Random Assortment of Interests

Including but not limited to; musicals, writing, star wars, hozier, buzzfeed unsolved, etc.

[katelyn-danger]

There's a heatwave happening in the Europe right now. 18 people have already died in France. I was looking into air conditioners for a friend of mine who lives in the UK, and I saw a shockingly low number of actual air conditioners on sale, and a shockingly high number of "Evaporative Coolers" on offer. They're also sometimes called "Swamp Coolers".

DO NOT BUY THESE DEVICES.

These types of coolers work by blowing air over cold water or ice, and while they can produce a slight, localized cooling effect, they also increase the humidity in the air. At 40C (104F), a 40% humidity will feel like 48C (119F). 50% humidity will feel like 55C (131F).

[mountains-of-destiny]

Evaporative/Swamp Coolers only work if it is really dry. Like desert dry. And even then it's only effective up into the 90s (my personal opinion). Any higher and it doesn't do much.

[faerings-dreamscape]

[aprilbrowines]

THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!

KOSA IS MOVING FORWARD IN THE HOUSE!

It's part of a package called the KIDS Act, filled with digital ID and age verification and censorship!

MAKE THOSE PHONES RING!! CALL YOUR HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES ALL WEEK

202-224-3121 i HIGHLY encourage everyone to read the bills in the KIDS Act, because you will be doing more than 95% of people who read and introduce these bills

[thisrobothasnosoul]

Bad Internet Bills

All of the bad internet bills. One website.

[dragon-hoard]

if you are going to need some kind of sedative for 4th of july fireworks for your pets NOW IS THE TIME TO SCHEDULE THOSE APPOINTMENTS TO ASK FOR THEM

NOT WHEN ITS 2 DAYS AWAY

[alex51324]

I feel like to really get this circulating as it should, we need it superimposed over the picture of the turkey going in the fridge. (I can't do it I'm on my phone.)

[amaditalks]

[figtreeandvine]

With the 250th anniversary it's likely to be especially bad this year!

[insecuregodcomplex]

[goth-queen]

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[userfish]

this pride month we’re all going to be radically pro transgender. or else.

[userfish]

hey so this means radically pro ALL transgender. don’t put limitations on this. all trans people are radically accepted here.

[corvidcall]

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

[o0fyuu0o]

Saw these easy to read instructions on Twitter. Stay safe 💚

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Great time to start pricing this out by the way, fire season starts… on the summer solstice this year, that’s fun. Signs point to it being a doozy.

[this-is-trans-joy]

everyone loves to hate terfs until they realise that it actually entails rejecting bioessentialism entirely and then suddenly you’re “taking things too seriously” and you “don’t have a sense of humour” like i’m sorry but saying protect the dolls doesn’t make you immune to terfism it has seeped into every corner of mainstream feminism and unless you’re actively searching it out and checking your own biases you will always be at risk of sharing a space with terfs

[this-is-trans-joy]

“Only women can—” nope. “But all men—” nah. “The divine femininity of—” gonna stop you right there. “Everyone born ama—” if you finish that sentence I’ll kill you. “Men don’t experience—” you’re wrong. “Gender isn’t real but sex is imm—” *loud incorrect buzzer*

It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.

[grungekitty-77]

Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.

It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.

Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.

Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.

Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)

Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!

You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!

If you want it in a simple phrase:

You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.

[grungekitty-77]

Fun fact, that was literally what inspired me to make this post!

[cherryjuicegf]

when will my thesis defend me

[vulturevanity]

hate what people did to the dead dove tag

[vulturevanity]

mothers and fuckers of the jury. "Dead dove: do not eat" is a label on a bag in the fridge. It means "the content of this bag is exactly what is labeled". It does not mean "trigger warning uhhh something". In fact, it means the exact opposite of "trigger warning uhhh something", because you use it with other tags. You write a fucked up fic with extreme violence and gore, you tag it as "extreme violence", "gore" and you tag it with "dead dove: do not eat". You write a fic with emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation, you tag it with "emotional abuse", "gaslighting" and "dead dove: do not eat". You write a fic with your extremely niche kink that appeals to like 3 other people and may skeeve out the rest of the fandom, you tag that with your kink and "dead dove: do not eat". It's so people know you really mean the content warnings.

It's NOT a catch-all term for "uhhh this may be fucked idk". TAG YOUR SHIT GENEROUSLY.

[wine-dark-sky]

I was so scared they were heading for a romance subplot but congrats to Project Hail Mary for going for the far funnier option of 'Trolley Operator' and 'Guy She Is Actively Tying To The Tracks'. What a dynamic. Movie of the year.

