Please share if possible to raise awareness. Sorry if this is off topic.
There is currently extremely deadly flooding in West Africa.
This is in part due to climate change messing up the balance of the dry and rainy seasons.
The floods have a ripple effect and are also causing landslides and other disasters.
People have died, and will continue to do so.
Here are some news Articles:
The Guardian
RFI
The Sun Nigeria
PM News Nigeria
Here are some charities you can donate to to help:
Nigeria: The Borgen Project
Ghana: NADMO
Côte d'ivoire: Disaster Relief
Togo and Benin are also severely affected. Please consider donating if you’re able or helping spread the word.
I have a slightly longer post on my blog that I'll be updating if anyone needs more information.
Thank you for sharing! If you wanted to donate to a cause, consider one of these!
“Why don’t you use ai” idk man beyond the obvious environmental and “this machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselves” thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid
irritating as fuck when people get mad at Black people existing in premodern historical fiction/fantasy media. like first of all, you're racist. and second of all, you are acting as though Black people didn't exist in premodern Europe which is simply false. especially when we're talking about the Mediterranean, like what the fuck do you people think is along the southern half of the Mediterranean Ocean?? everyone's on boats, there are GOING to be interactions with Black people in Northern Africa, and there are GOING to be Black people in Mediterranean Europe. stop being stupid. your imagined homogeneous white European past is not historical reality, get over it you massive losers
Reblogging again now that Russell Brand's ugly mug is back in the news to remind everyone that in the 2023 Times expose on his abusive behaviour, Daniel Sloss was the only male comedian willing to be named and quoted like "yeah that dude's a scumbag and women have been warning each other about him for years."
i’ve started looking at weight and health the way i look at class and income and it really puts a lot of things into a new perspective.
let me explain: in america at least, the lower class have significantly worse health outcomes, even when accounting for other factors. just being poor is enough to make your overall health worse. we don’t know that being fat makes your health directly worse, like the data just isn’t there, but for a moment, pretend it does.
imagine going to the doctor with a health problem and the doctor looking at your chart and saying well, this problem will be less severe if you go up an income bracket. have you thought about becoming rich? it would really help. start by saving a little money every month.
ridiculous, right?? very few people successfully go from working class to rich, it just doesn’t happen on a large scale in society. maybe for a time you pick up some overtime hours, spend a little beyond your means, and appear rich. but eventually you burn out, your car needs to be repaired, and you return to being working class.
we do have this data: only some people can successfully lose large amounts of weight, and only a tiny fraction of people who lose that weight actually keep it off for more than a year. telling people to lose weight for their health is just absurd because they almost certainly can’t do it any more than they can double their income for their health.
and yet i see it everywhere. a little poster in my work breakroom tells me to improve my blood pressure by losing weight! a psa on the radio says you need to take care of your heart by losing weight! we can’t even conclusively prove that weight is the cause rather than just correlated with a lot of these problems but here it is offered anyway: have you tried being rich?
You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people tend to try and invalidate fatphobia as a form of oppression by saying its not an immutible quality like race or sexuality or gender. The old “you can lose weight, i can’t become white/straight/cis” argument.
That’s because fatphobia is a lot more like classism; i.e. it’s a form of bigotry that is only TECHNICALLY changeable. They’re both seen as a lot more changeable than they actually are, for all the reasons you’ve listed.
So I've seen a lot of weirdness in the HR fandom over the last few months, which I have tried to ignore, but one thing that always gets me is people who cannot fathom why someone would gravitate to Skip over Hollanov, and to Scott in particular. I get that everyone has their favs. However, I've also seen some people suggesting that Skip is "not really gay", or that it's aimed at straight men (??). So, as a gay Iraqi, who spent a solid 10 years in the closet out of genuine fear of persecution and homelessness, I thought I'd write a little about why Scott Hunter, specifically Francois Arnaud's interpretation of Scott Hunter, is so deeply meaningful to me and so many other gay men.
