#;;you can read all about it ( queue )

[goldkirk]

I don’t know how to explain any more clearly that it doesn’t MATTER if it seems legitimate to you. You have got to fact check every single headline and post and claim on the left just like you need to do on the right.

The left is NOT immune to misinformation and rushed reporting. And the more emotionally polarizing or shocking the talking points, sound bytes, and headlines are, the worse it is and more frequently it happens.

Learn to verify through multiple independent sources. If you can’t do that, you can’t trust it.

If you have to wait extra hours for the real information to come through vetted channels—NOT just one individual somewhere everyone links to, and not just one single media source either, EVEN if it’s a major news network—thats just how it has to be. What news outside of genuine local disasters near you TRULY needs your outrage and post-sharing in the next hour specifically?

Misinformation works best by not seeming like misinformation and by fitting in with the rest of what you already expect to see. It doesn’t help anyone to not be able to recognize and avoid the stuff.

[anipgarden]

Cheaply Starting Seeds

This is my fourth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 

Having a high-quality seed-starting setup can feel like an ultimate but distant dream. An entire shelf--an entire room, even, filled with grow lights and plant trays in the optimal setup to make tons of plants? Tons of garden tools, each with a diverse and dedicated purpose? That’s just not an option for some of us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started at a low cost!

Seed Starting Set-Ups

Speaking from a somewhat biased Floridian perspective, I’ve had great success starting seeds outside! My usual set-up is on a rarely-used outdoor patio table that’s moved to a sunny spot in the yard, but I’ve even grown seeds in solo cups on sidewalks, or directly in the ground, with great results! 

Some seeds grow best when they go through a cold period before germinating, while other seeds aren’t affected much by it and just wait for warm weather. As such, a viable option is to sow your seeds in late fall, let winter roll by, and wait until the seeds sprout on their own come spring! I would try and mark off where you planted said seeds, so you don’t lose track of them and accidentally dig them up.

Alternatively, if you want to get started while it's cold outside, a popular option I've seen is to grow in milk jugs! There's a lot of different ways to do it--everyone has their preference--but if you're already drinking things like milk or juice or sweet tea, and you're going to get jugs at some point in time--why not use them for gardening?

An easy way to clear up a section of lawn to create open gardening space is by using a sheet mulching or lasagna gardening method (though I like to call it the Cardboard Snuff-Out). Place cardboard or newspaper down in fall/winter to mark out where you want to garden. Layer compostable materials like grass clippings and wood chips on top of it, or potting soil/bagged compost. It’ll decompose over Winter into an organically rich bed that’ll have killed the grass and weeds underneath it. You don’t have to break out any tools and sweat over it come spring, and the cardboard itself will slowly decompose as well!

Though it's often recommended to plant things directly into the ground to decrease watering needs and increase nutritional independence, there’s plenty of reasons you may not be able to. Whether you’re renting, living in a place without a yard, or even just can’t or don’t want to break ground in a yard, you can still help biodiversity by growing in pots. Some plants have rather extensive root systems and aren’t well suited for pots, but there are still plenty of options available for plants that’ll boost biodiversity, be beautiful to look at, and grow just fine in pots! A recommendation is to get a larger pot, if you’re able, as it’ll hold onto more water and need watering less often. Not only are potted plants great for providing food for insects, but they can be shelter for other creatures too--there’s been a good few times I’ve moved a pot and found a frog or toad living underneath it.

If you don’t have room for pots on the ground, you could consider using hanging pots or window boxes! These can be great and easily-maintained options to provide food and habitat for insects and birds in an urban living situation like apartments or townhouses, but they can also be a fun way to add even more habitat to an already-robust home garden. You can even make an entire mini habitat in a window box or pot! I can personally say I’ve seen tons of pollinators visit my yearly hanging basket garden that consists of about five to seven plants, and I’ve always loved the idea of having a window box for blooms right out my window. Just make sure that it’s safe--make sure they’re securely fixed, and that whatever they’re hanging from can handle their weight when they’re freshly watered and loaded with plants. 

