I Bring You “Virgil Playing The Violin” That No One Asked For. :3

I'VE BEEN PAINTING AND IT TURNED OUT SO BEAUTIFUL

to stay warm, advice from a canadian who deals with -40C weather to the americans in the south

blankets and sheets, get them layers in your bed. wear a loose hoodie to bed and socks too. it helps. put a blanket under you too to keep your back warm

put a rug underneath your bed, it helps with insulating your bed from the cold

drink water, like hot weather n the summer, cold weather will dehydrate you and you will get colder. so to warm up, drink water

get enough sleep. srsly, it will help you deal with cold weather

take a lot of breaks if you are going outside. like stagger how long you are outside and hydrate 

don’t burn propane indoors, or keep your oven open

if you are going to make a fire, do it in a fireplace and make sure your flume is open

share body heat with your pet or family by getting under the covers together. it helps.

hot water bottles, electric heat pads and rice bags are great to warm up the bed. 

close your blinds and use curtains or sheets to cover the windows, it will help with insulating from the cold. especially at night. you can even get some styrofoam from a hardware store or window insulation. my sister’s apartment had terrible windows and she used blackout curtains to keep the heat in

baking! do some baking. it really heats up the house. like make a pound cake, something that takes 60 mins. srsly even in -40C i had to turn off the heat in my apartment because the oven heated the whole place and also, CAKE 

going outside requires: shirt and sweater/hoodie , sometimes an undershirt if you aren’t used to the cold. keep your core covered! a scarf! the heaviest coat, socks! pants! and water proof or insulated boots. double up on socks too! and gloves and a hat. in a pinch a kerchief can make a good headband and combine that with a hood it’s a makeshift hat

give your car time to warm up, the oil needs to be at the midpoint! so start the car and let it run before going somewhere

keep two car lengths between cars, it gives you enough time to break. the road is icy! and you probably don’t have winter tires, road salt or ploughing so give your car time to stop. like srsly, also go slow! put your hazards on too to let other cars see you and if you are going slow 

soup, make some soup

also hot chocolate is also great

stay warm and i love you guys

Obscure Texas election could change the world

Things are very dire. The world is aflame. Our political will is in tatters. But despite all this, there are leverage points, where a small intervention can have gigantic consequences.

One of these is an obscure political race in Texas.

It’s been 26 years since a Democrat was elected to the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state oil and gas industry, whose practices are lethally dirty, even by the industry’s own homicidal standards.

https://capitalandmain.com/race-obscure-texas-office-could-have-lasting-impact-climate-change-0910

Particularly egregious is Texas’s world-killing flaring process  - burning off usable gas and creating massive amounts of CO2 for no useful purpose, merely because it is inconvenient to capture it - in 2018, West Texas flared enough gas to power the whole state for the year.

For the first time in a generation, one of the three seats on the board that oversaw a transition from responsible capture to toxic, reckless flaring might go to a Dem.

The Democratic candidate is Chrysta Castañeda, the superlawyer who got T Boone Pickens $145m from the partners who ripped him off.

Her GOP opponent is bizarre: Jim Wright, who primaried the GOP incumbent. Wright’s company paid a $181k fine for violating commission rules.

Wright - who, recall, is running for a seat on the commission - owns DeWitt Recyclable Products, a company that “toxic waste to pile up and leak into the soil.”

It’s also been repeatedly sued by oilfield operators for fraud.

Wright is a staunch proponent of flaring, insisting in print that “If you do away with flaring today with no other technology, that would shut our oil business down.” (This is not true)

The Railroad Commission is a century-old, extremely powerful bulwark against pollution, and it can only grant licenses to flare if all three commissioners agree. A single commissioner COULD END ALL TEXAS FLARING.

Castañeda is a long-time opponent of flaring. Her work led to ex-commissioner Ryan Sitton publishing a report that called out the worst flarers, and the oil industry promptly raised a war-chest to mount a primary challenge against him, creating this competitive race.

