a whole bunch of gazan mutual aid projects and nonprofits. if the decision of which individual fundraiser to give to feels too daunting, or if you just want to help as many people as possible in one go, these are great initiatives to support.

certainly this is not an exhaustive list, so please feel free to add on other projects or organizations that i didn't include. and as always, please take the time to donate if you can and share. it truly makes all the difference.

"why can't they just be friends" not in the homophobic way but in the "their platonic relationship in the source material is far more dynamic and complex than the sanitized personalities they gain as a result of shipping" way

I recreated the Lightners Live sprites from the trailer for your jamming pleasure

Miku binder Thomas Jefferson has hit the Pentagon (Daveed Diggs inner circle)

There's a thesis about this! Egger from McGill 2024 "Tracing Fanwork from Source to its Furthest Extreme".

Egger compares the development of transformative works across three musical theater fandoms: Les Miserables, Hadestown, and Hamilton—makes a distinction between acquisitive and creative fan activity (acquisitive, buying the merch and re-watching the media, not a bad thing, it keeps the industry alive; creative, which is fan art and filk and such...that can result in Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson, and the thesis explains how) and provides an overview of how transformative works and the fandom communities explore gender, relationships, racial coding, and class-consciousness within the three aforementioned source materials.

I think it's a good read.

Daily reminder: Transphobia actively contributes to sexism. If you don’t fit the beauty standard and are seen as masculine in any way shape or form, you are seen as transgender and as a “problem”

I think it's incredibly important here to not overlook the fact that she is a Black woman. Transphobia, racism, and sexism overlap significantly because of the incredibly eurocentric beauty standards women are judged on.

This is a ballot measure, not a law proposed by state legislature. Big difference.

https://ktla.com/news/california/proposed-california-ballot-initiative-luigi-mangione-act-would-make-it-harder-for-insurers-to-deny-medical-care/

The initiative is currently under review. A public comment period will be open through April 25. Californians are encouraged to provide feedback on the proposed measure during this time.

The Attorney General’s Office would ultimately craft the initiative’s title before initiative petitions are circulated to get signatures from registered voters.

i love the phrase "which could mean nothing" i think its my favorite thing to come out of the internet ever i love saying it. it could mean nothing but we all know better. we know the truth.

excuse me, no I wasn't???

congratulations to today’s lucky 10000

ID. second image described in alt. first image is tags saying, "hang on are people still aware that the phrase is originally about matt damon/ben affleck." End ID.

GET HIS ASS MARGARET!!!!!!!

In terms of science communication and space exploration advocacy, Elon Musk has sent us back into the fucking Stone Age.

It’s hard enough to encourage the public to see the value in space exploration, especially when the problems facing society right now are so intense that space exploration seems frivolous and needlessly expensive by comparison (keyword “seems”) but now that this clown is the face of the future of space, it’s doubling, hell, tripling down on the idea that space exploration is a fantasy for bored billionaires that would rather fuck off to mars and escape the problems of earthly society (problems that they had a starring role in creating) rather than spend a penny of their wealth to help remedy them. Tale as old as time for a science communicator. Heard it a million times. But now it’s so much harder to get people to understand the other side of the coin because the nightmare scenario is already here and his name is elongated muskrat

To add a little bit of context as to what that value actually is… The thing I hear the most in this conversation is “we need to take care of this planet before we start thinking about other ones.” Yes, I agree. The well-being of our planet and it’s people should be out top priority. But we can’t properly take care of our planet if we don’t fully understand it.

The Earth does not exist in a bubble. It’s part of a dynamic and ever-evolving solar system, and galaxy and universe. He have to look at the earth in that context to be able to know and care for it. To care for a planet, we have to know how planets work. When doctors treat patients they look at the medical record, they look at family history, they look at symptoms and compare them to known diseases to find a diagnosis.

How did the earth form? What was it like in the past? Why did it change? That’s the medical record.

We’ve got the earths siblings in the neighborhood. Why is Mars a frozen desert? Why is Venus a molten hell scape? Could those things happen here? That’s the family history.

What kinds of things are floating around our neighborhood? Could they affect us? All this is necessary to diagnose the Earths problem, to anticipate the direction it’s going, and to help it heal.

And the minute we get an asteroid scare, that’s when folks start asking why we weren’t looking up 🙄

As a science communicator at a well known establishment, 10000x this. We have a student program that talk about Earth systems and how missions like Landsat were so useful to understand our own planet better FROM SPACE. I could go on and on but just, like, reread OP's thoughts, they're perfect.

One of the things that was really impressed upon me in my undergrad studies is that we only have one Earth, but we are lucky enough to live in a time where we know there are thousands of other planets out there, not just the ones in our solar system. Our immediate neighbors are, of course, the most useful and accessible for learning about our own planet directly, but we're getting better and better at looking at planets remotely. (It has never been a more exciting time to be an astrobiologist!)

We can't build a planet from scratch in a lab, but the universe is our laboratory! We are already able to start looking at atmospheres on exoplanets. It's really incredible, and it gives me hope that one day we'll be able to think of a question, and turn to a database to find a planet that matches those specifications to answer those questions.

(Honestly I ran into the opposite problem where people were all too ready to praise Muskrat for all of "his contributions" to space exploration etc etc. What contributions??? Privatizing the space industry???? While still raking in tons in taxpayer money??? I never read a single peer-reviewed paper with that man's name on it. In this way he has had a negative impact on both ends of the spectrum. Harmful to the cause AND somehow attributed way more than his share of glory.)

this duck LOVES pink drink

this line delivery has lived in my head for 10 years

Just one guy? Just one, Spider-maAann.

­ Or woman! We don't know.

­ ...for suᵘuᵤre,

Hot take but actors are allowed to lie about their personal lives if that’s what it takes for them to have some privacy. Stop being nosy bitches they don’t owe you anything.

Too many people forget that acting is a job. Like any public-facing workers, actors get to clock out and have their personal time. The public isn't entitled to them once they're off the clock, any more than they're entitled to the supermarket cashier's time after hours.

The YouTube channel anti-chef always adds an extra bay leaf to recipes that call for it and he says “and add another one. I’m not driving” and this has permanently altered my vocabulary.

Every time I add something extra to a recipe I say that now. Add another clove of garlic, I’m not driving. Let’s have two eggs, I’m not driving. Let’s double the chili flakes, I’m not driving.

[ID: A screenshot from a Wikipedia article which reads, "The original candidate for DC Comics' first headlining black superhero was a character called the Black Bomber, a white racist who would turn into a black superhero under stress. Comics historian Don Markstein later described the character as "an insult to practically everybody with any point of view at all"."

dandelions deserve more respect than they get

you say “weeds” I say “widespread non-native edible plant and early-blooming pollinator resource that is not considered invasive because it behaves politely and does not cause deleterious ecological consequences”

The dandelions aren’t gonna fuck you bro

they have and they will