If you want to start indoors, you don’t necessarily need grow lights or heat mats (though it will make things a bit easier.) I’ve successfully grown milkweed, peppers, tomatoes, zucchinis, and even sprouted lemon seeds in college dorm rooms, and kept tomato and pepper plants in a dorm room on a sunny windowsill. For the most part, you need a nice and sunny window, some kind of container, and a source of heat (in my case, I used anything from a space heater to the warmth of my laptop running nearby. If you don’t have any sunny windows, or enough windowsill space to start plants on, its possible to obtain cheaper grow lights. One year, my mom bought me some gooseneck grow lights that could clip onto things for cheap off of Amazon. (Fair warning, though, they did light up my entire room in purple. I lived alone that year (covid year, my roomies bailed), so it was fine, but it was kind of trippy,)

Another year, when I was in an apartment on my own, I bought a grow light modeled like a normal light bulb from the lightbulb aisle in Lowe’s and put it in my desk lamp. Growing seeds indoors can make them grow fast and leggy, so it’ll help if you can keep a desk fan on them so they focus on growing strong instead of tall and fast.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a friend with a nice set up, you could see if they’re willing to let you borrow some of their space to start your own plants as well! My set-up in college was by no means High Class, but I was still more than willing to start seeds for my friends who asked!

Containers for Seed Starting

So now that we’ve talked starting seeds indoors and out, we need to address what to start them in. It’s important that whatever you’re using has drainage holes, and be large enough to support your plant (starting something like milkweed or a squash in a tiny little pot won’t yield great results). Fortunately, there are options here!

If you’re looking to buy pots, Dollar Tree will sell some small plastic pots for cheap in the spring! They’re kind of thin, and won’t last forever, but they’re great for a few uses and don’t cost a lot of money. Something that’s a bit more pricey but are longer-lasting, in my experience, are the Burpee SuperSeed trays. They come in different sizes, but I’m fond of the 16-cell trays--they have silicone bottoms and are made of a nice solid plastic with a tray to hold water, so they hold up for a long time and are easy to clean and reuse!

Burpee seed tray, my beloved.

What’s better than a cheap pot? Free ones, and there’s plenty of options there! I’ve seen people use toilet paper or paper towel rolls as pots by folding the bottoms in and have it work well for them! I think this method would work best if you had some kind of tray to keep them moist, because mine dried out fast last time I tried this method. I’ve also seen people make pots out of newspaper with a few different methods, and the people who use this method love it--apparently, the roots pass through the paper easier and it decomposes faster when buried, so you can just transplant the whole pot and avoid any kind of transplanting shock. If you don’t have any newspaper on hand, you can likely ask your friends or neighbors! 

I’ve gotten lots of mileage from reusing old containers by poking a few holes in the bottom with knives or scissors--just be careful while you’re doing it! I, personally, am more likely to use an already-used solo cup for it--they’re a nice size, so they hold a good amount of soil and moisture and give the seedling a good amount of root space. I tend to write the plant information on the side of the cup in sharpie marker, or on an index card in pen. I’ve also heard of people making use of egg cartons, fruit containers, yogurt cups, milk cartons, soda bottles--the more you start thinking about what you could easily poke a hole in, the more options start coming around!

This photo may be from 2018, but I'll still regularly reuse cups like this! They're also great for cuttings!

As you start planning to move your seedlings into the ground and preparing planting sites, you’ll likely need a few tools to do it! How do you get these? You may be able to borrow some tools from a neighbor! As long as you make sure to return them in good condition, depending on how friendly your neighbors are, they might be totally fine with you borrowing their tools for awhile. If you don’t want to take that route, there may be a tool library you can borrow from, or a mutual aid group that can loan you tools for awhile. Either way, borrowing tools is cheaper than buying them--though, if you do have to buy tools, cheap hand-tools from Walmart or the dollar store work just fine. They’ll even last a good while if they’re taken care of when not in use! I've even seen places like Ross sell some tools and pots in spring!

Spotted in a Walmart gardening section by the registers, 2023.

