Below the poll is a series of animal images labeled A through J. A is the least close to the birds we have today; J is the closest. If you encountered these animals in the wild, which would you call birds? If you pick a higher up option, then that means you consider all the below ones birds as well - so if you pick A, then BCDEFGHIJ are all birds. If you pick J, only J is a bird.
A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
F:
G:
H:
I:
J:
PLEASE REBLOG THIS SO IT CAN LEAVE PALAEOBLR. I NEED PEOPLE WHO DON'T RECOGNIZE THESE ANIMALS ON SIGHT TO VOTE.
I apologize to all of y'all with vision impairments for whom this poll is inaccessible. Alas, this is an experiment, and I cannot name the taxa. Thank you.
All alt text includes artist attribution; I did not make these pictures myself.
I think the simplest way to understand that just because many mental illnesses benefit a great deal from being treated with various chemicals, that does not mean that mental illnesses are all therefore uniformly and necessarily caused by chemicals in the brain, is to remember that an aching back is not in fact the result of a deficiency of acetaminophen, nor is malaria a condition brought on by the body producing an inadequate supply of quinine. Health conditions have both external and internal causative factors. The same is true of psychological conditions.
HOLD UP HOW WAS I NOT AWARE OF THIS
deltasylvania
was gonna leave my comment in the tags but tbh i’m silent enough about this as it is.
seeing stuff like this is so upsetting because these terms were well known and widespread in the ace community but because of exclusionists many people stopped using terms like this because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe.
i loved these terms when i was in highschool, i loved the feeling of community, but i lost that because i didn’t feel comfortable openly and proudly calling myself asexual.
they’ve hurt so many people and damaged our community badly and i will never forgive them for that. we deserve to use our own terminology and feel safe within our community.
sometimes i notice i haven’t seen “grace” (grey-ace) in a while and consequently wonder if i made it up.
I remember ppl - even other ace ppl - saying the card suit thing was “cringey” and “straight ppl aren’t gonna take us seriously” (sounds familiar?) So i guess the community wound up abandoning it. We were also having severe issues at the time with aces being stereotyped as “childish/immature” for associating things like cake, dragons, and space with asexuality, plus in general as most aces just don’t “get” allosexual things in media and irl. We were starting to be viewed as ignorant, virginal, childish, losers, etc. I haven’t seen an ace-cake thing in a good while now.
This was the infancy of exclusionary influence on us. I didn’t realize it did more damage than just closeting us. Whole symbols and terms have been lost. Community has been lost.
I remember three-four years ago I got myself into the ace community on Insta, and I came across these terms. People in these circles would talk about cake, space, dragons, and the black ring on the middle finger. Then, a year or two later, ace content fizzled out (I thought it was Insta’s algorithm figuring out that I knew all this and didn’t bring me the old stuff) and young aces had no idea what any of these were - including the black ring. Finding out young aces had no idea what the black ring meant nearly snapped my heart in two - I proudly wore the black ring, I drew characters with it, and it was my quiet way of communicating to others what my sexuality was. I was baffled at the lack of knowledge - and it turns out that exclusionists got their hands into our community and snuffed us out.
Anyways, we need to bring this back. I thought the card suite thing was cool, it taught people the different ways people can experience attraction, I loved making jokes about preferring cake, I loved wearing the black ring and talking about it with my fellow queer people at my highschool QSA club.
I’m sorry, people don’t know about the cake or ring anymore? I remember being welcomed with spams of cake gifs, photos, and MS Paint drawings. I also distinctly remember that the block solo ring in the midle was meant as reference to the Ace of Spades (black, solo, middle of card). Only thing I didn’t know was that other aces could represent a more refined nuance. Let’s see if we can get this all rolling again.
Welcome to anyone who is interested in helping with the culture revival.
This is the exact reason I started my #ace positive and #aro positive tags. I remember learning about asexuality and thinking it was cool, but not for me (yet). I remember ace visibility day where people would post selfies with an ace card to signify their orientation like in the original post. I remember going through the tag and following every ace blog I could find, turning notifications on and scrolling through their blogs endlessly to learn more about it. I haven’t gotten a notification for any of those blogs in ages.
Going through all those blogs and seeing validation, learning more things about my newfound orientation was so incredibly as a questioning and unsure 15 year old. It’s devastating to me that this community has fallen quiet so much. So I started my tags, hoping to spread some more positivity and maybe inform people. This community is full of incredible people and the fact that so little of them remain, it heartbreaking.
