#their first response in a crisis is

[frankensteinposm0]

Lil bro got stuck in my head and doesn't want to get out of there

[prismaticpichu]

When you teach your friend to hold onto hope <3

And disassociate.

~

If only he could’ve just Not Believed the Jenova shit dhdhdhh

[coredrill]

[hanakihan]

i just love how my brain came up with implication of why Salieri’s minions started to receive enough mana to manifest constantly and have more human like appearance

‘… Count, don’t you think that Salieri’s minions also kinda resemble you—‘

‘How about we do not talk about it, master‘

[aro-absol]

I hate how when I come out to other people as aromantic I'm so often met with a version of "don't you think you'll find the one?" and them telling me that I should be open minded and not rule out dating completely.

Like, why do they feel like they need to tell me that? Those words just revive all my doubts that I shouldn't call myself aro and that I'm not "valid" as aromantic. Do they not understand that it took a lot of courage to tell them this personal thing about myself and that them immediately questioning what I've said won't make me feel better?!

It took me over a year of soul-searching to gain the confidence to use this word to describe myself and my experiences, and their first reaction to me letting them in on this knowledge is that I have to be wrong and that it's not okay for me to call myself that.

I literally would have been fine if they just said, "okay, cool."

I hate that aromanticism is still seen as something so negative that people's first reaction to a coming out as aromantic is to console the person coming out (by invalidating them).

[creepyscritches]

Stinky is in a bad way :( He became lethargic last night and I noticed signs of dehydration (I don't think he drank yesterday???). For the past 12 hours I've been syringe-feeding baby food, pedialyte, and water while keeping him warm with blankets and a space heater. It's been working and perking him up, but he's really weak still :( He's been having issues that we thought cleared up, but he'll be at the vet tomorrow when his doctor is back in office. Poor guy!

[incomingalbatross]

Many thoughts head full about the contrasts and parallels between the openings of the first and third BTTF movies.

First movie: opens on the mess left by Doc's days of sudden absence, followed by Marty walking in and saying "YIKES," accidentally adding to the mess, and then bolting away and leaving it behind when he finds out he's late for school.

Third movie: opens on Marty bringing Doc home, followed by a pan over the interior where we see he has not only carried the unconscious Doc inside and put him on the couch, but has taken off both of their socks, shoes, and coats, hung them to dry over the fire (that he may also have lit), and laid Doc's dressing-gown over him, before letting himself collapse into the nearest chair. It's a cozy, domestic scene that Marty created while bone-tired.

And that. That is GROWTH. That's responsibility. That's maturation! That's the shift between a child's assumption of "messes get cleaned up somehow, and if they don't who cares anyway?" and an adult understanding that "this mess HAS to be dealt with and if I don't do it right now it won't get done."

On the one hand, obviously, this makes me very proud of Marty. But it's simultaneously a little distressing. Because that's not a mentality shift someone should have to go through completely in under ten days. It didn't happen normally. And, as it turns out, that same new response of "this HAS to be dealt with and I have to step up and do it" is half of what leads to Marty's problems in the third film, because he doesn't have the experience to balance it against the actual situations he meets or other people's responsibilities.

[tomorrowusa]

Not everybody is a highly informed political junkie. And with the decline of legit news outlets, it's increasingly difficult for average citizens to keep up.

On top of that, people have surprisingly short memories. There are actually some who regard the Trump era as an era of prosperity; they have apparently forgotten that his incompetence botched the pandemic response and sent the economy into almost instant recession.

This lack of credible information along with sketchy memories have given Trump a boost - for now.

Celinda Lake, one of President Biden’s top pollsters on his 2020 campaign, was recently conducting a focus group with swing voters for another client when a response stopped her cold. Lake had asked how the voters felt about former president Donald Trump’s pending criminal court cases related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “They go, ‘What court case around January 6?’” she recalled. “These were swing voters, and about half of them weren’t sure what we were talking about. And I said, ‘Well, you know, the insurrection and that he was the one that provoked it.’ They go, ‘Oh, yeah. I kind of forgot about that.’” For journalists and the types of highly engaged voters who watch the news every night, Trump’s lock on renomination has been near-certain for at least six months, and his various transgressions and incendiary comments are well known. But it’s easy for political obsessives to lose sight of how little attention many normal people pay to day-to-day politics.

We've all heard the expression "low information voter". This is a problem we need to address.

The New York Times’ Jennifer Medina and Reid Epstein tackled this question earlier this week with a piece aptly headlined “Do Americans Have a ‘Collective Amnesia’ About Donald Trump?”  It’s very much worth a read. They write: “More than three years of distance from the daily onslaught has faded, changed—and in some cases, warped—Americans’ memories of events that at the time felt searing. Polling suggests voters’ views on Mr. Trump’s policies and his presidency have improved in the rearview mirror. In interviews, voters often have a hazy recall of one of the most tumultuous periods in modern politics.”