“Wright, who won the primary with barely $12k on hand compared with Sitton’s $2m, now has more than $400k in his campaign bank, much of it from employees of the sectors he intends to regulate. (Castañeda has slightly more than $120k)” -Judith Lewis Mernit/Capital and Main

Here’s Castañeda’s campaign site. I just made a donation - these leverage points are few and far between, and we can’t waste ‘em.

https://www.chrystafortexas.com/meet/

Image: EdJF (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kuwaiti_Oil_Well_Fire.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

You ever think about how much easier Simon and Wille's relationship would be if they communicated

It's true there are external factors keeping them apart but (and I say this with love) how much time did we spend going around and around with "you don't understand" "no you don't understand" "it's not easy for me" "it's not easy for me either" but now it her of them actually know anything about the other bc the straight up never explain. Simon says "it feels like you just brushed off the video like he's faced no problems" bc from the outside that's exactly what it looks like. it DOES seem like willes brushed it off and faced no consequences bc Simon doesn't get any of the scenes we get. He doesn't get a great explanation of really anything. And Wille doesn't get great explanations for everything either. But if they talked stuff out productively we wouldn't have drama.

Finally ththere's more understanding in the Reading/lit class scene(which I love, also no way ppl don't realize they're in love with each other)

Listen, “asshole with a heart of gold” is a good trope but you know what we need more than that???

Dumbass with a heart of gold. Just, a complete moron who cares a whole fucking lot. An idiot who would die for a stranger. A goddamn dimwit so fucking in love with someone that they’d do anything for ‘em.

SHHHHYOURSISTER FIC MASTERPOST (updated 12/26/19)

hi everyone so this is definitely a super good idea for me to make and will be helpful for people who wanna read my fics, and for me to keep track of all of the random shit i write!!!!! so here we fuckin GOOOO (sorry about how long this is gonna be lmao im gonna try to update it every time i write a fic whoops)

AO3 FICS

david and jonas find a kitten 

self indulgent shotgunning fic 

abdi and carlos are a little confused (about top surgery) but they got the spirit 

david gets MAD when he can’t beat a level of a video game

og hickey fic

hans gives david the talk

random lil soft morning depression fic

(nsfw) just gonna keep it simple and say the 3pt masturbation fic (plus a lil extra)

(nsfw) matteo is an asshole to the boys and david is not happy about it

(nsfw) matteo wakes up and notices that david is naked under the covers

THE CAMP AU (ncu!david backstory)

(nsfw) THE RA!AU

TUMBLR FICS

RANDOM STUFF I WANTED TO WRITE

david gets his top surgery date

(nsfw) david is busy, matteo tries to distract him

davenzi anniversary fic

post-top surgery laura pov

sappy bastard david

proposal pt2 (”wedding”)

davenzi texting

PROMPTS

prompt: “can you write davenzis first pride??”

prompt: “person a desperately needing to pee/shit but person b is in the shower and there is only one bathroom”

prompt: “you can keep it” (ft. drunk!david)

prompt: “t’s just a  ___, nothing to worry about”

prompt: “person a and person b trying to converse while one (or both) of them brushes their teeth”

prompt: “omg please write matteo taking care of drunk david!!!!” (pt2)

prompt: “you came into my room at 4am, to cuddle?” (abdi and matteo) (pt2)

prompt: “can you write write about matteo and david talking about trans stuff?”

prompt: “can you write some dumbass davenzi with a side of brain cell squad for a homie” (ft drunk!matteo)

prompt: “i want you to fight for me” and “angsty davenzi fic please???” (tw: transphobia)

prompt: “could you maybe write about david and matteo cuddling?”

prompt: “something/anything about what a gremlin matteo is and how much david loves him for it??”

prompt: “david walking around shirtless” 

prompt: “davenzi dancing”

prompt: “another hickey fic”

prompt: “matteo messing up”

prompt: “david buys matteo flowers”

prompt: “you didnt have to get me anything” (amira and matteo)

prompt: “david and dysphoria”

prompt: “i guess we have something in common”

prompt: “combine your gremlin-ness with matteo”

prompt:  “davenzi on one of the first evenings after they’ve moved in together”

prompt: “ sara and leonies first reaction/confrontation with davenzi

prompt: “kissing or fooling around in the rain”

prompt: “matteo being cold and clingy”

prompt: “ david thinking about how much he loves matteo, them play fighting and making out”

prompt: “talking about having kids”

prompt: “david has a nightmare”

prompt:  “david feeling overwhelmed/afraid of how much he loves matteo”

prompt: “ david and matteo getting a pet”

prompt: “a return to the pool for an anniversary with a picnic”

prompt: “ i NEED to hear/read david say “good boy”

prompt: “david is having a really shitty day but he knows matteo will make it better”

prompt: “please dont cry” (parent!davenzi)

(nsfw) prompt: “i think that’s the first time i’ve heard you moan…it was like a fucking melody.”

