Their Eyes - Gods, Wow!

Absolutely nothing good comes from guilting, forcing, and shaming people into having kids. It’s only going to result in parents that resent and regret their kids. This is bad for kids.

Do you know why, increasingly with each generation, more kids grow up into adults who genuinely love children and want to advocate for them? It’s precisely a result of greater reproductive freedom for all people, better access to healthcare, education, safe public spaces, safe food/water/air. Which political party has been doing away with these? Hmmmmm…? Please, help me understand why there are undecided voters

Conservatives have destroyed their own hearts and minds. With no empathy or compassion, no appreciation of critical thinking or emotional intelligence, they left themselves at the mercy of petty, vile, loveless abusers.

Conception, pregnancy, and raising children need love and respect.

Keep MAGA misery and unhappiness away from children.

C’mere, kid.  I want to tell you a secret.

Whoa, whoa, not like that!  This isn’t one of those “strange man tells you something that you’re not supposed to share with your parents” situations.  I want you to share this with your parents.  I want you to share this with the whole world.  You wanna be my prophet, you go right ahead.  It’s not like most folks are gonna listen, but every so often, one of you people decides to try, and I’m always grateful, even if I don’t think there’s any point to it.

Okay.  You with me?  You listening?  You cleaned your ears out recently?  Because if you’re gonna be my prophet, I don’t want you to go around telling people I said something I didn’t.  That’s happened to so many of my friends.  They lay out one message, and folks pick it up and turn it into something terrible, into some sort of cudgel to beat people with.  And that’s not what I’m about.

Okay.  You’re good?  Then here you go.  This is the secret, this is the essential thing I wish you over-important primates would hammer through your heads, this is what matters:

People are essentially good, and essentially the same, everywhere you go.  Optimism isn’t shallow, and being a happy person doesn’t make you a fool.  You’re allowed to irrigate and plant flowers in your heart.  That won’t make you weak.  It won’t make you irresponsible, or petty.  Be joyous.  Find your light and nurture it, and once it’s strong and healthy enough to light up your room, open the windows and share it with the people around you.

There’s a lot of shadow in a lot of folks.  A little light can help to beat it back, and can bring us a better world.  All of us, not just the divine, and not just the damned.

Do your part, prophet or no.  Nurture and protect your joy.

Can we also give little boys stuffed toys 🧸? They need things to hug and cuddle.

Are you registered to vote?

In Texas you must be registered to vote 30 days before the election

PROJECT 2025: WHAT IS IT AND WHAT CAN I DO? AN POST WITH LINKS AND INFORMATION.

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS PROJECT 2025? I KEEP HEARING SO MUCH ABOUT IT.

At this point - you've heard of it. And you're probably trying to understand what exactly it is. How does it affect you? Your American friends and family? What does it all mean?

PROJECT 2025 is a Conservative Playbook to essentially take over the American government and reshape life as Americans know it. Conservatives refer to it as a "comprehensive transition plan" to take place during the first 180 days of presidency. It is a 900-page document [of which I read] and can generally explained as complete and utter religious bullshit and agenda.

It is best summarized by the subreddit community r/Defeat_Project_2025 : "Project 2025 is a plan by The Heritage Foundation to reshape the US into an authoritarian theocracy, bring about religious tyranny. It threatens the freedom and liberty we fought for and vowed to defend. They plan to ban abortion, cut LGBTQ protections, reverse climate policy, environmental regulation and more, endangering our future. HF inserted policies and staff going back to Reagan. Trump accepted 64% of their "Mandate for Leadership" plan - proof, which Project 2025 builds off. 70 Heritage Foundation Alumni served in his administration or transition team."

HEY, THAT ACTUALLY SOUNDS REALLY SCARY. WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE GOALS OF THIS PROJECT?

