#and you got this?

[moocowmoocow]

For the prompt ask - Margo takes Sergei to a basketball game as a “non-date” date. It can be NBA, WNBA, Harlem Globetrotters or college. 🏀🏀🏀

They had been friendly, professional since Sergei had started working at NASA after his defection. She had needed time to wrap her head around the fact that he was here and he was safe and he worked for her. And he had graciously given her the space to work her way through their new reality while keeping humans alive on another planet.

She knocked on the door to his office one Saturday morning. He was bent over the schematics for the next generation of engines to make the trip to Mars easier and less time consuming. When he saw her, he smiled.

“Aleida called me in a panic. Graciana is sick and Victor is currently stranded in a snowstorm in Chicago and Javi has a basketball game this afternoon. She can’t find anyone to take him, so she called me.” She shrugged and looked down. “I can’t promise fourth grade basketball will be exciting, but would you like to come with me?”

She was just asking him because she needed someone to keep her company. His face lit up. “Of course.”

“Like I said, I can’t promise anything, other than ice cream after the game.”

“I like ice cream. Very much.”

“Good.” She nodded. “Meet me in my office around one.”

They picked Javi up for the game. He was excited. He was regularly the first or second off the bench and the coach praised his improving defense. “I’m so glad you’re going to watch, Tía Margo!”

She didn’t know what she ever did to make this kid like her. But she liked that he did.

“Who did you bring along with you? Is he going to watch too?”

“This is my friend, Sergei.”

“Are you dating?”

She felt herself turning red. “No.”

“Oh. It’s just that Juan’s tía is dating someone his entire family hates. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

Sergei chuckled. “I do not want that to happen either.”

“You have an accent. Where are you from?”

“The Soviet Union.”

Javi’s eyes grew big. “Wow.”

Thoughts about the globe flew out of Javi’s head as Margo pulled into the parking lot and he saw several of his teammates. They followed him into the middle school gymnasium and he disappeared into the locker room.

“Come on, let’s get something to eat,” she said. “It’ll probably be a bag of 50 cent popcorn and a can of coke that we’ll have to sneak into the gym.”

“I wondered why you had such a large purse.”

She smiled and allowed him to put his hand on the small of her back as they climbed the bleachers with their contraband. They both knew the basics of the game - you put the ball in the basket. It turned out they did not need to know much more for the game at the fourth grade level. They clapped and cheered for Javi whenever he made a basket. She never wanted Javi to have to question whether adults in his life loved him and if that meant making noise at a basketball game, then she would do it.

Javi’s team ended up losing the game by ten. He was upset until Margo announced that they were going to get ice cream. After they finished their cones, he insisted that they get some for Graciana and Aleida. When they dropped him back home, Margo wondered if she had really done Aleida a favor returning an excited child filled with ice cream.

As they pulled away from Aleida’s, Margo thanked Sergei for coming.

“It was fun.”

“Really?”

“It was a side of you I’d never seen. I quite enjoyed it.”

She was silent for awhile. “We should do it again. Sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[piosplayhouse]

Well you see minors under 25 years old should not be allowed to get gender reassignment surgery because what if they go to the clinic but instead of giving them a normal penis the nurses mess up and give them the evil penis. That's irreversible

[froody]

“can straight men be romantically and sexually attracted to men?” sure, I’m not a cop

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[river--ghost]

work all night on a drink of rum

daylight come and me wan go home

stack banana til the morning come

daylight come and me wan go home

come mr tallyman tally me banana

daylight come and me wan go home

come mr tallyman tally me banana

daylight come and me wan go home

lift six foot seven foot eight foot bunch

daylight come and me wan go home

six foot seven foot eight foot bunch

daylight come and me wan go home

day

me say dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

day

me say day

me say day

me say dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

a beautiful bunch of ripe banana

daylight come and me wan go home

hide the deadly black tarantula

daylight come and me wan go home

lift six foot seven foot eight foot bunch

daylight come and me wan go home

six foot seven foot eight foot bunch

daylight come and me wan go home

day

me say dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

day

me say day

me say day

me say dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

come mr tallyman tally me banana

daylight come and me wan go home

come mr tallyman tally me banana

daylight come and me wan go home

dayo

dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

day

me say day

me say day

me say dayo

daylight come and me wan go home

[prismatoxic]

dadchuck is everything to me

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[potofsoup]

Oh look, it seems like there's a Republican-led movement to purge voter rolls in the lead-up to the election! It's almost as if your vote matters and they don't want you to vote! Anyway, I whipped up a quick map (based on this) that shows when the voter registration deadline is in each state. There are a few deadlines coming up in the next week or so.

If you live in a state that regularly purges voter rolls for infrequent voters (the orange ones in the first map), or if you moved recently, it's good to check if you're still registered to vote.

Vote.org makes it super easy to check your registration: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

Just put in your address and DOB and they'll tell you whether you're registered. (And they give you a quick link to register online if it turns out that you're not! Only the 9 states in white on my map don't have online registration, and for those they provide instructions on how to do it via mail or in person.) If you want an extra verification, find your state's election website and double-check there.

So yeah, give yourself peace of mind -- do a quick check. :)

[dyke-ass-fujoshi]

How I found out about trump getting shot

[tariah23]

Oh…. Well, it’s over for Crunchyroll I guess

[bats-and-the-birds]

Situation where Clark has formed a tentative working relationship with Batman, but somewhere in that time, Batman acquired Robin and, naturally, didn't tell him.

Clark finds out about Robin's existence when a ten year old Dick Grayson in full Robin gear breaks into his apartment at two in the morning and shakes him awake because Batman's missing and Alfred's away and Bruce taught him that, in the case of emergency, Superman was one of the only people he could trust. Bruce just didn't think to tell Clark that he was, by all means, his son's emergency contact.

Clark: -wakes up to a small boy that he's never seen or heard of before in a cape and a mask with lenses that reflect light like a cat's perched on the edge of his bed in a pitch black room-

Dick, calmly: Hey, Batman's -- stop screaming -- Batman's missing. I need help.

[bardofavon]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

[kensatou]

make men slutty again.

HEAT STROKE | GQ CHINA Photographer: Wintam; Editor & Image: Shawn Gao Ding; Makeup: Lucas; Hair: Tao Liu; Art: Grade 2 & Lei Min; Art Assistant: Jiang Mi; Models: Kim; Ye Hao, Yu Hang, Ho Jun; Fashion Assistant: Yiyi, Coco; Photography Assistant: Li Zhenxi; Song Luanyi

bonus as rightfully added by @polyabathtub:

[badolmen]

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

Edit: if you are able, use $5 you would otherwise use for a streaming subscription to donate to a GazaFunds campaign.