I have much lower tolerance these days. after 7 years of this specific type of nonsense, the arguments are so overcooked that they’re just rocks, & the people that parrot them are mostly trying to score points, not actually trying to communicate with me.

I pick my times to be kind and tolerant more carefully because i think most people’s hearts are less open than ever, and I can’t afford to waste my energy.

That said: i think most LGBTQ+ fandomgoers are potential allies whose disgust & fear has been used to turn them against their self-interest. Respectability politics puts intense pressure on us to conform to social norms in a futile attempt to gain acceptance & safety, especially now (November 2024). SWERFs got their claws deep with the ‘kink-critical’ BS, and removing them will be a long, arduous process.

Please bear this in mind. I’ll try, too.

This explains a lot about my lack of asking for help when I clearly need it

Don't forget the fact that asking for help carries the risk of someone expressing mild disappointment in your inabilities, which will cause you to shut down for 5 to 7 working days.

Also see: learning from a very young age that there's no point in asking for help because you should be able to do it on your own

Oh this is going around on more than one tumblr, huh!!

Well, good, I’m glad it’s helping my fellow ADHD ppl better understand why help is so hard

Ungentle reminder that if I were a disinformation tumblr account, what I'd be doing now is getting people on the left to blame other people on the left for this election outcome. Divided we are weak and unable to organize to protect each other and resist.

The Fascists won because there were a lot of fucking Fascists. Stop cannibalizing your allies and assign blame where it belongs.

What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did in 2024.

I started this project back in January and for most of a year, every week, I came up with the highlights of what the Biden-Harris Administration did. I did it because it felt to me our media and national conversion was broken, our government was doing huge things that it felt like almost no one knew about. It's amazing how often I struggled to find a single news source that wanted to cover a huge life changing project.

This is the last Friday before Election Day, and if you haven't already voted, take a minute to go back and look at the last 40 weeks, and decide, do you like these things or want literally the reverse on every issue.

Feel free to reblog this or go back and reblog a favorite, one that impacts your life or the one from the week of your birthday, whatever.

and remember to read past the headlines and dig to find out what your government is up to, it might shock you how much is happening that no one talks about.

Because I remember disinformation being spread around the last few elections and I’m sure assholes will bring it back:

‘Generative AI can’t make real art!’ I agree

But for commercial purposes, most people/companies aren’t looking for ‘real art.’ They’re looking for ‘content’ they can purchase at the lowest possible price point.

If they can get the Stolen Art Remix Machine to create that content, well. You can see where this is going

Art is about human connection. Commissioning art requires, at minimum, communication & collaboration.

You don’t even need that to commission the Stolen Art Remix Machine.

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

preserving @freedom-of-fanfic's tags

Thank you for preserving these!

Coming back to say: here’s some reasons to hold out against using generative AI as much as you can*.

On the ethics side:

On the labor side:

That last point is important to me bc if you won’t try to avoid using generative AI for the sake of the people whose work was stolen to train it, or for the environment, or for creatives getting financially squeezed by it … you should avoid it because it’s not going to be around forever.

On the economic side:

Outside of fandom, AI is getting rammed down our throats bc it’s all about profit. Generative AI is meant to steal what little profit artists still make commercially. Let’s not let it take up space in fandom, too!

I can’t force anyone to not use AI, of course, & I don’t expect ppl who already use it to respect any of my reasons to not use it. But i hope this post gives you some reasons to not use it.

*a lot of things are labeled ‘AI’ but aren’t really generative AI, & sometimes you can’t avoid using AI bc of work or something. But do your best, even if only for yourself.

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

Trump’s unidentified secret police force was not prepared to meet this guy.

He said in an interview that he shouldn’t have been surprised that they would have no respect for vets when they are gassing moms

Honorary Antifa Supersolider

In case you, a U.S. voter, were feeling iffy about voting for Kamala Harris, here’s a reminder of the shit that went down under Trump…

Yeah, remember when his administration SENT UNMARKED PARAMILITARY FORCES into cities to quell BLM protests? Not “riot police” - tactical, militarized units with identifying tags and numbers deliberately removed or obscured.

Oh shit…. you probably forgot about that, didn’t you? There was so much going on in 2020, it’s natural to block out stuff, but if you have the power and the privilege of voting in this year’s elections don’t you DARE allow this man back in office, especially when he is CURRENTLY saying stuff like this:

[x]

[x]

[x]

[x]

[x]

[x]

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION???

In case you were a kid in 2020 and protected from seeing what happened

You need to know what’s at stake here. This stuff? was a TEST RUN. Look up everything that happened those years. Everything you can find from 2016 and Standing Rock to 2020 and Black Lives Matter and the Riots and then look up Jan 6 and the attempted coup on our government.

THEN VOTE

People were dragged off the streets of Portland into unmarked vans by cops with covered badges. They might have just been random dudes dressed up like cops for all people knew. They were pretty much just randomly kidnapping people - people got dragged into those vans bc they were walking home from work vaguely near the protests.

Protesters were stalked on a regular basis.

