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He was an activist who inspired millions to fight for their rights. He knew what was wrong with our country and risked his life to help his people achieve equality.  In the society where black were treated like animal he did everything possible to change this. His brave soul, his will and courage changed the history of America , changed the people. He made us believe we can win this war. He payed for it with his life. He will always be remembered.

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http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/03/1408341/-Psychologist-openly-admits-he-trains-police-officers-to-shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later S-I-G-N-A-L B-O-O-S-T

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I’ve been watching, as in really paying attention to and planning to see, Desert Bus for Hope since DB5.  I’ve been participating in the Craft-Along since DB6, and I have the crafter’s patches to prove it.  (I really should… put those on something.)  It’s an event that I plan for and look forward to every year.  Even last year, when I had to miss most of the beginning because I was actively moving into an apartment with the worst internet I’ve encountered since dial-up. Unfortunately that’s the internet I had this year too, but it’s worth occasionally having to reduce the stream to the lowest visual quality just to lean way far back and keep watching.  Hey I do pixel art, I know how this works.  I had to catch up on the last 3-ish hours of the run later on, because sleep is a thing that has to happen, or so I’m told.  The catch-up period usually gives me a chance to reflect on exactly why I look forward to this fundraiser in particular.  It’s always difficult to put the experience into words. First is the charity itself.  Basically, Child’s Play makes people who absolutely are not okay, a little more okay.  And anyone who has ever been not okay is going to understand the value of that.  It’s more than  a provider of video games to hospitals and women’s shelters; it’s communication devices that allow kids to talk to parents and classmates, and attempts to allow bed-ridden young folk to explore places via robots with cameras.  It may sound silly to you, but if you’re in that bed wondering what the point of living another day is?  It’s everything.  Hearing there’s more research going into virtual reality as a means of pain management made the rest of my year.  And we all know that sometimes life goes to crap and what we really need is to pick up that game or that book and just… therapeutically zone out for a few hours.  It may not “solve” anything, but it is absolutely essential to mental well-being.  And not just for the young people themselves, but for those older folks who care about them, their comfort and mental state.  It is specifically about the children, absolutely, but also goes well beyond them.   It’s an actual investment in the future, in the power kindness to and from everywhere in the world, always expanding its reach. Desert Bus for Hope, the event raising money for Child’s Play, is a little like watching that “PC nightmare” authoritarian establishment folks keep “warning” everyone about: where the humor isn’t mean (but does not lack teeth) nor directed toward attacking anyone, where all identities are openly accepted and everyone’s welcoming and polite to each other, where supportive casual contact isn’t met with “no homo”, where whoever wants to paint their nails gets to paint their nails, and the style is clearly “whatever you want to wear” and always glorious.  But you know what?  It feels amazingly good to watch.  Like how amazingly good it is to see all of the passion and love put into all of the handmade donations which get auctioned off or given away in drives; I’m always floored by everyone’s work that mine gets to be amongst and all of the different types of skills.  I described the whole of Desert Bus for Hope as “aggressively positive” and I will continue to say as much: the fundraiser has only become increasingly positive in the wake of what’s happening elsewhere in the world, leading a fierce example of how very powerful and important kindness and the desire to improve things for each other, and for and those who will “inherit the future” so to speak, can be.  Direct open opposition and leading by example.  Love and encouragement as defiance.  A community that actually takes care of itself, full of vastly different types of people, joined by inherent geekery of different kinds, all coming together to raise money to help people who aren’t okay, be a little more okay. The event title is even more poignant right now, because we need that hope.  We need the demonstration, need to see the power of kindness, how strong it actually is as opposed to the people trying to tell us it doesn’t matter at all.  It’s absolute proof that we can all pitch in something to help and be inspired to keep that going, that just watching this silly fundraiser every year is enough to remind us that there is in fact hope.  So many of us are so, so tired of seeing the hateful, fearful, downright worst side of humanity seemingly getting louder, and this is one of those shining beacons of nonsensical exuberance and aggressive positivity that reminds us of how being a jerk isn’t actually the default.  It isn’t anywhere near as powerful as… well, whatever Desert Bus for Hope is.  Full of silly and celebration and feels and a reminder that no one is alone, and there is a community out there for them to find.  Plus, there’s another one coming up next year.  Something to keep in mind when The Final Busdown is a celebration of singing and crashing (or towing). The Bus Place is a good place, and I look forward to seeing it again next year.  After everyone’s had a chance to recover.  In theory.

