#AND I DID JUST NOT IN THE WAY I WANTED TO

[asgardian--angels]

Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)

Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.

In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.

We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.

There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).

So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?

I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.

**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **

We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.

You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.

At the national level, please support:

The Nature Conservancy

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)

National Audubon Society

Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)

These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!

THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.

Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...

At the regional level:

These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.

PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS

DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)

PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)

UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)

NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')

WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)

INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)

LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)

INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.

INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)

HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)

OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)

A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.

At the state and local level:

You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!

Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!

Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!

Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society

Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.

Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding

Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)

Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted

MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.

On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:

Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center

Pollinator Pathway

Audubon Native Plant Finder

Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)

National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)

Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)

MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)

Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)

Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)

Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)

There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.

Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).

In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.

Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.

[drchucktingle]

the curve

somehow ive found myself in a position where folks come to chuck in times of strife for encouragement. lets get the big part of this conversation out of the way LOVE IS STILL REAL and that is the thing to remember. that north star remains. today there is more to talk about though

existence pushes towards love community and freedom, because CREATION is what we were built to do and creation thrives with these things as fuel. IT GETS BETTER. LOVE IS REAL. however this change comes in up and down waves. its not a straight line and should not be expected to be

some of these waves are short and small, and some of the slopes are years or decades long. there is no mincing words here, we are entering a massive downward wave. the implications are huge and it is okay to mourn that. FEEL THOSE FEELINGS. it is an important part of the ride

the most telling sign post on our slope is this: tromp won the popular vote (or likely will when the votes are done). we can talk POLITICAL STRATEGY all day about electoral college or who should court the center or the left and on and on but ultimately THIS is the real story

to me it signals a TRUE cultural shift. likely conservatives will have presidency, senate, house, and supreme court. WHAT A GIANT SLOPE. HOLD THE HECK ON because we will be riding it for a while, deep into the pit of the void. hold your buds tight, prove love at the local level

but heres the thing, MASSIVE waves have happened before. theyll happen again. mind numbing slopes into the abyss and great soaring leaps into the sky. in fact the inertia almost ALWAYS causes them to happen right after each other. hippies or punks back in the day, buckaroos now

politically we were trapped in a basically fifty fifty trot for a long time, but it was not always like this (just look at old election maps what the heck). to be honest, tromps map looks like one of those old maps right now. and DANG did COUNTER MOVEMENTS blooms from those times

in other words, THERE WILL BE A COUNTER CULTURE MOVEMENT THAT WE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN OUR LIFETIMES. you are now a rebel for the resistance and the wave that will swing back towards love will awe us in ways we cannot even imagine yet.

but for now, feel those feelings, mourn, prove love, stay safe. do not let the hope i am espousing feel like a distraction from the very real, even deadly consequences of the terrible pit we are plummeting into. it is a horrible day, and FUTURE HOPE does not diminish that, BUT

get ready because that counter culture wave is coming and YOU are a part of it. if you want to shout HECK OFF DEVILS then shout it LOUD, if you want to cry then cry HARD, if you want to love then love with your WHOLE HEART. thats the start of the movement that we dont know yet

when that movement takes shape we will feel the inertia of the curve and it may make us sick from the rollercoaster turn, and that pressure will be uncomfortable and scary, but THEN buckaroo, we will soar, and ill be so dang glad to be holding on tight with you when we do

[stele3]

Thoughts on the exit polls…screenshots taken from NBC’s exit poll.

Men really, really do not want to vote for a woman. I’ve seen this viewpoint branded as TERF rhetoric so lemme just say in advance that I’m non-binary. It is not TERF rhetoric to blame sexism for this loss, and I think we need to confront the ways in which, yes, sexism runs deep with U.S. men and we need MORE feminism, not less.

Trump did make some inroads among Black voters: 92% went for Biden in 2020. Way more Latino voters shifted, though: 66% voted for Biden in 2020. Asian voters also dropped from 63% in 2020. What on earth could account for the —

Support among white men dropped from 48% for Biden to 39% for Harris. Support among Black men ticked down very slightly but not much. The biggest change: Latino men went from supporting Biden by 59% in 2020 to 44% in 2024.

The bottom line: yes, it was the men. Men across multiple races and ages supported Harris less than Biden, and we need to be clear-eyed about that. Unfortunately in the short term I think that means, Absolutely do not run a female Democratic candidate in 2028. Because we can’t even talk about this issue without someone taking exception and wailing “NOT ALL MEN!!”

[humanityinahandbag]

I'd like to tell you all a story about my grandmother.

My grandparents raised their children, four girls (one of them my mother), to be fighters. My aunts marched in Washington for women's rights with babies strapped to their chests and like to joke that all of the grandchildren who came from that line (including myself) were born with picket signs in their hands.

But it started with my grandparents. They fought hard for what they believed in. They marched against Vietnam. They marched for Martin Luther King. They marched for women's rights. They marched for a better future.

But let's talk specifically about my grandmother for a moment.

My grandmother unfortunately passed away in 2016. She had to watch the first Trump election and did so knowing that it would probably be the last election she'd ever see. And there is some argument there that she could have given in to fear and defeatism. She could have decided none of it was worth it, and she could have decided that fascism had won and the world was over.

But she did something else instead.

To give some context, my grandparents had friends who were Republicans. I say were, because they shifted from the normal Republican towards the MAGA Republican we see today. And despite a very clear message from my family about how we felt, they were more than ready to still come to the funeral as if everything was normal. Like their beliefs were normal. Like they were welcome to celebrate someone who had fought so hard for the rights of other people.

These were people who would have absolutely used their rhetoric to scream and shout if they were left out or disinvited.

And so my grandmother, even past her final moments, pulled the most brilliant, petty move I've ever seen.

She'd decided ahead of time that everyone who had known her was more than welcome to attend but that she wanted everyone attending the funeral to donate money. That was the requirement to be invited. And so everyone did just that. There was no talk about what the donations were for, just that they were appreciated. I want to say that the assumption was the money would help pay for funeral expenses and give the family some support while we grieved.

Except that wasn't the case.

Because in those final moments of the funeral, the rabbi stepped forward to thank everyone, and then very cheerfully announced;

"Arlene was so happy to know just how many people were coming to join us here today. She couldn't have been more proud of her family. And I'm sure she would have been elated to see just how much money you all gave today to Planned Parenthood."

