Guys if you want queer shit written by queers on our own terms you're going to have to start seeking out weird independent media. I'm sorry that's the only place you can regularly find it idk what to tell you, we can't keep acting like there's nothing if we're not getting blockbusters and triple A titles or whatever it is we're waiting around for. The thing you keep saying you want is already being offered for free by one person making a passion project on the internet and you would both benefit enormously if you interacted with it instead of lamenting that the only options we have for representation are pandering afterthoughts from corporate shit
I say this with so, so much care: Real queer shit written by real queers can and will sometimes make you uncomfortable. That's one of the defining features of weird, independent queer media. And weird independent media more broadly. Art that comes from true individual passion and authenticity has edges and bite to it that mass market corporate products intentionally do not. Has a rawness that can offend.
You are allowed to feel uncomfortable about it. But don't ask for queers to self censor for your comfort.
Treat anything on Discord as media that will be lost
Do not use Discord to host your files. Do not rely on Discord to preserve your text. DO NOT RELY ON DISCORD FOR ANY KIND OF PRESERVATION OR HOSTING!!
It CAN be lost, it WILL be lost! You must consider Discord as a part of the Core Internet, controlled by one company that hosts the servers.
I thought it was impressive at first that it replaced IRC, but now I am horrified. If the company behind Discord went under today, how many friends would you lose?
How many relationships? How much writing?
You may think this won't happen, but I remember when AIM went down and along with it, entire novels worth of interaction with my oldest friend.
IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. NO COMPANY IS INFALLIBLE.
Back up your files! Download anything you've saved to Discord NOW, before the API changes go into effect! And DO NOT RELY ON THEM FOR HOLDING IMPORTANT FILES!
Here is a program that lets you download any and all of your discord DMs, your servers, everything. You can set the format (raw text, html (dark and light), and others. You can even download the uploaded files not just the text, though that may be just for the command-line version not the GUI window version.
Exports Discord chat logs to a file. Contribute to Tyrrrz/DiscordChatExporter development by creating an account on GitHub.
Please back up your conversations, your stories. I have a backup of everything I care about that runs once a week, with full attachment backups every several months. I write stories on discord, and would be devastated if someone happened to them. You have to have your own local copies of every file you care about.
Especially with all of the age verification bs rolling out right now, I feel like this is still relevant even more. If you decided to or couldn't use discord tomorrow, who and what would you lose access to?
On the topic of the new discord age-verification policy:
This might be one of my hotter takes, but kids should be able to see mature or NSFW things on the internet.
Should there be a warning? Yeah, of course. I don't want to be jumped by NSFW things either. But kids should be able to press the "show content" button like any adult can.
Maybe it'll scare them or disgust them or, god forbid, make them curious... But they should be allowed to see it. And then if they don't like it, they can choose on their own not to see or engage with other, similar things.
Maybe there *are* things that are "too mature" for kids, particularly those that are not yet teenagers. There are things you want to protect them from. But you can't, not entirely. That's the reality of it. So isn't it better for them to interact with these things on their own terms, instead of someone else's, like they will in the outside world? They will get hurt, they will lose someone or something close to them, they will see roadkill and other gorey or gross things and yes, eventually, they will have sex, or know people who do.
The answer here is not to prevent them from accessing these things. It is to educate them about online safety, tell them to be cautious of anyone on the internet, and make sure they know that they can confide in you if they saw something that disturbed them. It is interesting, to me, that in all of these discussions about ensuring kids are safe online, we never actually talk about online safety. I fear that these policies will, in the end, make children more vulnerable to exploitation rather than protect them.
National City lion dancers, made up of the kids from National City High.
Why yes I did harness the power of minor Superboy '94 characters to create a group of AAPI solidarity!!! Hillary Chang and Robert Lai were Conner's school friends in his original run. Taonui Mun is my take on the infamous Tana Moon, Conner's first love interest. He is Korean Hawaiian in my version. And a boy. His age.
Superboy is upset his girlfriend's ex isn't hitting on him.
