i try to keep on starting over

Espen he/him/it/its - trans & bi - 23+

[em-iliart]

Going to start posting more sketchbook stuff on my instagram 👀

[expressions-of-nature]

by Meina Yin

[depsidase]

[aropride]

opened my wip and didnt immediately write a thousand new beautiful and perfect words so i'm going to smash my laptop with a hammer

[nobrashfestivity]

Howardena Pindell Untitled 1972–73 American, born 1943 Acrylic and cut and punched papers on canvas Dimensions Overall: 87 1/2 × 91 1/8 × 1 3/4 in. (222.25 × 231.46 × 4.45 cm) Collection Modern and Contemporary Art Credit Line Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment Object Number 2017.8 Vmfa

[halalchampagnesocialist]

This is definitely ‘a discussion for another day’ type of post but I can’t help think about how much criticism Qatar copped for its hosting of the World Cup (and some of it was very valid) but instead of focusing that criticism of Qatar on its use of migrant slave labour to build those stadiums, a lot of it was the same racist projection of Qatar being homophobic and anti-women due to being an Arab/Muslim country but these same western liberals are silent over the US hosting the World Cup despite also being misogynistic and homophobic! That’s not even including everything happening with ICE etc, its funding and complicity of the genocide in Palestine, bombing Iran etc like…

[hunter-rodrigez]

So I do 3D modeling and printing as a hobby, and a few weeks ago I designed wheel guards meant to prevent office chairs from running over cables and clothes... or your pet's tail.

I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.

Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.

So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.

Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.

Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵‍💫

Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.

Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.

I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.

[these-violet-delights-fic]

People love simple, extremely practical things. I hope you win!

[neonshroudedgraves]

Bluesky asks Texas users to verify their ages, citing new app store law

"Why do you need age verification on a site where everyone is 38?"

[stevishabitat]

idk who on earth could possibly need to hear this, but do NOT, under ANY circumstances, give out your SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER to ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

☝️☝️☝️

[bananonbinary]

tony's chocolonely mildly pisses me off every time i eat it. like yeah i get it ur doing a whole symbolism thing about unfairness and whatever, but its actually SO DIFFICULT to eat fucking. gerrymandered chocolate. your symbolism is ruining my chocolate experience.

who approved this.

[bananonbinary]

like. ur already more expensive. i understand this. i am willing to pay more money to have slave-free delicious chocolate. why must you punish me further by making it a goddamn puzzle to break a piece off.

[closet-keys]

Tony's Chocolonely does not ensure a living wage for cocoa workers in West Africa (see 2020 report by Voice Network).

Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:

transparency about the country of origin for cocoa

if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)

if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")

this isn't perfect, obviously, but it is much more grounded in the rights of workers than the various certifications (e.g. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, etc.) you'll see on product packaging

[aloofraven]

I think it should be noted that the Food Empowerment Project specifically only lists companies making "at least one vegan chocolate product" and that they only ask about the companies' vegan chocolates specifically. Their list is not an exhaustive resource for every type of chocolate.

[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]

Before I found that link I was curious as to why I didn't see any Norwegian manufacturers on their list(which makes sense now, as their chocolates are almost exclusively milk chocolate) and looked up where our companies source their chocolate from and found Nidar gets theirs from the Rainforest Alliance and Freia from Cocoa Life, both of which have been under scrutiny for not preventing child labour and not paying farmers a living wage among other things. So it appears Norwegian chocolate is out of the ethical picture.

[roninnozlo]

I stated this in the comments of the post already, but it’d probably be better to add it as a reblog, so it’s more visible and doesn’t need to be restated by anyone else in the future.

So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)

About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)

Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.

If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:

Below is a list of chocolate companies that only use ethically grown cocoa.  Find out how you can tell if the chocolate you are ea

And it doesn’t have the vegan product restriction the other list has, which solves @aloofraven’s issue.

[hungwy]

letting family members sit in for dead senators is just monarchy logic im appalled that this has even happened before

[sugoiney-weaver]

Each state gets to decide how their state is represented in Congress

This has been a common method for a long time in some states

The idea is that a Senator's sibling/spouse/parent/child knows their intentions and policies better than a political rival or a random person would. It's a pretty good way to prevent political assassinations tbh

[prizedpesto]

An unelected individual getting grandfathered into a real political position due to their blood or legal relationship with a deceased elected official is not pretty good actually

[this-is-trans-joy]

You can’t call yourself a leftist if you hate children tbh, like you can choose not to have them or be around them, but outright hating the most marginalised group of people in the world who have absolutely no power or control over the most basic parts of their lives and bodies is a dangerous mentality to have and you need to grow the fuck up and get out of your edgy phase and start treating everyone around you like human beings, even the ones that piss you off.

[terkaterr]

ah doing ma thing just like god int- (remembers im atheist) just like the universe intend- (remembers i don't believe in determinism) just like noone and nothing intended ever. doin ma thang fucking unpredictable style

[anti-parent]

teamwork makes the dream work. and dreamwork. makes shrek

[anti-parent]

fantastic. i love it. i posted this after my wife said it yesterday and as i was doing it i was like "this can't be an original thought. as soon as i hit post someone's going to say 'you stole this from a tweet from 2014' and i'll say 'no, i stole it from my beautiful wife.'"

[teathattast]

[dogwithpants]

That’s this

[teathattast]

Goes to show how little I know

[evilvillain123456789]

The really crazy part is the Twitter post is the original and the tumblr post is the one that's plagiarized

[teathattast]

Net zero info ass post

[cats2019forthenintendoswitch]

We literally can see in both the screenshots that the tumblr post was posted first (also evilvillain123456789 lies recreationally, constantly) why are y'all so bad at fact-checking literally anything

[evilvillain123456789]

Stop

[goldswords]

THAR SHE BLOWS!! A LIFTED BLACK FORD F150 WITH TINTED WINDOWS. PASSENGER PRINCESS, GET THE HARPOONS!!!!!

[kosmogrl]

[glowingghosty]

[weaver-z]

The prevalence of the coyote as a trickster in American myth, the jackal as a trickster in African myth, and the fox as a trickster in Eurasian myth proves that the Funny Dogy is a staple across cultures

[weaver-z]

^ Funny Doggies of Myth and Legend Compilation