When I say that the faces of those people are enshrined in my memory, I mean it. The anger, the devastation, the rage, the betrayal. It was an absolutely gorgeous display of true defeat at the hands of a boss ass old lady who literally fought with her last breath and threw up both middle fingers all the way out the door.

What I'm saying is this.

It is very easy to feel defeated. It is very easy to think that everything is over, and there's nothing left for us to do. It's very easy to say that fascism won, that fear won, that hate won.

But that's only true if you let it be true.

There is always more that we can do. There is a future that is still worth fighting for. And it's more than possible, even when it doesn't seem like it.

And fighting is going to look different every time.

Some days it will look like picket signs in our hands.

Some days it will look like spending time with friends and family and people you love and knowing that you have a community that supports you and your vision of a brighter future.

And some days, it's pulling absolute natural level 20 petty trickster shit even after you've left the world.

Because you can always make an impact and you can always add a little brightness to life, and if that means tricking a group of MAGA idiots into throwing their money behind Planned Parenthood in the middle of your own goddamn funeral then that's what it means.

Keep fighting. People have done it before you. People will continue to do it after you.

And enjoy the little victories.

(Even the petty ones)

[incorrectbatfam]

Honey, I want you to know, I mean this with love when I say it. We are all going to be fine no matter what happens. Nothing is going to change. If Harris gets elected then Harris gets elected. If Trump gets elected then Trump gets elected. Nothing will change. Your life won't change. If you want to see what will happen if Trump gets elected then look at his last term. He did nothing of importance and if he did, none of it went away while we had Biden. Harris won't do anything of any importance either. Your life won't change. I promise you, you and everyone else will be just fine.

Every time I hear someone say this, I think of this picture:

This is the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. The ones in white are the members who survived the AIDS epidemic. The rest did not.

I was a teenager when Trump was elected in 2016. I was 16 years old, just beginning to question my sexuality while also supporting my best friend who had come out as trans. The only adult I could trust to talk to about it was my geography teacher. After Trump was elected, corporations had the greenlight to price gouge every imaginable necessity, including the insulin my teacher relied on. He couldn't afford all the payments even with insurance so he started rationing. The last day of school before winter break, I wished him happy holidays, gave him a Christmas card, and never saw him again.

I know you mean well, but I say this in the nicest way possible: you are speaking from a place of luck. Just because you haven't lost anyone or anything as a result of the past Trump administration does not mean everyone had the same experience. I know my experience is not a unique one. I could cite the widely available statistics about abortion restrictions and maternal mortality, or gender-affirming care bans and trans suicides, or the pandemic, anything else we've been seeing when conservatives take power.

A lot of us are right to be scared, either because we've gone through this before or because we stand a real risk of losing something.

[txttletale]

Sorry for anon, I'm shy. I think I'm one of the liberals you're complaining about and I don't want to be. If (and only if) you have the time/energy, could you elaborate more on where the Harris campaign went wrong? I promise I don't mean this in a sealioning way - I genuinely want to understand and move towards a better perspective, but I don't even know what to Google to start.

it is extremely conventional political wisdom that running as the incumbent party during an unpopular administration is a gruelling uphill battle--harris was in this position, and i think going all-in on her continuity with biden, who is extremely disliked (for many reasons, ranging from his fervent passion for genocide to a vague sense that He Made The Ecnomy Bad And Woke) was a catastrophic error that any dickhead with a political science degree would have told her to avoid. unfortunatley she surrounded herself with biden's people who in the run-up to him stepping down had already proven themselves to be completely self-deluding and isolated from reality.

the absolute worst thing you can do in the electoral situation harris was in is go on television and say "i would do absolutely nothing differently to the current (unpopular) administration" and she did literally exactly that.

other facts are that the constituency her campaign decided to go all-in on, of, like, sensible moderate center-right republicans who value bipartisanship, basically hasn't existed since tea party birtherism became ascnedant in the republican party if it ever did at all. the idea that there was an election-winning segment of voeters who would vote for harris if she proved that she wasn't "too liberal" through serious policy commitments to right-wing positions was just not founded in reality--like it was a strategy that failed to grapple with the basic reality that the modern republican position on democrat politicians is that they're adrenochrome-chugging child rapists.

in a similar vein her hard pivot to border fascism was morally deplorable but also a total waste of time because donald "build the wall" trump has made his personal brand synonymous with anti-immigration politics and so she was simply never ever going to win anyone over from him on that ground. & finally of course there was the campaign;'s wholehearted and total contempt for her own potential voters, which manifseted most obviously and evilly in their treatment of anti-genocide protestors and their flying bill clinton out ot michigan to lecture arabs about how they deserved to be bombed but also seems responsible for their total lack of consideration of (again) conventional elecvtoral tactics 101 like "energizing the base" or "getting out the vote"

so tldr it was just a disastrous campaign that prioritized the egos of biden campaign staff and biden himself over winning or facing basic reality

[cassandraclare]

Kit to Ty

Election day: misery, stress, hair-pulling, at least for Americans (and a lot of other people around the world affected by our politics!) So I thought I'd post a distraction; I hope it helps and doesn't annoy!

A while ago I posted the beginning of a letter from Kit to Ty, created for a Kickstarter backer. Here's the full text:

A letter from Kit to Ty, never sent.

Ty, Ty, Ty.

Your name looks strange written out like that. Like an abbreviation. But Tiberius would be so formal. I never think of you that way. Or, I suppose I should say, I never thought of you that way. Tenses matter in these situations, I guess.

It’s late, past midnight, and I’m sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom at Cirenworth. Jem and Tessa gave me one of the best rooms. Of course they did. It has a view out over the gardens. Sometimes I see the ghost of a dog there, a golden retriever I’m pretty sure, running in and out of the flowerbeds. He seems like a pretty happy ghost. I think about how much you like animals and how much they love you, because of course they do. But it’s too late; this dog passed away a long time ago. You probably couldn’t even see him. It’s too late for a lot of things, now.  

I’m still mad at you, and I don’t feel good about that. Maybe if I could forget, I could forgive. But I can’t forget that night you brought Livvy back. I’ll suddenly remember even when I’m thinking about something else. I’ll be in the middle of helping Tessa in the garden and suddenly I’ll turn around and I’m back in Idris. 

