Changewinds' Ink

Little bits of art from a science and fantasy illustrator. Also a big fan of Doctor Who, ST: DS9, and reading (edited to exclude NG). Frequent reblogger of nature, especially Salticidae. she/her

[infectiouspiss]

violence and death and dying and blood and guts and gore and violence and viscera and fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

[ospreyonthemoon]

@markscherz do you know what type of frog this is? I can't tell if its a small adult or a baby frog.

[markscherz]

This is a juvenile Chacophrys pierottii, arguably the most comically proportioned frog ever. Here is an adult. If I had not taken this photo myself I would think it’s some kind of ridiculous meme render.

These are also the frogs that bury themselves in a backwards spiral that is seriously relatable.

[thebisexualwreckoning]

Confessions from a fandom insider; or how people will do anything to believe rich white men who pretend to be 'nice guys' over survivors just because said white guy tweeted 'gay rights' or 'women matter'

Aka: a post revealing the reactions of the good omens fandom when the orignal allegations against Neil gaiman came out.

***Edit: someone pointed out to me referring to those who gaiman assaulted as victims emphasizes gaiman's control over them and keeps them in a state of powerlessness and asked me to refer to them as survivors to emphasize their healing instead of keeping them in the same space that they were under gaiman. I will edit the post to reflect the correct language but for clarity's sake and because I believe in holding myself to the same standard I would others, I'm staying accountable for using harmful language and taking note of the fact that I was wrong and am so sorry for referring to these women as victims when they are in fact survivors

***Edit edit because I forgot this is Tumblr: by referring to these women as survivors I don't mean to erase the experience of those who didn't survive or mean to participate in a society that is uncomfortable with allowing people to be victims so that it can pretend we don't need changing on a structural level. No I don't support the idea that a person needs to be a survivor and is required to be resilient or whatever the fuck else for their trauma to be valid. I am still keeping my previous edits however because a. These women survived. That is factually correct. And b. This post is not about those that did not survive but rather about these specific women. So I will use language tailored to these specific women.

Post under cut

I've been a long time member of fandom communities on the internet. So I'm in general familiar with fandom drama and how people react when their favourite authors get exposed as being awful people. I was there when terf lady was exposed and as you can guess, I was there when the allegations against Neil gaiman came out.

Now, I'm not ashamed to admit I was a fan of certain gaiman made media. I enjoyed the adaptations of good omens, sandman, and dead boy detectives but that was mostly it. We ran in the same circles and I reblogged fanart on Tumblr and went about my merry way. So I was adjacent to the gaiman fandom when all this went down. And my god it was hell opening up under their feet. People were denying the allegations, finding strawman reasons for why gaiman couldn't possibly be a predator or have sexually assaulted those women. They were genuinely running smear campaigns.

People were talking about how the reporter is actually a terf and this was all a smear campaign against gaiman by conservatives who wanted to destroy 'the only genuinely non-disingenuous ally the queer community has'. Nobody was talking about why this behaviour might have been exactly the reason scarlett might have gone to a terf in the first place (note: I am not defending terfs. As a trans person I condemn all terfs and this is not in any way meant to be taken as a pro terf post).

There was more discourse about what this meant for good omens s3 rather than how gaiman must have completely ruined the lives of the survivors. it was some of the most unsympathetic self absorbed behaviour I have seen in fandom in all my years in fandom spaces. People were using neurodivergence as an excuse for both why they couldn't give up the material and for gaiman. People called it an anti bdsm campaign (note: this post is NOT anti bdsm or autistic people who don't understand social cues).

For a fandom that had modelled itself after having an accepting and diverse community that most of all supported women's rights, it was surprising to see people so quickly turn against survivors just because it went against their viewpoint of their favourite author. These very same people who would go to bat against amazon for cancelling their favourite show about white gays would not do the same for actual real life breathing women who aren't fictional characters they can read fanfic about.

