#space culture collective

[spvcecult]

Airospace x Milo x Cavalier

May 5, 2024. 📍Pie Shop DC

[cator99]

out of curiosity, would you consider yourself butch?

used to be a blonde underweight twink and now I'm a based jock still got the chanel bag and the sick albeit matured mind of a suckpig to prove it so I'm gonna let you decide whether you wanna call me that word just cuz I got a pussy and short hair. I promise you that there have been enough advancements made in the art of lesbian sexual dynamics in the past 50 years to broaden the vocabulary used to describe the plethora of types of masculine females.

[plural-culture-is]

plural culture is a teenager in headspace has a saxophone that he likes to bring out regularly. he does not know how to play the saxophone correctly. he does this on /purpose/

.

[ask-thearchivists]

Do you collectors have any holidays or festivals or whatnot you celebrate?

{It's going under a read more this got way too long.}

The Charmer: The Coordinator knows more about these things than any of us. Due to our lifespans we perceive time slightly differently than you, and due to the complete and utter lack of a planet we could designate as home, our way of measuring time is unfamiliar to your own traditions. We have large celebrations for personal milestones, we have other celebrations for certain astrological events specific to our assigned galaxy, that you might compare to a "holiday" as we do celebrate. But they happen over such an extended period of time with even more time in-between that the festivities and practices we adopt would seem incomprehensible to you.

The Cartographer: Oh I remember some of the major holidays. There is only one holiday I recall that works on a scale larger than Galactic, Which is the celebration of the Grand Constellation. I don't think she ever explained what that is, but it's what we refer to the Universe as. On planets, constellations are made of stars, for us in space we are moving through the stars so quickly that any one solar system's constellations mean nothing to us very quickly. Instead we measure things using the Grand Constellation, an expanse so great that even the quickest and most skilled Collectors may never be able to travel it completely.

The Cartographer: So anyways we celebrate the creation of the Grand Constellation once a Comet for the length of 100 Orbits. That's 1/1000th of the length of a Comet, so pretty reasonable. Uuuh, an Orbit is similar to one year for your species. It is celebrated at the end of a Comet, so we finished our last, and first, Flare celebration 23 Orbits ago. None of us are old enough to have had one previously. Besides that the holidays we celebrate mark certain things in our assigned galaxy. We have Galactic Equinoxes and Solstices, these are measured by tracking the orbit of the closest inhabited solar system to the center of the galaxy, seasonal attributes are assigned according to the cardinal directions of the Grand Constellation. The Autumnal Equinox will actually begin next Orbit, and last for 10 Orbits.

The Cartographer: The festivities for our Autumnal Equinox involve mourning traditions, because it is symbolic of the inevitable decline in life anything that lives will face. For the first five Orbits we fast as much as we are able while still conducting our jobs, really traditional Collectors will cut their hair short, but this is not necessary. The last five orbits we feast by indulging more in our consumption of astral energies and radiations. Another practice is Oblivion, where we enact minor changes to our Collecting, like if Cleaning is determined as necessary during the Equinox we abstain from the burning of the planet. Instead, we Collect everything with our star constructs according to minimum criteria as quickly as possible, and then leave them. I think it's...silly, it's meant to enforce to the mortals their powerlessness in the face of grand cosmic indifference.

The Curator: For our own personal milestones we celebrate new births by feasting on a dying star, allowing the newborn to eat as much as they want, hoping they will grow strong and powerful as an adult. First Collections are very important, and unless there is something extremely aberrant, we are meant to only guide. This is a sort of birthday celebration by the way. Another sort of birthday celebration is the Naming Ceremony. This is the last birthday a Collector will be super tiny and mortal sized, before growing into the size they will be as an adult Collector, and we commemorate this with the official assignment of their title and job in the Archive, thus becoming an official Archivist. It would be the second birthday after the First Collection, or about 500 Orbits later. The last major milestone before typical ones like living for your first Comet and such, is the celebration of the Collector becoming an adult, and earning the full responsibilities of their job. This happens 1,500 orbits after the previous one.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Sometimes, it's the little nonsensical annoyances...

There are definitely more important things than this going on, and I'm not going to do much good by pointing it out, but I might as well express the thoughts so I can try to lay them to rest.