I am not going to deny it: Scott in the book is... nice enough, as Steve Rogers cutouts go, but a bit dull. Francois Arnaud's depiction of Scott in Heated Rivalry, however, is the single most accurate description, to me, of how it feels to be a more 'masculine' gay man in the closet. I am not an athlete (am chronically ill, in fact), nor am I an orphan, but even still, Scott Hunter is exactly who I have been.
One thing which I think is difficult to understand, unless you've been a closeted gay man, is just how toxic masculinity and homophobia intersect internally. It's not just about being afraid of your sexuality coming out: it's a fear of anything which could even tangentially seem gay. It's a constant internal struggle: you know you're not a real man (because you're gay, the worst thing you can be) but you also know that you want to be. You're not able to wear high heels and makeup and be friends with the girls, even if you want to (in my case, whilst I did want to and did eventually become friends with the girls, I never wanted to experiment with femininity in my personal appearance, though how much of that is socialised and how much of it I come by naturally, I don't know). Because those things look gay.
Every single thing you ever do - the way you look, talk, dress, the tv shows you watch, the music you listen to, the foods you eat - all get filtered under the "will this make me look gay" fear. You can't be friends with girls, because that's gay. You can't express your feelings to your male friends, because that's gay. Liking girls as people is queer and feminine, and liking them as sexual objects is not something you are capable of (despite what Hollywood will tell you, most gay men are not comfortable pretending to be straight, even the masculine-presenting ones). This doesn't start when you consciously realise you're gay, by the way: it starts years before you even know why you're doing it, when you're in that awkward stage of not quite knowing, but not quite not knowing either.
What this leads to is... crippling loneliness. You don't have friends, other than a few men you spend time with but cannot confide in. You learn to keep your mouth shut and go with the flow - someone is saying nice things about gay people in front of you? Silence. Because if you say something, that's suspicious. Someone is saying awful things about gay people in front of you? Also silence. Because you're afraid to say anything. But you can't admit that you're miserable, because that would mean making changes in your life that you genuinely are not capable of. I couldn't come out, and feel safe, because I would be homeless. So I had to learn to be okay with the misery. That it was normal, and I was happy.
Scott Hunter is, to me, the ultimate manifestation of that process. He's been in the closet so long that not only is he terrified of being perceived as gay, but terrified of being perceived at all. He wants to fade away. He listens to podcasts that neg the shit out of him, because he needs to know if they've spotted the gay thing yet (and also because Scott Hunter appears to be the most OCD and OCPD coded character of all time, but I will save that for another post). He clings to the first person he has a real interest in because he knows how few chances he'll get to do that in his life. He has a big, empty home that he's worked hard for, proof of his Masculine Credentials, but no one to share it with. He has friends, and he could confide in them, but he's so fucking scared, because if the wrong person somehow hears, it's all over.
He does this, incidentally, despite being a very clearly masculine man. He drinks whisky and plays hockey and furnishes his home in mahogany and chrome. He dresses well, but he'd never wear make-up. He also, it must be said, does this and manages to remain kind. Yeah, he's quiet, he thinks hard before he speaks, but he's managed to shed enough of his toxic masculinity to be kind to others, to speak of empathy and giving back, to be funny and self-abnegating and selfless... whilst maintaining all that inwardly-pointed self-hatred.
All of this comes through not just in Jacob Tierney's incredible writing, which transforms Scott from a caricature to a human, but also Francois Arnaud's unbelievable acting. The little hint of gay panic when Kip makes that hot lumberjacks comment, and we see Scott go through an entire odyssey before our eyes - shock, fear, confusion, anxiety, and then tentative, yet reckless hope. A "fuck it, might as well". The reaction to Carter's words in Sochi: trying not to appear too interested, because he doesn't want anyone to guess at what he is, and even his best friend being so accepting won't change anything. The sheer agony in his eyes as Kip leaves him, and he realises that he can't say a word to stop him, because Kip is right (and, you come to realise, he expected this all along). The outright panic attack in the art gallery date, Scott trying so hard to be inconspicuous that he becomes insanely obvious? It's obviously a little spoof of Captain America 2, but it's also... kind of telling that in Cap 2, Steve is hiding from the government, and in HR, Scott is hiding from the mere implication of homosexuality. And then going back to his apartment, dropping the walls, and even in the midst of his panic attack, still apologising to Kip, because he knows he was in the wrong? It's heartbreaking. It's devastating, in fact. And it's so fucking real.