(nsfw) prompt: “just let me finish this and i swear ill go down on you until you come at least three times.”

prompt:  “are you trying to turn me on or are you really just that oblivious?”

prompt: “take off your clothes”

HCs

(nsfw) prompt: “thank you for coming”

(nsfw) prompt: “matteo being baby and david being VERY top”

prompt: “can you expand on matteo being a baby when hes sick”

prompt: “you came into my room at 4am, to cuddle?” (davenzi)

prompt: “more of david and matteo talking about trans stuff”

(nsfw) prompt: “david begging matteo to do something”

prompt: “davenzi making out”

(nsfw) prompt: “can you elaborate on the humiliation/degradation stuff??”

prompt: “davenzi hcs”

(nsfw) prompt: “matteo’s praise!kink”

matteo complimenting david

“matteo…..are you vaping????”

prompt: “what davenzi’s been doing since s4 ended”

prompt: “matteo and depression (davids pov)”

prompt: “when do you think matteo is the most needy?”

autistic matteo

matteo and stimming

matteo cant find the sweater he wants to wear“

I’ve been very quiet these last few days – as a white British person, it seemed more important to keep quiet, listen and put the work in offline to make sure I’m part of the solution and not part of the problem, than to performatively demonstrate that I care. (If I had an audience, it would be different, but let’s be honest – I don’t.) There are a great many petitions and donation links circulating at the moment – if your Tumblr dash and Twitter feed look anything like mine, you’ve seen them twenty times already today, and these are proof that there’s a lot we can all do from behind our computer screens.

However, most of these links are, understandably, US-focused, so for those of us in the UK it can be difficult to know the best way to help. One thing many of us might not have been aware of is the fact that the UK sells tear gas and rubber bullets to the US. There has rightfully been a lot of discussion about how the UK is far from innocent when it comes to racism and police brutality, but our goverment’s direct role in supporting and exacerbating the violence currently occurring in the US is often overlooked.

Like many people, I was ignorant of the danger posed by rubber bullets – the name is disingenuous for something that can be profoundly disabling if not fatal. A photojournalist lost her left eye a few days ago and is now partially blind (she’s already working again and being extremely badass about the whole thing). Tear gas is evil at the best of times, but during a pandemic that affects the respiratory system, it is unfathomable. To continue to sell these weapons to the US makes our country complicit in the lives lost and injury caused.

There’s been a call for these sales to be suspended (see article linked above), which would send a clear message that the UK does not condone this brutality. It’s only a drop in the ocean when it comes to putting a stop to the harm caused by the UK arms trade more generally, but it’s a drop that would help.

So please, if you’re in the UK, write to your MP in support of suspending these sales. While you’re there, ask them to condemn Trump’s response, and demand that the government release the delayed report about BAME Covid-19 deaths. It’s easy to feel helpless adding your name to dozens of change.org petitions, but there are concrete issues you can approach your elected representatives about, and these are some of them. None of us can fix the world, but we can help.

You can write to your MP very easily using WriteToThem.com. You don’t need to be registered to vote, you just need to live in their constituency. If you have a home and term-time address (e.g. you’re a university student), you have two MPs. You don’t need to know their name, because WriteToThem will find them for you. You don’t need to send a long, thought-out email (although that’s great!), you just need to make it clear to them that this is an issue their constituents care about.

The world is awful right now.  Let’s do what we can to make it a tiny bit less awful. <3

So there’s this huge dudebro in my class, who, yesterday, sat next to me. And I’m sitting there sweating because like… I’m wearing my shirt with the lesbian flag on it, and he’s the most popular jock in school, and always has this look on his face that say ‘I can and will kill you’. He looks me up and down, stares at me for a minute and then goes, “So. Girls in skirts and long socks, am I right?”

To which I nodded solemnly, both out of agreement, surprise and also a healthy amount of awkward fear. He nodded and went, “You get it.”

I said, “Yep.” He fistbumped me, and on went our lives.