What's my point with all this? Im talking about a bigger fandom wide trend about forming parasocial relationships with creators of media, especially when they espouse liberal ideology. gaiman's entire shtick was that he was this approachable goofy dad-like figure who openly supported a marginalised community leading many vulnerable people to think that he was that guy in real life. People searching for any form of connection found it when he lovebombed them before revealing his true colours

This doesn't mean we should be forever paranoid of any public figure we come across on the internet but should learn to form firm boundaries as people and fandom with the knowledge that this person could always be revealed to have been bad actually. And we should do this in a way that doesn't shatter our whole worldviews. If giving up his creations is uncomfortable to the point of making you sick then you need to seek out therapy for these parasocial dynamics you form.

Having to rearrange your world view to accept that the persona gaiman created (because at the end of the day interacting with fans is a part of his job, a part he abused, but still a job for which he uses a persona and not the real person he is) is not real or that your favourite show might be cancelled might hurt you but I ask that you explore those feelings in private instead of coming online and yelling about it to the point it overshadows the voices of the victims.

Because this is not normal behaviour. Gaiman sees vulnerable fans as people to exploit and perpetuating fan culture surrounding his work just opens the doors to more people falling prey to his insidious charm. Please, think why you feel the need to defend him instead of the survivors, people we should actually empower.

Because it's always about believing survivors isnt it? Well, at least until it's someone you know (who being cancelled will result in you being sad)

[draconym]

Landscapes from my sketchbook.

[alihsi]

These are gorgeous! Love the line work!

[jadedbirch]

Gather around, my young friends and fellow dinosaurs, let me tell you about some BULLSHIT no one ever tells you about. I'm talking about menopause and perimenopause. Now, menopause has a very stringent medical definition. You have to not have had a period for exactly 12 months and a day to be considered in menopause. All the bullshit before that day once you start going through The Change is considered perimenopause. Here's some bullshit you might experience that people actually talk about when you're in perimenopause:

- shorter time between periods

- irregular periods

- hot flashes and/or cold flashes

- fucked up sleep

- OMG NIGHT SWEATS

- Vagina as dry as the Sahara desert

- lighter periods and/or endless bleeding like it's The Flood but it's in your pants

- lack of interest in Adult Fun Times

This time of joy can last anywhere from a couple of years to a god damn decade and there's no medical way right now to predict it.

Here's some of the REAL bullshit they don't tell you about but your dinosaur aunt is here to let you know:

- You can start perimenopause in your 30s, don't listen to idiot doctors who tell you you're "too young" because they don't know your body like you do.

- Perimenopause will make you HELLA DUMB. Seriously, I'm talking Bigly broken brain. Brain fog? Check. Short term memory? Wave goodbye to it. Ability to make words form out of thoughts? Yeah, good luck to you.

- Perimenopause can cause horrible fatigue because in addition to losing estrogen, you're also losing testosterone. Oh and that also leads to muscle wasting, cool cool.

- Things might suddenly hurt more because estrogen is known to be neuroprotective.

- If you're super lucky like I am, and like to collect rare illnesses, you might even get Burning Mouth Syndrome 💀

- And meanwhile, while you're going through this bullshit, you'll be getting gaslit by doctors who are operating based on 30 year old debunked data about how HRT causes breast cancer (not really) and that they shouldn't put you on it until you're in actual menopause. (Data shows starting HRT early can potentially prevent Alzheimer's in later years.)

- There are entire online clinics right now (I use Midi Health) focused on providing care for peri and menopausal patients and they will happily prescribe you HRT even if your regular PCP or OBGYN do not (if you meet the criteria). I've been pretty impressed with how holistically they view the patient. For full disclosure, I learned about them from my integrative health doctor and they do not accept Medicare (yet).