This:

...is absurd. Some Taiwanese venture capitalist asshole was annoyed that some white business assholes in Quebec are remixing boba tea, which he loves, and is his culture, and cannot be improved without due deference to its originators. To address his grievance, perhaps he'd like to fund some more authentic boba tea, made by the folks in the image above.

Depending on their personal behaviour and business practices, which I am not aware of, I wish all the boba tea makers the best. I love boba tea and NO, MORE BOBA TEA PLACES WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE THAN I HAVE FINGERS IS NOT ENOUGH. I NEED MORE!

Fuck, I want boba tea.

But I digress. To experience offence in this particular fashion over this particular item, you need to stop learning and switch off your brain at the point where Taiwan invented the boba tea. Where did the tea and tapioca, and milk and sugar come from? Don't worry about it. We gotta stop right here, or this story will get real complex, and I'm not comfortable with that level of complexity, so let's pass our judgment and say no more about it. Boba tea belongs to Taiwan!

Chat, ya gotta realize, mainland China was not interested in diluting its tea with so much milk and sugar that it doesn't taste like tea anymore. That would've been kookie-dooks. The British Empire had to steal it and fuck it up. Then Taiwan stole it back and fucked it up more (according to Wikipedia, via the Dutch in the 17th century). And tapioca is a staple starch from the Americas. "Refined into a juice, gelled into cute little pearls, and served with tea and sugar" is not an Indigenous American serving suggestion. I don't see Taiwan adding a label to every boba tea giving due deference to cassava-loving Americans, nor expressing humility about their use of it not being an improvement.

It's not that I need Taiwan to do this. I just want to see this train of thought followed to its logical conclusion. If you're saying these assholes in Quebec shouldn't be fucking with Taiwan's boba tea, you're also saying those assholes in Taiwan shouldn't have fucked with America's tapioca - and that's terrible. Of COURSE they should've fucked with the tapioca, it is delicious! And if it turns out it's more delicious with fizzies or liquor in it, we're gonna drink that, too, no matter who came up with it. This is how food works. Copying the good ideas off a nearby culture is not evil, not in and of itself. Butter-chicken pizza is not evil, it is spectacular.

I want my boba tea. I don't need a label specifying that it resulted from an intersection of five separate colonizing empires (China, Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and Japan), the colonization of Taiwan, mass political imprisonments and executions, and the genocide of the Americas. It's very interesting to know that, but mentioning it right when I'm about to slork up my tea would make me choke - pointlessly, I think. Everything is like that. The machine I'm using to write this is like that, the clothes I wear are like that, the language I speak is like that. Nothing is without sin. It can't be put back the way it was, all we can do is try to mitigate it as best we can.

Is refusing to fund some guys with new tea additives because they wounded your nationalist pride (which seems to exist in somewhat of a context-free void) anything more than Neo-liberal capitalist wanking behaviour? Maybe the Chinese-American company will do better and the Quebecois one won't, but that's not justice for any of the injured parties, that's just marketing. Buying shit is not an effective means of reparations or political speech. There is no ethical boba tea under capitalism. I don't have the spoons to research and consume the Least Problematic Beverage, and if you do, I think they'd be better spent on literally anything else.

Mr. Dragon's Den, I have a brick you can use. Go damage property like a real protester or just sit down and drink your tea. Feel free to appropriate whatever cultures you prefer for your toppings.

[chronichlesofnillory]

I genuinely think people need to separate magic and spirituality/religion way more.

I haven't done "new" magic in over a month and I feel less bad about it than I thought I would.

There's so many posts out there asking for advice on "getting back into magic after taking time off" and I always thought they were a little weird because that kind of ebb and flow is really normal for pretty much everything you learn outside of an academic or workplace setting. (even in school you get break periods)

For 15 years I've been learning solely on my own everything from calculus through khan academy to polymer clay through youtube tutorials and it's just natural *for me personally* to go through periods of great interest and massive skill improvement in conception and technique and then just~~~ stop for a while.

The server I left was doing this 100 days of witchcraft thing where the point (I gathered) was to show that even little things like stirring intention in your coffee counted as magic and you shouldn't feel so bad that you're not doing ceremony every day. I tried to participate and got about 5 days in before that plus a lot of other things made me leave (and tbh I should have left earlier because it was not a good place for me).