Of course, your mileage may vary with these. I genuinely cannot think of the last time my house got a newspaper, and as I've mentioned I don't have to worry about snow. Similarly, maybe you don't use plastic cups when you can help it, or don't have a particular affinity for eggs and yogurt. Maybe there isn't a tool library in your area--I sure don't know if there is in mine--but it could still be worth poking around and asking a neighbor!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to support your plants for cheap--we're gonna be talking compost, mulch, and trellises. Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

[solarpunkani]

Ok fuck it you know something I've never really quite understood about part of the Leftist vs Liberals debate on voting.

So so so many people act like its either-or. Like you're either dedicating your entire life to voting and promoting politicians and phone banking or whatever, or you're a True Rebel waiting for The Uprising to Come and Solve Everything.

But like. In my experience. Me voting is just me kinda go 'which person seems kinda good? Which one at least sucks the least? ok lemme go vote.' and then its anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour tops of my life. And I still have plenty of time to do Stuff and participate in Conversations about Other Important Things. And also you can admit and acknowledge and understand that the system As Is kinda sorta really sucks ass, but also still admit and acknowledge and understand that at this current point in time we are still living in the suckass system and do something to alleviate the suckass At Least A Little while also working to bolster/create/advocate for Other Systems.

I guess just like. it's not a black or white thing. Between 'top 500 volunteers for a specific politician/voting office/etc' and 'absolutely positively not voting at all' there is a gray area called 'vote and then just do other stuff'.

[utilitycaster]

the thing about "let people like things" and "curate your media consumption" and "don't like don't read" and similar is that all of them really just mean "don't throw yourself in front of people to tell them the stuff they like sucks, and don't act like you're being forced against your will to see things you dislike" but both those phrases are increasingly co-opted by an unfortunately loud minority to mean "if you complain about anything I like, regardless of tone, context, or location, I am allowed to call you slurs, harass you, and otherwise abuse you."

It is also immensely important to understand that most tagging systems on social media and elsewhere use the same tags for both inclusion (ie, finding things you like) and exclusion (ie, hiding that which you don't like) and those two use cases clash:

Inclusion typically means people are looking for highly relevant material to whatever they're looking for and might be annoyed when it's something tangential, ie, if I'm looking for fic about a character it sucks to get results in which they appear for one unimportant line.

Exclusion might mean someone wants absolutely no mention of a character, and therefore not tagging that same fic will irritate that group.

There is no fool-proof curation method, and frustration is inevitable, even there were universally agreed upon conventions (there are not) and even if everyone were to follow common courtesy (they don't).

tl;dr any principle in fandom that essentially boils down to "live and let live" doesn't mean "you must be positive about everything all the time" and it definitely doesn't mean "you must be held hostage to the viewpoint of whoever is most shameless about harassing others under the guise of scolding." It means that you shouldn't walk into the bar on publicly announced trivia night and yell "HEY STOP DOING TRIVIA, YOU SUCK", but you're allowed to look annoyed and not participate.

[jaggedwolf]

Under The Banner Of Heaven is a well-written book juxtaposing the murder of a woman and her child by Mormon extremists with the founding of the Mormon faith, but in both halves it is depressingly and enragingly exactly the story you'd expect: a theology focused on the subjugation, rape, and abuse of women and girls, to the point it is nakedly obvious that the theology simply arose from the desires of men in power

[orkowhereheshouldntbe]

[ID in ALT!]

Hey everyone,

As of January 20th, I'll have been running orkowhereheshouldntbe for two years. It's been so much fun, and I've learned so much about photo editing and media. But I don't feel like I can keep up with the daily posts anymore, and I don't want to keep half-assing things in hope the spark comes back. In other words, as the bio warned, the joke's gotten old.

That's not to say this blog is going away - I plan on leaving it up, and I'll still take requests and suggestions. I may even make a post of my own here and there when the mood strikes me. But I think taking the burden of daily posts off my shoulders will help.

I could never have anticipated a one-off inside joke like this becoming such a big part of my life, or taking up so much of my time. I'm proud of myself for managing to keep things going this long, even with the breaks I've had to take. And I'm endlessly grateful for all the love and support I've gotten on my posts. I'll have a special video on Saturday, to commemorate the blog's anniversary, and as a gift for all of you.

