Grayvear

Probably Writing Fanfiction | 18+ | Not necessarily sfw blog or nsfw but secret third thing - mentions it

[greyvear]

Neighbors

(its finally here)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/87360171/chapters/231411321

So it turns out Sam's immortal (just his luck) and it turns out Eileen is not.

After her death (at the end of the first chapter), he flees the Bunker. Cue a few coincidences, and he's helping Lucifer garden.

I'm sure nothing will go wrong whatsoever.

Tags:

[paperruins]

rewatched project hail mary a few days ago and a small thing that stuck out to me was grace jokingly saying something to the effect of "you know, it's been a long time since i took a random pill from a stranger" when offered the anti-nausea (?) pills for the helicopter ride. anyway i want the tea on what that man was up to in university because i refuse to believe mr. ryland "i called the lead scholar in my field a staggering waste of carbon" grace was a perfectly straight-laced science nerd in his twenties.

[halloweenclown]

I need to draw them more

[teaboot]

I hate you Ozempic craze I hate you 'heroin chic' I hate you weight loss ads on public radio I hate Burn Fat Fast ads every thirty seconds I hate you I hate you I hate you

[teaboot]

I grew up before the term 'thigh gap' was invented I grew up before 'hip dip' was invented I was born before 'muffin top' was a thing before 'clean girl look' was a thing before 'glass skin' was a thing before razoring off peach fuzz was a thing and I'm so so so fucking tired of us inventing new concepts purely for the purpose of convincing people to hate their own bodies enough to buy products

[soupy-er]

poor, poor, boy

[realtransfacts]

Respect they/them pronouns 🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[dduane]

Wow, but this sums up the situation exquisitely

[copperbadge]

Went outside in Chicago just now and the air quality is "chewable".

[thebibliosphere]

(Source)

Guys, he’s at it again…

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[luminouslumity]

[fuckthisshit-ugh]

please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

reblog. share. don't scroll past.

[standwithdaanes]

India's youth-led Cockroach movement vows to continue protest after police crackdown

The movement, which began as a satirical protest, has evolved into a nationwide challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

Supporters of India's youth-led Cockroach movement said Tuesday they will continue their protest in New Delhi, refusing to leave their sit-in site a day after police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of them as they tried to march toward Parliament. Hundreds of protesters camped at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, under heavy police presence, saying they would stay until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns over alleged failures in India's examination system. "We are going to continue our protest," said Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, which emerged just two months ago. The movement, drawing students, professionals and families, marks a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's government in its third term, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and its use of force to respond to protests. [...] Sona Bisht, a 20-year-old student who was part of the protest, said the confrontation strengthened her resolve. "If the government thinks that doing this with Gen Z, they can stop us, then that won't happen. We are here talking about education, talking about securing our future. And till the time our demands are not met, we will not move from here," she said.

"Definitions developed thus far about youth, like the Gen Z narrative, have largely been linked to roles attributed by the dominant system. The rulers have invented a whole range of terms — rebellious, irresponsible, apolitical, extremist, consumerist — not to understand youth, but to neutralize it. They know as well as we do that whoever wins over the youth wins over society. [...] Thus the question is not whether youth is powerful, but in whose interest this power is directed. Today’s uprisings — such as those in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and beyond — demonstrate that youth continues to emerge as a decisive actor. Young women like Deniz Ciya have proven this with their lives. These uprisings are not expressions of generational temperament. These „Gen Z uprisings“ are expressions of a social force confronting structural crisis inherent in the current system. [...] Recent youth uprisings — whether in the form of environmental justice protests, labor movements, or uprisings against authoritarian governments — are proof that youth worldwide are not only responding to a set of circumstances; they are consciously and collectively rejecting the narratives that seek to define them. Thus, it is crucial to analyze what transpired, and draw lessons from these uprisings, particularly in the context of building a global youth democratic confederalism. For the power of youth movements is interconnected, despite being geographically distant." — "Beyond "Gen Z": Defending Revolutionary Youth Spirit" by Lêgerîn

"The youth in general, and especially the young women, are the spark of every revolution.We can’t look at the history and found a revolution without the youth. We are a fundamental factor. We should be aware of this reality, we should take conscience of our historical role. By doing this we will provide ourselves with a plan that will allow us the unity of action and objectives. The Youth should not be condemned to be a slave of the capitalist system. [...] If we reject the labels and mentalities imposed by the system, taking consciousness as Internationalist Youth in a global level and organizing ourselves, is there someone who can stop us?" — "The youth is the spark of every revolution" by Lêgerîn.

[cassandracalin]

Re-creating my first webcomic from 12 years ago, "Hair Expectations vs Reality."

I can't help but feel all kinds of emotions after re-visiting the original comic: the one that started it all. A lot has changed since then, and I feel so fortunate to still create art and tell stories for a living. Thanks for your support, and sticking around for so long ❤️

Check out the other versions:

2014 (OG)

2020 (6 year anniversary)

[saphronethaleph]

Eevee Allegories

“It’s great to meet you!” Ash declared. “I’m Ash Ketchum, from Pallet Town!”

