sunflowerinthemoonlight

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TCA Summer Press Party, Stargate 10th Anniversary, Pasadena - July 13, 2006

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currently live in Seattle. Lived in TX for a few months. Can confirm. They both can be/are awful just in different ways.

People who hate the south because they think that it's just full of racist white hicks are literally like my least favorite people on the planet. Wdym you think the part of the USA most directly influenced and shaped by black culture and experiences is just only super racist and white. Have you ever been to SEATTLE

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i'm so glad goncharov happened when it did, right before prolific public use of AI. that was pure honest gaslighting straight from the heart. real human whimsicality and trickery thru blood sweat and tears. we were a family. and we all gonched, together. you cant replicate that with any machine.

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oh my God. I found a ff author who wrote an fanfic based in an original au with unique side characters.

But then it gets better because it was like picking up the die and recasting them over again. It was the same au, same original characters, same trope but with a new 'what if' twist. And then they did it again. And again. And again!!!

I was in heaven I tell you. A fanfic with my fave characters and my fave trope? Over and over and over again all in just slightly different ways? I never wanted it to end.

Glorious.

few things more humbling than the realization that you really do write the same fic(s) over and over again

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@giftober 2024 prompt 7 - helping, sanctuary.

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A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬ November 8, 2024

This is not going to be a repeat of 2016-2020. It will be better, it will be worse, but most of all it will be different. Here are things I want every single person to keep in mind as we head into round 2 of a Trump admin.

My credentials: I’m a queer female public interest attorney working on tech policy in DC. I’ve been doing this for a decade--longer than some, not as long as others. I had to navigate three different administrations, as well as Congress, regulatory agencies, courts, and the advocacy world.

FIRST: don’t let despair override your media literacy.

The left has grifters, just like every other movement. If you’re able and compelled to donate, give to orgs with established track records. Avoid giving to individuals, especially anyone who emerges overnight with a one-weird-trick “plan.”

The left is not immune to misinformation, and everyone—EVERYONE—falls for it sometimes, present company included. There is no shame in it. When (not if) it happens to you, you should acknowledge it; delete or retract the post to reduce the spread; and move on.

If a source consistently shares half-truths or outright misinformation, it is not trustworthy, no matter how much “their heart is in the right place.” Unfollow and move on.

Prediction, analysis, and reporting are three fundamentally different things. Learn to identify them for what they are. Reject attempts by amateur “analysts” to predict the future. They know as much as you do.

Real subject matter experts know and acknowledge their limits. They’re also (usually) hesitant to try and predict the future. The best frame their predictions in terms of a range of possible outcomes. Subject matter experts may also disagree with one another! It happens!

SECOND: What we know for sure about how the Trump, how he operates, and how that will impact the next four years.

Trump is a narcissist who avoids reading and doesn’t care about details. He cannot be persuaded by argument or logic; he’s moved mostly by flattery, and will agree with the last person who flattered him. He can and will upend his own administration’s work without warning, often by tweet.

As a result, most policy experts—even those "on his side"—dread him taking an interest in their field. Ask any Republican staffer who worked in Congress during the last administration, and most of them will confirm that their greatest fear was Trump tweeting about anything related to their work.

As such, people who are serious about their work will do everything to make it as invisible and boring-seeming as possible. This is the policy equivalent of defensive camouflage. Lots of “normie” work will continue in silence. (The lion’s share of tech policy ends up in this bucket.)

If you have a niche issue that you care about, now is a great time to donate to orgs that work on it. Lots of money will be funneled to big legacy orgs working on headline issues: ACLU, climate change orgs, etc. Consider sending your donations where they matter most: local, niche, established.

Trump runs his cabinet like the Apprentice. He thrives on chaos and making people compete for his approval. Not only does he not reward collaboration between his subordinates, he actively undermines it.

Moreover, everyone who works with him knows that they’re vulnerable to being thrown under the bus at a moment’s notice, for any reason (or for no reason at all). His cabinet is going to be scorpions in a bottle. They will not be able to coordinate, for good or ill.

One scorpion can still do a lot of horrific damage. But large scale inter-agency coordination is unlikely, particularly after the first few months, by which point he will likely (prediction warning!) have gone through a handful of cabinet secretaries already.

FINALLY: The view from inside civil society heading into 2025.

In 2016, Trump was a largely unknown quantity. The left and establishment right alike wasted a lot of time trying to read tea leaves and make sense of this guy, because he was completely outside the realm of what anyone had dealt with. That’s not happening now.

He did us a favor by broadcasting his plans in advance (aka Project 2025). Civil society has spent the last 2.5 years strategizing around it. We’re not starting off flat-footed.

The Biden admin did a good amount to future-proof its own achievements. Folks can speak to their own areas of expertise, but clean energy and CHIPS and Science Act (investing in domestic semiconductor production) have benefitted from huge sunk investments. That money’s not getting clawed back.

OVERALL TAKE-AWAYS:

It's going to suck. But civil society and the political left have some advantages we didn't have last time. We know him, we know his angles, and we know who he's bringing in--none of which we had in 2016.

We'll get through this. It will be grim, but we'll get through it.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

Thanks Meredith. I really valued your analysis over the past few years, and I think this is a reasonable, actionable framework to think about the upcoming storm

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

I really cannot overstate how much time was (necessarily) wasted in 2017 trying to figure out this guy and his influences. The fact that he's not only a known quantity, but ran the most over-studied administration in this nation's recent history, makes this a very different game.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

I bet we can weaponize his narcissism. Let's say some ghoul starts making progress with a mass deportation effort, if we start calling that ghoul that "shadow president" en masse, Trump would fire him in right away and appoint Hulk Hogan or something

‪Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

This is exactly why I don't think Musk will last very long. Trump is very clear that he's the only one in the room allowed to have an ego or any kind of brand name.

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"Is it a safe space to say i hate-" NOT IN THE MAINTAGS IT ISNT

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“…the older I get, the more I see how women are described as having gone mad, when what they’ve actually become is knowledgeable and powerful and fucking furious.”

— Sophie Heawood  (via brosetta-stone)

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being on tumblr for a long time but never reading homestuck like

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Reblog and put in the tags the highest and lowest temperatures you've ever experienced

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𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯 𝔟𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔰 🍂

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as a skinny person I am outraged!

(Please turn the thermostat down further. It was such a warm winter last year that our mountains had a hard time keeping the snow on them. I'd appreciate the assistance in tackling the effects of global warming. And I'm sure the mountains would appreciate not being so nake-y all winter long.)

Skinny people will be like im cold

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Found on a friend's FB.

Favorite comment:

"Also, John is so Gen X that he's narrating his slow descent into madness by insistently and continuously making Pop culture references for literal aliens."

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Anytime I see/hear statements disparaging younger persons or claiming how spoiled/screwed they are because of xyz reasons I think of my 12th grade English teacher. He read us this article in class which was pivotal in shaping my awareness and perspective before ever growing old.

Not all of this article applies but the main take away that he instilled in us was the the children aren't screwed, stupid, as exceptional selfish or morally wrong. Instead it's just that you've gotten older. Your brain and cultural perspective are just as similar to those of your same age tens or hundreds of years older than you. You're not new or right. You're just parroting what you grew up hearing said about yourself.

The Guardians 'We see children as pestilient'

saw a grown woman on tiktok snidely calling gen z the christopher columbus generation bc someone’s fifteen year old son ‘thought he’d discovered weezer’. newsflash every generation finds out about the music of the previous generation at some point it comes free with being fifteen. being annoying about music also comes free with being fifteen. a kid saying yeah i’ve just found this band nirvana have you ever heard of them should be a thing of joy