#no ban no registry

[fwoosheye]

I'm overtired and have just gotten home from a Parents-Teachers meeting and read it as "name your children anything", so... uhm... sorry about the tag rant. That rant does not apply to characters. But maybe it can be used for somebody's world-building if they want to have some kind of conflict going on around names, so I'll leave it in...

you can just name your characters anything. you can name them Printer. you can name them Shnorpty. you can name them There Are Pillars. and peoppe will just have to accept it.

[tamamita]

how do you respond to the fact that there are two million arabs in israel with equal rights?

The fucking Nakba law prohibits PCI (Palestinians in the settler state) to discuss or commemorate the tragedy of the Nakba

The Arabs who were allowed to stay following the war in 1948 were subjected to military rule until 1966.

A Jewish person has the right to return and claim their citizenship, an Arab or PCI and their descendants in diaspora who is native to Palestine and the settler-occupied territories are not.

A Jewish convert in the west is somehow more eligible to citizenship in the settler state than a Palestinian Arab in the diaspora.

There is a wage gap between PCIs and Jewish people in the settler state;

More than half of the PCI families in the settler state are poor.

The settler state issued a Nation-state law in 2018 that stated that self-determination is unique to the settler state. Arabic lost its status as an official language and the settler-state mandates and promotes the establishment and development of kibbutzim.

This gives precedence to settlements in the West Bank as the Likud party considers the West Bank (Judea Samaria, lol) to be part of the settler state.

PCIs are not allowed to develop their own infrastructure or settlements unless with a permit, which is impossible to get if you're PCI.

Many PCI communities are forbidden the right to a weapon's license unlike their Jewish counterparts.

The Call to Prayer ban by Ben Gvir.

East Jerusalem Palestinians account for 350.000 of the Arabs in the settler state civil registry. They are not eligible to vote.

PCI communities are treated like fifth columns;

70% of PCIs are afraid of expressing their opinions on social media about Palestine, fearing backlash from the Settler state community. A notable case is when Israeli students started chanting "death to arabs" when a student expressed their sympathies for the Palestinians. The PCI student was expelled.

No, 1.65 million Arabs/PCI are not enjoying the same rights as their jewish counterparts in the ethnosupremarcist state.

[albonium]

apparentlly the guy that assaulted ferrari fans in mexico has been banned from f1 for life but how do they plan on inforcing it if they don't check people's identity at every single gate at all race tracks lol

[crescentpaws]

i mean??? i interpreted this as “they were labeled as a bad match no matter what” like they don’t care whether or not you get with another talentless person or another pyrokinetic they just don’t want your genetics to spread (especially since this applies to direct relations as well. they’re definitely not being lenient here)

obviously it’s not going to be illegal for them to have children, but neither is any other bad match having children. neither is sophie getting together with someone despite being unmatchable. it’s just a fear & prejudice thing

where are people getting "pyrokinetics aren't allowed to have children" and "pyrokinetics are unmatchable" that is literally not a thing. pyrokinetics are classified as talentless, meaning they are only allowed to be matched with other pyrokinetics and talentless people but there is no rule that they aren't allowed to have kids and they certainly aren't inherently unmatchable

[robertreich]

Project 2025: The MAGA Plan to Take Your Freedom 

A second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first — in part because of something called Project 2025, a plan to extend Trump’s grip into every part of your life.

Trump’s gross incompetence in his first term wasn’t all bad. It kept some of his most extreme goals out of reach. That’s why his inner circle, including more than 20 officials from his first term, have written a step-by-step playbook to make a second term brutally efficient.

At nearly a thousand pages, it’s longer than most Stephen King novels, and a lot scarier. The Associated Press wasn’t kidding when they called it “a plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision,”

Project 2025 is a road map to ban abortion, give greedy corporate oligarchs everything they want, and strip Americans of our most basic freedoms — all without needing any support from Congress.

There’s more to it than I can get into, but here are three things I want you to know.

#1 How would Project 2025 work?

Every nonpartisan government agency would be turned into an arm of the MAGA agenda.

Some of the worst things Trump reportedly tried to do as president — like having the military  shoot protesters or seize voting machines to overturn the election  — were only stopped because sensible leaders in the military or the professional civil service refused to go along with it.

In a second term, there would be no sensible leaders in the military or professional civil service because Trump would fire anyone more loyal to the Constitution than to him.

Trump started the process in October 2020 with an executive order that would have let him fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA henchmen. I’m talking about traditionally non-political positions, like scientists at scientific agencies and accountants at the IRS.

Trump could not act on the executive order then because he lost the election. If he wins now, he’s pledged to pick up where he left off and go further…

TRUMP: …making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States.

