#Just let us live

[ne0ncowb0y]

OH. I SEE NOW! I'm a feminist but can't be a trans-feminist because my status as a trans man negates the feminism which forms an intrinsic part of my personal belief system! And therefore transandrophobia isn't real because people who are better and bigger and taller and smarter than stupid little girl tboy me said so! That makes so much sense, I'm so glad so many people out there could correct my stupid little baby girl tboy brain. can't believe I was this stupid the whole time. and I graduated high school 12 years ago.

"listen to everyone but trans men/mascs about the oppression they face because theyre just too stupid to understand whats good for them!!!!!"

[yonderlyporcupine]

I had a conversation today with an older coworker about the entitlement of my generation (millennials) and wanting to be rich. Which, I told her, is not the case. So in case you were wondering,

I would be happy to be paid $21 an hour for the rest of my working life if it would’ afford me the following

A small 1 maybe 2 bedroom house (I’m single and child free so I don’t need too much space) with maybe a small yard or even just a deck/balcony where I can grow some herbs and veggies and let my dog go out to pee rather than having to take her on a walk every few hours

Enough food to not go hungry, like not enough to go to waste but frozen veggies that I can eat more than a cup at most at a time. I would be ok if chicken was my only protein, but I’d like maybe the occasional steak. Maybe some ice cream every so often. Cereal and milk for breakfast. Deli meat for lunch. Tea and sugar, flour, some basic spices and ingredients to make bread etc. nothing fancy. Just so I don’t have that one to three days at the end of a pay period where I only eat cream of wheat made with water and not milk for every meal…

I would like to be able to consistently afford my life saving medication and not have to worry about whether or not I may suffer serious health complications because I can’t afford to see a doctor.

enough gas that I don’t have to decide between my obligations. Like I would like to be able to attend class and go to work in the same week while also not having to walk over an hour one way to my dog’s vet appointment because I couldn’t make that work with my fuel budget. I’d love (but could maybe live without) to be able to drive to local hiking trails maybe once every other day or maybe just once a month to once a year being able to go on like a little in state road trip to say idk Yosemite or Joshua Tree or the Volcanic Tablelands.

speaking of, I’d like to be able to afford maybe like an early 2010s model SUV or hatchback, something I can put a dog crate in the back of and still afford car insurance. And I’d like to be able to afford regular maintenance (oil, tires, smog, belts and plugs every 50-100k, etc) without having to choose between that and eating or paying rent

I’d like to be able to afford my dog’s pet insurance and have just enough saved to cover me in case of an emergency. I’d also love to be able to afford her life saving medication without having to worry if I can buy that and her monthly flea/tick/heart worm preventative. And I’d love to be able to always get all of her necessary vaccines rather than picking and choosing

I’d like to able to afford school without having to take out a loan. Not like graduate or medical school, just my undergrad. And like not all at once, I could do the monthly payment plan for all four years if that’s what was needed

I’d like to do all of this and still have enough time (I.e. not working more than 40hours a week) to give back to my community. It doesn’t have to be much, maybe like one day volunteering in a soup kitchen or cleaning kennels at the local shelter or something.

I don’t need to be rich. None of us need to be rich. We just want to be be able to afford our lives like everyone else was before we were born. I just want to have the security of my basic necessities being covered. I want a car that doesn’t break down every month and that I don’t have to lie every time I need it smogged vs driving around for months illegally because I can’t get it registered.

We just want to be able to live. And I for one, would like to see the next generation do even better …

[puppyboyumi]

(TW: violence, descriptions of dismemberment, racism, hate crimes)

Rasheem Carter, a 25-year-old Mississippi black man, called his mother in a panic, stating that a group of white men in three pickup trucks were chasing him as they yelled racial slurs. That was the last time Carter’s family heard from him. He was reported missing the next day, on October 2, 2022.

A month later, authorities found his remains in the woods of Taylorsville, Mississippi. Carter had been decapitated and dismembered, with his spinal cord found detached from the rest of his body. NBC News states, “It's unclear what prompted authorities to search the wooded area or what led them to determine initially that foul play was not suspected. The Smith County Sheriff’s Department did not reply to requests for comment.”

