#this isnt even including my programming projects

[dukeofankh]

I mean, nothing I said was suggesting that nothing can or should be done. I have a couple things I can think of but people are already rightly pointing out that my experience, like all experiences, isnt universal. Calling out a shallow take isn't something I'm doing because I'm so so wise and I know how to fix everything.

I have heard the take that part of the fix for this will probably be a lot more white men with podcasts, and that is almost definitely *part* of the fix. It is legitimately difficult for young men to find content about random ass basic hobbies that isn't being served to them by low-key fascists. That needs to change. When talking with other progressive men, something that came up a lot was after school programs, especially ones that bring boys in more contact with their communities and expose them to different kinds of people in positive ways. Hate breeds in ignorance and isolation.

You already seem very anti-terf, which is great. That is also part of it. I don't honestly think that women are the cause of this problem but like, in terms of fixing this and convincing men that feminists are on their side, yeah, some small part of it is probably looking at the state of feminism currently and recognizing that it has devolved in many very public online spaces into reactionary gender essentialism and that radical feminism takes up a lot more air than anyone would like to pretend it does. "Sure I wholeheartedly reblogged something that claimed that any man who seems decent is just trying to let women's guards down to make it easier to assault them, something all men are trying to do to women at all times, but that's just venting. Ignore that broadside that me and my friends just unloaded on you and everyone who looks anything like you, if you think that your hurt feelings about that matter, that's on you for not recognizing that our pain justifies saying literally whatever we want" (to call up a random example) is certainly a standard that it is possible to enforce in some more isolated corners of the internet, but there has been a serious breakdown between the personal and the public, which is hell for messaging as a movement. This is no longer drinks with friends, this stuff gets broadcast worldwide to men who are trying to get a sense of what feminism is about. At some level, what is cathartic to say will have to give way to what is tactically wise to announce. The only men who will willingly share space with that sentiment if it is core to this movement are either convinced that they are personally exempt from examining their own privilege, which is its own problem, or men who agree wholeheartedly that all men are evil, them included, and are trying to atone. I've interacted plenty with both in male feminist spaces. It's not a winning team. I am aware how hard that will be. 4B type political lesbianism/lesbian separatism seems to be having a moment (at least as a meme) right now as people process their grief in this moment. That's understandable. But it's not wise.

Considering this is happening in the wake of the US election, and I'm saying this as a Canadian, it's also worth gently and precisely noting that even if the harm is the same, someone who voted for trump didn't necessarily do it because they despise women. If we're just looking at the raw numbers and saying "we're doomed", that's probably not helpful or, luckily, accurate. The project of changing the cultural narrative is huge and depressingly long. The rise of reactionary right wing populism when a society starts failing its young people economically isn't. That is a different, and much easier project. If you don't want people to vote for right wing populism, you need to give them left wing populism, and infiltrating the democratic party and pulling all the same tricks the right did but towards economic policy that will provide the next generation of men with the opportunity to own homes and pull their weight supporting families will do a hell of a lot more in a much shorter time than systematically changing each and every man's heart, especially considering a lot of the people who voted for trump weren't men. This project will outlast us, but MAGA doesn't have to.

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[sozoglam]

some details about my mcsm fangame !! :

☆ the game engine used to make it will be GAMEMAKER (some other games made using this engine are undertale, deltarune, hotline miami, and more)

☆ the game will be 2d, however it will be made with 3d mineimator renders (if you need an example of what i mean, think of fnaf)

☆ you will play as jesse, but you only have 3 choices: male jesse, female jesse, or an enby/nonbinary jesse which i will model myself (the jesse variants will be the green suspenders / red (?) hair clip ones). your gender will not change the date-able options or the story!

☆ the date-able characters will be lukas, petra, olivia, and axel

☆ depending on which route you choose, there will be fights with other characters! the fighting style would be most like omori i think

☆ there will be TONS of easter eggs, such as ocs, secret items, and even a secret date-able

☆ voice actors will not be hired. the dialogue would appear in a text box, along with undertale-like dialogue sounds taken from their official va's voice

☆ i am doing this entire project by myself at the moment. this includes creating the renders, modeling background characters, modeling BACKGROUNDS, making music, programming, etc. please know that this will NOT come out anytime soon, and being rushed isnt my vibe. im still thinking how i could get volunteers to help, but im kinda braindead atm. if you guys have any ideas lemme know! :)

PLEASE REPOST IF YOU CAN! it would help share this with the fandom and itll mean a lot to me!!!!

[angstics]

this post is about "father", a song name attributed to a few existing black parade songs.

first, it isnt an unreleased song. the oct 2006 comments under the title's page on songmeanings.com tell a short story of how the user who added the song to the website grabbed it off of limewire. the lyrics were originally for "the end", as indicated by another commenter. the original poster said limewire mislabeled "the end" as "father" then edited the lyrics to be what they are now -- an off sample of "i dont love you". they source the mcrmymusic myspace page for the new lyrics. i can not find any post on the site about it.

"father" is also mentioned in the songfacts.com page for "the end", by both bailey from nj and indigo from australia. indigo says: "I always thought [The End] was called Father until i bought the actual cd and it was changed to The End." i think this may be consequence of limewire, or similar sites / programs, mislabeling the song. all these varied accounts point to the same conclusion that "the end" was called "father" at some point.

so, where did this mislabeling come from?

gerard way introduced a song as "father" at the march 2006 secret show mcr performed at sxsw for shirts for a cure (their friend and photographer beemer's charity project that supports people with breast cancer). this post by @ephedrineshot is a great primer on the show. basically, they came out unannounced and performed a short set including some new songs that turned out to be for their next record, the black parade.

here's a quote about the event in blender mag (june 2006), courtesy of ephedrineshot (full page):

the article frames it like this: gerard announces a "new, unrehearsed" song called "father" then says "we're going to regret this". i havent found any other account of this speech. in this video before starting what we know now as "the end", gerard says, "this got bad idea written all over it". though the quote in blender mag is different, the sentiment is the same. concert speech transcriptions are not fully reliable.

most of this could be found through a google search. well, livejournal is Designed to be impossible to search (at least to me). while browsing the community chemicalromance, i came across this post from july 27, 2006:

it's a direct transcript of my chem performing "the end" at sxsw -- most importantly the identical "wave your fucking arms" line. based on the post and comments, there seems to be a lost video that at some point connected "the end" to "father" -- whether it be in the gerard speech described in blender or video details like title / description.

at some point, the black parade began with the song "father". it sounded a lot like "the end". it'd be identical lyrically if not for the line "you've made your conclusion / just call me a fag" and the missing final verse.

there's another interesting change that you almost cant catch in the video because of the bad audio quality. in the ew article on the show, they say: "As the slobbering faithful chanted 'one more song' after the band’s initial exit, MCR returned to unveil a new, partially complete opus. Featuring a 'na-na-na' finale that had the crowd instantly singing along, the song suggested an even more pop-friendly future for the rambunctious quintet." basing my knowledge of the show from the setlist.fm page, i couldnt figure out how CANCER of all songs would have an audience singalong part. either setlist.fm or ew is wrong about the setlist because at 0:45 of the video, when gerard tells the crowd to wave their fucking arms, you can hear him and the audience exchange "na-na-na"'s. if i had to trust one source over the other, id go with ew.

more about the show: austin chronicle 1 | austin chronicle 2 | punknews | metrosiliconvalley

[battleangel]

💉💊🗑️Addicted To Trash🗑️💊💉

Food scraps take up the most landfill space in the US. Think about that for a moment & process it. As much food insecurity as there is in the US. As many people that die from poverty & from hunger.

The millions of children that face an empty refrigerator & empty pantry every day after school. That don't have money for lunch and don't have access to a free lunch or lunch voucher program.

The parents that skip meals multiple days in a row so that their children can eat.

The sugar sandwiches, cereal with water, knocking on neighbors doors begging for food.

All so Americans that have more than they'll ever need can throw out more than they can ever eat while millions are food insecure and starve within the same country.

Buy loose fruits & vegetables at a local food market, buy food with minimal packaging, only purchase groceries & food items that you actually need & will use & avoid delivery, take out, fast food, fast casual, eating at a sit down restaurant, coffee & donut shops.

Per Google: Food waste accounts for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps are the number one item sent to landfills in the United States.

Food waste accounts for 22% of municipal waste in the U.S.

We discard more food than any other country, even as the number of people experiencing food insecurity grows.

