Road to Nowhere

🌟 BOOKLET PREVIEWS 🌟

Greetings Galactic Wanderers! 💫

The transreality comet is sending us some wondrous images of what is to come... Take a gander at these gorgeous previews...

🌠 Six of Gac Coins by Kitty @succubustykisses 🌠 Nine of Gac Coins by Sachiela @Sachiela 🌠 Ace of Balmeran Crystals by shatterinseconds @shatterinseconds🌠 Six of Balmeran Crystals by Kars @/KarsonMarx (on twitter) 🌠 Six of Bayards by Devoosha @devoosha 🌠 Seven of Bayards by shatterinseconds @shatterinseconds

✨Pre-orders will be open until May 31st 🌐 https://vldtarotdeck.bigcartel.com

The texts shown on the graphics are an approximation and may not represent the final shipped product.

"oh, i don't think that's just for girls. it's pink, but anybody can like pink."

"oh yeah, purple is a great color! colors are for everybody."

"you're right-- i am a girl. that means i have a strong body just like a boy, and i can [climb/use a drill/take out the trash] with my arms."

"hm i don't think we're letting private parts make a decision about this toy."

"if other kids give you a hard time, you can just say you like this toy (or this color) and that's why. if anyone is rude to you, it might hurt, but they're the ones being wrong."

"i think it's cool that we both have eyes that can cry if we're feeling overwhelmed or sad. it helps us communicate how we feel."

"some kids might tell you this is for girls, but it's really just for people. we can have fun and play with anything safe that's interesting. it's sad that some kids don't have adults that teach them that."

"it's important to play and learn all kinds of skills. what if you find out you like to cook? what if someday you have a friend who needs help?"

"you know who buys the MOST glitter? people who make paint for boats. guys who go fishing spend more time with glitter than anyone else."

"it's divided into girls and boys because some grownups maybe care more than they should about colors. but that's not a real rule."

like. you gotta prepare them to stand up for themselves and you gotta normalize *recognizing* and dismissing those comments, or they WILL start to win out. walk your toddler sons or nephews down all the toy aisles. let them hold a baby doll. take your girls through the hot wheels and nerf sections.

and don't make the mistake of swinging to the other extreme. trying to talk a four year old boy into the pink version, or trying to talk a four year old girl out of wanting a frilly dress are JUST as gendering. you're sending signals that they should ignore their own preferences to appease an adult's preferred worldview, and they're going to equally cave when it's in support of an ideology you don't like. let them gravitate toward what they like and give them the language to recognize it as personal preference-- to identify and disregard comments, or defend others-- even if their preference is 100% mainstream.

the goal isn't to make sure little boys have pink toys and play house, or that little girls get construction tools and wear blue.

the secondary goal is to strip away the gender-signaling in toys and prepare kids to stand up for OTHER HUMANS.

the primary goal is to equip kids to play and wear what they like without shame or fear.

and it's so fucking sad it starts so early, but it can work both ways-- you can have kids going home from the same daycare suddenly equipped by peers to say, NO I DO WANT THE TOOLBOX FOR MY BIRTHDAY, NOAH SAYS HIS MOM FIXES EVERYTHING IN HER HOUSE and I LIKE THE ONE WITH FLOWERS, SOPHIE SAYS HER DAD LOVES FLOWERS.

maybe this means liam in kindergarten spends most of his playtime with baby dolls and glitter stickers. or maybe it means liam plays with monster trucks and wears red shirts with basketballs, but will tell a peer, "oh it's cool that you like pink. is that your favorite color? i like red but pink icing is my favorite on cake." and it's because a beloved uncle or big brother or parent said, "oh strawberry icing is MY favorite, too! i always want pink icing on my cake. the cake doesn't care if i'm a boy or a girl."

or maybe liam had an experience like my five year old, where he was going across a construction store parking lot in his bright pink crocs and a man tumbled out of his SUV fifty feet away to stick a leg in the air and yell, "HEY, WE BOTH HAVE PINK CROCS!" just to be nice. because pink is for humans.

I have asked this myself in the past and never gotten an answer.

It became pretty standard jargon, as I understand, to disambiguate when writing to other humans. First phys!Steve vs the Steve right next to you, just like you were taking to the machine, then getting looser (as jargon does) to reference, say, bearded!Steve vs bald!Steve.

In court that day, the judge asked the boy, “Are you afraid?” No, the boy said.

Pipes says the judge seemed surprised, and asked, “Why not?”

