(Over) thinking it all

A mix of nature, science, writing and whatever shows/pairings I happen to be currently obsessed with. Trans Ally. Author idinathoreau on AO3 and wolfchic011 on FFN/YouTube.

[honigimohr]

[rederiswrites]

Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

It's rude.

[poetry-protest-pornography]

It's been 7 years.

[theprideful-deactivated20251201]

[ID: a grey image titled, “In loving memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016”. in the righthand corner is a heart with stripes in the colors of the rainbow flag; the flag continues at the border and to the edge of the image. beneath the title is a list of names:

Stanley Almodovar III

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

Amanda Alvear

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool

Oscar A Aracena-Montero

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala

Kimberly Morris

Antonio Davon Brown

Akyra Monet Murray

Darryl Roman Burt II

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo

Angel L. Candelario-Padro

Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez

Juan Chavez-Martinez

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera

Luis Daniel Conde

Joel Rayon Paniagua

Cory James Connell

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez

Tevin Eugene Crosby

Deonka Deidra Drayton

Enrique L. Rios, Jr.

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez

Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez

Leroy Valentin Fernandez

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado

Mercedez Marisol Flores

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan

Juan Ramon Guerrero

Edward Sotomayor Jr.

Paul Terrell Henry

Shane Evan Tomlinson

Frank Hernandez

Martin Benitez Torres

Miguel Angel Honorato

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega

Javier Jorge-Reyes

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez

Jason Benjamin Josaphat

Luis S. Vielma

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez

Anthony Luis Laureanodisla

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon

Christopher Andrew Leinonen

Jerald Arthur Wright

/end ID]

[astrodidact]

June 12 is Loving Day — when interracial marriage finally became legal in the U.S.

"Loving Day" celebrates the historic ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which declared unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race ma

Coincidentally, today is Valentine's Day in Brazil. ❤️🇧🇷

[article-reblogs]

This was only 55 years ago. You can understand a lot of what’s wrong with the US if you realize that the average age of our elected senators is about 63. “Good old days” is a dogwhistle.

Our current Supreme Court might’ve ruled against the Lovings.

[jellybeanium124]

[Image ID: excerpts from the article linked above, reading:

“The couple is given a choice: flee or go to jail. After they were arrested, the Lovings were sentenced to a year in prison. Then, a judge offered them a choice: banishment from the state or prison. They chose to leave Virginia at the time, but after several years, the Lovings asked the American Civil Liberties Union to take their case.Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two young ACLU lawyers at the time, did.”

and “On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled in the Lovings' favor. The unanimous decision upheld that distinctions drawn based on race were not constitutional. The court's decision made it clear that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.” /end ID]

[doberbutts]

It was 55 years ago.

My father just had his 70th birthday.

When my parents first met it'd been less than a decade since the ruling was official.

They were convinced it'd be overturned and did not want their children to have to suffer for it, so they did not get married and searched desperately for each other in their own races. They could not find the love they had together in anyone else. They did eventually get married.

Too late for them to have the amount of children they'd desired. They had two, adopted a third, and that was that.

It was near enough to now that I, my sisters, and my parents were directly affected by it.

This isn't ancient history. It's just my parents' childhood.

[inkcurlsandknives]

As a mixed Asian person married to a mixed Black person rulings like this, along with violent backlashes against race mixing are barely recent history. Living in Texas we still run into people who actively harass us for being a mixed race couple in public (even though neither of us are white) The Loving Case and subsequent reactions to it by different states determined where my in-laws chose to settle in the US as a mixed couple. Several states kept anti-miscegenation laws on the books. and State judges in Alabama continued to enforce its anti-miscegenation statute until 1970, when the Nixon administration obtained a ruling from a U.S. District Court in United States v. Brittain.

The Watsonville riots of the 1930's where white mobs attached Filipino farmworkers for being seen in dancehalls with white women, are part of a very long history of whiteness violently asserting its need to "protect" the purity of it's women and future children. And these kinds of backlashes are not in the past, we've just moved to different battlegrounds, the same accusations, of defiling the purity of white womanhood and white childhood are now leveled at the dangerous "othering influences" through book bans and other right wing conservative censorship efforts.