Once again, we turn to our friends in r/Defeat_Project_2025 for a rather terrifying list:

Use religion to shape policy

Fire 50k federal workers, hire loyalists

Direct the DOJ to investigate enemies

Hamstring the FBI, reduce autonomy

Dismantle the DHS

Use National Guard for law enforcement

Military recruiters in secondary schools

Make children take a military aptitude test

Military forces assigned to the border

Defense funds for undocumented camps

Harder to get asylum

Gut the EPA

Rollback climate change protections

Axe 3 US Department of Energy offices

Eliminate the Department of Education

Eliminate public funding of PBS and NPR

Eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion measures

Replace equality measures with "anti-white racism" policies

Outlaw porn, equate it with LGBTQ

Register teachers, librarians providing "porn" as sex offenders

Close telecom, tech firms that spread "porn"

Affirming a Trans child's gender becomes abuse

Throw Trans folk out of the military

Exclude "gender ideology" from public schools

Lock in rigid gender roles at birth

Decry single moms & gay marriage

Try to ban abortion & contraception

Bust all public sector unions

President will control the FCC & FTC

Raise political contribution limits

Hamstring the Federal Election Commission

Bolster bogus voter fraud claims

Insane, huh.

WHAT CAN I DO?

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! Now, more than ever, your vote is needed.

YOU CAN VISIT THE DEFEAT PROJECT 2025 WEBSITE HERE.

YOU CAN JOIN THE DISCORD AND GET CONNECTED HERE.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT A LIST OF MAJOR RESOURCES FROM THE SUBREDDIT HERE.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: YOU CAN SPEAK UP. YOUR VOICE IS A POWERFUL WEAPON. TALK TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO VOTE BLUE - TO DO THEIR RESEARCH AND UNDERSTAND THAT PROJECT 2025 WILL AFFECT EVERYONE - NOT JUST QUEER PEOPLE.

reblogging this beauty just because she’s neat ❤️🕷️🕸️

[image description: An elegant black cat with a long tail sits in profile on a block of black marble, blocking the view of Assless Chaps behind them. Text reads, “55, Obsidious ~ The Small God of Occluding Cats”] ____________________________________________________________

The cat is in the way.

This is a basic fact of the universe, simple and immutable.  The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the cat is in the way.  The world is spinning, the atomic structure of the universe is decaying, the cat is the way.  The faithful pray, the apostate condemn, and the cat is in the way.

How is the cat always, inevitably, unavoidably, in the way?  When did we get a cat, anyway?  How did that cat get in here?  Hey, is anyone willing to take responsibility for this cat?  Can someone tell me whose cat this is?

No.

No, no one can tell you whose cat this is.  No, no one is going to take responsibility for that cat.  No, no one let the cat in, and the cat is in the way because it is the nature of cats to be in the way.  If the cat were not in the way, something much more terrible than the cat might rise in its absence.  The cat occupies space to ensure that the space is occupied, because the space will be occupied, whether it is by the cat or by something far more terrible.  The cat is doing you a favor.  Do not count the cat’s eyes.  The cat’s eyes are none of your concern.  The cat can see you.  Isn’t that enough?

Isn’t it enough that the cat is being generous enough to protect you from the terrible thing that would be looking at you with some uncounted number of eyes if the cat were not there?  Isn’t it enough that the cat is soft, and the cat is purring, and the cat is in the way?

Isn’t it enough?

Let it be enough.

The cat loves you.  The cat will love you even into the void.  The cat will forgive you for your frailties, and the cat is in the way.

The cat is always in the way.

____________________________________________________________

Artist Lee Moyer (Trident of Aurelia, 13th Age) and author Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, October Daye & InCryptid series) sincerely appreciate you, but wonder if you could scoot just the tiniest little bit to the left?

The only way out is through.

You are inconsistent. You do not need to have a grand unified theory about what to do about Michael Jackson. You are a hypocrite, over and over. You love Annie Hall but you can barely stand to look at a painting by Picasso. You are not responsible for solving this unreconciled contradiction. In fact, you will solve nothing by means of your consumption; the idea that you can is a dead end. The way you consume art doesn't make you a bad person, or a good one. You'll have to find some other way to accomplish that.

Claire Dederer, Monsters

Listen by Barbara Crooker