Imitative-magpie - Magpie

PSA

The entire city of Richmond, VA (where I live) and some surrounding areas are currently having a water crisis after the city'ss water treatment plant failed.

~300,000 people are without safe drinking water. About half of that are without water at ALL. People can't shower, wash their hands, or flush the toilet. We have three major hospitals all without running water.

No estimates for when water will be restored exist. The city is not communicating with us at all. The governor, WHO LIVES IN THE CITY, hasn't said a word about it. National Guard, FEMA, nobody has been mobilized to support us. It's not getting any media coverage outside of our local news.

If you can, please share the word so there's more attention to this. There's so many people in danger here, especially those in vulnerable condition like patients or the elderly who are at risk of death, and we need some noise to be made about this.

Please share and thank you if you can <3 Also, if you are around Richmond or know anyone in Richmond, please see what you can do to offer water to those in need in the city, or reach out to your Richmond friends to see if there's anything you can do for them. We're having like three hours long water distribution in two locations every day and it's not enough.

https://www.12onyourside.com

Richmond area’s water crisis continues for a third day

Wednesday is the third day of the city of Richmond and surrounding areas encountering water problems.

EDIT Jan 8, 2025: UPDATE!

The neighboring county (henrico county) had their systems contaminated with our water, so now ~600,000 people are without clean and safe drinking water. Potable water trucks have been deployed to hospitals and water distribution centers have been set up, but everything is still scant.

It has been 3 days. This is still going.

PLEASE KEEP SHARING, MAKING NOISE, CHECKING ON YOUR FRIENDS! AND DONATE TO ANY VALID RELIEF FUNDS YOU SEE!

good timezone, jules! i Peeked at your updated possible sources list & i have been inspired to suggest some more :)

if you watched hazbin hotel, you should watch its sister show helluva boss (very much free to watch entirely on youtube). if you watched the hot trash show that is diabolik lovers (i say this with love. i've been a fan of dialovers since im 14 <3), you should try the equally hot garbage that is vampire knight (also with love, i have been a bigger fan since im also 14)

unrelated to The List, i suggest you take a peek at neon genesis evangelion (both the original anime + end of evangelion [very important!] & the 4 rebuild movies) because it's psychological disasters personified & tbh i feel like you'd like it, & on a similar vein, land of the lustrous/houseki no kuni (SPECIFICALLY the manga, which you can find for free online, because that's where all the shit happens). evangelion is my favorite anime & hnk is my favorite manga actually :) they're both very madoka magica in the sense that it starts out cheery & suddenly everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong. & even if you dont get any kin feels from them i think you'd really enjoy the plot!

Thank you so much for the recommendations, I'll look into both the source adjacent ones and the ones for general enjoyment alike. I'm glad to hear from you again, as always

Hello,

Help me share my latest artwork, describing one of the situations I went through during this war

Help us spread awareness about suffering in war, please 🙏

I hope you will Reblog and Donate to support my family to survive.

My New Post LINK

Thanks a lot 🌹🌹

.

I am ahmed from Gaza I hope you are well, my dear. Please help me. Our tent was flooded while we were sleeping in the streets. We have no shelter. I cannot provide winter clothes for me and my mother to protect us from the cold that has begun, and I cannot provide basic needs. Please help me. $50 is enough to buy a new tent and winter clothes. Please help me my dear. We live in very harsh conditions.conditions.https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ahmed-and-his-family-survive-in-gaza-crisis

ahmed-gaza033's donation page is available on gofundme.com

Hi Jules! How are you doing? Happy Easter!

-Leyley

Hello Ashley, a welcome face on my dash as of usual--

Things have gone considerably well, I have no complaints. I have more thoroughly investigated your source so, if you ever wish to discuss the finer details of your experiences, you know I'll always be here listening.

Happy Easter

Do You Remember The Time You Got Lost In The Supermarket?

You were a child then, so your memories are muddled. Your perception is warped- of course it is. It starts off simple, with you wandering off. Or maybe you looked away for just a moment, and when your concentration was broken from what you were looking at, you suddenly found yourself alone. 

However you got yourself in this position, the outcome is the same; You've been condemned to an eternity of wandering aisles in hopes of finding familiarity where there is none, as the crowds of tall faceless- nameless strangers rush by, making you feel more and more claustrophobic by the second. You have no hope, it's been crushed into tiny pieces under the abstract concept of setting and its permanence. 

I would like to propose the idea that maybe, not knowing your identity but still being plagued by memories is similar to being lost in the supermarket. You feel as though you'll be in an endless free fall. I know it seems impossible to stop all of this confusion and frustration–

But this downward spiral doesn't have to be forever. We have a beautiful community, of those just waiting to take your hand and guide you out. I think the alterhuman community is a second chance for us to find ourselves. We've just got to be brave enough to admit that we were lost in the first place.