#2 Project 2025 is about controlling Americans’ lives & bodies

Restricting abortion is such a big part of Project 2025 that the word “abortion” appears 198 times in the plan.

Trump largely made good on his campaign promise to ban abortion.

Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court justices, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age live in states with abortion bans. Project 2025 would make that even worse, without needing new laws from Congress.

Page 458 of the playbook calls for a MAGA-controlled FDA to reject medical science and reverse approval of the medications used in 63% of all abortions, effectively banning them.

Page 455 plans “abortion surveillance” and the creation of a registry that could put people who cross state lines to get an abortion at risk of prosecution.

Another way around Congress is to enforce arcane laws that are still technically on the books. Page 562 plans for a MAGA-controlled Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” This could be used to block the shipment of any medications or medical instruments needed for abortions.

But Project 2025’s control of American families goes even further. It plans for government agencies to define life as beginning at conception — a position at odds with the process used for in vitro fertilization.

Page 451 declares that “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” thereby stigmatizing single parents, same-sex couples, unmarried coparents, and childless couples.

Project 2025 even takes a stand against adoption, declaring on p. 489 that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

#3 Project 2025 would turn America into a police state.

Maybe you live in a blue city or state, where you think plans like arresting teachers and librarians over banned books (which is on p. 5) could never happen. Well, guess again.

Trump has said one of the big things he’d do differently in a second term is override mayors and governors to take over local law enforcement.

Page 553 lays out how to do this, and even plans for Trump’s Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys he disagrees with.

Immigration enforcement is to be conducted like a war, with the military deployed within the U.S., and millions of undocumented immigrants rounded up and placed into newly constructed holding camps. This is outlined starting on p. 139.

Members of the Project 2025 team also reportedly told the Washington Post about plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against anti-Trump protests.

There is much more to Project 2025. There are more than a hundred pages of anti-environmental policies that would help Trump make good on what he reportedly promised to do for oil executives if they contribute a billion dollars to his reelection. It would make drilling and mining a top national priority while killing clean energy projects, barring the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and replacing all government climate scientists with climate deniers.

There are even cartoonishly cruel plans like slaughtering wild horses. Yes, that’s really in there on p. 528.

I thought I understood the stakes of this election, but reading this plan… Well, it gave me chills. If Trump gets the chance to put this plan into place, he will. The country it would turn America into would be hard for any of us to recognize.

[cryptotheism]

is the the thoroughbred registry banning IVF and requiring that the horses have sex for the foal to be registered in the breed a form of ritual magic

I don't know enough about horses to make a call here

[rottenpumpkin13]

Since it's the holiday season, "togetherness" and "family" are being bandied about like low-hanging fruit, and we're all angst budgies over Sephiroth's... everything... as well as a continued lack of Genesis... it seems like the perfect time to send this ask! :)

What games (video, board, card, etc.) are AGSZC, along with whoever else comes to mind, banned from playing and whyfor? Both as individuals and as groups of 2+.

💕✨🎄

AGSZC Gaming Ban Registry (Established after The Incidents™)

Individual Bans:

Angeal: Jenga, because he's all "it's just a game!" and "we're all winners in the end!" until Sephiroth sneezes, knocks down the tower, and Angeal attempts to choke him with his own hair.

Genesis: Scrabble, because he has the tendency to invent "technically legitimate words" that enrage his peers. He once spent 45 minutes defending "thrusticate" as "the act of forcefully moving forward with determination and purpose." Zack, thinking it sounded sophisticated, confidently used it during an official meeting with the President, declaring "We need to thrusticate into new territories!" Lazard nearly had a stroke.

Sephiroth: Literally any game where the rules resemble IRL among us. Lazard once witnessed him drag Genesis' unconscious body into a janitor's closet, immediately deduced that Sephiroth had lost his mind, and heroically attacked Sephiroth with the nearest fire extinguisher.

Zack: UNO. Collected every reverse card from 142 decks to create "infinity reverse" and enraged everyone to the point where Angeal had to physically restrain Sephiroth from using Masamune to "reverse his existence."

Cloud: Queen's Blood. He's too good at it. Cloud shows up on the SOLDIER floor with his QB deck and it ends in fights, tears and fire.

Notable Group Bans:

Sephiroth and Genesis: Charades, because one time Genesis flawlessly reenacted Sephiroth's body language and sword-wielding techniques. The word was "orphan." Lazard walked in on Genesis being choked to death.