A new study published online today, April 25, in the scientific journal Science provides the strongest evidence to date that not only is nat
From the article:
“If you look only at the trend of species declines, it would be easy to think that we’re failing to protect biodiversity, but you would not be looking at the full picture,” said Penny Langhammer, lead author of the study and Executive Vice President of Re:wild. “What we show with this paper is that conservation is, in fact, working to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. It is clear that conservation must be prioritized and receive significant additional resources and political support globally, while we simultaneously address the systemic drivers of biodiversity loss, such as unsustainable consumption and production.”
This massive meta analysis (for those not familiar, a study analyzing the results of many studies on similar topics) found that the vast majority of conservation efforts show much much better results than doing nothing. In many cases, biodiversity loss was not only stopped but reversed.
This shows that conservation efforts really work and money invested is put to very good use. Legally protecting endangered species really works, restoring habitat really works, removing invasive species really works, returning land to Indigenous communities works. All of the blood, sweat, and tears being poured into protecting the natural world has been making a real, big, tangible, difference on a global scale.
I've actually finished 4 other books so far this year but this is the first I've felt motivated to review.
I loved this book. It was lighthearted and funny but still earnest when it needed to be and the overall effect is very charming. I couldn't stop thinking throughout this that it reminded me of The Last Unicorn somehow despite not having any similarity in tone, plot, style, sense of humor, or really anything, but by the final twist I'd realized what it is: (spoilers for Sir Cameron below)
Sir Cameron is a book about an earth that has been accidentally terraformed into a fantasy setting from a story, Legends of Larnia. The characters of the book are existing within archetypes set out for them by Larnia, and although we don't find out about this until the end of the story, the ways in which each character transcends their character archetype is already present early on. Knights are supposed to be brave and chivalrous; our protagonist Sir Cameron is defined by his cowardice and self-involvement. Mad sorcerers are supposed to be evil and wretched; Sir Cameron latches onto Merulo as an object of affection and desire nearly as soon as they meet and finds that the prophecy linking his death with Merulo's downfall has more to do with Merulo falling in love with him in return than anything else. Elven ladies are above petty concerns, just, and merciful; Glenda is defined by her bigotry and determination to see Cameron dead, a quest that becomes increasingly about Glenda's personal feelings of inadequacy as the story goes on. Everyone here is failing to follow a script of 'what happens in a fantasy story' and it's genuinely delightful to read, I couldn't put this book down. I would like to read this against The Last Unicorn, a book very much about the script that exists for what happens in a fantasy story. I think they might be interesting side by side in picking apart how they each approach this theme.
The only thing that stops this from being a perfect debut novel for me is that I wish this book was about 30 pages longer. I would have liked to have seen maybe two more chapters, one in which we get to see Cameron and that old man actually have sex, and one in which Merulo has to process emotionally that he is going to remain in the body he has instead of becoming a supercomputer as he thought he was working towards.
There's so much about physical transformation and the way the body works in this book, and those details emotionally grounds the story somewhat despite the light and funny tone. Cameron is turned into a vulture and deals with the physicality of flying, eating rats, and shitting down the wall of the castle. Cameron is turned into a woman and complains he needs a bra because his clothes are uncomfortable without support for his new boobs. What precipitates his change back into his own body is his intense discomfort with beginning to menstruate. Merulo cuts off first a toe and then an arm and a leg to use them as fuel for spells, and he is working towards reshaping the world into one in which he will cease to have a physical body at all. He has been working towards this for a very long time. I can imagine, especially as someone not seen as attractive by the general populace, that he made his peace with the idea of losing his body in part by ignoring it and denying it. Beginning to love someone and be loved by them is often a balm on this kind of denial of the body, so I don't have a hard time accepting that Cameron's at first frustrating and dubious, later distracting affection, would change things somewhat, but I would still have liked to have actually seen it happen on page.
Another detail I really loved about this book, while we're talking about physicality, was Glenda dealing with having been concussed. That isn't something you see often in fiction, realistic aftereffects of being knocked out for plot reasons, and I loved that it meaningfully affected her decision making and was treated by the character as debilitating. Like I said, these physical details ground the book and make it feel real and that allows the humor to really shine I think.
Hugely looking forward to what Stothers will write next.
anyone who deliberately goes out of their way to say "he or she"/"man or woman"/"boy or girl" instead of "they"/"person"/"kid" should be boiled in my giant stew.
pixelskylines
stormborns