I'm 46 years old right now and I've been symptomatic for perimenopause for the last 8 years, although it's gotten the most dramatic in the past 2 years or so, which I hope means I'm almost done, holy hell. Yeah I was on the early side, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so it's never too early to think about these things. And I hope to at least spare some of you the mind-fuckery I've been through because no one told me about most of this stuff, including my own mother who just DOESN'T REMEMBER what happened to her and now I completely understand why. And because I also have a connective tissue disease, I used to just dismiss my pain and fatigue as being caused by that illness rather than the loss of hormones.

Anyways, this is why we need Elders in our lives, so they can do Grandma Story Hour like I just did and validate you when the entire medical field tries to gaslight you. I hope you've found some or all of this educational/useful. Please share with your friends because we really do NOT talk about this stuff enough. (Ewwww Moon Blood!)

Stay well, and don't let the bastards grind you down!

[gothiccharmschool]

Additional information from your 56 y.o Goth Auntie who is in menopause (Probably. My past endometrial ablation procedure makes it hard to be sure.)

All of those super-fun things that perimenopause may bring you? THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THEY WILL VANISH WHEN YOU HIT MENOPAUSE. None. You may experience them for the rest of your life.

Your body will change in weird ways, including putting weight on in ways you didn't used to. (I would be fine with my current weight if it was distributed in the way I used to gain weight, but nooooo.)

You will almost certainly get increased facial hair.

But you may also experience the hair on your head thinning.

Let me repeat: FUCKED UP SLEEP. ::sobs::

You WILL run into doctors who whole-heartedly believe that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer. If you have a mammogram (and then biopsy) that shows "atypical cells", it will be Strongly Suggested that you stop any hormonal therapy you may have been doing. If that happens, expect every single awful peri/menopausal symptom you've been experiencing to come back. (Related to this, if anyone has links to solid research that disproves this so I can throw it at my GP and oncologist, that would be awesome.)

Anyone who tries to tell you that perimenopause and menopause "are like going through puberty backwards" is uninformed. Puberty, while hell, was nothing compared to my experiences with perimenopause and maybe-who-knows menopause.

[hatsinspace]

Heather Corinna of Scarleteen (we LOVE Scarleteen) has a book about perimenopause and menopause.

What Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You - Heather Corinna

Coming spring 2021, the book on perimenopause, menopause and more of all this hideous nonsense you've been screaming you want for years.

https://heathercorinna.com/project/what-fresh-hell-is-this-perimenopause-menopause-other-indignities-and-you-a-guide/

Yeah, it's called What Fresh Hell Is This?, and it is incredibly well-researched, so easy to read, and just amazing around gender too. Do recommend.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

as an aroace person with limited sexual experience, no interest in watching porn, and poor sex ed as a teen, there IS something simultaneously funny and vaguely tragic about being 28 adult years old and realising how extremely tiny your frame of reference is for genitalia and deciding you should expand this to better understand bodies (yours and others). and then you’re just there like “okay so what the fuck do I even google right now, anyway”

[puc-puggy]

Large Labia Project

Labia Library

Breast Gallery-Nonsexualized Images of real, anonymously submitted breasts

Critique My Dick Pic [tumbex archive]-real submitted dick centric nudes

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

thank you (i think?)

[puc-puggy]

why wouldn’t it be thank you? you expressed interest in sexual education materials related to genital body diversity, and i keep these resources on hand for exactly that purpose.

it’s natural to be curious about bodies–yours and others. the presence or lack of sexual intent motivating that curiosity is irrelevant. they’re just body parts

I also found one of my favorites I couldn’t find this morning: The Great Wall of Vulva and their Labia Library

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

sorry, my gratitude was real, my uncertainty was @ me (“am i sure i actually want to spend my evening looking at genitals or was i using the difficulty of knowing what to google as an excuse not to learn things”) lol

do you have any resources for trans bodies, especially transmasc bodies? i am interested in better understanding what changes i might expect as someone on testosterone, but though i found references to photo projects re: bottom growth in a few places, all the links were dead

[puc-puggy]

totally, the London Transgender Clinic and Dr. Keelee MacPhee have a variety of before and after photos related to various gender affirmation procedures.

i think that r/GrowYourTDick is the best repository of images of specifically trans masculine bottom growth. I can’t comment on the culture of the forum, but there is absolutely a lot of images of transmasculine genitalia and extensive discussion of physical changes.

