No destiny ordained.

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

staying housed: may/june edition

Hey, everyone; I'm sorry to be asking for help again, but it's that time. While I currently have an extremely limited and unreliable source of income to help with covering food and medicine (and I don't know how long that will remain viable), I'm still deep in the red mentally, physically, and financially. I wish I had been able to make this post with more of a runup to the deadline, but my current housing situation is extremely poorly equipped to handle the heat wave this area is experiencing, and I've been battling the resulting illness just to stay conscious a fair amount of the time.

For those who are unfamiliar with my story, more in-depth explanations of what has gone down up to this point are available here. To summarize the important parts:

I am a severely disabled queer trans person with long COVID, living in poverty after escaping a series of abusive living situations involving neglectful caretakers, physical and emotional abuse, financial and sexual exploitation, and domestic violence. The most recent of these, which I escaped earlier this year after a murder attempt which the law did nothing about, was my family who have mostly cut ties with me since.

I have almost no income, and since my escape have been living out of Airbnbs with the help of donations online. I have been trying to get into a more stable housing situation and apply for disability for quite a while now, but have been met with walls and obstacles at every turn; right now I am simply trying to a place where I don't have to lose sleep over where I'm planning to sleep next month, let alone how to pay for it.

My current housing is not safe for me to keep living in, for the reasons I mentioned as well as many others. I can't leave before July 26th, but if I can raise the money to return to my previous Airbnb--which, despite not being perfect, isn't Literally Falling Apart, and has a relatively trustworthy host who likes me and only ended our first tenancy due to a genuine misunderstanding--I will be back in a house with actual functioning A/C and plumbing, where strangers are not constantly cycling in and out in large numbers with little accountability for bad behavior, and where my host is not constantly trying to trick me out of hundreds or thousands of dollars.

I have severe autoimmune-induced nerve damage, including spinal injuries, and cannot drive, use any software not accessible from mobile, hold a steady job, or safely leave the house. I have to be extremely careful about even what position it's safe to lie down in without causing myself further injury, and because of this--combined with long-term abuse, neglect, food insecurity, and illness--I am severely weak and atrophied. I may have at least one abdominal hernia as a result, though jesus christ I really fucking hope not lol

The autoimmune aspect of my condition is extremely heat-sensitive, and my health spirals rapidly when I am too hot for too long. Not only does this cause pain, brain fog, and worsening nerve damage, it makes me prone to severe, dangerous repeat infections that have already caused me lingering lung damage and hearing loss. I am also extremely vulnerable to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, especially with the medication I am on to control the inflammation.

There is a horrendous heat wave going on where I live, and with the timing it will almost certainly segue straight into one of our godawful summers with no reprieve. We're talking regular heat indexes of 96°F with humidity that has not gone below 70% at very minimum for weeks straight. It's really fucking bad, y'all. I am terrified at the idea of being trapped outside when I am already struggling this much indoors.

All of this together is to say that if I am unhoused for even a day or two, I will almost certainly die or suffer serious, permanent injury, including loss or impairment of my ability to walk or use the bathroom unassisted. I do not have the ability to carry my belongings with me, either, so being unhoused for even one day will almost certainly mean losing everything I own and starting over. I absolutely cannot afford to do this. If it happens I am fucked.

The expenses I am currently trying to cover, in order of urgency:

$800 (the amount of this month's rent that I do not currently have, and do not foresee raising by June 10th without help. This is the top priority.)

$800 (first month's rent for the other place, which is due at time of booking. If I wait too long to do this, it may end up booked out from under me for months again.)

$150 (replacing the cushion of grocery money I've been lucky enough to build up for this month, which is currently earmarked for rent)

$190 (rent for the remainder of my stay in the current place, due July 10th)

$800 (rent for my second month at the other place; I am really hoping I won't be expected to start paying this before I've even arrived for the first month, but all my efforts to figure out how the fuck the payment scheduling works have failed, so better safe than sorry. May be due July 10th)

$130 (the rest of my grocery money for this month, which I may or may not be able to cover myself especially since I may have to start paying my own phone bill soon)

Every donation helps, and I am so unbelievably thankful to everyone who has helped me get this far. As hard as this year has been, and as hard as this summer will be if I live through it, I am alive because of you all, and for the very first time in my 30 years of life I am not actively being abused. I am struggling but I am still fighting, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to keep working toward a better life for myself instead of dying on the street.

pypl: manymogs

Current Goal: $800/$800

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

Rent for this month has been covered! Thank you all so so much, I would be out on the street two weeks from now without you all. ;;;_;;;

The bad news is that someone has booked another month out from under me at the other place at the last second. 🥲 The good news is that a) we're very close to making the goal for first month's rent at that place, b) it turns out that they will indeed not start charging more payments for that place after the first one until October, and c) once it has been booked I shouldn't have to worry about searching for places again until May of next year at the earliest.

