growsomethinggood ()

I overall enjoyed reading it but you’re absolutely correct that it was very self-indulgent and smug for waaaaay too much of it.

I can recommend Dimension 20’s Misfits and Magic (season 2 just got announced yesterday!) as a much better critique that still brings the joy that people felt with the source material to the table. The cast all says fuck terfs too!

The bi-cycle!

Hello! Congrats on your plans for cat adoption! Here’s a few pieces of advice I have from experience:

1. Kittens are a lot of work. They’re really cute! But they are babies and they act like it. You have to teach them a lot of things about the world, and how to interact with people/other animals/things. And often most places will only adopt out kittens in pairs, since they benefit from having a buddy growing up. Since kittens are in high demand, they often have a bigger adoption fee, if that matters to you. Adult cats between 2-10 years are probably ideal for most new cat owners as they are well established adults that won’t need a lot of training for the most part (but definitely know as much of your cat’s history when adopting if you can!).

2. Cat breeds aren’t like dog breeds, by and large. They are mostly common cats of different colors down at the animal shelter, and cat owners will swear up and down that cat colors have personalities (torties are sassy! Orange cats are dumb but sweet!) but it’s largely just the individual cat’s personality. The important things for you are probably going to be fur length (long hair and hairless cats require a lot more maintenance or it’ll effect their health) and how well you get along with the cat individually. The one thing to note is do not adopt a bengal cat as a beginner! They are hybrids with wild cats and act like it! And also I would advise against smooshed nose cats/floppy ear cats/tail-less cats/short legged “dwarf” cats, as they have some pretty bad health issues from those genetic differences.

3. Cats in the shelter are stressed and probably not going to act exactly the same way when you take them home. If they’re very friendly, they could be more standoffish, or vice versa. You just gotta find the one that speaks to you! And be patient allowing them to adjust when you take them home. Give them a landing space with a litter box, water, and maybe a little food in opposite corners, and give them some hours to get used to the sounds and smells of their new place. Depending on how much space you have, it’ll be between a day and a week for a cat to get settled.

4. Get the very basics to start and be ready to get more stuff later. A basic litter box, scoop, and a cheap carrier will do it before you adopt. Use your own dishes for water and food before you go buying anything for the cat, you don’t know right away what needs they’ll have. The shelter should recommend you food, get small quantities (not bulk) until you’ve had your first vet check up in case that changes. My cat is spoiled with a much bigger litter box than our first pick, a water fountain, an automatic feeder, wet food on a plate (most cats like flat surfaces instead of bowls for food), and so many toys he doesn’t like anymore!

5. Have fun! Cats are great. If you learn their body language and respect their autonomy, they’ll love you so much for it.

Oh, I completely understand you’re correct here, I’m just, so, so tired of fighting to keep all the sociopolitical gains of the past 10-50 years, y’know? I know they have a lot going on, it just feels shitty considering the rest of the political climate.

Sigh, ACLU, is this really that high a priority in the list of rights we need to fight for right now? Really?

Also, am I missing something, or wouldn’t these arguments fall apart under the lens of slander? If you make a sufficiently convincing AI replica that is indistinguishable from reality of someone’s face and/or voice, and use it to say untrue things about them, how is that speech materially different from directly saying “So-and-so said x” when they didn’t? Or worse, making videos of them doing something terrible, or out of character, or even mundane? If that is speech sufficient to be potentially covered by the first amendment, it is slander imo. Even parody has to be somewhat distinct from reality to not be slander/libel, why would this be different?

Anyone thinking that lemmy is a welcoming space to women should read through that thread first.

Edit: the current state of Lemmy and the fediverse reminds me heavily of early reddit, for better and for worse. You can curate some pretty supportive communities if you are careful picking them out, they remain well moderated, etc. But there are plenty of places where you’ll get scummy content if you wander or if posts attract too much attention.

Not to discourage usage of OSM at all, but you can absolutely download offline maps on mobile with Google Maps, they’ve just hidden it a bit. If you tap your account icon in the upper right, a menu pops up that includes offline maps, and it’ll let you select boundaries to download.

It also normalizes the practice, the more people do it for just that shiny checkmark. Unless you are legit a public figure who could be impersonated, it’s actively detrimental to everyone else’s privacy to get verified.

Add SmartTube for androidTV and you’re set!

I use Blockada 5 and haven’t noticed any heating issues, it might be worth a go! I did have to enable most of the lists to get good coverage (and then a couple custom selected on/off over time) but I mostly don’t think about it after a little setup. The only thing I do have to worry about is swapping which VPN is on when I want a real VPN- but fortunately the VPN I like (Mullvad) has adblock built in too.