#desert bus #desert bus for hope #Yeah we really do

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Burn severity PSA

I do a bit of flow arts every now and again, when I’m not feeling quite as shit as usual. Flow arts, for those that don’t know, is basically the same as fire juggling. As such, I’ve had to learn a fair bit of basic fire safety.

Among those things are how to categorize burns.

Ever since doing so, I’ve been completely unable to ignore whenever burn degrees are mentioned in fanfiction I read. Or fiction in general, for that matter. And it’s all too often abundantly clear that a lot of people don’t understand what a leap it actually is going from a second degree burn to a third. I’m kinda clumsy. I’ve had many, many burns in my life. Many first degree, almost as many second degree. But never a third degree. 

In fact, no one in the history of my flow arts club has ever had a third degree burn. Considering that we juggle fire for fun, that should say something about how serious - and relatively uncommon - third degree burns are.

Here’s the scale, as I was taught:

1:st degree: red and irritated skin, undamaged tissue

2:nd degree: blisters, damaged tissue

3:rd degree: blackened skin, dead tissue

Please. Fellow writers. Stop saying a character has third degree burns unless you know what that means. Third degree burns are hella severe. Second degrees are enough to leave scarring. Third degree burns - especially large ones - might require skin grafts, or even amputation. They are not to be taken lightly.

#this has been a psa #burn tw #injury tw #for writers #things that bug me #this is mostly apropo me just burning myself on the oven while making dinner today #two places on my dominant hand #proooobably second degree burns both #DW I got burn gel #it hurts but this happens to me a lot #I know what I'm doing :')

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Look, in Sweden we celebrate Christmas by burning a giant straw goat and watch Donald Duck be driven insane by a clown peckingbird. It’s not complicated.

if you ask any swedish person “what happens on christmas at 3 pm?” they will know….. donald duck.

#I'm not even joking #Speaking of which... #gotta check on this year's goat #has it burned yet? #I checked #It seems to be intact so far #but that can't last #it went untouched last year #it can't survive two years in a row surely! #I mean sure #this year it's guarded by knights #like actual medieval knights #I'm NOT JOKING #but it can't survive two years in a row #Just can't! #Who knows what might happen?! #It'll be the end of the world I tell you #Cows will rain from the skies and the very fabric of time and space will unravel! #...I should do a DnD oneshot about that #The highest stakes heist/sabotage mission #The Goat must Burn or the multiverse will end #....and it all links back to Vasric the Rammer of the Iron Horns somehow

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A little late to the party, perhaps, but I have Thoughts.

There’s been a whole lot of thinkpieces about the idol, the fire and the red palette, and I have some thoughts about them, but they mostly boil down to ‘let’s not jump to conclusions just yet, m’kay?’ so I’m not really gonna spend any time going on about those right now. 

You see, there’s another aspect of this image that I find incredibly interesting that I’ve yet to see anyone else really talk about: the positioning of Solas and the Wolf.

Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that in every single mural we’ve seen before this one, Solas and the Wolf has always been on the same side of the picture. Here, they are very much not.

In the past, the Wolf has been standing behind Solas. Looming, yes, but also guarding. Standing in solidarity, or as an extension of the self. Or perhaps as a personification of his sense of duty.

But here, that is not the case. No, this looks confrontational.

Which, if I’m correct, is new.

I have a lot of thoughts on this mural, and if you want to hear my extended thoughts, I will gladly share them, but it basically boils down to this: I believe that what we see here is not a literal telling of events, so much as it depicts Solas’ internal conflict.

And it looks even worse than we thought.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 4 speculation #the dread wolf rises #Solas #reblogging for time zones

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you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!

#Terry Pratchett #He's been my favourite writer pretty much since my mom introduced me to his work #I was nine #I never got an opportunity to meet him #but his works had a significant impact on the way I view the world #and i miss him #When he died it was a little bit like losing a loving grandfather I'd never met #His words still serve to give me the strength to keep going some days #for the above reasons perhaps most of all

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A little late to the party, perhaps, but I have Thoughts.