The place I'm in currently is, to put it mildly, a hellhole full of mice with a locked thermostat and plumbing that is painful to use and has already flooded my room once. I really do not want to know how bad it will be during winter, please help me get out of here 🥲

-

Goal list, restructured again in order of urgency:

$890 (first month's rent at other place)

$950 (next month's rent at current place, now that I'll be staying here longer; I won't have an exact number until I extend my stay with the host, but this is the safest amount to assume it will be. Due July 10th)

$150 (to replace the grocery/medicine money I'm putting into the upcoming rent payment)

-

pypl: manymogs

Current Goal: $890/$890

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

First month's rent for the other place has been covered! The next goal is to cover next month's rent where I'm staying currently.

I've found another place nearby with much better reviews for the same cost; if I can raise rent for that place before someone else books the gap, I will be able to get out of this house two months earlier than otherwise, and spend two of the hottest months of the year in a less dangerous environment while I'm waiting for the longer stay to become available. If worst comes to worst, I can use that money to extend my stay here instead.

Thank you all so, so much for your help so far, every bit makes a difference and it will be so much easier to get on my feet when I'm not constantly stressing out about having to potentially arrange yet another place to stay in a few weeks.

Edit: Traction on this has been slowing down, and while I'm incredibly grateful for the assistance I've gotten so far, I do still need help; to that end, if you donate and send me a screenshot of having done so, I will send you a doodle of your choice in return. I have limited spoons and equipment for this, so the results may not be fancy and for that I apologize, but I need to get out of here sooner than later and I'm happy to give back what I can to make that happen.

-

pypl: manymogs

Current Goal: $310/$950

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

Update: An opportunity has opened up for me to get the fuck out of here almost a month earlier than the earliest date I thought would be possible, make my way to the place I'm aiming for (temporarily in a different room from the one I've booked to stay longer term), and save myself hundreds of dollars in the process. I have to act quickly before someone else books it, but I am almost there, I just need $30 more dollars to cover it without overdrafting.

All donations after that will for now go toward putting together enough money for my next grocery order; if I can scrape this much together, I will be out of the immediate zone of urgency for donations for this month. This house is a mouse-infested nightmare where the other guests routinely scream and throw things at each other, steal my food, flood the bathrooms, and run the oven for hours at a time during 100°F+ weather, all of which the host does very little about, and it is not safe for me to stay here longer than absolutely necessary.

Please help me past this last hurdle, I am so so close thanks to all of your help so far and I need to get out.

-

pypl: manymogs

Current Goal: $30/$30

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

The money has been covered! I've started the process of trying to get my stay shortened and of reserving the other room, thank you all so so much holy shit; desperately hoping my current host goes along with it gracefully, if they don't put up a stink then I will be Fucking Out of Here come July. Fuck I'm so relieved

For now other donations will go toward covering groceries and bills for the month, but once I have enough to cover my next grocery trip (usually about $35-$50) it should be much less urgent to cover it all as fast as possible. Thank you all

Edit: Everything has been arranged!!! I will be out of here July 5th, and I now know where I will be staying and how much I will be paying each month for an entire year, no more guesstimating on the fly or cramming to gather two months' rent at a time. The sheer peace of mind this gives me is an unimaginable fucking gift and it absolutely would not have been possible without you all, I want to cry

I still need help with groceries--my calculations were very slightly off, and when the last payment for this month goes through on the 10th, I will genuinely be down to my last few dollars as things stand currently--but the crushing weight of wondering where the fuck I'm supposed to be sleeping next month is gone. Thank you for everything from the bottom of my heart

-

Current Goal: $37/$250

[gasterofficial]

put that old man in a situation

[erinomaista]

This is my old man. The situation?

He conpfy.

