SubtleFire

ONCE AGAIN: ANNOUNCING JON SIMS AND CATS DAY 2025!

Why?  Because Jon with cats is the ultimate expression of fluff and happiness in the face of horror and tragedy

When?  April 29 - The canonical date we got to hear Jon hanging out with the Admiral in MAG 93.

What? Fanart or fanfic featuring Jon and any cat(s)!  It could be the Admiral, it could be a scraggly alley cat behind the Institute Jon is slowly earning the trust of, it could be a mother cat and litter of kittens he and Martin found in the shed by the Scotland safehouse.

Please check out our FAQ post (app post link ||| desktop page link) for more details!

How?  Post to the #JonSimsandCats2025 tag on tumblr, and/or @ us so we can find your post.  

We also have an ao3 Collection! Jon_Sims_and_Cats.  Please check our FAQ for detailed instructions on how to submit fics to the collection.  We are accepting both old and new works!

If you tag us we'll reblog it 💪

Do you love 90s rock, queer found family, ghosts, and also fiction podcasts? Well, do we have a show for you!

From the creator of The Bright Sessions comes a thrilling new original rock audio drama. Phantom Pulse is the story of a 90s rock band going out on their very first tour. But this band isn't like any other–they don’t just play music, they exorcise ghosts with it. 

Phantom Pulse is currently crowdfunding for their first season. You can give to the Kickstarter now and get exclusive, limited edition merch, early access to the show, and much more. 

The five band members are being played by truly incredible actors: Nicholas Podany, Erika Ishii, Briggon Snow, Juliana Gutiérrez Arango, and Erin Caesar. And the creative team is made up of audio drama veterans: Lauren Shippen, Ella Watts, Evan Cunningham, and Brandon Grugle.

If you believe in original, queer art that is earnest and inclusive, but also messy and dramatic, please consider giving to our Kickstarter!!!

and if you can't support monetarily, please reblog THIS post and help us hit our community goals!!

Maybe it wasn't for food

The guide uses a program called gpedit (group policy editor), if you can't find it on your computer, follow this guide to install/enable it, and remember to always run as administrator:

Run these commands in command prompt.

Win + Q

Search: command prompt

Right-click > Run as admin

Copy, paste, and enter these commands:

FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~*.mum") DO ( DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F" )

FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~*.mum") DO ( DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F" )

Test it by opening Win + R

Type: gpedit.msc

That's right, I actually planned ahead this year. Watch out world!

The 18th More Joy Day will be January 10th, 2025.

What is More Joy Day? In short it's this:

Every year since 2008, in the interest of spreading more joy, I’ve proposed that on a designated day in early January we each engage in one act, either online or physical space (or both!), which brings joy to another person, in the hopes that that person will spread that joy further, and exponentially onward.

This act can be as simple as leaving a comment on a fanwork to as complicated as planting a tree or flower in someone's honor and sharing a photo of it and why you chose that person. If you want the longer version (and more suggestions) you can check out this post from 2024 which provides both.

Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.

WE DON'T HAVE SMOG DAYS IN LOS ANGELES ANYMORE UNLESS THERE'S A FIRE AND IT'S BECAUSE OF CARB STANDARDS.

LITERALLY MILLIONS OF FUCKING PEOPLE TURNED OUT TO PROTEST POLICE BRUTALITY IN 2020 AND YOU CAN SAY "NOTHING HAPPENED" ALL YOU WANT BUT THE WAY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IT NOW IS FUCKING DIFFERENT THAN THEY DID AFTER RODNEY KING AND NOW PEOPLE WILL STOP AND WATCH OUT FOR EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF GOING 'NOT MY BUSINESS'

The other night I was watching whatever random thing on YouTube, and I got yet more of the constant ads that irritate the fuck out of me. But this one was for an HIV maintenance medication. It was a long ad, probably 60 seconds, and so help me, I watched the whole thing. It talked about this drug (forgive me, I can’t remember the name) that would let you live a happy and fulfilling life (while mentioning that of course safe sex is important). And it showed queer couples, straight couples (to break the stereotype), people who looked single and happy, different races and genders and presentations and body sizes, going out to lunch or cuddling on a couch or going out for a date, whatever it was the scene was implying. Bright colors, soothing optimistic music and voiceover, physical affection including kissing—you couldn’t even tell who among the actor couples was or wasn’t portraying an HIV patient. It blew my fucking mind to just see a whole minute of this between ads for Pizza Hut and car insurance. I’m not even sure anyone would have shown a gay couple kissing, full stop, on TV in 1990. And this ad was just out here like, if you’ve contracted this illness, there’s help for it, and you can live a good happy life among your loved ones. But also, you deserve to have that happiness, out in the open, and there will be people who love you, unafraid. Even if, and especially if, you’re gay. This is a world where this is possible. Like I’m honestly tearing up right now. I could not have imagined this in 1990. I could not.

In 1971, Dr. Seuss wrote The Lorax, which included a line "their future is dreary... I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie." In the 1986 edition, that line was removed. Why? Well, Theodor Geisel (the real Dr. Seuss) wrote "I should no longer be saying bad things about a body of water that is now, due to great civic and scientific effort, the happy home of smiling fish." I swam in Lake Erie as a kid, and it was nothing like the lake Dr. Seuss was describing. Things change. Things get better.

My first protest was in 2004. I was in middle school, and Ballot Measure 36 was being run statewide in Oregon, to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. We protested, we marched, we fought, and we lost. Ten years later, I was sitting in my apartment the day after graduation, when the news broke that Oregon would now recognize same-sex marriage. I remember sitting on my bed and breaking down in tears, thinking of my partner of a year and how maybe we could have a legal future together. Ten years beyond that, I'm looking at the save the dates on our kitchen table. I'm inviting the family who I swam with at Lake Erie, my parents who taught me to protest No on 36, my friends from all over the world, to our wedding. Things change. Things get better.

It's 2024. Oregon is a sanctuary state for trans people. My parents use they/them pronouns for my partner with ease. My sister called to check up on us the morning after the election. Things seem dire. Things seem like they're never going to change.

Patreon is the main source of income for many creators and not everyone can afford an extra 30% on top of what they're already paying.