Falling Headfirst from Time to Time

Tura Satana

In A Publicity Photo Take On The Set Of

The thing is, there’s no way to know where these people are coming from. In the before, when fandom was more in the corners we all knew about, you could search LJ or a message board or whatever social bookmarking site we were using. You could join the community and participate.

You could get a little dopamine hit by seeing someone tell their friends why they loved your story.

Anymore, those recs are hidden in discords, or in tiktoks or instagram slideshows that you can’t search for. They’re inaccessible, not discoverable unless you’re already there. You may never know why 27 people left kudos on an old story of yours, what they liked and found in your writing. You just get the thumbs up and a kinda lonely feeling, cause these could be your people. You could like them, maybe. You could be friends.

But you’ll never find out why they stopped by, or what people are saying about you behind your back, and that’s sad.

canon is what happens in the text. e.g. merlin tries to poison morgana

a headcanon is a fact that you have personally made up as an elaboration of canon. it is your invention. e.g. i think morgana and gwen had a teenage lesbian situationship before the events of canon. or, i think modern morgana would love evanesence.

an interpretation is how one reads the existing text. it is not an invented fact nor is it a headcanon, it is a reading. e.g. i think merlin tries to poison morgana out of misplaced self-hatred. or, i think that one line was delivered with suppressed malice and shows a nuanced relationship.

fanon is the general fandom’s accepted headcanons and interpretations that elaborate or recontextualize canon. e.g. merlin is a badass waif and morgana is a bitch.

In the early 2000s, vulture populations in Asia began to crash for no apparent reason. It was eventually discovered that a drug veterinarians used to treat cattle was highly toxic to vultures and poisoning them when they fed on cattle carcasses. The governments of India, Pakistan, and Nepal all worked to ban the toxic drug and support vulture conservation programs.

-Don’t use “buy now pay later.” The fine print isn’t what it seems.

-The fine print on medical financing, store credit cards, and contactless payment is also not what it seems.

-Payday loans are still predatory, even when offered by your employer

-Rewards programs are an income stream for the companies that run them. The points systems are manipulated so that the house always wins. They depend on people leaving money in rewards accounts and not in interest-bearing traditional bank accounts.

-Electronic payment apps like VenMo are not banks. You don’t earn interest. Your money is not protected.

-Your financial information is not private if your money is not kept in a regulated bank.

-None of this is regulated by the FDIC. Your money is not protected if it is held by a non-bank doing banking business. Our economy is not protected from the collapse of financial institutions that are not banks.

 A third of younger Americans hold their savings on nonbank tech platforms like Venmo

PEOPLE! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MONEY IN VENMO OR APPLE PAY OR ANY OF THIS SHIT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO FIND A REAL BANK OR A CREDIT UNION.

If Venmo were to close tomorrow all your money would vanish. There's no insurance or guarantee on any of these things. I know banks aren't great but legit banks will have the "FDIC insured" logo on their doors and websites, which means if my bank goes under tomorrow I still get my money back. Also I guarantee you there is a credit union somewhere in your town, go find it.

your funds are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC in the event Green Dot Bank fails

In the event Green Dot Bank fails. Meaning the only time your money is protected is if Green Dot goes under. Not if Apple goes under (unlikely, granted). Or if Apple changes its terms (entirely possible). Or if you got scammed. Or if Apple freezes your account because they think you're the one scamming. Or any of the other countless mishaps your money could suffer. Green Dot is insured, but Apple Cash is not.

This is the disclaimer (highlighted) you see before you set up Apple Cash:

For the love of god get an account at a federally insured institution. Look for FDIC (banks) or NCUA (credit unions) insured and regulated financial institution. They are legally required to have this status publicly available and accessible so it's not hard to find.

The FDIC and/or NCUA will insure your accounts up to $250,000 PER AUTHORIZED SIGNER and per account type. These are factors to max your coverage to even higher than $250k but the key point is that if something happens to your bank or accounts there, that first $250k of your money is secured anyway.

Banks are for profit. Credit Unions are exactly what it sounds like: unions. They are not for profit and member owned.

Bigger institutions have more money and resources at their disposal; they have the fancier apps, 24/7 phone banking and more locations. But watch out! They are no different than any other large corporation you've heard of when it comes to ethics. Smaller institutions have more limitations, and lesser size is not an indicator of morality, but it's something to consider when choosing where to keep your money.

These institutions, regardless of what kind you choose, will offer interest bearing accounts. Money Market Savings and Time Accounts (also called Certificates of Deposit,) are popular choices to put the money you already have to work for you. You can earn money just for having your money in an interest bearing account type.

All financial institutions charge fees of one sort or another. They are offering products and services, after all. Nothing is free! They will also disclose options to avoid paying those fees, usually based around meeting specific criteria such as minimum balances or direct deposits.

The ice dying is go, lot of waiting for this as you have to wait for the ice to melt. Takes forever to rinse out the dye afterwards too. So worth it though.

The last of the preparations before I can start the quilting stage are done. Since this is such a large quilt that I am going to be hand quilting and embroidering I really want it baste it in place. What works for me is thread basting the backing to the batting, then the front to the backing and batting to get it extra securing in place. Than I used a close to 600 curved safety pins to pin the quilt pattern onto it. It took me several hours spread out over a few weekends to get this all done.

It has started! Been working on it for a bit now. Really interesting to work on it compared to the first. Having made the Northern Sky already makes it feel like it is stitching up faster. Probably because all those hours mean I am in practice and more fluid at it. Another interesting thing to note is how much it feels like exploring something new but achingly familiar. I know the constellations of the northern sky fairly well, the southern sky not so much. Some are shared but most are new to me.

Little sneak peak at the constellations I have been working on. Look at that cute little star cloud the southern hemisphere has! Below shows just how much ground I have to cover in the sky.