Where Have You Been This February?

If there is one good thing that came out of this emotional breakdown that I had recently on my blog, it's that it opened my eyes to many other blogs that have expressed similar sentiments. 

We are from an age of lost souls and misguided ghosts. Through the isolation of quarantine, through our unstable political climates, the mental walls we build for ourselves, and with it being Valentine's weekend- it's no wonder why some of us feel lonely. It's not just an affliction, but a place we find ourselves, and I can't help but think of the strange dreams that I've had about a particular seaside that was forgotten by the sands of time- I want you to know that we can leave here anytime because while you feel lonely, you have never been alone.

Be it your memories that haunt you, or your struggle through the monotony of a hellaish 9-5

Your nights looking up at the ceiling, wondering when your life will begin. I understand that search to find yourself, and feeling no closure or connection to fellow man- and lord knows we’ve tried. Your uncertainty for the future that looks ever bleak,Your struggle to be seen, in a world that constantly disregards the stories that you hold to your heart and the memories behind your eyes- I see these things.  You've suffered, yes, but you don't have to hide. You’ve risen to the occasion before, and I know you can again. I promise someday someone is going to see these things in you as well, and so much more that I could never hope to do justice- the things that light you up with joy and really make you who you are because we are not going to remain lost here.

So be brave, and for the time being just know that if you're alone then you're with me.

An Incredibly Informal Post About Neuroscience, at 5am

Using a precise technique that involves recording electrical activity directly from the brain, neuroscientists have identified different clusters of neurons that appear to process language on different timescales. Isn't that fascinating?

So, they had recordings of electrical activity from 177 language responsive electrodes– and this was across six patients that they recorded electrical activity in using the electrodes that they implanted in their brain, and then they had the participants read four different types of language stimuli: complete sentences, lists of words, lists of non-words, and sentences that looked grammatically correct but were just kinda word soup, you know? So then they found that in some of the neural populations, activity would fluctuate up and down with each word. In others activity would build up over multiple words before falling again.

So basically, they could potentially map these timescales. Like sensitivity to features of single words or relationships between words. This is just the beginning, they for sure are going to have a follow up article coming out saying they did another test and compared the data, hopefully within the next year. Maybe by then they'll have some of the questions I'm thinking of answered.

Defanging Fear Itself

‘When I say end, I don't mean "lifeless", I mean "terminated life as we know it". This is an important distinction.’

 I keep staring at my dms, vacantly, pondering just what I’ve done. When I started to reach out out into the void, I had thought this was a noble sacrifice, and that if only I reached out-

Maybe I could erase all the harm that I’ve created. I think I lost track of that, somehow along the way. I was so caught up with filling this hollow part inside of me, so caught up with keeping myself warm that I hadn’t even considered the people I was setting on fire just to do so. 

…And here’s this guy, right? I’ve been talking to him for a while, and he just gets it. Everytime he talks to me, he’s given me nothing but sure guidance as if he can peer right into my mind and see just what I’m feeling- and lord, do I feel so much. It’s like I’m holding back an ocean of anxieties, and one word is the detonator. I think about what he’s told me a lot, mostly about how he died because I just couldn’t understand it. Why did someone so clever and swift have to die? How could you devote your whole life to something, only for it to turn around and stab you in the back? I think about myself, how I gave into the impulse, and I wound up in the hospital with an atrial fibrillation. I've given my whole life to something, and it's going to eat me alive.

‘Why did it have to end though? The world, I mean?’

Who am I trying to find? Would it really be helping them, if I asked them to remember me? Would sorry really be enough to rekindle their souls and make things right again?..Or am I just doing this for me? Maybe it’s better that I live my life, never knowing. The people I hurt may be living a beautiful life, far from the pain of whatever timeline that’s been shattered underneath my fingertips. I can only hope they are. 

He was willing to trade humanity for enlightenment, and because of it he was killed. Well, what does that make me?

 Is that who I truly am? 

Am I willing to kill the things I’ve been trying to save? Fear, it’s all I’ve talked about since I created this blog. Humans have been telling tales of fear since the dawn of man, because we crave the cortisol and adrenaline like rich silk under our fingers. I don’t think I was laying to rest your fears, when I came out of the dark to carve into you with inquiry, I think I was just breathing life into old wounds, and you deserved better than that. Trading a complete life for a high that will never hit the same hardly seems fair, so let's turn around and bite the hand that feeds us out of spite. It's hurt you, and it's hurt me. If we don't we'll succumb to desensitization, or an even worse fate. We need to defang these fears before they swallow us whole. 

I’ll defang myself first.

I promise. 

(Consent for this documented information has been given by all parties involved.)