I remember I told you I loved you. I remember I told you I would help you, but not if you raised Livvy from the dead. Not if you did necromancy. But you wanted that more than you wanted me.

And I understand that. I’m not angry about that. Here’s what I’m angry about: when you brought Livvy back, you changed yourself. You made yourself a different person than the one I loved. I don’t know the person you are now. You took yourself away from me. I can’t forgive that. And you made me someone who has to keep a secret I never wanted to keep. I was raised by someone who had so many awful secrets, and when I started my life as a Shadowhunter I wanted to do it openly, and honestly. But now I’m just someone else with secrets I can never tell. Just like my dad.

It makes me angry, so angry. I want to yell at you. I wish you were here so I could yell at you.

Kit

[comicaurora]

So uhh. If you feel like talking about it. As someone who lives in the US, how are you being kind to yourself on this upsetting morning <3

Checked in with my loved ones first and foremost.

It's interesting. The vibe I've been getting from my circle is very different from 2016. Much less… dread and horror at a realignment of the understanding of what can and can't happen here, now, in this place and day and age. More "fuck, guys. again? whatever. enjoy your consequences, maybe you'll manage to learn something this time."

Frustration and anger is not the most positive feeling, or even the most fair one to express, but it is a protective one. It hurts a lot less than most alternatives.

And it's quite a shift. It was earthshattering back then. How could this have been allowed to happen? Why couldn't it be stopped? Why couldn't we stop it? Why couldn't I stop it? Why couldn't everyone see what this meant? Why couldn't I make them understand? Did they really not care? What did that mean about humanity as a whole? Were we so thoughtless? How could anyone be trusted?

It seems… much less earthshattering to see it happen twice. Disappointing, sure. Frustrating. But nowhere near as devastating as the first time I saw it unfold. We already knew it could happen. I've already had time to digest the implications. Now I'm just freshly disappointed.

It also feels less indicative of Crushing Truths Of Reality this time. We've seen shit get bad. We've also seen shit get better from here! We know both outcomes are possible, even inevitable. We know hoping for a better future is always worthwhile. This isn't the apocalypse. It's an unremarkably bad turn of events brought on by unremarkably self-centered well-documented human impulses. It's utterly mundane in its unpleasantness. It doesn't need to be dignified with despair.

A democratic election, no matter the outcome or the side we're on, makes us all acutely aware of how outnumbered we are by people whose worldviews and priorities are demonstrably incomprehensible to us. And the first time you get outnumbered, it's a shock. Defeat is haunting. It didn't matter how badly you wanted it; by the very function of democracy, you do not have the power to override greater numbers. (insert electoral college caveat here)

The second time through, I find myself focusing on a different facet that has dramatically reduced the amount of spiralling I'm doing. I don't expect this to work for everyone, but for me specifically, it helped to crystallize a few thoughts:

You don't have the power to control anyone else. You don't. You can't share your worldview and your revelations with them. You can't make them think or understand anything. You can lay it all out for them, but you can't make them listen, and you can't make it click. A mentor can't make their student learn a lesson; that's why teaching is so complicated and hard. An active choice must be made by the person to enable themselves to understand, and they must put the pieces together in their own mind before it makes sense to them, and the pieces must have been presented in a way that makes sense to them in the first place. Lead a horse to water, can't make them drink.

These elections highlight a disconnect in what different groups of people care about; and no matter how clearly you explain yourself or how passionately you perform, caring cannot be forced on someone. Understanding and connection cannot be forced. You cannot make anything or anyone matter to someone. They have to choose to see how it matters in order to internalize it. If they choose not to, that is not your failing. You couldn't have made them do it by just Explaining Better. They are not your responsibility. They make their own choices. You can't reach inside their head and connect the dots for them.

I'm a storyteller. I make stories and put them out into the world. I hope people get something good out of them, but I have no control over what that something is. I want people to be thoughtful and kind and compassionate and hopeful and see themselves reflected in stranges, no matter their differences. I can craft stories that I hope encourage this. But that is the extent of my ability and the extent of my responsibility. I control no-one's actions but my own, and so while I am not having the best day, I am at least content that I am doing what I can, and I am not shattering myself against impossibilities trying to control the things I can't.

Sometimes, people make decisions that I think are really bad. I can't make that not happen. All I can do is try to make decisions that will result in things I think are good. Today, that means checking in on people, and not assigning too much dramatic narrative weight to an ultimately mundane set of unremarkable bad decisions outside of my control. We'll take life as it comes and help each other out when and how we can. Everything else is out of our hands.

[kamitv]

Nerd!Nanami who whispers filthy praises into your ear while you’re sitting in his lap and his fingers are curling deep up into your cunt.

He’s got his glasses on but they’re sitting center on the bridge of his sharp nose, allowing them to slide down slowly since he’s too distracted with you to push them up like normal.

You’re facing him and your arms are wrapped tightly around his neck, legs spread nice and pretty over his lap while he drives his thick veiny fingers up into your leaky hole. With every moan you let out into his ear, his cock bulges harder against his tight tan slacks.

Rolling his hips up slightly in an attempt of getting some friction, Nanami’s all in your ear whispering to you. “So wet f’me ‘n I’ve barely even touched you all day. Did you miss my fingers that much, sweetheart?” He talks as if you weren’t dry humping him less than twenty minutes prior to this…

Even so, you nod and your lips graze his ear. “Uhuh,” You babble, feeling his fingertips curve right against your g-spot before rubbing against it genteelly.

“Words, pretty girl. Talk to me.” Nanami hushes out to you while dragging his fingers outwards slowly before plunging them right back in and listening to the gorgeous squelch that rings out from your pussy.

Your arms cage his neck all the more tighter and your hips jerk forwards. “Fuck. You w-were busy with work all day Ken’, hnngh… couldn’t s-stop thinkin’ about your hands ‘n how much I—oh fuuck, I m-missed them.”

His lips curve into a knowing smile and he has to adjust his legs below you slightly to stop himself from snatching his fingers out of you and bouncing you up ‘n down his cock for that entire statement alone. Nanami loves it when you talk while he pleases you, he loves the way your words come out all pitched and full of pleasure, just can’t get enough of it.