What struck me most was that unlike seemingly everyone else, I felt worse when I listed things like "read 2 chapters of magic book" or "made weekly offering." It felt more like I was just trying to come up with something--anything that would make me feel like I was participating and "being productive." It didn't feel like it was making me "see magic in my everyday" because I already felt that way because I've been doing magic my whole life--in the way I sing, in the way I move energy when I stretch and exercise, in the way I talk to the plants and animals, in the way I make offerings to my room or an intention, in the way I cook like Tita in "Like Water for Chocolate" or the way I would astral travel without knowing it. When I had to list out all the "magical things" I did every day they felt *less* magical and more like what a "that girl" influencer would put on their instagram post to show how productive they've been.

I genuinely think people need to separate magic and spirituality and religion way more. Magic is at its core, a skill/art/science. It is not 100% spirituality/religion. Your paganism or spirituality might influence your magic or interact with it (like how my animism interacts with how I work with symbols or how I ask my divination tools to come to life before I use them), but I truly believe there's a great deal of magic that exists outside of spirituality/religion/etc.

I wish secular and atheistic witches got more respect and exposure and credit. I wish there were more books and really popular influencers and discords that are as populated as the ones that spend 60-70% of their talking about deities and religious holidays. I wish it felt easier to get into spaces with other magical people where even if you weren't doing "everyday magic" you still felt welcome to talk and share your magic and it wasn't just crickets when you did.

It's just so weird to see so much content out there basically enforcing the kind of "hustle culture" type productivity mindset of "you need to be doing this every day if you want to connect to other people on this or share anything about it.

[evilvarric666-archive]

guy standing in the corner at a party meme They don't know about TOS Kirk's fucked up traumatic backstory

[jachimike]

DID YOU KNOW! Omabe in Nsukka culture also serves as security agent. It is truthful and just and does not intimidate anyone. It is all powerful and doesn’t attack the innocent and weak. Rather, it takes pride in protecting all. Society is today threatened by many forms of insecurity. If we emulate the tenets of the Omabe we will have a better and secure society. . . . . . . . #opensea #web3 #metaverse #art #digitalart #photography #africa #culture #melanin #black #space #metaverse #snow #winter #peaceofmind #collection #digitalcollectibles #meta #afro #africanmasks #blackart #viralvideos #fyp #viralpost #instagram #viralvideos #iwd2023 #women #society https://www.instagram.com/p/CqH6mSKD_vm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[spvcecult]

[hinterland-clans]

ohohoho i have plans to make Thicketburr SUCH a Weird Girl

[plural-culture-is]

plural culture is having very very low memory barriers, so i can kinda sorta recall exomemories from our fictive headmates, which is very confusing because hey that guy actually doesn't even exist in this world and i do not exist in that canon

an EXTRA fun layer of confusion is added when that guy DOES exist, but as a source-separated headmate who is also in our system? it's a fun/weird time

.

[archivyrep]

Cleo and the Ancient Egypt section of P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. library

Cleo, Akila, and Brian see the few items in the library which are presented by Khensu

Last week I piggybacked off my post on ilovelibraries and talked about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In this post, I'd like to talk about the other show mentioned in that post: Cleopatra in Space, and the archivy themes in the show.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on Aug. 20, 2020.

First of all, the school library serves as a repository for information not seized by Octavian, the show's main villain, who has destroyed all copies of recorded knowledge except his own. In the show’s third episode, “Clubbing,” Cleo, the show's protagonist, desperate to learn more about her home, travels to the school library after hours with her mentor, and possible library docent, Khensu, and her two friends Akila and Brian. As I noted in the ilovelibraries article, Khensu brings Cleo and her friends to the library’s Ancient Egypt section, where there are only a few physical records, all accessible in holographic form. I noted that if this was a real library, "these artifacts would be housed in a library’s special collections." After that Cleo is dismayed by this lack of records, so she thinks about her dad, floats in the air, glows pink, "then sucks all the electricity of the school and nearby city into her body, causing a massive power outage." After saying that, I make a broader point about saying how this moment could be indicating that "libraries need adequate resources and support to assist the communities they serve—otherwise there will be information deficits which put patrons at a disadvantage." I also note that libraries are a beloved hangout space for one of the main characters, with Akila liking to spend her time in the library studying and insists “all the cool students” spend time there too in the show’s 12 episode, "Double." I even note how she reminds me of myself in college, because "I extensively used the well-endowed campus library to study, research, and relax, even when some of my friends disliked it" for frivolous reasons.

