i know it's hard. but i so firmly believe the strongest antidote to loneliness is reaching out first. and continuing to reach out. again and again and again. excise any scrap of shame you hold about being the person who texts first or pitches the plan or asks to get lunch. everyone is tired and busy and struggling. and afraid of feeling unwanted and unimportant. don't let the people you love feel that way. reach out first. don't be a ghost in your own life.

You can raise the dead, sure, doesn't mean they're actually be, you know, helpful.

Been thinking about these two a lot. Maybe I WILL do some short stories with them.
Part of the joke is that I’ve always wanted to do a series of shorts (ala like Hellboy) but always got sucked into a graphic novel or something bigger. That. And I already wrote out like 7 ideas already haha. But yeah. 10-25 page short stories. I can stick to it, totally.

If you're in the US, now is a great time to talk to the young people in your life about the US military:

• The recruiter is not your friend. The military employs child psychologists to learn how to make you think the recruiter is your friend.
• The recruiter is allowed to lie to you and makes more money if they do.
• The recruiter is paid a commission to groom children into cannon fodder.
• The recruiter will tell you you're special and will go into special smart soldier programs instead of combat. They're lying.
• The recruiter may tell you they can tell if someone can get PTSD or not and only recruit people like you, who won't. They're lying.
• The recruiter may tell you you'll be too busy attending free college (!!) to go overseas. They're lying.
• The recruiter may ask what countries you want to travel to and promise you bougie placements on military bases in those countries. They're lying.
• Even "It's just four years!" is a lie - the government is allowed to hold you past your enlistment period with a stop-loss order.
• The recruiter actually has zero power to decide anything that happens to you after you enlist and they more importantly don't care what happens to you.
• If you enlist, you will be brainwashed to make you willing to do things to other humans that you would never be willing to do today.
• You will be ordered to do things that will kill children. And you'll do them.
• The military is not the only way or even the best way for you to go to college or start a career.
• Military brainwashing will actually make you into a terrible university student because it degrades your ability to think critically and question your sources.
• Having PTSD and/or a TBI will make it harder to be a student and keep a job.
• Veterans' benefits suck these days.
• Being a veteran drastically increases your risk of homelessness, suicide, alcohol and drug dependence, prison time, and becoming an abuser to your loved ones.
• The military will expose you to chemicals that will drastically increase your chances of developing cancer.
• The military will withhold information about your rights to conscientiously object after enlisting.
• A lot can change in four years.

for those wanting to help venezuelans affected by the bombings through donations, these are currently the best ways to go. will add more links as more is set up

cruz roja (red cross)

doctors without borders