if you or someone you know might need it in the next few years, purchase plan b. the shelf life of plan b is 4 years, and we might not be able to access it as easily as we can now in the days ahead.
if you can, purchase books that project 2025 is looking to ban.
mass deportations are starting. if you see ice vehicles or agents, yell ice raid and la migra as loud as you can.
if someone asks who you voted for, keep your mouth shut. they’re fishing for traitors.
if anyone, anyone at all asks about your neighbors or their legal status in the us, you know nothing. don’t be the reason that their family is separated.
if anyone asks about your religion or lack thereof, keep it vague. this administration will look for any excuse to persecute you.
your friends are trans or queer? for the next four years they’re not. don’t expose anyone’s status as a trans or queer person to anyone else, even if you think you can trust them.
did someone you know get an abortion? no, they didn’t. it was a miscarriage if anyone asks.
in short, don’t be a snitch, and keep to yourself these next four years. we’ll make it through this even if it seems hopeless at times.
this is all i can think of at the moment, but i’ll be adding on to this as the day continues.
we can survive this. we’ve survived before, and we’ll survive again.
I wonder what Malcolm X and the Black Panthers would think about future generations of white kids openly admiring them. Probably would respond “that’s all well and good, but what are any of you doing about it? What are you doing to build class solidarity against racism and imperialism?”
Then oh boy, do I have the forest cottage for you! Far from anyone that could help you, it has a gorgeous view of a lake where dozens of people have gone missing. There’s a rumor of a killer that raises from the water, but this place has an excellent porch
I think you’ll also love how it’ll immediately become pitch black as soon as the clock strikes 5:00 pm no matter the time of year. There’s also no stars for some reason.
Did the previous owner leave any religious iconography that could slowly appear to distort and corrupt over time, or will I need to furnish that myself?
There are a lot of people in the notes saying, basically, "Yeah, that's polyester for ya!"
but, the thing is
even polyester fabric was higher quality in the past
yes, not all of it, but, still, a noticeable amount of older polyester was...nicer.
yeah, it would still get picks and hold on to every bit of underarm odor, and that's on top of no-one knowing about microplastic shedding
but a 1950s Wash'n'Wear shirt, or 1970s double knit pantsuit, or 1980s neon sweatshirt, or a 1990s slinky knit or crushed velour mock turtleneck...so many of them would have been significantly higher quality than the fast fashion of today.
i work in historical costume. i work in a big-ass warehouse, with hundreds of thousands articles of clothing dating back over 100 years (for original pieces).
the BLINDING difference in clothing quality between even the 1990s and the mid-2000s...not even going in to the decline in quality of clothing made in natural fibers (jeans with elastane, i'm looking at you), I've got faux-leather trousers from 1980s that are in near-mint condition, even after being hired and worn repeatedly for the past 40 years. we get donations of clothing that shows and films have bought online for contemporary shows that are disintegrating after being used on one show, for like....10 days, max.
don't even get me started on the seam allowances we used to get in clothes, because the assumption was you'd alter it at some point...
they hate you. they hate the planet. they have drip fed you worse and worse quality clothing until you don't even realize you're being sold Garbage
Okay. I was on my beloved AO3 and I saw something that made me do a double take. So, now I really want to know…
What is your AO3 user ID?
I’m an OG user 5 digits or less
Six figures baby!
I’m in the millions…
Remaining time: 5 days 23 hours
I’m so curious to see how long people have been on AO3! I know some people have been on there since beta/invite only, but I would love to see what the number is on tumblr!
everyone i've talked to about this has been completely unaware so: if you didn't know already, there's going to be a solar eclipse, with totality or coverage of 90% or more in some places, over a lot of europe, on august 12th 2026. in the uk it will start just after 6pm, and the maximum will be at 7:13pm.
here is a map of the path of the eclipse (from timeanddate)
get eclipse glasses if you want to look at it. it is not safe to look at through sunglasses. ok informative post over o7
@polarspaz this is the first thing I've written for one of your AU's that Ive felt like sharing on here. Hope you like it and that its ok!! Losing that pendant is NOT fun!