I'm not going to read too much into Francois Arnaud's personal life, because I don't know him personally. However, I do know that he's an openly bisexual man who came out at 35. And I do know that the way he depicts Scott Hunter is the most accurate depiction of what it is to be closeted that I have ever seen.
(It also must be said that this is massively supported by the changes to Kip which occur between the book and the show, for which Jacob Tierney and Robert GK deserve equal credit. Book Kip is kind of a brat, who wants Scott to come out after a two month relationship, ruining his career in the process. Show Kip understands. He knows Scott's behaviour isn't his fault, and when he leaves, it's not a big fight: it's laced with empathy and understanding, because he has been there. They're not breaking up because either of them have done anything wrong. They're breaking up because the world won't let two men be queer, but it especially won't let masculine men be queer.)
And, to touch briefly on the fandom for a moment: this isn't a hypothetical. The fanbase of HR, a show featuring gay men in a relationship, is desperate to cast one as the "woman" in the relationship. Why else would Shane, a man of equal size of Ilya, played by a literal mixed martial artist in Hudson Williams, be so consistently reduced to a "twink" with "bottom eyes"? Why else would Francois Arnaud, the only openly queer actor in the show's main cast, be confronted with a hate campaign so severe that he had to move address? Why else would reports come out constantly of gay men being excluded from HR spaces by (mostly) straight, cis women, who seem to believe gay men are only acceptable when they come in perfect, non-confrontational, feminine packages? This is the fanbase for a show literally about gay men. Imagine, compared to this, how homophobic the rest of the world is?
So many people seem to not understand the purpose of Skip in the story. They think Jacob rammed it in because he desperately wanted to adapt Game Changer (ridiculous: if he wanted to adapt Game Changer, he could have. Reducing it to a single episode in HR basically destroys any chance at a real GC adaptation). The reality is, Scott and Kip are essential to Hollanov's story because they prove that even if Ilya and Shane did everything right, they would still be unable to be themselves. Scott is a beloved athlete, desperately trying at all times to be perfect, with a decade plus long career, dating a man who is masculine and muscular, who has nothing to do with hockey. He is doing everything right: he even has the classic hockey-player courtship period, of meeting and marrying within a few years. And yet, purely because of his sexuality, he is being crushed. Not because he's done anything wrong: he's a good person, as is Kip. He's done nothing to deserve being unable to love Kip in public. And nor has Kip. Both of them work to the bone in service of others, both are wonderful, kind, upstanding, generous people, and they're being destroyed because of homophobia. It highlights just how massive and pervasive homophobia is.
(Skip doesn't detract from Hollanov at all, FYI. The show is 6 episodes long because that's what Jacob Tierney chose, and having read Heated Rivalry, I do not see any scenes which were skipped (and I can see quite a few which were extended or created) in the show. Skip deliberately highlights the position that Ilya and Shane are in. Sure, Jacob could have just written the kiss, about Scott Hunter, a character we barely see. But if you don't understand just how difficult that was for him, just how broken and desperate he became in trying to become that Game Changer, how can you understand just why Ilya and Shane couldn't do that? If ep 3 weren't about Skip, I have no idea what that time would be filled with to tell that same story. But I digress.)
Watching Scott in HR, I see exactly what I could have become. Someone who is kind to others, who does everything to keep others happy, but who is broken and miserable because he cannot express who he is... and barely even knows it. Sure, he'll say he's fucked up, but he also can't understand just how miserable he is when Elena asks, because he's the happiest he's ever been! It just so happens that "the happiest he's ever been" is still not very happy, because he's been dealing with this shit his whole life.
