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everyone's all about queer subtext until it's aromantic or asexual

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they just came out with a new type of guy that freestyles about geological phenomena on reddit

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not to be disabled on main but have you ever fucking noticed how every god damn thing requires both time and energy

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“If Latin America had not been pillaged by the U.S. capital since its independence, millions of desperate workers would not now be coming here in such numbers to reclaim a share of that wealth; and if the United States is today the world’s richest nation, it is in part because of the sweat and blood of the copper workers of Chile, the tin miners of Bolivia, the fruit pickers of Guatemala and Honduras, the cane cutters of Cuba, the oil workers of Venezuela and Mexico, the pharmaceutical workers of Puerto Rico, the ranch hands of Costa Rica and Argentina, the West Indians who died building the Panama Canal, and the Panamanians who maintained it.”

— Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (via katelouisepowell)

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Not what I usually post but look at that wawa go!

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Saw the request for creature info dumps - can we talk about the Venn diagram that is changeling children and neurodivergent children who get the mimicry wrong. I know in my bones I would have been left in the woods.

yeah it's a popular rumination round these parts probably because tumblr is the autism and fairy (both meanings) website. not to spoil the fun/assuage your anxiety but it's not a wholly accurate narrative. certainly there were cases of child abandonment (always have been) for a number of reasons, but humans have always been humans, and we've always cared for each other very much. especially given the more isolated nature of some aspects of the past; just because a person wouldn't make eye contact or even speak out loud doesn't mean they would've been driven out from society.

there's a piece of fiction on here, i hope someone can help me find it, but it essentially boils down to a montage of old timey autistic folks; a boy who can count sums well but doesn't like to be hugged, a girl who weaves but doesn't talk, a shepherd who can't stay still and prefers animals to humans. they all find their place.

another story is a woman who's family tells her that her daughter is a fae. its unclear in the story if the child is in fact magic or just neurodivergent. the mother refuses to give her up though and says if the fae want her back they'll have to come get her themselves.

finally, a thought. it is likely autism is in part genetic. this means for centuries, autistic people have been loved and had families.

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To put it bluntly, the only way to end homelessness is to house people or kill them.

That's it. Those are your options. Homelessness doesn't go away based on "crime crackdowns." You will imprison the unhoused, and when they are free, they will be unhoused again. Or they will die in prison.

When you burn encampments or force people out without their stuff, they remain unhoused or freeze to death.

After working with the unhoused, it's become abundantly clear that those who don't want to support them instead want them dead.

There is blood on the hands of every government and organization that controls the homeless population with force instead of compassion.

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A little advice from someone studying extremist groups: if you’re in a social media environment where the daily ubiquitous message is that you have no hope of any kind of future and you can’t possibly achieve anything without a violent overthrow of society, you’re being radicalized, and not in the good way.

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people vaguely saying 'the horrors' as shorthand for 'life problems, don't worry about it' in conversations where the problems are not going to be delved into has got to be one of my favorite new Ways Of Speaking that has emerged. like it's polite and vague and succinct enough for impersonal conversation but also extremely honest. it's very funny. The Horrors. we all know of them.

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love leaving really long and detailed comments on ao3 and having the author be really happy and tell me nobody ever left them a comment that good and motivating before. getting a perfect grade at fic commenting, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve etc

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"According to the Stanford Basic Income Lab, universal basic income is a periodic cash payment that is given to individuals unconditionally, requiring no work requirement or sanctions to access.

And as various nonprofits and cities across the country experiment with basic income programs, most have found that the money received is largely used to pay for the basic essentials many Americans struggle to afford.

A new pilot program in Boston, Massachusetts wants to find out if the same trend applies for a specific demographic: young adults facing homelessness.

The program is called BAY-CASH, or Boston Area Youth Cash Assistance for Stable Housing. Their plan is to offer a select group of 15 young adults ages 18 to 24 $1,200 per month for 24 months.

Each month, they will receive two $600 payments, and they will each have access to a one-time drawdown amount of $3,000, used to pay for things like a security deposit, a car repair, a medical expense, or other crisis.

“BAY-CASH is what we call a demonstration program,” the program’s director Matt Aronson told GBH, the local NPR affiliate. 

Aronson has been working on developing a model for direct cash transfers to address young adult homelessness since 2017, when he also co-led the development of the City of Boston’s plan to prevent and end homelessness among young adults. Finally, his vision has reached a crucial next step.

“We’re trying to demonstrate to the state of Massachusetts that this kind of programming, a guaranteed-income program with supportive services, should be part of our toolkit that we use to prevent and end homelessness for young adults,” he continued to GBH. 

Program participants will also receive two and a half years of supportive services, like a navigator who helps young people identify and access the resources they need, as well as financial coaching.

Aronson added that there is no penalty if a participant doesn’t use them, but they were built into the program based on the services young people asked for.

One of those young people is Deandre (who chose to omit his last name for privacy). Having grown up in Boston, he was out on his own, but after coming on hard times, he found himself involved in a few youth homelessness programs. That’s where he found out about BAY-CASH.

“I heard about … potentially getting cash payments to help with all the necessary things I have to go through on a regular basis,” he told GBH. “I was absolutely ecstatic.” 

He told GBH that he plans to use the money to access food, clean clothes, and rent and housing expenses when he eventually has a place of his own again. He also hopes to one day save up to buy a car so he doesn’t have to rely on the city’s bus system.