Check out my tags if you ever need to. Maybe I’ll add more tags to my list to do whatever I can in support
I remember seeing the start of ace exclusionary rhetoric only a few years ago… I can’t believe so much of the ace culture got lost to it so quickly.
Please, if you want to start exploring an identity for yourself (especially one exclusionists will try to tell you doesn’t “belong”), consider finding and talking to older people who’ve been in the community for a while - preferably IRL if that’s safe, or on dedicated community forums.
Diversify your research and look outside of socmed, which can be a hive of exclusionist rhetoric and flat out misinformation. Ask around about old publications or websites (the ace community has been developed and discussed in queer spaces for pretty much as long as those spaces have existed)! Check out the sources in wikis! Do your best to learn the history - because there is history. Share what you learn with your peers! Every queer identity has an older and richer culture than the exclus want you to think, and you all deserve to be a part of it.
friendly reminder that this blog is a safe space for aspec people! unfriendly reminder that if you’re an exclusionist, Fuck You!
I should start using the ace of diamonds symbol.
Love that his reaction to being pranked was to pull the exact same prank on his buddy
in the process of a recent tumblr post sending me down a mild rabbit hole of trying to figure out if where I'm from counts as Appalachia (it does not, tho it is extremely close to the portions of pennsylvania that count) I have discovered several things
specifically, the weird way folks where i live now pronounce Appalachian is apparently not just an around here thing, but is a thing in almost all of the more northern states. this is causing me some pain because they all pronounce it weird (and it's Wrong). All Of Them. I Do Not Like It. so, to the few people who will see this, I must ask:
if you do not regularly pronounce this word, which is probably the case for almost anyone who would see this, sound out the word and or just go with what feels right to you. I am Curious.
Look, if I pronounce Appalachian other than “app-uh-latch-in” something will crawl right out of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast and eat my soul.
Leia Organa vs. Xena!
Remember: don't vote on "who would win in a fight", but on "who, when given a task that fits her skillset and talents, would do that task better: more comprehensively, faster, with more pizzazz, with less collateral, etc."
Endorsements! "What is she good at?"
Leia Organa, Star Wars: everything. y'all know her. but to be clear in her very first scene she lies directly to vader's face without blinking. then iconically takes charge of her own rescue missions bc luke and han are useless. then she outlives that main trio, is a force user, senator, general, and everyone loves her.
Xena, Xena Warrior Princess: She has many skills. Fighting, healing (she invented cpr and field medicine and triage, etc), tracking, she has various spiritual powers, she can beat up literal gods, she gave birth to the messiah (which isn't precisely something she was competent at but it's worth mentioning), she's the queen of strategy and also she can embroider.
Sophie Deveraux vs. Buffy Summers
Remember: don't vote on "who would win in a fight", but on "who, when given a task that fits her skillset and talents, would do that task better: more comprehensively, faster, with more pizzazz, with less collateral, etc."
Endorsements! "What is she good at?"
Sophie Deveraux, Leverage: Give her the right stage, and she can be anyone. She can change character on a dime; she can read people from just a passport photo, she came to her own funeral - twice! - in the certain knowledge people wouldn't recognize her because she was acting. She oozes style (just not always the same style), and despite her good looks, she isn't just a pretty face - and in Leverage Redemption, well into her forties or even past fifty, she is still perceived to be hot and desirable, a woman in her prime!
Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: At the age of sixteen, she has more experience at her job than her mentor, and pretty much every other character on the show for that matter. Over the course of the show she saves the world at least ten times, defeats a literal god, and fundamentally reshapes the system that made her a child soldier in the first place, all while dealing with intense trauma and eventually, crippling suicidal depression. She's a good leader and is usually the one to come up with the battle plans (despite, and I cannot stress this enough, being a teenager and young adult who has a grown ass man for a mentor). She's also a very skilled fighter, and she improves from season to season. And in later seasons she has to accomplish all this while also raising her teenage sister and working fast food.
She's not perfect. For one thing she's a teenager and for another, as it turns out, crippling depression is in fact crippling. But even at her worst she's almost always competent as a slayer. Plus, her hair and make-up are consistently on point. (thank you tumblr user @comradesummers )
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Hero
Direct Action
luke skywalker’s compassion does not stem from padme amidala, but from the only mother figure he knew, beru whitesun lars, in this essay I will
📢📢 SAY IT📢📢