“Ash,” Gary said, shaking his head. “Much as I hate to admit it, you are famous now.”

“Huh?” Ash asked.

“You always introduce yourself,” Gary clarified. “And you’re the World Monarch. I think by now there are some people who might have actually heard of you first.”

“Like who?” Ash asked.

The girl looked embarrassed.

“I knew,” she said. “My name’s Penny.”

“And this is Pikachu!” Ash went on, and his starter nodded.

“Pika chuu!” he said, politely, and offered a paw.

“I… hmm,” Gary said, clearly not sure if he should tell Ash not to introduce Pikachu or not.

“What Pokémon do you have?” Ash asked. “If you know who I am then I guess you know my team, or some of them anyway, but I’d love to meet your Pokémon! Oh, do you have an Eevee? Gary had an Eevee but she evolved.”

“I’ve got an Eevee, yes,” Penny said. “He’s at home, though. And I’ve also got a Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, Leafeon and Sylveon with me, and Glaceon and Espeon are with Eevee at home.”

“Wow,” Gary mused. “Now that’s a theme.”

“I like Eevee,” Penny admitted.

“I’ve never had an Eevee, but I like them anyway!” Ash said.

“Ash, you like all Pokémon,” Gary pointed out.

Pikachu nodded. “Pika kachuu, pikapi pika ka chuu!”

“Yeah?” Ash replied, shrugging. “I do like all Pokémon! That doesn’t mean I don’t like Eevee, I like all the Pokémon I’ve ever met in their own ways and I like Pokémon because of the things about them! Though Pikachu is right up there as the best, obviously.”

“Chuu!” Pikachu said, proudly, and Penny hid a smile.

“Well, if you do like evolved Eevee, then I could introduce you to some of mine,” she said.

“Sure!” Ash agreed. “Hey, maybe we could have a battle!”

Penny seemed to consider that, taking out some Pokéballs, then Ash frowned.

“That’s a funny sticker on that Pokéball,” he said. “The one that’s got blue and white and pink stripes on it. Is that Sylveon’s Pokéball? How come none of the other Pokéballs have a sticker like that, is that because you like Sylveon the best?”

Penny looked down with a quick, jerky motion, then blushed, but before she could react further Gary made an incredulous noise.

“Seriously, Ash?” he asked. “How could you of all people not recognize that flag?”

Ash looked at Gary, just as confused.

“Huh?” he asked. “Why would I recognize it?”

Pikachu looked back and forth between Ash and Gary, then exchanged a look of mutual incomprehension with Penny.

“Chu?” he asked, then Sylveon came out of her Pokéball and pressed against Penny’s leg.

“Ash,” Gary said, sounding very much like the long-suffering friend dealing with an idiot. “Didn’t you think it was a bit weird when your best friend disappeared and I showed up the same age with the same parents? I’m trans, you idiot, that’s the trans flag.”

“Well, yeah, but I promised,” Ash replied, so matter-of-factly that it took the wind entirely out of Gary’s sails.

“...what?” he asked.

“Remember?” Ash replied. “When you came out, you said not to let on that you were trans to anyone who didn’t already know. And the only reason why I know what that flag is is because you told me, so if you weren’t trans then I wouldn’t know what the flag meant so I’d have to ask about it. If Penny said then I’d know what it meant and I wouldn’t have to explain you were trans to explain how I knew what being trans was or what the flag meant.”

Gary went cross-eyed for a moment.

“...uh,” he said. “Okay, I guess… I can kind of see how that works. But anyway-”

“And you’ve stuck with the same name for years, now,” Ash went on. “You know, after you went through that phase when you were trying out all those names, like Catchmasta and Zeraora and stuff, I think even Professor Oak couldn’t keep track, because I know he had to ask me what you were called at one point. So there isn’t even a way I could have explained it as because I wanted to know all the reasons someone would change their name!”

Now Gary looked embarrassed.

“I’d forgotten about that,” he said. “Or… I’d tried to forget about that. Some of those names were awful.”

“Zeraora?” Penny asked. “Really?”

“I struggled to come up with a good name, okay?” Gary defended himself. “Did you hit on Penny first?”

“Yeah,” Penny said, with a shrug. “It was when I decided to commit to this. I was in for a penny.”

She made a face. “Come to think of it, it sounds stupid when I say it like that.”

“I’m called Ash because I introduced myself to Professor Oak when he was ten and I was twelve!” Ash said. “And so when Mom was about to have a kid she asked for name suggestions and Professor Oak suggested my name, so I guess my name’s a time paradox! Cool, huh?”

“How the hell could that happen?” Penny asked.

“Three rules of Ash Ketchum,” Gary said, ticking off on his fingers. “Yes, he is that smart. Yes, he is that dumb. And yes, his life is that weird.”

“Hey!” Ash protested, as Pikachu giggled. “I’m not that bad!”

“You are,” Gary countered. “You so are. Didn’t you tell me you once got killed?”

“Which time?” Ash replied. “One of them I only know about because I got the memories back after I got my mind wiped, and then there was this time when I don’t know if it counts because the universe was sort of unhappening… but that one was thousands of years in the past, and if you die before you’re born does it even count?”

It was Sylveon’s turn to exchange a baffled look with Penny.

“Anyway, are we going to have that training battle?” Ash asked. “Hey, we could do a double battle, Gary!”

Gary looked tempted.

“Can you do Terastilization?” he asked. “I’m technically here to study that.”

“I know Sylveon’s Tera type,” Penny volunteered.

(inspired by https://www.tumblr.com/dragoninthelabratory/737903357421879296)

[dragon-in-a-fez]

they're putting chemicals in the water that turn the fucking frogs cis

[hyenaswine]

you can just say "person with ovaries." "an AFAB" makes literally no sense here, in addition to being grammatically nonsensical. sorry but this bleet has been pissing me off all day but i feel like if i reply to it i'll get it trouble.

[hyenaswine]

a trans man who hasn't had any ovaries for 25 years isn't going to experience perimenopause in his mid-40s, so why include him based on a gender assigned to him as a baby? like... he was a baby.

[hyenaswine]

like why bother acting like you want to be trans-inclusive if you're too lazy to recognize that sometimes, trans bodies aren't going to be the same as they were at birth when they got handed their baby gender

[creature-wizard]

So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?

I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we're acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it's actually meant to do.

[penrosesun]

OP I know that this is probably a different direction than you were going, but genuinely this advice would do so so much to help people not fall into secular political cults.

A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.

Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.

…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.

I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:

Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)

Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?

Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?

Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?

Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?

These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.

In the words of Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton, “Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group, a religious movement, a political organization. They change so gradually, by the time you realize you’re entrapped – and almost everybody does – you can’t figure a safe way back out.”

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

this is a pdf detailing the BITE model of authoritarian control, a method for determining whether or not you're in a cult.

even if you feel confident you are not and have never been in a cult, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the signs, just in case one begins to sneak up on you in the future.

[penrosesun]

Ok, I actually want to talk about this for a moment.

Jonestown, one of the most infamous cults in history, with a mass suicide / mass murder that left more than 900 people dead of cyanide poisoning, hundreds of whom were children… was a leftist political cult. That fact is an unambiguous and completely undebatable matter of historical record.

This isn’t a footnote in the story of Jonestown, and it isn’t a weird anti-leftist gotcha either. Jonestown attracted people to their cause with anti-segregation and anti-poverty activist work, and they did actual, meaningful good for those causes. The People’s Temple was a leftist org, unambiguously. They created mutual aid networks for food aid, and rent assistance, and job placement services, and clothing donations, and winter heating. They leaned heavily on the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in order to push desegregation, and led sit-ins and boycotts and protests. They participated in significant voter registration efforts. They led the fight against the eviction of tenants from San Francisco's International Hotel.

People joined The People’s Temple because it was a good thing when they joined it. They didn’t start out as brainwashed cultists, and they didn’t gravitate towards the leadership of Jim Jones out of masochism, or inherent submissiveness, or a perverse love of creeping authoritarianism. They fell in line under Jim Jones because he’d built a community that was genuinely helping people, and was advancing a political cause that seemed worth fighting. They followed Jim Jones because he earned their trust.

Jim Jones then used the trust and the social capital that he had gained from all of the above in order to elevate himself to the status of a messianic figure, and abuse and profit off of his followers. Slowly but surely, he boiled the frog. It was all good – and then it was mostly good – and then, well there was some abuse, but it wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t really his fault – and then there was a lot of abuse, but the outside world would destroy them if given the chance, so wasn’t it the lesser of the two evils? And then, eventually, it got so bad that hundreds of people poisoned themselves and their children at his command, and murdered everyone in the compound who refused and resisted.

Your cause of choice is not immune from abusers taking advantage of it!

It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if your cause is just. It does not matter if your good thing really is a good thing, because there is always the possibility that it will one day be co-opted by a monster. And if the fact that it started good is enough for you to ignore that gradual, subtle change, you could end up in a truly horrible situation.

One of my best friends in undergrad got sucked into a cult. Years later, we talked about it, and he told me something that I’ll never forget which is, it’s only when you look all the way back at things that they seem crazy. You start off with things that are totally normal and innocuous: “we’re stronger together”; “oppression is bad”; “you can accomplish more if you believe in yourself”; “empathy is important and we should all try to bring more of it into our lives”; etc. Then, you move to something that’s just a little step away from that. And then again. And then again. And then again. But it never feels like a big jump, because it’s not! A -> Z is crazy, but A -> B wasn’t, and B -> C wasn’t, and C -> D wasn’t, and…

This friend was smart, and rational, and independent, and normal, and by the time he and his wife left, they’d gone from just thinking that we should all practice more emotional mindfulness, to being terrified that leaving the cult and the cult leader would literally kill them, via the cult leader having magical powers.

If your only analysis is “Where I started was good, and no single step since then has been crazy” that is utterly insufficient to keep you safe.

“This can’t possibly be a cult, because when I joined it was a leftist political org and there’s never been a single instance where it suddenly changed” is literally the exact logic that kept people in Jonestown until it was too late.