There is something more, however. Obviously, the school library on Mayet is a "collection of published materials, including books, magazines, sound and video recordings, and other formats" with special collections which has research materials, like documents and holograms, organized by a specific focus (Ancient Egypt) and archival principles. This obviously includes provenance, referring to discussing the origin and source of the information, and the "origins, custody, and ownership of an item or collection," following the SAA definition of the term, which is implied, but not directly talked about.

He first talks about access, with a screencap from that scene shown at the beginning of this article. He tells Cleo, and her friends there are "just a few dozen artifacts, fragments of scrolls, and books" about Ancient Egypt, and that she "can access it all here." At a later point, Khensu presents a document to Cleo, specifically the one that mentions her by name, as shown in the below screencap:

He hands her the document, describing it as about her, and noting it was "written long after her time." She then laments, after reading the document, that while it mentions her, she had hoped to learn more about herself. Specifically, she was looking about something when she is older, confirming she would come back. She then mentions that one of the holograms is her dad, with Khensu explaining their historical research, noting that they could find that he was one of the Ptolemys but weren't sure which one. Right after that, she begins sucking all the power out of the special collections room, the library, the P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. campus, and the nearby Mayet City. The library does not make a recurrence in the episode after this two-and-a-half-minute scene, since Cleo and her friends are trying to avoid asteroids crashing into the school, even though libraries have another significant role in the series. Akila is shown studying in the library in the episodes "Akila Says No."

There is no reappearance of the Ancient Egypt special collections room, which is tucked away in the library, shown below:

What can we make of this episode? Clearly, there are many more nods to libraries than archives in the episode. However, special collections are, as I envision them, mini-archives, often as an offshoot of libraries themselves. In that way, they operate in a library-archives space of sorts. Even so, Khensu is, in his role as Cleo's mentor and something equivalent to a library curator, is identifying and preserving essential records which "document the cultural heritage of society," assumedly helping organize and maintain "the documentary record of institutions, groups, communities, and individuals," specifically of those from Ancient Egypt, to summarize from the stated duties in the SAA's Core Values of Archivists. While he is undoubtedly helping interpret "documentation of past events through the use of primary source materials," like Cleo herself, it is hard to say who uses this special collections room. Presumably, Callie, Cleo's "archnemesis" at the high school, who heads the Ancient Egypt club, uses the room, but who else? The library, as a whole, seems well-used, as shown in other episodes, but what about the special collections? Sadly, it seems like special collections and archives were used as a plot device to help Cleo learn about herself. And since she is dissatisfied with the number of records they have, she will not be returning. The series is generally from her point of view, apart from some scenes from the perspective of Octavian, this room will likely never be shown again. That is deeply unfortunate.

In the end, I have mixed feelings about the special collections room in this episode. On the one hand, it serves an important role in the story, but on the other, there is a sense of inadequacy about the records they have. Khensu does not have the mentality of Jocasta Nu, that if a record does not exist in the archives, it does not exist, but their historical understanding is still limited. In any case, highlighting these themes in the show will helpfully encourage others to analyze shows they like for similar themes, learn more about special collections, and archives themselves. So, that is the positive that can be gleaned from this series.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[allstrangeandwonderful]

This is implied in earlier posts, but I think it’s worth saying explicitly: make it feel safe for them to express and discuss their feelings!

The manosphere does not excel because it has great logic and unarguable points; it excels because it targets boys and men who feel awful and don’t know what to do about it. It tells them that they are welcome somewhere, that they are valid and valued just as they are, that they don’t need to do any uncomfortable introspection or growth, that their feelings of loneliness and inadequacy are not their own fault, but someone else’s. It preys on their emotions, and is very effective at doing so.