Another group to take into consideration are younger voters. An average graduating high school senior this year was in the 8th grade when Trump was telling Americans to drink bleach and take quack medicines for COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic.

Part of the problem is that many voters, especially the crucial bloc of younger ones, simply don’t remember Trump that well. Those turning eighteen and eligible to vote for the first time this fall were just ten years old and in grade school when Trump won the presidency, in 2016; the January 6 Capitol riots happened back when most of them were just starting high school. The rest of us don’t have memories that are as sharp and reliable as we’d like to think—it’s not just Joe Biden and Donald Trump who regularly get names wrong or forget in what year things occurred.

And if this cohort was just 13/14 in early 2020, then they would have been 8 or 9 when Trump started running for president in 2015 when he was calling Mexicans "rapists" and "murderers".

Case in point: When Trump launched his 2016 campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers,” it dominated the news and became one of the most-remembered lines of the campaign. His recent claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” generated headlines but didn’t dominate coverage. On Thursday, he declared in his State of the Union “prebuttal” that Biden is “keeping the hordes of illegal migrants and illegal aliens pouring into the country,” and claimed that “many come from mental institutions, many come from prisons, they’re terrorists.” Few major news organizations wrote stories focusing on the comments.

We can't assume that people may be as informed as we are. We need to patiently explain, while providing sources, how Trump is not normal and is a danger to the country's future.

Of course journalists have to compete with the upcoming tsunami of ads and even disinformation.

Potential voters who don’t read the news won’t be able to escape what could be a combined $1 billion in campaign spending in the swing states. It’s been a lot easier to avoid Trump since he left the White House and Twitter. That won’t be so true in the heat of a presidential general election. Journalists have to keep in mind that voters in swing states may not be thinking of all the details now, but they’re likely to be much more attuned by the time they vote. 

When we run across articles or news vids about MAGA Republicans which are well produced and don't require a lot of background information to understand, we should share them with low information voters we know. If there's a good cartoon which amplifies the points made in the article, send it along. There's no rule which says you can't be informative and entertaining at the same time.

This applies to current stuff as well as the disastrous Trump presidency. Reminding people that Trump sabotaged immigration reform and improved border security through his House flunky Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson is essential.

A sure way to lose the election is to assume that we don't need to do anything. As I've said before, the era of slackerism is over; being politically and civically engaged is the price of democracy.

[mangle-my-mind]

Why do I never see anyone talk about the TVL scene where Lestat returns to Renaud's, realizes he hungers for Nicki's blood just as easily as he does for the "criminals" he kills, and in his mania, rage, and grief, barrels onstage, starts copying the acrobat's entire routine, discovers that he can fly, and freaks out the entire audience with his inhuman movements and ear-piercing voice?

[crowempress]

Having gotten back into DMing more this year the amount of old DMs I had that would straight up guilt trip over canceling or cutting sessions short is INSANE. like I cannot imagine running a session when someone isn't feeling it like... DMing is only fun if I know my players are happy and having a good time wtf 😭 I cannot imagine someone being tapped out or upset at the table and still forcing them to continue?? Or making them feel bad for being busy??

[thewhizzyhead]

you know when you get a friend that was even more "tomboyish" than you were in your teens and then as the both of you grow up and enter college, you see them explore expressing themselves more femininely and absolutely fall in love with it and with the concept of womanhood - while you on the other hand become all the more estranged with "being a woman" because good God you really don't fucking get it and that seeing your once-tomboyish friend find joy and an emotional connection to womanhood makes you really realize that you have no such connection whatsoever, hence making you feel left behind in actually "becoming a woman"? Anyways what I'm trying to say here is I'm definitely not fucking cis-

[pochapal]

mind you every single one of her siblings is lying dead and disfigured in a garden shed while she's doing this

[historyofguns]

The article, authored by Kit Perez and published on The Armory Life, discusses the importance of volunteer work in preparing individuals for survival situations, particularly through service in fire departments, EMS, and search and rescue units. Participation in these organizations can provide invaluable skills and experience in handling emergencies and disasters. For instance, volunteer firefighting offers training in CPR, vehicle extrication, emergency medical services, and more, often at no cost. Similarly, EMS service provides real-time medical response training, and search and rescue (SAR) involves specialized skills for wilderness and urban scenarios. The article emphasizes the mutual benefits of volunteering: while communities gain dedicated support in critical situations, volunteers receive extensive preparation for emergencies.

[reasonsforhope]

"In Sacramento, California, an estimated 6,615 people are experiencing homelessness, a number that — while still heartbreakingly high — has declined 29% since 2023, according to the latest Point In Time counts. 

But a new project, which has been in the works since 2022, might bring that number down even lower.

A new 13-acre property purchased by Sacramento County will soon be home to the Watt Service Center and Safe Stay. 

The county broke ground on the mixed-use service center this week, which will provide shelter, emergency respite, safe parking, health services, and more to community members who are unsheltered — meaning they don’t have a place to safely sleep at night.

