(Sound on.) We’re all doomed.

History and related historical professionals straight up not having a good time right now.

Performative feminism is a most annoying aspect of our times.

once I did an Americorps position & I won’t get into exact details but two months in my one other coworker & I were rly frustrated bc we weren’t doing anything in our job description or the contract we signed whatsoever & instead we were basically being used as extremely underpaid retail staff and slowly the ppl in charge of us were cornering us more and more into that until I was finally like okay….what the hell? I opened up the work contract I signed and realized I hadn’t done a single thing listed in my role so I sent a long (professionally worded) complaint email to Americorps and they called me an hour later in total outrage because it turned out the work we were being made to do was explicitly prohibited by the program and we were being 100% exploited for cheap labor and the very next day we got a new supervisor and spent the rest of our year doing what we signed up to do and it rocked.

I ♥️ Complaining

”#it is very easy to confuse yourself with a Karen, #trying to shoulder on and not make a fussc #but sometimes Complaint is Necessary or else nothing will get better, #for anyone”

[ID: tweet by gianmarco @GianmarcoSoresi:

"Nobody likes a complainer but they're needed for a functioning society. You know how humanity gets compared to frogs in boiling water and everything is getting bad so gradually we won't even notice? Not if l'm around". End of ID.]

I have often been asked: "Why do Scandinavians complain and criticise so much? You have it so good!"

Answer is: "To keep it being good and push for even better. If you stop complaining, the greedy and the power hungry will slowly remove more and more of the good ideas."

Always get the itemized list, babes. ALWAYS.

Not just for medical either. Ever got smacked with a huge ass fee for "damages" when you move out of an apartment that not just eats your security deposit but tries to take an arm and a leg as well.

Ask for the itemized list, you will be surprised how fast they come back with a "huh, that's weird, I can't seem to find where these damages are coming from" and let that shit go.

People WILL try to screw you on all kinds of routine and mundane shit. Don't let them.

I need to reblog this because Max Miller/Tasting History is so wonderful. The guy is charming and passionate and loves history and food so much it's infectious.

Some lovely messages from @cookidoughlilac have me thinking about something and now I’m curious

Thunderfam with OC’s, in the least context way possible, where/how were they made?

I’ll go first; Becca was invented on a coach in Iceland

Estera was born on my wonderful friend’s birthday when I sat down at lunchtime to write her a fluffy fic gift but a playlist accident meant I ended up writing the angsty story of how Scott got captured in Bereznik. Then somehow the nameless girl he was trying to save leapt into my head almost fully formed and demanded her side of things be told.

Bez was created very much out of the same friend’s interest in huge floofy mutts with a passion of killing coyotes. Cos a lonely lady needs a truly enormous dog and a tall man with a dog phobia needs a canine buddy who can rival him in height (and sass). I think I was on a car journey to the west country (where I ended up setting the story) at the time.

Ash appeared later while writing Estera (still not posted that chapter yet 🙄) and he too kind of rocked up quite 3d. He was is some ways the Iceman to Scott’s Maverick. He was another work lunchtime creation.

Jen was created because I made the mistake of hearing one more fantastical story of something that an old uni friend got up to ( they are a lightening rod for weird shit) and wondering how that would implode alongside the Tracy jinx of never going anywhere without a rescue happening. Because I like to suffer I decided to shift their area of interest to sciences rather than humanities, so there could be tech.

I LOVE JEN SO MUCH!!! 🥰🥰🥰

You populate your fics with such brilliant characters though… Graham holds a solid place in my heart and special mention HAS to go to Stephanie of course 🤣

Graham was my husband's best man mixed with my own godfather. The gold hot pants were all his own.

I think I worked with Stephanie, she had a pet micro pig, which seemed too surreal to actually put in a fic

Lucinda Myles is from my attempt to write a "babe washed up on Tracy Island" fic (of which there were many at the time). I wanted to make her as unlike one of these young, overachieving, beautiful women as possible--and I wanted her to go back to her own life.

Rhea Allison Tracy is my attempt to write a "Tracy Sister" fic, where the sister isn't a twin and is not involved in IR.

And in The White Winds, I had to give Alan (and Fermat) a posse with names not just drawn out of a hat. Someone once told me that Thunderbirds, in all its iterations, is about the Tracy family and rescues. So, I wrote rescues--without Alan, since he was at school.

There's a pattern here, for sure.

Hey guys let me tell you about advance fee scams

I hope y'all are familiar with these in this day and age, especially my artists out there, because they're incredibly common.

About half an hour ago I posted a drawing and tagged it #artists on tumblr, and very quickly received this comment.

My scam radar went off immediately, due to the generic blog name and lack of any emotion in the comment, but I decided it might be an entertaining venture so I dmed them. They asked for a drawing "of these", and sent me a random selfie. I got the details and told them it would be $15, and they promptly offered me $300. At this point I know it's a scam, but I play along for funsies and give them my paypal. Shortly, they send me this image for "confirmation" (I blocked out my email)

And they began to insist that I checked my email. I looked in my spam folder and found the following email.

