Hey, Reminder That One Of The Reasons Humanity Has Been Able To Flourish Is Because We Formed Societies

Today I was helping run the booth for the local queer non-profit at the farmer's market and a woman told me that she would like a flag, pointing to our little bucket of flags. So I picked up the bucket and I brought it over and asked her which one she'd like.

"Well, tell me about them!"

"Oh! Okay! This one is the inclusion flag- its for everyone, including allies."

"What's this one?"

"That's the bisexual flag: it represents people who are attracted to two or more genders."

"Hmm... what about this one?"

"That's the nonbinary flag: it represents people whose gender isn't strictly 'male or female.'"

"Hmm... what's this purple one?"

"That's the asexual flag: it represents people who may not feel sexual attraction the way that others do."

She put her hand to her chest and got this really curious look on her face. "Tell me more about that!"

"Oh, happy to! So like if you're out with your bestie and someone real fine walks by and she's like 'omg look at him' and you're like 'girl get a grip?' Or like you just don't get what the 'big deal' is about sex or why everyone is so weird about it? But there's also room for like- you don't fall in love with the way someone looks, you're attracted to the person- their sense of humor and their kindness, or there's something about their personality that just makes it click for you? That's asexuality, too!"

And she got real quiet and seemed to think about it for a minute. So I grabbed our little informational sheet about different queer identities and handed her a copy. "If you want to do some research, this is probably a great place to start."

She thanked me and took an ace flag, stuck it in her hair.

Sometimes when you're online all the time, its easy to think that 'everyone knows about (topic), there's no reason to keep talking about it so much.' But while the people on the internet are real people, the internet ISN'T real life. And there are lots of people who do need to know that they do have community!

One of the jokes is that I'm a lot of people's 'patient zero' for discovering that they're queer. This is why.

the vast majority of fanworks are bad, and that's fine, actually. they are bad for the same reason that the average number of legs for a human person to have is less than two: statistics. like with all endeavours and especially creative ones, most people who write fanfiction or draw art of their favourite characters are bad at it. if you line up all the crochet projects in the world, most of them will be, well, bad. some are bad because they're the first thing a person ever made, or the second or third or tenth, and this kind of thing takes practice. others are bad because the person who made them is just not very good at it. maybe they just learned how to make granny squares and they're perfectly happy to never expand or improve on that. most people who dance or bake or garden or braid hair are not amazing at it! and you'd never go to your kid's dance recital or eat your friend's homemade carrot cake and expect the same experience as you'd have at a professional ballet performance or award-winning bakery. And that's if we assume there is an objective measure of Good Art, which there isn't! Some art is just "bad" because you don't like it!

I think though that specifically with fanfiction, we sometimes forget that when we read a book or watch a movie, dozens of people have looked at it and given feedback and made changes and done quality control before the final product reaches our shelves or screens, and that's not counting the original writer's learning process and past experience. A published book is not anyone's first crochet project, even if it is their debut novel. But with fanfiction, the barrier to entry is so low (on purpose! this is a good thing!) that we do get to see a lot of wonky granny squares, and on sites like AO3 they're sitting on the same shelf as the hand-made silk lace wedding dress and you can't always tell just by looking at it which is which. The consequence of this is that we encounter fic that we think is unpolished, has bad punctuation, is out of character, and we are tempted to think "well, this is awful! how dare this person put this wonky granny square on the same shelf as the lace wedding dress!" But that's not how fandom is supposed to work! That wonky granny square is somebody who is really excited about this TV show they just watched and they are reaching out into the void to share their excitement with you. To scoff at them for not making a lace wedding dress is really, really rude. Even if they did make a lace wedding dress, maybe it's just really not your style, or you think they should have used a different pattern, and it's still their wedding dress. You don't have to wear the dress and you don't have to read the fic.

We all know that there is some fanfic out there that is incredible. I think it's important to talk about that! But the vast majority of people who post their writing online are just sharing their little hobby projects that they make for fun and I also think it's important to remember that.

Fiery-throated Hummingbird (Panterpe insignis), family Trochilidae, order Apodiformes, found in Costa Rica and Panama

Photograph by Aves y Estampas

Coral Reef Textile Art // Evas Doodlings

unfortunately i Do feel better when i clean my living space and eat enough fruits and veggies and go outside and generally remember i am a mammal :| real pity that knowing this does not make it easier to do those things

via indiarosecrawford

Frog Paints a Water Lily Pond 🪷🎨🐸

𝑓ₒᵣ ⲕᵢ𝑛𝑔 ₐ𝑛𝑑 𝑐ₒ𝑡𝑡ₐ𝑔ₑ

DINOSOYS!! XD based off those little soy sauce fish I’m so obsessed with. They are as follows;

- Tyrannosoyus Rex

- Stegosoyus

- Soyodactyl

- Trisoyatops

i do not ghost purposely i just have no idea what to say ever