not to go over this again but you literally cannot be a environmental activist and not be against settler colonalism like you are not a environmental activist of you think that shit is ok. every part of settler colonalism is environmental and ecological destruction....
crazy how alexander von humboldt a biogeographer often credited for literally discovering climate change said this over two centuries ago. and how he literally stated that one of the most detrimental effects on the planet's cimate and biodiversity is literally colonization.
my friend said no-one wants to be the god of gay sex and abortions and im like you’re kidding right i know at least six people who would kill for that to be their job
Corset discourse really likes to talk in sensationalizing absolutes but historically speaking a corset is just a kind of garment. They could be uncomfortable and painful or they could be well fitted and supportive. They could be hyper-fashionable or they could be brutally practical. You could tightlace them or you could wear them with no reduction whatsoever. Most corsets were probably somewhere in the middle. Like bras. Or shoes. To say they were never perceived as restrictive or used as tools of enforcing dangerous/misogynistic beauty standards is like saying women's shoes never restrict freedom of movement. Patently untrue, but that doesn't mean those shoes have some deeper moral good or evil and it certainly doesn't mean we can use that fact to draw sweeping generalizations about the relationships of entire centuries of women to their own bodies. Corsets, like all clothing, exist in context.
Refuting the "corsets were evil torture devices and vain shallow women were forcing themselves to lace themselves down to x inches so they could attract a man" narrative was never about saying "corsets are a universal good, actually". It's about considering more fully the variety of ways clothing shaped and was shaped by its culture, and affording the women of the past the dignity of agency and interiority
idk i kinda don't like this idea that criticizing a show with lgbt+ characters/themes means you're joining side with the bigots and assholes. Because usually it's aimed at people of color and other lgbt+ people.
Yeah, maybe some people who dogpiled on Steven Universe did it for shitty reasons, but I saw plenty of jewish people, other lgbt+ people and black people fight against the show for its legitimate short comings. Did we forget the LITERAL HUMAN ZOO???
Yeah, a lot of the critics of she ra were homophobic assholes and don't deserve the time of day, but I saw plenty of sapphics (especially lesbians) who pointed out how much abuse was swept under the rug to make for the two female leads to get a happy ending, and not to mention the amount of autistic people and people of color who critiqued the show for its subtle ableism and racism
Yeah, most of the criticism against the owl house is bullshit and only there because there's a bunch of lgbt+ elements. But people of color are still allowed to critique how the side characters are handled. And even just in general, the show is a bit rushed in some places.
Especially with the first two, there's a lot of revisionist history that "both were just good shows, the critics were just meanie poopie pants :(" that simply...wasn't true?
We can have nuance here. And please listen to marginalized communities/critics in general. Not all criticism is inherently worthless.
Camp Trans, 1993 an annual demonstration and event held outside the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in Oceana County, Michigan. This demonstration was held to protest against the Festival's policy of excluding trans women from attending.
Every once in a while a new music genre gets invented and people from all different countries are like this slaps we got to start doing that and combine it with our own music styles and that's beautiful
There was a time when China got really into jazz and so did Ethiopia. Cambodia got really into Psychedelic Rock to the point that there's now an contemporary American band specialised in this style of music. There's a band from my hometown in Germany singing in Spanish and I know several early 20th century Japanese and Chinese artists were doing the same. Zambia had it's own Rock movement. Ska is from Jamaica but I know Japanese, Basque and Spanish ska bands. You can probably find hip hop and rap in all languages of the world by now. I watched an entire documentary on the history of South American rock and roll. There is a Cuban orchestra mixing Mozart and guajira. Finnish tango. German covers of Irish folk music. Blues from the Sahara.
The fact that so many countries have adopted gothic rock, darkwave, and postpunk in their own ways will never not be cool to me. The goth subculture (which originated in the UK and US) is booming in Latin America, but it's also making big waves in Russia and Germany. You can find goth music in practically every language and I think that's awesome. Molchat Doma, Russian Sadness, Lebanon Hanover, Nœud (a particularly obscure French artist on bandcamp, I haven't been able to translate any of their lyrics yet actually so if someone could inform me I'd appreciate that!), and the entire blog @gothmusiclatinamerica are just a handful off the top of my head. I love goth music.
if you like strawberry shortcake or care bears, please consider buying something from the original creator and designer, Muriel Fahrion’s website! she never got paid royalties for creating/designing strawberry shortcake and care bears to this day.
she went through incredibly tough times as an artist and went into debt after her husband died— until in 2019 she started being more public on social media about being the original creator of strawberry shortcake, care bears, and the get along gang. despite everything, she still loves strawberry shortcake and spreads nothing but kindness and positivity on her instagram (everyday she always posts a daily video of her dancing in her kitchen :) she’s so full of joy) she inspires me so much as an artist! it would mean a lot if you supported her and bought something cute from her website!
So I go to the dentist and the appointment I had was not the appointment that I thought I was going to have (normal maintenance vs deep clean) so i warned the dentist "hey heads up I burn through dental anesthetics super quick and also I'd like to use as little as possible because putting the dental anesthetics in my body is the most painful part of the process unless I'm having a root canal or something" and she's like "Hmm. Okay. Is it just the injection site?" and I was like "no, it will feel like burning on the opposite side of my face and in my nose and eyes and stuff." And she was like "Hmm. Do you turn really red when this happens?" And I was like "I don't know, I can't really see myself when it happens." And she was like "are you willing to experiment with this a little?" And I was like "sure, no worries" and she injected me with one anesthetic and it hurt like a motherfucker and she and the assistant both went "OOOH" and she was like "Yeah you got really red right away let's try the other," and it was the same thing and then she was like "okay I think this is the one that will work" and it hurt a little bit but it was fucking NOTHING compared to the comprehensive full stabbing burning facial pain from the others and long story short the dentist was like "You're reacting to the epinephrine in these other anesthetics," which I guess is fairly common for people who have autoimmune disorders.
So I guess this is to say: If you get spreading, burning, stabbing pain when you are being injected with local anesthetics it's not supposed to do that and you should say something.
spam emails are horrifying on an entirely different level once you actually begin to grapple with the material reality of ‘cyberspace’. how many servers were involved in dumping this message into my trash folder, where are they located, how much water goes into cooling them every day? where did the metals come from to build these facilities, who maintains them, how much labour and suffering and exploitation is required to bombard me with 50 messages a day i don’t even look at for products i will never buy? not just useless or a nuisance, but actively harming the earth & its people, and for what. zero social value, zero human communication, just capital trying to metastasise
Cheat Code #3 for accommodating disabled characters in sci-fi/fantasy:
If you want your setting to be accommodating, change the environment more than the person.
i.e.: On a worldbuilding level, if you want to portray a society that keeps disabled people in mind, then that needs to be reflected more broadly, even without your disabled character on screen. Because this means that your society was considering disabled people as part of itself when it was figuring out what's necessary.
If your computer takes voice commands, it should also have an optional keyboard in case someone can't speak.
If your magic school has multiple floors, it should have a teleporting rune circle for those that can't take the ever-changing stairs.
Whenever you have a feature you're adding, ask yourself—"If my character couldn't use this, what would they do instead?" And if the answer is "they'd have to wait until they could" or "they need someone else to use it for them," then your setting isn't accommodating. An accommodating setting always has an actionable answer to that question.
And as a bonus, if you follow through with it, oftentimes you'll end up with a more interesting world and story overall. Spells most people can speak can be written in ancient elven instead? That means you can have a character sneak a spell into a magic-banned city by writing it on their hair ribbon, and that it's possible that a book might be a self-generating spell on its own. Your spaceship has textured lines on the walls to let blind people navigate without guidance? Not only can you make it look artistic (different colored paints, glowing patterns), but now your engineer can make it to the warp core when the power's out and oxygen's finite.
Don't limit yourself just to what's needed in the moment. Figure out interesting alternatives to your setting's features, and your world will automatically feel more alive.
Crawling back out of hiding to say that I don’t think we talk about epilepsy on here as much as we should
Epilepsy is not just the “flashing lights and bright colors disease.” It just isn’t. There are so many different variables that make up what a seizure is, and I feel like the word “seizure” in and of itself is really only understood in the case of tonic-clonic (“Grand Mal”) seizures, i.e. the most dramatic type of seizure that can cause loss of consciousness (LOC), as just one example.
Not all of them cause LOC! In fact, a seizure can be as simple as “staring into space” for a spell and losing time, sometimes while making involuntary twitchy or jerky movements. They may feel like being in a dream, or invoke a sense of deja vu. They may cause muscle stiffness, dizziness, or tingling. Sometimes people respond differently while in a seizure, and may sound confused or dazed. Sometimes they can cause random feelings of happiness or anxiety. And then there’s also the repetitive movements that can sometimes look like stimming.
Another thing that’s misunderstood is that not everyone person with epilepsy is photosensitive (i.e., sensitive to flashing lights and such), and seizures in general aren’t just triggered by flashing lights or colors alone. Seizures can also be triggered by specific times of the day, sleep deprivation, alcohol or drug use, stress, hormonal changes and periods, nutritional factors, medications, etc.