Chief’s thesis was that a child who has been abused by an adult can benefit psychologically from the presence of even more intimidating adults that they know are on their side. “When we tell a child they don’t have to be afraid, they believe us,” Arizona biker Pipes told azcentral.com. “When we tell them we will be there for them, they believe us.” ( Article)

They go on runs to protect the child if they feel even the slightest threatened no matter where. If the child needs them to go on vacation with them, they do. Bikers come from across the nation to watch over and take shifts for these kids. And the best part is once you’re adopted into this family as a BACA kid, you’re always one. Even when you’re 40 and the perp gets released from jail, they’ll come meet with you and find your best options for avoiding the person and maintaining the life you’ve built for yourself. Once a BACA child, always a BACA child. In Florida, there’s 100% rate for identifying the perp based on the child’s testimony. Why? Because BACA stands with the child and supports the child so they feel comfortable enough to point out their attacker.

They’re in Canada as well and probably other countries. I met and talked with a native guy who runs the place near me. His name is Shaman. I got in, and I’m considered a BACA child now. Despite being 17, turning 18 when I talked to them. They spent time with me when my abuser was over, they gave me therapy resources. They give you something called a ‘level 1′ where they go to your house with as many bikers as they can, i shit you not a solid 20-40 bikers came from even out of province, and met me. I got to choose my biker name and I got a vest with patches on it and my name on it. They all hugged a Teddybear before giving it to me, and told me if I ever felt the BACA bear was running out of love, to give them a call and they’d refill it for me, and then I got a ride on one of their bikes. Just a day or so ago I went to an annual party with them and they we ate food one of them cooked and had a lot of laughs. 

I’ve never felt as loved as I did being a part of the BACA family. They also gave me dog tags with the names, and phone numbers of my 2 workers.  So I can call them whenever I feel scared. 

BACA is an absolutely wonderful group that will do everything in it’s power to help any child whos been abused. 

And it doesn’t end when you’re 18 either. As long as you get in contact/get your level 1 before you’re 18? you’re ALWAYS a BACA kid. I’m 18 now and they still invite me to parties, ask me if I’m okay, and are there for me. They’re still trying to find me resources for therapy. 

BACA has changed my fucking life. 

United States

Canada

Australia

Belgium

Denmark

Germany

Spain

France

Italy

Netherlands

Iceland

Austria

Greece

New Zealand

Portugal

Sweden

United Kingdom

Switzerland

B.A.C.A’s Byline: “Keepers of the Children.” B.A.C.A.’s Motto: “No child deserves to live in fear.”

Now let me be clear - Gen AI is awful and most people agree that it has no place in creative spaces, but that's besides the point. I'm not here to debate AI in creative spaces, I'm here to talk about the moderators who feel the need to investigate and punish writers who they believe use AI.

I'm going to start by reminding people of two important things:

There is no way for anyone to know for certain if someone is using AI to write - unless they tell you they are. The common "tells" that are cited online are found in the work of people who have excellent control of functional grammar, good vocabularies, and an excellent control of sentence structure. AI is trained on the work of talented writers.

There is no way for an author to defend themselves against a claim that they are using AI, especially in an online environment. Nor should an author have to. The rule should not be "prove you are innocent or we will find you guilty!"

I feel very passionately about this and have for quite some time. I've seen fandom witch hunts before, and I know how easy it is for some people to climb to moral high ground and punish those they believe are doing the wrong thing.

My friend recently chose to leave a discord server after the mod team contacted them to announce that there had been reports made by people who wished to be anonymous who suspected their work was AI generated. The mods explained that they had investigated these claims by looking over their writing, and although they admitted they could not be 100% certain the work contained AI, they were issuing a strike/warning to them in accordance with their discord rules because they believed they might have.

The investigation involved them reading some of their work. 

That was it. 

They read their work and decided that, in their own words, they thought it might be AI so they were issuing a strike. They then proceeded to delete the writing they had shared on the server without any opportunity for this person to retrieve it.

There was no communication prior to them issuing a strike. My friend was not told about these accusations ahead of time, the moderators did not talk to them about the accusations or raise concerns, and did not stop to ask themselves why the people making these claims wished to do so anonymously.  

Perhaps if they had, they would have learned that members of their discord had been harassing this person via Tumblr anons about this issue. Instead they chose to give the bullies anonymity, to deny a writer a chance to have open communication, and issued a punishment for a rule infraction that they themselves admitted they could not be certain had been broken.

When my friend gave the names of beta readers and editors who had worked with her in real time, these moderators chose not to engage with them or seek clarification, and instead doubled down and tried to justify their decision.

My friend asked for the evidence they had that their work contained AI content, and it was not provided to them. Instead they supplied a generic statement about how they had made their decision based on their use of syntax, grammar, tone, and word choice was rolled out. But again, they did not give examples or explain this. 

As someone who admins and mods several creative spaces, this kind of behaviour worries me. Actually,  it terrifies me. Because anyone can be next: you, me, the brand new writer eager to share their work,  or the fandom oldie. 