[gasterofficial]

FUCK yes everybody go home this post is about him now

[bisonrimant]

Ancient Wisdom III

Woodcarving

Last sculpture of 2025

[bisonrimant]

[synthyk]

Grace distracting Rocky by putting on a youtube compilation of japanese beetle fights and he gets like. weirdly into it. to an alarming degree. and grace has to figure out if its like entertainment or borderline porn for him and rocky will not give a straight answer

[grimark]

#YES. THROW SMALLER RIVAL OFF BRANCH. PROVE SUPERIORITY OF STRENGTH. OF CARAPACE HARDINESS#WIN MATE RIGHTS YES YES YES#grace: oh is this like a sex thing. is this porn to you#Rocky: rocky just likes when they clash. very entertaining to rocky.#he introduces him to ram and elk dominance fights and he also likes those. he's doing science rocky is having a great time (unspecified)

[ravioliet]

been meaning to draw them as this peanuts comic for a minute now. i asked my friend rocky he said 🎵❗️

[eraserheadadult]

meeting a couple who is into puppy play but it becomes increasingly clear they are pretending to be shaggy & scooby doo

[tura23]

and then they fuck up your entire Haunted Fetish Club scheme

[gothiccharmschool]

:: scratches that off the business plan ::

[nonbinary-hawke-deactivated2021]

Some highlights from the comic to show just how much Into the Spider Verse messed up Peni Parker. She went from a serious teenage girl, whose story is angsty and tragic and brutal, to… this.

I really don’t think I need to explain how tasteless this decision was.

[nonbinary-hawke-deactivated2021]

Seriously though, I need to know who approved this, who decided that this blatant infantalization of an East Asian American girl was okay. Especially since she’s supposed to be the same age as Miles and Gwen (Peni is 14 in the comics, Miles and Gwen are supposed to be around 13-15) and yet we get shots like this:

It’s just infuriating and I am so sorry to the Asian American fans who were so pumped for two Asian American characters in such a big movie, and then had to see Peni get butchered into a Japanese stereotype and Ganke be completely erased and ignored except for couple scenes where he never even had lines.

[nonbinary-hawke-deactivated2021]

Please don’t forget what they did to Peni Parker.

[astrobottyotty]

Can people fucking stop with the whole “But it’s meant to be a reference to the anime genre/art style!!” thing? As if that excuses racism. No duh that is the point! People aren’t stupid! It’s the same reason the pig is in the style of classic LoonyTunes cartoons.

Know what other animation took inspiration from anime?

Teen Titans:

Avatar and Korra:

She-ra:

And you can tell in every single one! The anime elements jump out at you!

True, many of these examples aren’t amazing representation either but my point is: There are less offensive ways to replicate/pay homage to anime without infantilizing and stereotyping a teenage Asian girl! The creative team was just being lazy and went with the most generic and offensive depiction of an anime girl they could think of!

Edit: Racism due to laziness is still racism!

[nonbinary-hawke-deactivated2021]

It’s not just the artstyle either, it’s also her characterization.

They’ve turned her into a sparkly caricature with big shiny eyes. They erased her tragic backstory (which is a lot more intense than “my uncle died” considering SHE’S A LITERAL CHILD SOLDIER PREPARED TO DIE IN BATTLE) but didn’t do the same to the white girl in the cast. They made her toss random Japanese words into her vocabulary despite the fact that she’s from New York and shows no indication of speaking Japanese in the comics. They turned her relationship with SP//dr into something cutesy when it’s canonly incredibly traumatizing and scary for her. Even her “tragedy” scene where SP//dr gets damaged is turned into a “shimmery tears being wiped away” cliche.

They sanitized and changed every single aspect of her character to make her into cutesy comic relief and it’s infuriating.

[phantomrose96]

When you meet Edward Elric he gives off the impression that he's the short-tempered hot-headed "violence is the answer to all life's questions" kind of protagonist, and it's in fact incredible character craft that he's actually the character who ends the series with a negative-3 kill count.

[phantomrose96]

people killed: 0

direct orders of "you really really need to kill this guy" ignored: 1

ongoing murders being committed by Ed's own friends/colleagues that Ed got in the way of to specifically stop that murder from happening: 2

[phantomrose96]

God's worst soldier Edward Elric. Showed up as the youngest member of the Amestrian army, took millions of dollars from them, never followed a single order, helped dismantle their fascist regime, left with a lower kill count than he arrived with, then fucked off to go be a house-husband. Character of all time.

