random, but i was painting with my little cousins and decided to paint one of your pics i really enjoyed! figured you might wanna see xD
LITERALLY OH MY GOD???? this legit brought me to tears, that’s my childhood home backyard!!!!! this is so incredible im speechless!! not to mention your impeccable skills like someone get me a paper bag to breath into!!!!! (submitted by @oxidization)
The legislators themselves don’t know yet what bill the language will be slipped into, but we expect they’ll hear it next week, possibly as early as Monday, April 24.
What To Do:
They’re moving fast, so if you live in Indiana and feel strongly about libraries and censorship, please call your reps and senators NOW. Even if you already contacted them earlier this session!
Here are some talking points and the general gist of our concerns:
Charging librarians and educators with felonies is not an appropriate response to the issue of challenging books.
It is a librarian or educator’s job to ensure that children have access to a range of well-reviewed quality books. They are trained and follow objective processes for material selection.
Libraries and schools already have processes in place for challenging books on their shelves, and these processes work.
putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a ‘replacement era’ where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan–but isn’t being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can’t afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration–and with this being portrayed in media as a “moral failing” and short-sighted “choice,” rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i’m just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here’s praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023
Stage 1:your local tap water is potable (safe to drink), but at-home water filtration products are marketed to increase “flavor” and “purity.” these products are not actually capable of sanitizing unsafe water, and do not replace access to clean water. meanwhile, “lifestyle” bottled water becomes more popular due to heavy marketing. bottled water is not a necessity, but a stylish accessory.
Stage 2:your tap water is probably potable. the public water system is entering decline. poor and rural areas are at risk, but access to clean water is not seen as a mainstream issue. meanwhile, at-home filter technology has become more advanced. consumers are now familiar with filtration products (most have a starter product such as a 'Brita’) and more willing to invest in higher-cost options. however, only the most expensive filtration can actually replace access to clean water–at this point, drinkable tap water is still the expectation, and its absence would cause serious inconvenience to the middle-class (who prefer but are not reliant on bottled and home-filtered water).
Stage 3: the public water system is solidly in decline. the quality of your tap water is deteriorating. Its safety is unknown and regarded with suspicion. when you call the public utilities department to complain, they recommend buying a water filter. you contact your local representatives, but they are unconcerned–you are one of a small number of callers (most people just buy a home filter), and you aren’t wealthy enough for your vote to matter (if you were, you would already own a home filter). reluctantly, you pick up a few gallons of water from the grocery store, and pull out your phone to look up water filter brands. your more vulnerable neighbors have fewer options–many continue to drink the water, aware that they are being exposed to unknown health risks beyond their control.
Stage 4: the public water system is collapsing. your tap water is not potable. it will make you sick. this is acceptable because at-home filtration–now advanced enough to replace safe tap water–is a commonplace appliance in middle-class households. lower-income groups must rely on rented/community filters or bottled water. expensive and often aspirational, home filters are now analogous to washing machines: where the middle-class can wash their clothes & filter their water at home, those on tight budgets must rely on laundromats & water delivery. the rich of course don’t give a damn–they have cleaners to do their laundry, and their taps are connected to a clean private source.
I watched some gulls dancing over waves today, plucking out morsels after each breaker. I managed to snap some photos because I thought they would make good reference. I didn’t plan on using the photos so soon, but there you go. Sometimes inspiration strikes.
I haven’t painted anything in a while. The gulls became Pterosaurs. This probably isn’t strictly accurate, but I
wanted to catch the feel of the creatures as real animals rather than lizardy death machines.
[Image description: a digital illustration of a flock of rhamphorhynchus flying over a cresting ocean wave. They are small pterosaur dinosaurs, with brown wings and white underbellies, long tails with pink tufts and sharp teeth. /end ID]
[ID: A Tiktok where a person is replying to a comment reading “this is why we need to bring back bullying”. The person says “I posted a video where I styled my chainmail with like some ribbons and a little dress and it was the most controversial thing I’ve ever posted”.
There is a stitch from @/willatheewisp. They say:
“My brain makes all kinds of like funky little connections so follow me here. This video reminds me.. this video and actually that video of that person who was getting dogpiled for their haircut because they said it was inspired by a character from Genshin Impact (they look judgingly at the camera) Yeah, you guys were weird for that one by the way.
This video reminds me of how unprepared people are to live in and work with and be in diverse communities. ‘What? What do you mean?’
People on here, people on Twitter, people in real life cannot handle any variation of behaviour, any variation of personality, any variation of aesthetic - any variation of personal expression that does not fall within a carefully curated norm. And even when it’s like, 'weird’, it has to be like the 'normal’ kind of weird.
And this (the original video) is not weird by the way. You guys are just like.. I feel you betray your own myopic viewpoints and your very sheltered and boring lives when you say these kinds of things.
But back to the point. So much of our society is just about regulating behaviour, is about performance, and this is what I mean. A lot of you are not ready for the curtain call, a lot of you have not done the internal work to want the act to end. You’re fine with progress as long as it doesn’t make you uncomfortable within the performances that you expect from people in society.
You know, you’re fine with gay people as long as they’re not using neopronouns, or as long as they’re not trans, or as long as they’re, y'know, they’re not flamboyant, right. That kind of thing. You’re fine with certain kinds of black people, you’re fine with certain kinds of women, you’re fine with blah blah blah, but the moment people’s behaviour, the moment people’s performance, is not one that you have a rubric to rate, okay, because they’re expressing themselves regardless of the boundaries society has placed on us, then people have trouble. And that’s another thing I want a lot of you to think about. How much are you expecting other people to act for you.
Apologies to the young person I’m stitching. I just felt it was so off that people had a problem with this (laughs), and of course things are never just surface level with me.” /end ID]
“i just want to be the person i needed when i was her age”
Being cruel is so boring. It’s lazy. Anyone can be cruel. It takes real, hard work to be kind.
I saw this in r/tumblr:
There’s a new girl in my kindergarten class who’s autistic and it’s like she’s barely / not really verbal but like idk she opened up to me a little, I don’t tell people I’m on the spectrum at work because they already treat me horribly because I’m the only poc there but like she’s a little Latina girl who I know exactly how she feels and like I was like “hey Nina, If you…
Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.
I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.
It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.
It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.