Wow, what a fun cool way to call someone a slur without having the cajones to type it out plain.

I think you have identified some small truth, but have made an error in narrowing the scope of where the deficiency actually lies to the individual/group. Exceptions can imply deficiency (among other things) but I would argue that said deficiencies often are in how these groups are treated by society and not inherent to the groups or individuals themselves.

I’m going to use calculus as an example, since there are plenty of reasons you’d expect someone to not be able to do calculus. If you’re sufficiently young, maybe you don’t have the complex reasoning skills to understand calculus (deficiency, but not permanent). If you’re an adult without a math education, would your inability to do calculus be considered a deficiency, or just a lack of opportunity which can be fixed through assistance? If you have been told your kind of person would suck at doing calculus but you really want to learn, and are performing worse than your peers who are told they are good at this naturally, is that a deficiency in the individual or the system they live in? If you have to work more than one job to keep your family housed and don’t have time for calculus, if you are targeted for police violence, if you’re discriminated against by even the most well-meaning people with authority over you, you could be the most brilliant mathematician and it wouldn’t matter- society at large is failing you.

When you’re talking about “exception” here, I think what is really happening is people taking measures to level the playing field for people who have experienced discrimination. In a perfect world with no individual or systemic discrimination, current or historical, these sorts of “exceptions” wouldn’t be necessary! But that’s not the world we live in. The first step to making a more equitable society is recognizing where people got shafted historically and what affect that still has on society today. Getting the short end of the historical stick does not imply immutable qualities about a group of people today.

So, no, I don’t think that giving exceptions to people who need them most inherently implies that they are individually or categorically deficit.

He looks sweet!

• not an ally because he’s trans and bi, not because he’s homophobic or something lol

I’d bet it’s because sugar is still calories even if you can’t taste it. So, filler

Hey OP, can you elaborate on the context for which you are looking to talk about the queer community? I think that matters a bit. There are more formal and more casual descriptions that I do think are important to discuss the differences of use.

For instance, Gender and Sexual Minorities or GSM is probably the most formal you can go with. This might be appropriate for corporate DEI, but you will get absolutely roasted on social media if you refer to gay people that way. (It’s very clinical, not really something the community uses, but it’s a wide umbrella)

LGBT(QIA+) is a little old school nowadays, a mouthful, and always feels a bit like you’re always going to be missing some letters. If a cishet ally used any variety this, I’m not going to be offended and I’d appreciate that they’re trying- it’s clear that the intention is there and it’s better to signal support imperfectly that be silent imo. This one usually comes up most frequently around Pride Month as there’s a lot more visibility on our community from those who are not in it.

The queer community is probably your best all-purpose use but may not work 100% in formal situations as “queer” has historically been a pejorative. Boomers tend to look at you funny when you use it, and some younger folks who don’t think that slurs can ever be reclaimed can sometimes be put off as well. That said, it’s probably what the majority of the community uses as an umbrella term. This is the one I’d use when chatting with friends. “Gay” can also be used as a substitute for “queer” in this context as many folks will also use that as an umbrella term, but this can be confused with discussing just gay men, so you may have to know your audience.

I had a presumed cishet friend in high school who just used “homosexual”. I wouldn’t recommend. All of the formality of GSM, none of the inclusion.

Other things I would not recommend: alphabet mafia (unless you’re on tiktok), anything that is still generally considered a slur (some folks are reclaiming the f-slur, t-slur and d-slur but I would consider that a deeply personal choice of self expression and not something for cishet folks to use at this time, unless personally invited to use to describe only that person), and lastly, using any of these broad identifiers to refer to specific people who have shared their specific label with you (ie don’t call someone a queer woman when they have told you they identify as bisexual, or a queer man if they said they are a trans man, etc. Some people do identify as queer though, so if they have said as much you can use that specifically then).

That’s a lot of minutia but I think the important thing is, the community generally knows when you are trying your best. Even if you accidentally offend someone, just asking what they would like to be referred to in the future is probably all you need to worry about.

I think there are ways OP can use queer respectfully, and there are ways they may accidentally slip into something that can sound homophobic, so, tread with caution. “The queer community” is fine, that reads to me with the same respect as “queer theory” in an academic setting. “The queers” =homophobic (unless you are part of that community and are being ironic), “are you queer?” =also bad, “my queer colleague” =not good unless that is the specific label they identify with, etc.

Alphabet mafia is best left to the Gen Z kids on TikTok, even as one of them queers myself I’d never use that in a serious setting.

You can do this with certain apps, like Boost!

Y’know, it’s funny, the Dursleys are canonically like 25 in this scene at most