ashes and dust

niki. verified bitch. fandom and shit.

[leolaroot]

a kitty is like a stuffed animal that is so heavy and it bite you and she loves you so much and you're best friends

[basuralindo]

So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.

[basuralindo]

Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)

[basuralindo]

ACTUAL (partial) UPDATE:

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.

[basuralindo]

Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace

[basuralindo]

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

via @kagaminilen

[mysteryteacup]

[cut to a kiosk on legs, sipping a boba, while wandering into the nearest forest on chicken legs]

[ardanelvilyafeanturi]

Here you go @a-bit-too-dyscrasic

[a-bit-too-dyscrasic]

Oh my goodness you're my hero this is so beautiful

[basuralindo]

Holy fuck my job got fan art

[asexualbookbird]

hey. is this yours?

[basuralindo]

HOLY SHIT

[alphacrone]

i don't really want to weight in on the "using big words in your writing is ableist" discourse happening on tiktok because i'm like 90% certain it's an anti-intellectual psyop to stir up drama in online circles to promote the use of ai to summarize literally everything and thus feeding the LLMs and lowering the populace's mistrust of such tools but i also have to say: dictionaries and thesauruses are the most accessible they've ever been. if you use an e-reader of any kind you can look up a word without leaving the page. there's a plethora of online dictionaries and if you just type a word + "meaning" into google it'll usually give you a definition. we used to have pocket dictionaries we used when reading in class. i have two on my shelf right now that i used in high school. stop letting the fascists purposefully misuse anti-ableism rhetoric to trick you into never thinking again.

[femmepathy]

obsessed with the guy sitting next to me on the bus who i caught googling "what is commie dyke" after seeing my buttons

[omnipotina]

Settle a bet.

Who wins in a fight?

Kronk

Gaston

Voting ended onSep 7, 2023

[beemojis]

soooo true bestie

[wintermoth]

NO ONE GETS THEIR ASS BEAT IN A POLL LIKE GASTON

[iys-cloud]

I just got. The single funniest dm I've ever received in my entire life

Characters in media fighting back against the mind control:

[bff0f7]

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

[adamtheredbeard]

The full picture is even more heart breaking after you open the uncropped version. Just a heads-up, it's rough

“The Roman Catholic Parish in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was just grafitted.”

[afronerdism]

Nah let’s post it. Let’s feel it. Don’t look away.

[doobiebenson]

[butch-bakugo]

I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

They were murdered in cold blood.

[churchoftheconfusedchicken]

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

Reblog this or just stop following me

[ifiknewiwouldtellyou]

I had seen the first picture of the church, but not the second.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.

They were all children, injured, abused, and killed in my country’s attempt to erase them. I want the world to see this and hold the state accountable to *active* reconciliation> I mean we could at least truly adopt UNDRIP in action instead of words for god’s sake.

[gayvampyr]

here you can read an article about a survivor of the church and some of the things he experienced to help put into perspective how awful and just how recent it was

[nothingweirdhere]

this is the memorial at the vancouver art gallery. 215+ pairs of children’s shoes (as well as stuffed toys and flowers) cover the steps…

[spoekelse]

Value Pack

[laughconfetti]

no context needed

[audiobyte-moved]

peeing after robot sex so i dont get an hdmi

[oxidi]

[otterlyablog]

lets walk with gifmama

[amnesiaguy]

best m/f dynamic is a flamboyant bisexual show-off desperately in love with an extremely practical girl who’s difficult to impress 🤩

[varijacija]

[butchfriend]

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College

[cognitiveinequality]

[sturionic]

For anyone unfamiliar with Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the entire thesis is that traditional educational models promote oppression by removing students' agency in their own learning. Freire argues that currently education functions as a "banking model" - teachers are the holders of knowledge, and students are empty vessels, waiting to have that knowledge put into their heads like a piggy bank. This reinforces a passive attitude towards information, not seeking and understanding it on your own terms, but waiting for a "banker" to deposit it into your head.

Instead, Freire proposes that teachers and students act as co-creators of knowledge, where students become active participants in their own learning through questions and dialogue. Teachers are also open to changing their understanding of topics in the process of critical dialogue - the goal is not "student learns Fact A and memorizes it as presented," but instead the goal is the knowledge itself, discovered collaboratively by teacher and student, who are acting with empathy and respect towards each other. This also starts the process of the oppressed being able and empowered to question structures of power, take agency, and actively participate in the transformation of society.

So, the irony of writing an AI essay on critical pedagogy is actually insane; because it's essentially the extrapolated endpoint of Freire's arguments that our current educational system creates passive receptacles who not only can't think critically in an educational context, but also become the perfect citizens for a world that doesn't want us questioning structures of power, to view those in power as we viewed our teachers - deliverers of indisputable facts that must be memorized and regurgitated because they command it, and not co-creators of true understanding.