A reporter got hit in the face with a rubber bullet and lost an eye. (Not in PDX, I forget what city that was in.)

@vaspider minneapolis. she went into hospice recently due to lasting complications.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Tirado

Oh, holy shit. I lost track of her after I left Twitter, I had no idea. Thank you for the information.

Fuck me running. Fuck.

this is real! you can fax, mail, or dropoff in person, but there is no provision for online registration.

TL;DR: The Texas government is trying to trick you into thinking you've registered to vote online when that's not possible.

This has not been circulated widely enough.

If you know someone in TX, pleeeeease make sure they see this.

What's so worrying about this is that it's specifically targeted at younger people.

Younger people statistically vote more liberal than conservative. By tricking younger and "more online than not" people into using a fake registration service, the state of TX makes sure that fewer liberal votes are counted.

we go through this every hurricane season but the way people will find any excuse to point the finger at the victims of natural disasters and say cruel shit like "fuck around and find out" like it's not horrifying having to leave behind your home and all your belongings and potentially your pets with the full knowledge that there might not be anything to come back to after... ignoring that there are people that don't have a car or the money to evacuate, ignoring disabled people who have no way to get out, ignoring people that can't find places for their pets to shelter, ignoring people that have medical equipment that can't be moved or replaced, etc... and even if someone stays behind solely because they want to, they still don't deserve to suffer.

as someone who worked extensively in disaster response previously, it is not easy to "just" evacuate, and the relief that comes afterwards is intentionally difficult to obtain. and already the forces that be are trying to spin this narrative that the victims are at fault, to put the blame on them so that if (probably when) people are forced to resort to looting (because the aid never comes) everyone will nod and agree that they're all bad people and deserved it... rather than acknowledging the fact that there was no attempt to make the evacuation accessible and safe for everyone, no guarantee that aid will be waiting for them when they return to a home that has been swept away... no empathy for the fact that these people's entire lives are potentially destroyed with no safety net to catch them.

now that we're starting to see the aftermath and damage done throughout southern appalachia in places like chimney rock (which does not have the infrastructure for this kind of natural disaster. the last time something comparable like this happened was the flood in 1916) please be ready to combat this victim-blaming narrative that will no doubt be weaponized against the people suffering here.

mudslides and flooding will continue even though the storm has passed, and this time following natural disasters like this is the hardest as more people are lost or left struggling without power, aid, or any way to contact help or family.

some places in NC are completely inaccessible, towns in appalachia have been completely wiped off the map. chimney rock and lake lure have been devastated. asheville is cut off and only accessible by air.

until the flooding recedes and power is reestablished, we're not going to know the true extent of the damage or how many people have been lost. there are people stranded right now without food or water or medical supplies and no way out. this is catastrophic. these next few days are going to be the hardest as people struggle to get aid with so many roads destroyed.

Devastating flooding in Appalachia - Appalachia Service Project (asphome.org)

CARE and partners are responding to families impacted by Hurricane Helene which landed in Florida as a Category 4 storm. | CARE.org

Donate – Mutual Aid Disaster Relief

Donate to the Florida Disaster Fund - Volunteer Florida

Help Erwin Heal: Support Flood Recovery Efforts | RISE Erwin

A little good news: the dam that overflowed (Lake Lure) is now considered stable and emergency repairs can commence. The dam did not fail.

But everything else that could fail has failed, and will continue to get worse before it gets better. Relief efforts & donations are invaluable.

Go to this link for ALL 50 States Boards Of Election's websites:tinyurl.com/NewGOTV2024 Check your registration and be sure to update it, if you see that you're not registered. DO IT! There WILL BE VOTER PURGING IN RED STATES. Stand your ground at the polls, if you are challenged by a "you're not on our registered voter list" nonsense. Demand a provisional ballot so that you can vote! Do not let your polling administrators give you a run-around. Once you've viewed and/or updated your registration on-line, Print screen or send a copy of the registration document from your phone to a printer! Take that printout with you when you go to vote, just in case. This especially matters if you live in a red state!

SIGNAL BOOST!

I know plenty of my followers couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Biden, & I’m sure many of you are on the fence about Harris. I respect that.

But no matter what other steps you’re taking to fight the fascist wave that’s trying to backlash us to 1850, ALSO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE IF YOU HAVE IT.

Vote down ballot. Vote for a write-in. Vote however you want. But VOTE.

ask yourself: why are ppl who are Trump-aligned in particular so hell-bent on taking away my chance to vote? Why do they want me to stay home so badly?

And then do the opposite of what they want. Because fuck that noise.

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

Holy shit, please reblog this. This is incredibly useful information! Paxlovid not only helps reduce the severity of covid but also goes a decent way to preventing long covid. I cannot stress this enough — even if you think this isn’t relevant to you because you’re perfectly healthy, you could get covid TOMORROW and permanently have long covid a month from today if you got unlucky.

And, of course, if you suspect you have covid, take a test or see a doctor ASAP. Paxlovid MUST be taken within the first five days of developing symptoms. The Paxcess copay card seems really easy and quick to fill out, though!