The flexibility for him to choose how to spend the money is a key component to what Aronson believes is the magic of guaranteed income. 

“Current homelessness resources for young adults in Massachusetts are scarce, can be slow to deploy and inflexible, and often lead to inequitable outcomes for historically and systemically oppressed populations,” BAY-CASH shares on its website.

“[We are] trusting that young people know their needs and communities better than anyone else.”

Aronson added that the pilot program will provide the state with more evidence to consider something “a little bit more flexible than what they’ve developed,” and ensure that a budget would be available to enact something similar in other regions of the state.

Right now, the pilot program is being funded by private donors and foundations, along with the city of Cambridge via a one-time cash infusion, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services. 

The hope, Aronson said, is that this program proves its efficacy for the long haul.

“There’s some skepticism around and moralizing why folks are poor, why folks who are experiencing homelessness that causes us to suspect, ‘Oh, they must be wasting their money,’” Aronson said. “Over and over, the evidence is consistent that folks use these to meet their basic needs.”

For Deandre, who has dreams of someday becoming an architect, the program represents something greater.

“Just because we’re experiencing homelessness doesn’t mean it has to be a barrier for us to stop living our lives and that we can’t escape it,” he told GBH.

“With more programs such as BAY-CASH and with more people spreading awareness about the issues that are going on in our community … it’s all about making sure that the next person doesn’t have to experience what you’ve had to experience. It’s about doing what you can to eradicate homelessness, and I think that should be everyone’s ultimate goal.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, August 11, 2025

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free healthcare should include teeth actually

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Entitled white women I swear to God

People have been doing book clubs since forever. They do not put George RR Martin on the phone so he can join the chat.

Oh, thank you, kindly court jester jingling into my life under the brave banner of anonymity, for illustrating the exact problem of current fandom.

(This ask is about this post about private fanfiction "book clubs," for those of you who are not following my jester's ire.)

The bedrock of the problem entrenched fandom is having with the newer "TikTok fandom" element is that we have a fundamental disagreement about what fandom is, and what is the social relationship between the people who write fanfiction, make fanart, etc, and the people who read that fanfiction and enjoy that fanart.

(I am not going to use the term "content creator." Because that term is not applicable to fandom, fanfiction authors, or fan artist. Kill the capitalist in your brain. Content is hummingbird nectar made with artificial sweeteners. It resembles the real thing at a distance, but it is devoid of nutrients. It will fill you up so you're not hungry while starving you. Generative AI can produce content because it's empty; it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't even want to engage with you. The sole purpose of content is to get you to sit still long enough for the people who own the platform to squeeze whatever it is they want from you out of you and then abandon your malnourished husk until the next time they can get something from you.)

George RR Martin is not a member of fandom, and the relationship he has with his readers is fundamentally different, because his relationship as an author is explicitly a professional one. When George RR Martin sells a book—not to his readers, but to a publisher who acts as intermediary—he is given a lengthy contract outlining the terms of the sale. How much he will be paid, what can be done with his work by who, etc. George RR Martin is not your peer.

Fanfiction authors are your peers. They're your next door neighbors. They write fanfiction to connect to other fans in celebration of a canon everyone involved loves. Nobody makes a single red cent from writing or sharing their fanfiction. George RR Martin has sold 90 million copies of his books, and he gets money for every one. Because TikTok has trained you that people who are putting their creations out there are monetizing the experience of you reading or watching their art, the "TikTok fandom" element has you sorting your peer posting fanfiction on AO3 into the same category as George RR Martin. But your relationship with George RR Martin is a professional one, and the expectation from fanfiction authors and artists is a social relationship.

When you have a private book club reading and discussing fanfiction without ever telling the author or, God forbid, leaving a comment about how much you enjoyed the story—which is the expectation entrenched fandom authors and artists who view fandom as a social relationship—you think you're reading a mass produced novel from someone who has already been paid for it several times over, but this isn't even Walmart vs. local mom and pop. What are you actually doing is going to your neighborhood block party, picking up the cake someone made and brought to share, and taking it back to your house to eat with friends.

We are your peers. We are your neighbors. We are doing this for free because we want to talk to you about our common interest. No, it's not "payment." We offer our work for free, and you have the option of treating us like vending machines or ChatGPT or Walmart. This is a social relationship; you have this option just as you have the option of leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot instead of walking it to the cart return. You have that option just as you have the option to stick your chewed gum on a park bench or park your car across three handicap spaces or take a shit on the floor of a public bathroom. How you treat your peers and neighbors, how you treat the people in your community, is up to you.

You can keep stealing cakes from block parties. But don't be surprised when people get fed up with it and stop having block parties. Then you'll be stuck buying cake from Walmart or consuming artificially sweetened hummingbird nectar from ChatGPT while vultures raid your corpse for data.

Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk, court jester. Now get the fuck off my lawn.

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Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

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A wizard that regularly breaks into the gem shop where magical gemstones are cut from rough stone into their more commonly known sparkly faceted shapes - but he doesn't steal any of them. He sweeps the floor. Bags the stone crumbs and shards and dust he sweeps up. Breaks out again. The goblins who run the gem shop never bother to investigate why the floor just cleans up on its own, they assume that they've got a house elf or something.

So the wizard takes the shards and all, and grinds them all into evenly sized teeny tiny crumbs, and mixes them all together. The magic gemstone chips and crumbs become something new: magic pocket sand. Nobody knows what it'll do to you if he throws it at you. Least of all him.