Food waste, which includes everything from meat and fish to fruit and vegetables, can take anywhere between one month and a year to decompose.

However, food decomposition can take longer in a landfill while releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Americans are addicted & brainwashed. You can literally go days and even weeks as an American during hotter months without encountering air that hasnt been artificially cooled. Brainwashed!  Im 42 and my grandparents in rural Georgia that I visited and stayed with for a month every year as a kid didnt have air conditioning. Yet todays modern American life claims it isnt possible yet I did it for a month every year in my youth.

Per Google: Air conditioning, heating & refrigerators are the biggest wasters of energy in American households. The cooling industry is important, but it is also incredibly polluting – accounting for around 10% of global CO2 emissions. That is three times the amount produced by aviation and shipping combined. And as temperatures around the world continue to rise due to climate change, the demand for cooling will increase too.

The average American sets their AC to 68 to 72 degrees which is fucking absurd and ridiculous.

Set air conditioning to 78 to 80 when you are home and 80 when you are asleep and not home. 

I set my AC over the summer even during the current heat wave to 80 �� I dont have central air in my 1 bedroom apartment, I have wall units in my living room & bedroom.

Use fans, wear light/minimal clothing or go naked inside your home (Ive done this) and drink 64+ ounces of water a day.

The average American keeps thermostat during winter at 72 to 80 degrees which is fucking absurd.

Per Google: Heat and air contributing to nearly half of a home’s energy usage. Today, 90% of American households have air-conditioning. America is addicted to home heating and cooling, consuming more energy for air-conditioning than the rest of the world combined.

Keep thermostat during cold months at 68 degrees. Layer clothing and wear blankets inside. 

Per Google: In the same report, the I.E.A. predicted that worldwide energy use by air-conditioners would triple by 2050, “requiring new electricity capacity the equivalent to the combined electricity capacity of the United States, the E.U. and Japan today.” 

The number of global cooling devices is estimated to increase from 3.6 billion to 9.5 billion by 2050, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the IEA.

Without radical changes to the cooling industry, HFC emissions are projected to contribute warming equivalent to 20% of CO2 output in 2050, the UNEP report warns.

However, some say that refrigeration could be the number one way to reduce carbon emissions. 

Per Google: Much of the world’s recent growth in cooling capability has been an adaptive response to global warming. The problem is self-perpetuating, because the electricity that refrigerators and air-conditioners run on is mostly generated by burning fossil fuels. 

Part of the problem with refrigerants, however, is that much of the harm they cause is after we as consumers have finished using them. It occurs out of sight, and so largely out of mind.

Roughly 90% of refrigerant emissions occur at equipment’s end of life, according to Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that analyses climate solutions.

The most common HFC found in domestic fridges is HFC-134a, which has a global warming potential 3,400 times that of carbon dioxide. A typical fridge can contain between 0.05kg and 0.25kg of refrigerant, which if it leaks into the environment, the resulting emissions would be equivalent to driving 675km-3,427km (420-2,130 miles) in an average family-sized car.

Refrigerators are responsible for about 4% of a home's emissions, or 89 kg of CO2 per year.

The correlation between growth in efficiency and growth in consumption is not accidental.

Similarly to air conditioning & heating, if you've noticed a trend, just setting the temperature a few degrees higher/lower can make an extremely significant difference in terms of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions & your contributions to climate change.

Do people care enough to change their respective thermostats just a few degrees?

Set your refrigerator to between 35 and 38°F, and your freezer to between 0 and 5°F.

A refrigerator that's 10°F colder can use up to 25% more energy.

Ironically, as climate change progresses further, our home heating and cooling needs will continue to increase in order to insulate us from extreme weather.

"Ironically" or by design?

Home heating is the single largest source of power consumption in the home, and air-conditioning is the third.

Further, air conditioning in the U.S. accounts for 5% of total energy consumption annually, and releases approximately 100 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

When we asked Americans whether they program or adjust their home thermostats before they leave the house, an overwhelming majority (73%) said they do not.

The solution to so much environmental damage caused by Americans ridiculously blasting their central AC & heat is right in front of their faces and is blindingly obvious yet the mindless ecocide continues.

Why? Because you don't want to be slightly unfuckingcomfortable?

Layered clothing + blankets & lower setting central heat = Winter

Lighter minimal clothing + fans + higher setting central air = Summer

It IS that easy.

I do it every summer & winter in my 1 bedroom apartment.

Why don't 73% of Americans?

Because they don't fucking feel like it, that's why.

Avoid disposable products & avoid single use products.

Avoid ordering delivery & takeout & avoid buying food & drinks at restaurants, fast casual, fast food as it produces single use containers, cups, straws, utensils, napkins.

Avoid food packaging.

If you buy prepackaged snacks, consider making them yourselves — homemade granola bars, pop tarts, trail mix recipes, etc. can easily be found on Pinterest.

•Replace plastic water bottles with water filter + stainless steel thermos bottle. •Buy items with less packaging. •Purchase reusable containers. •Minimalism — buy needs only, not wants. •Repair instead of replace items. •Buy refurbished tech & electronic devices. •Go paperless - paper accounts for 40% of landfills in the US - 40 fucking percent!

Makeup wipes take 100 years to decompose.

Stop using make up wipes & use water, soap & a face towel instead.

Clothes can take up to 40 years to decompose!

Stop buying new clothes.

Buy used clothes only when needed from thrift shops, consignment shops, Goodwill, online thrift shops, Depop, Mercari, Poshmark.

The micro mininskirt I am wearing now is from Wet Seal and I got it when I was 17 over 25 years ago.

Outside of a missing button, it is good as new and I wear it all the time.

Stop with fast fashion.

Stop buying Shein, Fashion Nova, Romwe, Zaful. Stop going to the mall. Stop buying Forever 21 and H&M. Stop going to department stores. Stop buying Macys. Stop shopping at outlets. Stop buying from Nordstrom Rack. Stop buying clothes on Wish & Amazon.

Use and reuse the clothes you already have.

When they are no longer wearable, buy used clothes only — never new — from a thrift shop, consigment store, Goodwill or Depop, Poshmark or Mercari.

Stop buying new clothes!

Batteries can contaminate soil indefinitely -- use rechargeable batteries.

Sanitary pads are made of plastic & can take up to 800 years to decompose. 800 years!

Replace sanitary pads with period underwear (I use Proof) with ob tampons without applicators (what I do) or period cups with a stem to remove & insert (boil & sterilize after each cycle) or menstrual discs.

Pads & plastic tampon applicators have toxins, chemicals & pesticides that have been proven to cause excessive menstrual bleeding (heavy periods since 11 stopped when I switched from Always pads & Tampax tampons with plastic applicators to Proof Period Underwear & ob tampons without applicators), uterine cancer, fibroids, tumors & other reproductive issues.

Washer machines are also a problem.

Dryer sheets arent biodegradable — stop using them.

Doing laundry in a washer machine releases microplastics into the environment which ends up endangering, harming & killing oceanic creatures and polluting the ocean.

Handwash clothes when you can.

Do not own a washer and dryer as you will be encouraged to wash laundry more due to it conveniently being located inside your home.

Instead, opt for a living space without a washer and dryer (like my 1 bedroom apartment that Ive lived in for 10 years).

Limit trips to the laundromat to once a month or once every other month. Rewear clothing.

You dont have to “throw away clothes as dirty” after one use.

If it isnt stained or smelling, rewear it repeatedly.

Only go to the laundromat when you are out of clean clothes to wear.

I go about once a month to every two months.

If you already have a washer and dryer in your home, limit your use of them as much as possible.

Disposable diapers take 500 years to decompose.

500 fucking years.

Use cloth diapers.

Per Google: Yard waste is one of the top ten waste items in US landfills.

Per Google:

By weight, grass is the biggest component of yard waste, averaging half of all yard waste.

Leaves and brush each provide one quarter.

Either dont have a yard & dont live in a house as living in a house is itself wasteful, a climate change driver & overconsuming energy to simply even heat & cool such a large space.

Or if for some bizarre reason you feel you "need" a house or if you already own a house with a yard, do the following per junkloggers.com: When you mow, “grasscycle” by leaving grass clippings on your lawn instead of bagging then. The clippings will return nutrients to the soil instead of taking up space in landfills. Donate healthy plants that you want to replace to community gardens, parks and schools. Using recycled materials such as compost and recycled hardwood mulch help remove yard waste from landfills and reduces the “footprint” of your own landscape.

Follow the 5 Rs: •Refuse: Maximalism, consumerism, materialism & overconsumption, FOMO, sales & clearances, shiny new toy syndrome, shopping to impress others, trends, advertising that has intentional hypnotic messaging, includes brainwashing tactics, seductive messaging, endless repetition, psyops elements, psychological warfare to buy what they are advertising & selling. •Reuse: What you already have. •Reduce: What you buy & use therefore you will have less to throw away and recycle. •Repurpose: Fix broken glasses like I did, dont buy a new pair. I just bought a glasses repair kit for a few dollars versus wasting money on a new frame, new lenses & the fuel that would have been wasted to deliver the new pair of glasses to me. Repurpose gift bags & use reusable grocery bags as totes. Reuse junk mail and newspaper as gift wrap. •Recycle: Aluminum is indefinitely repurposable but takes 800 years to biodegrade. Wash out containers, check recycling numbers, separate items.  Recycling uses oil!

Keep in mind that Exxon and the oil industry relentlessly promoted recycling before it became ubiquitious because oil is needed to recyle.

Recycling uses a huge amount of energy and is itself a contributor to climate change.

Its important to do all five Rs.

Dont just mindlessly buy use throw away recycle like big oil and capitalism endlessly brainwash you to do. All those times that you threw trash away as a kid in school, did you ever think where it was going? All those times your dad took the trash out and left it by the curb when you were young, did you ever think about where that trash was going? Did you ever think about landfills? Oceanic pollution & waste? Air pollution & air quality? Non biodegradable waste? Greenhouse gas emissions? Methane gas emissions? Landfills burning? Mountains of trash? Ofcourse not. If youre American, it was, out of sight out of mind. Im 42. When I was in school playing sports, it was throw out the empty plastic Gatorade bottle and back to softball practice. Back to track practice. Throw away trash, return lunch tray, on to my next class. Mindless. Brainwashed. Addicted to trash. Air quality near landfills is also poor and can be hazardous to humans and wildlife. The unwelcome sights, sounds, and smells of landfills make life unpleasant for nearby residents and reduce the land’s purpose. Overfull landfills may require clearing arable land and forests to create more room. Mindless. Brainwashed. Addicted to trash.

A plastic straw takes 400 years to decompose.

Did you ever think about that on your birthday at the McDonalds playground as a child as you sipped on your Hi-C Orange from your plastic straw?

Programmed.

Plastic wrap takes 1000 years to decompose.

Do you think about the amount of plastic used to wrap bottled water, packaged items, consumer goods? Or do you buy, consume, use, throw away?

Mind controlled.

Ziploc bags take 1000 years to decompose. Did you think about that as a kid in the cafeteria when you removed the PB&J sandwich that your mother made for you every day?

Brainwashed.

Stop vacationing - airplanes, cruises & automobiles are enormous drivers of climate change. Stay local - go to a library, state fair, amusement park, carnival, museum, science center, have a staycation - movie marathon at home etc, take a local class - dancing, pottery, painting, etc., visit local farms & parks.

Deprogram yourself from the belief that you need to take annual vacations, summer trips, tropical vacations, exotic vacations or that you “need to get away” —

Get away from what? 

Zombified.

Avoid driving as much as you can. Automobiles and the fossil fuels to drive them are a huge contributor to climate change. Wherever possible, do not drive and use as minimal gas as you can. Walk, ride your bike or a scooter, skateboard, roller skate or rollerblade or take public transportation where available if you have to use a car try to carpool or rideshare. Question if you really have to go wherever youre driving and is it worth the additional contributions youre making to climate change. 

Can you recreate wherever youre going at home? Can you watch the sporting event on TV, stream the concert, watch the movie when it releases to VOD? Do you need to meet up in person or can you do a video call on Twitch or Whatsapp if they are not a walkable distance from you? Can you cook instead of eating out? Can you take an online class vs driving to the class? Can you walk to a local food market vs driving to a grocery chain or big box retail store?

If you dont need to drive where youre going, dont drive.

There are millions of cars on the roads in America every day contributing endlessly to climate change so if you dont have to contribute dont and minimize your contributions as much as possible. If you can sell or donate your car then do so. If you live in an area with minimal public transportation, then drive it as little as possible. 

Stop going out to just go out or socialize or be seen as its pointless & unnecessary. 

Do your hair yourself and/or cut your hair off (I shave my head bald every 3 to 6 months) & stop driving to the hair salon.

Shave your eyebrows (what I do) and stop driving to the nail salon to get eyebrows waxed or threaded or stop shaping your eyebrows.

Stop painting your nails (what I do) or paint them yourself and stop driving to the nail salon.

Stop buying new stuff and stop driving to the mall.

Stop eating out and stop driving to restaurants.

Stop getting massages and stop going to massage parlors.

Go paperless wherever you can and stop going to the post office.

Stop going to bars and nightclubs, its pointless & a waste of time.

Eliminate bars, nightclubs, shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons, nail salons, massage parlors, post office, grocery stores, big box retail from your life and that should minimize the driving you do.

Dont have children.

By far, human beings are the biggest contributors to climate change so why would you ever willingly produce one (or more than one) given the amount of ecological destruction & climate change humans have already caused?

If everyone avoided having children, we could voluntarily make ourselves go extinct and save planet earth vs the current trajectory of the earth being inhabitable within 100 years and then humanity colonizing Mars and then other planets then destroying those planets in a few thousand years then moving on to the next.

Wash rinse repeat. Stop the cycle.

People are financially rewarded for ecocidal practices so this wont stop so we need to voluntarily stop ourselves and stop reproducing and stop endlessly propagating our species — human — that has been responsible for over 75k animal species going extinct, the destruction of the ozone layer, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, endless landfills, deforestation, oceanic & air pollution, etc. 

Leather shoes & rubber leather soles take 50 to 80 years to decompose.

Buy flats and wear them until they are unusable. Once that occurs, buy new flats.

You should only be doing this once every few years like I am.

If you stand at work, buy high quality sneakers and only replace when they are breaking down.

I havent bought shoes in over five years & sneakers in over ten years.

Cut hair off like I do and stop using any hair products.

I shave my head bald every 3 months and do not do any hair maintenance. I dont use shampoo, conditioner, grease, oil, moisturizer, hair wraps, brushes, etc and as you can see my hair is perfectly fine.

Buy refurbished tech & electronic devices.

Dont ever buy new.

Look up cobalt mines in Congo and how the materials to make batteries for cell phones, EVs, TVs etc (cobalt) is causing a genocide in Congo as it is the only country that has this mineral so Apple, Samsung, Tesla etc desperately need it for their devices.

Look up the warlords fighting over these mines and the civilians being murdered as a result.

Look up the conditions of the cobalt mines — they employ women and children, no protective gear is issued despite them working in underground mines, no labor laws so they are working 12 to 16 plus hour shifts up to seven days a week exposed to dangerous conditions, toxins, chemicals with no protective gear, clothing or eyewear, they are worked like absolute slaves and are dying in these mines.

They are literally dying for your pink iPhone.

Fuck IKEA. Stop buying furniture to impress people who don't give a fuck if you live or die much less what your fucking furniture looks like.

Per Google: Most furniture is made of non biodegradable & non recyclable materials like treated wood that can't be recycled.

It takes treated wood years to decompose, and any synthetic fabrics from covers or cushions also take a long time to break down.

A polyurethane seat cushion will take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Only replace furniture if it is broken beyond the point of repair.

In ten years of living in my 1 bedroom apartment, I have only purchased furniture once.

Dont purchase furniture to impress people, for entertaining purposes, to keep up with your social circle, to flex.

Brainwashed. Mindless. Addicted to trash. Consumerist.

Overconsumption. Materialistic. Out of sight, out of mind.

Who cares if we destroy earth, we're colonizing Mars.

An 80 year human life is worth more than 75k extinct animal species and is worth thousands of tons of plastic that will take hundreds of years to break down in landfills and 6 football fields worth of forests being destroyed via deforestation.

Speciesism is cool as long as its humans being valued among all other species on the planet and even the planet itself.

Ecocide is cool. Environmental damage is whatever.

The destruction of the environment is just part of my brat girl summer.

Has anyone seen MaXXXine?

Who are the greys, Reptilians, minders & keepers?

[pixeljade]

Man. Looking at the state of the TV animation industry these days sends me into an irrational rage as someone who grew up in the 90s and 00s.