[creatingblackcharacters]

"That's the Black one!"- Imagery and "Black-Coded" Characters

Now, you see me writing it!! I'm writing the lesson on Black-coded, non-human characters!! Y'all better go tell your friends and reblog, y'all been asking me forever about it!

This one was a bit hard for me to write. It didn't feel… New. It felt like a regurgitation of everything I'd already discussed. I was honestly confused every time people sent me questions; I thought we all understood how it worked. But I realized: that's not a bad thing! We can consider this an application of everything we've learned so far, because that’s all coding is, is an application!

The Definition

Coding (in media): giving a character or a group certain traits (physical or cultural experiences) that are similar to/that of a real-world specific group, without explicitly saying this fictional group is the real-world group. One may or may not mean to do it in their writing (which is where the opportunity for racist stereotype can leak in).

E.g., “queer-coded characters” gets used a lot on Tumblr; whether accurate or not, it is understood to mean that the blogger sees their/a queer identity portrayed by that character, or that the character was written with ‘queer’ traits in mind. Another example; Darwin Watterson is a goldfish in a world with no humans, but Darwin is Black-coded. The Fishmen in the One Piece Live Action are fantastical creatures, but they are Black-coded (of a very specific type of Black person; even!)

Here is a list of a few characters both canonically and Black-fanonically Black-coded:

When Coding Characters as Black

To keep it simple: if the rules apply when designing and writing a Black character, the same rules apply when designing and writing a Black-coded character! The moment you decided that this nonhuman entity was going to resemble a human group of people, you were obligated to be aware of the cultures and stereotypes of those people!

You can’t have a Black-coded character, emphasize a stereotype of Black people, and then say “oh, well, it’s not actually racist because they’re actually a cat-wolf creature!” Yes, it is. You’re still being racist, and upon noticing or being told, there’s no need to be defensive about it- just acknowledge ‘ah yes, I’ve messed up, I'm sorry for my actions’ and then actively work towards a better design or writing that does not include those things.

Example: Hair

Let’s say you want to draw hair on a fish-like Mer species, and you want them to be Black-coded. It would still be racist to give that Mer-woman pickaninny hair, even if "well they're not really Black!" You could find fancy fish scales or seaweed or something fish related to draw ‘Black hair textures’, so that we understand what it’s visually supposed to represent while still being fantastical. Or a robot! Someone mentioned tubes for locs, and you could do curly wires for twists. It's possible! Get creative!

I’ve been asked numerous times about Black hair on furries. Not that I’m the most educated on furries or furry culture- I am not- but they’re already anthropomorphic animals that talk, have human hobbies and habits, and often have pretty rainbow colors. It should not, then, warrant a complaint of “unrealistic” if you respectfully add Black hairstyles to them.

Example: Species

The point about furries actually brings up another good point. Watch out when you're coding Black characters on animals or animal-like species. Often people will have the “dark-skinned, struggling with balancing their humanity monster” Black/Black-coded, and the “pale skinned monster that somehow understands this battle more than them and can save them from themselves”. This is rooted in racist imagery.

I have mentioned it before in response to an ask, but if the only people you find yourself coding as your ‘monkey/animal/monster/beast’ creations are Black and/or dark-skinned, you are- however intentional it is or isn’t- replicating a racist, dehumanizing pattern in league with King Kong and ‘ravishing the white woman/body’. I’m not inherently ‘rugged and masculine’ as a queer Black woman, thus meant to be pushed into the werewolf role. Black men aren’t beasts that can’t control their violent impulses, thus meant to be pushed into the animalistic role. Why do you think Black bodies being beast-like is sexy? Why do you think we are not physically capable of delicacy? Of gentility?

This doesn’t mean that Black characters can’t be werewolves or those sorts of creatures- but you need to be writing/designing with intent, and that means recognizing when you just ‘thought it looked cool’, and that thought turned out to be a racist belief upon further reflection.

Example: Skin

Let’s say your demon species has dark grey skin because they're rock people or something- yes, the grey skin is because it's a demon species, we recognize that it's not desaturated brown skin. Fine. But God forbid that this grey-skinned ashen group of Black-coded characters are the unequivocal villains? And everyone else that isn’t Black-coded are the ‘good guys’? But ‘it’s okay, because they’re not Black, they’re grey!’? Yes, this is still racism. There’s no getting out of it.