Seeing his actual, genuine happiness in the speech in ep 6? Seeing him honestly encapsulating, in a single speech, the single worst part about being gay in this world: the loneliness? It's the most heartfelt and meaningful thing I've ever watched. Hollanov has a great many strengths, story wise, but whilst Jacob Tierney cut down and edited enough of Skip to make what I feel is a genuinely incredible depiction of what it is to be closeted, Hollanov is still predominately Rachel Reid's story (and I am far from a RR hater, but I do think she doesn't quite get the nuances of how it is to be closeted, which is, to me, the one weakness in Hollanov. I am a massive Hollanov fan, don't get me wrong! Jacob, Rachel, Hudson, and Connor combined to create something which deserves every accolade it receives. But every story has it's weaknesses, and for me, the depiction of the closet, re Hollanov, reads a little bit awkwardly. Hence why Skip is so important to the story: it smooths over a lot of those gaps, in a way that makes it feel like Ilya and Shane's experiences are unique to their own characters, rather than a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be a gay man by the author.)
So, to sum up: I have faced a lot of homophobia in my life, and Scott Hunter is probably the best depiction of it I have ever seen in any piece of media. Bar none. A lot of that, it must be said, is down to Francois Arnaud's being an unbelievably good actor, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. A lot of it, too, is because I do have OCD, and Scott's constant engagement in harmful rituals to satisfy his internal obsessions definitely seems familiar. But mostly? It's because it's a story which you can only tell if you have lived it, which Jacob and Francois clearly have. And I love it so.
“First season of LEVERAGE - so he's 21 years old - he shows me his watch designs. I'm expecting, y' know, celebrity strap branding or faces. No, it's engineering schematics of GEARS and shit. Pages of them. Even then, there were none so cool.” - John Rogers
No kill shelters result in animals dumped on the highway and tossed in the river because the rescues wont take them. That’s the part they never tell you.
Meanwhile the spca will take every animal, and if they have to euthanize them at least it will be done kindly and not via neglect or cruelty.
Because people in the notes are not getting this, let me explain:
No-kill shelters TURN AWAY animals. When they’re full - and they often are because most of these no-kill shelters are small - they stop taking them in. While they are “taking their time to find the right homes for every single animal”, many other animals never get in the door. Somehow they don’t count those animals, or track what happens to them. A success for them doesn’t include the ones they turned away. They’re taking their time because they can.
The No-Kills who brag about 100% adoption rates are the worst, because they tend to reject the most. The animals who will be difficult to adopt out? They just don’t take those. Special needs? Too old? If they’re going to be hard to adopt out, they can claim to be full, even if they’re not.
They are telling owners they absolutely cannot take their fifteen year old cat because they are full of litters of kittens. Adorable kittens that will turn over quickly, and boost their adoption numbers. So what happens to the fifteen year old cat? After days of being rejected at the shelters they get dumped on the side of the road somewhere, or worse.
You cannot imagine the VOLUME of animals that a city shelter deals with. The kill shelters are not allowed to turn anyone away. The difficult cases, the special needs, the elderly, the feral. The dog that bites, the cat that pees everywhere. Every animal is going to be taken in and treated with kindness. They are going to be assessed and treated for their fleas and conditions and behavioral problems. They will get their time on the adoption floor. They will get the best chance possible to find a new home. And if it’s not possible, they will be humanely euthanized, and that cage space will go to the next animal who is already waiting for it. It never stops. While you were working on the paperwork to adopt out 1 cat, three people brought in 4 more. It’s a numbers game that you cannot win if you aren’t turning people away.
A lot of times kill shelters get the animals that the no-kill shelters refused to take. Maybe their owners bring them. Or maybe they got literally thrown in the garbage, abandoned, or put in a bag and tossed in the river, when the no-kill shelter said they were full. The police and rescuers will bring these poor injured animals to the city shelter where they will be cared for. The volunteers will spend days and weeks trying to wash the tar out of their fur, or treat their broken bones, or whatever other horrible thing has happened to them. They will feed and house them. They will put most of them in new homes. They will save many many more animals, by orders of magnitude, than a no-kill shelter ever will. A no-kill shelter will brag about dozens or maybe hundreds of adoptions. Kill shelters are dealing in thousands of successful adoptions, and they still have to euthanize because it just isn’t enough. There are just so many animals to take in.