I mean that was an era with two stations dedicated almost entirely to animation (Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network), 3 if you include Toon Disney later on, not to mention original animated blocks on WB, ABC, ABC Family, Fox, and Disney proper; plus you had several preschool stations too. Both Nick and CN had systems where they created small shorts which could turn into bigger series and *put them on the air so viewers could help decide*! Add onto this that you had the massive boom of experimentation brought on by the development of digital animation tools, AND the fact that Anime was being imported all over the place, injecting new ideas into animation, AND you had Adult Swim creating the first dedicated adult animation block...there were COUNTLESS series which are still impacting the zeitgeist today! Even the series which got canceled early became cultural icons, Invader Zim basically built an entire subculture! Animation was EVERYWHERE, and it was new and different every fucking year!

Now TV animation is basically a wasteland. Most animators are saying nothing is getting picked up unless its a reboot or a sequel or a tie-in (even Craig McCracken said his new shows werent getting picked up iirc), and animation studios are shuttered left and right. Even the shows I loved most from this year, Fionna and Cake and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, were rehashes of previous franchises. Even great shows from the horribly short streaming boom are getting deleted unceremoniously from existence! I want to beat David Zalsav to death with my bare fists for what he's done, but he's hardly the only fuckstick CEO who's decided animation 'isnt worth it'. Even Disney feels less and less focused around animation every year, shoveling more franchise slop into our mouths, and cancelling great shows because they're even a little gay. Netflix is still making SOME stuff, but its hard to get excited when its probably not gonna get more than an incredibly short season or two. There's also indie projects here and there, but those are still slow to produce because there's no studio backing most of it.

Idk. Its just extremely upsetting to think that I saw what was probably the peak of the animated industry (at least, for now) come and go. And now so many folks I know and love who went to school for this will be stuck churning out more Spongebob content and never get their own ideas picked up. I do support the indie works to the best of my ability, because I do think that whether you like Hazbin or TADC or not, they're at least healthier for the animation ecosystem than Corporate-Approved Animated Program #201836, BUT i am not exactly missus moneybags over here. Idk. I just miss the old days I guess.

[sophieinwonderland]

YEAH the new person saying the endo community is a cult is so weird like heh?? im gonna try to paraphrase their comments so you can get the gist of what they say without anyone going to attack them since they are a cult survivor and i can understand why they think that endogenics are a cult, but... it's just projection imo

they see the term sysmed as terrible and say using it is a cult tactic because it compares sysmeds to transmeds (even though if u think about it for 3 seconds it's like hold on, maybe there IS a connection between between two groups of people who think the only way to experience there personhood-related thing is through suffering. who knew!)

they think being pro-endos are brainwashed and programmed to believe a certain "niche" way of thinking, which is really really silly when the "way of thinking" is "hey maybe there are other ways of being more than one person other than trauma"

theres one exerpt of a post comparing plurality to scientology and saying that endogenics think that plurality makes you a better person compared to singlets / that dissociation/identity disturbances/internal voices aren't disordered at all / are not symptoms at all. when that is factually entirely incorrect, they can be symptoms of problems and no system is better than any singlet just by being more than one person

"they actively target the mentally ill and instill fear towards them seeking treatment" as if sysmeds aren't the ones making us feel more fake and less deserving of disordered-system resources

also them repeating the idea that people think alters arent real people but soulbonds/endogenic headmates are real people, which isn't true (many alters are real people and some endogenic headmates may just be parts / not full people)

also them claiming that most endogenics are white, middle class americans with religious/christian trauma??? they used screenshots from SAS to "prove" their point which is really strange- (and also making fun of people "bastardizing other cultures" right after... like maybe, some of the people who are "bastardizing" cultures might just be engaging in their own culture? or be engaging in something so disconnected from the original concept like tulpamancy, that many non-actively-syscourse-engaging buddhists dont care and don't mind lol)

also also them reblogging from sweet-sloths-sys making fun of someone asking for money, which is the literal ONLY "pro-endo" that i've seen act like that. it's embarrassing. like we blocked that "pro endo" the moment we saw them they are just as bad as any sysmed we've seen lol no one whom i know is pro-endo agrees with their bullshit

them saying endogenics have MADD and not plurality??? what the fuck lol

and more but im getting a headache scrolling through their blog lol

and yk maybe i am looking too hard into it but when we've had moments when we were fixated on cults (especially this one youtuber who talks about a certain cult a lot), comparing that to people going "hey maybe my perspective on life isnt the only perspective, science doesnt always account for personal perspective" and supporting endogenic systems is... weird.

yeah, sure there are a LOT of cult-like behaviors in certain endogenic groups, but to call the entire thing a cult is very strange, and honestly downplays the actual cult behaviors in the sub-groups which should be talked about.

but me saying "hey maybe plurality isn't inherently a disordered experience" isn't fucking cult-behavior! at least compare this shit to the BITE model or SOMETHING lol

Thanks for the rundown!

they think being pro-endos are brainwashed and programmed to believe a certain "niche" way of thinking, which is really really silly when the "way of thinking" is "hey maybe there are other ways of being more than one person other than trauma"

Another thing that bothers me about this is that by this logic, any belief that's not mainstream could be considered a cult. That includes a ton of smaller religions. It could even include the MOGAI community, since xenogenders are still pretty niche themselves.

And I too am SO curious where their endogenic demographics come from! It sounds like they just made them up.

them saying endogenics have MADD and not plurality??? what the fuck lol

I've seen this take several times, and it's just total medical misinformation.

If you have daydream characters with a will of their own who takeover your body, those aren't just daydream characters. Switching is not a normal symptom of MADD. (Although MADD is often related to plurality.)

[oddogoblino]

talk at me !!!! tell me abt ur stuff !!!! au, oc, you pick !!!! (i dont..... remembr any of them rn. so you pick one !!!!!! :D )

Hmmm, I'll talk to youuu about Prince! My theater oc for FNAF!

Long post warning

The Galactical Prince is the remains of a scrapped project that are intended to be reused. Since the DCA are no longer being used for the theater and people reported the kids enjoying the more interactive things than just playing movies constantly, Fazco (forgot the actual name so i hope i got that right) decided to collab with one of their sponsors!

The sponsor in question was a different brand itself called Glitters&Golds , which currently were making a cartoon series called Erractic Galactic that Fazco was playing in the theater & other tvs before they'd made their collab project. The show would become more popularly sought out by kids than Fazco's own fazbear cartoon for the glamrocks. This is why they tried to collab, to bring in more kids who liked the cartoon.

☆☆☆☆☆

The show starred a character called Prince Beau, the Galactical Prince and hero of the show, alongside his elderly parents The King and Queen, his friendly rival Knight Argus, his calm yet powerful love interest Princess Amelia, and the antagonist Pitch Jester!

Series followed Beau's adventures and battles across space as Pitch always tried to destroy and take over the universe, including running gags of Amelia occasionally escaping before Beau even gets there, Beau being mistaken for a girl, Beau being afraid of sudden noises, Argus never being able to catch Beau...or maybe he chooses not to, The King&Queen never helping Beau, and Pitch always losing in crazy ways.

The episodes always ended with Beau getting a kiss on the cheek and falling over.

☆☆☆☆☆

The project's plan was to remodel the theater off Erractic Galactic, make the characters into animatronics, and make few plays to go with them. Problems occured though as they made changes to the show's story and characters too much.

The creator of the show, having spent her time making sure the robots were perfect while faz corp wrote what it wanted, was offended by the ideas they had and - after much arguing, the creator of the show pulled the plug on the project but allowed them to work with whatever was already finished.

Prince was the only complete animatronic, already tested and functioning. Though due to neither the theater being ready for his act and his gang not being complete, they instead focused on first trying to train his personality with some of his parts of the play, a select few cartoon episodes, and basic childcare training so he could fulfill his purpose of playing dress up and interactive-performance based entertainment.

He's complete..kinda. He didnt get taught what his name was or what the others were named, but since the project isnt finished and the theater is being redecorated, the theater is left temporarily closed and the shows are played in party rooms and or in the daycare instead.

☆☆☆☆☆

Currently, Prince has been locked in the theater in general for 3 whole months. His only sources of socialization are staff members who cant let him out, and watching Sun interact and play with children from behind barely opened cracks of the new theater doors. The loneliness is getting to him but at least he doesn't have any viruses or program issues....right?