You gotta teach your boys good things, yes, but they are still going to have uncomfortable feelings sometimes; a boys first encounters with feminism and classism and white privilege can be super uncomfortable, and before they’ve developed a deep understanding of them, it can easily feel like everyone hates them and wants them to answer for the crimes of others — which is compounded by the fragile self esteem most young people have, and the shaky concept of masculinity that boys almost certainly have from getting mixed messages from inside and outside of the home, and can bring up a lot of difficult and complicated feelings! And if bringing those feelings up is met with ridicule, accusations of ignorance and privilege, and making them the butt of the joke, they’re going to bottle those feelings up, and look for an alternate release valve. The manosphere does not have to be logical to attract these boys; it just has to make them feel better, and they’ll do all the re-programming themselves.

Essentially the same reason any cult works, right?

So yeah, tl;dr: if you don’t talk to your boys about their feelings with compassion and understanding, predatory influencers will prey on those unmet emotional needs.

[yakityyaku]

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Honoring National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: Reflecting in Saskatoon’s Green Spaces

[enfinizatics]

dear americans,

as a polish queer woman and human rights activist, i know exactly how you're feeling right now and what to expect from these elections. i lived through the 2015-2023 regime of pis, a right-wing populist party that divided families in the same way trump did. i’ve experienced the rise of fascism in poland, the influence of far-right parties like konfederacja, and their “santa’s little helpers”—ordo iuris, an ultra-conservative catholic organization (banned in many countries, mind you) that helped enforce a near-total abortion ban and runs anti-queer campaigns in public spaces. i supported the black protests in 2016 as a middle schooler when they first tried to ban abortion. as an adult, i actively participated in the 2020 women’s strike, running from police tear gas daily after they finally passed the ban. i supported friends who faced charges.

i’ve lived through intense homophobia in poland as a queer teen and adult. i survived the first pride march in my hometown, where far-right extremists threw stones and glass at us. i endured the anti-queer propaganda spread by the ruling party in state-owned media. i survived the “rainbow night,” poland’s own stonewall moment in summer 2020, when police arrested around 50 queer activists following the arrest of margo, a nonbinary activist. i survived the "lgbt-free zones," the targeted violence, the slurs from strangers on the street, and the protests i held against queerphobia. it was hard as fuck, but i survived.

but just because i survived, it doesn’t mean others did. many women died because of the abortion ban—marta, justyna, izabela, dorota, joanna, maria, and many others who didn’t survive pis’s draconian anti-abortion laws. milo, kacper, michał, zuzia (she was 12), wiktor, and other queer and trans kids and young adults took their own lives because of the relentless queerphobia.

despite all of this, our experience in poland can serve as a guide now. here are some tips for staying safe and how we, polish queers and women, organized under the regime:

safety first, always. if you know someone who’s had an abortion, no you don’t. if you know someone is trans, no you don’t. if you know people who help with safe abortions, no you don’t—at least not until you know it’s 100% safe to share. if you are queer or have had an abortion, only share this with people you trust fully. most importantly, not everyone has to be an activist just because they’re part of a minority. if it feels unsafe to share that you're queer, trans, etc., then don’t. it doesn’t make you any less queer.

use secure, encrypted messaging like signal for conversations on potentially risky topics, such as queerness, abortion, organizing counter-actions, protests—anything that might be used against you.

stay anonymous online. if you want to research or report something without surveillance, do not use regular internet. get a vpn (mullvad is affordable and reliable), download the tor browser (for both onion and standard links), and if you plan to whistleblow, consider using a riseup email account.

organize and build networks. community is everything now. support each other, foster independence, because your government won’t have your back. set up collectives, grassroots movements. create lists of trusted professionals—lawyers, doctors, etc.—who can offer support.

to lawyers and doctors: please consider pro-bono work. this is what got us through poland’s hardest times. your work will be needed now more than ever.

for protests or risky actions: always write a pro-bono lawyer’s number on your arm with a permanent marker.

get to know the anarchist black cross federation and other resources on safety culture: "Starting an anarchist black cross group: A guide"; Still We Rise - A resource pack for transgender and non-gender conforming people in prison; Safe OUTside the system by the Audre Lorde Project;

for safe abortion info or involvement: get familiar with womenhelpwomen.

stay radical, stay strong, stay informed: The Anarchist Library

if i forgot to (or didn't) include something, don't hesitate to reblog this post with other resources.