CRIS!S

Your local Cris :) | AroAce Lesbian - Multifandom |

[ltwilliammowett]

The Danish training ship “Georg Stage” (1934) dresses in rainbow colour, 2021 

[dragon-in-a-fez]

not the kind of gay ship I’m used to seeing on tumblr but cool

[dubiousculturalartifact]

ship georg is an outlier but SHOULD be counted

[macklesufficient]

guide 4 teens

tell the cops nothing

tell the paramedics everything

ur eyebrows are fine

[cozyrogue]

the "rip ___ you would have loved ___" meme is inherently more fun with ancient characters. rip clytemnestra you would have loved morse code. rip theseus you would have loved the airtag. rip callisto you would have loved wearing shorts.

[newsiesiswhyimhere]

rip Icarus you would have loved parachutes

[variousqueerthings]

do think when people say "we know marriage is a social construct, but it's a legal way to be able to take care of someone else and vice versa" as if those of us making a point about marriage (i would say, a lot of us being aromantic people especially) don't know this fact, are missing a bit of the point about why this is stressed and potentially not giving enough grace to (again especially aromantic) people who say this.

when it's framed as a "so just get married for legality reasons" and im like. you mean like how gay people married/marry people of the opposite gender for legality reasons? and that's considered to be a symptom of a problem, not the solution? you want people to "just" get married against their will because it's the only solution this system has available?

if people cannot or will not get married for whatever reason -- not just for being aromantic, but, say, due to inefficient disability support measures within marriage, because of having had bad experiences with marriage in the past, because of being polyamorous, because some element of marriage is ineffective, unwanted, limited, discriminatory, or hell, because you can't find somebody to marry or nobody wants to marry you, or maybe because you just plain don't want to without there being a distinct Reason -- then it's a problem that this is the only framework in place for people to be afforded certain legal and social protections.

i am glad for others that more people can get married, but it's a flawed institution with gaping holes that isn't for everyone and builds social structures that leave so many people behind and unsupported. this is abundantly obvious in the way that we saw why people pushed for the need for equal marriage in the first place.

that's what's said when making a point that it's a social construct. and also what's meant (partially) when pushing against the idea that "love" as concept isn't at the core of queer (amongst others hinted at in this post) activism, because it's about building better structures. if the only people we care about are those we "love" within a family unit, or those who successfully manage to pretend that unit without actually really wanting it, and if not being in that unit for whatever reason means that care isn't going to be/is no longer afforded, then are we really doing any better than heteronormativity?

more people need to read up on "amatonormativity" from the original source (this is a summary from the same person written in 2012 and so doesn't include aromantic, but it's all in there) before they start pushing marriage as the ultimate goal of queer liberation, or indeed any liberation.

[plastic-lemons]

One piece ladies.

[landmineblogging]

you post for the likes & reblogs. i post to let my mutuals know i'm still alive. we are remarkably similar

[landmineblogging]

hey, still alive here! wahoo!! yippee!!!

[landmineblogging]

i should reblog this once a day for the rest of my life just to commit to the bit

[landmineblogging]

[landmineblogging]

[landmineblogging]

[rainbowsandprideflags]

Transgender people are human too. Nothing changes that. Let people identify as what they want, mind your own business. They aren’t hurting anyone. You do not have the right to take away someone’s rights just because of what they identify as.

[beastliness]

more people need to give themselves permission to write and draw pornography

[beastliness]

it is virtuous and necessary that you write, draw, and distribute pornography

[radfemart]

can we start with not conflating "erotic/sexual art or writing" with pornography

[beastliness]

no lmao

[graves-yard]

Grabs you by your shoulders you need to get rid of that idea that shipping is always romantic or sexual. You need to think of shipping as an exploration of character, not just the allo-centric view of relationships. No stop leaning in to kiss me. I’m serious stop with the we’re both boys nonsense I’m serious here dude.

[stonegoddex]

what if we admitted to each other that it's not always really romance that we want. What if we admitted that what we're really craving is intimacy and society taught us romance is the only way to get it.

[theunfairfolk]

in elementary school i figured out how to customize the classroom desktop's autocorrect to make Word change whole sentences. this made it appear almost like the computer was responding to you. you could, for example, type in "where did i put my keys", hit enter, and watch it switch to "you put them under the couch". this was before chatbots, and we were all 9 so i considered it closer to a magic trick than a tech one.

i immediately scripted out a dialogue exchange between me and a girl who had died by the swings (classic). i invited another student over and told them i had found a ghost, then proceeded to type out the pre-scripted exchange. i was immediately pulled into the counselors office. the kicker was that none of the adults could figure out how i did it. i had to show them the menu and everything.

[theunfairfolk]

important detail i forgot to add: the swing ghost wanted blood sacrifices from the students. in my defense it was "only a few drops".

[pouletpourri]

i don't even know about this one

[novelconcepts]

Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.

You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.

[wnwnmemo]

[weirdplutoprince]

Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences of someone else's actions that I am directly impacted and severely affected by

[teaboot]

#childhood

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response is magnificent: “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press Goose Lane Editions Breakwater Books Ltd. The Acorn Press Bouton d'or Acadie Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada

[three--rings]

When I was 15 I spent a month working on an archeological dig.  I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports?  What’s your favorite subject?   And I told him, no I don’t play any sports.  I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.  

And he went WOW.  That’s amazing!  And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” 

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them.  I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life.  Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them.  I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them. 

[three--rings]

It seems a lot of people have found my little story (as well as the incredible Vonnegut’s advice) helpful, so I thought I’d add a little.  Because the thing is, at the TIME, when I was 15, I  thought Mr. Archeologist was wrong.  I thought he was just being nice.  I was sure that actually, the point was still to find that One Thing you are Naturally Talented at and do it.  Even if I went on to do musicals and stuff just because I enjoyed it and let go of felling bad about it. I quit writing at 23 because I was shitty at it.  (Hint, I’m 41 and back at it, much improved.)

I taught myself to sew about ten years ago and within a year was making elaborate costumes to wear to cons.  People always told me how “talented” I was at sewing.  And I always said I was not born knowing how to operate a sewing machine.  I couldn’t sew a straight line of stitches for MONTHS. (I’m still not super good at that!)  But I enjoyed it, so I kept at it until I could make the things I wanted to make.

Life is about finding the things you ENJOY, not the things you’re good at.  If you enjoy something, you will GET better at it, because you will keep doing it. But as Mr. Vonnegut makes clear so eloquently, being good at something isn’t necessary for it to feed your soul. 

[three--rings]

So, I was aware that this post had been misattributed and was making rounds on facebook and twitter, but now The Chive has picked it up and attributed my words to Kurt Vonnegut. 

And look, making ad revenue from other people’s content is what they do, but the very least they could do is get the source right or post an accurate screenshot. 

Mr. Vonnegut, whose work I have adored for years, is no longer alive to correct this mistake and I feel more than a little guilty that people think he would write something so boring and unwitty as my little story.  (Which yes, is true, happened to me, and so it’s very odd to read people react as if a Great Man wrote this.)  (Also how much more people value a thing if a Famous Man wrote something than an anonymous woman on the internet.)

So I have contacted The Chive to inform them of this, but I don’t know if they will acknowledge it at all.  In the meantime, please share this correct source, and if you see it making the rounds, correct the attribution. 

Also I have a Ko-fi link on my homepage if anyone has maybe enjoyed this or shared the incorrect version without being aware.  I’m unemployed and disabled and currently have no income coming in, so, yanno.

[thememedaddy]

[chucktaylorupset]

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.