[currentfandomkick]

Reblogging here as too out of it to tag atm

Danny knew he was doing great—hell, he gets to present his last project for mechanical engineering before he can refocus on making robots programmed to help during crises for medical, evacuation and environmental clean up while being tailored to local needs.

Problem: the team he’s supervising is going on a mission mid-presentation that he cannot reschedule… and none of the others in the JL have offered to cover for him.

Why they keep trying to make Captain Marvel handle it is beyond him—he’s a member of the young justice team because he’s a kid. He’s thirteen now, sure, but he’s still a kid.

And while he loves his truama-bonded gremlins—Bart holding a special place in his heart—he is putting his foot down on sending his feral mentees out without some adult back-up.

“Hey, Canary? Can i talk to you for a minute?”

He noticed since Red Arrow’s relapse a year ago, she’d been the most responsive to his concerns regarding his kids.

“Sure thing, just let me wrap up this report.”

Danny waited. Once she was done, they moved to one of the private conference rooms.

“So, i know my team is scheduled for that raid on the Light next week, and i know its on the schedule that I can’t attend,” he began.

Canary nodded along.

“Is there a reason why another mentor wasn’t assigned?”

She paused at that.

“Another mentor—Captain Marvel is going to be there, so you don’t need to worry Phantom.”

“I kind of do, since he’s got a lot on the civilian side coming up with him finally starting high school a week after the raid.”

Canary froze.

“He what.”

Danny paused. “He’s starting high school—he’s one of the youngest on the team developmentally speaking, even if he got a weird aging side affect to his powers too.”

Canary nodded slowly. “I’ll speak with Batman to get that covered and uh, out of curiosity, what’s your presentation on?”

“Oh! I finished proving the viability of ectoplasm from the Realms being a reusable energy source, and a way to enable a degree of autonomous sentience to technology that can be given different pre-dispositions. its costs benefit analysis to use including maintenance factors, since I passed the biochem minor last semester.”

“College then,” Canary guessed, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Graduate school with a major in mechanical engineering and minors in bio-chem and environmental studies—took years to get back into school after dropping out as a junior during way too many timestream adventures. Why?”

Canary paled. “No Reason. Excuse me.”

She left.

Danny frowned.

—

“Ollie, get Bruce’s ass over here for a meeting. Now.”

“Did something happen with Phantom?”

“Ollie. He’s in grad school, and had ‘timeline adventures. And Marvel’s just starting high school apparently.”

Oliver dropped his phone. “He, he what?”

“Exactly. So, get your bestie’s ass over here as we were all thrown for a loop or he let things go along this far for over a year.”

—-

Billy was a little thrown when the JL called him in. He’s pretty sure he and Danny have done a great job publicly keeping up the ageless champion image as Captain Marvel.

The team was oddly silent as he walked in, except for plastic man doing his usual Bit.

One day he hopes he can be as good an actor as Plas—he’s still not sure why so many don’t remember hiw little he needs to regenerate from or how capable he really is.

“Cap, take a seat,” Flash offered, pulling put his chair before settling back into his own, room still too quiet.

Serious conversation… great.

“Thanks,” he smiled. “Now, what’s the emergency meeting for?”

“You’re not in high school yet,” Green Arrow began. “And Phantom is a graduate student?”

Billy didnt see the issue. “Starting a week after the mission, and Phantom’s graduating a week or so after—year thrown by rouge attacks at his school,” He explained.

Batman hrm’d at that. “It was shut down for a few months.”

Billy nodded.

“You, you are a kid,” one of the lanterns began slowly.

“Well yeah, isnt that why you put me on the team with Phantom? He’s been mentoring me since we met and clocked everything. Why else would we be on Young Justice together?”

The room exploded into a cacophony of sound.

I need a Misunderstanding trope where Phantom is put with one of the ‘kid’ groups because everyone assumes he’s a teen, but Phantom (he’s, like, 28) thinks he’s just like… co-managing/supervising the group with another Justice League member.

Asked if he’s in school thinking high school? He says yes, thinking of college where he’s going for his graduate degree. His grumbles over homework and time management skills cements it.

ICE contact? Frostbite. Yeah, that’s really his name. (Jazz talked him out of putting her because if it’s an emergency then they likely need medical history and support.) Here’s a device to actually reach him. His parents? Uhhh, nah, I would put my sister second.

It just goes on.

The guy snarks, puns, and throws jokes, clearly up-to-date with internet culture. He’s a casual dude, loves video games, burgers, and space. He’s kinda short and a little lanky, but he’s stupid strong (like he both forgets he is strong and doesn’t know his strength at times).

Phantom’s checking all the boxes as a teen hero both visually and on vibes with the League so they put him there. Danny’s touched that they think he’s responsible enough to put him in charge of the kids, so he does his best.

(Batman finds out about the appointment after it’s approved, but before he says anything he sees how much the teens open up around Phantom and… well… if they didn’t do their homework to see that the Phantom persona has been active for 14 years with pop-ups through history then that’s not really his problem, is it? He might miss that Phantom doesn’t realise this for a while…whoops.)

[xxxjarchiexxx]

the amount that life has been almost the same even not looking at international borders just in day to day life under biden vs under trump is insane actually. there are some things that genuinely are better under biden but they're like. Teenie parts of bigger issues where the bigger issue has stayed the same or gotten worse.

like, while ICE deportations have dipped like A LOT (like, seriously, so much, way more than expected and , in 2021, the lowest it had been in almost 20 years) the border wall has also extended. or like, while biden signed in a huge act to subsidize green energy, carbon emissions raised 8% from the end of 2020 to the end of 2022. or like how while the unemployment rate is around the pre-covid numbers as of 2022, but also in 2022 inflation peaked and is projected to stay above trump-era numbers for a couple more years while the rate of wage increase has stayed the same. biden introduced the save program to student loan repayments, but also unpaused them and didn't cancel them as promised (allegedly, he tried, but he could just sign an executive order, right?). he introduced stimulus checks and increased unemployment insurance during the pandemic, but also dropped all other policies to help protect the immunocompromised.

that doesnt even touch on stuff that only got worse. police brutality didn't change rates at all and in fact peaked in 2022 for the decade, including officers with MULTIPLE MURDERS UNDER THEIR BELT. trans conversion therapy laws passed nationally and it seems all we got was a tweet. 14 pipelines were built in 2021 alone, including one through a graveyard. hate crimes have increased since 2019, with them breaking 5 figures consistently since 2021.

and all of that is just domestic issues, not looking at how his international policy is using ukranian civilians to fight a proxy war by funding zelensky with little aid to civilians. and sending billions of dollars and bombs to israel to let it continue to serve as a genocidal us middle east military base with a kippah on. and funding the violent egyptian government who have am abysmal human right record. and deporting haitian refugees. and deciding the ethiopian government is no longer committing human rights violations despite their continuing ethnic cleansing.

so people can't say im focusing on the bad, i think his bill to extend power and internet and clean water infrastructure to rural communities was good. i also think introducing a cap on the maximum amount spent on meds under medicare was good. i also read that the percentage of people without health insurance hit a record low in 2022. violent crime levels also are somewhat lower than they were in 2020, though still higher than pre-2020 by a LOT. one goodish international thing was withdrawing from afghanistan (though it was. Poorly done, but it happened!).

i do genuinely mean that the good things that also got worse in the first part of this post are good too, the reduced ice deportations and stimulus checks and the save plan have legit made my life better and safer. but all the bad is there too and is bigger and more material than the good, if we're honest (aside from the ice deportations, honestly, because a lot of undocumented immigrants don't enter illegally so the wall is largely a disgusting a symbol, i think? i could be misinformed there, though).

i just. Idk if all that, even if you don't care about all the international human rights violations, don't make you want to at least threaten to not vote OR AT LEAST UNDERSTAND WHY SOMEONE MIGHT NOT i am not sure what to tell you, genuinely.