During the press conference (at about 4:30 on the video), Carter’s mother reads aloud a chilling text from her son expressing concern about an employer: “Me and the owner of this company are not seeing eye to eye, Mama. If anything happens to me, he’s responsible for it…he’s got these guys that want to kill me.” She received the message on October 1st, the day before Carter’s disappearance. Despite all of this, the Smith County Police Department released a statement asserting that they “had no reason to suspect foul play.”

Also worth noting, during the most recent protest in Taylorsville for Rasheed Carter, a demonstrator wrote “Rasheem’s life mattered on the street.” After the protest, Gabe Horn, Taylorsville’s chief of police posted a Facebook photo of the message in chalk being power washed off with the caption “Little clean up!!! 👋” (seen in the picture above).

My two cents: this is nothing but a lynching, with the police covering it all up. I’m not a detective, but it doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to tell that this was a murder. This is one of the most obvious cover-ups I’ve ever seen. And they wonder why we don’t feel safe with them, why we don’t trust them. White supremacists have been embedded in American law enforcement since the damn slave patrols in the south. Fuck the entire department and everyone involved in this horrific, disgusting act.

Here’s the Carter family’s GoFundMe. Please help if you can.

JUSTICE FOR RASHEEM

[pigswithwings]

above all else a trans woman is a person. above all else a trans women is a woman who goes to the same grocery store as you and buys fruits in the same grocery cart as you and goes home and eats her dinner the same as you. above all else a trans woman is a woman who dresses like you do and talks the same way you do. above all else a trans woman is a woman who wants to be cared about the same way you want to be cared about and a trans woman is a woman who makes friends the same way you make friends. above all else you should care about trans women because they are people. treat her as such.

[rainyyheart]

it feels so fake.

[leminaus]

red and vee :)

[bonetrousledbones]

fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.

there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.

we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.

please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.

r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)

How to set up disaster roaming for cell service

WLOS Live updates

Duke Energy power outage map

WNC Landslide Map

Hotels accepting locals

Emergency shelter locations

I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.

[crowjodojocasahouse]

THIS IS WHAT I'M FUCKING SAYINNNGGG the type of man to do this shit is the same type of man who would wretch at the thought of wearing nail polish bruh

[teaboot]

I feel like if you're using a lot of disposable plastic bags in your day to day life, you've gotta do something sustainable to make up for it. Like using bamboo toilet paper or eco friendly cat litter or something, yknow

Honestly I exaggerate for comedic effect, while I DO routinely use ziplock bags to hold spaghetti I cook maybe once a month and the bag itself is usually for freezer storage. I actually throw out maybe one bag a week? I DO hate washing plates and tupperware and junk but that usually just means I eat sandwiches without a plate.

I agree though that needless waste should be avoided, and I do avoid it- biodegradable bags and recyclables, empty butter tubs used to store leftovers, etc.

This said, though, not applicable necessarily for myself but for a lot of others- I feel that it's importat to remember that there are many people who legitimately NEED things like plastic straws, or catheters, or pre-packaged foods

And the idea that that's a moral failing that individuals need to personally make up for when a single billionaire blows out more CO2 in a long weekend than I will in my whole life on a superjet meet-cute in the Bolivian rainforest between humvee drag races funded by the river-polluting textiles plants they planted in a third world country to avoid EPA laws and give an entire village stillbirths and stomach cancer is an idea that those very same bigwigs have spent a LOT of time and money investing in planting in the public psyche.

Like- Glass bottles are infinitely recyclable, so why are so many drinks in plastic now? Loads of drinks manufacturers used to buy them back and clean them for re-use, so why did they stop? If they chose to make something out of a limited and environmentally irresponsible material, why is it my failing to track down a correct process of disposal for them? What if there are none in my area? Do I lobby for more recycling plants in my area? Do I set aside some of my limited time outside the pain factory of my job- which I have more than one of, thanks to rising costs of things just like that drink I just emptied- to properly dispose of this company's waste FOR them?