Also I wrote this at work on my phone so sorry if the format is funny at all!
Leon woke up dazed. He stayed in bed, eyes closed, letting consciousness fall over him. He didn't know how long he'd slept.
He took a moment to figure out how bad any aches and pains were from the mission. He'd, of course, been thrown around a bit.
He tried to pinpoint the primary spots where he had assumed he would hurt. Nothing seemed where he was expecting it.
The more awake he started to feel, the more confused he became. He opened his eyes and was greeted by his own blue scales.
Shit.
He didn't have his pendant on.
He tried to retrace his steps last night in his mind before he panicked.
He'd gotten home, taken off his work clothes, and climbed into bed. No where in that did he remember removing his necklace.
A quick glance around his room yielded nothing. There was his pile of clothes on the floor, but with no sign of the light blue stone.
He felt dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.
Leon had only misplaced the pendant one time, and it was during the short stretch of time where they were figuring out what exactly had happened to him.
It had taken 3 days, Luis, Ashley, and a handful of researchers tearing apart the lab to find the pendant, tucked somehow behind one of their cabinets.
That time, he'd barely learned what the pendant actually did. He had been human again for the first time since he'd picked up the cursed thing in Spain. He had taken it off so that Luis could try and figure out how some of his dragony things worked. When he went to grab it off the table, it was gone.
He had gotten better at moving carefully like this, but still bumped the nightstand with his back, knocking off the alarm clock.
He started with his bed. He pulled off the blanket, checking between it and the loose sheet. He pulled that off next, and then the mattress pad.
Nothing.
He shook out the fabric, holding it as high as he could, hoping the damned thing would fall out of it. It didn't. Instead, Leon had just poked some serious holes in his bedspread.
He tossed his clothes around, checking in every pocket. He found a couple pieces of trash from the ride back,along woth his keys, but no pendant. He threw the dirty clothes on top of his blankets.
He pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and found it mostly empty, like normal. It wasn't there.
He took a breath. “It's here somewhere, you were human when you got home,” he assured himself.
He wasn't going to be able to get an angle to look under the nightstand, so he pushed it over instead. Nothing. He looked at his claws, attached to shoulders too many feet from his head.
Shit.
That pool of dread hardened into adrenaline-filled panic. It seeped into his bones. The very idea that he had lost it, the one thing that was making this whole curse manageable whispered in the back of his mind.
Leon tore his room apart, throwing things from one side to the other until it looked like a tornado had ravaged the small space. His mattress and box spring propped up against the wall, all of his clothes strewn about outside of the closet, the lamp and nightstand knocked onto the floor.
He didn't care how his claws caught in the carpet, pulling little strands loose with each step. His security deposit didn't matter now.
So it wasn't in the bedroom. He opened the door and moved to his living room. He hadn't been in here long, just enough to toss his jacket over the back of the sofa.
He snatched it and dug through the pockets as he had his other garments. As he had been both expecting and fearing, the pendant wasn't there.
He snaked around to the front side of the sofa and started pulling at cushions.
He spent a good amount of time with the living room, then moved to the kitchen. He opened every cabinet, every drawer. He even checked down the garbage disposal.
He hadnt even come into the kitchen last night.
He retraced his steps as best as he could between what he could remember and the fact that he was currently a 40ft long dragon.
He got home, came up the stairs into the apartment building. He unlocked his door, came inside, shut it. Hung his keys up on the hook by the door.
He walked back to the bedroom and guided himself through how he thought he had gone from there. Taken his work clothes off, climbed onto his bed, fallen asleep. There was atill nothing.
His panic-addled brain was out of ideas.
He took that energy and started putting his bedroom back together. Kind of. He pulled the bed back into a usable position, and put all of his clothes in one big pile. He stood back ip the other furniture, but didnt bother to straighten it out.
