a whale of a good time🐋
The Way It Is
There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.
-William Stafford
This is just my 2¢ as a nonbinary person but I genuinely think that cis people's gender is just as constructed as trans people's. Cis people love to accuse us of having making up genders or artificially modifying our appearance but....the entire makeup, fashion, diet, workout, and haircare industry exists so that cis people can maintain the illusion of two entirely distinct genders with no overlap.
Everybody is constantly doing drag, all the time
as my own direct immediate list of game grievances i hate that stardew valley expects you to side against a wheelchair user who is upset that he was moved without his consent. i hate that the mass effect trilogy gives you visible scarring as a direct result of choosing mean dialogue and heals it if you're nice. i hate that the vampire the masquerade ttrpg has a monstrous player class that can appear as horrible vampiric monsters or as visibly disabled people and both of these appearances are mechanically the same. i hate that dark souls games have a difficulty level implemented in a way that cannot be adjusted for disability. i hate that i can play as a mermaid or a werewolf or a horse in the sims games but can't use a wheelchair. i hate that the ace attorney games have so much flashing and not all of the games can disable it. i hate that disability is constantly something that happens to teach a lesson, i hate that disability is something that happens as a punishment, i hate that disability is either compensated perfectly with no drawbacks or something that is endlessly sought to be cured. i hate that no character customization will ever include the mobility aids i use, that the player avatars that represent me will never look like me. i am so goddamn annoyed and so goddamn tired.
Context of the bits I'm talking about for those who aren't familiar with the source materials (because I've gotten tags of people being confused about what I'm talking about or implying I am phrasing things badly)
It's long because I mentioned a lot of games so I'm putting it under a break.
Anyway, no-fault divorce, easy access to birth control, and abortion on demand all serve to make families stronger, healthier, happier, and more robust, because they allow family to be a matter of choice rather than a means of social control and violence.
I’ve seen a few ~aesthetic~ photos of rock stacks in rivers recently and this is just a reminder that you are destroying habitat when you move rocks around in rivers and streams.
In addition to dragonfly nymphs, rocky river beds are home to lots of other larval invertebrates like damselflies, mayflies, water beetles, caddisflies, stoneflies, and a bunch of dipterans. Not to mention lots of fish and amphibians!
Plus large scale rock stacking can change the flow of a stream and lead to increased erosion.
Anyway dragonfly for admiration:
Calico pennant by nbdragonflyguy
"Well, it’s that time again. I mark mid-summer by the sharing of this photo on its anniversary. This photo has spent six years circulating in the internet’s many corners and in the stories of people who have both found new relationships and/or ended friendships. 2017, New York, I was invited to a track-by-track celebration of Carly Rae Jepsen's EMOTION, where each writer was assigned one song to give a presentation on. I wanted "Warm Blood" but picked too late and got "Your Type," and made a presentation on my phone on the plane, but this was the only slide, and I read a long thing about desire, and about that thin veil between realizing you like someone and realizing you LIKE someone, about falling in love with friends, about being platonically in love with friends, about treating platonic love with the same generosity and rigor as romantic love. But mostly about the bravery of Big Declarations Of Emotion. Because of the nature of the party, and the fact that this photo has circulated for years without context, I think it has led to more Big Declarations Of Emotion than anything, and I don't mind that, I suppose. I still get people, to this day, telling me they were at this event or they've seen this photo and that they were inspired to tell someone they were in love with them. It feels especially exciting to share this year, in a year where I’ve gotten to be the most excited witness to my friends and their fluorescent joys. Marriages, new houses, new kids, their bravery and openness with the world. Being an audience to that makes me bold in my capacity for love, for care. We ascend to better versions of ourselves through our love for each other, and that is romance. The best kind. The results are sometimes mixed, I’ve heard. They always are. If you told a friend you love them and things got weird, I apologize. but to be fair, I wanted Warm Blood. As I say every year, there are so many ways to fall for someone. If you are at the edge of the cliff anyway, consider taking the leap. The ground might be soft enough to hold you and whatever comes next, and if it isn't there will always be more cliffs, more edges."
Disability Pride month let's not forget about the people in our community with intellectual disabilities!
I just found out about the Stay Up Late campaign to advocate for people with intellectual disabilities to have the right to go out in the evening and not have to be in bed by 8pm
I learned about it from this video:
And I found the website for the campaign which is here:
Let's support all members of our community