Say coca-cola just rolled up to your town and started dumping millions of empty plastic bottles in the street, going, "wow, you should really think about building and staffing a recycling depot, it would be really shameful of you to just put these in the trash." When companies purposefully use materials with limited lifespans- because yes, even plastic can only be reused so many times- and tell you it's your own fault if it harms the environment- that's essentially what they're doing, just with more steps.

Yes, its important to be as environmentally concious as we can in our day to day life, but responsible sustainability is not catholicism. We don't get good boy points from our lord and savior Captain Planet every time the average low-income household gathers together to hold hands and repent for a single-use plastic that allows them to access something they need.

Entire families could eat trees and shit dead lithium batteries for years and still not do as much damage to the planet as an average dye plant or braindead celebrity does in a week just for fun, and I'm mad about it

...this went on longer than intended.

TL/DR: DO recycle and minimize waste, but don't beat yourself up over the little waste you can't avoid, and follow the money.

EDIT: Part 2

[puppyeared]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[robinspinknest]

[saphhicwitchbitch]

Omg what the fuck? Why the fuck are homophobes this insistent at removing the LGBTQ+ community from people's lives. They are not even concerned about the kids, if they actually cared about sexuality and stuff in children they wouldn't say to 5 year old friends " awe is that your boyfriend/girlfriend ?".

They don't actually care about kids, they are just trying to erase our rights and equality to live how we want. It's disgusting. All school does is teach that love, no matter the gender, is love and is normal. Please sign the counter petition to stop these Bigoted closed minded individuals that are purposefully trying to make the world and unsafe, unaccepting place for children who are just trying to understand the world and that who they are is perfectly ok.

Link: https://href.li/?https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/631529?fbclid=PAAabtA2mw8e3TDsAxihpg9xBGOtA8xV3gYZgN-_q3Kw_uZAJsVUOFJ2VadTo

this is so so important to me and mine, and I'm asking you to Do Something so I'll respect your time and keep it brief

in the UK, if 100k sign a a government petition it will be brought to Parliament and debated. y'all know this country is suffering from some 80s-style bigotry right now, and this is one symptom: almost 200k fuckholes have come together to force the government to discuss whether it is 'appropriate' to tell children that queer people exist. this is a big symbolic victory for them. and i am burning with fury.

please, if you're from the UK, sign this counter-petition so they can at least see how much of a minority they are. simply put, the attempt to put these bastards in their place isn't gathering enough steam. there are barely 2000 more signatures now than there were this morning (27th January 2023), and that isn't enough. i refuse to let these people feel even a moment of victory or satisfaction. please help.

[redysetdare]

enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love. i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.

[lumberjackpantherhitman]

We have reset a section of my work’s shelves this week and it is messing with my head. Someone came in and changed my environment and it.is.bad.

[mzzystrlvr]

[noisilyscreechingsong]

Eyes

Dp x Dc Crossover Writing Idea

“Red Robin!”

When he backtracked to find the owner of the voice he was a bit surprised to find a young boy, maybe eight years old if he had to guess, dressed in a red sweatshirt that dwarfed him and a pair of gym shorts that had seen better days.

Not many Gothamites called out to the vigilantes, a silent agreement to stay out of their way and not to look too closely. This kid however stared up at him with bright blue eyes unafraid of getting the Red Robin’s attention.

A fan?

Before he even opens his mouth, the kid gives him a small, hopeful smile, eyes shining with something that reminds him of himself when he was that age and following Batman and Robin with his camera around his tiny neck.

“I brought you a gift,” the boy say with nervous excitement. He enthusiastically swings off the backpack he had on to dig through the contents, taking his eyes off the vigilante and showing his unwavering trust that nothing bad would happen to him while Red Robin was here.

The boy pulls out what appears to be a jar wrapped in newspaper, the worn page ripping in some spots to show the clear glass underneath. Small hands present it like it’s Red Robin’s birthday (which it wasn’t).