AGSZC: Dungeons & Dragons, because the last campaign ended with Sephiroth as the DM on a power trip, and three floors of Shinra HQ to be quarantined.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

since @sketchy-scribs-n-doods asked why birth certificates are racist:

preface: read this post about eugenics so that I don't have to write that overview again.

anywho! the very very short version is that there was a guy named Walter Ashby Plecker (hereafter "the Plecker fucker") who was a doctor in Virginia in the late 1800s/early 1900s. like he was born right around when the Civil War ended and his family owned slaves, if you want to get an idea of the time and place we're talking about.

the Plecker fucker, along with a couple of his good buddies John Powell and Ernest Sevier Cox(1) from the Anglo-Saxon Club(2), wrote and lobbied for a law called the Racial Integrity Act (incidentally, one of the blueprints the Nazis used for their own laws), which did a couple of things:

it legally categorized every person into either "white" or "colored," with "white" being only people with a completely unbroken and provable white European heritage – with a teeny tiny exception for people who were less than 1/16th Native American that he was bullied into including(3) – and "colored" being literally everything else, with no specificity as to whether it meant Black or Asian or Native American or whatever;

it prohibited white people from marrying colored people (though notably not banning having sex with them: we're talking about a guy whose family owned slaves here, so you can do the math on that)

it allowed for the sterilization of certain undesirable people, such as the mentally ill; and, most importantly for our purpose:

it required all births and marriages to be registered in a big state-wide database, with the races of all parties listed.

and he also set himself up as the first guy in charge of that registry, so that it would be done exactly the way he wanted it.

prior to this, if you could get away with passing as white, you were (generally) treated as white. this was to prevent any white-passing mixed race people from marrying into white society (because their birth certificate records would show that their parents had nonwhite heritage), and eventually eliminate mixed race people, period.

now, obviously birth certificates weren't in common use before this law, so at least the first wave of people affected by the law could still (in theory) lie about their ethnicity and establish themselves as white on their birth certificates, thus allowing them to continue marrying "real" white people.

not a problem! the Plecker fucker fancied himself a bit of a genealogist (meaning he thought everyone with the same last name was related, somehow), so he'd just go in and edit people's records to say "colored," invalidating their marriages in the process, and ordered all of the people under him to do the same. like, there's a letter he sent out to the county-level people that was like, "anyone with the last name Collins [yes, really] is actually mixed race, DO NOT LET THEM GET MARRIED TO WHITE PEOPLE, EDIT ALL THEIR RECORDS."(4)

outside of the obvious negative effects of the law in general not allowing interracial marriages (until it was overturned by Loving v. Virginia in 19-fucking-67) and sterilizing anyone disabled or "feebleminded," him going in and literally erasing Native heritage from records has prevented Virginian Native Americans from being able to claim federal tribal recognition, because it's all just "white" or "colored," which could mean anything nonwhite.

anyway, that's why birth certificates are racist. they were made up by a racist guy to do more racism. and then that racist guy got hit by a car and died.

I stg this is the short version. the longer version was idk how many pages before I melted into a depressed puddle of goo and almost flunked out of my senior year of college.

(1) Ernest Sevier Cox was a weird fucking dude in that he was really good friends with Marcus motherfucking Garvey, to the point that they attended each other's events, dedicated books to each other, and wrote each other a lot of letters even after Garvey was deported to Jamaica (and Cox personally tried to get Garvey released from jail when he was imprisoned for mail fraud). This was partly because white nationalism and black separatism accomplished the same ultimate goals (i.e. Black people leaving the US) from different angles, but I think they just also genuinely liked each other? For some reason??

(2) Basically the KKK but for genteel, refined, upper-class people instead of violent, disorderly peasants (yes, they legit disliked the KKK because it was a poor person thing). Also, I can't find it again, but at one point when I was researching all this in college, I was looking through old school newspapers and either William & Lee or William & Mary had a junior Anglo-Saxon Club, sort of like a Young Republicans, and one of their contributions to the student newspaper was a piece about how they definitely weren't racist and how dare they be accused of racism, they just didn't want blacks or whites mixing! How is that racist? (Yes, they used the word "racist," and I have no idea what their definition of racism was, if it wasn't what they were doing) Anyway, I think about that a lot.

(3) This is informally called the Pocahontas Exception, because a lot of really, really influential, prominent and rich Virginians actually took a lot of pride in claiming to be descended from Pocahontas and John Rolfe (even if they weren't), and without the exception, they'd all be classified as "colored." Plecker didn't want any exceptions at all (he was, at the very least, not a hypocrite about what he thought "white" meant), but given that some of the people the law would make "colored" would potentially be voting on the law, he had to include the exception or risk it not being passed at all.

