the widening gyre

when he was crashing out about trading to ottawa, he said, "You know, it's just gonna be really hard to leave melissa," and hayden was sitting right there like. "melissa?? it's gonna be hard to leave MELISSA??"

UPDATE! They found the original photo!

no motorcycle (i will be so mad if you crash and die)

no pilots license (i will be very mad if you fly into a mountain and die)

no smoking (i will never forgive you if you get lung cancer and die)

no fast cars (i will be so mad if you die in a high-speed crash)

go to the dermatologist (i will be so mad if you get skin cancer and die)

@tinylilhollander

children of any species are very good at being annoying and very cute while doing that

a sphinx child based on this post

About Romancing the Vote

We are romance authors, readers, and fans who care about the future of this country and are inspired by fellow romance author Stacey Abrams to do what we can to preserve the right to vote. Democracy only thrives when every vote can be cast and counted, and we are fighting to help dismantle the legacy of voter suppression across the country.

We're working to raise money for voting organizations again! Together we've raised over $1,000,000 since November of 2020, and we're not stopping now!

In 2026 we are supporting Vote Riders and The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, two organizations experienced in fighting to make sure every person's vote counts.

Item Description

Ships Worldwide (some countries may apply additional custom charges on top of donor-paid shipping fees)

Ever thought, "I need that on a t-shirt"? This auction is for you!

I'll use my smart cutting machine to cut your favorite phrase and/or simple shape out of Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) and put it on a Hanes t-shirt for you. Any size, any easily available color, swear words included. Metallic and rainbow HTV exist!!

Please note, this auction is limited to at most five colors of vinyl, and the largest possible iron-on size must fit within a 12-inch square. Machine wash in cool water with the garment inside out using mild detergent (no bleach or whitening agents), line dry. Do not iron on the heat transfer vinyl. Polyester works best, but I will also do a cotton tee.

And I agree, the notion that people in our community are just shitting lllm-generated stuff out because they want praise and attention and respect for work that isn't even theirs is fucking infuriating. But in a way it's just a democratization of the models that Thomas Kincaid or James Patterson or Taylor Sheridan have pioneered for decades, which is stealing other people's work and effort to pretend it's theirs. I find them disgusting, but in a way I get it. It's nice to get praise for not doing anything at all! We're conditioned to love that; part of what makes growing up so hard is that people stop telling us we're good boys and girls when we use the potty or unload the dishwasher or make our beds. Think of all the people falling victim to AI psychosis, who insist that their text prediction program is a real live girl who loves them. It's an issue, and not because those people are bad — it's because they're vulnerable to the same hunger we all have for someone who follows us around and tells us our wonderful. The psychosis of the rich, now available for a low monthly subscription. There is part of us that wants adulation, and will buy, lie, or cheat to get it.

But what makes me sad rather than angry is that people in this community are doing it. Fandom is a community — albeit a fractured one — of creative nerds who watched a show or read a book or saw a movie and thought holy shit who else feels like this, come find me, I'm here I'm here I'm here and made art or wrote stories or posted theories in order to share them. Very few of us do it specifically for praise (although I'll be the first to admit that HOLY SHIT do I love praise, when people tell me something I wrote meant something to them? Rub it on my goddamn gums) but rather to add to a pile of clay that we're all trying to shape into various images, contradictory and often ugly but with fucking thumbprints on it. And when someone violates that trust, when they contaminate the pile and pretend they've done nothing wrong and in fact try to stand on top proclaiming their own genius?

We fucking "talk about it" in a "community" of fellow "people" and that is beautiful. And we say "Can someone look at this fucking doc I can't tell if it's complete garbage that needs launched into the sun and my keyboard privileges should be taken away or if maybe I just looked at it for too long."

And I didn't magically fall into that community, I found it slowly, because I wanted to write and it's hard and lonely to write. And so I joined a fandom event and started a Tumblr and replied to comments and asked in my author's notes if anyone wanted to help beta because I am a lonely, messy disaster who can't grammar. And people did help me because my bad grammar was giving them hives and also they enjoy community and talking about things they love with people who love the same thing.