[shamebats]

Dr. Alan Hart helped pioneer the use of chest X-rays to diagnose tuberculosis. Hart was married to a woman and practicing medicine in San Francisco in 1918 when he was outed as a trans man by a former colleague. Dr. Hart was chased out of town on the back of headlines like “Girl Poses as Male Doctor in Hospital" (he was not posing, of course) and spent much of his life moving from town to town to escape various forms of transphobia. Hart was also a novelist, and wrote of one of his characters, "When it came to outrunning gossip he found he couldn't do it," which was Hart's experience as well—he moved seven times in nine years all around the U.S. in search of safety, but it always proved fleeting. He did manage to get a graduate degree in radiology, though, and helped show how chest X-rays could show very early signs of tuberculosis, thus allowing patients the opportunity to rest and get adequate nutrition sooner, which contributed to better outcomes. Chest X-rays continue to be an essential diagnostic tool; mobile chest X-ray machines that can be carried via backpack now serve rural communities, so Hart's popularization of this diagnostic method continues to save lives.

From Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green.

[astriiformes]

While this is an excellent description of Dr. Hart's important contributions to medicine, and I certainly don't want to minimize the difficulties he faced as a trans man practicing medicine (the story about his being outed and forced to lease his hospital position as a result in 1918 is, of course, entirely true), I do want to jump in and say that his safety did not necessarily "always" prove fleeting!

While it's true that Hart was publicly outed once and moved all over the country for a while, by the time he died, he had served as the director of hospitalization and rehabilitation for the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission for over a decade. Nor was he exclusively hounded or excluded from society at home in Oregon, either -- there are regular mentions of him (under his chosen, male name, or occasionally simply as an "Albany man") and his second wife in his hometown newspaper, The Albany Democrat, throughout the 20s and 30s, reporting when they were in town for social visits, promoting his novels, and even reporting on his graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with his graduate degree. Nor does it seem most people saw him as a woman pretending to be a man for most of his life, despite the press his 1918 outing received -- a reviewer of one of his novels even once remarked that Dr. Hart, while a good writer, didn't seem to know much about women! (Having read a bit of Hart's fiction, I don't think this is true, but to each their own, I suppose)

I mention this because I think it's important to emphasize that trans people -- even trans people who have experienced dramatic setbacks in their lives, like Dr. Hart's 1918 outing -- have not only always existed, but always persisted through trouble and often managed to live very fulfilling lives that were not exclusively marred by transphobia. Nor did everyone around them feel that they were simply "posing" as their gender. Even in 1918, people in Hart's hometown expressed disgust at the way the press way treating the story, and the local newspaper did an exceptionally sympathetic interview with him that allowed him to express his own feelings on the situation and affirm that transitioning was the best choice he could have made! In fact, he was very clear he was not ashamed of his choices, saying:

In a time where transphobia is painfully on the rise, and a lot of trans people are fearing for their safety and livelihoods, it feels worth emphasizing that there has never been a time in history where we were exclusively hounded, or hated, and that bouncing back from traumas like forced outings was and is still possible. Dr. Alan Hart dedicated his first novel to his mother, who spoke out in his defense after he was outed. His second wife established a medical research fund in his honor after he died. Despite setbacks, he was ultimately successful in his field, and clearly very loved. And that's important.

[writingwithfolklore]

Writing Resources to use instead of AI

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

(will update this list with any more suggestions or resources I discover 😊)

[just-a-readthrough]

A great resource

[evergreen-femme]

im so fucking scared i'm going to throw up. its not just the court decision. read this, if you dare.

Anti-trans hate groups petitioning FDA for registry of trans women, crackdown on transition, newly revealed document shows

In the short term, this is not as dangerous as an outright ban on estrogen. If implemented and then combined with other methods of suppressi

[yet-another-heathen]

Unlike the vast majority of anti-trans legislation, hate groups are attempting to pass these restrictions without the public at large knowing they exist. This secrecy is far more insidious, and needs to be immediately addressed.

If you want to help, the two things that will make the most impact are SPREADING AWARENESS, and participating in PUBLIC COMMENT while it is still open.

‼️LINK TO FDA COMMENT PAGE‼️

Document: FDA-2025-P-7321

As of the time this article was written, ALL public comments were from hate groups in support of this registry. Every single comment in opposition will help.

Disclaimer: This article is very guilty of intersex erasure, despite the fact that intersex people of all ages would be affected by these regulations the same way trans women are. However, as this is the most comprehensive and direct article currently available, it should still be widely distributed, for the sake of trans women, nonbinary people, and intersex people who will all be affected should it pass.

[ouppygirlcity]

I did my comment, and you should to! Be advised that when making a comment like this on a proposed regulation, the depth of your statement does matter. I strongly encourage you to take the time to read this article to get informed on what this proposal entails, and write a detailed response concerning one or two aspects that you believe you can write cohesively about and prepare a sensible counter-argument; try to draw from other sources if you can, even if you're just quoting other articles in support and in defense of HRT and transfeminism. I encourage everyone to review this official list of what they're expecting from a quality comment.

Remember, all public comments may have been from this hate campaign at the time of posting, but it was only 60. I know plenty of Discord servers bigger than that, let's show that we outnumber this hate and that we're gonna outlive this nightmare.