#maybe in a future where i have more money

[tarot-quartz]

PICK A CARD - HOW WILL YOU MEET YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE

╰┈➤ Paid readings

left to right

★ pile 1 - When you meet this person you might be in a relationship that’s failing because of lack of commitment or growth. When you meet your fs you will be able to connect on an intellectual level, you’ll find conversations with them stimulating. Yeah for some of you I really see that you will break up with your partner to be with this person but this is absolutely the correct decision. You and your fs’ meeting will be destiny, the stars will literally align for you to meet this person. You or your fs will think "how did I get so lucky?". You will take this relationship slowly, go with the flow and let things develop as they go.

★ pile 2 - Your fs might be your soulmate. This relationship will be such a harmonious one, you will be the type of couple to NEVER have fights. Everything will be so easy with this person, as if they’re one part of you. I’m ngl this person might be an ex for some of you where you thought this person was the one and you still harbour feelings for them. They might’ve been the one if they come back and rekindle your relationship. However for the rest this might also mean that you had a bad breakup and lose hope over meeting the one. They might be an Aquarius. In ANY case, you will be in a relationship with the one destined for you. The future with you and this person will be bright.

★ pile 3 - I see you going into a relationship with your fs might’ve been something spontaneous on your part. Like you might’ve had a crush on them for awhile but did nothing and then one day you’re like "let’s go ask them out". I see you might start a family with them even accidentally because I see you and your fs having a lot of sex. I see some people might be jealous of your relationship and try to stir trouble so be careful. For some reason you and your fs’ relationship might cause a scandal. This might actually cause a rift in your relationship and you will need to take a step back. Maybe this is why people will try to break you up. However, people will come around and accept your relationship as time goes. You and your fs will connect on a physical and emotional level, it will also challenge you. Again, I see for some of you having children maybe quite rapidly. If your fs is a man you will think he’s dad material and if it’s a woman you will think she’s mom material. This is a very exciting pile but also full of challenge however at the end you both will be a happy family. This kind of reminds me of the quote "I’m not easy to love", "I don’t want easy".

★ pile 4 - I see a lot of people vying for your attention. When you meet your fs you will have more than 1 suitor waiting to court you. How you will know which one is your fs, you’ll have learnt from past relationships. This new relationship will be very nurturing, I see your fs might have a lot of money and they love spending it on you by buying you gifts and other. This person will be very masculine. Romance and affection will be abundant in the relationship. They will be devoted, romantic and a great spouse and parent. They might be older than you and they’re generous with their time and money ESPECIALLY for you. They might be an Aquarius, Gemini or Libra. They will be mature, loyal and protective. Think of the perfect Dad and there you have it. There’s a possibility you might meet this person because of work or business. You will be financially stable with them and will florish knowing you have a strong foundation.

[tlbodine]

So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING

The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.

I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.

Buckle in. This will be a long one.

Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.

I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.

I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.

I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.

It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.

So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.

Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself

You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:

Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)

Getting vaccines / boosters

Securing birth control

Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.

Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)

Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.

The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.

No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.

There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.

Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.

Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?

Step Three: Get Involved

Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.

Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:

Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.

Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!

If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.

Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.

Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.

Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.

Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.

I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.

Finally, some general safety notes:

Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.

If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.

We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.

All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.

[somegiantmess]

I'm done watching season 5 of the Dragon Prince nooo 😭

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

nervously holding out & rattling a Little Tip Jar

[dracononite]

I want to not watermark my art so heavily and to not have to worry about the possibility of character or art theft. I want to post messy sketches and personal art with interesting palettes and compositions that I put real passion into instead of keeping it locked behind a patreon membership as an extra incentive to support me. I wanna do all my art for the self expression and the fun of the process instead of money to buy groceries and pay rent and survive. I want to share that personal experience in a personal journal of an account without worrying about an audience or engagement or reeling in my next commission. I want to have a place to put the art that I really deeply care about and curate a space that's a love letter to art and creating.

[blupengu]

Y’all is Hollow Knight hard or do I just suck because oh my god??

[guinevereslancelot]

not to be ungrateful but i don't get paid enough at my job lol

[kulliare]

.

[sonknuxadow]

its honestly kind of heartbreaking that sonic superstars is just kinda okay after how good frontiers was . like they finally made a really really good mainline game again that had overwhelmingly positive reception after years of hate and mixed responses. but then with the very next game im seeing more negative comments again. and im not saying the criticism is undeserved just that im tired of how sonic always has to be that one franchise everyone hates and can never escape that reputation no matter how much really good sonic stuff comes out. you know.

