but I'm hearing there's a NSFW-friendly ko-fi alternative built on atproto that's actively in the works, and being vetted by lawyers right now. as torrent-princess (OP) says, you should be able to swap out payment processors while keeping your account intact. this matters since even if stripe removes support, you'll still have a shop and all of your links intact. (ATproto is an infrastructure that bsky is built on, but is far bigger than bsky with far more opportunities.)

additionally, the Free Speech Coalition is working on a credit union specifically for adult work (including kink art) - here's the link so you can add your interest & support. Since this will be built by sex workers, there'll be far less risk of being debanked for spurious and puritanical reasons.

on a domain TLD level, there's an initiative here for a .furry domain built from the ground up by seasoned furries; it's unclear whether they'll support NSFW, but it's yet another promising turn of events for a group that's been similarly affected by censorship.

And that's not bad! It's true for a lot of people! You CAN go back later! You can apply to university, you can get your GED, you can pursue whatever level of education you want. It's not bad to share that message. If you dropped out and want to go back eventually, there is zero timeline. You can go back at any age, with any life experience. You do not have to graduate by a specific age.

But as someone who dropped out of college over a decade ago, sometimes "you can always go back!" starts to feel a little like an empty platitude. Sometimes it starts to feel grating instead of hopeful. Even when it might technically be true, sometimes it still feels like a hollow sentiment.

I just want to say, to anyone else out there who feels that way, who dropped out and CAN'T go back, potentially EVER, whether it's due to poverty or disability or any other reason:

It's okay to drop out and never go back. It might feel shitty, and you may even feel grief over it. That's real, and painful, and allowed. But you are not lesser. Even if you never go back, you are not a failure or a loser. Academics do not define your worth. You are not stupid. And it is almost certain that the system actually failed YOU.

With love,

Trevor Noah has a great tip, that when he craves ice cream at night he breaks it down into parts: I want something cold, I want something sweet. He drinks a glass of cold water then waits to see if he still has the ice cream craving. Usually he doesn’t.

So listening to your body isn’t “follow every urge” but “decompose the urge to discover the underlying need.”

If you always feel like getting cozy in bed you may be: cold, dehydrated, and/or malnourished (maybe a need for high calories that are bioaccessible…not processed).

If you do not feel tired at bedtime you may: need to eat dinner earlier because your body is still digesting, need to exercise or go outside more during the day, get the fuck off your screen for an hour so your brain can enter sleep mode.

Hope this helps someone.

the humanity of the AIDS crisis: the ward by gideon mendel

Look at this fucking infohazard of a piece of furniture.

Look at how fucking perfectly proportioned each and every void space is to create a subtle sense of motion and elevation, almost a landscape with just a few careful lines.

Look at how the reduction in the support pillars from left to right mirrors that ascension and proportion. How the different woods highlight each other and the near-seamless points at which they meet. How the shadowed interior boards bring out the bright highlights in the grain of the shelves and top piece.

Look at how it fits into a room, how it casts a shadow, and most importantly, how it perfectly frames and hilights every single thing placed on it.

Like. It's not some wild statement to claim that the man who defined an entire genre of woodworking and furniture making, crystalized in his book "the soul of a tree", is like. A human god of the art form. I get that i'm saying nothing revolutionary here. But this thing just. breaks me. nothing compares. i've spent years trying to find a bookshelf that can even hold the faintest candle to it. I've spent long nights up in cad modeling out my own versions based on his design, desperately wanting to take them down to the woodshop and try my hand, but like. one real, good look at this, and it's so clearly the result of decades of craftsmanship. a lifetime of the art. i love it. it ruined this type of furniture for me, and i love it so, so much.

I'll just have to stick to desks, the one thing I know Mr. Nakashima will never ruin for m-

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