For (relatively*) trustworthy information, Hudson’s FTM Resource Guide contains a lot of information about medical side effects and Things To Generally Be Aware Of, like increased risk for yeast infections and tips for managing locker rooms/swimming. *I can’t verify that this information is up to date

I’m not directly connected to any trans masc transition support networks, but i know that discord is a thriving space for transition support and information sharing. i think it would be relatively easy to find positive community there. they often compile resources and information for members as well as provide topical discussion spaces. here’s the disboard listings for public trans masc oriented servers

and this is just a really beautiful series of portraits of trans masculine people.

that about taps me out on resources!

[puc-puggy]

no, I lied, I’m not done. I spent way too long looking for this photography archive documenting trans nude portraits specifically. lost to the ether. found other stuff though:

Archive of Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits by Loren Cameron, which includes images of genitalia in its “Genital Reconstruction” section, page 46. Portraits of clothed trans masculine people other than the author begin on page 34 in the “New Man Series.”

A Genitoplasty Diary by Lou Sullivan (1984-1987) (no images but fascinating)

the evergreen Trans Bodies, Trans Selves

not useful at all, but an extremely cool in-browser recreation of a 90s mac in order to run a 90s trans information CD-Rom.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

thanks! sharing for the sake of anyone else interested too

yeah there’s so many dead links out there it’s tragic. sometimes you even get as far as the artist’s website and they’ll have a page for the project but then the project is gone and you just get a 404. i’m guessing the increasing hostility of internet providers and stuff towards nudity/nsfw content and also the general atmosphere for trans people has an impact on the safety and practicalities of continuing to host stuff like that :(

[bwbawa]

truly what is r the main differences like ACTUAL differences not things in common with adhd and autism

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Neurodivergent Insights has a good been diagram showing the differences between the two. But there’s not much, gives the two disorders overlap a LOT

I’ll leave the article below if you want to read it:

ADHD vs Autism

Hope this helps.

[botaniqueer]

As a Jew I wholeheartedly believe that, folks who are pretending nothing is wrong and Palestinians aren't being murdered every day would have absolutely ignored the Holocaust and let my folks get killed without blinking an eye.

Americans have a lot of heroic fantasies about what they would have done during the Holocaust or chattel slavery, and the answer for a lot of them is absolutely nothing. They would have complained about the people actually doing things for being too disruptive. We Jews did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and they would have called this terrorism. They would have also complained about MLK and Malcolm X, the former of which took the economies of entire cities hostage. Modern day disruptions don't hold a candle to historical disruptions.

In a two of more decades, people are going to use excuses like "I didn't know!" or pretend they were supportive all along, making tear jerking films about the Palestinian plight. We need to not let them do this.

[botaniqueer]

I'm also not asking people to be action heroes or anything, since it takes a very specific kind of person to do that sort of direct resistance. I'm asking for people to actually acknowledge and discuss the fact that there is a genocide going on, and to not pretend things are fine. (This applies to all social justice struggles. Acknowledgement helps normal conversations about it, and de-normalize the ignoring of it like we do for many social problems.)

Also there are many ways to support efforts for justice! The people doing direct action require people to support with costs, food, care supplies, etc. For everyone in a visible position, there are a lot of folks cooking as well.