And then, after all this, the No-Kill Shelters get to claim the moral high ground somehow, and self-righteous types will refuse to adopt from the only shelter that takes absolutely everyone. It’s infuriating.
saw this being debated and just wanted to talk about it too.
"is it rude if I politely ask a writer if they use ai or chatgpt on their works because I'm almost certain they do?"
yes, it is rude. no matter how polite you are being when you ask them this.
you say you are almost certain. so you are not absolutely certain.
unless you are absolutely, undoubtedly certain — with actual proof — that their writing is ai generated, never ever ask an artist if their work is ai generated.
I know several writers who would stop writing and delete all of their works if they were ever accused of using ai. so it doesn't matter if you are polite when you ask them this, you are suggesting that their works are ai generated, that they didn't create the works they could have spent hours, days, weeks, months or years working on.
ai and chatgpt are trained on real humans' works, they are trained to mimic the way real humans write. so if you say a genuine writer's work "looks ai", I'm gonna have to ask you what you think ai was trained on.
a writer whose English isn't their first language may also write in a way that "looks ai" to some, if they write in English and have to rely on translator.
using em dash isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time. my fellow writers all love em dash.
having long paragraphs with "overly described scenes" isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time, and so do my fellow writers.
all the "ai signs" are actually just what most writers actually do. they get mistaken for "ai signs" because sometimes the way writers write or describe a scene in a fanfic or an original work is different than the way people talk or text. because they're writing a fic and describing a scene, not chatting with a friend. the way I talk is different than the way I write my fics.
if you suspect a work was ai generated, but are not 100% sure, you can always just stop reading said work without saying anything.
if someone does use ai to write, they will either a.) deny and continue using ai to write or b.) admit because they see nothing wrong with it and continue using ai to write.
if a genuine writer was wrongly accused of using ai, they may stop writing altogether.
asking a writer if they use ai or chatgpt to write will always do more harm than good. witch hunting will always do more harm than good.
you are not "fighting against ai" by throwing around such accusations. you are harming genuine writers and artists.
all of the fanfic writers, whom I personally know, say the same thing that they would feel discouraged and might delete all their works if they were asked this.
it’s not “hey do you like x or y” question. it’s a subtle implication that your work looks like it was written by a robot within a minute. if you personally don’t find that offensive, that’s cool. but I know a lot of writers do. and they have the rights to be discouraged by it.
also we are talking about fanfic writers who write as their hobby, getaway or safe place, writers whose works you read for free. not writers who sell their works and are making profit from what they write. fanfic writers don’t owe you anything.
This just came across my dash. I'm going to be blunt.
Asking a writer or artist if they “use AI” is an accusation, no matter how you dress it up. It’s not neutral. It implies you think their effort, style, or voice is artificial. It implies that their human work doesn’t look human enough for you.
You don’t protect the community by policing people who are actually creating from scratch. You protect it by supporting human creators, reporting confirmed AI misuse when there’s evidence, and learning the difference between this sounds different than what I’d write and this is machine-generated.
Writers—especially fanfic authors—already pour their time, emotion, and identity into what they share for free. They don’t owe anyone proof of authenticity on top of that. And if your question makes someone want to quit writing, it’s not protecting the community. It’s shrinking it.
If you’re not 100% sure, just scroll. AI ethics don’t need to turn into public inquisition season.
Because women are not immune to propaganda, and also sometimes really fucking tired.
I mean, imagine you're like, an office manager for a small firm. You're not getting a hell of a lot of respect and reward for your job, because nobody is in this system, and also because "the woman who answers the phone," is virtually invisible in this society. Your roommate firmly believes the kitchen sink is Dish Storage and yet also gets salty if you go ahead and stack her dirties in the dishwasher and clean them with your own, like make up your mind. You don't really have advancement prospects. You went and got a classics degree because people pumped you up all through your childhood with Follow Your Dreams, but what the fuck are you going to actually do with it? Museum? Archivist? Gonna need different degrees for that, and you've got student loan debt, and besides, you'd probably have to move to a higher cost of living area and try to make it on an entry level salary—do you really want to do that?