It sets a dangerous precedent for fan spaces and the policing of creative works, because it leaves writers in these spaces open to harassment, bullying, intimidation, and censorship under the guise of keeping fan spaces "AI Free". Anyone can accuse  someone of using AI to write, and this can be used to bully people out of fan spaces. 

Moderators are supposed to keep fan spaces safe for members, not take it upon themselves to play detective and police creative works in case someone is using AI. In fact, mods taking it upon themselves to police writers in fan spaces by handing out warnings and bans are making fan spaces unsafe and encouraging social exclusion. This kind of behaviour will actively scare and intimidate writers into simply walking away - because who wants to hear an accusation that their work is AI?

Facilitating AI witch hunts is killing fan spaces.

Attempting to police the writing of others is alienating writers. 

i work with unhoused people fleeing domestic violence, and i have a client rn whose driver's license expired in 2024, and she needs a new id to apply for apartments. ok, cool. problem is, she lost all her documents due to the domestic violence

so we call the dmv. dmv needs a birth certificate. like i said, she lost her birth certificate. she needs a new one. her birth certificate is from out of state

we look up how to get a new birth certificate. the birth certificate needs an id to order it. cool cool cool

ok then what about secondary options? well, she needs two secondary sources of identification to order a replacement birth certificate, and she only has one, because for everything else she needs an id. fishing license? need an id. fucking park pass? id. she could have her 18+ child use their birth certificate to vouch for her, except her abuser won't let her talk to her children, so that's a no go

ultimately we land on social security card. this is where we're at in the process rn. ofc she doesn't have her ss card, so we need to order that. social security also requires an id to request a new card, but they'll take a health insurance card with a picture attached (god fucking bless them). she has medicaid but doesn't have a physical copy of the card, so we have to figure out how to get that. then once we do that we have to upload it to the social security website, and if that doesn't work, we have to, god forbid, call the social security office (takes literal hours) and then make an appointment. she doesn't have transportation or cell service, so we would have to figure out a way to coordinate me getting her to the appointment in order to present the document

then we wait 10+ days for the replacement, that has to be mailed to me bc she is unhoused and doesn't have an address

then we need to submit her request for a new birth certificate, which we have to figure out how to pay for, bc it is not free. they're at least a month behind on requests, btw, so we are probably looking at may at the earliest for that to arrive

then we need to take the birth certificate to the dmv

dmv also requires two pieces of mail not from a po box. she doesn't have an address, she is unhoused. she can use the homeless shelter in town, but we will need to mail her stuff there and have her receive it first, and also then the homeless shelter address will now be on her new id, which landlords will recognize and may discriminate against her for

during all of this she is sleeping in a garage. it was negative one degrees this morning. also, forgot to mention, she is terminally ill. some days i legitimately don't know if she lived through the night. every day is a toss up

the absolute soonest she will have an id is probably late may. forget voter registration--most rentals won't let her apply without it. she won't be offered section 8 housing without it. she can't apply for ssdi without it. she is blocked at literally every corner without it, and the absolute soonest she can get it is late may. the dmv literally has her old card on file, and she knows the number by heart, but it doesn't matter. it doesn't count if it's expired, as if she's somehow become someone new

and that's all with the help of someone whose job it is to do this shit. imagine if she didn't have a caseworker. she has a ten year old donated iphone that only works on wifi, she can't even do her own research bc she doesn't have internet half the time. how the hell is she supposed to get anything done on her own?

It's probably already been spread around here enough already, but in case anyone's missed it; 7 hours after launch, commander Reid Wiseman, dealing with tech issues, uttered the generational quote "I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working."

After fixing the issues that were afflicting the onboard toilet, mission specialist Christina Koch (who has quickly become my favourite of the four) laughingly said “I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”

On Easter Sunday, the Artemis II crew hosted a makeshift egg hunt, by hiding packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs around their Orion capsule.

The way the crew always makes sure to make it very clear they're in space when doing interviews. From stuff like Wiseman just hanging out floating sideways on screen or Koch letting her hair loose so it can freely span out flowing around her.

While in transit, the crew decided to record a parody of those bad 80s sitcom intros where everyone turns and smiles at the camera.

When the crew reached the furthest point from Earth in the mission, they jokingly clambored over each other in an effort to get to the far side of the capsule, so that they could individually claim to be the furthest person from earth.

At the same time, on the ISS which was at the time on the other side of earth, the 7 astronauts onboard had a light-hearted race to the far side of the station, making jokes about being the furthest humans from Artemis.

On the way back to earth, NASA actually managed to establish an audio call between the crews of the ISS and Artemis II (where they shared the above info), and Koch called one member of the ISS crew, Jessica Meir, her "astro-sister" as the two of them previously spacewalker together in 2019. Meir then responded I'm so happy that we are back in space together, even if we are a few miles apart" (a few here being 230,000).