THIS ISNT SUPER WELL RESEARCHED, MY SOURCES ARE MAINLY FBI WEBSITE, STATISTICA, AND HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

[banana-boots]

i should not be allowed to name things. some highlights from my collection of bad 3d models:

l e a f

c u b e

trans chaos

uwu

wall

prop modelling challenge

prop modelling challenge new

prop modelling challenge newer

bread falling over

SkinnyGuy

balls

[fruitycircus]

ok quick rundown of my take of that laserblast & venomous are brothers au i drew earlier. ill probably revise this later with images & junk but im just gonna go through it now and update later.

it also might be nice to mention that this was based on my own speculation of the connection between lb & pv back in 2019, all pre-big reveal & lets get shadowy

soo laserblast and later venomous were born between two heroes in neo riot city (im not sure if id get into the parents but id say one was human and the other some type of lizard/snake mutant) laser got his folk's powers and good looks, and venomous didn't, tho he did recieve some mutant traits including always being ourple.

fast forward a couple years to when POINT has been a solid team for a while now with laserblast himself, foxtail, and dr. greyman, and also silverspark, el bow, and rippy roo a bit later. venomous had been offered to enroll in POINT prep so he could join the team by his big brother, but as of right now venomous holds it off and says he's busy with his own personal studies, all of which are based on glorbs (like what theyre made of, if they can be modified wink wink nudge nudge, etc) but he is able to take on the offer. he currently studies in a separate building disguised as a common shop winkity wink wink. tho he admits its a tad bit suspicious, ven claims that he means no harm and just uses the building as a controlled work zone for his projects. only he and laser know about this location, and ven says he doesnt trust POINT with this information but plans to tell them when he can confirm his tests are stable and safe to use. he also recently aquired a test rat from a science program that "re-inhabits" lost critters for the sake of science. although ven just didnt have the heart to use her for his projects, thus she treats her more like a pet / friend / child and names her fink

now would also be a good time to mention laser & ven's own issues; laser's is unchanged from canon (abt him feeling that his powers are mid compared to his team and how he felt like he couldnt be himself even with his girlfriend carol and what he was capable for doing compared to her.) ven, although content with his complete lack of powers, struggles with being seen. his brother is the laserblast for crying out loud, he often feels overshadowed and/or just known as laserblast's sibling. he wants to make a name for himself with his own passion. yeah, being offered to possibly join POINT is an amazing opportunity, but ven isnt sure if huge superhero teams are his calling. all he knows that science is something he likes but is unsure if his current experiments are something he'll do forever. he wants a life that he doesnt have and an opportunity that doesnt exist...yet!

anyways, ven and fink goes out into the city to get more supplies for his experiments, but while he was gone greyman enters the "donut shop" and then its all downhill from here: greyman alerts the team of a possibly villain living there (again, laser was the only one who knew that ven was doing this), foxtails sends laser, silverspark, and el bow to investigate, laser offers to "check the perimeter" and tries to cover up his brother's work, which all leads up to the sandwich incident where laserblast is presummed to be shrunk or teleported or whatever. POINT recieves the news and his heartbroken about the loss of their beloved hero... but we all know he survived by escaping into a sewer pipe and left the scene.

the next morning, laser tries to go back to the surface and explain everything to the team but is confronted by ven. he doesnt know how to feel knowing his life work was destroyed, why laser almost abandoned his team / girlfriend in the moment, or just really what laserblast was thinking. laser and ven squabble for a moment until laser straight up tells ven to confirm that he is dead and isnt coming back, and then leave. ven assumes hes bluffing and waits...and waits...and...uh oh.

a few weeks pass and POINT is nearly in shambles. el bow was fired since he was blamed for laser's disappearance, rippy roo starts looking into atomic physics, greyman starts building chip damage, and carol is confirmed to be pregnant with laser's baby. during all of this, ven tries to contact POINT about the truth about the sandwich incident, but no one is able to give him the time of day to listen. this breaks him to bits, he knew POINT didnt know him that well, but they were just straight up ignoring him now. he felt so powerless knowing that his brother was alive and probably wouldnt bother coming up after what he (and carol) said. what was ven supposed to do without his big brother in the w-

wait a minute!

ven has an epiphany: with his brother no longer a thing, he's no longer in laser's shadow and could do whatever he wanted to now!! sure its grim, but its true. POINT never gave a second thought about him so its not like they'd reach out now! and soon enough venomous started studying bioengineering and making various projects and weapons and even begins working with glorbs again, although rather than just studying them he dives deeper into their effects and how they can be used a power supplies, both as actual energy and powerups for heroes. he also invents what would be the turbo collar, to which he gives to his daughter / now (maybe-self-proclaimed?) minion fink!! however, a problem did arise: no hero was willing to buy his projects feeling as if they were made with ill intent. some villains did reach out to purchase and although ven was skeptical they sure did pay a pretty peny for it, not to mention he did realize that he had some sharing ideals with them, and before everyone knew in ven broke into the villain market and became who we know today as professor venomous. sometimes he missies his brother, but he now considers it a lost cause and not much we can do about it today. from here on out everything about him lines up to the show's events (we're captured, villains night out/in, etc)

on a more somber note, laser stayed under the city weeping about being far weaker than he was before. he begins physically deteriorating into something he could even reconinze. but even at his lowest point, he refused to give up. he needed his powers back and then sum. he wants his old life back to the way everything was. he remebered some of his bro's studies about glorbs, but only the results of each experiment. he had to learn how to reverse engineer it all by himself, and thats what he set himself to do. but how was he supposed to get glorbs? steal them? well, yeah, i guess. and thus changed lase- no, shadowy figure's trajectory and goal. he travels though the city system to steal glorbs from various hideouts, stores, etc. and once the city ran dry, he jumped to the next town over and rinse and repeat until he went to lakewood plaza turbo, home of the elusive glorb tree which would of gave shadowy an almost lifetime supply of glorbs for him. when we wasn't stalking to plaza and being a creep, he was working with the glorbs he stole to make them regain his original powers and more permanently.

the thing is, he actually did have a power that survived. y'know that purple depower bubble TKO can make?? yeah, shadowy is completely immune to that. you cant mess with something that isnt there. it might seem usless considering not many heroes possess that type of power, but it sure can come in handy when your son, specifically his evil alter ego, tries to attack.

aaaand thats it!! ill probably have to look back at this later but for know here it is in all of its angst-fueled glory. moral of the story? you can both be the evil twin. ty and goodnight!!!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Aspiration's comprehensively deceptive greenwashing

It’s impossible to miss Aspiration’s star-studded marketing blitz, in which a succession of A-listers promise you that you can save the planet by switching credit-cards (“Do good. Do well.”). They’re emblematic of the promise of green capitalism, the idea that climate emergency is about a slight misconfiguration of the profit motive and the finance sector.

If that’s true, it’s great news for our species, our civilization and our planet. It would mean that we could head off the climate emergency with just a few tweaks to finance regulation, which is a much easier lift than transforming the whole economy. Even if you hate capitalism, it’d be great if saving the world could be decoupled from ending the finance sector, because doing the former would give you more time to accomplish the latter.

But if it’s possible to “do well and do good,” you wouldn’t know it from Aspiration. From top to bottom, the company is a swamp of deception, omissions, and greenwashing. For a comprehensive breakdown of the Aspiration scam, look to Carson Kessler’s excellent Propublica investigation:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-celebrity-backed-green-fintech-company-that-isnt-as-green-as-it-seems

Take Aspiration’s tree-planting program. The company claims that it planted 35 million trees over the past year. But in its fine-print, it discloses that the 35m figure includes “the cumulative total of to-be planted trees.” This is a special accounting practice in which you blend imaginary accomplishments with real ones. The technical term for that accounting practice is “a lie.”

How many trees has Aspiration planted? Who the fuck knows. Aspiration says it’s 12 million, with the balance of those 35m trees residing in a to-be-planted limbo managed by the company’s “partners.”

So Kessler called those partners. One of them, Eden Reforestation, said the real number is 16 million (Aspiration is apparently a finance company that can’t count one of its key outputs within a 33.3% margin of error?). Another partner, Arbor Day Foundation, said it had planted a mere 6,000 trees for Aspiration, with no plans to plant any more. The third partner, “One Tree Planted” said the details of its single Aspiration project are a secret.

Secret trees.

Does it matter if the trees are secret? Well, only if you care about decarbonization. Not all tree-planting is created equal. For tree-planting to mitigate atmospheric carbon, there needs to be a 20-to-50-year plan to see that tree through to maturity. Planting a tree is cheap and easy. Growing a tree is hard and expensive. If Aspiration won’t tell us anything about the latter, we should wonder why.

Aspiration’s tree-planting program may not take up much carbon from the atmosphere, but it surely takes up a lot of cash from Aspiration customers. If you opt into Aspiration’s tree-planting program, the company rounds up your transactions and uses the balance to plant a tree. For example, if you charge a $4.23 sandwich to your Aspiration card, they’ll charge you $5, and use the $0.77 to plant a tree.