[catmonsterscupcakes]

i haven’t been here in a while. life feels really weird and everything keeps changing. i have an internship for my major even after i graduated. i start in 2 weeks. I know ive been constantly scared of growing up and getting older since i was a child, but ever since i turned 21 during the pandemic its gotten worse. every year i mentally countdown the months until my birthday and it’s exhausting; its always like “ x months until im x age and never this young again”. ive just always been so scared of getting older, esp bc im a woman, and society hates older women. i think because im black, gay, a woman, and neurodivergent i feel as if youth is the only privilege i have, and with each passing hour its being stripped from me. i’m really scared. i’m really scared of turning 25 because thats the big number. it’s the number ppl use in online discourse abt adults in fandoms and how they shouldn’t be there anymore. it’s when ur not considered early 20’s anymore, it’s when u only have 5 years left til ur 30 and ur not allowed to make mistakes. i’m so scared. and i’ve never even dated before bc im still in the closet, and i can’t come out bc both sides of my family are super religious and will hate me. i’ve known ive like girls for 10 years and never had a teenage romance, or a college romance bc i went to college in my hometown and it was too risky. im not even particularly good at anything, i love art but im bad at time management and get discouraged easily so i haven’t reached my full potential. i could’ve been so good if i kept practicing. i basically coasted through school and i could’ve done so much better. if i hadn’t been so depressed during high school i could’ve actually gotten into a school outside my hometown or state and gone there. i’ve lived in the same place my whole life and im bored. if i did better in college maybe id have a shot at grad school or atleast more options. but now i have an internship, a full time one, for the entire summer. and then after that i have to find more work, and then more work, and then i’ll work until i die. and i’ll never have any fun youthful college experiences or teenage experiences to look back on. i lost my teens to mental illness, and i lost my early 20’s to the pandemic and then worse mental illness. i wish the pandemic never happened, i had just started at a 4 year college at 20, and was doing good and then it hit, and i got worse. this was really long, and no one will probably read this. but i had to let it out. i feel like no one in my life gets me. i’ve been so mentally ill for so long that everyone is numb to it. and i don’t even feel comfortable with my therapist bc ive had her since i was 15 and i have to eventually find a new one bc she specializes in adolescents and im her oldest client. i’m even too old for my therapist now.

[glacierruler]

Okay, I know how I'm gonna start posting the comic when it comes out.

First it'll go up for kofi members 1 month early as a blog post that way I have more room to give an image ID. Then it'll go up on my neocities website, and that'll be a dedicated space for the comic. Then it'll go up on tumblr and bsky 1 week after it's gone up on the website. (The website is completely free to navigate. I just don't think I'd have the spoons to put it here until 1 week later)

[hopecomesbacktolife]

one thing strange about being chronically ill, with fluctuating ability, and growing up poor, and then being slightly less poor as an adult, is that like. growing up, you kind of learned how to just, deal with your chronic pain, right? maybe you took some tums and some ibuprofen or acetaminophen when it got bad, or you found out that a heating pad helped, but that was about the extent of it.

and then, as an adult, you found yourself with a job that let you afford to get that $14 pillow for between your knees when you sleep on your side. or, you let yourself buy that knee brace, the brand name one, too, because the off brand one didn’t have specialized pressure points and you hoped the extra $3 for the brand name would be worth it, maybe the specialized pain needs specialized aid, right?

you also, over time, invest in a couple forms of mobility aids, telling yourself it’s okay, that even though you don’t need them every day, that on the days you do, it’ll feel better to have help— and you find that they’re invaluably useful on the days that you need them, making tasks that before, were just straight up not an option during the severe flares, something you now can still have the option of doing. it’s still not easy, per say, but doable is a huge difference.

maybe you even see a doctor for your chronic illness, and it turns out that while there’s no daily treatment or remedy, there’s actually a medication you can take during the more severe flare ups that helps bring you closer to your baseline again!!

and like. suddenly these aches and pains, these radiating discomforts have these mitigating measures that you hadn’t even known existed— through no fault of your parents! just that as an adult with more money than you had as a child and with the power of agency to self-advocate that your adult self has, suddenly there’s Options TM for dealing with the pains. everything isn’t fixed but having mitigation measures is still wonderful!!!?!?!

anyways all of this to say, this isn’t even anything life threatening or requiring intensive care but it’s amazing what having a few more $ can do in terms of providing your body with comfort and tools to help you navigate your ongoing pains. and all this to say especially that this is one of 1047583939919483 reasons why medical care and medical aids need to be free, because tools to lessen the pain someone experiences in life shouldn’t be on a pay-to-play basis, my teen body was no less deserving or in need of assistance than my adult body, both of them deserve to have the access that adult me has, and people in every economic situation deserve to be able to lessen their pain and find tools to provide relief for chronic illnesses. this stuff should be accessible to everyone.

[ningningkittie]

🐕🧸🪟🕯️

[piplupod]

me when i realize that pretty much everything in my life has actually only gotten worse since i graduated highschool, and all the times i was told things would get better were absolutely false !!!!!!

[tonyglowheart]

not 2 be a "bad" "feminist" but like. okay I know the guy who plays Nate is problematic and etc, but like. like I tried to like Leverage Redemption, but it just. is too flanderized and doesn't quite manage to like both write real-feeling characters nor grasp the charm that made Leverage "work" for me, so like. watching Leverage Redemption mostly has me wincing, and like. does not hold the same place in my heart that Leverage does....

[the-mehlwurm]

maybe I'll go outside tomorrow (or today because its 12am.)