Ten pounds of personality in a five-pound bag
As I told someone earlier today:
This is not an “others have walked so that you can run” kind of situation. This is more like, an “others have run straight into the electric fence, so you should strongly consider walking” kind of thing.
This can apply to many things.
Go slowly. Make careful, measured decisions.
I don’t know how I got on the “person in a fursuit giving financial advice” side of Instagram, but you know what…it tracks.
My friend shared this (itself a copy of another post), and I wanted to signal-boost it, because I think it’s important.
Skrmetti just came down and obviously it didn’t go our way, but listen to me. Listen.
I am not a parent but I have parents in my life and one thing I have learned from them is that young people will take their cue from you on how freaked out to be about things. If a young person falls down the best response is not to go “oh no oh my god you’re hurt,” because then they go “oh no oh my god I’m hurt” and it makes everything worse — the best response is to go “sick wipeout dude totally tubular” and high five them.
And the non-profit industrial complex invariably describes gender-affirming care for young people as “life-saving” because the subtext is “if trans young people can’t get puberty blockers they WILL kill themselves.”
Not having access to gender affirming care before puberty is not a death sentence BUT if we all uncritically repeat the fear that it is, the young people will take their cue from us on how freaked out to be, and they will believe that all they can do in response to Skrmetti is die.
It is really important right now that we make sure our trans young people hear other stories than that. They hear “there is a future for you” and “there is community for you” and “you don’t have to pass to be loved” and “not having access to gender affirming care before puberty IS NOT A DEATH SENTENCE.”
That we show them that we are trans adults and we almost invariably didn’t have gender affirming care before puberty and we are loved and beautiful and happy. The story of trans joy and trans beloved community NEEDS to be louder than the story of trans suicidality today.
Our kids are depending on us to tell them the story they need to hear. Don’t let your panic override that responsibility.
There is a future for you. Your Elders survived this. Yes, it will suck more this way. But: this, too, shall pass; even if it does so like a motherfucking kidney stone.
Or, for the Cosmere fans in the audience: You will be warm again.
This Blue sky post may be the source:
https://bsky.app/profile/andyeyeballs.bsky.social/post/3lrvbrowlds2z
Please go read this post by John Scalzi.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/03/well-can-you-prove-youre-a-us-citizen/
Even if you think you’re not in the demographic being targeted here, you still need the ability to back up your citizenship if you are detained.
Along with calling your representative to oppose these kidnappings by masked men, you need to make sure your documents are someplace safe that a friend/ally/lawyer could access if you get picked up and accused of being from somewhere else.
There are things we cannot control, and things we can control. We can’t individually change public policy. But we can control our own behavior, and prepare for the worst case scenario.
I just wanted to highlight this comment that I saw on Reddit this morning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/F8ntmtttGp
There are two things that could ultimately happen with the S&P 500.
1. It could stabilize and continue to increase over time as it’s done for the last 68 years.
2. It could crash, along with the US economy, and never recover.
It’s important to note that if #2 happens, you and I will have far more things to worry about than the value of our retirement as it indicates the total collapse of the US economy (S&P 500 represents 80% of US market cap). In that case, it wouldn’t matter if your money were in the market or in a box in the backyard, it would be similarly worthless.
So, given that there is nothing you can do to protect the value of your money in the event of #2, you might as well continue to invest believing that #1 is much more likely (cause it is).
Don’t panic. Don’t sell your stock. Hunker down and wait it out.
Emilybook 