(4) The reason I even got into this subject in the first place is that one of my family tree names is on that list and we're pretty sure they moved to Kentucky because of it, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're related to us OR that they were white-passing mixed-race people: they could well have been just plain white people who happened to have the same surname.

[olderthannetfic]

I had a fantastic moment in a Pokemon Unite Discord server today. This one anti was upset that the outfits for some Pokemon are dresses, because that's "pedophilia coded" and "too sexual not to be on purpose" and ". Before I could even say anything, this one dude, who is in his 50s and not fandom involved outside of Pokemon and so oblivious to anti culture, went off. "That's really disturbing that you see dresses and think of sex, even when it's on an animal. But that you think of LITTLE GIRLS AND SEX is UNACCEPTABLE! What is WRONG with you?! You need to be on a registry!" He pinged the mods. "This person SEES DRESSES and thinks of LITTLE GIRLS having SEX! PLEASE BAN THEM! This is an all-ages server! There are kids here!"

And since a lot of the people who are mods are gamer types in their 40s who are also not knee-deep in fandom discourse, and most of them are parents regardless of age? They banned this anti in under a minute.

It turns out that if you see a dress on a fictional dog and think of children having sex, normal people do not think you're a safe person to be around.

I really hope this makes that anti reflect on what she's saying and thinking and gets her to snap out of it. But even if it doesn't, it was really nice to see a glimpse of what life must've been like before people would agree in most situations that something normal was creepy.

--

[your-blorbo-is-a-dog]

jonathan sims!! ^_^

(the character from the magnus archives not the real guy :3)

⭐️ Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives is an Old Croatian Sighthound.

Statement of Laika your-blorbo-is-a-dog regarding star’s knowledge of the Old Croatian Sighthound. Statement taken direct from subject, March 26th. Statement begins. 

The Old Croatian Sighthound is a now extinct sighthound from Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. It is a popular belief that they were used by the Celts, due to their appearance on Celtic coins. They were very similar to the greyhound and primarily were used for hunting rabbit. When the government of Yugoslavia banned coursing with sighthounds and required registry with a kennel club to own a dog, they had no kennel club, and so likely disappeared. A pair were brought to the Zagreb School of Veterinary Medicine with the hope of starting a breeding program, but ultimately the program failed and it is believed the breed was extinct by 1995.

Statement Ends.

Some people say the breed was revived in 2008, but the only evidence for this is one dog information website that could be inaccurate. Another article says plans for revival of the breed were unfortunately never finalized. I have absolutely no idea.

[coochiequeens]

This is exactly what feminists warned of.

By Marielena Meder February 8, 2025

Convicted criminals in Germany are endorsing Germany’s new gender self-identification law for allowing them to easily hide their pasts by changing their identities. One violent criminal, Mirko Guth, even spoke to local press about his plans to change his legal sex and name by claiming to be transgender.

Guth, who spent several years in prison for violent crimes and aggravated robbery, described using the gender self-identification law to hide his past as a “fuck you to the state,” complaining that he had struggled with difficulties in opening bank accounts and obtaining mobile phone plans due to his lengthy record of serious offenses.

After the Self-Determination Act came into effect in Germany on November 1, 2024, individuals were permitted to change their legal sex and name through a simple declaration at the registry office. The new law also included a disclosure ban, which prohibits passing on the real sex and former name without consent and imposes harsh penalties for those who “misgender” or “deadname” a person who has changed their legal identity.

“This is the paragraph that erases my past,” Guth told Die Welt regarding the disclosure ban. “I am bankrupt and can’t get work contracts anymore. If I become a woman, I can have a mobile phone, an Amazon account, and a Netflix account again.”

“I can’t be mistaken for a woman. I believe I don’t have a single feminine trait,” Guth, who is bald and covered in tattoos told Die Welt. “I’m doing this out of desperation.”

Guth reports that he first got the idea to take advantage of the law from a woman he had worked with at the youth welfare office. After being released from prison, Guth had attempted to offer his services as a “reformed criminal” to a youth-focused organization called “Gefangene helfen Jugendlichen e.V“ (Prisoners Help Youth). This association of former prisoners organized prison visits, conducted school prevention education, and offered anti-violence training intended to steer at-risk kids away from a life of crime.

However, the state cut off financial support for the association in 2024, leaving Guth dejected. He then pursued changing his legal sex and name.

Guth reports that many of his friends with criminal records will similarly seek to change their legal sex and names under the law. But not only do they seek to erase their past, they also plan to deliberately invade women’s washrooms and locker rooms, hoping to be thrown out so they can sue for discrimination and collect compensation.