This is fake. This is not a thing. And the "you're to refund the $200.00 back" is the scam. They send vaguely official-looking emails at you to "prove" that they sent you the money, then have you send them $200 (or however much the scam is for). Then, surprise surprise, you're out $200.

I continued to play along for a bit, and in the second email "Paypal" told me that I had to refund the $200 before they could "credit the $300 to my account", along with these lovely threats.

And yeah, it's silly. But it's not silly if you don't know and get scammed. So. Spread, please! And thank you very much to @mlaurel for the opportunity to get these screenshots.

This is a variation on a much older scam that often results in the victim being out money and also out whatever they were selling. It goes something like this:

- victim posts an item for sale on craigslist or w/e

- scammer contacts asking if a check is ok

- scammer then asks if they can write a check for more than the agreed-upon price and for the seller to give them the overage back as cash, often with some excuse about it being an out-of-state bank, they don't have a card and need some cash for something else, or whatever.

- scammer gives check, gets cash and item, and bounces

- guess what the check does, too

ANY kind of structure where you supposedly get money but have to give some of it back to someone should twig your scam radar, frankly.

Reblogging because some people need to refresh their scam radar, or start building theirs. I see far too many people fall for traps, and don't dare say for a second "this will never happen to me" because all it takes is a momentary lapse in judgement.

You want to call your House rep now and tell them Trump needs to be impeached immediately for defying a Supreme Court order (re: Kilmar Abrego Garcia), which functionally voids our constitution and means no one in America has rights anymore.

I am not exaggerating.

As of now, anybody can be disappeared, no due process, no recourse. Trump is openly disregarding a Supreme Court order and says he’ll send US citizens to El Salvador.

This is not a drill.

Call your House rep and tell them they must impeach. Tell them if they cannot bring themselves to impeach, they must resign. A more open and shut case to impeach is not possible. Trump and his administration are saying openly, in public, that anybody can be kidnapped by ICE, even in error, and disappeared permanently.

Call your senators, too, and tell them to support impeachment (it goes to them once it passes a majority House vote).

"Hello, my name is _______ and I am a constituent from _______. My address is ________.

I am reaching out today to urge Representative ______ to call for the impeachment of President Trump due to his refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's April 10th decision regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported and has been charged with no crime. As Justice Sotomayor stated, this inaction implies the government's ability to 'deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.' This precedent is unconstitutional, highly illegal, and grounds for impeachment. Every individual, regardless of immigration status, must be guaranteed a right to due process.

Representative _____, I urge you to stand on the right side of history today by calling for President Trump's impeachment. This administration can not be allowed to continue unilaterally defying the checks and balances that are intrinsic to our government."

You can also find your representative and senators and their phone numbers on https://5calls.org/

Please don't be afraid of calling. Your job would just be to be a data point, not to sound perfect. Here's some info on why calling is effective.

This group of Maryland high school students said f book bans, we'll write our own

Despite Maryland’s Freedom to Read act, schools still banned 64 books in the 2023-2024 school year—many by queer authors and centering LGBTQ+ identities. So this group of high school students said f that.

With one of our It Gets Better: Changemakers grants, they launched Navigating the Margins—a writing program that paired young authors with published mentors. What came out of the partnerships was a groundbreaking anthology filled with stories ranging from fantasy and dystopian fiction to school dramas and murder mysteries.

One of the students said, "I see the book at school and I’m filled with such immense pride for all of us who were brave enough and proud enough to show who we really are." <3

If you want to do this or something similar for LGBTQ+ youth in your own community, we can help! Apply for a $10,000 Changemakers grant by May 5th at itgetsbetter.org/changemakers.

Reblog if you're okay with receiving asks for backstory info on any/all of your fics.

If not all, specify which ones in the tags.

Since making my last post about handwashing, I read the comments & tags and learned that many people believe handwashing is only necessary to remove visible dirt from our hands. This surprised me!

Handwashing is a vital component in preventing the spread of infections & disease! : )

Since it's come up again I will once again remind you that it's a good idea to make a habit of washing your hands with soap + warm water whenever you come home because hand sanitizer does not kill some unpleasant and dangerous germs like Norovius (as just one example).

You cannot rely on only washing your hands after you've been around someone visibly ill or touched something that looks dirty. Germs are microscopic and can exist on apparently clean surfaces. People can continue to shed Norovirus for weeks after they were sick, and Norovirus can survive on surfaces for as long as two weeks.

Imagine getting sick from someone a month after they've recovered because you both use the same doorknob! This is only one example of a highly contagious illness spread by germs which cannot be killed by hand sanitizer.

Please practice handwashing when you arrive home, before you prepare meals, before you eat, etc.! We cannot mitigate every risk, nor should we live in fear, but if you have access to soap and water, handwashing is a simple way to dramatically decrease risk of infection!

We live in a world where healthcare is largely out of our hands for many, maddening reasons. This is something you can do to protect yourself and others that is genuinely worthwhile.

PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS