Sometimes, I'm Really Tired Of Being Nice

oh my god, i forgot

the wish to spend all my money on plastic cups, so i can build a majestic tower, grows

stronger

Ryan: What’s your greatest strength?

Demon!shane: Getting out of corn mazes

Ryan: Uh… okay. and your greatest weakness?

Demon!shane: I keep finding myself unexpectedly in corn mazes

Ryan: *realizing they’re in a corn maze* What the hell?

Demon!shane: Guess it’s my time to shine

i got two notifs

they were me

every now and then i am reminded that artists/writers/creators i admire very much follow me here and i get nervous because i’m a clown

Dad Of 4 Girls Tweets Conversations With His Daughters, Proves Parenting Is Fun

I miss the god complex english class gave me

this whole concept is fucking amazing and i absolutely love it

my ideal dream smp modern au is one where Tommy is the protagonist and the narrative acts like he’s the most important one but everyone else is CLEARLY more interesting and are constantly getting up to other stuff, but Tommy’s super oblivious

like it’s just tommy walking around doing the most boring stuff (going to school, doing his homework) and talking about everyone like theyre incredibly normal while they have poorly disguised secrets. Wilbur is a mermaid. technoblade is a magical girl. tubbo works as a mad scientist for the CIA. dream is fighting supernatural creatures at night. gnf is a Hannah Montana esque popstar. ranboo isn’t sure what he’s doing, but he’s definitely doing something.

and then they come hang out with Tommy and he’s like ‘Wilbur the most interesting thing about you is the fact that you can sing’ and then wilbur, who’s been a literal fish all day is like ‘yup that sounds right’

none of them can figure out if actually he knows or not. there’s a betting pool going on whether not he’s pretending in order to give them some semblance of normalcy. he isn’t, he just hasn’t noticed that somethings up

How Portland organizers are mass-producing cheap protest shields

Taken from this twitter thread (link is to a mirror on nitter)

Two weeks ago, these shields were getting built by 3 people in a garage. Today, an assembly line of over 25 volunteers (and two dogs 🐶) gathered at Clinton Park in Southeast Portland to help put them together. Using Twitter to coordinate, volunteers gather 3 times a week (location announced the night before) to build these shields. All materials – including duct tape, power tools and pool noodles – are donated (along with everything on this extremely packed snack and supply table).

So how does a protest shield get made? 🤔

Step 1.) Acquire a 55-gallon barrel. (In the beginning, Ghost (@ghostmobpdx) was buying these barrels – which once carried liquids like soy sauce and canola oil – off of Craiglist. Now all of the barrels are donated.)

Step 2.) Remove the barrel lid. Using a circular saw, a volunteer slices the barrel into four sections. You now have five soon-to-be shields! 🛡🛡🛡🛡🛡

Step 3.) Using a hand drill, a different volunteer makes 6 holes in the center of the plastic. (Shield building sessions are BYOPT: Bring Your Own Power Tools.🛠️🧰)

These holes will be used to attach bolts, padding and straps so the shield can be carried like this:

(A plan is in the works to upgrade to drilling 8 holes so the shields can have backpack-style straps. This will help protesters avoid dropping their shields when they have to move fast.)

Step 4.) A volunteer adds the aforementioned bolts. 🔩BOLT FACT🔩 Since starting, Viv (@viv______) estimates they’ve used over 1,200 bolts. That’s a lot of bolts. 😮 (Can you spot the faded NLG number on this volunteer’s arm?)

Step 5: Another volunteer adds foam and straps. The straps are made from strips of sturdy ratchet tie material. Foam also gets added over the bolts on the front of the shield to protect people from hard edges.

Step 6: It is ~noodle time.~ A different group of volunteers slices pool noodles lengthwise and fits them along the rough edges of the shield material. This is to protect the protester and anyone they might bump into.

NOODLE FACT: The volunteers who do this part of the process are called the “noodlers.” (!!!) Here is a noodler in action:

Step 7: Another group of volunteers adds a layer of duct tape around the entire shield (except for the foam/strap section). Each shield needs about 2 rolls of duct tape, and Viv estimates they’ve used 400-500 rolls so far.

After volunteers have attached the pool noodles, bolts, foam, straps and duct tape to the plastic barrel material, you arrive at the final step of shield building…

Step 8: Spray paint and stencil the shield. Ghost spray paints the surface of each shield black. From there, individuals can add their own unique designs. One volunteer brought these handmade stencils that included images of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

As a final touch, this message is spray painted onto the interior of every shield: “THIS SIGN WAS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE AND IS NOT INDICATION OF ANY GROUP AFFILIATION” (sometimes accompanied by a protective sigil from local witches or a stencil of Portland’s elk statue).

In total, each shield takes about 3 hours to make and requires passing through multiple groups of volunteers before it’s finished. All materials and time to produce them is donated, and the shields are offered free of charge to BIPOC protesters and $10 for everyone else. Ghost, Viv and the volunteers have made about 250 shields so far, and build between 30 and 55 shields per session.

How does it feel to see the shields in action? Ghost: “My heart is so warmed, just every time. I’m so proud. There was one time – God, it was beautiful -  where a tear gas canister full on exploded off the damn thing and the person is still running away. And the shield was fine.“

While y'all are here, have you heard of Portland’s Black Resilience Fund? BRF is a 100% volunteer-led organization providing Black Portlanders with relief from financial burdens for basic living expenses and life emergencies. Here’s a cool story: https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2020/06/19/28554154/the-portlanders-behind-the-black-resilience-fund-are-young-black-queer-and-hopeful

if you think about it, fizzy water is just spicy water