“Is that so?” He hums simply with a tortuous swivel of his two fingers against your walls that has your legs caging around his thighs tightly. “Did you touch yourself to those thoughts too? Hm?” Nanami’s voice has you dripping all down the skin of his hand, your slick shiny against his wrist as it drips off of him and right over his bulge.

You drop your head into the crook of his neck and roll your hips forward in an attempt of riding the fingers he’s fucking you with. “N-No but, I wanted to.” You admit honestly.

Nanami suppresses a groan. He can only imagine how needy you were for him, probably squeezing your thighs together all day just because you missed him. “Aw,” Nanami coos deeply in that smooth honey-coated baritone of his, “You should’ve done it and then sent me a video. I would’ve stopped working and came to help you, sweetheart.”

Your breath hitches at the thought alone and you immediately start lifting your hips to escape the overwhelming rush of pleasure, to which Nanami places his other hand on your waist and keeps you in place.

“Stay still, pretty girl. Lemme take care of you,” He’s whispering to you again, digging his fingers in and out and in and out while slipping his thumb up and rolling circles over your twitching clit. “Don’t run when y’know she missed me this much. S’not nice.”

“Kento,” You whine in a desperate tone before sliding one of your hands down to hold his wet wrist.

Nanami only increases the pace of his fingers at the sound of your wines, allowing the slicks of your pussy to overtake your small noises rather quickly. Then, he turns his head and kisses at your neck just as you lift and toss your head back. Sucking on your skin, staring up at you intimately, fucking his fingers you adore so much deeper inside you—Nanami makes it so very clear that he just loves pleasing you like this.

“After this,” He speaks hotly into your skin and he can feel your cunt pulsing and clenching around him with every word. “If you help me finish my paper within’ thirty minutes, I’ll fuck you all night jus’ like you want me to.” As his little challenge leaves him, you’re making a mess of his two fingers.

Gasping, “Mmnh, really?” Which only makes him smile because he knows damn well he’s going to do that regardless of the paper he has due tonight.

“Really.” Nanami confirms.

Hell, he’ll fuck you while he completes the damn paper if he has to…

He’s practically picturing it now—having you bent over his work desk, rolling his hips firmly into yours and driving his fat cock in and out of your sopping walls while he simultaneously reaches over to your side and messily writes or types out what he needs to.

Your moans and soft whimpers of his name would be distracting, sure. But Nanami’s pretty sure he can fill you and his paper up at the same time with no problems…

[gojoidyll]

+18, smut, mdni, f!reader, etc.

pt 1

You weren’t used to the attention that John was giving you. Your past partners never caring or giving a damn. So to feel just how much careful attention he is giving your weeping pussy is making your core throb and ache. And when he started to pull his fingers out, it made you whine embarrassingly loud.

The sound made him chuckle as he got up and pulled you along.

“Where- where are we going?”

“To my bed.”

That was another thing that made you almost lose your footing. You were never important enough for a bed. The hard floor or the lumpy, uncomfortable couch was all your dates ever brought you to. In your mind, however, you wouldn’t have minded John’s couch as it was more comfortable than the others you had the displeasure of sitting on.

“Are you sure? What about the mess?”

You couldn’t hide the way your voice wobbled as he ushered you into his room, his foot kicking the door closed as his hands gently worked on your pants, helping you shrug them off along with your panties.

He quirked an eyebrow at you, amusement clear in his features. And when you felt your clothing start to pool at your feet, you found that you were only dressed in your shirt and bra. The cool air made your thighs clench together.

“If I’m going to fuck ya, sweet girl, then it’s going to be in my bed. But before that…,” his voice trailed off as he helped you out of your shirt and unclipped your bra, the articles of clothing joining your jeans and panties, “I said I was going to have you sit on my face next.”

Without getting undressed himself, he pulled you along towards his bed. His hand gently tugging you forward when he sat down on the edge of, you now wedged between his thighs as he rested his hands on your hips, his fingers tracing lazy circles as he kissed your stomach. The feeling of him peppering you with kisses made you squirm.

“Well?”

“H- huh?”

He chuckled at your cluelessness, but didn’t dare make fun of you for it, “though I said where I wanted you to sit, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

He leaned back, pushed himself to where he was laying face down whilst pulling you with. Your chest pressed hard against his as he let one of his hands trail and gently squeeze at the fat of your ass.

A part of you always wanted to try, but with your past partners hating the idea of giving you oral while also giving you a clear display of disgust, you sort of dropped the idea entirely.

But John is offering, isn’t he?

He isn’t the type of man to do something he doesn’t want to after all.

“Only if… you really want to,” you manage to say.

“That’s what I am asking you. Do you want to?”

You found yourself gripping at the front of his shirt, the way his fingers worked you open was still imprinted in your cunt, you really want to feel his tongue too.

“Yes, please.”

The moment the words left your mouth, he had you sit up so you were straddling his waist. You tried not to whine out too much when your wet cunt pressed down against his hardening bulge, and he didn’t give you enough time to feel him as he already got a strong hold of your hips again and gently dragging you up.

“You’re so nervous.”

You didn’t know where to put your hands as your bare pussy hovered just over his mouth. None of your previous partners ever really looked to hard at your slick, but John made a point to just analyze all of you.

“I- I can’t help it, I never did something like this before.”

He chuckled softly, his breath gently hitting your cunt making you squirm in his hold, “then I best ruin you for everyone else, huh?”

Not giving you any time to give back a retort, he planted you down, his grip strong as he easily held you in place as his tongue licked a long stripe between your folds. The sudden contact made you squeal as started to lap at you, his tongue not missing a single inch even as he toys with your fluttering hole. The tip of his tongue gently prodding before delving in.

The heat and feeling of his tongue was way different, and even better as he let one of his hands let go of your waist to trail downwards.

Your moans and gasps filled up the quiet bedroom accompanied by the wet sounds your pussy made against his tongue and fingers.

And you think between each flick of his tongue and pump of his fingers that he was right.

He was ruining you for everyone else… that is, if you even want anyone else after this.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Ways you can volunteer when you have social anxiety

Hi, I know some of you feel motivated to organize and volunteer with the recent everything but as someone with an anxiety disorder I know the struggle. I’ve been volunteering sporadically since I was a teen and not all of it requires face to face to contact with the public. Here’s some ideas to get you started.