There’s been a whole lot of thinkpieces about the idol, the fire and the red palette, and I have some thoughts about them, but they mostly boil down to ‘let’s not jump to conclusions just yet, m’kay?’ so I’m not really gonna spend any time going on about those right now. 

You see, there’s another aspect of this image that I find incredibly interesting that I’ve yet to see anyone else really talk about: the positioning of Solas and the Wolf.

Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that in every single mural we’ve seen before this one, Solas and the Wolf has always been on the same side of the picture. Here, they are very much not.

In the past, the Wolf has been standing behind Solas. Looming, yes, but also guarding. Standing in solidarity, or as an extension of the self. Or perhaps as a personification of his sense of duty.

But here, that is not the case. No, this looks confrontational.

Which, if I’m correct, is new.

I have a lot of thoughts on this mural, and if you want to hear my extended thoughts, I will gladly share them, but it basically boils down to this: I believe that what we see here is not a literal telling of events, so much as it depicts Solas’ internal conflict.

And it looks even worse than we thought.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 4 speculation #the dread wolf rises #solas

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Dunno what to think. Too early to say anything, really, but I’d like to add a few observations I made not too long ago, that when you actually look around in the Primeval Thaig, specifically in the final area, it doesn’t look Dwarven at all. In fact, it looks distinctly Tevinter. You know, with those pillars and statues?

They look just like the Claws of Dumat, as seen in the Fade at Adamant.

And the coloration, style and angles are all wrong for the Dwarven style, besides. To my mind, this is undeniably Tevinter iconography. What this says about the Red Lyrium idol and the purpose of the Thaig itself, however... I have only half-formed headcanons at best. :/

Still not too sure what to make of any of it. Too much stuff in general about Dwarven history, the Deep Roads, Tevinter, the Blight and the Void that’s far, faaar to vague and undefined to draw any real conclusions at this point. It’s really frustrating, to be honest.

DA4 teaser and The Descent DLC scattered thoughts

I’m admittedly not the best at picking apart or creating theories, so this may just be a coincidence but did anyone notice that the Red Lyrium statue

1. Is like a reverse positioning of when Solas “killed” Mythal at the end of DAI,

2. It kind of looks like them,

3. Or what if it’s Andraste and Shartan?

4. The red lyrium statue was originally found in a primeval thaig. Which leads me to

5. Reflecting on the Descent DLC, and the evidence that the old dwarves knew of elves and Mythal, due to the fact that a statue of Mythal was down there, along with an Eluvian.

Could this be related? Thoughts?

#dragon age #dragon age meta #dragon age:inquisition #the fade #da4 speculation #can't believe I don't have better pictures of the Claws #went through all of my 600+ screenshots and this was the best I had #the note content - which is very good - and a bad angle of the Claws/pillar itself - which is significantly less good

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#wildstar #drusera #reblogging my own post because I need this right now

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So.... I just kinda realised that if I hadn’t been born into the privilege I did, I would most likely be homeless and/or dead right now.

Fuck. Isn’t that a right kick in the tits.

I am so goddamned lucky.

#mental health #privilege #reality check #So Sweden's got a pretty damn solid social security net compared to other countries right? #but that still doesn't mean our systems aren't arbitrary or convoluted #and you gotta KNOW what kind of subsidy you can even apply for to be able to apply for it #my studying subsidy - that I still had access to through my sick leave #at least for as long as my school agreed and could show that I would be studying there were I not on sick leave #just fell away this summer due to really dumb reasons #My program technically doesn't exist anymore because they overhauled it the year after I started studying #and my classmates (that didn't need to re-take anything anyway) just graduated back in spring #so because the program now looks a bit different its technically a different program and I'm not enlisted on it #because I'm enlisted on a version of it that doesn't exist anymore #the bureau granting the studying subsidies therefore deemed me to have insufficient proof that I would be studying this period #So I've gotten no money from them since June and I have no chance to win in an appeal against their decision #I've been living entierly on money from my parents since #There are other subsidies I can - and will - apply for but with my health situation being as disastrous as it is #and me trying to find and apply for actual studies in spring #it's been incredibly slow going #It sucks #I am so goddamn lucky I have parents that are well-off enough #and kind and understanding enough #to support me this much #lucky to live where I do where medicine and healthcare is available and affordable even to someone in dire financial straits #I am so goddamn fucking lucky #and it makes me really sad you know? #This shouldn't be LUCKY #access to the healthcare you need and a functioning support structure shouldn't be lucky #affordable access to education shouldn't be lucky #it should be a universal human right

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Guess who’s baking cookies at 3 AM? Me. I am. 