[glorianas]

the pride discourse is absolutely rancid this year, i have seen with my own two eyes so far

we should up to age of consent to 21

16 year olds shouldn’t know what sex is

drag is inherently sexual and inappropriate for children

[cruelmillennial-deactivated2022]

#you guys are getting played so hard by the republican wing who want to throw all homosexuals into a canyon

[justabramble]

I will say it again:

Kids are horny. Kids will be horny no matter what. Teach them to have safe sex with other kids that they know and trust and want to have sex with, not with their weird boyfriend who keeps saying “But you said you love me, so this should be fine, right?”

Teach them consent is important. That they can say no halfway through. That if your partner says no halfway through, you have to stop and respect that and understand that doesn’t mean they hate you.

For fuck’s sake “abstinence” hasn’t helped anyone. Teach kids about sex and keep them safe.

[cursed--alien]

But also, some kids just aren’t horny, and we should also tell those kids they aren’t broken and their boundaries and consent matter just as much as for their peers who are horny.

[cleverthylacine]

All of this is true.

The important parts are:

1) All kids should know the actual truth about how sex works before they reach the age where they can become pregnant or make someone else pregnant. The number of people who end up dealing with a pregnancy before they learn how that happens is unfortunately not zero.

2) All kids should know how best to protect against possible unwanted consequences of sex, like pregnancy and disease. They should be taught how to prepare, and they should also be taught what to do if they forget to prepare protection, the protection fails, or G-d forbid, they are assaulted. Plan B and post-exposure prophylaxis are things that they should be able to get if needed.

3) All kids should know that some people naturally become horny when their hormones get going, some people take a while to get there, and some people NEVER EVER get horny, and all of this is OK and fine and 100% normal for humans.

4) All kids should be taught–from birth onward–that they never have to let anyone touch them without their consent, and they are not allowed to touch other people without their consent. Yes this means you can’t spank your kids; yes this means you can’t make them kiss Grandma if they don’t want to; yes this means that you can’t act like unwanted pursuit of another child is cute because they’re 5, because in 10 years it will not be cute at all.  It might even mean long discussions about why we agree to let doctors do things to us that hurt sometimes, and this is a pain in the ass, but sometimes good parenting is going to be a pain in the ass.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

As someone abused by doctors as a child and an adult, it’s super important to teach your child that consent applies to doctors too. Consent applies to all authority figures. Teaching kids that no one can touch them without their consent except for certain people with extra power over them is setting them up to think abuse from authority is normal and something they’re supposed to put up with.

[headspace-hotel]

Your body belongs to you, someone who is supposed to help you take care of your body does not have the right to coerce you

[fishyartist]

Hey :)

[fishyartist]

1000 free brushes ok? (these r all from adobes site, if you don’t wanna bother getting a photoshop trial to download through that you can get em here, they can be imported into csp+procreate too since those programs support ABRs.) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19AwplB13T7k2ZqYipz0B4Pqygn8pIqJO

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

On this year women's day, all we could think about are Palestinian women in Gaza.

Nearly 9,000 women have been killed in Israeli attacks in five months. Another 2,100 are missing and presumed dead, while 23,000 have been wounded and over half a million are displaced.

“Palestinian women, especially in the Gaza Strip, are exposed to the worst humanitarian catastrophe,” Ashraf al-Qudra, the health ministry’s spokesperson, said on Thursday.

Dozens of women and girls have also been detained and face harsh conditions in Israeli custody, including sexual abuse.

Women in Gaza also struggle to find menstruation products and access the necessary pregnancy and post-natal care. The consequences on reproductive health, including a rise in stress-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births, have increased significantly.

Women in labour are undergoing caesarean procedures without anaesthetics, and a shortage of post-operative care such as medication, antibiotics and pain relief further exacerbates the situation.

According to the health ministry, 5,000 women give birth monthly in Gaza under “harsh, unsafe and unhealthy” conditions caused by Israeli bombing and displacement.

There are 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffering from “malnutrition, dehydration and lack of medical care.

There have also been repeated cases of Israeli soldiers mocking Palestinian women by posting videos and pictures of themselves rummaging through personal belongings in Gaza homes, making derogatory comments and posing with women’s underwear.

[jv]

What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

[jv]

And I just got confirmation from a second ex-colleague that a deal with midjourney has been brewing since months ago. Not any extra details, just that's a real thing.

Shit, I don't see any way for this to happen that doesn't make it an apocalyptic event the size of the porn ban. Fuck.

[jv]

Shit. This may be pure chance and coincidence, and it's not he is in a position to be able to talk about anything, but seeing prominent staff members announcing they are moving their original photography out of tumblr just two weeks ago seems a pretty significant cue of shit to be about to hit the fan.

[alihsi]

D: I suppose it's inevitable, as every T&C probably gives rights to every "free" site we post on the rights to use our data this way, but it is still awful to know that a relatively open platform will go the same way as every other social media platform and sell your data. Maybe it's time to Glaze every piece at least.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

ftr I am forever going to be bitter that the post I wanted to be "let's talk about extinct ecosystems and how cool they are!" got derailed into yet another post just talking about a single taxon like the millions of other posts on palaeoblr

[parttimepunner]

Please tell me more about these extinct ecosystems. Why did they go extinct? Could an ecosystem like that return?

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

When I say "extinct ecosystem", I mean those ecosystems that have existed in the past, with extinct animals and plants etc. inhabiting them

by their very definition, they are gone forever

there are ones that were truly unique, like Polar Tropical Forests and Fern Prairies, that we just could not have today

but there were ones that have equivalents to today, as well, like the first savannahs and steppes of the Miocene - they just have earlier versions of the plants and animals

there were so many because there are so many today, and each one had its own flora and fauna and was glorious

There's the wetlands and forests of Hell Creek in the Latest Cretaceous

the bizarre Volcanic Lake Forests of the Jehol Biota

whatever the hell the Ediacaran Reefs were

the Scale Tree Swamp Forests of the Carboniferous

"Mesozoic 2" aka pre-human Aotearoa

the Western Interior Seaway dominated by Mosasaurs

and so many other things, I couldn't possibly list them all. Every time period had its own biosphere and biomes, and they were all unique.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

#i wanna see the Aurora Borealis over a tropical forest#BC Canada has a Boreal Rainforest so you can definitely get that

that isn't what I mean by "Polar Tropical Forest"

I mean a tropical forest

at the poles

ie, the ecosystems present during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

we have fossils of plants that showcase how different tropical plant lifestyles had to be up at the poles because of the light weirdness

the important part is "tropical", not "wet/rainforest". those are two different things

Temperate and Boreal Rainforests are wonderful and some of my favorite living biomes, but they aren't what I was talking about

[adeptarcanist]

May I ask about the fern prairies? That sounds really cool!

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Grass is a relatively recent thing

it first evolved in the latest Cretaceous, but it didn't actually take over everywhere until the Miocene, when grasses that process light differently (look up C3 vs C4 photosynthesis) evolved and just took the fuck over the planet

before then, other plants formed the low ground cover over the earth, and in many places those plants were ferns - spread all over the ground and covering it, much like grass, but significantly less dense. Dirt would have been much more common everywhere.

This is why I am begging every single game developer to remember that grass is not a neutral ground cover

[im-flashtoo]

My favorite extinct ecosystem, if it counts while being as physically tiny as it was, is the floating logs that existed in the ocean between the first appearance of woody trees and the first appearance of organisms that could break down wood - floating reefs of a sort, trailing enormous filter-feeding crinoids below them. The baleen whales of their time

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

yeah that counts! And how bizarre those must have been!!!

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Speaking of reefs, we're so used to rocky or coral reefs in the moderns world but there have been so many different reefs throughout prehistory that were made of things that straight up don't exist any more!

Like the reefs of the late Devonian, which were made of stromatoporoids, which may have resembled corals but were actually a highly diverse extinct group of sponges!