Example: Intelligence

If your Black-coded species is the one that is ‘less cultured’, ‘talks funny’, supposed to be ‘stupid’, or in need of some good (white) character to ‘change their ways and become better people’… Just don't do that. I should not have to say this. Black people are not less intelligent, or ‘more inclined to brawn over brain’, 'more likely to act out of instinct', ‘in need of more education/direction’, or every other reason that was used to justify our enslavement and now, present arrest and imprisonment rates.

Example: Culture

This segues from my last point on intelligence. There’s arguments on coding species that are meant to be "savage" or "inhuman", giving them stereotypical loin cloths or tattered clothes and having them "need to be saved". Now, I'm not informed enough about D&D to make valuable commentary on the existence and history of orcs. However, if you've decided to create an Orc culture, and it's clear that your imagery is taken from Black and/or Indigenous cultures, in addition to the language of savagery and white saviorism itself… That's extremely racist. And if you're thinking "Ice, of course no one would do that in 2024", Yes. Yes, they would. The bar is low, but don't ever assume people can't, don't, and won’t find a way to limbo under it.

Black and Brown people don’t need to be ‘saved’ from our own cultures or ‘introduced’ to anything. We don't need to be 'made better'. If that’s the narrative that you find yourself buying into while you write your story, Black or Black-coded characters, you need to step back and evaluate.

How This Imagery Lasts

Jim Crow Museum- Racist Cartoons and Anti-Black Imagery

This is obviously not everything I could put here as a example, but I wanted to offer a small example of how heinously racist imagery has made its way into the present. From depicting Serena Williams as an overgrown, childish, large-lipped Black woman (and whitewashing Afro-Japanese woman Naomi Osaka into the ideal, victimized blonde white woman), to Lebron James’ Vogue photo (this Black, married man now suddenly slave to the intensity of ball and white women for this cover), to the entirety of the Black Pete festival in the Netherlands.

This is imagery and behavior that evolves and lasts. What you put to paper will have an effect on someone else's ideas. You might not even think you believe these things, but someone looking at your art or reading your work will think you do! You should not want to be evoking any of this, coded or not, regardless of ‘if there’s a human involved’ because frankly… well, people already don’t see Black people as humans. We need to be treating our Black and Black-coded characters with care, and that means doing good research and avoiding replicating caricatures.

[chuunifox]

Autism Representation written by an allistic: My name is John Autism and I like the designated autistic interests

unintentionally autistic character written by the creator who hasn't really thought about whether or not theyre autistic: I wish I could be human like the way everyone else is but I know they can tell I'm not. And I know they're right

[the-quasar-hero]

More game devs need to understand the following concepts:

There is a finite amount of memory on any given device.

No matter how good your game is, players will want memory for other things on their devices.

Not everyone has a stable internet connection so making single player games needing an internet connection is not good.

[definitely-zen-browser]

4. The price of memory has more than quadrupled in the past six months

[shamebats]

The (European) sun is a deadly laser, stay safe everyone

[unfuckablebogtroll]

☝️🤓 it’s because the further you move toward the earth’s poles, the lower the angle of the sun is at the hottest parts of the day, meaning the radiation hits your whole body, causing it to feel 10-20 degrees warmer than the thermometer reading will tell you. People from tropical climes, aka close to the equator, are used to the sun’s radiation hitting a much smaller target- their head and shoulders.

Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.

It’s not the heat. It very literally is the sun.

[the-cuix]

forgot to post it here

[the-cuix]

What drives you so, to overcome this supposed curse?

[fairycosmos]

[bumblebeebats]

This was genuinely what it was like growing up in New Agey circles btw, my mum's friends would come round like "So I went out to the woods this weekend and fasted and meditated and I had a vision of the Sacred Stag and all my guardian angels and I asked them how to find love and they said that I need to focus on my own healing first and stop repeating cycles of the past" and then the very next week it'd be like "So I'm back with James again" girl..... the Sacred Stag could not have been more clear....

[decompose1]

real exchange i overheard between two of my bosses. ????

[decompose1]

why is this getting notes again everyone STOP talking about white collar & rich guy shit i am a BLUE COLLAR DYKE!!!! THIS IS A JANITORIAL COMPANY!!!! i will NOT let you make this about white collar businessmen the poors are funny too ok

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

re ehrc guidance. which is not legally binding.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

“should I do this for people of all ages?”

that's a very good addition actually, a solid "you want me to ask people's kids about their genitals? can i have that in writing?" should make upper echelons very uncomfortable.