He slunk back out to the living room with the intention of doing the same, but instead just collapsed on the pile of couch cushions. He curled in on himself, his own breath hot on the scales of his body.
So much had gone wrong in Spain, starting with him and Ashley getting infected. Then he just had to steal the baubles to pay the Merchant. If he hadn't done that, he wouldnt be sitting in his apartment as a 40 foot long wet noodle.
Now he had to contemplate what would happen if he couldn't find the pendant. He would be stuck. Until he died.
It was easier to deal with in Spain, the idea that this wasn't reversible. It was easier to push it aside, to focus on his mission. To use the little advantages he had been given to save Ashley and Luis.
Now that he was used to being human again, and in his own apartment for God's sake, it felt like the world was ending for him.
His phone dinged from the charger. He wouldnt be able to open it like this. He didnt have quite that much dexterity. He ignored it.
**
He woke some time later to his front door opening.
“Sancho?” Luis called as the door shut again. It didnt take the man long to find Leon, curled up on his mess of couch cushions, sulking as he contemplated the rest of his life.
Leon huffed at Luis.
“What's wrong?” The Spaniard asked. “And what happened in here?”
Leon kept his gaze on Luis's shoes. “I lost my pendant. I looked everywhere.” His voice shook as he spoke, just enough for Luis to notice.
Luis knelt down and placed a hand on Leon's shoulder. “Where was the last place you had it?”
Leon turned his head away. “I already tried that.” He explained how the morning had gone.
“Well, let's look again. I'll help you.” He rose back up to his feet and motioned for Leon to follow.
Leon uncoiled and stood as he watched Luis look around.
The man chuckled. “You searched everywhere?”
Leon nodded.
Luis laughed again and walked to the front door. He grabbed what seemed to be Leon's keys from the hook on the wall. When he turned back around, Leon could see his necklace dangling from Luis's hand.
“What?”
“You mush have taken it off and hung it up instead of your keys,” Luis guessed. He held out the pendant to Leon. “Now, let's find your keys before you tear this place apart again.”
The memory of tossing his keys aside this morning flickered into his mind. He'd left them in his pocket.
The man-turned-dragon laughed to himself. “Leon, you dumb shit.”
AWWWWWWW NOODLE LEON LOOKING FOR HIS PENDENT!
THIS WAS WONDERFUL!!
You perfectly captured Leon's slow, but steady descent into panic mode while he tears through his apartment! (I love how everyone has had this happen to them at least ONCE in their life. Loosing that ONE thing they need and then spending HOURS looking for it, only to find it sitting right there, out in the open, mocking you.)
Love how you detailed the whole search process too, turning over the furniture, ripping through the sheets and mattress top, moving from room to room as he looks. And then the cute bit a the end where Luis comes in to see Leon sulking and then finds the necklace for him, before teasing him about how now they have to look for Leon's keys WAS PERFECT!!
Thank you so much for sharing this! I LOVED IT! (and I'm glad you had fun!)
if an aid of any kind helps you to live a more functional life, don’t deny yourself that help. especially if you think this aid makes you lazy. it doesn’t. other people who don’t need this aid to function more easily will tell you otherwise. don’t believe them. they haven’t ever needed it yet, but if they do, there’s no shame in that.
i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back
someone should remake lord of the rings as a grandfather telling a fantasy story to his grand child with flashbacks to world war one showing the dead boys and men the characters were based on. grandpa why didn’t they just fly. because they didn’t. they didn’t.
I will never get over how Tolkien & Lewis took the horrors of war and spun them into fantasy.
Shivering in the trenches dreaming of cozy hobbit holes, shaking as bombs pockmark a forest and imagining each shallow mud-filled crater contains a new world—that maybe there are still as many beautiful things in the universe as there are bombs—that maybe the world is bigger than this moment and this ugliness and one day this will be a peaceful forest again full of small ponds.
I mean look at these photos of the shell craters in Sanctuary Woods, near Ypres Belgium and tell me it’s not the Wood Between The Worlds:
