#<- WHICH IS TOTAL BS BUT WHAT IF????????????

[qqueenofhades]

I just wanted to say thank you for your last couple of posts (and your words on the current fuckery in general). It's been tough watching the fallout from across the globe and dreading the inevitable impact on our own elections this year.

I know this isn't the timeline either of us wanted to be in but your posts give me that but of necessary hope to keep going and fighting for better.

PS: I offer a picture of my cat Maya for comfort in these trying but will be endured times

FLUFFY. WHAT A GOOD FLUFFY. I WANT TO SNUGGLE THE FLUFFY (I AM ALLERGIC TO CATS WHICH IS WHY I MUST DO THIS VIRTUALLY, IT IS A GREAT SOURCE OF WOE AND INJUSTICE IN MY LIFE.)

....ahem.

Thanks, m'dear, and you're welcome. I am so sorry for the blizzard of bullshit that the Trumpsters are raining not just on America but the world, and it totally escapes me as to why half the country shrugged and went "eh we should elect him again." But that being as it is, Etc Etc Gandalf Nobody Wants To See These Times But We Must Decide What To Do With Them. So there is that.

Nobody DID want this timeline and it is existentially crushing to be back in it again, but... well. I am trying to limit my political posts to only the ones where I can offer a constructive action item or reassuring insight, because I don't see the point in just repeating all the no good very bad generally terrible things that are going on and which we already know about. I don't want to make light of anything or say that it's not bad, when we can see that it is very bad, but we've gotta keep our heads and a little perspective as best we can. So yeah.

My one important point for every single [insert bullshit fuckery fascist action du jour] is that we can't live and die on every 24-hour news cycle and immediately jump on every single bad thing they do, because as I keep saying, they want to wear us out and burn out our spirit to resist. So when we get obvious insane bullshit like "Elon Musk seized the financial data of every US citizen," well, we can immediately call our elected officials and so forth, but we must also pace ourselves and take the long view. This is flagrantly illegal. Everyone knows it. It will be sued and very probably enjoined. We do not need to hang onto every minute-by-minute update and traumatize ourselves into inaction, when our direct ability to influence it is limited.

We need to look at cat pictures, read books, enjoy our hobbies, look at the beautiful world, love our friends and family, make dinner, do chores, get up and keep going. If we are constantly reading or viewing content that upsets us, even when we agree with it or it comes from our friends, we need to take steps to curate it. It will not happen differently whether or not we stare at it all the time. So yes. We will get through this, but we cannot burn ourselves out in the first few weeks when they will obviously be front-loading all the most insane BS.

Courage.

[robinsnest2111]

I kinda feel like I'm going insane looking at Germany's stance on the genocide in gaza...

like. if you look at it, it's clearly a genocide acted out by Israel on the Palestinian people...

why are officials in full support of Israel? Why is every government building flying their flag?

like I understand Germany is trying its hardest to not be antisemitic in anyway officially/or at least appear that way (with several fucked up exceptions of course) after the atrocities of ww2 BUT THIS IS NOT THE WAY

also breaks my brain seeing all the far right party voters starting bad faith arguments in the comments section of pro Palestine posts, calling the authors antisemitic for not supporting Israel

like

what??????????

DAS SIND DOCH ZWEI VERSCHIEDENE PAAR SCHUHE LIKE

just because you support Palestine and the right of the people TO NOT GET KILLED doesn't mean you suddenly wish death upon all Jewish people?????

what in the malicious black and white thinking is this????

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

[willthespy]

“No more Underworldy stuff, doctor’s orders.”

[kaesaaurelia]

plEASE I just sat in front of this woman on the bus who was ranting transphobically about some celebrity which then segued into "gay people don't DESERVE a special week just for being gay" (you are wrong about what Pride is and also how long it lasts!) and then burbled happily about how fun it was to light the menorah at her church's "Hanukkah mass" because of COURSE she would celebrate Hanukkah because it is about the BEAUTIFUL LIGHT OF GOD and nothing else. Nothing else. Just like Pride is about gay people feeling special and NOTHING ELSE NONE OF THESE HOLIDAYS IS ABOUT MINORITY RESISTANCE TO VIOLENCE OR PEOPLE REFUSING TO ASSIMILATE, OH NO! ONE OF THEM IS ABOUT LIGHT AND THE OTHER IS ABOUT WOKE.

[orpheusilver]

silvers sacrifices as a parallel to maxs compromises .? is this anything

[hissterical-nyaan]

Saying this for the 100th time here but some of you are so out of touch from reality when you make your "it's okay to be straight!!! It's okay to be a man!!!" posts like I get it there can be some context or exceptions to this but most of the times it's just people thinking straight people or men are somehow being oppressed cause the people they have oppressed for an eternity are speaking their truth loudly online now

And no, you don't get to take the defense that people feel bad about themselves when they read these things because the real world still fucking favours y'all. You don't have to sob in your bathroom for hours and hide your whole life away from your family from a young age. Y'all still don't care about queer kids, especially queer girls who never find any comfort anywhere except that small family they created online. I'll take you feeling bad any day over another girl feeling trapped in this society cause no matter what she does, she will always feel inferior or another queer person having to take their secret to their deathbed

Get a grip, touch some grass. You are not oppressed because a 16yr old said they hate men or made a joke about how being straight is actually awful. Y'all have said worse shit to us for centuries now. "Learn to take a joke :)"

[ask-redsoldier-tf2]

React to Bella the wolf(yes the one we all know..)

| I'm not reacting to that disgusting person. |

[orcelito]

Also I got my essay exam back today. Full points!!! Which was a surprise bc my 4th essay was definitely lower quality than the other three (bc I rushed it), but still good enough to get full points!!!!

Makes me wonder what that other one I spied being a 1 was like 🤔🤔🤔 bro was NOT good at writing I guess.

[saltandskeletrons]

Hi! I saw your tags on my post about AI and I was wondering what your job is that you are forced to use AI? Or just, what exactly are you using the AI for? I didn't know that work places were already incorporating ai in such a way that you would HAVE to use it.

Please don't answer either question if you feel they are too personal or if you just don't want to answer them for any reason at all. I'm just curious, is all!

Thank you for reading this and I hope you have a wonderful day!! ����

Hey! Thanks for reaching out, I really don’t mind answering, and talking about ai generated art is pretty relevant to my career so this might be long lol.

my job is a part time graphic design student position at my university. Right now I’m working on a presentation where I have to visualize a lot of technology/ products/ and architecture that don’t really currently exist. My supervisor told me I should try using playground for some images and I was just like, ya ok I’ll try it.

(Personal opinions alert) I never used any ai image generation before bc I’ve always seen it as just stealing art. And I have no personal desire for ai writing/ visual art- it completely misses the point of making art to me.

But I am a designer which isn’t necessarily the same thing as an artist- and I don’t really get paid enough or have the time to start ethical conversations at my job. So forced was definitely a strong word to use haha but ai is really looming over the whole graphic design industry.

I know of some firms that proudly use mid journey and with a lot of free software available ai is being used more in low risk, low reward scenarios. It’s definitely not a necessity but there are designers that see it as a good way to save time but their design intent/ decision making is still at play.

But tbh the playground images I’ve ‘made’ look pretty bad and I think a sketch or photoshoped concept would look more sophisticated.

Tldr: ai image generation is being used in graphic design workplaces, but it’s not the main software being used at all. (I would argue bc it’s not good enough yet, and there is a lot of skepticism on the ethics of it)

[cattailtales]

So this blog can blaze full asscrack onto my dash but we Cannot have Palestine trending or tag anything with #trans without getting immediately censored??

[possum-tooth]

um. im ab to live w my parents again.......

[iero]

Tagged by @userparamore to share 5 songs I’ve been obsessed with/have on repeat at the moment! Thank you Iselin for the tag! ❤️

1. Roadkill by fanclubwallet

2. Running Out of Time by Lil Yachty

3. $20 by boygenius

4. London Thunder by Foals

5. Figure 8 by Paramore

Tagging @ghostlyvalour, @ofalltheginjoints, @dangerlemon, @hellfireclubs, @mulderfcx, @houseofwolvesv2 and anyone else who wants to do this! :) 

[bluewinnerangel]

.

[the-cimmerians]

It's 2024. I have been participating in fandom for 40 years. This is a ramble commemorating some history I've experienced along the way.

In 1984, I attended my first convention, and made a beeline for the one long row of covered tables in the Dealer's Room that was, according to the whispered lore of my friends, 'the one'. "um", I said, very suavely and coherently, except for how it was totally the opposite of those things, "I'm here for the... for the, uh. For-"

"Come around here," the man behind the table said with exhausted ennui, so I went around, and he lifted up the table skirt next to him and pointed to rows and rows of boxes underneath the line of tables. "It's all under here."

It was all under there. Along with about five older ladies with glasses, graying hair, cardigans. Flipping through slash zines and chatting in whispered voices like old friends (which of course they were). I noticed one of them had the good sense to be wearing kneepads. I was still too young and ablebodied to need kneepads when crawling on a carpeted floor, but I immediately found her preparedness skills to be both impressive and hot. "You're new," one of the ladies whispered to me--a bit warily, which made sense. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

In the faint light (the kneepads lady had also come prepared with a flashlight, additional practicality hotness points for her) I grabbed a comb-bound book with a heavy line art piece on the cover, featuring a musclebound Captain Kirk getting righteously and enthusiastically plowed by a stern-yet-ebullient Spock. "This," I said, pointing helpfully at the cover, like I was trying to make myself understood in a language I had only the vaguest knowledge of. "I'm here for this."

Outside at the convention, most of the attendees were wearing large homemade circular pins that shrieked 'K/S is BS!!!'1. But underneath the table, we reveled in the forbidden.

***

In 1985, I fell very hard for Starsky & Hutch fandom. Which was simply referred to at the time as 'the other fandom', because there were only two. We were upstarts. Many fannish elders predicted that it was just a phase.