There have been several cases in Germany involving trans-identified males demanding money after being denied access to women-only spaces. As previously reported by Reduxx, a man in Bavaria named Nicolas “Laura” Holstein was awarded €1,000 after being refused membership to a women’s-only gym.

Doris Lange, the owner of Lady’s First fitness studio, reported that one week after she was ordered to pay a €1,000 fine, she received a demand from Holstein’s lawyers for an additional €2,500 in compensation, along with a threat of a €5,000 penalty if she were to deny him access to the women-only gym in the future.

In another case, a neo-Nazi changed his legal name and sex, and is now suing a child safeguarding advocate for referring to him as a “man” without his consent. Last month, Reduxx spoke exclusively with Josefine Barbaric, the chairwoman of the association of Nein, lass das! e.V. (No, don’t do that!) for the prevention of sexual violence against children and adolescents, from whom “Maria-Svenja” Lieblich is now demanding €15,000 in “discrimination” compensation.

Barbaric is also being ordered to sign a cease-and-desist declaration, which would entitle Liebich to collect a €10,000 fine from her if she ever misgender him in the future and is raising funds for her legal defense. 

In addition to hiding their criminal past and finding an easy payday, some men have admitted to using the self-determination law to avoid conscription and commit bank fraud.

One man who spoke to Die Welt said he hoped to avoid military service by altering his legal sex to “female” in the event a war broke out in Germany. However, the law does include a specific regulation forbidding sudden “sex changes” in the midst of impending or active war.

In other cases, men have planned to open multiple bank accounts in different federal states, obtain loans, withdraw the money, and then change their gender identity and name.

Spokespersons from Commerzbank and the Federal Association of German Banks (BdB) have expressed doubts that this plan would work, as they only grant significant overdrafts and loans if regular net income, for example from salary payments, is present in the account. However, a criminal in Berlin pulled off a similar heist in 2023, prior to the introduction of the Self-Determination Act.

The 32-year-old man claimed to be “transgender” at several registry offices, and thus obtained new personal documents multiple times. With the obtained documents, he opened several bank accounts, withdrew the money, entered into contracts with mobile phone providers, and made online purchases. According to the public prosecutor’s office, further investigations are pending against the accused for the same fraudulent scheme.

The police union had previously warned that easing the regulations around changing legal documents would open the floodgates to criminals seeking to use the law to avoid detection or commit further crimes. Registrars and government officials have also expressed fears of becoming the targets of discrimination complaints if they refuse or question the motives of some change requests.

Since the implementation of the Self-Determination Act at the end of November, almost 15.000 individuals in Germany have altered their legal sex. This figure significantly surpasses the initial estimate of 4,000 changes per year.

[queertranshappiness]

Here is this week's good queer and trans news (July 28th):

Tennessee will finally remove sex workers who have HIV from sex offender lists, after a lawsuit was settled in favour of sex workers, thank god (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/07/tennessee-put-sex-workers-on-sex-offender-registry-for-having-hiv-they-will-be-removed/)

Trans Pride Brighton and London have recorded their largest attendances ever, with ~40,000 people and 55,000 people respectively marching through the cities to celebrate and advocate for trans lives (@/gaystarnews, @/londontranspride on Instagram)

Michigan has banned the 'gay/trans panic' legal defence, making it the 20th state overall to do so (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/07/michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer-signs-bill-banning-gay-or-trans-panic-defense/)

Queer Ass Folk, a live music night in Hastings highlighting queer songwriters and talent, has had a sold out first event, which is very good for queer culture (https://www.instagram.com/p/C9xdtgyCUwg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)

The first ever trans and gender diverse film festival in Ireland has been launched in Dublin, TITE (Trans Image, Trans Experiences), with submissions open from next month, and the festival itself scheduled for April next year (https://gcn.ie/trans-non-binary-film-festival-ireland/)

Hypersoft, a European queer dance music label and collective, has released their first ever charity compilation album, Soft Power Volume 1, with all proceeds going to trans charities TGEU and Mermaids (it's primarily a tech and progressive house album, and you can support it here: https://hypersoft.bandcamp.com/album/soft-power-vol-1-protect-trans-youth)

And a new HIV drug, when taken twice a year, has been shown to be highly effective at preventing infections in AFAB people in phase 3 trials, which is a good sign for a new treatment (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/07/trial-shows-that-shot-taken-twice-a-year-very-effective-at-preventing-hiv-in-women/)

(Credit to: LGBTQ Nation, @/gaystarnews and @/transpridelondon, @/notaphaseorg, GCN and Hypersoft themselves for these stories.)