This isn't a permanent goodbye. It's just a change from how things have been. <3

[soaps-mohawk]

Is it bad that I don’t want to give birth? Like, I told some of my friends and family that I don’t want to give birth and they told me that I’d change my mind and I told them I wouldn’t and they get mad at me. I told them that I’d adopt kids instead to give them a home and living family but they say that doesn’t matter and count because they won’t be biological.

That's not bad at all!! I know a lot of people that feel the same way. Hell, I feel the same way. I don't want to give birth and I'm very against having children. I've known that pretty much my whole life since I was old enough to conceptualize children and parenthood (very young as a woman growing up in America), and I was always told I'd change my mind someday.

Well, it's been about 20 years and I haven't changed my mind at all. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. The constant societal pressure that every generation has gone through of "you have to have children otherwise your life is meaningless" has very much been challenged as of late with plenty of people realizing your life doesn't end as soon as you're old enough to have children. A lot of those people pushing that narrative shouldn't have had kids in the first place. The world would probably be a lot better off if people that didn't want kids but were pressured into it by society just hadn't given into that pressure.

There's plenty of neglected, abandoned children, and children in foster care that deserve love and support. So yeah, if you don't want to give birth, then there's nothing to feel bad about. You've made that decision and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is only recycling the same societal pressures that probably made them have children they didn't want.

And if anyone says adopted or fostered children don't count, then kindly say fuck them and don't speak to them again. Same with people that say IVF or children born of surrogates. Just because you didn't give birth to your child no matter the reason, that doesn't make them "not your child." Hell I know there's people out there that say C-sections aren't "giving birth" because it wasn't natural.

Yeah, fuck those people and do what you want. It's your body, it's your life and they can either get over it or get out of your life 🤷

[millionsknives]

genuinely these panels are going to make me ugly cry

[salarymanwaka]

happy new year everyone..!!! ( ^ 0^)/ i was planning to post something a little more impressive, but instead all i found in the house was this pair of strange little rabbits. after reading the mysterious inscriptions on their backs, it seems that the red one promotes good health and helps people to achieve their goals, while the white one bestows wealth and absorbs your bad luck. i hope together they will bless you with a wonderful year ahead!

[kellystar321]

.

[bbq-potato-chip]

i can't think about drawing right now I HAVE THINGS TO DO!!!

[front-facing-pokemon]

[not-poignant]

You know… the new chapter from Underline the Black was super good and I thought it actually was really fun chapter. And it was written so well and I wanted to keep reading but I keep reading as soon as it updates 💀 I lack the patience to wait and enjoy a bunch of chapters. But like when Efnisien (I think it was his heat) had to basically suck on Gary’s fingers and his spit too? I have to reread to make sure but I think Gary really enjoyed it so this makes sense? Like it was surprising but also like an ah this adds up moment

Oh yeah Gary really enjoyed it back then too, there's a moment where he's kind of straddling Efnisien, sucking on his fingers at length, and staring down at Efnisien and it's like welp.

Welp.

It was around that time I realised what kind of things he was into and was like 'ahhhh goddamn it.' Because I know that more than sounding, more than needles, more than a lot of extreme kinks, spitting is so visceral that it can be extremely visceral and divisive.

Unfortunately Gary will do what he does, so I'll just consider it something for all the folks who enjoy it and like... send little apology hampers to everyone who was like 'OH NO' lmao

[size-two-shrimp]

Being involved in anything V2 related makes the "hey girl i mean they" meme hover behind me like a malevolent spirit.

[tvrningout-a]

chiyo, rin, sei, paige, yuzu, and probably others whenever their heart starts to beat a little faster around someone:

[queenharumiura]

"It would be bad if I stole a kiss without asking, right?" THEN PROCEEDS TO LEAVE A HICKEY ON HER NECK???????????

WHAT KINDA FUCKBOI ML IS THIS!?

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEEHE I'm so amused by the AUDACITY.

- Neo reading yet a new manhwa series and decided to share the fuckery she comes across with the dash