According to PEN America’s Banned Book Index, 41% of banned books include LGBTQ+ themes. 40% feature characters of color and 21% address issues of race or racism.

Remember, if we don't keep standing up loudly for equality the biggots on the right will be louder and keep dragging us further backwards from every step towards equality we make.

That's why I write stories for mixed, brown, bi, folks to see ourselves and our loves reflected in.

Its important to record ourselves into literature, into history so that they can never fully erase us no matter how hard they try to stamp us out of existence.

[annlarimer]

I was in kindergarten when this happened. Star Trek was in its second season. Scooby Doo was just a few sketches in a notebook somewhere. My neighborhood was redlined. I wouldn't see a Black clerk in the mall for several years. This is the bullshit they want to go back to.

[fox-bright]

My mother was nearly seven years old the day her parents' marriage became legal across the country (anti-miscegenation laws being wielded against Filipinos and other ethnic groups in addition to Black people).

Dad's family members still accused my parents of the crime, mind, when she married him in 1980. I've never met my Aunt Karen because of it (not that she'd have been interested in meeting a mongrel such as myself).

Even the stuff we claim is finished and behind us is only a minute ago. And still a threat.

[depsidase]

[haunted-hideaway]

I’m glad that OP:

1) Figured this out.

2) Shared so others can learn from their mistake.

[assignedmale]

[nerdygaymormon]

[dunkthebiscuit]

This is why Pride is not just a party. It's a joyful celebration, but it's also a pointed and colourful two-finger salute to a world that stood back whilst so many of us died. And we'll never go quietly, never again.

[assignedmale]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

under US law, it's illegal for anyone who's not a member of a recognised native tribe to own an eagle feather. the penalty is a $100,000 fine.

14 years ago when I had recently moved to Alaska, I went hiking with an Aleut friend, and she pointed to a feather lying on the ground and said "hey that's a bald eagle tail feather, you should grab it!" and I was like "uhh I'm very white and that's very illegal" and she went "they're fuckin everywhere up here man. I have 20." so she grabs it off the ground and hands it to me and says "there, now it's a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person."

and I'm like, okay, cool, I guess this is how we do things in Alaska. nice.

so I keep this bald eagle tail feather around for years. display it in my home among other cherished memorabilia from places I've lived and visited, etc.

on a whim, I have just now looked it up. there is no exemption to that law for a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person. the last 7 years I lived in the US, I was technically a bald eagle poacher.

probably a good thing I don't intend to move back there anytime soon. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on bird crimes.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

@freedomisscaryshit I'm fucking dying I think you forgot the word "feathers" in your tags?? or do you just wish you could grab whole ass eagles that land in your yard??

[emotional-support-husband]

As an Indigenous person, it continues to astound me that there are such strict laws (written by White people) in our name, laws against...picking up things just found on the ground. Like, stop pretending this is "for" us. We don't want this.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

so, for clarity, that's not what this is. the law against possessing feathers is an anti-poaching measure, derived from a North American treaty protecting certain migratory bird species from hunting. that treaty has an exemption for indigenous people to allow tribes that use eagle feathers in ceremonial or religious practices to continue doing so.

[chekhovs-raygun]

i used to collect feathers (illegally) as a teenager and the thing is that it's incredibly important for feathers from wild birds to be illegal to possess because it ensures that they never become fashionable to wear. the reason we passed the migratory bird act was because the american and european fashion industry was driving species to extinction in a timespan of years. not just decades. the ecological devastation of exporting birds for hats was absolutely insane and people were watching wetlands and forests and meadows just empty out in realtime. look at the wikipedia article for the plume trade.

the law against 'picking feathers up off the ground' means that you can't go shoot an eagle then sell the feathers on etsy by saying you 'just found them'. you can't own them no matter where they came from, which makes sure that they're not going to come from any birds killed and then secretly disposed of.

these laws, as harsh and ridiculous as they seem, saved flamingos, spoonbills, egrets, and all kinds of hawks and eagles from extinction. the minute these laws weaken and people can make money off killing them again, they're fucked.