[clockwayswrites]

A Broken Sort of Normal Part 4

WC: 439 Materpost CW: Mild Family Drama

Thankfully it wasn’t long before Danny could get home and take a hot shower. The casserole he’d taken out of the freezer was fine to go in the oven at that point, and he tossed it in as he finished drying off his hair. It was getting long again. He’d kept it a bit shorter since he’d started working and figured he’d be due for another cut soon. He grabbed his phone and sent a message to schedule it, or else he’d just put it off until it was unmanageable.

And then he was left staring at his phone.

Thinking about Jazz.

Maybe he should give her another call— another chance.

The phone was ringing before he had thought much about it.

“Danny?”

“Hi Jazz— Jasmine, sorry.”

“It’s fine, Danny,” she said, but Danny could hear the reprimand in her tone. “What going on?”

“I just…” Why was this so hard? “…wanted to call back? Our last call cut short and I didn’t get to tell you everything.”

“Lacey needed me.”

“That wasn’t— I wasn’t trying to say you shouldn’t have ended the call, I just thought I’d try again. I know you’re busy there. You’re still planning the baby shower, right? I’ve got some vacation—”

“Lacey and I talked, and we don’t think you should come,” Jazz said over him. “And not until the baby has been through all their major shots either. It’s just, you’re around disease a lot and we don’t want to take any chances. You get it, right?”

No, he really didn’t. He was emergency response. Jazz would know that if she ever listened to him.

“…Can I at least get the baby something? Do you have one of those list things?”

“It’s called a registry, Danny.”

Danny held back a sigh. He didn’t want this to end in a fight. “Okay, do you have a registry, Jasmine?”

“Of course we do. But we don’t expect you to get us anything off of it,” she said quickly. “We’ve picked out everything based on the latest research into cognitive development and reviews so nothing on it is… cheap.”

“I have a job.” This was going to be like the fight about his schooling all over again— where Jazz called his paramedical degree a trade school. Like there was something wrong with a trade school anyways. “Just send it through, okay? I’ll see whats on it and I won’t send anything that’s not. And I won’t try to visit.”

“Danny…”

“Give Lacey my best, I’ve got to go,” Danny said, hanging up before he could say the angry words that were bubbling up in his throat.

----- AN: So maybe I'm still not over my sil calling my masters of science a trade school. Though there is nothing wrong with a trade school at all and I'll fight anyone who says so. I honestly wished we had more of them in the US. But yep- I might have picked some of the less lovely traits of my sil and a friend to put into Jazz here. I'm not trying to bash her, I just think it would have been so easy for her to go this way if nothing ever came of her parent's research and she didn't have to adjust her world view to helping save her little brother's life nightly. And if all she saw in that little brother now was someone who supposedly didn't try and maybe resents for having to always be the Big Sister.

Danny could sure use some hugs though.

Due to the new post editor and being shadow banned, I no longer tag! You can subscribe to this post instead to be notified in the same way.

[canisalbus]

I hope this isn’t unwelcome but here are a few of my personal Vascete modern AU headcanons:

As a child, Vasco was usually voted as a team captain when playing sports with other kids. Not necessarily because of his sporting ability, but rather because of his leadership qualities and general agreeableness and ease with others.

Machete always uses perfect grammar when he texts, but can take a while to respond. Vasco often responds instantly but with less attention to grammar. Machete texts in unbroken paragraphs (when he has a lot to say) but Vasco’s texts come through in small, sporadic flurries.

Machete is very familiar with hospitals, particularly so in his childhood due to his various medical issues. As a result he actually finds their cleanliness, and the politeness of the doctors, comforting. These experiences also made him more patient than he might otherwise have been.

Vasco donates blood and is on an organ donor registry.

Machete always carries hand sanitiser around and is constantly offering it to Vasco, who always carries hand cream around, and is constantly offering it to Machete.

Both are well-versed in music and have refined musical tastes.

Vasco hums wholeheartedly whilst doing the dishes - a chore Machete likes to avoid where possible. Vasco knows this, so he pretends he doesn’t mind doing them.

Machete often has a headache and Vasco’s usual first response to this is to ask Machete if he’s had enough water today. He’s often right.

Vasco scarcely thinks of the other paths his life could have taken. Though he knows pain, he feels very fortunate for all the good he’s been dealt in life, and attributes his good luck mostly to happy accidents. Machete on the other hand has unexpected moments of stark awareness of all the possible forks in his road. It’s a sudden deja vu that creeps up on him when he’s alone, almost as if he can remember all of his and Vasco’s past/ potential lives together. The feeling vanishes just as soon as it arrives.

Hot dang anon I LOVE these. Unwelcome UNWELCOME? You come to my house and present me with thoughtful interpretations of my characters, I feel nourished.

