or C) You know, literally decides to live with the guy and hold him close for pictures to their friends & family
Wow yeah you’re right all of this stuff happens across different timelines? Shit then I guess it makes sense to assume Jake doesn’t actually feel anything fo Dirk and it was one-sided, it’s not like the comic ever implies anything about what it means for relationships to survive timeline resets–
Oh. Oh right.
Anyway Dirkjake is canon thanks
Can we get an article on why Dirkjohn is terrible because I only discovered it yesterday and it makes me angry and upset for reasons I can’t vocalize.
‘No!’ I cry. ‘No, this is a wrong thing!’ but I can’t explain why.
I’ve been getting asks about this on and off over time and I’ve heard some suggestions that people have the wrong idea about where I stand on this, so I hope you don’t mind if I take your reblog to make my position clear.
The answer to your question is no, sorry.
I’m never going to write a big takedown of Dirkjohn, or really any other fanon ship, or fandom stuff in general, for a couple reasons. Like everything I write, those reasons got long, so I’ll put them under the cut:
Even with what I already have planned, the amount of writing and general Content I have slotted to produce is pretty much inexhaustible, and I only keep finding more interesting things to say about Homestuck along the way. So I could pretty much always be writing something better. That’s #1.
#2. I don’t like Dirkjohn, and I don’t particularly make that a secret. But it’s not like I have an axe to grind with the ship. It’s pretty ooc, which makes it uninteresting to me, and that’s pretty much it.
But not everyone ships or thinks that way and that’s…fine? Dirkjohn isn’t really hurting anyone the way your Gamrezi or Tavris or Dirkroxy ships are, and even really bad fan content doesn’t personally upset me unless it’s actually having broad cultural impact.
So even in the extremely specific and rarely considered realms of Things In Homestuck Fandom I Don’t Like, some lgbt people and minors playing around with an ooc ship is far from the top of the things that bother me.
I literally don’t talk about the stuff that TRULY pisses me off in public at all, because I have no way to not make it personal, and there’s a tiny bit of that on Tumblr, but most of it is elsewhere.
Which brings me to why I decided to write this.
Buckle up, because I’m gonna get really real. Trigger warnings for political stuff if that upsets you.
#3
Mainly, I’d never seriously write about Dirkjohn because I’m just not interested in writing anything in a spirit of negativity. It’s not enjoyable to me and I don’t particularly feel it’s where I shine.
It’s draining and depressing, because I just…don’t want to be engaging contentiously or judgmentally with groups largely made up of minors and other lgbt people.
I say this every so often but: there’s Nazis, guys. Like, actual fascists bigots that want to kill anyone who ships Dirkjohn or Dirkjake or Vrisrezi or Rosemary or Davekat, etc etc etc are in the white house.
Fandom shipping divisions feel pretty petty when you keep that in mind.
Some days the negativity and fear and despair and sheer sense of hopelessness I feel when I look at the state of the world pounds on me to the point I can’t make myself get out of bed.
Soon after November I saw a tweet from someone talking about how their every running thought now included the constant underlying Mantra: We’re doomed.
That’s upsettingly relatable to me. I haven’t stopped feeling that way yet, and I lost my job and pretty much my relationship in the process of figuring out how to live with it. I’m still figuring out–I’m sort of stable now, but my mental health is hanging at “Functionally Self-Sustaining” by pretty much the barest thread I have.
And this Homestuck stuff? All my writing and video making and arguing in favor of the comic? This is my way of fighting all of that. Both as a way of relieving that awful sense of doom and pressure, and, if I’m incredibly lucky, as a way of doing the same for others.
I want Homestuck–Progressive media in general, but Homestuck specifically–to be recognized as the cultural touchstone it deserves to be. Not just for LGBT people–though primarily for us, yes– but for progressives in general.
Homestuck brings something genuinely new to the table, and it’s still growing and evolving as an IP, and I want to bring that stuff to light and nurture the excitement that all of us still, on some level, feel for it. Because I think it deserves it. And because I want to see what comes next.
And like, I’m sure that’ll sound silly to some people, but it’s all I’ve got. I don’t particularly believe in God, and I certainly don’t believe in the system that put us here. I only really believe in art, and in people.
So I have to believe that if I try hard enough and I’m kind enough, something in this twisted culture where we’ve all been conditioned to hurt and judge each other and prize, above all else, the ability to Care The Least and be the Least Affected–a culture that absolutely rears it’s head in progressive circles even as we denounce it as an approach to politcs–will give.
Maybe we’ll learn how to actually be friends with each other. How to be kind.
The story of these kids rising out of impossible limitations and escaping an inherently authoritarian system that destroys them reminds me a lot about my own life and future prospects right now, and it gives me hope.
I want to pass that hope on, as much as possible. And if I can manage it, I want this silly comic that we all love to be something that binds us and brings us together, as a community. As a people.
And if we can do that, if we can stop tearing each other apart over mistakes and miswordings in the pursuit of an impossible degree of ideological purity, maybe we can make things better. Maybe we can ascend.
That’s impossible, maybe, and it might very well make me a fool to engage with this community with that motivation. But it’s who I am and why I’m here, and I’d rather be mocked for being hopeful than praised for being cynical.
As such, tearing into some ship I don’t like is never going to do nearly as much for my desires as talking about the near-infinite things about Homestuck that I DO like. Given the choice I will always, always opt for the latter.
So my genuine advice–and I really hope this doesn’t feel condescending–is if seeing any fandom content affects you negatively to the degree you wrote about there, well: I can relate, because yeah, same.
But I just blacklist it and talk about stuff I like instead. And that has done wonders for my mental health. I heartily suggest doing the same, and then devoting your energy to boosting and praising the stuff in the fandom that you DO like.
Again, I hope that doesn’t sound condescending. I wrote all this so that I’d stand a chance at coming off as sincere when I say that I don’t think my approach makes me better than anyone. It’s just the only way I, personally, manage to survive.
But I also think it’s the path to a healthier, more vibrant fandom. Whether or not people are shipping Dirkjohn doesn’t matter to me. What matters is making sure to speak up positively and kindly and with a sense of fun so that the fandom can develop a better understanding of Dirk, Jake, and the comic itself overall.
And what double matters is creating a culture interested in celebrating and creating more than criticizing, although there is definitely value to both.
Flying through Storytelling 