Cooking in kitchens and food pantries/volunteering to cook at places that have daily or weekly free or reduced cost meals like food not bombs, soup kitchens, summer or winter food trucks for low income k-12 students, religious community kitchens like at church gatherings or a Sikh langar.

Making clothing or blankets. Domestic violence shelters are often in need of these for both adults and kids. Organizations that work with foster kids are often also in need of clothing and blankets.

Contacting vendors: If you’re bad at talking to people but good at writing emails a lot of groups are in need of supplies.

Unloading trucks at stuff like food pantries and clothing drives. If possible you can request to be put in the back room or work on setup.

Just show up at the protest. Sometimes you can just stand there and be another body in the back of the crowd. That’s what I’ve done at every protest I’ve ever been in. Wear a face mask and a hat if you don’t want to be recognized. You’re sending a message just by being there.

House repair and garden planting. A lot of organizations that do this stuff will train you.

Write letters to prisoners. There’s a lot of organizations that let you do this but they’re usually specific to a local area. When I lived in Texas there was an organization that connected some classmates and I to a group of people in the local men’s prison who wanted to do a book club so we did a long distance book club with them for a few months.

After school tutoring, babysitting, religious or other types of classes for kids, etc. Some folks feel less anxious around kids and there’s plenty of opportunities to volunteer in both secular and religious capacities. You can tutor, babysit, help run classes, stuff like that. There’s also a lot of opportunities to work with foster kids without being a foster parent if that’s something you’re passionate about.

Counting money. Organizations get donations and those donations often come in the form of cash. This is the primary form of volunteer work my grandmother does for her church and some local charities. It’s a good choice if you’re someone who can’t stand for long periods of time and you’re good at basic math.

Donate blood. Yes this counts as volunteer work.

[weirdmageddon]

i was thinking about this since i posted earlier about us needing to address the trend of gen z men being pulled into alt-right pipelines might have contributed to the outcome of this election.

i think contrapoints is really smart, and from what i’ve seen, has been way more effective at getting people out of harmful ideological pipelines than i’ve seen from the majority of leftists online who instead berate and drive a greater wedge of antipathy (though i understand why! and it can be very hard to have empathy for the people who see you as a threat). that antipathy makes the right more radicalized because they don’t feel like they can talk about anything without the “crazy lefties” who won’t even engage with them. where did these issues come from?

what i’ve noticed, and i’m even guilty of this, is that people don’t interact with groups of people whom they refuse talk to, which makes realities more hypothetical in the minds of their opponent since they aren’t open to seeing reality from their perspective. this is true on both sides. from what i’ve observed, it seems to originate from hypothetical perception of the opponent, but when people treat those perceptions as though they are real, it becomes real with their actions, which then makes the antipathy justified to someone. again, on both sides.

what makes contrapoints so successful at breaking this down is that is that she creates these socratic dialogue skits that represent real people and ideologies, has a sense of humor, isn’t afraid to discuss these things, reframes how we see these things by introducing nuance to both sides. she’s a leftist, but she also knows how to engage without ripening division, of meeting someone halfway and being completely humble about it. she is able to soften extremes.

she is able to get into the mind of people who aren’t aligned with her views, understand the nuance and rationales from a realistic perspective, breaking down a big block of “this is all bad” into “ok, some of this makes sense…”, what this does is create a space for self-reflection that doesn’t feel ham-fisted (which could otherwise cause people to double down on their beliefs instead of opening up to other perspectives outside of their bubble). while also being entertaining and well-produced on top of it.

what she is doing is creating these scenarios and socratic discussions that SHOULD be happening in real life but aren’t in this polarized social climate.

i graduated from new college of florida this spring, the small liberal arts college that was in headlines across the country for ron desantis’s board of trustees hostile takeover and exodus of professors.

new students and student athletes from conservative walks of life were being basically incentivized to go there who were taught to fear the lgbt boogeyman growing up in their conservative communities. but once they actually interacted with lgbt students there, many of them they felt like they understood them, and they weren’t as bad as they were told they would be. new college of florida was also famous for getting derek black (child of the man who created stormfront, and godchild of the kkk grand wizard david duke) out of white nationalism. their peers at NCF called them out but also interacted with them, invited them to dinner. black wrote a book about it.

now of course some people are too far gone and you shouldn’t waste your time with them, like derek’s family for example. but i also think a lot of people who voted for trump are not informed, are operating off of emotion and knee-jerk mentality because it’s easier than thinking, and they are not seeing the discussions that need to be had to change their mind because fuckin…nobody is doing them.

and we feel this visceral disgust to people of the opposing party because of its associations. i just want to know how it happened and how we got to be like this. i think social media is partly to blame and also the algorithms that take people down dangerous pipelines and sharpen them, insulate them.

i myself understand the vitriol you might have for anyone that voted for trump. i feel so disappointed that half the people of this country voted against our collective benefit. and i’ve seen a lot of sentiment from the left today saying “every single person who voted for trump is dead to me. i disowned you”.

you can see the reality of trump’s demagoguery, and it’s so obvious, but what i want to know is: what do they see? why did they vote for him? emotion and entertainment travel faster and have more reach than reason. and it’s that’s why i think contrapoints’s videos are exemplary at tackling this ideological divide. this is something i’ve been thinking about for months before today and i thought now was a better time than ever to give my two cents on it.

[ellecdc]

Hi, I don't actually know if your requests are open but I was just wondering if you could do a fic about poly!Mauraders x reader, but it's a full moon and when James and Sirius are out with moony, they run into another wolf (reader) and moony just instantly takes a liking to her. Imagine moony trying to follow her around, and reader keeps snapping her jaw at him. I could also imagine reader is maybe a Slytherin?

Sorry if this isn't good, I just popped into my head, and I went with it. Take your time, and don't rush yourself 💓

"sorry if this isn't good - don't rush" uhm, it was fantastic and I wrote it IMMEDIATELY thank youuuuu!!!! <3

poly!marauders x werewolf!reader who's unwittingly integrated into their pack [2.3k words]

CW: fem!reader, werewolf behaviour, some aggression/fighting, canine aggression and submission, Padfoot's had it up to fucking here with them all thank you very much

Padfoot wondered for a moment if maybe he was just some glorified herding dog at this point whilst he struggled to keep Moony on their usual routine when the werewolf seemed thoroughly hellbent on breaking it.