I can definitely see Vasco being a popular choice for a team captain. He's physically active but not ultra sporty, and even though he can get excited and carried away, he's never been that competitive (he's got that 'I just hope both teams have fun' sort of vibe that people tend to like).

The texting bit is terribly cute. Vasco rapid firing message after message vs Machete intermittently slapping half an essay in the chat.

Machete is hypochondriac and his threshold for seeking threatment is low, especially if he's experiencing anything he's not already familiar with. To my understanding Italy has a good quality universal public healthcare, but he typically chooses to go with private sector anyway and has been investing in pricey health insurance for years (probably way more extensive than what is necessary or reasonable).

I also thought of Vasco as a habitual blood donor. He wouldn't like it per se (medical surroundings unnerve him), but I think he might just get a kick out of being a good boy and potentially helping people. (I know gay, bi and msm men used to be banned from donating (or at least severely restricted) but it looks like many countries have revised their criteria significantly in recent years and there's a good chance he'd be eligible these days.)

The hand sanitizer/hand cream combo is so good. It made me chuckle. (Are you a hand sanitizer person or a hand cream person?)

Their respective tastes in music and cinema have more overlap than you might initially think, and they keep aligning closer and closer over time.

Machete wouldn't like doing dishes. Having to touch wet food (weird texture + unhygienic) is bad times all around. But he genuinely enjoys a little bit of vacuuming, dusting, laundry and general tidying and organizing. He doesn't leave that much for Vasco to do, just the occasional visibly messy jobs that squick him out more than he cares to admit.

That's very considerate of him. That's a very considerate thing to do to anyone in general. Dehydration and low blood sugar can really sour your mood and you wouldn't even notice they were the reason you're feeling so bad all of a sudden. (When I'm having a difficult day I try to remember to ask myself whether things are truly collapsing or am I potentially just a little too thirsty and hungry and unaware of it. Usually it's the latter).

Ah yes, Machete and the horrors. Vasco might be aware of the horrors as well, but perhaps he possesses the specific kind of galaxy brain that is near immune to this particular flavor of existential dread.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Germany has issued a warning that transgender and nonbinary travelers may face difficulties entering the United States under the Trump administration’s new policies. The warning, first reported by the German newspaper Rheinische Post on February 26, advises travelers to check with U.S. authorities before making their trip as the federal government moves to erase legal recognition of transgender people and restrict their ability to update official documents. A German official confirmed to The Advocate that “transgender and nonbinary individuals traveling from Germany to the United States should contact the responsible U.S. authorities prior to travel to the U.S. to inquire about current entry regulations.” The advisory follows an executive order from President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration on January 20, mandating that all government-issued documents, including passports, reflect only an individual’s sex assigned at birth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department then issued a new directive requiring all visa applicants to list their sex at birth. Though the memo is framed as a policy aimed at transgender athletes, legal experts warn that it could be used to deny visas to transgender people more broadly. The policy instructs consular officers to flag applications where there is “reasonable suspicion” that an applicant is trans, a move critics say amounts to a ban on transgender visa holders. Germany’s warning underscores the growing international consequences of Trump’s anti-transgender policies. While the U.S. is restricting legal gender recognition, the German official noted that the European country is moving in the opposite direction. On November 1, the country’s Self-Determination Act went into effect, making it easier than ever for transgender and nonbinary individuals to update their legal documents.

[...] German citizens — whether in Germany or abroad — can now submit their declarations at local registry offices, consulates, or embassies instead of going through a court process, according to the German Embassy. The German government strongly encourages individuals to obtain a certificate confirming their gender marker change before applying for an updated passport.

Germany issues a travel warning for trans, intersex, and nonbinary people travelling to the USA due to the Trump Administration’s war on trans people.

See Also:

The Advocate: Germany issues travel warning about the US due to restrictions on trans people

[tightwadspoonies]

Dumpster Diving and Salvage Shopping

If you asked me what my role in the ecosystem is, I'd say I'm a scavenger. I hate confrontation and I hate spending money when there are other options. I will gladly just take whatever you don't want in order to avoid such unsavory obligations.

So dumpster diving, salvage stores, and incidental meat registries and I get along pretty well save for the anxiety. This post, hopefully, takes some of that away for my fellow scavengers who would love to dumpster dive but just don't know how yet, or are afraid of getting in trouble.

Dumpster Diving:

First of all, dumpster diving is legal in all 50 states of the US, but check local ordinances because rich people get fussy about people digging through trash to the point of some cities condemning the practice. It's on a bunch of other posts but it's worth saying.