But there's fiction, and there's influencers (also fiction), and there's recipe bloggers, and there's almost a general miasma of reactionary sentiment that says: Opt Out.
Frankly, sounds lovely, you think. Opt Out How?
Well, all you need is to find a loving and powerful man. (This does not immediately trigger alarm bells, every Disney movie has told you that true love is The Solution, so it's got a certain resonance.) And then you split the work, you let him take care of the headache stuff (it's okay, he's into it) and you concentrate on Creating A Perfect Environment. Fuck dirty dish roommate anyway, this place will be Yours, and it can be Perfect, and beautiful, the pace of your life will change from frantic to leisurely, and you can spend the time to do the little artistic things that you've always wanted to try. I mean, all those influencers and recipe bloggers are somehow finding the time to shave fresh nutmeg onto their artisanal hot chocolate with a glowing smile, so doesn't it follow that you could take the time to actually look into textiles a bit? Maybe even, if you're lucky, get a loom? As it is, you've pretty much abandoned the idea of doing any serious fibercrafts as a hobby, but if you could opt out of work, you can do it, can't you? And I mean, yes, you'd end up having kids, but you were always open to kids someday, and the propaganda says that these kids would be well behaved and not sticky and grow up having fun with a big yard and a dog (and maybe you wanted a dog when you were little and dreamed of that sort of life for yourself, it sure would be lovely to give such an idyllic childhood to another human being). Doesn't it sound nice?
Of course the propaganda is built around several significant lies, starting with the idea that doing housework is somehow a less work-like sort of work than what you're doing now (but that's a lie you've pretty much grown up with, if housework was real work men would do it and people would get paid for it). Also the idea that your Good Man will always be good to you so long as you hold up your end of the relationship (but that's also a lie you've grown up with, True Love is always idealized and nobody talks about why marriages end—except by sometimes speculating that "she let herself go" and he cheated as a consequence of that failure).
You are not immune to propaganda. You are not immune to cults. You are not immune to lies. And you are especially not immune to those things when you are lonely and discontented and just plain tired.
extremely cool that the removal of wolf protections in europe are being driven by an eu official having one of her horses killed by a wolf. literal cartoon villain shit
Environmental groups condemn EU Parliament’s approval to downgrade wolf protection as an attack on nature Today, the European Parliament app
For anyone who thought this is too stupid to be real, I'll remind you the year is 2025. The EU official in question is Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. She is the latest in a long line of idiot Germans to think the CDU disguises her evil.
love seeing revisionism in the wild “free the nipple never meant you can walk around topless every where that’s still sexual harassment it just meant for like breastfeeding and stuff”no it literally means you should be able to walk around topless anywhere because get this. breasts aren’t fucking sexual organs.
I remember when I was about 12, I watched a show on TLC that followed people as they got somewhat uncommon medical procedures.
There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.
And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.
But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.
"Free the Nipple" was calling out arbitrary bullshit like that, because someone just existing with their body parts should not be considered obscene, and the double standard that men can be topless but women can't is so blatantly ridiculous. All nipples are just nipples. If you get turned on or bothered by them, that's on you.
they deal with human shit, dog shit, body fluids, razors and broken glass, hazardous chemicals, dead animals, live animals, flammable, corrosive, and poisonous substances, they are more likely to get cuts and punctures than most jobs, and those cuts and punctures are more likely to get serious or exotic infections...
and if they didn't do it for like just a few days, your city would be unlivable.
Garbage collectors went on strike in Memphis and within only 3 days Memphis had an estimated 10,000 TONS of garbage piled in the streets
That strike should have been taught in school and is worth reading about, to remember how hard people have fought to get as far as we are, and how hard we have to continue the fight to get where we need to be
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