insanitysquid's ramblings

Some original content (writing, story prompts, nerdy news). LGBTQ+ Friendly

[sarazanmai]

[byrdiboo]

Imagine losing a game you rigged

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #15,128:

People who screech """"BORING!!!""" at the top of their lungs whenever something mildly mundane happens in fiction are the most obnoxious people ever. Pass it on.

[eptck]

you have to be kinder to people with memory issues.

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

you have to be kind. you have to be kind.

[pangur-and-grim]

Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point

Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.

[pangur-and-grim]

if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:

When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story of two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.

and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.

[aro-ace-chaos]

“Please consider how amatonormativity/compulsory sexuality/allonormativity might be impacting your perspective on this” is not at all the same thing as insulting someone, attacking them, or calling them a bigot, FYI.

[aro-ace-chaos]

That being said, please always take time to reflect and consider how amatonormativity/compulsory sexuality/allonormativity might impact your perspective on things like fandom, shipping, media analysis, real life relationships, politics, and everything in between.

[earthnashes]

Gargoyle character studies I had on my Patreon for a while now, featuring Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington, and Angela! :)

These were largely a bid in trying to capture the likeness of the characters while translating them into my style. As seen with Angela's sheet: what I did was take the official character model sheet and trace it to get a feel of their base character shapes, then did a second pass over the trace to add the features I wanted to incorporate into my headcanon design.

The final iteration (the big colored ones) is entirely freehanded and drawn using my passes as reference. I like how they all came out! :>

I'll eventually do the same with other characters (Elisa, Demona, Goliath, and Hudson are next on my list), then do fullbody redesigns to act as refs for any future drawings and headcanons I make for Gargoyles.

But ye! Hope ya'll like the art! more to come soon :)

[greelin]

the weight this image holds

[greelin]

happy pride month everybody

[cookiedough77]

write that self indulgent fic, you would be insanely surprised how many people are waiting for THAT Fic™

[berlynn-wohl]

the number of times I have posted a fic that I'd written just to stop being haunted by some extremely specific demon from my distant past, and then got comments like "this meant so much to me, thank you for this, it really resonated, screaming crying throwing up etc"

it's almost like we all have feelings we keep to ourselves out of embarrassment but we do in fact all have them, so WRITE THE FIC

[lucifer-usurping-sun-of-dawn]

given all the rising transphobia and shit, we should remember that white trannies are still relatively safe and will be able to endure more escalation more easily, we're not at the top of any shit list even if we near if, trans women of color however are very vulnerable, and we need to remember they're our sisters, not our shields

[lady-viccy]

First time I opened the notes on this the latest reblog was "stooooo this is causing infigthing!"

Second time was "also men!"

Fucking stop.

Stop being so fucking fragile and just support black transfems. Can you do that? For even 5 fucking minutes?

[creacher-feetcher]

Black Trans Travel Fund

- Tabytha Gonzalez, Recipient

Here's a pretty good organization that does this type of work!

The Black Trans Travel Fund is a Black trans-led collective rooted in self-advocacy and mutual aid for Black trans women globally, our mission is to provide travel support, connect communities internationally, and establish paths towards ​opportunities, safety, and success.

[elizeisdead]

It’s not infighting to say “we should protect the most vulnerable members of our community.” Get a grip.

[anarchistmemedistro]

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country.

Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

link to story

[anarchistmemedistro]

[noneedtofearorhope]

"While those working at private companies can at least earn a little money, they face possible punishment if they refuse, from being denied family visits to being sent to higher-security prisons, which are so dangerous that the federal government filed a lawsuit four years ago that remains pending [note: article is from 2024], calling the treatment of prisoners unconstitutional.

Though they make at least $7.25 an hour, the state siphons 40% off the top of all wages and also levies fees, including $5 a day for rides to their jobs and $15 a month for laundry.

Turning down work can jeopardize chances of early release in a state that last year granted parole to only 8% of eligible prisoners — an all-time low, and among the worst rates nationwide — though that number more than doubled this year after public outcry."

Alabama profits off prisoners who work at McDonald’s but deems them too dangerous for parole

No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama.

[petterwass]

There's a reason the US has never outlawed slavery

[askrobouteguilliman40k]

"Jimmy the sliter? To dangerous for parole.... But he makes a damn fine quarter pounder and fries."

[hppjmxrgosg]

all you new fandom members need to QUIET DOWN oh my god you're going to get us KILLED. we're happy to have you but if you keep talking about BULLSHIT like PUBLISHING fanfic for MONEY, Anne Rice is going to come back from the dead to KILL US. looking at YOU, maurauders fans, heated rivalry fans, byler fans...out here giving out interviews to news channels SHUT UP. we're going to have to start setting off firecrackers to keep the rent down.