“We wanted to do something that is not only larger, but a large-scale campus to provide more than just the shelter,” Janna Haynes, of the county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, told KCRA3 News.

The Watt Service Center will have amenities to help meet the needs of anyone staying there, including bathrooms, showers, laundry, and food, as well as mental health, treatment, and employment services.

“You can also meet with your case manager, get behavior health services, look for a job, get rehousing services, a place for your dog,” Jaynes added. “It’s really everything you need, not only for your day-to-day life, but to hopefully end your homelessness.”

While the center is a costly offering, the city explained that it is ultimately less expensive than allowing the homelessness crisis to go unmitigated.

The land was purchased for $22 million and will cost an estimated $42 million to construct the center. According to ABC10 News it will be mostly funded by the American Rescue Plan Act.

While the center will have the capacity to host 225 beds in Safe Stay cabins, 50-person capacity in Safe Parking, and 75-person capacity for emergency/weather respite beds, it will serve countless others outside of the 350 total people it can house at any given time.

According to a press release from the county, “conservative estimates” have found that over the course of 15 years, the center will serve 18,000 people.

In 2017, the city found that the average cost for an “unsheltered individual” was about $45,000 a year, considering public systems like county jail, shelters, behavioral health, and more.

With the projected impact of the shelter, that cost lowers to less than $3,600 per person.

“If you break down the funding, it’s actually not that expensive,” Rich Desmond, county supervisor for District 3, told ABC10.

“It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than letting someone stay out in the community, unsheltered where they are extremely expensive in terms of the emergency response from fire, our emergency rooms, our law enforcement response.”

Providing what the county calls “wraparound services” not only brings down costs but truly helps people meet their basic needs.

“The really great thing about this site in particular, that we don't have at any other shelters, is the sheer size and the ability to really wrap everything people need,” Emily Halcon, director of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing with Sacramento County, told ABC10. 

One notable feature is the center’s Safe Parking spaces, which are the first of their kind in the city. People living in their cars will now have a safe place to park, monitored by security.

“We know a lot of people who are unsheltered actually are living out of their cars,” Desmond said, “maybe a family that’s barely hanging on but they still need that vital transportation to get their kids to school or get to work.”

This support is especially helpful for those who are newly homeless, Halcon added, building on the amenities provided in the county’s two other “safe stay” facilities. 

While Sacramento County just broke ground on the Watt Service Center, officials say they hope to begin moving people into the facility in January 2026.

“Our staff is putting in extra time and attention to this campus, ensuring that it houses everything we need to end homelessness for people,” Desmond said in a statement.

Once it’s up and running, Jaynes told KCRA3, they plan to onboard formerly unhoused community members as part of the staff at the facility.

“When you have a conversation with someone who understands where you’ve been, and you see the success they’re having now,” Jaynes said, “it really does give you hope something could be different.”

-via GoodGoodGood, January 24, 2025

[nobodybetterlookatme]

you’re valid

Thank you but the general concensus from the girlies has been no I'm not LMAO I just have zero reading comprehension and was dramatic for no reason, so I'm just gonna go ahead and delete that other post now bc I overreacted over literally nothing ahdkakskal

[oediex]

Oh, any reference to that study makes me sooo mad. People seem to think these companies are just burning fossil fuels in their backyard for fun, rather than those fossil fuels being used in our everyday lives.

I think one other thing to remember is that when the systematic change comes through, that will have an effect on how we are living our lives.

The way that we are currently living our life - the way we heat and air-condition our houses, how frequently we are in our cars or flying somewhere by plane, the amount of meat and dairy products we produce, when and where we buy our clothes and our phones and our food, and how much we consume year in, year-out - will have to be different in the future.

How we are living our lives now cannot continue, it is not sustainable, and any systemic change that y'all are waiting for will change it drastically.

So why not change it now? Before your hand is forced? Is there really no change you can enact that would be in line with such a sustainable future?

Denying the role that individuals need to play in combating the climate crisis is the leftist version of climate change denial. Anyone responding to suggestions of realistic, accessible changes to reduce your own impact with anything resembling ‘100 companies are responsible for most of our emissions so this is pointless’ are engaging in science denialism.

There is no way that collective action takes place without individuals making changes in their own lives. Yes, the rich are more responsible than the poor and yes, what we need is systematic change. However, there absolutely are things we can and should be doing to reduce our own impact and put pressure on polluting industries through direct action and boycott.

These include stopping or reducing flying, eliminating or drastically reducing our consumption of meat and dairy, buying second hand where possible, repairing, recycling and supporting environmental action and rewilding efforts. None of this in isolation will mend the world but its a hell of a lot better than passing the buck while refusing to make any changes in our own lives.

I know that the idea that climate change is caused by someone else; somewhere else, and that it’s up to them to change instead of us is seductive rhetoric, but it’s also extremely dangerous. It encourages the kind of apathy that plays directly into the hands of corporations who want us to feel powerless and to continue to consume as we do now.

We can’t just sit around and wait for The Revolution; we have to live revolutionary lives.