Moony - a blood hound tonight, apparently - insisted on following his nose, Padfoot’s incessant demands to stick to plan be damned. 

And unfortunately for Padfoot, it didn’t seem like Prongs or Wormtail had any clue how to deal with Moony either.

Great.

So instead of their usual routine of transforming in the shack, letting Moony out, following their trail where they run (and roll, in Moony & Padfoot’s case) down a large hill before chasing each other along the river bank, grabbing a drink from the edge of the Black Lake and slowly making their way back to the shack…Moony no sooner got to the bottom of their hill before he picked up some scent and followed it down dark, wandering paths through the Forbidden Forest.

Padfoot had tried encouraging a mouth wrestle and romp - no dice. Prongs tried taking off in a sprint, hoping to elicit Moony’s instinct to chase - no dice. Wormtail bit Moony’s foot which only saw him nearly stomped on as the werewolf continued on his journey. Prongs tried bodily shoving Moony back in the direction of the shack to no avail. 

Padfoot was just about ready to pick a bloody fight with the beast when he heard snuffling followed by a low growl.

Unfortunately for Padfoot, Moony didn’t miss it either, and before he knew which way was up, Moony took off in a sprint towards the sound. 

Padfoot hoped to come back in his next life as a border collie - maybe he’d have better luck with the likes of sheep.

And that decision was only solidified when he turned the corner to find Moony staring down another werewolf who had her hackles raised and teeth bared at the bastard who seemed either ignorant to canine body language or was actively choosing to ignore it.

At least sheep will have the bloody wherewithal to avoid danger. 

Padfoot made a quiet whimpering sound, hoping to encourage Moony to get the hells out of here, but it only served to have Moony’s ear flick in his general direction before returning to his new wolf friend. 

Prongs huffed a breath and stomped his hoof into the earth, and Padfoot noticed then that Wormtail was nowhere to be found - the bloody coward. 

Moony tried to crane his neck forward to sniff at the wolf's paws, only for the wolf to snarl and snap at him before smacking him with said paw like a sodding cat. 

Moony at least had the grace to lower himself to the ground in submission for but a moment before he bounced back up to try doing much the same. 

This time, the wolf charged at Moony, pinning him to the earth by his throat as she growled at him; the sound muffled by the fact that Moony’s sodding neck was in her mouth.

Prongs grunted and made to charge in Moony’s defence, causing the wolf to release Moony and look at him sceptically, and Moony to growl at Prongs warningly - he did not want their help. 

Fine by Padfoot. He wasn’t much interested in helping a werewolf with a death wish anyway. 

But when the wolf decided this was all perhaps a bit too much for her, turning away from the strange pack to continue on its path - of which the marauders should be on their own, thank you very much - Moony went to follow, and dammit, this was Padfoot’s pack.

And if it wasn’t his pack, it was his herd, and what kind of border collie would Padfoot be if he let his pack sheep out of his sight?

Not a very good one, is what.

So, with a huff of resignation, Padfoot trailed behind the wolves - one that kept turning to nip, snap, and snarl at pesky Moony, and pesky Moony who kept trying to get a sniff or even, more disturbingly, incite play with a gentle nip - Prongs (and Wormtail, by means of Prongs’ antlers) trailed behind him. 

The wolf seemed resigned to her fate in having company for the rest of the evening, though that didn’t mean she was pleased about it. Every time Padfoot thought the wolf’s hackles were going down, Moony playbowed in front of her like an overgrown lanky puppy, and they rose right back up. 

The new wolf, for her part, spent the evening snuffling through the dried leaves and moss on the floor, stretching against tree trunks and using the bark to sharpen her claws (still not unlike a cat), and chewing on a stick. 

Padfoot thought that actually all seemed like a really nice way to spend the evening.

Or, you know, it would have been, had he not been in charge of this ridiculous rag-tag group of misfits he unwittingly found himself responsible for. 

But eventually, the evening had to come to an end, and that end was signalled by the twitching of Moony’s muscles underneath his fur as the moon started pulling at his bones, and it appeared to be doing the same for you.

But the night couldn’t end, it seemed, if you weren’t coming with Moony. And for as annoyed as Padfoot had been all evening, he was growing increasingly anxious. 

You abandoned your stick and stood, beginning to limp away from them when Moony grunted and hurried after you, causing Padfoot and Prongs to bark and bleat respectively. 

Any levity that the wolf had found for the marauders quickly vanished in the face of her oncoming transformation and the pain radiating through her when she turned on Moony and lunged at him. Padfoot whimpered and felt his heart try to escape through his throat as earth flew up in the air due to paws digging into the ground for traction and scrambling for purchase. 

The wolf's growls were different now, though; they weren’t bored, they weren’t dismissive, and they weren’t even all that threatening. The wolf was scared - panicked, even. Padfoot could see it in the speed of her breathing and the whites of her eyes that she was quickly descending into terror. 

They were close, so close, to the shack; Padfoot was certain he could get Moony back before the transformation if he would just get a sodding move on.

But it appeared Moony was wholly unwilling to leave without this wolf, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. 

The wolf seemed to come to the same conclusion as Padfoot, stepping away from Moony before submitting for the first time all evening, and wincing as Padfoot heard one of her joints shift. 

Moony let out a sigh, moving over to the wolf who seemed so small now that she was cowering at the base of the tree with Moony standing above her, nudging her face and neck with his nose before licking over her face. 

The wolf whimpered, and Padfoot watched as Moony’s right hind foot came out from underneath him for a moment - as if he tripped - telling him that the transformation was starting. 

Padfoot whined, and he swore Moony actually nodded his head in understanding before he gently grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck and encouraged her to stand. 

Resigned to her fate, the wolf followed the pack towards the shack, barely making it into the room before the transformation took over.

The first thing you noticed when you came to wasn’t the pain, though that was there. It was always there. 

No, the first thing you noticed when you came to was the feeling of linen on top of you and something soft below you. 

That wasn’t right; that couldn’t be right, could it? You were supposed to be in the cave. 

But when you shifted your arm and felt the linen - a blanket? - fall from your shoulder, you knew it was true. You were not in the cave. You were not in the cave, and someone had found you. 

“I think she’s awake.” 

Someones had found you.

You were not in the cave, people had found you, and you were not alone.