[kaijuno]

[evilwizard]

[destiny-aesthetics]

With all seriousness ... 💚

Mental Health Resources [ Link ]

I know, to some, this was just a game but to others Destiny was a lot more.

I know the game has help me through some tough times

The game and the world of Destiny is still there. It's just not a live service anymore. This beautiful world Bungie made isn't disappearing.

Make sure to take care of yourself Guardian.

[solrin]

We tried to warn you about the "adult content" bans. Now Kickstarter is starting that shit

[problematic-faves-appreciation]

"It must have serious value!"

Staight-up sounds like obscenity law/Miller Test-type crap.

[thatdisasterauthor]

So fucking pissed off at this. Those terms are so damn slippery and unenforceable.

And this is honestly so much more infuriating given how long Kickstarter has held the stance of "products are the responsibility of the project creator, not us, we have no liability." If you get scammed on a project Kickstarter won't help you, they say you assumed the risk when you agreed to back a project for something that wasn't real yet. But now they're turning around and doing this? Why am I allowed to assume the risk of not getting the product I back, but not seeing the scary scary sExUAl cONteNt?

[thatdisasterauthor]

Sent a long message to Kickstarter about this. If you would like to do the same, here is their contact page: https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Please be respectful in your comments, screaming at them will not fix anything.

Once you submit your comment, you will get an email from support asking you to verify that you sent it. You must click this link for the comment to go through! It's a spam protection thing they have.

[rhaegarzeppeli]

Very well said and might I add: a... anything and everything can be sexually gratifying to anyone. How would they even apply these checks if I say "naaaaahhhh fam, I definitely did nOT create this thing specifically for gratification"?? How would they even know if I made a zine about purple umbrellas with frogs painted on purely for the sexual gratification of myself and a select few? lol

And - for the nth time - I don't know how to tell this to terminally online purity culture people but sexual gratification is part of the life of the majority of people on Earth. If we keep repressing this in ways of such plaforms enforcing rules against it, it's gon' be reaaaal unhealthy out there, real soon! (Already is. Just saying.)

[thatdisasterauthor]

Yep, that's a lot of what my message sent to them covered. And how this will disproportionately effect queer people.

[thatdisasterauthor]

Kickstarter Reverses Controversial NSFW Ban And Blames Stripe

Kickstarter's COO stated that the now-reverted NSFW guidelines were put in place due to campaigns being 'suspended by Stripe mid-funding'

[prismatic-bell]

So this happened a couple of years ago but sometimes it's nice to share when people are good.

I was sending a box of stuff to France, and it included a signed and authenticated N64 game cartridge. I didn't want to take THE SLIGHTEST REMOTEST chance that it would be damaged in transit, so I wrapped it in multiple layers of felt and plastic bags and tied it all in place with twine. Through the twine I stuck an addressed letter in both English and French, basically saying "Dear customs people, I realize the odds are extremely good that you'll have to open this but it's really fragile and very literally irreplaceable so if you do can you please rewrap it, all my thanks", and then I boxed the whole thing up with some other stuff and sent it on its way.

While it was in transit, I mentioned this to the recipient, who told me she appreciated the thought but it could never work because French officials were notorious for careless handling. I'd already been anxious about sending it, and the possibility that they'd just be zipping through stuff at the speed of light and leave it susceptible to damage--now that anxiety was ratcheted up to high.

And then it arrived. The recipient sent me a pic and said "they didn't open it after all." The thing is.

When I'd wrapped it, the last layer on the outside was plastic. When it arrived the letter had been opened and set elsewhere in the box, and the carefully-wrapped layer on the outside was felt.

They had indeed opened it. And then, just as I'd asked, hoped, had very neatly wrapped it again. All seven or eight layers. The twine hadn't been retied, but it didn't matter--there were enough layers to hold it together.

One day a few years ago, some civil servant in French Customs saw this letter carefully written in the clearest possible handwriting in two languages, and the care with which everything in the box had been packed, and took a couple of minutes out of their day to say "I can be someone's hero today" and helped to protect a treasure for the last few miles with as much care as if it were their own package going to their own dear friend.

(It arrived in perfect shape.)

Anyway I know that official will never know how happy they made me, to know that they saw and cared that it mattered to me. But I hope that somewhere, sometime, someone pays forward to them the kindness they showed not just to a pair of strangers, but a pair of strangers they could never possibly hope to meet, and I hope it inspires you to remember you never know when a little thing will mean a lot to someone.

Merci beaucoup, Customs.

[dilf-unit]

Saw the tweet, the concept of Simon putting his hair up GRAHAGHA, it has me in such a chokehold bro istg, imma draw iron lung grace later. Also i need more adrian and simon interacting

The other two pictures below the top one are my own interpretations of a bloodymary swap au