[lizardsfromspace]

People still doing "do you think voting can fix this" memes when the answer to the question "when did voting last end an authoritarian regime" is "two days ago"

[qqueenofhades]

Reblogged this earlier, but doing so again to add:

Hey we all remember 2020, right? When we voted out Donald Trump the first time??? That was a thing that happened a mere six years ago, and yes, America subsequently massively fucked it up and voted him back in, but we did remove him by voting once before.

Anyone also remember 2024, when Jair Bolsonaro was removed by voting in Brazil? And when he tried a coup, Brazil actually fucking punished him, disqualified him from running, and sent him to jail, instead of letting him off scot-free to do it again?

Also a spate of worldwide post-Trump elections, where the far-right wasn't in power per se but was gunning to be, and voting ensured they stayed out (2025 Moldova, 2025 Romania where massive protests annulled Russian meddling and forced a re-run where the pro-EU candidate won, 2025 Canada where the Conservatives lost after previously being up 20 points, 2025 Australia where the far right was just fuckin wiped out, 2025 Netherlands where Geert Wilders lost, AND SO FORTH).

And of course, the result referenced in the original post, 2026 Hungary where Viktor Fucking Orbán was removed by voting? Despite the massive structural hurdles facing the Hungarian voting public, far more than is the case in America even now?

(Lololol the Kremlin and Trump have immediately pivoted to "Orbán who? Never heard of him. Never knew him. Shh.")

Anti-voting has always been a deeply stupid ideology by people who want miraculous revolution to be suddenly achieved with no downsides and no widespread catastrophe, by doing nothing more than posting violent rhetoric online. Because they have no interest in actually doing the kind of hands-on, slow, systematic work that leads to positive social change in real life, and because they have no understanding of how anything actually works.

Relentless, hypocritical, purity-test politics are literally the best friend of authoritarians everywhere, because they ensure that liberal/left coalitions will never get their fucking act together long enough to put their weight behind the non-authoritarian candidate.

We've all said this before, but sometimes it bears restating.

Nobody has ever suggested that social change can be achieved solely by voting in decent or lesser-evil candidates. Voting is one tiny part of that effort. "Oh so you just want us to vote and do nothing else??" No. No, nobody has ever said that. You can and you should do a lot more than that: protest, mutual aid, fundraising, organizing, pressure campaigns, community protection groups, literally whatever. You can and should continue to hound the politicians you voted for if they're not living up to their campaign promises, as long as you actually voted for them in the first place.

The end.

[loveridden1999]

bring back shame

[loveridden1999]

peer reviewed tags

[fox-bright]

The worst person you could ever meet in your lifetime still has a favorite breakfast cereal.

I knew a rapist who was an absolute ride-or-die friend to his gamer bros. Like, give the last dollar from his pocket to a friend who got a flat tire, and then turn around and go rape a Freshman that evening.

I knew a vicious child abuser who wept like a baby when her dog died.

The nastiest human being on the planet nevertheless feels obscurely melancholy sometimes, or has high spirits when they step out doors on the first warm day of spring, or has opinions on their favorite TV show and which side the toilet paper should hang on and whether or not the room should be cold or warm when you go to sleep.

We're all still just people. Complex, with fully-realized interior worlds.

None of that will save you from becoming a monster, if you decide to do monstrous things.

None of it makes you exempt from the consequences of monstrosity.

[409-conflict]

I cannot stop thinking about what a fucking year Ilya had in 2014

Putin warns gay people not to spread propaganda during Sochi Olympics

Every Western media outlet wants a sound bite from Ilya, a Russian superstar who’s lived in the West for five years, regarding the gay propaganda laws

Ilya has to thread the needle of neither denouncing or promoting Russia’s stance

Ilya leads the National Hockey Team to a demoralising crash out

The prettiest man in the world makes the unbelievably stupid decision that now is a good time and place to talk to each other in public for the first time ever

He is upbraided by his Papa

Sveta completely misreads what he needs, and he can’t even be mad about it because at least she’s trying

The Bolotnaya Square protesters are convicted

Russia moves troops into Crimea

He keeps frantically googling pictures of Shane in the middle of the night

Russian opposition leaders are detained

G8 suspends Russian membership

Boston makes the playoffs

The Russian government enacts laws tightening control of dissemination of information, categorising bloggers alongside journalists

The Donetsk and Luhansk referenda, unrecognised by the international community

Boston wins the Stanley Cup

Has panic attack in a bathroom, is immediately accused of being an asshole for arriving on time

Successfully convinces himself he’s capable of having sex with Shane without feelings, definitely doesn’t cry once he’s alone

Super super fun happy times summer with his ailing father

MH17 shot down by Russian-made missile

Russia hits back at sanctions by banning food imports, sends food prices soaring

Oil prices crash, halving Russia’s national budget

Foreign ownership in Russia media is capped

Has Totally No Strings No Feelings secret sex with Shane, everything is Chill

Russian financial crisis hits, prices of food up 40 to 50%, some KHL teams can’t even pay their players

And all throughout this, every time he opens Facebook he’s tagged in yet another hundred fucking ALS ice bucket challenges

[argillaforma]

shane: haha you played bad today mr hunter

scott: your breath smells like russian dick, whore