You sat up suddenly, holding the blanket to your chest as you shuffled away from the sounds before your back met something solid. Your head felt heavy and off-kilter, like you were standing on a boat swaying on rolling waves.

You had a wicked migraine coming on.

“Whoa, whoa. Easy there doll.” Another voice sounded.

“What-” You tried, cutting yourself off to clear your throat when your voice came out gravely and painful, threatening to bring up whatever you still had in your stomach from dinner two nights ago; the last time you could manage food. “Why are you- why am I here? Where am I? What-”

“Open your eyes, L/N.” The second voice offered, though you could tell the inflection was softer than it naturally was; you wondered if that took him a lot of effort. “You’re okay.”

Your breaths began to quicken because you didn’t feel okay, this didn’t feel okay. Someone knew, they knew; they had found you, you were found out.

The sun was still low, so the light in the….room? shack? hut? was dim, though it still made your eyes water with the impending migraine lined up in your temples as if just waiting for a good excuse to wreak havoc on your brain. 

You were accosted with the sight of Sirius Black crouching in front of you, elbows on his knees as his eyebrows hooked in the middle; James Potter standing behind him with his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at you much the same. 

“You’re okay.” James repeated, nodding his head encouragingly as your vision began to swim.

“Try to relax, doll; you’re not going to feel very well if you work yourself up.”

You let out a hysterical breath that bordered between a laugh and a sob as a few tears spilled out. “Relax? I- what… How could you- why are you here?”

James grimaced. “Sorry, that would be Moony’s fault.” 

“Moony? I-” But your question was cut off  when you heard the shuffling off bedding from across the room, and both James and Sirius turned towards the sound, exposing Remus Lupin sitting up on an old mattress, rubbing at his eyes as a blanket fell and pooled at his hips, exposing his bare torso that was….covered in claw marks.

“Oh gods.” You let out with a sob. “What did I- Did I do that?” 

“What?” Remus let out groggily as both Sirius and James quickly denied it. 

“No, no. Listen, angel, please relax-”

“Stop telling me to relax.” You nearly shrilled. “And stop calling me nice names!”

Too tired, too freaked out, and too confused to have chosen your wording carefully, you appeared to have said something wrong when Sirius’ mouth turned up in a salacious smirk. 

“You like our nice names?”

“No!” 

“I think you do.” James continued.

“Leave the poor girl alone.” Remus grumbled before he fell back onto his bed, rubbing harshly at his eyes.

“Where are we?” You asked simply, swallowing around your gag reflex.

“The shrieking shack.” James answered just as simply.

“Okay.” You acknowledged. “Why?”

“Well, Moony wouldn’t leave without you, so we sort of had to bring you with us.” Sirius answered.

“Moony…?”

“That’s me.” You heard Remus mutter, voice muffled from behind his hands. 

“And…I didn’t hurt anyone last night?” You asked slowly. 

James’ face softened as he started to shake his head no, but Sirius scoffed.

“Define hurt, gorgeous. I was pissed, for one. Two, you had that wanker by the throat for most of the night.” He said, gesturing behind him to Remus with a careless thumb. 

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t bloody leave you alone! I was exhausted just watching.” Sirius continued.

“Would you stop bloody shouting?” Remus grumbled, and you couldn’t help but agree as you rubbed at your head. 

“Anyway,” James continued at a more appropriate volume, “he wouldn’t leave without you, so we brought you back here for the transformation. Where…where were you going to go for the transformation?” 

You flushed as you wrapped the blanket tighter around your person. “There's…a cave I usually go to.” You admitted in a whisper.

“Well, I bet this is an upgrade then, no?” Sirius offered somewhat haughtily, but his face fell quickly when you began speaking again.

“You can’t tell anyone…please.” 

“Tell anyone?” James repeated.

“I…no one knows, no one can know.”

“Whoa, babe, hang on. Who’re we gonna tell?” Sirius asked then, a disbelieving look painting his features. 

“I-” you started, swallowing again “I don’t know but, I just, you can’t-”

“We weren’t gonna tell anyone.” James assured you. “We aren’t going to tell anyone; there’s nothing to tell.” 

You must have looked sceptical, because Sirius quickly intervened.

“Alright look, we promise not to tell anyone about your lycanthropy, as long as you promise not to tell anyone about Remus’, or about James and I being illegal, unregistered animagi.” 

Your mouth actually fell open as you looked between the three of them; James as he turned to grab some vials of pain potions and healing balms, Sirius who was smirking at you salaciously, and Remus who was carding his hand through his hair and smiling (try grimacing) at you apologetically. 

“Welcome to the pack, L/N.” Remus said wryly before he downed the potion James handed to him in one, effortless swig and laid back down. 

“We’re called the marauders.” James explained as he handed you a matching potion. “We’ll have to find you a nickname. Don’t worry though, we have a whole month to come up with one.” 

What the fuck?

[jakubrozalski]

Grey Reaper ( Lanius excubitor ) " My sweet summer child, what do you know about horror, about fear? Let me tell you a story about the Grey Reaper. The story of how I lost my only brother. It happened on the last day of October, long before you were born and I was still a young girl. My grandfather told me a story about an old beast, he called it the Grey Reaper. The beast appeared only during the autumn preceding the most harsh and long winters. Reaper hunted during the day, while everyone was working in the fields, members of our tribe disappeared without a trace. I always thought these stories were just fairy tales, until one day I saw him with my own eyes! Together with my brother and father we were gathering nuts for the winter in an old orchard. Suddenly everywhere fell eerily silent, in the forest and the field. Then, I heard a terrifying croak, the air whistled, the grass around me bent. I turned around and looked into the cold, black eyes of the beast. Those black empty eyes haunt me to this day. One moment later the beast flew away with my brother in its claws. Everything happened so fast, and at the same time as if time was frozen. My father grabbed his backpack and a spear and ran after the beast, straight to its lair, trying to save my brother! It was a place from the worst nightmares. The smell of blood and death was everywhere. To reach the place where the beast rested, one had to fight their way through a maze of thorny branches on which the Reaper impaled his victims. I tell you my child, many beasts roam these forests, many predators threaten us and hunt us for food... but the Reaper did it for fun! Father returned to us badly wounded, unfortunately it was too late for my brother. Father never spoke of what happened there and we never asked. No one has seen the Grey Reaper since. But I'm still afraid to go out into the fields and orchard in the fall, the beats still haunt me in nightmares, I'm still afraid he'll come back..."