[aichu-dechu]

[s-n-arly]

Apparently my favorite picture books as a child were written by queer authors.  This brings me joy.

[naturallie]

We’ve always been here

[victorjbanisfamilyfoundation]

[luntfontanne]

NOT WOMEN OLDER THAN DEBORAH AKDHJFKFJFKF HANNAH OH MY GOD

[luntfontanne]

thank you hacks social media lesbian 🫡

[tcustodisart]

Happy Pride Month!

Faust is back for the 5th time! If you want to use the flag of your choice as an avatar, they're under the cut. They're free to use as long as it's for personal use only.

[the-irreverend]

pov: you're waking up and it's june 1st

(happy pride month yall!)

[babyjanedough]

Already know I wanna send this to people on June 1

[isuckattechnology]

Audio:

Erika, referencing ebenezer scrooge: You, boy! What day is it?!

Brennan, as a young boy: It's Pride, bitch!

[assignedmale]

[puyopuyopopee]

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

[ao3-shenanigans]

This is a good thing to keep in mind! It is often and unfortunate that a really good fic doesn’t get love because its formatting makes it too difficult to read!

[asymmetryestablished]

I think I figured out why this happens!

AO3's posting form has two modes: Rich Text and HTML. the vast majority of people write in Rich Text editors, aka any normal word processing software (MS Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, what have you). but when you first open it, the posting form opens in HTML view. if you paste formatted text into HTML view, it erases every piece of formatting, including paragraph spacing.

this is an easy fix. when you go to post your fic, make sure the posting form looks like this:

not like this:

and please spread the word! this is an important piece of computer literacy that nobody is teaching to the new generations and they deserve to know

[myriad-thoughts]

and the reverse happens when pasting from some places (google doc, ms word) into rich-text where it doubles the spaces between lines. If you look at the html it generates </p><p> </p><p> tags - an extra paragraph containing a single space, which you can search and replace down to a single </p><p> (end paragraph, start new one).

[ruffboi-mags]

Also, since sometimes working with the rich text editor can be a pain even when copy-pasting from another rich text editor, there is a Google Docs script that will format your document in HTML and make it appropriate for posting into the AO3 html editor. I swear by this and I use it every time I post to AO3. It's literally just a specific Google doc that you can make a copy of that includes a script where you just select a menu option and it will automatically convert formatting to HTML, and using this script + pasting into the HTML editor has bypassed the issues of "extra line breaks between paragraphs" and "a space after italics where there shouldn't be" for me.

The original google doc is here and it includes directions both for getting a copy of it into your own google drive and for using it to prepare your fic for posting on AO3.

[mysteryteacup]

Also be aware that if you write in Scrivener it will not keep your formatting when you paste it into AO3, even in the Rich Text editor.

There's a reason I'm only writing one fic in Scrivener (it's the timey wimey one where I need the corkboards function on Scrivener in order to function).

[thegoldenavenger]

adding on that if you use ellipsus (online alternative to Google docs) there is a native "export to ao3" function which automatically copies an html version of your fic including the spacing and formatting and opens a new tab for a new work in ao3. Just paste into the text box and you'll be set!

[woodsdyke]

i was tidepooling today and overheard someone say 'chatgpt it so we can figure out what it is' about some sort of creature. loser behavior. you're not in it for the love of the game. i have to do everything around here. let me see the creature. i'll tell you the real answer about what it is and i won't kill the environment. AND i'm literally nice.

[woodsdyke]

it's funny because 5 minutes before that i was IDing something by using the search string "SEA SLUG GREEN STRIPED SMALL SEATTLE" which took me to a very badly designed, hauntingly non mobile optimized website that immediately gave me way more information about my creature than i needed or thought was possible. get good. bitch

[woodsdyke]

hold my hand. come with me to emeralddiving.com's salish sea species index.