Here’s the thing. Planting a tree costs $0.10. Aspiration isn’t planting 7.7 trees with the $0.77 you handed it, it’s just planting one tree, and netting a 770% profit on the transaction. It says it puts the leftovers towards “administrative” costs, as well as “marketing, promotion, fees,” and “other conditional fees,” which is grifterspeak for “I put that money in my pocket.”

Now, it’s true that if you charge a $4.99 sandwich to your Aspiration card, they say they’ll plant a $0.10 tree and eat the $0.09 loss, but you can bet that the company has calculated that the majority of transactions go in its favor. Otherwise, they could just say, “We pool all the rounded-up change and plant trees with all of it.”

Aspiration’s other major enterprise is a “green” mutual fund, Redwood, part of the boom in “environmental, social and corporate governance” (ESG) funds that supposedly only invest in companies whose success doesn’t rely on rendering our planet uninhabitable. The median ESG is a total greenwashing scam and Redwood is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/24/greenwashing/#bargaining

Redwood invests in such “green” companies as Southwest Air, Linde (the company that supplies “Dryfrac” to frackers), MSA Safety (a major oil and gas supplier). Redwood’s daily operations are handled by UBS, one of the world’s premier financers of planet-destroying genocide-tech:

https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/bankingonclimatechange2020/

With all this shady garbage on the “doing good” side of its ledger, it won’t surprise you to learn that Aspiration’s “doing well” side is also a cesspool of fraud and deception.

Take the number of “members” the company claims: 5 million. You might be forgiven for thinking that “5 million members” is the same thing as “5 million customers.” It’s not. An Inspiration “member” is just someone who has clicked “I agree” on Aspiration’s terms and conditions, whether or not they actually opened an account. Aspiration has 592,148 customers — a figure that’s 90% smaller than the number of “members” it boasts about.

Despite this fraud, Aspiration is flying high. It’s about to go public via a SPAC that will put its valuation at $2.3b. That is an eye-popping valuation, but maybe all those bullshit trees, “green” investments in fossil fuel, and pocketed pennies justify it?

Oh hell no.

Aspiration claims to be “cash-flow positive” based on its “Adjusted EBITDAM.” That’s not a typo. EBITDA (“earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization”) is a normal accounting figure. “EBITDAM” includes marketing in that figure, which is not a normal accounting measurement. It is, in fact, bullshit.

And Aspiration spends a lot on marketing. $149m last year, if you believe its own numbers. That budget bought it celeb endorsements, and a 23-year sponsorship deal with the LA Clippers, including naming rights for the team’s new arena.

In other words, a money-hemorrhaging greenwashing turkey of a company that you’ve only ever heard of because it spends far more on marketing than it brings in says that its marketing budget isn’t relevant to how we calculate its earning potential. That’s like telling an Uber driver that the cost of gas has no impact on how much money they’ll net.

If you measure Aspiration based on EBITDAM (that is, the fraud metric), its 2021 takings will be $536,000. If you use EBITDA (the non-fraud metric), the number is negative $412,000,000.

Don’t worry, they’ll make it up in volume.

The company’s SPAC acquisition is a classic long-con blow-off, in which a $412,000,000 cash infusion is characterized as a “$2,300,000 deal.” The missing $1.8 billion is accounted for by something the company calls “implied equity value,’ which is a heterodox accounting term meaning “fraud.”

In other words, Aspiration’s got us coming and going. The cardholders who are letting the company keep the change from their transactions are getting secret, overcounted and likely useless trees. The suckers who put their savings into Aspiration’s mutuals in order to avoid being roasted alive by climate change are actually funding the fossil fuel industry. And the investors who piled into Aspiration did so on the basis of a shit-avalanche of material untruths, omissions and lies.

Those investors include such celebs as Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr. and Drake, which tells you that you shouldn’t trust A-listers with your retirement savings.

I’ll give the final word here to Aspiration CFO Rojeh Avanesian: “We believe EBITDAM to be the appropriate profitability metric for us to use given the historic growth opportunity and lifetime-value to acquisition-cost ratio that we are experiencing.”

Cool story, bro.

[asenvs3000w22]

Privilege + Nature Interpretation

Whether we realize it or not, privilege plays a big part in all of our experiences in life. Privilege refers to the certain social benefits an individual has by virtue of belonging to a certain group. For example, individuals in western scoeity that are typically recognized as being privileged include individuals who are white, wealthy or those who identify as male. As a south Asian woman, I’m automatically part of two minority groups in western society. However, there are a variety of other factors that make me privileged and have thus impacted my experiences relating to nature interpretation. For example, I am proficient in English, able bodied with no disabilities and health complications, of middle socioeconomic status, and have had the ability to get post-secondary education. Having adequate financial resources, means that I've been able to visits various natural attractions that many may not be able to afford. For example, I was able to take a week-long trip to the East Coast and visit various natural sites and attractions because I had the financial means to do so. During that trip, I was able to use my proficiency in English to ask people questions and to enhance my experience by being inquisitive. My post-secondary education thus far, has also provided me with the knowledge to be able to ask certain questions and think "outside the box".

“The Wheel of Privilege” From The CIHR Institute of Gender and Health 

Individuals that aren’t privy to the same level of privilege I have, may not know about interpretive opportunities, may not perceive the value in participating in them, or are willing to  participate but are unable to do so due to physical or social barriers. Physical barriers can include lack of transportation, or limited access to an area due to a disability. Physical barriers can be removed by making sure that parks and attractions are accessible for seniors, families, or those with disabilities. Free or discounted means of transportaion that is subsidized by the government is also a potential method of alleviating the barrier of transportaion. The social barrier is much more difficult to tackle and must be handled not from the point of view of wanting to coerce or indoctrinate an individual or group of individuals, but instead by helping to provide emotionally and intellectually meaningful experiences, that lead an individual to care about a place the context of their own values and understandings (Beck et al., 2019).This can be done by building universal concepts like family, beauty, friendship  into interpretation, to reach a wider and more culturally  diverse audience. Interpreters can also ensure that there isnt a communication barrier by providing pamphlets, and brochures that consist of a variety of languages or having an individual that is able to translate and cater to a specific population. For example, if an area is known to have a large East Asian population, languages of the region can be incorporated into the interpretative experience in the form of audio, video, and text or simply a diverse group of interpreters that are able to speak the language and bridge the gap in communication and even culture. Employing individuals of various backgrounds, is an important step in addressing the problem of inclusivity in nature interpretation. Many organizations are now specifically looking to employ individuals of marginalized groups to address the issue. For example, the Toronto Zoo has an internship program called “Building Leadership through Climate Action", that was specifically built to serve low-income, minority and Canadian youth aged 18 to 30. This program was developed to equip interns with a knowledge of climate change issues and actions they can take, by teaming them up with experts and Toronto Zoo staff. The interns would then be able to use this knowledge and experience to create projects that include connecting with visitors of the Toronto zoo at various exhibits, conducting field trips, and collaborating with community partners.

“Field trip” From The Toronto Zoo Website 

This is just one of the many examples of actions being taken by organizations to make these sorts of experiences more inclusive and diverse. However, I think we can still do so much more. Provincial parks and other natural attractions can start by acknowledging the privilege of their own existence and that they largely exist on stolen land that was once inhabited by indigenous people. They can also give back to indigenous communities by incorporating them into these experiences and letting them speak about their history and contributions to this country.

 A sacred site, known as “The Teaching Rocks” at  Petroglyphs Provincial Park. This is a prime example of how a provincial park is able to acknowledge its privilege by respecting indigenous culture and paying homage to it. 

From:  https://wanderingwagars.com/

Reference: 

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2019). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage: For A Better World. Redshelf eBook. Sagamore Publishing. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://platform.virdocs.com/r/s/0/doc/1948104/sp/245407251/mi/718086528?cfi=%2F4%2F4&menu=index.

[theaword2-0]

Thursday: Day 4 of LLC

I wont lie, the 100% money back guarantee if you get results with this program really motivates me to do my best. Im really happy that Rachael Attard includes that in her lean legs program. So far I have done...well...perfect, yet its only day 4 so hopefully i can keep this going!!! its definitely easier to eat better now that im single and also that my roommate isnt home. I guess when i live on my own ill be able to eat pretty amazingly!