My life is a shattered mess :’)

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The most appropriate LRRwithoutcontext picture possible for the current Tumblr fiasco. This is amazing.

(It’s from this crapshot. Go watch it.)

#lrr #honestly if this DOESN'T get flagged I will be mildly upset XD

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It’s all just different patterns

Sometimes it can be difficult for me to remember that ADHD and Autism aren’t “things” I “have.”

It’s so easy to think of it that way, struggling with my depression, my anxiety and my burnout that’s resulted from me having gone undiagnosed for so long. Struggling to find a proper medication for my ADHD, even after having searched for a year and a half, with my Autism interfering and making it so much more complicated and difficult. So easy to think of them as different things, different parts of my brain that constantly fight and argue, that help by both being there a lot of the time, but makes everything so much more complicated to solve when they’re both giving me trouble. 

But they’re not real. There’s no “both.”

Autism and ADHD aren’t “things.” 

They’re not these tangible conditions that function differently. That’s not how it works. 

“ADHD” and “Autism” are just names. 

They’re names used to describe patterns of brain behaviour. Patterns uncommon enough and distinct enough to warrant study. Patterns different enough from more common patterns that they have trouble meshing with the standardised rules of human society.

Every single brain out there behaves in their own, unique ways. Some are more similar, others are less so. Some are different enough, in similar enough ways that these behavioural patterns are given names. Categories.

I don’t “have” ADHD and Autism. ADHD and Autism are just names.

I don’t “have” two “competing” “conditions.”  My brain just happens to behave in some pretty uncommon ways. Ways that can be described using the words “ADHD” and “Autism” both. But they’re not these different things my brain has. 

Sometimes it can be difficult to remember that.

#mental health #autism #adhd #neurodiversity

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Okay. Been putting this off enough now. Time to get to properly sorting this Datacube collection. I aim to do three editions.

1, sorted by authors

2, sorted by area

3, annotated version of the first, annotations being little in-character comments by my two mains, who I used to gather all of the cubes in question, in order to add some context and additional thoughts.

Gonna upload them on AO3 and link to them here as they go up.

The third one is going to take significantly longer.

In addition to the Datacubes, I also have the TALES magazines and the reports from Secret Ops and the Enigma Chamber. I aim to upload these as well.

Lastly, thanks to a friend I met just on the second-to-last day, I also have access to every journal in the game. I considered gathering them in the same manner as I have the other entries, but quickly realised that it would be suicidal with the limited time-frame. But thanks to him, I can provide a source for the journals as well. 

I hope to have most of this up within the week. But I know myself, so I make no promises. 

Of course, the annotated version of the Datacube collection is going to take a fair bit longer than the rest, so that is going to come last.

Hopefully, I will eventually be able to get my hands on the full Galactic Archive as well. There is a lot of lore in there, but it’s perhaps a bit less ubiquitous a source. That really ought to be rectified.

#wildstar #wildstar lore preservation

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Is it weird that whenever I read up about the realities of game writing and how it’s much less about shaping the overall narrative of the game and more about taking often wildly disparate pieces of locations, game-mechanics and story/lore that other people have written and trying to fit it all together somehow, often in quite small-scale, I actually get MORE excited rather than less?

Guess I really am more of a problem solver than an artist of any medium. That feels... oddly comforting.

Probably a sign that I may be cut out for game writing after all.

You know. Provided that the stress and the general shittiness that is the Games Industry doesn’t drive me off. Or kill me.

#thoughts #i have a headache today #it's a bit better than when I woke up but only by a tiny margin

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No, YouTube, I know what I searched for. Give me Chrises on Infinite Earths, please.

#mcu #dcu #I can always appreciate a good pun