***

The 'circulating library' was a massive stack of barely-legible pages that smelled strongly of mimeograph ink. When you were on the list, you would write stories while you waited for your turn, and when the big box was mailed to you, you would read everything (new finds, old favorites), add your own sloppily-typed or hastily-mimeographed stories, and then mail the whole thing to the next person. For me, at the time, it was an extremely expensive indulgence--but my favorite one.

***

By 1990, slash fandom had grown enough that I no longer knew everyone in it, which was both thrilling and a bit daunting. A young woman at a convention waited for me after a panel I was part of (I think it was 'writing impactful smut' or something like that), and said she had a question she didn't want to ask in a group setting. I'd heard that before. I said that's fine, go ahead and ask; and she came out with: "Why do you have to be gay?"

I blinked. "Is... that a problem?"

She looked annoyed. "Yes, because your stories are on all the recommendation lists and in all the top zines, but if you're gay and I read something you wrote and I get hot from it that makes me gay, and I'm not gay."

"Wow." I grinned, I couldn't help it. It probably made me look very predatory-dyke-about-to-score-a-toaster. Whatever, it was enough to make her back away from me fast.

When I thought about it later that night, I wondered what it would be like not to be the only queer person in slash fandom.

***

By 1997, slash started appearing on the internet. Many fannish elders claimed it was the death knell of slash fandom, or dismissed it as 'just a phase'.

***

Anyway, I wrote all this for myself as a commemoration of sorts, but if you took the time to read it--thank you. Love you, fandom. I always will.

1 In those days, m/m fandom was known as 'slash', which grew from the fannish shorthand where 'K&S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock having adventures or tribulations or what have you, and 'K/S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock getting it on (Kirk divided by Spock or Spock into Kirk--it was mathy fannish humor and I was into it then and I still am now). Slash was decidedly unpopular in the fannish world in 1984, and there was a concerted effort to force slash authors, artists, and fans out of 'mainstream' fannish public life. Hence, under the table.

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

Catalyst

so in my au which i'm totally not using to cope or anything haha, after realizing that curly isn't going to do anything about jimmy, anya confides in swansea and he goes Protective Dad Mode. i'm calling this the "Responsibility AU." ramble below cut.

swansea doesn't immediately go after jimmy with an axe or anything because 1. they're not in a high stress life/death crash situation and 2. anya specifically requests that swansea not enact violence upon jimmy after swansea says, and i quote, "i'm gonna beat his ass." anya just wants to feel safer and more supported on the ship—she doesn't want swansea to get in trouble even if jimmy does deserve to get destroyed by 10000 punches.

what swansea can do is watch out for anya and make sure she's never alone in a room with jimmy. if there's a situation where she has to be alone with jimmy (like the psych evals), she and swansea have a system where she can signal for help. with anya's permission, swansea asks daisuke to help look out for her too (without telling him the details as to why since that's anya's right to share or not). daisuke has already picked up at this point that something is wrong based on how much more hostile swansea's become towards jimmy, and he trusts his boss, so he agrees without much question.

anya, feeling less alone now that she has people watching her back, gains more confidence to stand up to jimmy. which makes him angry because his unwanted advances are being denied and swansea and daisuke keep getting in his way. he just can't understand why he's being treated as the bad guy here (this is because he is a delusional asshole).

meanwhile curly is slowly realizing that he needs to actually do something here because the tension in the crew is palpable and increasing by the day. also swansea is being mighty passive aggressive to him and talking about "responsibility" a lot. curly keeps trying to talk to jimmy about it but the guy just keeps downplaying it and blaming everyone else but himself. and curly is realizing that his friend isn't who he thought he was.

it all comes to a head one day when an angry jimmy tries to confront anya alone and swansea steps in. things get heated, people start yelling. curly show up to see swansea and jimmy on the verge of fighting with anya and daisuke trying to hold them back respectively. curly breaks up the fight. jimmy storms off. curly follows him and finds him trying to get the gun from the case in the cockpit. curly asks him why he's doing this and jimmy claims it's for his own protection because he feels "threatened by swansea." he tells curly to give him the code. curly, the sheer wrongness of the whole situation hitting him, finally calls jimmy out on all his bs. jimmy just laughs in his face, still believing that he's not in the wrong and curly doesn't have the guts to do anything anyway. so the captain fires him on the spot. jimmy snaps and he and curly get into a fight in the cockpit. jimmy is trying to crash the ship and curly is trying to stop him. then the rest of the crew show up and anya knocks jimmy's ass out with the gun case. swansea is so proud.

they throw jimmy in the cryopod so they don't have to worry about him pulling anything else and he can be properly dealt with once the stupid delivery is over. everyone's like, "wow that was a close one—could you imagine how messed up it would be if we ended up in a crash because of jimmy? thank god that didn't happen." curly makes swansea the copilot until they can get a replacement and swansea's like, "goddammit as if i don't already do enough shit around here."

anyway my whole goal here was to get rid of jimmy early so i can have beautiful Found Family shenanigans in space with the rest of the crew. apologies and healing and happy times will happen. no the whole getting laid off thing doesn't happen. no i don't have an explanation for it. sorry for the essay.