According to Mayo Clinic, epilepsy is usually diagnosed when two seizures unprovoked occur within 24 hours of each other. An EEG can detect electrical activity in the brain, and is generally used in epilepsy workups. It is even used during sleep and can be a helpful aid in detecting nocturnal seizures (yes, those are a thing as well).
There are, as described above, several different types of seizures. Mayo clinic does a good job in identifying what type is which, but keep in mind that epilepsy is not something that can be self-diagnosed. If you think you might have epilepsy, talk to your doctor so they can assist with assessment.
i THINK MORE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE SCHIZOPHRENIA by a.c.d
wow look at this great poem, wouldn't you like to read an edited and even BETTER version of this poem, along with art by a variety of different skilled Mad creators regarding their experiences?
then you should check out the Psych Survivor Zine, which (an edited version of) this poem is featured in!
the digital version is free and the physical version is $5! i can't recommend the full zine enough because there's some incredible work in it, but if you want to read the edited version of this poem on its own, you can find it on my website here
[AMV] Jon Arbuckle - You’re Gonna Go Far Kid
this is one of my favorite videos on the internet, and it kills me that the source has been silenced by youtube’s copyright system, so I’m putting it here!
I have seen a version of this on tumblr before, but the audio in that one is just a little bit off because that person edited it back in themselves
but today, I am proud to present the original video, sent to me by Crispy Crungy, who gave me permission to upload it here and share it with you all!
enjoy!
I love this description. It reads like a dedication speech for an art museum. Like we’re all witnesses to this video being interred in the Met. Preserving these things is important, and they really captured that.
straight trans people arent "a waste" actually. straight trans women arent "cursed" with attraction to men. straight trans men arent "predators" who transition to male privilege. yall have GOT to be normal about straight trans people
We’re winning.
I found his bio on societyofpresidentialdescendants.org and it was so delightful I had to copy paste the whole thing:
“Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave it to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale (BA, 1977), and was trained to be a museum curator in the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Program in American Material Culture (MA, 1980). A decorative arts curator at the Newark Museum for thirty-seven years before he retired, Ulysses has never stopped writing for the sheer pleasure of it. Aside from books on Victorian furniture, art pottery, studio ceramics, jewelry, and the White House, Ulysses created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel, appeared in 2012. His most recent novel, Cliffhanger, was released by JMS Books in December 2020.
“Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of 45 years. They have two grown children, adopted in 1996.
“Ulysses is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant. His late mother, Julia, was the President’s last living great-grandchild; youngest daughter of Ulysses S. Grant III, and granddaughter of the president’s eldest son, Frederick. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City. He is also on the board of the U.S. Grant Presidential Library and Museum at Mississippi State University.”
And frankly, the novels sound like they slap:
Desmond was nominated for a Lambda Award.
“With his husband of 45 years.” You kids don’t know ... they got together before AIDS, at the peak of the Gay Glam Life. They stayed together as their generation died around them, and made through it to the point where they could marry and have a legal family. He looks like a chipper preppie who never had a serious thought or care in the world, but it took *incredible* determination, commitment, and also luck to get here.
“rap is the worst music genre” “no actually it’s soul” “no actually it’s jazz” “no actually it’s ska” “no actually it’s r&b” hey guys do you notice a common denominator in the genres you hate or is it just me
genres people have said are the worst in response to this (including the deleted comment section)
funk, house, reggae, disco, gospel, bluesgrass, dubstep, country.
introspection done: zero
:(
wheelchair, cane + forearm crutches, walker 90% chance if you're hesitant to draw mobility aids you're overthinking it. start somewhere. obviously these are not detailed references.
wheelchairs and walkers should be proportioned like chairs. canes are held on the opposite side of the painful leg because you want to put weight on the cane instead of the leg (dr house lied to you)
[ image id: a title image that reads "learn how to draw mobility aids very fast" followed by three simplified drawings of different mobility aids broken down into two steps each. the changes made in each step are colored red.
the second image shows a wheelchair, with the steps "1. seat with footrest", showing a simple chair shape, and "2. wheels", which adds two large wheels to the back and two small wheels to the front.
the third image shows both a cane and forearm crutches, with the steps "1. stick", showing a single line of color, and "2. add handle", which shows a hand grip and a forearm rest on two different sticks. and additional label below this step reads "handheld stick height is where the hand rests at the hip" and "forearm stick height is the forearm".
the fourth image shows a walker, with the steps "1. platform with wheels", showing a backless chair shape with a wheel on each leg, and "2. add handlebar", which shows a handle raised above the seat. end id ]