Cops, of course, will lie or imply otherwise on this. A good way around that is to look like someone who is "not breaking the law". AKA: look like a suburbanite: Wear some khakis and a polo shirt, carry a Starbucks cup, and act as white as you can possibly get away with. If approached, smile, call the cop "officer" or some such referential title, and explain that you thought it was legal. Not that you know it's legal- that you thought it was legal. If they tell you to scram, do so. No argument with law enforcement is worth what is in that dumpster.

Note that it is illegal in many places to put stuff into dumpsters that aren't yours, though, so if the cops are having a slow night, be careful about them asking you to put stuff back.

You also don't want to be the reason dumpster diving gets banned in your community. Do this primarily by never getting into a dumpster. I know the container of perfect strawberries is just out of reach, but if you fall or are unable to get out you are not only up a creek yourself but potentially causing an anti-dumpster-diving frenzy that your town's grocery stores will never recover from. Also, people have legitimately died from getting into a trash compactor.

Now, "legal" does not mean "pro-store-policy". One of the main reasons for this is that is dumpster diving can be somewhat dangerous and no store wants to be the store that's known for letting people break legs on their slippery dumpster juice or what have you.

Avoid too many store policy issues by waiting until the store closes, doing a pass-by to ensure no one is waiting to see if anyone is picking out of their dumpsters, and (again) looking like someone who wouldn't be diving in dumpsters.

Store management tends to worry that they will be sued for letting you eat expired or unsafe food. If you do get approached by a manager who isn't excited to see someone picking over their dumpster selections, it is a good idea to impress upon them how very many dumpsters you pick from and how you wouldn't possibly be able to prove it was their dumpster that gave you food poisoning. Also, if you're feeling particularly bold, let them know that you are saving their store money by decreasing the weight of their waste. Probably not by a lot, but hey, you're on their side here. If told to scram, once again, do so with haste.

On that note, there are safe and unsafe foods to pick:

Generally Safe:

Packaged shelf-stable foods even with damaged outer packaging

Milk if still cold

Cheese

Eggs

Bread (including frozen bread if still cold)

Whole Veggies and Fruits, even with bad spots

Fermented anything

Non-Food Items like dry pet food, hand sanitizer, soap, cleaning products (except bleach), etc...

Generally NOT Safe:

Sliced lunch meats

Cheese touching meat

Cut salads or veggie trays

Prepared hot foods (even if still hot)

Pre-cooked refrigerated meals

Frozen veggies (unless still mostly frozen)

You want to make sure you have some time the next day to process your haul. Everything needs to be carefully sorted, cleaned, peeled, and in the case of perishable food like eggs and veggies, cooked prior to eating.

One final thing:

Be considerate. Leave everything how you found it and make sure you're not making more work for employees. Also, if you know others in your area dive, leave some stuff there for the next person.

Salvage Shopping:

Perhaps you aren't completely up for dumpster diving but still like living your lil raccoon life? Thats fine!

Salvage groceries are a great option. Essentially, instead of throwing food away that they can't sell to traditional consumers, grocery stores sell near-dated or damaged products to salvage grocery stores for pennies on the dollar, and that savings is passed along to the consumer.

Most salvage stores are smaller than traditional grocery stores, and some are cash-only. Some have fresh or frozen sections, but the smaller ones are pretty much all packaged goods. If you are living exclusively on salvage stores, you may want to supplement with some dumpster diving, foraging, or gardening (or even maybe going to a grocery store, but that's hella expensive).

Salvage groceries are not necessarily going to be perfectly food safe. There will be expired goods (doesn't mean bad). That just means you will have to do some due diligence. For example:

Make sure that an item you want to purchase is still in a sealed container

If there are more than one of an item, make sure they are the same color

Prioritize un-dented cans

If you must buy a dented can, make sure the dent isn't on an edge or seam

Don't buy expired canned tomato products

If you open a food and it smells bad, looks like it thawed and re-froze, hisses or bubbles- THROW IT AWAY

Generally be more cautious than you would normally be at a grocery store.

In my area these are pretty much always run by the Amish and Mennonite communities, but check around in your area. They are becoming more and more common outside these communities.

Not all of them will be listed on google maps. Look for a shop called "Bend and Dent" or "Salvage Groceries" or a small store advertising "Discount Groceries". Once you find one, it's easy to find others by asking at the checkout, since they tend to cluster together.

A drawback is that, because they do tend to cluster, they may be farther away than other grocery options. If you are far away, I highly recommend getting a few friends together and making a day of it. I can't say this about most things, but the extra cost in gas is well worth the savings, even if you are driving over an hour.