He takes it cautiously, the kid hasn’t been hostile but this was still weird, and pulls it closer with enough space so if it’s a bomb it doesn’t blow up in his face.

It’s got weight to it and the slight sloshing tells him it’s filled with liquid. He carefully unwraps the ‘gift’, keeping his eye on the boy who stands waiting anxiously.

Tim almost drops the jar as soon as he sees what’s inside. Only his reflexes from over the years held on and his expression turned neutral.

A pair of eyes sit at the bottom of the jar. The orbs were crudely extracted, tissue floating around them like a mane of hair around a head.

He turns the jar to see the irises and… he knew these eyes. The slimy green is filmed with death, but he recognized these eyes from the number of times the owner locked them onto him, the cruel possessiveness they possessed when they gazed at him. Never again apparently.

Tim doesn’t speak for a while, not knowing what to say, but also thoughts racing too fast to form any proper sentences.

“Do you like it?” The small, nervous voice interrupts those thoughts.

What an innocent question on an equally innocent looking face.

“How did you get Ra’s Al Ghul’s eyes?”

The teasing chatter over the comms immediately hushes into shocked silence.

“I took them from his body, so you knew he was dead. I burned the rest so you don’t have to worry about him coming back again. The Pit there is gone anyway,” the child explains easily, not fazed in the slightest from the words he speaks.

“Grandfather is dead?” He hears Damian whisper over the comm.

So many other questions were flying through Tim’s head. He looks the kid over again.

Black hair and blue eyes. In any other situation the kid might have been a possible Wayne adoptee. He’s not a clone from what he can see though. Despite the coloring he doesn’t really look like any of them. Pale skin like Tim, but has freckles. The same kind of nose as Damian, but wide, round eyes. Jaw kind of like Jason, but his body shape is too narrow. Bright, almost icy blue eyes like Dick, but eyebrow shape is flatter. Lip shape like Bruce, but from the kid’s anxious lip biting he could see the faintest trace of dimples.

“Who are you?” He asks instead of the other million and one questions.

The boy blinks almost like he wasn’t expecting the question. He’s cheeks color pink with blush as he grins widely.

“I’m Danny!” He introduces cheerfully like he didn’t just hand a vigilante a jar of eyes.

“Hi, Danny,” Tim greets almost dumbly. “Want to tell me why you gave me this?”

Danny scoffs his shoe against the pavement in what appears to be embarrassment.

“Well, I know when you ask someone for something, it’s nice to give a gift or something. Like I did something nice for you so maybe you’ll do something nice for me?”

He takes a moment to absorb that child-like reasoning.

“So you want me to do something for you and you thought I would like Ra’s Al Ghul’s eyes in exchange?”

Danny studies him and fidgets with the large sweatshirt sleeve.

“I just thought you would like proof. Like the whole ‘bring me the heart of my enemy’ kind of thing. Do you not like it? I couldn’t just take a picture ‘cuz I didn’t have a camera with me, I know you like photography. I can do something else for you if it’s not enough,” he offers worriedly.

Tim freezes.

“How do you know I like photography?” He demands.

Danny tilts his head curiously.

“Because Tim Drake likes photography,” he says like it’s obvious, “and you’re Tim Drake.”

Well. This is less than ideal.

“Red Robin, take him back to the Cave,” Batman instructs over the comms.

Yeah, he was getting there.

“Do you know the other’s’ identities?”

Danny nods and hums affirmatively. Tim waits.

“Oh! Yea. Batman is Bruce Wayne. Robin is Damian Wayne. Red Hood is Jason Todd. Nightwing is Richard Grey-“

“Okay. That’s enough.”

Tim glances around the empty alley they were standing in, checking to make sure no stray people heard. Luckily they were truly alone.

“Danny, do you want to come back with me?” He asks, but it’s not really a question. The kid was coming back regardless, it would just be better if he went willingly.

Unsurprisingly, the kid lights up like a little sun at the offer.

“Really?” He nearly shouts in excitement.

“Yeah, kid. I parked my bike a few blocks from here. You ever rode a motorcycle before?”

Danny shakes his head, nearly bounding on his toes.