I remember when many years ago, I first heard about the Great Grey Shrike and its habits, I couldn't believe it! Since then, this bird has always fascinated me and stimulated my imagination. Especially in the context of how terrifying its habits must have been for the creatures like gnomes. I always wanted to place this bird in the "Furry Demon" stories / universe, and I finally did! Nature is truly extraordinary. If you haven't heard of the Great Grey Shrike ( Dzierzba Srokosz ) before, I recommend checking it out, but it's not for the faint of heart :)) Cheers! work process: https://jrozalski.com/projects/AZQqZN

[psychotrenny]

I reckon the whole HalimedeMF thing was a funny enough bit by itself, but it's a really grim sign that so many people completely missed the point. Like you've got this comical exaggeration of a Chaser "ally", someone whose "support" for trans women is clearly nothing but the product of dehumanising sexual desire, and yet Trans Women are such a viciously marginalised demographic that so many girls will latch onto every illusory shred of support and "acceptance" they see. It's especially miserable when you think about how that's more or less the way real chasers operate too; exploiting our vulnerability for their own gratification and half the time getting thanked for it

Your average HalimedeMF post was something like "It's so sad that Trans suffers when she should be giving me dick. Dick specifically. Did I mention the dick?" and so many people responded like "Wow she actually thinks it's sad when Trans suffers? I need her so bad". Like girl this isn't someone you're meant to want around this is the caricature of someone to be laughed at and blocked.

And I know a lot of girls were just playing along with the bit but there was consistently a scary amount of sincerity to that sort of thing. Like seeing girls so desperate to feel wanted in any way that they develop positive feelings towards the shadow of an exploitative creep really reminds you of just how dire things are. Living under societal transmisogyny really does make you feel like a lower form of life; even scraps of decency seem like a privilege

[requiemforthepoets]

you just pulled a verstappen! 𖦹 LN4

PAIRINGS: lando norris x female!reader

SUMMARY: you played a sim racing before, but not really on an actual sim racing setup like lando’s. so when you had the chance, you decided to try it out.

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WARNINGS: no use of y/n, fluff, and a little bit of cursing

WORD COUNT: 820

AUTHOR’S NOTE: found this on my drafts. i have a lot of lando one shots, but never really posted it bc i think it was poorly written, so i decided to fix this one up and post it. i hope you’ll enjoy this one!

Your and Lando’s apartment was unusually quiet. Lando had been out all day, caught up in a string of meetings, and being alone in a big apartment, the boredom had started to creep in. You sighed, glancing over at Lando’s pristine sim racing setup, which sat there like a tempting invitation calling out for you. It wasn’t like you had not played sim racing before, but using his rig, specifically with Lando’s custom settings and all his tweaks? That was something else entirely.

“Eh, why the hell not?” You muttered to yourself with a mischievous grin.

You quickly booted-up Lando’s setup, and you were off. You found yourself in the middle of a tense Grand Prix, the roaring of the virtual engines filling up the headphones as you become very absorbed with the race. Time flew by, and you were too focused to even notice when Lando came home.

“Hey, baby! I’m back!” Lando’s voice echoed faintly from the hallways as he called back to you, and you never responded. All you could hear and think about was the hairpin turn coming up on the circuit, and nailing the turn. “Babe, where are you?” He called out to you again, but you were still glued to the screen, the intensity of the race drawing all of your attention.

A few seconds later, Lando still got no answer from you. So when he checked every room in the apartment, and saw that you were inside his gaming room all along, he entered immediately, but when he saw you, he stopped dead in his tracks. There you were, fully immersed in sim racing, eyes locked on the screen with his headphones on and hand deftly handling the steering wheel. He blinked, half in disbelief, before grinning like a little kid on christmas morning.

“Are you on my sim setup right now?” He asked, voice full of shock, but you were too busy overtaking another car to reply.

“Okay, that was a decent corner,” Lando said with a playful smirk as he walked over to you, leaning against the back of the chair. “Not bad at all.” He added, folding his arms, and watching in awe as you navigated through the pack of cars.

You heard him, of course, but you were in the zone. The next thing you knew, you pulled off a move that would have made Max proud, sliding past two cars with precision that even caught Lando off guard.

“Whoa, that was a Verstappen move!” Lando exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You just did a Verstappen! Are you sure you don’t want to join F1? Because honestly, what the hell was that?!”

A smirk just tugged at the corner of your lips, definitely proud of yourself, but you remained focused, determined to finish the race without breaking concentration. Lando couldn’t help but laugh at your intense expression.

“Alright, I need to record this one,” Lando chuckled, pulling out his phone. “No one’s gonna believe me if I told everyone on Thread that my girl just pulled a Verstappen move, unless I post it.”

“Look at this! My girl’s out here stealing my setup and driving like she’s been on F1!” Lando began as he started filming, making sure to capture the moment as you powered through the final lap, and zooming in on your face, grinning the whole time. “Guys, I’m telling you, I’m not really making this up. She’s actually faster than me on some of these corners!”

You barely heard him as you crossed the finish line, finishing in P1, and the sound of the crowd roaring through the headphones as you finally relaxed in the chair. You let out a squeal of happiness and looked over at Lando, who was still recording and shaking his head in disbelief.

“Okay, what was that?” He laughed at you, turning off the camera. “I leave for a few hours, and suddenly you’re doing Verstappen-level moves on my rig? Are you secretly practicing whenever I’m not home?”

“Maybe I’m just naturally talented, ever think of that?” You looked at him smugly, and wiggled your eyebrows as you teased him.

“You know what?” Lando grinned at you, gently pulling you out of the seat and wrapping his arms around you. “I believe it. I’m just saying, if McLaren ever needs a backup driver, you should really think about it.”

“Babe, that’s Pato’s job, and I won’t take that away from him,” you joked, causing Lando to laugh, and you leaned into his embrace. “I’m just kidding! But…I might steal your sim setup more often.”

“Deal,” Lando chuckled, kissing your forehead. “Just don’t make me look too bad, alright?”

“No promises.” You said cheekily, then grinning up at him.

“Alright, alright,” he smiled at you. “Now where’s my kiss.” You leaned in, and kissed him softly on the lips.