This is one of my own reconstructions of a stromatoporoid reef off the coast of Devonian Australia (plus anachronistic underwater baited camera):

The Cretaceous also had some wild extinct reefs which are known as carbonate reefs and were dominated by a group of bivalve molluscs called rudists!

[alihsi]

Past extinct ecosystems are so fascinating and alien to us, especially for only having whispers of what was there through fossil records.

[favroitecrime]

They are carpet bombing Rafah. The over 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah are being targeted at what is now 4 in the morning for them. They are posting their goodbyes.

[favroitecrime]

[alihsi]

It does get harder not to call it genocide when the Israeli government told Gaza Palestinians to move to the south if they didn't want to be bombed. And then, bombed 1.5 million people and called it a victory when they rescued 2 hostages. This after "accidentally" killing hostages earlier in the war.

[sayruq]

[alihsi]

I realize it's a giant tangle of foreign policy and there are many reasons (internally, future prospects, past guilt) why the US supports Israel wholeheartedly without question, but as a country, we got so angry at Saudi Arabia killing Jamaal Khashoggi, but here, where apparently, in a war where the highest numbers of journalists are being killed, the US is saying nothing publicly besides a gentle plea for Israel to please not kill the civilians.

And yet, we also see this creating a precedent, where if Israel is allowed to commit these war crimes with impunity, Russia would be happy to do the same to Ukraine and China to Taiwan.

And it's that whole ridiculous Skittles argument again. Can't trust anyone if one of those Palestinians might be a Hamas fighter, but as any insurgent expert would tell you, killing women, children, journalists, and starving a population is just going to create a bigger population of people that resent you with more people that might consider that they have nothing to live for but violence or vengance.

[dappermouth]

Strange roadside buildings where you shouldn’t ever go.

[alihsi]

Loving the aesthetic. Only little niggle is the perfect spots of the stars is a bit distracting.

[valentinedagger]

heavily biased "what fandom was the first fanfic you read for" but for my specific fandom generation instead of people who are currently teenagers

power leveling shonen juggernauts (g1 naruto, bleach, dragon ball, etc)

weeaboo crew (anything that made you more of a weeb than watching dragon ball)

harry potter

superwholock

cult classic live action american tv (buffy, xfiles, star trek, etc)

homestuck

boy band rpf (anything in the span from backstreet boys to one direction)

emo bandom (mcr, fob, p!atd, of course, along with anything else in that realm)

twilight (books or movies)

lord of the rings (books or movies or extended universe)

star wars (books or movies or extended universe)

other (put it in the TAGS i am a fandom HISTORIAN i need to KNOW)

Voting ended onJan 13, 2024

addendums: cult classic tv overlaps with early supernatural seasons somewhat, i am aware, just choose based on the cultural context in which you read your first fic.

for weeaboo crew i was thinking of examples like hetalia, black butler, soul eater, etc--popular anime absolutely included but the distinction is that people who were into dragon ball weren't necessarily going to anime club every week and making deviantart stamps about yaoi, but people into ouran high school host club ABSOLUTELY were.

homestuck is in its own category because homestuck changed fandom forever at a critical time which just happened to be when i was growing up in fandom. harry potter, lotr, star wars, and twilight are in their own categories because they were such multimedia juggernauts they had entire archives dedicated solely and only to their fic that spanned multiple franchise reboots (books -> movies -> extended universes). (i acknowledge star trek technically would fit under this but at the time culturally it had more overlap with other cult classic tv fandoms.)

honorable mentions that didn't make it to the list because i had to pick-and-choose with the 12 answer limit: the final fantasy franchise (axed because i am not familiar enough with the fic scene to know if it was as iconic of a gateway drug as, like, naruto or twilight or star wars fic), a general YA lit category (YA lit outside of twilight only went mainstream slightly after this time period), the MCU (i have a hate boner for the MCU), a broader "american superhero comics" category (this would be valid as an option but i don't have the space)

[6vcr]

hello!