“Not in this lifetime.” And wasn’t that odd wording? “Are we gonna grapple there?”

“Think you can hold on?”

“Yeah!”

He kneels down so the boy can climb onto his back and lock his arms around his neck and hook his feet together around his torso. Danny is worryingly light as he stands.

The kid is the picture of an excited and overeager child as they carefully fly over rooftops and then drive back to the Cave. Even when they park inside the safety of the Batcave, Danny’s eyes are filled with child-like awe and wonder, so curious and chattering with questions and wild imagination. It would be cute, endearing even, if the jar of eyes wasn’t sitting heavily in his pocket.

Alfred came down not too long after their arrival with a tray of healthy snacks and some waters. Danny happily munches on the apple slices as he wanders around where Tim can see him.

The rumble of the Batmobile can be heard almost an hour later after Tim has to tell Danny not to touch the weapons for the fourth time. The kid’s attention is drawn to the sleek black vehicle as it parks by Tim’s bike. He trots over with wide eyes as the doors open and Robin exits, then Batman.

Unfortunately, Dick is in Bludhaven and Jason is visiting Roy and Lian this week. Cass and Steph were gone as well and Duke was sleeping. It was just the three of them and this kid with Alfred as the only buffer.

Danny stares openly, curious, as the duo makes their way over to the computer where Tim has claimed his sit.

Tim turns the jar that he set on the table so the eyes are facing them and slowly leans back again, suddenly very tired. Damian flexes his hands into fists tightly while Batman is very still.

“Hi,” Danny chirps like nothing is wrong, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Batman takes a measured breath. Robin glares down at the child, but remains silent for now.

“Who killed Ra’s Al Ghul?”

Danny blinks blankly.

“Nobody.”

“You’re saying he just dropped dead?” Damian sneered in sarcasm.

“Death took him,” the child says simply as if that explained everything.

“How?” The word is demanded and emphasized.

“Like Death takes everyone. His expiration was overdue.”

Bruce frowns and Damian almost snarls.

“I demand you start making sense!”

Danny glares back in offense.

“I’m being very clear! Maybe you should ask better questions!”

The twelve year old growls at the smaller child and Batman has to place a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him from attacking.

“Danny?” Batman questions after a tense moment.

The boy’s arms are crossed in irritation, but he blinks out of his glare to stare up at the man.

“Yea?”

“How do you know our identities?”

“Oh, memories.”

Danny looked like everything he said made sense and it was driving Tim up a wall.

“Memories,” Bruce repeats.

“Uh-huh,” Danny nods confidently. “From the Lazarus Pit.”

A jolt goes through Tim as he recalls what the boy said earlier about the Pit.

“Didn’t you say the Pit was gone?” He asks before Bruce could continue his line of questioning.

Danny turns with a bright smile as if he was proud Tim remembered.

“Yea! Well, gone from this world anyway.” Tim was concerned. “I took the memories from it before sending it back where it belongs.”

“Okay. How did you know how to ‘take the memories’ and send it back? Back where?”

“I was born from it. Duh. It went back to the Realms or I guess you’d call it the Afterlife,” Danny actually rolls his eyes as if they should already know this.

“Born from it?” Damian asks with a wavering voice, hidden well from the child but not from them. “Nothing has ever been born from the Pits.”

“That you know of.”

And wasn’t that the kicker.

“So, to clarify, you come from the Pits. You know who we are because you took the memories from said Pits. Death took Ra’s because his time was up. And you took the eyes from his corpse to give to me because you thought I would like it as a gift so I would do something for you.”

Danny positively beams.

“This is why you’re my favorite!”

Damian grinds his teeth harshly.

“What is it you want Red Robin to do for you?” Batman asks in strangled hesitation.

“Oh!” Danny perks up like he remembered and hops over to Tim with pleading hands. “Can you please make me an identity? You’re really good at all that stuff and I was hoping you could find me a family. Someone to adopt me. A nice family, with a bed and family dinners and a dog. I always wanted a dog.”

Tim has the sudden urge to scream.