20 minute run (140-150 BMP)= Complete

45 minute power walk (112-130BMP)= 10 minutes complete, 35 remaining = complete.

Okay guys...when I read in this program about walks I was thinking “oh sure like that will do anything” but holy fucking balls. To get my heart rate up high enough (I aim for 120-130) I have to walk as fast as my short little legs can possibly go. And I am DRENCHED in sweat by the time i get home. Seriously I’m showering twice a day now. My leg muscles are actually sore lol. And I have to listen to super fast paced EDM (140BPM playlist on Spotify) just to remember to keep pace. It’s awesome. I never thought walking could be a workout on flat ground! I’m so excited to see the results from this program.

Breakfast: chia seed pudding (not my favourite. id rather a shake)

Snack: Protein shake =_____

Lunch: my macro meal for cauliflower fried rice (too many allergens)

Dinner: beef stirfry=complete

Lets get er done.

Today was the first day I struggled. Not with food, I seem to be full forever these days from breakfast and I struggle eating all of my food, but I’ll keep at it. I struggled with my evening walk. I lost track of time on a project and it was 715pm and I hadn’t eaten dinner and I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to lay in bed at watch modern family and call it a day. But I remembered that I’ve already done four days perfectly, why would I stop now? So I said out loud “you can do this. Get out there.” And i stopped thinking, put my running shoes on and got it done . I’m going to go make a very late dinner then go to bed!

Day four complete☺️

[cancerbiophd]

Hi, first I just wanted to thank you for the time that you put into answering your asks (i've send a few myself) and it's always so helpfull. And second, I was diagnosted with fibromyalgia, and although my illness isnt impairing (yet) I'm afraid that when I apply for a masters, I won't be selected even with my good grades(80%) and shadowing experiences, or that people will think that I'm lying about my illness cause I can be competitve. Should inform the uni or just keep it to myself?

Hi there! Thank you for that kind and thoughtful message! I’m really glad to have been able to help you!

I’m so sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but I am so SO proud of you for still striving for your goals. I know you’re going to do many great things. 

As for mentioning your fibromyalgia in everything related to grad school (from apps to interviews to day-to-day grad life), you have the choice and the right to not talk about it if you don’t want to. Our health is part of our privacy, and sometimes that ain’t anyone else’s beeswax. 

If you do choose to mention it, know that schools can not legally (at least in the US) discriminate you based on your health. 

One reason why you may choose to talk about fibromyalgia may be to explain anything in your academic record or CV that the symptoms may have negatively affected, like grades or time away from school. Note that you don’t necessarily need to specifically say you have fibromyalgia; the term “chronic illness” is ok to use instead. And if you do go this route, you (and even a letter of rec writer) can follow that up with how you overcame or are learning how to overcome those obstacles. I think grad school admission committees would be understanding and impressed by your tenacity and personal growth. 

Related, you can go straight for the gusto and use the experience you have with living with fibromyalgia to illustrate how you overcame or are overcoming a challenge, which is a trait that grad app committees like to see in their recruits. I think the fact that you do have a strong academic record and well-rounded experiences can back up your points: “Look at how hard working I am despite my chronic illness! You want someone with this kind of grit and determination!” 

So basically: you don’t need to mention your fibromyalgia if you don’t want to, but if you do, you can focus on the positives. 

Going a little off topic, but I hope the programs you’re applying to will let you interview with potential PIs/mentors before you decide on one. That way, you can ask them what their policies are on students taking time off for health reasons. If they seem kind and understanding about it, then that’ll be a good mentor to have. If they’re absolute workaholics who treat their grad students like robots and not human beings, then they may not be the best (for anyone, really, chronic illness or no). 

Here’s a really great reddit thread on grad students talking about managing chronic illness in grad school including this fantastic response by a user who’s a professor in psychology (or at least their description says so). They kinda reiterate what I’ve talked about (but in a more eloquent way), and it’s nice to hear it from a professor:

Congrats on accumulating such an impressive record - you should definitely be a competitive applicant. I think it's quite possible to be successful in graduate school despite your illnesses. However, when you are considering programs, you will need to play close attention to the department culture and your prospective advisor's personality. You will need someone who is willing to be flexible with you, so talk with current students and probe about whether or not each prospective advisor is supportive, reasonable, and stable when you do your campus visits. I would not disclose your conditions in your application materials or during your interviews; hold this information back until you receive an offer, and then have a candid discussion with students and your prospective advisor. At that point, be clear with your advisor how you manage your condition and how your medical treatment regimen might sometimes impact your ability to work, and carefully observe how s/he reacts. It's a huge red flag if anyone gets bent out of shape about this.

You should also look into student medical insurance when you apply. Schools vary in the quality of the coverage available to grad students, and programs vary in the proportion of the cost that falls to the student to cover.

Overall, remember that your health comes first. Moving toward degree completion at a slower pace is a totally viable option if it helps you manage your condition, so ease back into school and don't overcommit to projects right away!

They advise not to talk about one’s chronic illness in applications and interviews, but that choice is still up to you and your comfort level. 

I hope this helps! Best of luck on your apps and the whole process, and know that no matter what happens, I’m so freakin proud of you and you inspire me!

(If anyone has anything else to add, please do!!)

[undiagnosedautismfeels]

Not A Feel / Questions

- I’m doing this research project for my bac program and it’s so damn exhausting but at the same time I’m LIVING for it. I’m being handed time to research and educate others on something that I really care about and as much as it’s exhausting, I get to infodump about this subject to everyone around me and for once the adults in my life are actually encouraging me to do it instead of yelling at me for ranting about things that I’m interested in. 1/?

And I’ve been given the chance to take the research I’ve done I this particular topic to the highest levels of my school council and tell them all about this random thing that I’m really interested in. Idk where this is going I’m just really happy about being able to do something I care about in school for once and being encouraged to do it by everyone. 2/2

Wow that’s really cool! I’m glad you’ve gotten that opportunity!

- Are there people with sensory processing disorder who aren’t autistic? I definitely have spd and I think I’m autistic but I’m having trouble telling. Like, I know people say autistic people experience it’s different symptoms on a spectrum, and since I exhibit a few of the characteristics strongly does that mean yeah, I’m autistic? I can’t exactly understand what people mean by the spectrum thing. Thank ya!

SPD is its own diagnosis, though it commonly occurs alongside neurodevelopmental disorders (asd/adhd).

“Autism is known as a “spectrum” disorder because there is wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people experience. [. . .] Using the previous version of the DSM, people could be diagnosed with one of several separate conditions: Autistic disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). In the current revised version of the DSM (the DSM-5), these separate conditions have been combined into one diagnosis called “autism spectrum disorder.” - [source]

- Can it be possible for you too never experience a burnout (until like a specific time in your life?) I'm pretty sure I've never had a burnout before, but I got into a depressive slump last year after my first breakup & am now wondering if what I was experiencing was a burnout because I was struggling to regulate my emotions while school was happening and all of that. (🐇🍰)

Not everyone experiences burnout. Burnout generally happens when you push yourself past your limits for an extended period of time. It can manifest as a depressive episode but honestly... That could have just been a normal depressive episode caused by the breakup. That’s a pretty normal reaction to relationships ending.

- I hope it's okay for me to ask this: How does one broach the subject of possibly being autistic at nineteen with an ignorant parent who has anger issues? I'm scared to do so, but I feel it's necessary to continue having even close to a healthy relationship with said parent.... (If it isnt taken: ✨🐰)

I can’t tell you that my dude. I can give generic advice, and I have done in the past, but I really don’t want to risk giving you advice that turns out bad and putting you in a dangerous situation.

- Ok so I usually have problems cleaning my teeth because every toothpaste is super minty or acid. Do you know any solution that could work with this? -🎮💊

Try using kids toothpaste; you can get less intense flavours.

- Iiaat to always forget to say hi? People think I'm rude but it doesn't come natural to me. I also have a hard time sounding genuine. I've been thinking that I might be autistic for 2 years now, even my parents and a friend of mine recognized that I have autistic traits, but I'm still not sure because I don't have some of the traits that are considered to be the most common among autistic people, like meltdowns.

Not understanding social cues can include not following typical conversational rules, which can come across as being bad mannered. So yeah, it could be related to autism.

- Iiaat to be able to read and empathize more with cartoon characters than real people?

Yeah that’s incredibly common. There’s a reason that autistic people are more likely to class themselves as otherkin/fictionkin; we find it easier to connect to and understand fictional characters.